Pierre Champion (historian)

Biography

Wire of Honore Champion, which gave him very early the passion of the books and the history, it makes its studies with the College Henri-Iv, then between with the National school of the charters. It is interested in the medieval period, in particular at the 15th century. It becomes Archiviste paleographer in 1905 and undertakes the drafting of the catalog of the prestigious library of the collector Auguste Lesouëf. It then meets the niece of this last, Madeleine Smith, painter, disciple of Jean-Jacques Henner, which it marries in 1907.

Their sumptuous ceremony of marriage, with the church Saint-Saturnin de Nogent, joins together personalities of arts and the nobility: Anatole France, witness of Pierre Champion, Pierre Louÿs, Charles Goffic, the brothers Tharaud, the duchess of Rochefoucauld-Bisaccia, the count de Kermaingant. The pope sends even his blessing to them. The couple is established in Nogent-sur-Marne where the Smith family has, since 1895, a vast property of the 18th century. For as much, it does not break completely with Paris where it preserves an apartment. It will not cease, throughout its life, dividing itself between Paris and Nogent-sur-Marne.

At the beginning of the First World War, he becomes lieutenant, receives the Military Cross, then, in 1917 secretary of the marshal Lyautey is named. In 1919, it enters in policy and is presented to the municipal elections of Nogent-sur-Marne. He is immediately elected mayor. Ten years later, it enters to the general advice of the the Seine, like elected official of the canton of Nogent. He is re-elected three times in his municipal functions, until his death in 1942.

While carrying out a political career, it continues its historical research and its publications. He affirms himself among the medievists more for the Années 1930 when he discovers the third authentic manuscript of the lawsuit of Jeanne d' Arc, the manuscript Stone 84 of the British Museum, that of his rehabilitation which one believed lost. He upsets at the same time the Historiographie of national heroin and becomes one of his eminent biographers. In 1931, it devotes a work to another woman of the Middle Ages, related to the history of Nogent-sur-Marne: Agnes Sorel, to which it king Charles VII gave his manor of Beauté-sur-Marne. Part of its studies is also specifically centered on Nogent-sur-Marne. In addition to Agnes Sorel and Watteau, Champion counts all the medieval traces of the city.

At the end of its life, it enters to the Academy of Science morals and political in 1940, with the armchair of Georges Pagès, then with the Académie Goncourt in 1941.

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