ALLARD, PAUL. - French historian, b. in Rouen on 15 Sept. 1841, d. at Senneville-sur-Mer in Dec. 1916. He completed his literary studies at the Institut Join-Lambert, then moved on to Paris, where he earned a degree in law. From 1861 to 1868 he undertook a series of journeys through the various countries of Europe, thus visiting Italy in 1863, where, having reached Rome, he began to take a particular interest in Christian antiquities, under the guidance of G. B. De Rossi, already famous for his discoveries in the Roman catacombs. A. published a few years later a French reworking of De Rossi's Roma sotterranea cristiana (Paris 1872; 2nd ed., with additions, 1873); but his activity as a historian of the Church began in 1864 with a study (A propos d'un autel peint par M. Dupuy-Delaroche dans l'église Saint-Godard de Rouen, in the Revue de Normandie) that manifested his vocation for the study of the period of the origins.
His numerous subsequent volumes and articles on Christian antiquity and hagiography show him to be a tenacious representative of the conservative tendency, which seeks to find in legendary accounts the possible traces of historical truths. His studies on social problems contributed, in accordance with the spirit of the time, to a rehabilitation of the Church in this field. His principal work is the Histoire des persécutions, from the 1st century to Diocletian (5 vols., Paris 1885-90; 3rd ed. 1902-1908, and, of vol. I, 4th ed. 1910; Italian trans. by E. Lari, Florence 1914 ff.), rightly considered the first systematic work on the subject; and even today, despite the notable progress of archaeological and hagiographical scholarship, it retains its value as a powerful account of the struggle sustained by the Church against the Roman Empire in the first three centuries of its existence. Also worthy of note are his Julien l'Apostat (3 vols., Paris 1900-1902); the Dix leçons sur le martyre, delivered at the Institut catholique of Paris from Feb. to Apr. 1905; and above all the entry Martyre published in the Dictionnaire apologétique de la foi catholique, III, Paris 1916, coll. 334-492, which may be regarded as a true treatise on the subject.