Jules Michelet

Its life and its work

He was born with Paris, of a family to the traditions Huguenot are. His/her father was a Master-printer, ruined by the ordinances of Napoleon against the Press, and Jules concretely assisted it with the printing. A place was offered to him to imperial Printing works, but his/her father refused, preferring to impose sacrifices to send it to study with famous the Lycée Charlemagne, where it was distinguished. He makes a success of the aggregation of the letters on September 21st, 1821, and was soon named professor of history to the Collège Rollin. A little later in 1824, it Maria.

It was one of the periods most favorable for the scholars and the men of letters in France, and Michelet had powerful supports in Abel-François Villemain and Victor Cousin, inter alia. Although it had firm political ideas which his/her father had transmitted to him (a enthusiastic Républicanisme tinted Romantisme free-thinker), it was initially and before a whole man of letters and an investigator on the history of the past. It belonged to this school which thought that the history must be before a whole course of philosophical teaching, and its first works were school handbooks intended, initially, with its pupils. It first of all produced Chronological table of the modern history of 1453 to 1739 in 1825, then Synchronic tables of the modern history of 1453 to 1648 in 1826. Its following work, Précis of modern history , published in 1827, is a neat book solid and, much better than all that was appeared, written before in a sober style and nevertheless captivating. The same year, it was named university lecturer with the Teacher training school.

The events of 1830, which carried to the capacity its professors Abel-François Villemain and François Guizot, were worth to him a place with the Public records as well as the title of temporary professor of Guizot to the Faculty of Arts of the Sorbonne. That gave him more facilities for the study, and allowed him to accentuate its ideas. In 1831, its daring Introduction to the universal history dissociated its preceding works by a very different style. It highlighted its Idiosyncrasie and its talent of writer, as his strange qualities of visionary which made reflect, but which made it also less worthy of confidence as a historian. He exposed to it his vision of the history like a long combat of freedom against fate.

A little later it began its monumental chief of work, the French history , which it spent thirty years to complete. It accompanied this production by many other books, especially by scholarship, such as:

the selected Works of Vico (1835, 2 volumes), translation of Scienza nuova of Giambattista Vico of 1744;
the Mémoires of Luther written by itself that Michelet translated and put in order (1835);
the Origins of the French right (1837);
Roman History: republic (1839);
Le Lawsuit of Templiers (1841), second volume in 1851.

These works, and mainly the Origins of the French right , are written in the first manner of Michelet, i.e. in a style concise and energetic, able to give relief to the most arid subjects and to revivify the past. He says itself: “Augustin Thierry had called the history narration; Guizot, analyzes; I call it resurrection”.
1838 was one year very important in the life of Michelet. It was in the plenitude of its means, its studies having nourished at his place its natural aversion towards the principles of authority and the practices ecclesiastical, and at one time when the increased activity of the Jésuite S caused a real or pretended concern, it was named with the pulpit of history to the Collège de France. Assisted of his friend Edgar Quinet, it began a violent polemic against this unpopular order and the principles which it represented, a polemic which arranged their conferences, especially those of Michelet, among those which had at the time the most success. The texts of its conferences, more religious than historians or arts persons, appeared in three books, where he denounced the treason of the Roman Church vis-a-vis the people:

in 1843, Of the Jesuits in collaboration with Edgar Quinet;

in 1844, Of the priest, the woman and the family;

in 1845 the people .

