{"id":3315,"date":"2010-11-22T18:06:12","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T16:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.guizot.com\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T12:20:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T10:20:04","slug":"history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.guizot.com\/en\/history\/","title":{"rendered":"Guizot and history"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Alphonse<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Of the two women who knew Fran\u00e7ois Guizot best, the first, Pauline de Meulan, wrote to him in July 1808, even before he married her: \u00abYour talent seems to me eminently suited to history\u00bb; and that same year they undertook together a new edition in French of Edward Gibbon's great book, History of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire<\/em><\/a>, which was Guizot's first historical work at the age of twenty. The second, his daughter Henriette, said to him in February 1874, a few months before his death: \u00abHistory is your real passion\u00bb; and together they were completing the fourth volume of the\u2019History of France as told to my grandchildren<\/em><\/a>, which was his last work. Guizot's career as a historian thus spanned more than sixty-five years, punctuated by numerous landmark publications, some of which still have real scientific value, principally the\u2019History of civilisation in Europe<\/em><\/a> and the\u2019History of the English Revolution<\/em><\/a>, to which can be added, on another level, the eight volumes of the Memoirs to serve the history of my time<\/em><\/a>, which belong to the prestigious, yet small, category of the great M\u00e9moires d'\u00c9tat, between the Political testament<\/em> de Richelieu and the Memories of war<\/em> of General de Gaulle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing destined the young Fran\u00e7ois Guizot for the profession of historian. By a fortunate coincidence, in July 1812 he was appointed Professor of Modern History at the Faculty of Letters in Paris, a post that had not existed until then. Although the edition of Gibbon, completed that year, had made him known in academic circles, he had not specifically studied history, which had not yet been established as a school subject: it was only in 1818 that Royer-Collard created the first chair of history in secondary education. Nevertheless, he had found his calling: fifteen years later, he was recognised as the greatest history teacher and one of the best historians of his time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Des deux femmes qui connurent le mieux Fran\u00e7ois Guizot, la premi\u00e8re, Pauline de Meulan, lui \u00e9crivait en juillet 1808, avant m\u00eame qu\u2019il l\u2019\u00e9pouse\u202f: \u00ab\u202fVotre talent me para\u00eet \u00e9minemment propre \u00e0 l\u2019histoire.\u202f\u00bb\u202f; et la m\u00eame ann\u00e9e ils entreprenaient ensemble une nouvelle \u00e9dition en fran\u00e7ais du grand livre d\u2019Edward Gibbon, Histoire de la d\u00e9cadence et de la […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5853,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3315","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guizot.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guizot.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guizot.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guizot.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guizot.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3315"}],"version-history":[{"count":68,"href":"https:\/\/www.guizot.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13262,"href":"https:\/\/www.guizot.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3315\/revisions\/13262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.guizot.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.guizot.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}