Assembly for the department of the Eure, and a few days later (on the 19th of February) was appointed ambassador in London; but in March 1872, in consequence of criticisms upon his negotiations concerning the commercial treaties between England and France, he resigned his post and took his seat in the National Assembly, where he became the leading spirit of the monarchical campaign against Thiers. On the replacement of the latter by Marshal MacMahon, the duc de Broglie became president of the council and minister for foreign affairs (May 1873), but in the reconstruction of the ministry on the 26th of November, after the passing of the septennate, transferred himself to the ministry of the interior. His tenure of office was marked by an extreme conservatism, which roused the bitter hatred of the Republicans, while he alienated the Legitimist party by his friendly relations with the Bonapartists, and the Bonapartists by an attempt to effect a compromise between the rival claimants to the monarchy. The result was the fall of the cabinet on the 16th of May 1874. Three years later (on the 16th of May 1877) he was entrusted with the formation of a new cabinet, with the object of appealing to the country and securing a new chamber more favourable to the reactionaries than its predecessor had been. The result, however, was a decisive Republican majority. The duc de Broglie was defeated in his own district, and resigned office on the 20th of November. Not being re-elected in 1885, he abandoned politics and reverted to his historical work, publishing a series of historical studies and biographies written in a most pleasing style, and especially valuable for their extensive documentation. He died in Paris on the 19th of January 1901.
Besides editing the Souvenirs of his father (1886, &c.), the Mémoires of Talleyrand (1891, &c.), and the Letters of the Duchess Albertine de Broglie (1896), he published Le Secret du roi, Correspondance secrète de Louis XV avec ses agents diplomatiques, 1752–1774 (1878); Frédéric II et Marie Thérèse (1883); Frédéric II et Louis XV (1885); Marie Thérèse Impératrice (1888); Le Père Lacordaire (1889); Maurice de Saxe et le marquis d’Argenson (1891); La Paix d’Aix-la-Chapelle (1892); L’Alliance autrichienne (1895); La Mission de M. de Gontaut-Biron à Berlin (1896); Voltaire avant et pendant la Guerre de Sept Ans (1898); Saint Ambroise, translated by Margaret Maitland in the series of “The Saints” (1899).
BROGUE, (1) A rough shoe of raw leather (from the Gael. brog, a shoe) worn in the wilder parts of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. (2) A dialectical accent or pronunciation (of uncertain origin), especially used of the Irish accent in speaking English.
BROHAN, AUGUSTINE SUSANNE (1807–1887), French actress, was born in Paris on the 22nd of January 1807. She entered the Conservatoire at the age of eleven, and took the second prize for comedy in 1820, and the first in 1821. She served her apprenticeship in the provinces, making her first Paris appearance at the Odéon in 1832 as Dorine in Tartuffe. Her success there and elsewhere brought her a summons to the Comédie Française, where she made her début on the 15th of February 1834, as Madelon in Les Précieuses ridicules, and Suzanne in Le Mariage de Figaro. She retired in 1842, and died on the 16th of August 1887.
Her elder daughter, Josephine Félicité Augustine Brohan (1824–1893), was admitted to the Conservatoire when very young, twice taking the second prize for comedy. The soubrette part, entrusted for more than 150 years at the Comédie Française to a succession of artists of the first rank, was at the moment without a representative, and Mdlle Augustine Brohan made her début there on the 19th of May 1841, as Dorine in Tartuffe, and Lise in Rivaux d’eux-mêmes. She was immediately admitted pensionnaire, and at the end of eighteen months unanimously elected sociétaire. She soon became a great favourite, not only in the plays of Molière and de Regnard, but also in those of Marivaux. On her retirement from the stage in 1866, she made an unhappy marriage with Edmond David de Gheest (d. 1885), secretary to the Belgian legation in Paris.
