Jules 1798-1874 Michelet

MICHELET, JULES (1798-1874), French historian, was born at Paris on Aug. 21, 1798, of a family which had Huguenot traditions. His father was a master printer, and Jules was offered a place in the imperial printing office, but his father sent him to the Lycee Charlemagne, where he passed the university examina tion in 1821. Shortly after appointed he began to teach history in the College Rollin. Soon after this, in 1824, he married. Be tween 1825 and 1827 he produced divers sketches, chronological tables, etc., of modern history. In 1827 he was appointed maitre de conferences at the Ecole normale.

Four years later, in 1831, the

Introduction a l'histoire uni verselle showed a very different style, displaying the peculiar vi sionary qualities which made Michelet the most stimulating, but the most untrustworthy (not in facts, which he never consciously falsifies, but in suggestion) of all historians. The events of 183o had unmuzzled him, and had put him in a better position for study by obtaining for him a place in the Record Office, and a deputy-professorship under Guizot in the literary faculty of the university. Soon afterwards he began his chief and monu mental work, the Histoire de France. But he accompanied this with numerous other books, chiefly of erudition, such as the Oeuvres choisies de Vico, the Memoires de Luther ecrits par lui meme, the Origines du droit francais, and somewhat later the Proces des templiers. In 1838 he was appointed to the chair of history at the College de France. He published, in 1839, his His toire romaine. The results of his lectures appeared in the volumes Le Pretre, la femme, et la famille and le peuple.

The principles of the outbreak of 1848 were in the air, and Michelet was one of those who condensed and propagated them. When the actual revolution broke out Michelet devoted himself even more strenuously to his literary work.

He began and carried out, during the years between the down fall of Louis Philippe and the final establishment of Napoleon III., an enthusiastic Histoire de la revolution francaise. Despite or because of its enthusiasm, this was by no means Michelet's best book.

The coup d'etat lost Michelet his place in the Record Office, as, though not in any way identified with the republic adminis tratively, he refused to take the oaths to the empire. But the new regime only kindled afresh his republican zeal, and his second marriage (with Mlle. Adele Malairet) seems to have further stimulated his powers. While the history steadily held its way, a crowd of extraordinary little books accompanied and diversified it. Sometimes they were expanded versions of its episodes, sometimes what may be called commentaries or com panion volumes. In some of the best of them natural science, a

new subject with Michelet, to which his wife is believed to have introduced him, supplies the text. These are Les Femmes de la revolution (1854), L'Oiseai (1856), L'Insecte, L'Amour (1859), La Femme (186o), La Mer (1861), and La Sorciere (1862). De veloped out of an episode of the history, La Sorciere has all its author's peculiarities in the strongest degree. It is a nightmare and nothing more, but a nightmare of the most extraordinary verisimilitude and poetical power. Later short works are : La Bible de l'humanite (1864), an historical sketch of religions; La Mon tagne (1868) ; Nos fils (1869), a tractate on education; and Le Banquet, posthumously published, a vivid picture of the indus trious and famishing populations of the Riviera. Two collections of pieces, written and partly published at different times, are Les Soldats de la revolution and Legendes democratiques du nord.

The publication of this series of books, and the completion of his history, occupied Michelet during both decades of the empire. He lived partly in France, partly in Italy, and was accustomed to spend the winter on the Riviera, chiefly at Hyeres. At last, in 1867, the Histoire de France was finished. In the usual edition it fills nineteen volumes. Michelet was perhaps the first historian to devote himself to anything like a picturesque history of the middle ages, and his account is still the most vivid that exists. His inquiry into manuscript and printed authorities was most laborious, but his lively imagination, and his strong religious and political prejudices, made him regard all things from a singularly personal point of view.

Uncompromisingly hostile as Michelet was to the empire, its downfall and the accompanying disasters of the country once more stimulated him to activity. Not only did he write letters and pamphlets during the struggle, but when it was over he set himself to complete the vast task which his two great histories had almost covered by a Histoire du XIX siècle. He did not, however, live to carry it farther than Waterloo. The new re public was not altogether a restoration for Michelet, and his professorship at the College de France of which he contended that he had never been properly deprived, was not given back to him. He died at Hyeres on Feb. 9, See G. Monod, Jules Michelet: etudes sur sa vie et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1905) ; R. van der Elst, Michelet, naturaliste: esquisse de son systeme de philosophie (1914) ; G. J. J. Monod, La vie et la pensee de J. Michelet, 1798-1852 (2 vols. 1923) ; and L. Refort, L'art de Michelet dans son oeuvre historique (1923).