Pierre Claude François Daunou
Pierre Claude François Daunou | |
---|---|
Born | Pierre Claude François Daunou 18 August 1761 |
Died | 20 June 1840 | (aged 78)
Known for | French statesman and historian |
Pierre Claude François Daunou (French: [donu]; 18 August 1761 – 20 June 1840) was a French statesman of the French Revolution and Empire. An author and historian, he served as the nation's archivist under both the Empire and the Restoration, contributed a volume to the Histoire littéraire de la France, and published more than twenty volumes of lectures he delivered when he held the chair of history and ethics at the Collège de France.
Early career
He was born at Boulogne-sur-Mer. After studying at the school the Oratorians operates there, he joined the order in Paris in 1777. He was professor in various seminaries from 1780 to 1787, when he was ordained a priest. He had by then published essays and poems that established his reputation in literary circles.
With the onset of the French Revolution, he supported the
Elected to the
Directory
In December 1794 he returned to the convention and was the principal author of the
Daunou also drew up the plans for the erection and organization of the
Napoleon and Restoration
In 1799, Daunou returned the role of statesman, preparing the
Nonetheless, he took little part in the new regime, of which he was resentful, and turned more and more to literature. At the Restoration in 1814, he was deprived of the post of archivist of the Empire, which he had held since 1807. In 1819 he became the chair of history and ethics at the Collège de France; in that role, his courses were among the most famous of the period. With the advent of the July Monarchy in 1830, he regained his old post, now under the title archivist of the Kingdom. In 1839, Daunou was made a peer.[1]
Legacy
The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition writes:
In politics Daunou was a Girondist without combativeness; a confirmed
republican, who lent himself always to the policy of conciliation, but whose probity remained unchallenged. He belonged essentially to the centre, and lacked both the genius and the temperament which would secure for him a commanding place in a revolutionary era. As an historian his breadth of view is remarkable for his time; for although thoroughly imbued with the classical spirit of the 18th century, he was able to do justice to the middle ages. His Discours sur l'état des lettres au XIIIe siècle, in the sixteenth volume of the Histoire littéraire de France, is a remarkable contribution to that vast collection, especially as coming from an author so profoundly learned in the ancient classics. Daunou's lectures at the Collège de France, collected and published after his death, fill twenty volumes (Cours d'études historiques, 1842–1846). They deal principally with the criticism of sources and the proper method of writing history, and occupy an important place in the evolution of the scientific study of history in France. All his works were written in an elegant style; but apart from his share in the editing of the Historiens de la France, they were mostly in the form of separate articles on literary and historical subjects. In character, Daunou was reserved and somewhat austere, preserving in his habits a strange mixture of bourgeois and monk. His indefatigable work as archivist in the time when Napoleon was transferring so many treasures to Paris won him the gratitude of later scholars.[1]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Daunou, Pierre Claude François". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 849–850. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Additional sources
- Cuccia, Phillip (2013). "Controlling the Archives: The Requisition, Removal, and Return of the Vatican Archives during the Age of Napoleon". Napoleonica. La Revue. 2 (17): 66–74. . Retrieved 29 October 2019.
External links
- Media related to Pierre Daunou at Wikimedia Commons
- Works by Pierre Claude François Daunou at Project Gutenberg
- Pierre Claude François Daunou pamphlets and works from the Ball State University Digital Media Repository