Albert Sorel

Albert Sorel , born with Honfleur (Apple-brandy) the August 13rd 1842 and deceased with Paris the June 29th 1906, is a Historien French, one of the principal founders of the diplomatic history in France.

Its life and its work

Raised in Honfleur, Albert Sorel kept all his life the love of his native Normandy. Its literary vocation carried it on the will of his/her father, rich industrial, to see it succeeding to him the businesses. He studies the Droit to Paris and, after a stay prolonged in Germany, he enters to the Foreign affairs in 1866.

Having a literary and artistic taste extremely developed, it was a enthusiastic Musicien and even a Compositeur, which also composed of the Poésie and the Romance : the Large Cliff, 1785-1793 (1871) and Doctor Egra (1873), but it was not very related to the society life.

Eager to include/understand the events passed as well as present, it was before very student. In 1870 it is engaged as secretary by the count Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Damaze de Chaudordy (1826 - 1899) had been sent to Tours like delegate responsible for the diplomatic aspect of the problem of national defense. It proved to be a collaborator of great value, full with smoothness, a good temperament and excellent judgment and, at the same time, assiduous and discrete. After the war, when Emile Boutmy founded the Private school of political sciences, ancestor of the Institut of political studies of Paris (Sciences Po), Sorel was named there with the diplomatic pulpit of history (1872), responsibility of which he discharged with great success. Some of its courses were the subject of publications: the treaty of Paris of November 20th, 1815 (1873); diplomatic History of the Franco-German war (1875); and the Precise of the law of nations (1877) published in collaboration with his/her colleague Theodore Funck-Brentano.

In 1875, it leaves the Foreign affairs to become general secretary at the office lately created of the Presidency of the Sénat. There still, it returned, in a station from where it could observe and review the businesses, very invaluable services, in particular under the presidency of the duke of Audiffred-Pasquier, ease to benefit well from its councils in the crises of policy interns acutest. It also twice fulfills the functions of clerk of the High Court of justice, at the time of the lawsuits of the general Boulanger in 1889 and of Paul Déroulède in 1899.

Its functions nevertheless left him sufficient spare time to enable him to put at good the philosopher's stone of its life, Europe and the French revolution . Its goal was to renew the work already carried out by Heinrich von Sybel, but from a less restricted point of view and with a clearer and more serene arrangement of the European chess-board. It devoted nearly thirty years to the preparation and the composition of the eight volumes to this diplomatic history of the French revolution whose publication was spread out of 1885 with 1904. It was not simply a conscientious researcher; its analysis of the documents, most of the time new, on the French diplomacy during the first years of the Revolution published in the historical Re-examined (T. V-VII, X-XIII), watch the scrupulous care with which it read the innumerable dispatches which passed to him under the eyes.

Albert Sorel was also, first of all, a Artiste. He has depicts the beings according to the point of view of a psychological as much as that of a historian, by observing them in their medium and while being interested to show with which point they are truly the slaves of historical fate. It is this fate which carried out most unwise of the Conventionnels to join again with the traditions of the Ancien Mode which made revolutionary propaganda the continuation of the work of Louis XIV through a system of alliances and annexations.

Its first works strike by splendor and logic relentless of the drama revealed by the overall author and work so accomplished and is so strongly built that it causes admiration. Parallel to this great general work, Sorel undertook various detailed studies more or less directly connected about it. In the Question of the East at the XVIIIe century, the origins of Triple Alliance (1878), it shows how the partition of the Poland has, on the one hand, reversed the traditional policy of France in Europe of the East and, on the other hand, contributed to the hello of republican France in 1793. It wrote the articles Montesquieu (1887) and Germaine of Staël (1891) for the series great writers . The portrait that it draws up there of Montesquieu is striking by intellectual affinities which it reveals between him and the author of the Lettres Persians and of the Esprit of the laws .

It produced thereafter, in Bonaparte and Hoche in 1797 (1896), a critical comparison which is one of its most completed works. It also prepared the part treating of the Austria (1884) of the Collected instruction given to the ambassadors . The majority of the articles which it published in the Revue of the two worlds , the political Revue , the blue Revue and the newspaper Time were gathered in the Essais of history and criticism (1883), historical Lectures (1894), Nouveaux tests of history and criticism (1898), Études of literature and history (1901), where are many information and ideas not only about the politicians of 18th and 19th centuries, but also about certain literary and artistic personalities of Normandy.

It received, not as a civil servant, but as eminent author, many distinctions. He was elected with the Academy of Science morals and political on December 18th 1889 to replace Fustel de Coulanges and with armchair 25 of the French Academy on May 31st 1894 to replace Taine of which he was the critical disciple. Its speeches of reception on its two famous predecessors show the depth of his sensitivity to the beauty as well as the impartiality of its judgment, even with regard to those which he had liked and estimated more.

He had just obtained large the Prix Osiris of one hundred thousand francs decreed for the first time by the Institut of France when the last disease which was to carry it struck it. He was the cousin of the thinker Georges Sorel.

Works

the Large Cliff, 1785-1793 (1872)
the Treaty of Paris of November 20th, 1815 (1872)
Doctor Egra (1873)
One Evening in Sevres during the Commune (1873)
diplomatic History of the Franco-German war , 2 flight (1875)
Precise of the law of nations , with Theophilus Funck-Brentano, (1876) Text on line:
the Question of the East at the XVIIIe century: the division of Poland, the treaty of Kaïnardji (1877)

On the Teaching of the diplomatic history (1881)

Of the Origin of the national traditions in the foreign policy of France (1882)

Tests of history and criticism: Metternich, Talleyrand, Mirabeau, Elisabeth and Catherine II, England and the French emigration, the diplomacy of Louis XV, colonies Prussian, Russian alliance and restoration, the French policy in 1866 and 1867, the diplomacy and progress (1883) Text on line:

Collected instruction given to the ambassadors and to ministers of France since the peace of Westphalia until the French revolution: Austria (1884) Text on line: * Europe and the French revolution , 8 flight (1885 - 1904)

Montesquieu (1887) Text on line:

Madam de Staël (1890)

historical Readings: memories of soldiers, the drama of Vincennes, Talleyrand and its memories (1894) Text on line: * Bonaparte and Hoche in 1797 (1896)

New Tests of history and criticism (1898)

Studies of literature and history (1901)

Introduction to the book of the centenary of the Civil code (1904)

Pages Normans (posthumous, 1907)

Old Clothes, old gallons (posthumous, 1921)

External bond

Biographical note of the French Academy

Random links: