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See also:MICHELET, JULES (1798-1874) , See also:French historian, was See also:born at See also:Paris on the 21st of See also:August 1798, of a See also:family which had Huguenot traditions. His See also:father was a See also:master printer, not very prosperous, -and the son at an See also:early See also:age assisted him in the actual See also:work of the See also:press. A See also:place was offered him in the imperial See also:printing See also:office, but his father was able to send him to the famous See also:College or Lycee See also:Charlemagne, where he distinguishedhimself. He passed the university examination in 1821, and was shortly after appointed to a professorship of See also:history in the College See also:Rollin. Soon after this, in 1824, he married. The See also:period of the restoration and the See also:July See also:monarchy was one of the most favourable to rising men of letters of a somewhat scholastic See also:cast that has ever been known in See also:France, and Michelet had powerful patrons in See also:Villemain, See also:Victor See also:Cousin and others. But, though he was an ardent politician (having from his childhood embraced republicanism and a See also:peculiar variety of romantic See also:free-thought), he was first of all a See also:man of letters and an inquirer into the history of the past. His earliest See also:works were school-books, and they were not written at a very early age. Between 1825 and 1827 he produced See also:divers sketches, See also:chronological tables, &c., of See also:modern history. His Precis of the subject, published in the last-mentioned See also:year, is a See also:sound and careful See also:book, far better than anything that had appeared before it, and written in a sober yet interesting See also:style. In the same year he was appointed maitre de conferences at the Ecole normale. Four years later, in 1831, the Introduction d l'histoire universelle showed a very different style, exhibiting no doubt the See also:idiosyncrasy and See also:literary See also:power of the writer to greater See also:advantage, but also displaying the peculiar visionary qualities which made Michelet the most stimulating, but the most untrustworthy (not in facts, which he never consciously falsifies, but in See also:suggestion) of all historians. The events of 183o had unmuzzled him, and had put him in a better position for study by obtaining for him a place in the See also:Record Office, and a See also:deputy-professorship under See also:Guizot in the literary See also:faculty of the university. Very soon afterwards he began his See also:chief and monumental work, the Histoire de France. But he accompanied this with numerous other books, chiefly of erudition, such as the iEuvres choisies de See also:Vico, the Memoires de See also:Luther ecrits See also:par lui-meeeme, the Origines du See also:droit franpis, and somewhat later the Proces See also:des templiers. 1838 was a year of See also:great importance in Michelet's See also:life. He was in the fullness of his See also:powers, his studies had fed his natural aversion to the principles of authority and ecclesiasticism, and at a moment when the revived activity of the See also:Jesuits caused some real and more pretended alarm he was appointed to the See also:chair of history at the College de France. Assisted by his friend See also:Edgar See also:Quinet, he began a violent polemic against the unpopular See also:order and the principles which it represented, a polemic which made their lectures, and especially Michelet's, one of the most popular resorts of the See also:day. He published, in 1839, his Histoire romaine, but this was in his graver and earlier manner. The results of his lectures appeared in the volumes Le Prelre, la femme, et la famille and le peuple. These books do not display the apocalyptic style which, partly borrowed from See also:Lamennais, characterizes Michelet's later works, but they contain in See also:miniature almost the whole of his curious ethicopolitico-theological creed—a mixture of sentimentalism, See also:communism, and See also:anti-See also:sacerdotalism, supported by the most See also:eccentric arguments, but urged with a great See also:deal of eloquence. The principles of the outbreak of 1848 were in the See also:air, and Michelet was not the least important of those who condensed and propagated them: indeed his See also:original lectures were of so incendiary a See also:kind that the course had to be interdicted. But when the actual revolution See also:broke out Michelet, unlike many other men of letters, did not See also:attempt to enter on active See also:political life, and merely devoted himself more strenuously to his literary work. Besides continuing the great history, he undertook and carried out, during the years between the downfall of See also: Despite or because of its See also:enthusiasm, this was by no means Michelet's best book. The events were too near and too well known, and hardly admitted the picturesque sallies into the See also:blue distance which make the See also:charm and the danger of his larger work. In actual picturesqueness as well as in See also:general veracity of picture, the book cannot approach See also:Carlyle's; while as a See also:mere See also:chronicle of the events it is inferior to See also:half a dozen prosaic histories older and younger than itself.
