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GUIZOT, FRANCOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME (17...
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See also:GUIZOT, See also:FRANCOIS See also:PIERRE See also:GUILLAUME (1787-1874) , historian, orator and statesman, was See also:born at See also:Nimes on the 4th of See also:October 1787, of an See also:honourable See also:Protestant See also:family belonging to the bourgeoisie of that See also:city. It is characteristic of the cruel disabilities which still weighed upon the Protestants of See also:France before the Revolution, that his parents, at the See also:time of their See also:union, could not be publicly or legally married by their own pastors, and that the ceremony was clandestine. The liberal opinions of his family did not, however, See also:save it from the sanguinary intolerance of the Reign of Terror, and on the 8th See also:April 1794 his See also:father perished at Nimes upon the See also:scaffold. Thenceforth the See also:education of the future See also:minister devolved entirely upon his See also:mother, a woman of slight See also:appearance and of homely See also:manners, but endowed with See also:great strength of See also:character and clearness of See also:judgment. Madame Guizot was a living type of the See also:Huguenots of the 16th See also:century, stern in her principles and her faith, immovable in her convictions and her sense of See also:duty. She formed the character of her illustrious son and shared every vicissitude of his See also:life. In the days of his See also:power her See also:simple figure, always clad in deep See also:mourning for her martyred See also:husband, was not absent from the splendid circle of his See also:political See also:friends. In the days of his See also:exile in 1848 she followed him to See also:London, and there at a very advanced See also:age closed her life and was buried at Kensal See also:Green. Driven from Nimes by the Revolution, Madame Guizot and her son repaired to See also:Geneva, where he received his education. In spite of her decided Calvinistic opinions, the theories of See also: Of the progress of his graver studies little is known, for in the work which he entitled See also:Memoirs of my own Times Guizot omitted all See also:personal details of his earlier life. But his See also:literary attainments must have been precocious and considerable, for when he arrived in See also:Paris in 1805 to pursue his studies in the See also:faculty of See also:laws, he entered at eighteen as See also:tutor into the family of M. Stapfer, formerly Swiss minister in France, and he soon began to write in a See also:journal edited by M. Suard, the Publiciste. This connexion introduced him to the literary society of Paris. In October 1809, being then twenty-two, he wrote a See also:review of M. de See also:Chateaubriand's Martyrs, which procured for him the approbation and cordial thanks of that eminent See also:person, and he continued to contribute largely to the periodical See also:press. At Suard's he had made the acquaintance of Pauline Meulan, an accomplished See also:lady of See also:good family, some fourteen years older than himself, who had been forced by the hardships of the Revolution to See also:earn her living by literature, and who also was engaged to contribute a See also:series of articles to Suard's journal. These contributions were Is See See also:reproduction of some of the miniatures in See also:Jacob and H. von Hefner-Alteneck, Trachten See also:des christlichen Mittelalters (See also:Darmstadt, 1840-1854, 3 vols.), and in Trachten, Kunstwerke and Geratschaften vom fruhen Mittelalter (See also:Frankfort-on-See also:Main, 1879—1890). 18 Add. MS. 34294, See also:British Museum, vol. ii. fol. 83, 161, vol. iii. fol. 402, vol. iv. fols. 534 and 667. From a See also:Byzantine MS. in the British Museum. interrupted by her illness, but immediately resumed and 'continued by an unknown See also:hand. It was discovered that Francois Guizot had quietly supplied the deficiency on her behalf. The acquaintance thus begun ripened.into friendship and love, and in 1812 Mademoiselle de Meulan consented to marry her youthful ally. She died in 1827; she was the author of many esteemed See also:works on See also:female education. An only son, born in 1819, died in 1837 of See also:consumption. In 1828 Guizot married Elisa See also:Dillon, niece of his first wife, and also an author. She died in 1833, leaving a son, See also:Maurice Guillaume (1833–1892), who attained some reputation as a See also:scholar and writer. During the See also:empire, Guizot, entirely devoted to literary pursuits, published a collection of See also:French synonyms (1809), an See also:essay on the See also:fine arts (1811), and a See also:translation of See also:Gibbon with additional notes in 1812. These works recommended him to the See also:notice of M. de See also:Fontanes, then See also:grand-See also:master of the university of France, who selected Guizot for the See also:chair of See also:modern See also:history at the See also:Sorbonne in 1812. His first lecture (which is reprinted in his Memoirs) was delivered on the i 1th of See also:December of that See also:year. The customary compliment to the all-powerful