THIERRY, JACQUES-NICOLAS-AUGUSTIN. - French historian, b. at Blois on 10 May 1795, d. at Paris on 22 May 1856.
Having left the École Normale in 1813, he is found in 1814 as secretary to Henri de Saint-Simon, with whom he dreamed of a "reorganization of Europe," through a reform of minds and institutions, a federal system, a common parliament, and the adoption in every State of the English Constitution, held to be perfect. In 1817 T. regained his autonomy, after having still collaborated on L'industrie with the utopian philosopher-sociologist. Against the backdrop of Enlightenment polemic, he then grafted onto it a romantic revaluation of the past, in the service of a liberal political faith. He thus rediscovered the infancy of the "third estate," and defended the "oppressed races": in the Dix ans d'études historiques the first fruits of his immense research would later be collected. In the Histoire de la conquête de l'Angleterre par les Normands, 4 vols., of 1824, the idea of the opposition of races dominates: but the Lettres sur l'histoire de France (1827, already partly published in 1818-19) remain more vivid, and they suggested certain motifs to Manzoni.
Under the July Monarchy, which embodied many
[of] his ideals, T. still held some offices: forced into long treatments, he returned to Paris for new research, which gave him the opportunity to draft the Essai sur l'histoire de la formation et du progrès du Tiers Etat (1853). He spent his last years with Cristina Trivulzio, princess of Belgioioso, in Paris.
Bibliography5 works
Ettore Passerin
His brother, SIMON-DOMINIQUE-AMÉDÉE, b. at Blois on 22 Aug. 1797, d. at Paris on 26 March 1873, was also a historian and politician, and distinguished himself in his youth as a brilliant article writer, then in 1828 published the Histoire des Gaulois, his major historical work, which earned him the chair of history at the University of Besançon. His political ideas, which caused his teaching to be suspended during the reign of Charles X, placed him in a favorable light after the Revolution of 1830. Th. was appointed prefect of Vesoul, where he revealed sound qualities as an administrator, and, eight years later, councillor of State. Between 1840 and 1847 he published the Histoire de la Gaule sous l'administration romaine, which won him appointment as a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. A moderate liberal, he dissented from the "socialistic" tendency of the Revolution of 1848 and instead applauded Napoleon III. He continued serenely to work and to produce studies of Roman history, among which noteworthy are the Histoire d'Attila, de ses fils et de ses successeurs jusqu'à l'établissement des Hongrois en Europe (Paris 1850) and Récits de l'histoire romaine au Ve siècle (1860); studies on the origins of Christianity, among which St Jérôme, la société chrétienne à Rome et l'émigration romaine en Terre Sainte (1867) and the St Jean Chrysostome (1872). In 1860 he was appointed senator by Napoleon, in 1868 he received the cross of grand officer of the Legion of Honor. He suffered greatly from the defeat of Sedan in 1870, because he saw in it his ideas as a historian and politician refuted. Historiographically T. shows himself imprecise in the criticism of documents and more inclined to color the events narrated than to penetrate their spiritual value. He had a romantic style, and a spirit inclined to a temperate nationalism.