MIGNET, FRANcOIS AUGUSTE ALEXIS (1796 1884), French historian, was born at Aix-en-Provence on May 8, 1796, and died in Paris on March 24, 1884. His father, a Vendean by birth, was a locksmith. Francois studied at Avignon in the lycee where he was afterwards professor (1815) ; he returned to Aix to study law, and in 1818 was called to the bar. His memoir on Les Institutions de Saint Louis was crowned in 1821 by the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. He then went to Paris, where he was soon joined by his friend and compatriot, Adolphe Thiers, the future president of the French republic. He became a member of the staff of the Courrier Francais which car ried on a fierce warfare against the Restoration. In 183o he founded the National with Thiers and Armand Carrel. He then became director of the archives at the Foreign Office, where he stayed till the revolution of 1848, when he was dismissed. He had been elected a member of the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, re-established in 1832, and in 1837 was made the per manent secretary; he was also elected a member of the Academie Francaise in 1836. With the exception of his Histoire de la Revo lution francaise (1824), a political manifesto, all his early works refer to the middle ages. For a long time he was occupied
with a history of the Reformation, but only one part of it, dealing with the Reformation at Geneva, has been published. His Histoire de Marie Stuart (2 vols., 1851) is well worth reading; the author made liberal use of some important unpublished docu ments, taken for the greater part from the archives of Simancas. He devoted some volumes to a history of Spain, which had a well deserved success—Charles Quint, son abdication, son se jour, et sa snort au monastere de Yuste (1845) ; Antonio Perez et Philippe II. ; and Histoire de la rivalite de Francois I. et de Charles Quint (1875). At the same time he had been commissioned to publish the diplomatic acts relating to the War of the Spanish Suc cession for the Collection des documents inedits; only four vol umes of these Negociations were published (1835-42), and they do not go further than the peace of Nijmwegen; but the introduction is celebrated, and Mignet reprinted it in his Mélanges historiques.
See the eulogy of Mignet by Victor Duruy, delivered on entering the Academie Francaise on June 18, 1885, and the notice by Jules Simon, read before the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques on Nov. 7, 1885.