See also:emperor he declined to insert in it, in spite of the hints given him by his See also:patron, but the course which followed marks the beginning of the great revival of See also:historical See also:research in France in the 19th century. He had now acquired a considerable-position in the society of Paris, and the friendship of Royer-Collard and the leading members of the liberal party, including the young duc de See also:Broglie. Absent from Paris at the moment of the fall of See also:Napoleon in 1814, he was at once selected, on the recommendation of Royer-Collard, to serve the See also:government of See also: During these years Guizot was one of the leaders of the See also:Doctrinaires, a small party strongly attached to the See also:charter and the See also:crown, and advocating a policy which has become associated (especially by See also:Faguet) with the name of Guizot, that of the juste milieu, a via See also:media between See also:absolutism and popular government. Their opinions had more of
. the rigour of a See also:sect than the See also:elasticity of a political party. Adhering to the great principles of See also:liberty and See also:toleration, they were sternly opposed to the anarchical traditions of the Revolution. They knew that the elements of anarchy were still fermenting in the See also:country; these they hoped to subdue, not by reactionary See also:measures, but by the See also:firm application of the power of a limited constitution, based on the suffrages of the See also:middle class and
defended by the highest literary See also:talent of the times. Their motives were honourable. Their views were philosophical. But they were opposed alike to the democratical spirit of the age, to the military traditions of the empire, and to the bigotry and absolutism of the See also:court. The See also:fate of such a party might be foreseen. They lived by a policy of resistance; they perished by another revolution (183o). They are remembered more for their See also:constant opposition to popular demands than by the services they undoubtedly rendered to the cause of temperate freedom.
In 1820, when the reaction was at its height after the See also:murder of the duc de Berri, and the fall of the ministry of the duc Decazes, Guizot was deprived of his offices, and in 1822 even his course of lectures were interdicted. During the succeeding years he played an important See also:part among the leaders of the liberal opposition to the government of See also: In 1822 he had published his lectures on representative government (Histoire des origines du gouvernement representatif, 1821-1822, 2 vols.; Eng. trans. 1852); also a work on See also:capital See also:punishment for political offences and several important political See also:pamphlets. From 1822 to 183o he published two important collections of historical See also:sources, the memoirs of the history of See also:England in 26 volumes, and the memoirs of the history of France in 31 volumes, and a revised translation, of See also:Shakespeare, and a See also:volume of essays on the history of France. The most' remarkable work from his own See also:pen was the first part of his Histoire de la revolution d'Angleterre depuis Charles I°' a Charles II. (2 vols., 1826–1827; Eng. trans., 2 vols., See also:Oxford, 1838), a See also:book of great merit and impartiality, which he resumed and completed during his exile in England after 1848. The See also:Martignac See also:administration restored Guizot in 1828 to his professor's chair and to the See also:council of See also:state. Then it was that he delivered the celebrated courses of lectures which raised his reputation as an historian to the highest point of fame, and placed him amongst the best writers of France and of See also:Europe. These lectures formed the basis of his general Histoire de la civilisation en Europe (1828; Eng. trans. by W. See also:Hazlitt, 3 vols., 1846), and of his Histoire de la civilisation en France (4 vols., 1830), works which must ever be regarded as See also:classics of modern historical research. Hitherto Guizot's fame rested on his merits as a writer on public affairs and as a lecturer on modern history. He had attained the age of See also:forty-three before he entered upon the full display of his oratorical strength. In See also:January 183o he was elected for the first time by the See also:town of See also:Lisieux to the chamber of deputies, and he retained that seat during the whole of his political life. Guizot immediately assumed an important position in the representative See also:assembly, and the first speech he delivered was in defence of the celebrated address of the 221, in See also:answer to the menacing speech from the See also:throne, which was followed by the See also:dissolution of the chamber, and was the precursor of another revolution. On his returning to Paris from Nimes on the 27th of See also:July, the fall of Charles X. was already imminent. Guizot was called upon by his friends Casimir-See also:Perier, See also:Laffitte, See also:Villemain and See also:Dupin to draw up the protest of the liberal deputies against the royal ordinances of July, whilst he applied himself with them to See also:control the revolutionary character of the See also:late contest. Personally, Guizot