Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Thierry

THIERRY, the name of two excellent French historians, brothers (Augustin and Amedee), both of whom, though their literary and historical faculty was not quite equal, displayed the same devotion to historical study.

I. Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry (1795-1856), the elder and most gifted, was born at Blois on the 10th May 1795. He had no advantages of birth or fortune, but was greatly distinguished at the Blois grammar school, and entered the Ecole Normale, an establishment which, designed on the best principles to supply France with perfectly equipped teachers, has on the whole done more service to journalism and literature than to pedagogy. He appears to have been very susceptible to personal influences, and was for a time docile to St Simon and afterwards to Cotnte. But his real bent was towards more solid studies, and, under the impulse of the strong current setting at the time towards mediaeval research, he began, and in 1825 published, his History of the Norman Conquest of England, much altered and improved in the later edition of 1840. Two years later he published important Lettres sur V Histoire de France, attacking the traditional method of history-writing, and recommending recourse to the original documents. About this time the heavy calamity of blindness threatened him, and by 1830 he had totally lost his sight. His marriage, however, with Julie de Qu6rengal, a woman of ability, considerably lightened his misfortune, and about the same time he was elected to the Acade"mie des Inscriptions. He continued to pursue his historical studies, now through other eyes, and in 1834 published Dix Ans d j Etudes Historiques, which was followed by his capital work, the Recits Merovingiens, in 1840. His later years were chiefly occupied in the study of the history of the Tiers Etat, which bore fruit in more than one publication. He died at Paris on May 22, 1856.

The duller school of picturesque Dryasdusts (a rather miraculous combination) who have profited by Thierry's labours and continued his work have sometimes charged both him and his brother with having entered on history with their minds full of Walter Scott, and with having subordinated facts to graphic presentation. The charge is entirely unjust, and is generally found in the mouths of those who are particularly ill qualified to make it, inasmuch as they owe Thierry nearly everything in style. By others he is described as the founder of the picturesque school, and in this capacity, no doubt, he has much to answer for. His own work, however, is of a very high and remarkable character. He had hardly any forerunners, unless Gibbon may be counted as one, and his freedom from the besetting sin of his own school the subordination of sober history to picturesque description and romantic narrative is best seen by comparing him with his contemporary Barante, who, however, is himself not to be named otherwise than honoris causa.

II. Amédée Simon Dominique Thierry (1797-1873) was the younger brother of Augustin, and was born on the 2d August 1797. He began life as a journalist (after an essay, like his brother, at schoolmastering), was connected with the famous romantic harbinger the Globe, and obtained a small Government clerkship. His first book was a brief history of Guienno in 1825, and three years later appeared the Histoire des Gaulois, which was received with much favour, and obtained him, from the royalist premier Martignac, a history professorship at Besangon. He was, however, thought too liberal for the Government of Charles X., and his lectures were stopped, with the result of securing him, after the revolution, the important post of prefect of the Haute-Saone, which he held eight years. During this time he published nothing. In 1838 he was transferred to the council of state as master of requests, which post he held through the revolution of 1848 and the coup d'etat till 1860, when he was made senator a paid office, it must be remembered, and, in effect, a lucrative sinecure. He also passed through all the ranks of the Legion of Honour, became a member of the Academie des Inscriptions in 1841, and in 1862 received the honorary degree of D.C.L. at Oxford. He had, except during the time of his prefecture, never intermitted his literary work, being a constant contributor to the Revue des Deux Mondes, his articles (usually worked up after wards into books) almost all dealing with Roman Gaul and its period. The chief were the Histoire d'Attila (1856), frequently reprinted, the Histoire de la Gaule sous V Administration Romaine (1840-2), a Tableau de VEmpire Romain, and, in imitation of his brother, certain Recits of Roman history, a book on St Jerome in 1867, and one on Chrysostom and Eudoxia in 1873. He died March 27, 1873.

His literary and historical genius was perhaps inferior to his brother's, and he exhibits more of the defects of the anecdotic method of writing history, but he shared Augustin's passion for going to the fountainhead and for animating the dry bones of mere chronicles and mere academic discussions with accounts of the life of peoples.