Francois guizot biography

Source: François Guizot, General History of Civilization in Europe by François Pierre Guillaume Guizot, edited, with critical and supplementary notes, by George Wells Knight (New York: D Appleton and Co., 1896). Chapter: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

François Pierre Guillaume Guizot was born of Protestant parentage at Nîmes, France, on October 4, 1787. His father, a prominent advocate, became a victim of the French Revolution during the Reign of Terror, dying on the scaffold in 1794. Madame Guizot removed to Geneva, where her son received a classical education under Protestant influences. It is stated that before he left Geneva, at the age of eighteen, he was able to read Greek, Latin, German, Italian, and English. Spanish he learned when he was seventy-two years of age, in order that he might write a history of Spain. In 1805 he removed to Paris to enter upon the study of law. He soon obtained a position as tutor in the family of M. Stapfer, the Swiss minister to France, supporting himself in this way while pursuing his studies. The study of law he soon abandoned for literary and historical work. Within a few years he began writing for the press, his first articles appearing in Le Publiciste, then controlled by M. Suard. Through his connection with M. Suard he became acquainted with Mademoiselle Pauline de Meulan, who was also a contributor to the paper. Though she was fourteen years his senior, their common occupation and mutual tastes led to their marriage in 1812. M. Guizot published in 1809 a dictionary of French synonyms, in 1810 an essay on the Fine Arts in France, and in 1813 an annotat

Of the two women who best knew François Guizot, the first one, Pauline de Meulan, wrote to him in July 1808, even before he married her: “Your talent appears to me eminently suited to history”; that same year, they together began to work on a new edition in French of Edward Gibbon’s great book, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Guizot’s first historical work when he was twenty years old. The second one, his daughter Henriette, said to him in February 1874 a few months before his death: “History is your real passion” and together they finished the fourth volume of Histoire de France racontée à mes petits-enfants, (History of France told to my grand-children), which was his last work. Guizot’s career as a historian covered more than sixty-five years, and was marked by numerous publications which were milestones, some of which retain a real scientific value, notably his Histoire de la civilisation en Europe and the Histoire de la Révolution d’Angleterre, to which can be added, on a another level, the eight volumes of the Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de mon temps, (Memoirs to serve as a history of my time) which belong to the prestigious and very limited category of great State Memoirs, between the Testament politique (political testament) of Richelieu and the Mémoires de guerre (War Memoirs) of General de Gaulle.

Nothing predestined François Guizot to become a historian. A set of fortunate circumstances lead to him being appointed in July 1812 professor of modern history in the Paris Faculty of Humanities, a post which had not previously existed. If Gibbon’s edition, finished the same year, had introduced him to academic circles, he had not particularly studied history, which was not at that time a scholarly discipline: it was only in 1818 that Royer-Collard created the first chair of history in secondary education. But he had found his path: fifteen years later, he had become recognized as the grea

French historian, orator and statesman (1787–1874)

François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (French:[fʁɑ̃swapjɛʁɡijomɡizo]; 4 October 1787 – 12 September 1874) was a French historian, orator and statesman. Guizot was a dominant figure in French politics between the Revolution of 1830 and the Revolution of 1848.

A conservative liberal who opposed the attempt by King Charles X to usurp legislative power, he worked to sustain a constitutional monarchy following the July Revolution of 1830. He then served the "citizen king" Louis Philippe, as Minister of Education 1832–37, ambassador to London 1840, Foreign Minister 1840–1847, and finally Prime Minister of France from 19 September 1847 to 23 February 1848.

Guizot's influence was critical in expanding public education, which under his ministry saw the creation of primary schools in every French commune. As a leader of the "Doctrinaires", committed to supporting the policies of Louis Phillipe and limitations on further expansion of the political franchise, he earned the hatred of more left-leaning liberals and republicans through his unswerving support for restricting suffrage to propertied men and supposedly advised those who wanted the vote to "enrich yourselves" (enrichissez-vous) through hard work and thrift.

As Prime Minister, it was Guizot's ban on the political meetings (called the campagne des banquets or the Paris Banquets, which were held by moderate liberals who wanted a larger extension of the franchise) of an increasingly vigorous opposition in January 1848 that catalyzed the revolution that toppled Louis Philippe in February and saw the establishment of the French Second Republic. He is mentioned in the famous opening paragraph of the Communist Manifesto ("a spectre is haunting Europe...") as a representative of the more liberal faction of the counter-revolutionary forces of Old Europe, contrasted with that of the more reactionary forces,

Early years (1787-1814)