Henri Martin was a French 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...

 celebrated in his own day, whose modern reputation has been eclipsed by the greater literary and interpretive powers of his contemporary, the equally passionate patriot Jules Michelet

Jules Michelet

Jules Michelet was a French historian. He was born in Paris to a family with Huguenot traditions.-Early life:His father was a master printer, not very prosperous, and Jules assisted him in the actual work of the press...

, whose works have often been reprinted.

Biography

Having first written a few novels, he later devoted his life to the study of the history of France

History of France

The history of France goes back to the arrival of the earliest human being in what is now France. Members of the genus Homo entered the area hundreds of thousands years ago, while the first modern Homo sapiens, the Cro-Magnons, arrived around 40,000 years ago...

 and wrote an account of it, entitled Histoire de France, a magnificent work in 19 volumes. He brought the history down to 1789, and received from the Institut de France

Institut de France

The Institut de France is a French learned society, grouping five académies, the most famous of which is the Académie française.The institute, located in Paris, manages approximately 1,000 foundations, as well as museums and chateaux open for visit. It also awards prizes and subsidies, which...

 20,000 francs as a prize in 1869. The Avenue Henri-Martin

Avenue Henri-Martin

Avenue Henri-Martin is an avenue in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, named after the French historian Henri Martin , onetime mayor of the 16th arrondissement....

 in Paris is named after him.

Martin was born at Saint-Quentin, into an upper middle-class family. Trained as a notary, he followed this profession for some time but having achieved success with an historical romance, Wolfthurm (1830), he applied himself to historical research. Martin sat in the Assemblée Nationale as deputy for Aisne

Aisne

Aisne is a department in the northern part of France named after the Aisne River.- History :Aisne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Île-de-France, Picardie, and Champagne.Most of the old...

 in 1871, and was elected on June 13, 1878 to seat number 38 of the Académie française

Académie française

L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...

, but he left no mark as a politician. Redactor at the Siècle, he was also mayor of the 16th arrondissement of Paris in 1870, deputy of Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1871, senator in 1876, and one of the founders and the first president of the Ligue des Patriotes. He died in Paris on December 14, 1883, and, acclaimed as "national historian" was given a public funeral. A laudatory biography soon appeared: Gabriel Hanotaux, Henri Martin, Paris, 1885.

Histoire de France

Becoming associated with Paul Lacroix

Paul Lacroix

Paul Lacroix , French author and journalist, was born in Paris, the son of a novelist.He is best known under his pseudonym of P.L. Jacob, bibliophile, or Bibliophile Jacob, suggested by the constant interest he took in public libraries and books generally. Lacroix was an extremely prolific and...

 (Le Bibliophile Jacob), he planned with him a history of France to consist of excerpts from the chief chroniclers and historians, with original matter filling up gaps in the continuity. In the first volume, which appeared in 1833, Histoire de France depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'en juillet 1830 the compiler promised to seek "always the dramatic and picturesque side of history, the one that interests the greatest number"; its success encouraged Martin to make the work his own, and his Histoire de France, in fifteen volumes (1833–1836) which spans the space from earliest times to the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, was the result. This magnum opus, rewritten and further elaborated during the following 18 years of research (4th ed., 16 vols. and index, 1861–1865) gained for the author in 1856 the first prize of the Academy, and in 1869 the grand biennial prize of 20,000 franc

Franc

The franc is the name of several currency units, most notably the Swiss franc, still a major world currency today due to the prominence of Swiss financial institutions and the former currency of France, the French franc until the Euro was adopted in 1999...

s. A popular abridgement in seven volumes, L'Histoire de France Populaire, was published in 1867. This, together with the continuation, Histoire de France depuis 1789 jusqu'à nos jours (6 vols. 1878-1883), gives a complete history of France, and superseded Sismondi's Histoire des Français.

This work has not withstood the test of time. Martin's romanticized descriptions of Gaul

Gaul

Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...

s as representing the Druid

Druid

A druid was a member of the priestly class in Britain, Ireland, and Gaul, and possibly other parts of Celtic western Europe, during the Iron Age....

ic key to France's essentialist "primitive tradition", are based on his long-standing close ties with the Saint-Simonian counter-Enlightenment

Counter-Enlightenment

"Counter-Enlightenment" is a term used to refer to a movement that arose in the late-18th and early-19th centuries in opposition to the 18th century Enlightenment...

 philosopher Jean Reynaud

Jean Reynaud

Jean Reynaud was a French socialist philosopher.He was a member of the Saint-Simonian community. He was a co-founder of the Encyclopédie nouvelle.-External links:* -Bibliography:...

 rather than on history. However his popularized accounts gave a great impetus to Celt

Celt

The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....

ic linguistic and anthropological studies. His knowledge of the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 is inadequate, and his criticisms are not discriminating. As a free-thinking liberal republican outside the Catholic Church, his prejudices often biased his judgment on the political and religious history of the ancien régime. The last six volumes, devoted to the 17th and 18th centuries, are superior to the earlier ones.

Other writings

In his essay De la France, de son génie et de ses destinées (1847) he sought to give the French a sense of their essentially national destiny within the framework of Romantic nationalism

Romantic nationalism

Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...

. Other minor works included Daniel Manin (1860), La Russie et l'Europe (1866); Etudes d'archéologie celtique (1872); Les Napoléon et les frontières de la France (1874).