by overturning that régime of the Liberal bourgeoisie the triumph of which he had hailed and justified as the necessary outcome of the whole course of French history. He began to distrust the rationalistic opinions which had hitherto estranged him from the Church. When Catholic writers animadverted on the “historical errors” in his writings he promised to correct them, and accordingly we find that in the final edition of his Histoire de la Conquête his severe judgments on the policy of the court of Rome, together with some faults of detail, are eliminated. Though he did not renounce his Liberal friends, he sought the conversation of enlightened priests, and just before his death he seems to have been disposed to enter the pale of the Church. He died in Paris on the 22nd of May 1856, after several years of suffering endured with heroism.
II. Amédée Simon Dominique Thierry (1797-1873) was the younger brother of Augustin, and was born on the 2nd 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 Guienne in 1825, and three years later appeared the first volume of the Histoire des Gaulois, which was received with much favour, and obtained him, from the royalist premier Martignac, a history professorship at Besançon. 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-Saône, 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'état 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 Académie 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 afterwards into books) almost all dealing with Roman Gaul and its period. The chief were the Histoire des Gaulois, 3 vols. (1828, 1834, 1845; the 8th edition of vol. i. appeared in 1870); Histoire de la Gaule sous l'administration romaine (3 vols., 1840-47; 2nd ed. 1871); Histoire d'Attila, de ses fils et successeurs jusqu'à l'établissement des Hongrois en Europe (1856; 5th ed. in 1874); Tableau de l'Empire romain (1862; 5th ed. in 1871; now quite out of date); Récits de l'histoire romaine au Va siècle: la lutte contre les Barbares, and les luttes religieuses (1860; 2nd ed. in 6 vols. 1880). He died in Paris on the 27th of March 1873. His son, Gilbert Augustin Thierry (born 1843), who began a literary career by articles on Les Révolutions d'Angleterre (1864) and some Essais d'histoire religieuse (1867), afterwards confined himself to the writing of novels.
(C. B.*)
THIERS, LOUIS ADOLPHE (1797-1877), French statesman
and historian, was born at Marseilles on the 16th of April
1797. His family are somewhat grandiloquently spoken of as
“cloth merchants ruined by the Revolution,” but it seems
that at the actual time of his birth his father was a locksmith.
His mother belonged to the family of the Chéniers, and he was
well educated, first at the lycée of Marseilles, and then in the
faculty of law at Aix. Here he began his lifelong friendship
with Mignet, and was called to the bar at the age of twenty-three.
He had, however, little taste for law and much for
literature; and he obtained an academic prize at Aix for a
discourse on Vauvenargues. In the early autumn of 1821
Thiers went to Paris, and was quickly introduced as a contributor
to the Constitutionnel. In each of the years immediately
following his arrival in Paris he collected and published a
volume of his articles, the first on the salon of 1822, the second
on a tour in the Pyrenees. He was put out of all need of
money by the singular benefaction of Cotta, the well-known
Stuttgart publisher, who was part-proprietor of the Constitutionnel,
and made over to Thiers his dividends, or part of
them. Meanwhile he became very well known in Liberal
society, and he had begun the celebrated Histoire de la révolution
française, which founded his literary and helped his
political fame. The first two volumes appeared in 1823, the
last two (of ten) in 1827. The book brought him little profit
at first, but became immensely popular. The well-known
sentence of Carlyle, that it is “as far as possible from meriting
its high reputation,” is in strictness justified, for all Thiers's
historical work is marked by extreme inaccuracy, by prejudice
which passes the limits of accidental unfairness, and by an
almost complete indifference to the merits as compared with
the successes of his heroes. But Carlyle himself admits that
Thiers is “a brisk man in his way, and will tell you much if
you know nothing.” Coming as the book did just when the
reaction against the revolution was about to turn into another
reaction in its favour, it was assured of success.
For a moment it seemed as if the author had definitely chosen the lot of a literary man, not to say of a literary hack. He even planned an Histoire générale. But the accession to power of the Polignac ministry in August 1829 changed his projects, and at the beginning of the next year Thiers, with Armand Carrel, Mignet, and others started the National, a new opposition newspaper. Thiers himself was one of the souls of the actual revolution, being credited with “overcoming the scruples of Louis Philippe,” perhaps no Herculean task. At any rate he had his reward. He ranked as one of the Radical supporters of the new dynasty, in opposition to the party of which his rival Guizot was the chief literary man, and Guizot's patron, the duc de Broglie, the main pillar. At first Thiers, though elected deputy for Aix, obtained only subordinate places in the ministry of finance. After the overthrow of his patron Laffitte, he became much less radical, and, after the troubles of June 1832, was appointed to the ministry of the interior. He repeatedly changed his portfolio, but remained in office for four years, became president of the council and in effect prime minister, and began his series of quarrels and jealousies with Guizot. At the time of his resignation in 1836 he was foreign minister, and, as usual, wished for a spirited policy in Spain, which he could not carry out. He travelled in Italy for some time, and it was not till 1838 that he began a regular campaign of parliamentary opposition, which in March 1840 made him president of the council and foreign minister for the second time. But he held the position barely six months, and, being unable to force on the king an anti-English and anti-Turkish policy, resigned on the 29th of October. He now had little to do with politics for some years, and spent his time on his Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire, the first volume of which appeared in 1845. Though he was still a member of the chamber he spoke rarely, till after the beginning of 1846, when he was evidently bidding once more for power. Immediately before the revolution of February he went to all but the greatest lengths, and when it broke out he and Odillon Barrot were summoned by the king; but it was too late. Thiers was unable to govern the forces he had helped to gather, and he resigned.
Under the republic he took up the position of conservative republican, which he ever afterwards maintained, and he never took office. But the consistency of his conduct, especially in voting for Prince Louis Napoleon as president, was often and sharply criticized, one of the criticisms leading to a duel with a fellow-deputy, Bixio. He was arrested at the coup d'état, was sent to Mazas, and then escorted out of France. But in the following summer he was allowed to return. For the next decade his history was almost a blank, his time being occupied for the most part on The Consulate and the Empire. It was not till 1863 that he re-entered political life, being elected by a Parisian constituency. For the seven years following he was the chief speaker among the small band of anti-Imperialists in the French chamber, and was regarded generally as the most formidable enemy of the empire. While nominally protesting against its foreign enterprises, he perpetually harped on French loss of prestige, and so contributed more than any one else to stir up the fatal spirit which brought
