Francisque Xavier Michel (Lyon, February 18, 1809 - Paris, May 18, 1887) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 and philologist.

Life

He became known for his editions of French works of the Middle Ages, and the French Government, recognizing their value, sent him to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 (1833) and Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 (1837) to continue his research there. In 1837 he became a member of the Comité Historique and in 1838 chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. In 1839 he was appointed professor of foreign literature in the Faculté des lettres at the University of Bordeaux

University of Bordeaux

University of Bordeaux is an association of higher education institutions in and around Bordeaux, France. Its current incarnation was established 21 March 2007. The group is the largest system of higher education schools in southwestern France. It is part of the Academy of Bordeaux.There are seven...

. Between 1834 and 1842 he published editions of many works written between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, and Saxon

Saxon language

Saxon language may refer to:* Any of the languages of the Saxons, a Germanic people:** Old English language, Anglo-Saxon, the ancestor of modern English** Old Saxon, the ancestor language of Low Saxon** Middle Low Saxon, language of the Hanseatic League...

, including the Roman de la rose and the Chanson de Roland.
He got his licence in literature in 1842, and his doctorat in 1846, with a thesis in Latin on Virgile and a thesis in French, entitled: Histoire des races maudites de la France et de l'Espagne. Subsequently he published French translations of Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...

, Sterne

John Sterne

John Sterne was appointed Bishop of Colchester to deputise within the Diocese of Ely under the provisions of the Suffragan Bishops Act 1534 in 1592 and held the post until his death in 1607 . Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and ordained in 1754 he was Rector of Stevenage then Rickmansworth...

, Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

, and Tennyson. In 1857 he published his important book on the Basque Country: Le Pays Basque, sa population, sa langue, ses moeurs, sa littérature et sa musique.

Publications

• Quae vices quaeque mutationes et Virgilium ipsum et ejus carmina per mediam aetatem exceperint. (thesis, 1846).
• Histoire des races maudites de la France et de l'Espagne (thesis, 1847)
• Recherches sur le commerce pendant le moyen âge (1852–1854)
• Les Ecossais en France et les français en Ecosse (1862)
• Etudes de philologie comparée sur l'argot (1856)
• Le Pays basque (1857)
• Le Romancero du Pays Basque (1859)
• Histoire du commerce et de la navigation a Bordeaux (1867–1871)
• in conjunction with Edouard Fournier, Histoire des hôtelleries, cabarets, hotels garnis (1851–1854)