Source: National Archives & Historic Records of French Republic
History • Historical Archive • 🇫🇷 France • 1 views

Jules Michelet 🇫🇷

Jules Michelet (Known as "The Historian of the People")
Master Historian, Professor at Collège de France, Coined 'The Renaissance', Histoire de France
Born Aug 21, 1798 🇫🇷 Paris, France
Passed Away Feb 09, 1874 Hyères (Var), France
Lifespan 75 years old
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Notice / Correction
"History is not an accumulation of dead facts; it is the total resurrection of the living soul of a people."

Archival Overview

Towering French romantic historian who conceived history as a resurrection of the past ('résurrection intégrale'), authored the monumental 17-volume Histoire de France, and was the first to define 'The Renaissance' as an epoch.

Biographical Record

Son of an impoverished Paris printer, Michelet worked as a typesetter as a boy before winning academic honors and becoming head of the historical section of the National Archives and professor at the Collège de France. His passionate lectures inspired generation of republican students.

In his landmark Histoire de France (1833–1867) and Histoire de la Révolution française, Michelet placed 'the people' rather than kings at the center of national destiny. In 1855, his volume La Renaissance coined the term to designate the dawn of modern human liberation. He was suspended for refusing to swear allegiance to Napoleon III.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Père Lachaise Cemetery (Division 52, monumental tomb by Mercié)
Paris, France
GPS: 48.8617, 2.3944
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