was always of See also:opinion that it was a great misfortune for the cause of See also:parliamentary government in France that the infatuation and ineptitude of Charles X. and See also:Prince See also:Polignac rendered a See also:change in the hereditary See also:line of See also:succession inevitable. But, though convinced that it was inevitable, he became one of the most ardent supporters of Louis-Philippe. In See also:August 183o Guizot was made minister of the interior, but resigned in See also:November. He had now passed into the ranks of the conservatives, and for the next eighteen years was the most determined foe of See also:democracy, the unyielding See also:champion of " a monarchy limited by a limited number of See also:bourgeois." In 1831 Casimir-Perier formed a more vigorous and compact administration, which was terminated in May 1832 by his See also:death; the summer of that year was marked by a formidable republican rising in Paris, and it was not till the 1th of October 1832 that a See also:stable government was formed, in which See also:Marshal See also:Soult was first minister, the duc de Broglie took the See also:foreign office, See also:Thiers the See also:home See also:department, and Guizot the department of public instruction. This ministry, which lasted for nearly four years, was by far the ablest that ever served Louis Philippe. Guizot, however, was already marked with the stigma of unpopularity by the more advanced liberal party. He remained unpopular all his life, " not," said he, " that I court unpopularity, but that I think nothing about it." Yet never were his great abilities more useful to his country than whilst he filled this office of secondary See also:rank but of See also:primary importance in the department of public instruction. The duties it imposed on him were entirely congenial to his literary tastes, and he was master of the subjects they concerned. He applied himself in the first instance to carry the See also:law of the 28th of See also:June 1833, and then for the next three years to put it into See also:execution. In establishing and organizing primary education in France, this law marked a distinct See also:epoch in French history. In fifteen years, under its influence, the number of primary See also:schools See also:rose from ten to twenty-three thousand; normal schools for teachers, and a general See also:system of inspection, were introduced; and boards of education, under mixed See also:lay and clerical authority, were created. The secondary class of schools and the university of France were equally the subject of his enlightened See also:protection and care, and a prodigious impulse was given to philosophical study and historical research. The See also:branch of the See also:Institute of France known as the " See also:Academic des Sciences Morales et Politiques," which had been suppressed by Napoleon, was revived by Guizot. Some of the old members of this learned See also:body—Talleyrand, Sieyes, See also:Roederer and See also:Lakanal—again took their seats there, and a See also:host of more See also:recent celebrities were added by See also:election for the See also:free discussion of the great problems of political and social See also:science. The " Societe de 1'Histoire de France " was founded for the publication of historical works; and a vast publication of See also:medieval See also:chronicles and See also:diplomatic papers was undertaken at the expense of the state (see HISTORY; and FRANCE, History, See also:section Sources). The See also:object of the See also:cabinet of October 1832 was to organize a conservative party, and to carry on a policy of resistance to the republican See also:faction which threatened the existence of the monarchy. It was their See also:pride and their boast that their measures never exceeded the limits of the law, and by the exercise of legal power alone they put down an insurrection amounting to See also:civil See also:war in See also:Lyons and a sanguinary revolt in Paris. The real strength of the ministry lay not in its nominal heads, but in the fact that in this government and this alone Guizot and Thiers acted in cordial co-operation. The two great rivals in French parliamentary eloquence followed for a time the same path; but neither of them could submit to the supremacy of the other, and circumstances threw Thiers almost continuously on a course of opposition, whilst Guizot See also:bore the graver responsibilities of power. Once again indeed, in 1839, they were See also:united, but it was in opposition to M. See also:Mole, who had formed an intermediate government, and this See also:coalition between Guizot and the leaders of the See also:left centre and the left, Thiers and Odilon See also:Barrot, due to his ambition and See also:jealousy of Mole, is justly regarded as one of the chief inconsistencies of his life. Victory was secured at the expense of principle, and Guizot's attack upon the government gave rise to a crisis and a republican insurrection. None of the three chiefs of that See also:alliance took ministerial office, however, and Guizot was not sorry to accept the See also:post of See also:ambassador in London, which withdrew him for a time from parliamentary contests. This was in the See also:spring of 