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GEFFROY, MATHIEU AUGUSTE (1820-1895)

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Originally appearing in Volume V11, Page 550 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GEFFROY, MATHIEU AUGUSTE (1820-1895) , See also:French historian, was See also:born in See also:Paris. After studying at the Ecole Normale Superieure he held See also:history professorships at various lycees. His French thesis for the doctorate of letters, Etude sur See also:les See also:pamphlets politiques et religieux de See also:Milton (1848), showed that he was attracted towards See also:foreign history, a study for which he soon qualified himself by mastering the Germanic and Scandinavian See also:languages. In 1851 he published a Histoire See also:des Rats scandinaves, which is especially valuable for clear arrangement and for the trustworthiness . of its facts. Later, a See also:long stay in See also:Sweden furnished him with valuable documents for a See also:political and social history of Sweden and See also:France at the end of the 18th See also:century. In 1864 and 1865 he published in the Revue des deux mondes a See also:series of articles on Gustavus III. and the French See also:court, which were republished in See also:book See also:form in 1867. To the second See also:volume he appended a See also:critical study on See also:Marie Antoinette. et See also:Louis X VI apocryphes, in which he proved, by See also:evidence See also:drawn from documents in the private archives of the See also:emperor of See also:Austria, that the letters published by See also:Feuillet de Conches (Louis X VI, Marie Antoinette et Madame Elisabeth, 1864–1893) and Hunolstein (Corresp. inedite de Marie Antoinette, 1864) are forgeries. With the collaboration of See also:Alfred von See also:Arneth, director of the imperial archives at See also:Vienna, he edited the Correspondance secrete entre Marie-Therese et le See also:comte de See also:Mercy-Argenteau (3 vols., 1874), the first See also:account based on See also:trust-worthy documents of Marie Antoinette's See also:character, private conduct and policy. The Franco-See also:German See also:War See also:drew Geffroy's See also:attention to the origins of See also:Germany, and his See also:Rome et les Barbares: etude sur la Germane de Tacite (1874) set forth some of the results of German scholarship. He was then appointed to superintend the opening of the French school of See also:archaeology at Rome, and drew up two useful reports (1877 and 1884) on its origin and See also:early See also:work. But his See also:personal tastes always led him back to the study of See also:modern history. When the Paris archives of foreign affairs were thrown open to students, it was decided to publish a collection of the instructions given to French ambassadors since 1648 (Recueil des instructions donnas aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France depuis le trait, de Westphabie), and Geffroy was commissioned to edit the volumes dealing with Sweden (vol.ii., r885) and See also:Denmark (vol. xiii., 1895).

In the See also:

interval he wrote Madame de See also:Maintenon d'apres sa correspondance authentique (2 vols., 1887), in which he displayed his penetrating critical See also:faculty in discriminating between See also:authentic documents and the additions and corrections of arrangers like La Beaumelle and Lavallee. His .last See also:works were an Essai sur la formation des collections d'antiques de la Suede and Des institutions et des mceurs du paganisme scandinave: l'Islande avant le Christianisme, both published posthumously. He died at Bievre on the 16th of See also:August 1895.

End of Article: GEFFROY, MATHIEU AUGUSTE (1820-1895)

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