Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3b.pdf/404

THI he returned to Paris, and embracing the doctrines of St. Simon co-operated as secretary for three years with that singular man, writing, both in conjunction with him and separately, on political and social topics. Thierry then became a fellow-labourer of Auguste Comte, whom he assisted in various ways. In 1820 he began to contribute to the Courrier Français, where, in some letters on the history of France, he first developed his views on the duties and functions of the modern historian. For five years he devoted himself to the composition of his well-known "History of the Conquest of England by the Normans," which appeared in 1825. Thierry has himself recorded that his earliest stimulus to historical composition was received from Chateaubriand and Walter Scott, and his "History of the Norman Conquest" sprang from his perusal of Ivanhoe, with its life-like description of the two races, Norman and Saxon, co-existing without interfusion on the soil of England. Animated and picturesque, Thierry's book, with all its faults, made an era in modern history. It was followed in 1827 by his "Lettres sur l'Histoire de la France," in which he criticized the incapacity of the ordinary historian to enter into the spirit of the middle ages, and showed the importance of facts and traits generally neglected by the routine-school of historians. The ardour of his historical researches cost him his sight, and to blindness was added a paralysis of the nervous system. He enlisted literary recruits to aid him, and the earliest of his assistants was Armand Carrel. Pursuing his historical studies in spite of all physical obstacles, he carefully revised his "History of the Norman Conquest," and in 1827 published his "Dix ans d'études Historiques" In 1834 he was summoned to Paris by Guizot, then minister of public instruction, to aid in editing for the great work, Documens inédits sur l'Histoire de France, published by the French government, the Recueil des documents inédits de l'Histoire du tiers etat. In 1840 appeared his "Récits des temps Mérovingiens," in which by diligent research and artistic grouping, the past is made to tell its own story. In 1853 was published his last original work, the "Essai sur l'histoire de la formation et des progrès du tiers état," for which he had acquired the materials in the course of his editorial labours. He died in Paris, May 22, 1856.—F. E.  * THIERS,, the French statesman and historian, was born at Marseilles on the 16th of April, 1797. His parents were in humble circumstances; his father, it is said, was a locksmith, but his mother belonged to the family which had produced the two Cheniers, and through her relations Thiers was admitted as a bursar, at the age of nine, to the Lycée of Marseilles. At eighteen he proceeded to Aix to study for the bar, and in 1820 passed as an avocat, but he seems to have met with very little success in this career. At Aix he distinguished himself by his political liberalism, and by some literary ability. One of his college friends was Mignet, afterwards, like himself, a historian of the first French revolution. In 1821 Mignet went to seek his fortune in Paris, and thither in the same year, and with the same purpose, Thiers followed his friend. He sought out the deputy Manuel, one of the leaders of the liberal opposition, and like himself a Provençal. Through Manuel he was introduced to the Constitutionnel; his own talent did the rest. In addition to journalism and book-making, he now began his first great literary undertaking, the "History of the French Revolution," the first two volumes of which, and they only, were written in conjunction with Felix Bodin, and appeared in 1823. Since 1789 a new generation had sprung up which knew the first revolution only by tradition, and Thiers' book was eagerly welcomed by the young liberalism of France. The last volume appeared in 1827, by which time the clever journalist and historian was a man of mark in the circle which Laffitte (q.v.) drew round him. With the accession of the Polignac ministry to power in 1829, and the evident approach of a desperate struggle between the crown and the people, Thiers founded the National, aided by Armand Carrel and Mignet. It was the organ of Orleanism and of constitutional monarchy as then defined by Thiers in a famous phrase, which Louis Philippe, when on the throne, struggled hard to prevent being realized in actual fact, "The king reigns, and does not govern." Under Thiers the National was the rallying point of constitutional liberalism, and on the day of the promulgation of the famous ordinances (26th July, 1830), it was Thiers who was commissioned by the liberal deputies and journalists in Paris to draw up a formal protest. For his exertions in establishing the monarchy of