Susanne Brohan’s second daughter, Émilie Madeleine Brohan (1833–1900), also took first prize for comedy at the Conservatoire (1850). She was engaged at once by the Comédie Française, but instead of making her début in some play of the répertoire of the theatre, the management put on for her benefit a new comedy by Scribe and Legouvé, Les Contes de la reine de Navarre, in which she created the part of Marguerite on the 1st of September 1850. Her talents and beauty made her a success from the first, and in less than two years from her début she was elected sociétaire. In 1853 she married Mario Uchard, from whom she was soon separated, and in 1858 she returned to the Comédie Française in leading parts, until her retirement in 1886. Her name is associated with a great number of plays, besides those in the classical répertoire, notably Le Monde où l’on s’ennuie, Par droit de conquête, Les Deux Veuves, and Le Lion amoureux, in which, as the “marquise de Maupas,” she had one of her greatest successes.
BROKE, or Brooke, ARTHUR (d. 1563), English author, wrote the first English version of the story of Romeo and Juliet. The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Julieit (1562) is a rhymed account of the story, taken, not directly from Bandello’s collection of novels (1554), but from the French translation (Histoires tragiques) of Pierre Boaistuau or Boisteau, surnamed Launay, and François de Belleforest. Broke adds some detail to the story as told by Boisteau. As the poem contains many scenes which are not known to exist elsewhere, but which were adopted by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet, there is no reasonable doubt that it may be regarded as the main source of the play. Broke perished by shipwreck in 1563, on his way from Newhaven to join the English troops fighting on the Huguenot side in France.
The genesis of the Juliet story, and a close comparison of Shakespeare’s play with Broke’s version, are to be found in a reprint of the poem and of William Paynter’s prose translation from the Palace of Pleasure, edited by Mr P. A. Daniel for the New Shakespere Society (1875).
BROKE, SIR PHILIP BOWES VERE, Bart. (1776–1841), British rear-admiral, was born at Broke Hall, near Ipswich, on the 9th of September 1776, a member of an old Suffolk family. Entering the navy in June 1792, he saw active service in the Mediterranean from 1793 to 1795, and was with the British fleet at the battle of Cape St Vincent, 1797. In 1798 he was present at the defeat and capture of the French squadron off the north coast of Ireland. From 1799 to 1801 he served with the North Sea fleet, and in the latter year was made captain. Unemployed for the next four years, he commanded in 1805 a frigate in the English and Irish Channels. In 1806 he was appointed to the command of the “Shannon,” 38-gun frigate, remaining afloat, principally in the Bay of Biscay, till 1811. The “Shannon” was then ordered to Halifax, Nova Scotia. For a year after the declaration of war between Great Britain and the United States in 1812, the frigate saw no important service, though she captured several prizes. Broke utilized this period of comparative inactivity to train his men thoroughly. He paid particular attention to gunnery, and the “Shannon” ere long gained a unique reputation for excellence of shooting. Broke’s opportunity came in 1813. In May of that year the “Shannon” was cruising off Boston, watching the “Chesapeake,” an American frigate of the same nominal force but heavier armament. On the 1st of June Broke, finding his water supply getting low, wrote to Lawrence, the commander of the “Chesapeake,” asking for a meeting between the two ships, stating the “Shannon’s” force, and guaranteeing that no other British ship should take part in the engagement. Before this letter could be delivered, however, the “Chesapeake,” under full sail, ran out of Boston harbour, crowds of pleasure-boats accompanying her to witness the engagement. Broke briefly addressed his men. “Don’t cheer,” he concluded, “go quietly to your quarters. I feel sure you will all do your duty.” As the “Chesapeake” rounded to on the “Shannon’s” weather quarter, at a distance of about fifty yards, the British frigate received her with a broadside. A hundred of the “Chesapeake’s” crew were struck down at once, Lawrence himself being mortally wounded. A second broadside, equally well-aimed, increased the confusion, and, her tiller-ropes being shot away, the American frigate drifted foul of the “Shannon.” Broke sprang on board with some sixty of his men following him. After a brief struggle