184o, and Thiers succeeded 'shortly afterwards to the ministry of. foreign affairs. Guizot was received with marked distinction by the See also:queen and by the society of London. His literary works were highly esteemed, his character was respected, and France was never more worthily represented abroad than by one of her greatest orators. He was known to be well versed in the history and theliterature of England, and sincerely attached to the alliance of the two nations and the cause of See also:peace. But, as he himself remarked, he was a stranger to England and a novice in See also:diplomacy; and unhappily the embroiled state of the Syrian question, on which the French government had separated itself from the See also:joint policy of Europe, and possibly the See also:absence of entire confidence between the ambassador and the minister of foreign affairs, placed him in an embarrassing and even false position. The warnings he transmitted to Thiers were not believed. The warlike policy of Thiers was opposed to his own convictions. The treaty of the 15th of July was signed without his knowledge and executed in the See also:teeth of his remonstrances. For some See also:weeks Europe seemed to be on the brink of war, until the king put an end to the crisis by refusing his assent to the military preparations of Thiers, and by summoning Guizot from London to See also:form a ministry and to aid his Majesty in what he termed " ma lutte tenace contre l'anarchie." Thus began, under dark and adverse circumstances, on the 29th of October 184o, the important administration in which Guizot remained the master-spirit for nearly eight years. He himself took the office of minister for foreign affairs, to which he added some years later, on the retirement of Marshal Soult, the ostensible rank of See also:prime minister. His first care was the See also:maintenance of peace and the restoration of amicable relations with the other See also:powers of Europe. If he succeeded, as he did succeed, in calming the troubled elements and healing the wounded pride of France, the result was due mainly to the indomitable courage and splendid eloquence with which he faced a raging opposition, gave unity and strength to the conservative party, who now See also:felt that they had a great See also:leader at their See also:head, and appealed to the See also:thrift and prudence of the nation rather than to their vanity and their ambition. In his pacific task he was fortunately seconded by the formation of See also:Sir See also:Robert See also:Peel's administration in England, in the autumn of 1841. Between See also:Lord See also:Palmerston and Guizot there existed an incompatibility of character exceedingly dangerous in the foreign ministers of two great and in some respects See also:rival countries. With Lord Palmerston in office, Guizot felt that he had a bitter and active antagonist in every British See also:agent throughout the See also:world; the combative See also:element was strong in his own disposition; and the result was a system of perpetual conflict and See also:counter-intrigues. Lord Palmerston held (as it appears from his own letters) that war between England and France was, sooner or later, inevitable. Guizot held that such a war would be the greatest of all calamities, and certainly never contemplated it. In Lord See also:Aberdeen, the foreign secretary of Sir Robert Peel, Guizot found a friend and an ally perfectly congenial to himself. Their acquaintance in London had been slight, but it soon ripened into mutual regard and confidence. They were both men of high principles and See also:honour; the Scotch See also:Presbyterianism which had moulded the faith of Lord Aberdeen was reflected in the Huguenot minister of France; both were men of extreme simplicity of See also:taste, joined to the refinement of scholarship and culture; both had an intense aversion to war and felt themselves ill-qualified to carry on those adventurous operations which inflamed the See also:imagination of their respective opponents. In the eyes of Lord Palmerston and Thiers their policy was mean and pitiful; but it was a policy which secured peace to.the world, and united the two great and free nations of the See also:West in what was termed the entente cordiale. Neither of them would have stooped to snatch an See also:advantage at the expense of the other; they held the See also:common See also:interest of peace and friendship to be See also:paramount; and when See also:differences arose, as they did arise, in remote parts of the world,—in See also:Tahiti, in See also:Morocco, on the See also:Gold See also:Coast,—they were reduced by this principle to their proper insignificance. The opposition in France denounced Guizot's foreign policy as basely subservient to England. He replied in terms of unmeasured contempt,—" You may raise the See also:pile of calumny as high as you will; See also:vous n'arriverez jamais a la hauteur de mon dedain !" The opposition in England attacked Lord Aberdeen with the same reproaches, but in vain. King Louis Philippe visited See also:Windsor. The queen of England (in 1843) stayed at the See also:Chateau d'Eu. In 1845 British and
French troops fought See also:side by side for the first time in an expedition to the See also:River See also:Plate.
