Jean Victor Duruy 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 statesman.

He was born in 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...

, the son of a factory worker, and at first intended for his father's trade. Having passed brilliantly through the École Normale Supérieure

École Normale Supérieure

The École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...

, where he studied under 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...

, he accompanied Michelet as secretary in his travels through France, supplying for him at the École Normale in 1836, when only twenty-four. Ill-health forced him to resign, and poverty caused him to undertake an extensive series of school textbooks which made him well known.

He devoted himself to secondary school education, holding his chair in the College Henri IV at Paris for over a quarter of a century. Already known as a historian by his Histoire des Romains et des peuples soumis à leur domination (7 vols, 1843-1844), he was chosen by Napoleon III to assist him in his biography of Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

, and his abilities being thus brought under the emperor's notice, he was in 1863 appointed minister of education. In this position he worked incessantly, attempting broad and liberal reforms which aroused the bitter hostility of the clerical party. Ironically, despite open domestic opposition to his views in education, in 1868, he was instrumental in the reformation of Galatasaray High School in strict concordance with his secular views, as the first Western-style state higher education institution in Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

.

Among his measures were the reorganization of higher education (enseignement spécial), the foundation of the conférences publiques, which became universal throughout France, and of a course of secondary education for girls by lay teachers. He introduced modern history and modern languages into the curriculum

Curriculum

See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...

 both of the lycées and of the colleges. He greatly improved the state of primary education in France, and proposed to make it compulsory and free of charge, but failed to obtain the emperor's support for this move. In the new cabinet that followed the elections of 1869, Duruy was replaced by Louis Olivier Bourbeau, and was made a senator. After the fall of the Empire he took no part in politics, except for an unsuccessful candidacy for the senate in 1876. From 1881 to 1886 he served as a member of the Conseil Supérieur de l'Instruction Publique. In 1884 he was elected to 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,...

in succession to François Mignet

François Mignet

François Auguste Marie Mignet was a French journalist and historian.-Biography:He was born in Aix-en-Provence , France. His father was a locksmith from the Vendée, who enthusiastically accepted the principles of the French Revolution and encouraged liberal ideas in his son...

.

As an historian Duruy aimed in his earlier works at a graphic and picturesque narrative which should make his subject popular. His fame, however, rests mainly on the revised edition of his Roman history, which appeared in a greatly enlarged form in 5 vols. under the title of Histoire des Romains depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à la mort de Théodose (1879-1885), a really great work; a magnificent illustrated edition was published from 1879 to 1885 (English translation by WJ Clarke, in 6 vols., 1883-1886). His Histoire des Grecs, similarly illustrated, appeared in 3 volumes from 1886 to 1891 (English translation in 4 volumes, 1892). He was the editor, from its commencement in 1846, of the Histoire universelle, publiée par une société de professeurs et de savants, for which he himself wrote a "Histoire sainte d'après la Bible," "Histoire grecque," "Histoire romaine," "Histoire du moyen âge," "Histoire des temps modernes," and "Abrégé de l'histoire de France."

His other works include Atlas historique de la France accompagné d'un volume de texte (1849); Histoire de France de 1453 à 1815 (1856), of which an expanded and illustrated edition appeared as Histoire de France depuis l'invasion des Barbares dans la Gaule romaine jusqu'à nos jours (1892); Histoire populaire de la France (1862-1863); Histoire populaire contemporaine de la France (1864-1866); Causeries de voyage: de Paris à Vienne (1864); and Introduction générale à l'histoire de France (1865).

A memoir by Ernest Lavisse

Ernest Lavisse

Ernest Lavisse was a French historian.- Biography :He was born at Le Nouvion-en-Thiérache, Aisne.In 1865 he obtained a fellowship in history, and in 1875 became a doctor of letters; he was appointed maître de conférence at the École Normale Supérieure, succeeding Fustel de Coulanges, and then...

 appeared in 1895 under the title of Un Ministre: Victor Duruy. See also the notice by Jules Simon

Jules Simon

Jules François Simon was a French statesman and philosopher, and one of the leader of the Opportunist Republicans faction.-Biography:Simon was born at Lorient. His father was a linen-draper from Lorraine, who renounced Protestantism before his second marriage with a Catholic Breton. Jules Simon...

 (1895), and Portraits et souvenirs by Gabriel Monod

Gabriel Monod

Gabriel Monod was a French historian, the nephew of Adolphe Monod.-Biography:Born in Ingouville, Seine-Maritime, he was educated at Le Havre then went to Paris to complete his education, lodging with the de Pressensé family...

(1897).