The coup d'etat lost Michelet his place in the Record Office, as, though not in any way identified with the See also:republic administratively, he refused to take the oaths to the See also:empire. But the new regime only kindled afresh his republican zeal, and his second See also:marriage (with Mlle Adele Malairet, a See also:lady of some literary capacity, and of republican belongings) seems to have further stimulated his powers. While the history steadily held its way, a See also:crowd of extraordinary little books accompanied and diversified it. Sometimes they were See also:expanded versions of its episodes, sometimes what may be called commentaries or See also:companion volumes. In some of the best of them natural See also:science, a new subject with Michelet, to which his wife is believed to have introduced him, supplies the See also:text. The first of these (by no means the best) was See also:Les Femmes de la revolution (1854), in which Michelet's natural and inimitable faculty of dithyrambic too often gives way to tedious and not very conclusive See also:argument and See also:preaching. In the next, L'Oiseau (1856), a new and most successful vein was struck. The subject of natural history was treated, not from the point of view of mere science, nor from that of sentiment, nor of See also:anecdote nor of See also:gossip, but from that of the author's fervent democratic See also:pantheism, and the result, though, as was to be expected, unequal, was often excellent. L'Insecte, in the same See also: It was succeeded by L'Amour (1859), one of the author's most popular books, and not unworthy of its popularity, but perhaps hardly his best. These remarkable works, half See also:pamphlets half moral See also:treatises, succeeded each other as a See also:rule at the twelve months' See also:interval, and the See also:succession was almost unbroken for five or six years. L'Amour was followed by La Femme (186o), a book on which a wh9le critique of French literature and French See also:character might be founded. Then came La Mer (1861), a return to the natural history class, which, considering the powers of the writer and the attraction of the subject, is perhaps a little disappointing. The next year (1862) the most striking of all Michelet's See also:minor works, La Sorciere, made its See also:appearance. See also:Developed out of an See also:episode of the history, it has all its author's peculiarities in the strongest degree. It is a nightmare and nothing more, but a nightmare of the most extraordinary verisimilitude and poetical power. This remarkable See also:series, every See also:volume of which was a work at once of See also:imagination and of See also:research, was not even yet finished, but the later volumes exhibit a certain falling off. The ambitious See also:Bible de l'humanite (1864), an See also:historical See also:sketch of religions, has but little merit. In La Montagne (1868), the last of the natural history series, the tricks of staccato style are pushed even farther than by Victor See also:Hugo in his less inspired moments, though—as is inevitable, in the hands of such a master of See also:language as Michelet—the effect is frequently grandiose if not See also:grand. Nos fils (1869), the last of the See also:string of smaller books published during the author's life, is a tractate on See also:education, written with ample knowledge of the facts and with all Michelet's usual sweep and range of view, if with visibly declining powers of expression. But in a book published posthumously, Le Banquet, these powers reappear at their fullest. The picture of the industrious and famishing populations of the See also:Riviera is (whether true to fact or not) one of the best things that Michelet has done. To See also:complete the See also:list of his See also:miscellaneous works, two collections of pieces, written and partly published at different times, may be mentioned. These are Les Soldats de la revolution and Legendes democratiques du See also:nord.
The publication of this series of books, and the completion of his history, occupied Michelet during both decades of the empire. He lived partly in France, partly in See also:Italy, and was accustomed to spend the See also:winter on the Riviera, chiefly at See also:Hyeres. At last, in 1867, the great work of his life was finished. In the usual edition it fills nineteen volumes. The first of these deals with the early history up to the See also:death of Charlemagne, the second with the flourishing See also:time of feudal France, the third with the 13th See also:century, the See also:fourth, fifth, and See also:sixth with the See also:Hundred Years' See also:War, the seventh and eighth with the establishment of the rural power under See also: Circumstances which strike his See also:fancy, or furnish convenient texts for his polemic are handled at inordinate length, while others are rapidly dismissed or passed over altogether. Uncompromisingly hostile as Michelet was to the empire, its downfall and the accompanying disasters of the See also:country once more stimulated him to activity. Not only did he write letters and pamphlets during the struggle, but when it was over he set himself to complete the vast task which his two great histories had almost covered by a Histoire du XIXe siecle. He did not, however, live to carry it farther than See also:Waterloo, and the best See also:criticism of it is perhaps contained in the opening words of the introduction to the last volume—" 1'A,ge me presse." The new republic was not altogether a restoration for Michelet, and his professorship at the College de France, of which he contended that he had never been properly deprived, was not given back to him. He died at Hyeres on the 9th of See also:February 1874. Almost all Michelet's works, the exceptions being his See also:translations, compilations, &c., are published in See also:uniform See also:size and in about fifty volumes, partly by Marpon and Flammarion, partly by Calmann See also:Levy. He has not received much See also:recent See also:attention from critics and monographers, but his Origines du droit franrais, cherchees dans les symboles et formules du droit universel was edited by Emile See also:Faguet in 1890 and went into a second edition in 1900. See G. See also:Monod, Jules Michelet; Etudes sur la See also:vie etses ceiivres (Paris, 1905). (G. SA.) M?CHELET, KARL See also:LUDWIG (1801-1893), See also:German philosopher, was born on the 4th of See also:December 18or, at See also:Berlin, where he died on the 16th of December 1893. He studied at the gymnasium and at the university of his native See also:town, took his degree as See also:doctor of See also:philosophy in 1824, and became See also:professor in 1829, a See also:post which he retained till his death. Educated in the See also:doctrine of See also:Hegel, he remained faithfulto his early teaching and spent his life in defending and continuing the Hegelian tradition. His first notable work was the See also:System der philosophischen Moral (Berlin, 1828), an examination of the ethical theory of responsibility. In 1836 he published, in Paris, a See also:treatise on the See also:Metaphysics of See also:Aristotle, written in French and crowned by the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. He wrote also two other treatises on Aristotle. Nikomachische Ethik (2nd ed., 1848) and See also:Die Ethik des Aristoteles in ihrem Verhitltniss zum System der Moral (1827). His own views are best expressed in his Vorlesungen. fiber die Personlichkeit Gottes (1841) and Die Epiphanie der ewigen Personlichkeit des Gottes. The philosophical See also:theology developed in these works has been described as a " Neo-See also:Christian See also:Spiritualism." Among his other publications may be mentioned Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philos. in Deutschland von See also:Kant bis Hegel (1837-'838); Anthropologie and Psychologie (184o) ; Esquisse de logique (Paris, 1856) ; Naturrecht See also:oder Rechtsphilosophie (1866) ; Hegel der unwiderlegte Weltphilosoph (187o), Wahrheit aus meinem Leben (1886). From 1832 to 1842, Michelet was engaged in See also:publishing the complete works of Hegel, and in 1845 he founded the Berlin Philosophical Society, which has continuously represented the Hegelianism of See also:Germany. He was the first editor of Der Gedanke (186o), the See also:official See also:organ of the society. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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