The fall of Sir Robert Peel's government in 1846 changed these intimate relations; and the return of Lord Palmerston to the foreign office led Guizot to believe that he was again exposed to the passionate rivalry of the British cabinet. A friendly understanding had been established at Eu between the two courts with reference to the future See also:marriage of the young queen of See also:Spain. The See also:language of Lord Palmerston and the conduct of Sir See also: It was defended by subterfuges. By the dispassionate judgment of history it has been universally condemned. Its immediate effect was to destroy the Anglo-French alliance, and to throw Guizot into closer relations with the reactionary policy of Metternich and the See also:Northern courts. The history of Guizot's administration, the longest and the last which existed under the constitutional monarchy of France, bears the See also:stamp of the great qualities and the great defects of his political character, for he was throughout the master-spirit of that government. His first object was to unite and discipline the conservative party, which had been broken up by previous dissensions and ministerial changes. In this he entirely succeeded by his courage and eloquence as a parliamentary leader, and by the use of all those means of influence which France too liberally supplies to a dominant minister. No one ever doubted the purity and disinterestedness of Guizot's own conduct. He despised See also:money; he lived and died poor; and though he encouraged the See also:fever of money-getting in the French nation, his own habits retained their See also:primitive simplicity. But he did not disdain to use in others the baser passions from which he was himself free. Some of his See also:instruments were mean; he employed them to See also:deal with meanness after its See also:kind. See also:Gross abuses and breaches of See also:trust came to See also:light even in the ranks of the government, and under an incorruptible minister the administration was denounced as corrupt. Licet uti alieno vitio is a proposition as false in politics as it is in divinity. Of his parliamentary eloquence it is impossible to speak too highly. It Was terse, austere, See also:demonstrative and commanding, —not persuasive, not humorous, seldom adorned, but condensed with the force of a supreme authority in the fewest words. He was essentially a ministerial See also:speaker, far more powerful in defence than in opposition. Like See also:Pitt he was the type of authority and resistance, unmoved by the brilliant charges, the wit, the gaiety, the See also:irony and the discursive power of his great rival. Nor was he less a master of parliamentary See also:tactics and of those sudden changes and movements in debate which, as in a See also:battle, sometimes change the See also:fortune of the See also:day. His confidence in himself, and in the See also:majority of the chamber which he had moulded to his will, was unbounded; and See also:long success and the See also:habit of authority led him to forget that in a country like France there was a See also:people outside the chamber elected by a small See also:constituency, to which the minister and the king himself were held responsible. A government based on the principle of resistance and repression and marked by dread and distrust of popular power, a system of diplomacy which sought to revive the traditions of the old French monarchy, a See also:sovereign who largely exceeded the See also:bounds of constitutional power and whose obstinacy augmented with years, a minister who, though far removed from the servility.of the courtier, was too obsequious to the personal influence of the king, were all singularly at variance with the promises of the Revolution of July, and they narrowed the policy of the administration. Guizot's view of politics was essentially historical and philosophical. His tastes and his acquirements gave him little insight into the See also:practical business of administrative government. Of See also:finance he knew nothing; trade and See also:commerce were See also:strange to him; military and See also:naval affairs were unfamiliar to him; all these subjects he dealt with by second hand through his friends, P. S. Dumon (1797-1870), Charles See also:Marie Tanneguy, See also:Comte Duchatel (1803-1867), or Marshal Bugeaud. The See also:con-sequence was that few measures of practical improvement were carried by his administration. Still less did the government lend an See also:ear to the cry for parliamentary reform. On this subject the king's prejudices were insurmountable, and his ministers had the weakness to give way to them. It was impossible to defend a system which confined