These books are not impressed yet apocalyptic style which, partly borrowed Lamennais, characterizes the last works of Michelet, but they contain in first steps almost the totality of its curious ethical, political and religious creed -- a mixture of Sentimentalism, Communism, Anti-sacerdotalism, supported by the most eccentric arguments and a great eloquence.
The clergy was enough powerful to make prohibit its courses, and its public career was definitively broken by it, since it never recovered its professorship. When the revolution of 1848 started, Michelet, contrary to many other men of letters, did not agree to enter the active political life, although the occasion was offered to him by it. The overflows of this revolution, the shootings of the troop on the people in particular, convainquirent it that the democracy would not be possible that when a faith would be defined and taught with the whole of the citizens.
It was devoted with more force to its literary work. In addition to the resumption of its large French history , temporarily stopped with the sixth volume with the reign of Louis XI, it undertook and finished, during the years which separated the fall from Louis-Philippe and the final establishment of Napoleon III, enthusiastic a Histoire of the French revolution . In spite of its enthusiasm, or perhaps because of him, it in any way the best book of Michelet is not. The events were brought closer too much and too well-known, and the subject supported with difficulty the picturesque flights which make the charm and the danger of its more general works.
The coup d'etat of Napoleon III made lose in Michelet its place with the Files, since he refused to lend oath to the Empire. But this new mode did nothing but exacerbate its zeal for the republic and its second marriage, (with Miss Adèle Malairet, girl of the secretary of All Saints' day Louverture, gifted woman of certain literary aptitudes, and with republican sympathies) more seems to have stimulated its capacities. Whereas its historical philosopher's stone continued, a crowd of little books enough surprising accompanied it and diversified it. Sometimes they were the wider versions of certain passages, sometimes what one can call of the comments or volumes of accompaniment.
In some among the best it treated natural science, new subject for him which one says that his wife had brought to it. The first of them (certainly not the best) was the Women of the revolution , drafts detached of its great history (1854), where the natural and inimitable faculty of Michelet for the Dithyrambe too often leaves the place to the tedious and not very conclusive argumentation which makes think of a preaching. In the following, the Bird (1856), it was discovered a new and very successful vein. This subject of the natural history was covered from the very short point of view of science, neither of that of the feeling, nor of the anecdote or the commérages, but of that of the Panthéisme democratic enthusiast of the author, and the result, though unequal, as one had to expect it, was often excellent. the Insect followed in 1853, in the same more tedious style but.
Michelet remained faithful to its system of psychological examinations. As historian, he sought the heart of the facts; in these works he sought the heart of the insect and the bird. Taine wrote: “The author does not leave his career; he widens it. He had pled for the small ones, the simple ones, the people. He pleads for the animals and the birds. ”
These remarkable works, moral semi-lampoons, semi-treaties, followed one another in an uninterrupted way during five or six years, in twelve months of interval generally. the Love (1859), one of the most popular books of the author was followed by the Woman (1860), a book on which, according to Encyclopædia Britannica, one could base a whole criticism of the literature and French character, and where Michelet did nothing but distinguish the sensual pleasure from passion in love and the union with two hearts.
With the man reconciled with the animals ( the Bird and the Insect ), then with itself ( the Love and the Woman ), it any more but did not remain to learn the love from creation. Such were the goals of the Sea (1861), which, considering the capacities of the writer and the attraction of the subject, is perhaps a little disappointing, and of the Mountain , published a few years later.
In 1862, appeared more striking minor works of Michelet, '' the Witch ''. Developed starting from an episode of the history, it carries to the more high degree all the strangenesses of the author. It is a nightmare and nothing moreover, but a nightmare of most extraordinary probability and strongly poetic. It indeed showed there with audacity the function useful and salutary of the witch with the Moyen-âge vis-a-vis knowing it official prisoner and enacted by the Church.
This remarkable series, whose each element was at the same time a work of imagination and research, was not finished yet, that last volumes revealed a certain relaxation. Ambitious the Bible of humanity (1864), a historical outline of the religions, has very except little value. In the Mountain (1868), the last of its series of natural history, the stylistic effects of the kind staccato passage are further thorough same as those from Victor Hugo in his moments the least inspired, even if -- and it is normal under the feather of a Master of the language such as was Michelet --the effect frequently imposing if not is successful. Our sons (1869), the last of the continuation of the little books published during the life of the author, is a treaty of the education, faithful to the Emile of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, written with a great knowledge of the facts and usual the width and depth of sight of Michelet, and that in spite of declining capacities of expression.
One finds his full capacities in a posthumous book, the Banquet , published in 1878. The image of the industrial and famished populations of the ligure coast is (that it is true or not) one of the best things than made Michelet. To supplement this list of works of all the kinds, one can mention two volumes of extracts or summaries, writings and published on various occasions: Soldiers of the revolution and democratic Legends of north , where it exposes the heroism of the European people to gain their freedom.
Publication of this series of books, and the completion of its history, occupied Michelet during the two decades of the Second Empire. He lived partly in France, partly in Italy, and was accustomed to spending the winter on the Riviera, especially with Hyères. Lastly, in 1867, the philosopher's stone of its life was completed. In the usual edition it occupies nineteen volumes. The first of those milked of the Old story until the death of Charlemagne, the second of the time which saw the apogee of feudal France, the third of the 13th century, the fourth, the fifth and the sixth of the Guerre One hundred Year old, the seventh and the eighth of the establishment of the rural capacity under Charles VII and Louis XI. It is at this place that Jules Michelet has, the first in an so abundant way and érudite, evoked the Culture of Wallonia, showing an extraordinary knowledge of the music, sculpture, literature of the Wallonia. Marcel Thiry has by breadth of " divination". And it is also all the Walloon company which Michelet génialement felt. 16th and the 17th century are treated each one in four volumes, including one great part is related only in a remote way to the French history itself, especially in two volumes entitled Renaissance and Réforme . Last three volumes continue the history of the 18th century until the release of the Révolution.
Michelet was perhaps the first historian to be devoted to a kind of picturesque history of the Moyen-âge, and its art to tell remainder one of most alive which existed. Its research in the handwritten and printed sources was harder, but its long-lived imagination, and its strong political and religious prejudices, showed to him very too personal point of view. An inequality of treatment of the historical events is noted. The hostility without compromise of Michelet towards the Second Empire did not prevent that its fall and the disasters which accompanied it stimulated it once again to push it to act. Not only he wrote letters and lampoons during the war, but when it was completed he undertook to supplement by a Histoire of the 19th century the gigantic task which he had assigned and which its two great stories had already almost finished. Concerning its public career, the new republic entirely did not return justice to him, refusing to give again its professorship at the Collège de France to him, of which he never claimed not to have been legally private.
He did not live enough to complete his last large company, his vast fresco of the 19th century. Death surprised it front. One found on his work table the third entirely finished volume, including the Bataille of Waterloo. So some think that its best criticism is perhaps contained in the incipit of the last volume, - “the age presses me” -, one can also say that he died as he had lived: while working.
The Origins of the French right, sought in the symbols and the formulas of the universal right of Michelet were published by Emile Faguet in 1890 and second edition appeared in 1900. See Gabriel Monod, Jules Michelet: Studies on the life and its works (Paris, 1905).
With its death in 1874, Jules Michelet was buried with the cemetery of Hyères then buried to celebrate official and public funeral (the police force declares more than 25.000 people) with the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise to Paris on May 18th 1876.
The historian played a part in the popularization of the character of Jeanne d' Arc. For the various attempts at political recoveries and nuns of the character of Jeanne d' Arc where Michelet plays a big role, to see the article Jeanne d' Arc: birth of a myth.
Homages
There exist Michelet streets in the majority of the French cities.
At least two colleges bear its name: the College Michelet with Vanves and that of Montauban.

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