Michelet, Jules

Michelet, Jules (1798-1874), French historian and moralist, best known for his 17-volume Histoire de France (History of France, 1833-1867). Born in Paris, Michelet had a difficult childhood as the son of a bankrupt printer. In spite of this, he received a sound education and became professor of history at the Collège Sainte-Barbe in 1822 and then at the École Normale Supérieure in 1827, both in Paris. In 1827 he translated the Scienza Nuova (New Science, 1725), a book by Giovanni Battista Vico that posits a cyclical model of human history, and in 1831 he published Introduction à l’Histoire Universelle (Introduction to Universal History) and Histoire Romaine (History of the Roman Republic), which established his fame. Beginning in 1833 there appeared the successive volumes of his Histoire de France, a veritable biography of the French people who, he claimed, created their own destiny by providing for themselves the institutions and leaders that they needed.

In 1838 Michelet began teaching at the Collège de France in Paris, and the substance of the political and moral instruction that the eloquent professor gave his audiences there can be found in his book Le Peuple (The People, 1846). From 1847 to 1853 Michelet published the Histoire de la Révolution Française (History of the French Revolution), an epic account of the French Revolution in which he preaches a humanist faith boldly opposed to traditional Catholicism. In 1852 he refused to take an oath of allegiance to Charles Louis Napoléon, who in that year assumed control of France as Emperor Napoleon III. Michelet abandoned his public offices, withdrew into semi-exile, and completed the Histoire de France, for which he was to write a preface in 1869. From his historical meditations he sought to draw what he called a religious philosophy of the people. In such works as Le Banquet (The Banquet, 1854), L’Amour (Love, 1858), La Femme (Woman, 1860), and La Sorcière (The Witch, 1862), he represented humanity as constantly striving after the twin goals of justice and love. He also took an interest in nature, extolling its harmonies in such works as L’Oiseau (The Bird, 1856), L’Insecte (The Insect, 1857), La Mer (The Sea, 1861), and La Montagne (The Mountain, 1868). The defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War and the downfall of the Second Empire recalled Michelet to his duties as historian of the French Republic, which was revived in 1870. Before his death he published the first two volumes of Histoire de la Dix-Neuvième Siècle (History of the Nineteenth Century, 1872-1873). His journal was published in two volumes in 1959 and 1962.