July, he was rewarded by being appointed a councillor of state, and to an office, somewhat equivalent to our secretaryship of the treasury, under the new finance minister, Baron Louis. Soon afterwards he was made under-secretary of state in the department of finance, when Latfitte became minister; and although elected deputy for Aix, he was at first less conspicuous in the chamber than officially as a reformer of the French financial system. With the fall of the Laffitte ministry Thiers resigned his office, but to the surprise of his former friends, he now figured in the chamber as a fervent opponent of their political programme, speaking in favour even of a hereditary peerage, and supporting measures of repression against the ultra-revolutionary party. He also took high rank as an effective parliamentary orator. The result was that on the formation of the Soult ministry in October, 1832, after the death of Casimir Perier, he was appointed minister of the interior, an office which he exchanged in a few months for the ministry of commerce and public works, having in the meantime arranged the arrest of the duchess of Berri. With the growing activity of the ultra-revolutionary party, Thiers soon returned to the ministry of the interior, and coped victoriously with the insurrection of Lyons and its successor in Paris. He remained, with an insignificant intermission, minister of the interior until January, 1836, putting the corner-stone to his unpopularity with the republicans by his support of those "laws of September" against the press which followed the attempt of Fieschi, at the explosion of whose infernal machine Thiers was by the side of its victim, Marshal Mortier. In February, 1836, he reached the summit of his ambition. He was made president of the council, with the portfolio of foreign affairs. But Louis Philippe wished to govern, as well as to reign; and refusing to second his prime minister's scheme for intervention in Spain, Thiers resigned. After a visit to Italy he returned to the chamber of deputies, and was one of the leaders of the powerful coalition which overthrew the Molé ministry. Forced once more as prime minister upon the unwilling king in March, 1840, he withdrew in the following October, and gave place to Guizot, when his master refused to risk a war with England for the sake of supporting Mehemet Ali against the sultan. (See .) For several years Thiers took little part in public affairs, devoting himself to collecting materials at home and abroad for his magnum opus "The History of the Consulate and the Empire." The first volumes appeared in 1845; the last in 1862. From 1844 to 1848, especially just before the close of the reign of Louis Philippe, Thiers resumed political action in the chamber and in the press, attacking with vigour the policy, especially the foreign policy of Guizot, and thus regaining a little of his old popularity. At the crisis of the revolution of February, he was summoned by Louis Philippe to aid in forming a ministry, but he saw that the invitation came too late. Elected to the assembly in the June after the revolution, he was one of the leaders of the party of order, opposing socialism not only by his speeches and votes, but in a little work "Du droit de la propriété," 1848, marked by his usual vivacity and lucidity. As the friend of an Orleanist restoration, he was one of the parliamentary leaders seized on the morning of the coup d'êtat, and removed by force from France. In the following August he was permitted to return to Paris, where he has since chiefly resided, occupied with the completion of his "History." Through all his changes of political opinion Thiers has been a consistent and strenuous advocate of a protectionist commercial policy.—F E.  THIERSCH,, a celebrated German humanist, was born at Kirchscheidungen, near Freiburg on the Unstrut, 17th June, 1784. He combined the study of theology and philology in the universities of Leipsic and Göttingen, and as early as 1809 obtained a professorship in the newly established gymnasium at Munich. Here he excelled both as a teacher and a writer on scholastic subjects, and was gradually promoted to high offices and dignities. He became the scholastic reformer of Bavaria, and the weight of his two great works, "Über gelehrte Schulen," 3 vols., and "Über den gegenwärtigen Zustand des öffentlichen Unterrichts," 3 vols., was indeed felt throughout Germany. By their one-sidedness, however, and their slight of modern science, they gave rise to ardent literary disputes. At the same time Thiersch took a lively interest in the liberation of Greece, where since 1831 he made a longer stay. His work, "De l'état actuel de la Grèce et des moyens d'arriver à sa restauration," Leipsic, 1833, 2 vols., did much to awaken the active sympathies of Europe for the Greeks. Among his purely 