Broglie

Broglie, Achille Leonce Victor Charles, Duc de, a peer of France, was born at Paris in 1785. The family, of Piedmontese origin, had for two centuries served France with distinction in the wars of Louis XIV., the Seven Years' war, and the struggle against the Revolution. His father, however, had espoused republican principles, and sat in the constituent assembly, though his change of principles did not preserve him from death in the Reign of Terror. Young De Broglie was not deterred by his father's fate from his faith in liberalism. Called to the chamber of peers in 1815, he voted alone against the murder of Ney, and joined the party of which Guizot and Royer-Collard were the leaders, allying himself also with the English opponents of the slave trade. He married a daughter of Madame de Stael. After 1830, as minister of foreign affairs, and chief of the cabinet, he negotiated the Quadruple Alliance, aided in the settlement of Belgium and Greece, and strove to preserve the peace of Europe. In 1836 he retired permanently from official life, but gave his nominal adhesion to the Republic in 1848. He was a bitter, though impotent, foe to the Second Empire. His later years were devoted to literature and science, and he was admitted to the Academy, though his published works are not of very high merit. He died just before the outbreak of the war in 1870. His son, Albert de Broglie, has achieved greater fame as a writer, and has taken an active part in politics, having been head of MacMahon's cabinet in 1871.