the See also:suffrage to 200,000 citizens, and returned a chamber of whom See also:half were placemen. Nothing would have been easier than to strengthen the conservative party by attaching the suffrage to the See also:possession of See also:land in France, but See also:blank resistance was the See also:sole answer of the government to the just and moderate demands of the opposition. Warning after warning was addressed to them in vain by friends and by foes alike; and they remained profoundly unconscious of their danger till the moment when it overwhelmed them. Strange to say, Guizot never acknowledged either at the time or to his dying day the nature of this See also:error; and he speaks of himself in his memoirs as the much-enduring champion of liberal government and constitutional law. He utterly fails to perceive that a more enlarged view of the liberal destinies of France and a less intense confidence in his own specific theory might have preserved the constitutional monarchy and averted a vast series of calamities, which were in the end fatal to every principle he most cherished. But with the stubborn conviction of See also:absolute truth he dauntlessly adhered to his own doctrines to the end. The last See also:scene of his political life was singularly characteristic of his inflexible adherence to a lost cause. In the afternoon of the 23rd of February 1848 the king summoned his minister from the chamber, which was then sitting, and informed him that the aspect of Paris and the country during the banquet agitation for reform, and the alarm and See also:division of opinion in the royal family, led him to doubt whether he could retain his ministry. That doubt, replied Guizot, is decisive of the question, and instantly resigned, returning to the chamber only to announce that the administration was at an end and that Mole had been sent for by the king. Mole failed in the See also:attempt to forma government, and between midnight and one in the See also:morning Guizot, who had according to his See also:custom retired See also:early to See also:rest, was again sent for to the Tuileries. The king asked his advice. " We are no longer the ministers of your Majesty," replied Guizot; " it rests with others to decide on the course to be pursued. But one thing appears to be evident: this See also:street See also:riot must be put down; these barricades must be taken; and for this purpose my opinion is that Marshal Bugeaud should be invested with full power, and ordered to take the necessary military measures, and as your Majesty has at this moment no minister, I am ready to draw up and See also:countersign such an See also:order." The marshal, who was See also:present, undertook the task, saying, " I have never been beaten yet, and I shall not begin to-morrow. The barricades shall be carried before See also:dawn." After this display of See also:energy the king hesitated, and soon added: " I ought to tell you that M. Thiers and his friends are in the next See also:room forming a government!" Upon this Guizot rejoined, " Then it rests with them to do what they think See also:fit," and left the See also:palace. Thiers and Barrot decided to withdraw the troops. The king and Guizot next met at See also:Claremont. This was the most perilous conjuncture of Guizot's life, but fortunately he found a safe See also:refuge in Paris for some days in the lodging of a humble See also:miniature painter whom he had befriended, and shortly afterwards effected his See also:escape across the Belgian frontier-. and thence to London, where he arrived on the 3rd of March. His mother and daughters had preceded him, and he was speedily installed in a modest habitation in See also:Pelham See also:Crescent, See also:Brompton. The society of England, though many persons disapproved of much of his recent policy, received the fallen statesman with as much distinction and respect as they had shown eight years before to the king's ambassador. Sums of money were placed at his disposal, which he declined. A professorship at Oxford was spoken of, which he was unable to accept. He stayed in England about a year, devoting himself again to history. He published two more volumes on the See also:English revolution, and in 1854 his Histoire de la republique d'Angleterre et de See also:Cromwell (2 vols., 1854), then his Histoire du protectorat de Cromwell et du retablissement des Stuarts (2 vols., 1856). He also published an essay on Peel, and amid many essays on See also:religion, during the ten years 1858–1868, appeared the extensive Memoires pour servir d l'histoire de mon temps, in nine volumes. His speeches were included in 1863 in his Histoire parlementaire de la France (5 vols. of parliamentary speeches, 1863). Guizot survived the fall of the monarchy and the government he had served twenty-six years. He passed abruptly from the See also:condition of one of the most powerful and active statesmen in Europe to the condition of a philosophical and patriotic spectator of human affairs. He was aware that the See also:link between himself and public life was broken for ever; and he never made the slightest attempt to renew it. He was of no party, a member of no political body; no murmur of disappointed ambition, no language of asperity, ever passed his lips; it seemed as if the fever of oratorical debate and ministerial power had passed from him and left him a greater man than he had been before, in the pursuit of letters, in the conversation of his friends, and as head of the patriarchal circle of those he loved. The greater part of the year he spent at his See also:residence at Val Richer, an See also:Augustine monastery near Lisieux in See also:Normandy, which had been sold at the time of the first Revolution. His two daughters, who married two descendants of the illustrious Dutch family of De Witt, so congenial in faith and manners to the Huguenots of France, kept his house. One of his sons-in-law farmed the See also:estate. And here Guizot devoted his later years with undiminished energy to literary labour, which was in fact his chief means of subsistence. Proud, See also:independent, simple and contented he remained to the last; and these years of retirement were perhaps the happiest and most serene portion of his life.
Two institutions may be said even under the second empire to have retained their freedom—the Institute of France and the Protestant See also:Consistory. In both of these Guizot continued to the last to take an active part. He was a member of three of the five See also:academies into which the Institute of France is divided. The See also:Academy of Moral and Political Science owed its restoration to him, and he became in 1832 one of its first associates. The Academy of See also:Inscriptions and Belles Lettres elected him in 1833 as the successor to M. See also:Dacier; and in 1836 he was chosen a member of the French Academy, the highest literary distinction of the country. In these learned bodies Guizot continued for nearly forty years to take a lively interest and to exercise a powerful influence. He was the jealous champion of their See also:independence. His See also:voice had the greatest See also:weight in the choice of new candidates; the younger See also:generation of French writers never looked in vain to him for encouragement; and his constant aim was to maintain the dignity and purity of the profession of letters.
In the consistory of the Protestant See also: His early education and his experience of life conspired to strengthen the convictions of a religious temperament. He remained through life a firm believer in the truths of See also:revelation, and a volume of Meditations on the See also:Christian Religion was one of his latest works. But though ,he adhered inflexibly to the church of his fathers and combated the rationalist tendencies of the age; which seemed to threaten it with destruction, he retained not a tinge of the intolerance or asperity of the Calvinistic creed. He respected in the Church of See also:Rome the faith of the majority of his countrymen; and the writings of the great See also:Catholic prelates, See also:Bossuet and See also:Bourdaloue,were as See also:familiar and as dear to him as those of his own persuasion, and were commonly used by him in the daily exercises of family See also:worship. In these literary pursuits and in the retirement of Val Richer years passed smoothly and rapidly away; and as his grand-See also:children See also:grew up around him, he began to direct their See also:attention to the history of their country. From these lessons sprang his last and not his least work, the Histoire de France racontee a See also:mes petits enfants, for although this publication assumed a popular form, it is not less See also:complete and profound than it is simple and attractive. The history came down to 1789, and was continued to 1870 by his daughter Madame Guizot de Witt from her father's notes. Down to the summer of 1874 Guizot's See also:mental vigour and activity were unimpaired. His See also:frame, temperate in all things, was blessed with a singular See also:immunity from infirmity and disease; but the vital power ebbed away, and he passed gently away on the 12th of See also:September 1874, reciting now and then a See also:verse of See also:Corneille or a See also:text of Scripture. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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