de France (1668), are compilations which were eagerly read when they
appeared, but are worthless nowadays. Historical research lacked
method, leaders and trained workers; it found them all in the 17th
century, the golden age of learning which was honoured alike by
laymen, priests and members of the monastic orders, especially the
Benedictines of the congregation of St Maur. The publication of
original documents was carried on with enthusiasm. To André
Duchesne we owe two great collections of chronicles: the Historiae
Normannorum scriptores antiqui (1619) and the Historiae Francorum
scriptores, continued by his son François (5 vols., 1636–1649).
These publications were due to a part only of his prodigious activity;
his papers and manuscripts, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale
at Paris, are an inexhaustible mine. Charles du Fresne, seigneur
du Cange, published Villehardouin (1657) and Joinville (1668);
Étienne Baluze, the Capitularia regum Francorum (1674), the Nova
collectio conciliorum (1677), the Vitae paparum Avenionensium
(1693). The clergy were very much aided in their work by their
private libraries and by their co-operation; Père Philippe Labbe
published his Bibliotheca nova manuscriptorum (1657), and began
(1671) his Collection des conciles, which was successfully completed
by his colleague Père Cossart (18 vols.). In 1643 the Jesuit Jean
Bolland brought out vol. i. of the Acta sanctorum, a vast collection
of stories and legends which has not yet been completed beyond the
4th of November. (See Bollandists.) The Benedictines, for
their part, published the Acta sanctorum ordinis sancti Benedicti
(9 vols., 1668–1701). One of the chief editors of this collection, Dom
Jean Mabillon, published on his own account the Vetera analecta
(4 vols., 1675–1685) and prepared the Annales ordinis sancti Benedicti
(6 vols., 1703–1793). To Dom Thierri Ruinart we owe good editions
of Gregory of Tours and Fredegarius (1699). The learning of the
17th century further inaugurated those specialized studies which are
important aids to history. Mabillon in his De re diplomatica (1681)
creates the science of documents or diplomatics. Adrien de Valois
lays a sound foundation for historical geography by his critical
edition of the Notitia Galliarum (1675). Numismatics finds an enlightened
pioneer in François Leblanc (Traité historique des monnaies
de France, 1690). Du Cange, one of the greatest of the French
scholars who have studied the middle ages, has defined terms
bearing on institutions in his Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis
(1678), recast by the Benedictines (1733), with an important supplement
by Dom Carpentier (1768), republished twice during the 19th
century, with additions, by F. Didot (1840–1850), and by L. Favre at
Niort (1883–1888); this work is still indispensable to every student
of medieval history. Finally, great biographical or bibliographical
works were undertaken; the Gallia christiana, which gave a chronological
list of the archbishops, bishops and abbots of the Gauls and
of France, was compiled by two twin brothers, Scévole and Louis
de Sainte-Marthe, and by the two sons of Louis (4 vols., 1656); a
fresh edition, on a better plan, and with great additions, was begun
in 1715 by Denys de Sainte-Marthe, continued throughout the 18th
century by the Benedictines, and finished in the 19th century by
Barthélemy Hauréau (1856–1861).
As to the nobility, a series of researches and publications, begun by Pierre d’Hozier (d. 1660) and continued well on into the 19th century by several of his descendants, developed into the Armorial général de la France, which was remodelled several times. A similar work, of a more critical nature, was carried out by Père Anselme (Histoire généalogique de la maison de France et des grands officiers de la couronne, 1674) and by Père Ange and Père Simplicien, who completed the work (3rd ed. in 9 vols., 1726–1733). Critical bibliography is especially represented by certain Protestants, expelled from France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Pierre Bayle, the sceptic, famous for his Dictionnaire critique (1699), which is in part a refutation of the Dictionnaire historique et géographique published in 1673 by the Abbé Louis Moréri, was the first to publish the Nouvelles de la république des lettres (1684–1687), which was continued by Henri Basnage de Beauval under the title of Histoire des ouvrages des savants (24 vols.). In imitation of this, Jean Le Clerc successively edited a Bibliothèque universelle et historique (1686–1693), a Bibliothèque choisie (1703–1713), and a Bibliothèque ancienne et moderne (1714–1727). These were the first of our “periodicals.”
The 18th century continues the traditions of the 17th. The Benedictines still for some time hold the first place. Dom Edmond Martène visited numerous archives (which were then closed) in France and neighbouring countries, and drew from them the material for two important collections: Thesaurus novus anecdotorum (9 vols., 1717, in collaboration with Dom Ursin Durand) and Veterum scriptorum collectio (9 vols., 1724–1733). Dom Bernard de Montfaucon also travelled in search of illustrated records of antiquity; private collections, among others the celebrated collection of Gaignières (now in the Bibliothèque Nationale), provided him with the illustrations which he published in his Monuments de la monarchie françoise (5 vols., 1729–1733). The text is in two languages, Latin and French. Dom Martin Bouquet took up the work begun by the two Duchesnes, and in 1738 published vol. i. of the Historians of France (Rerum Gallicarum et Francicarum scriptores), an enormous collection which was intended to include all the sources of the history of France, grouped under centuries and reigns. He produced the first eight volumes himself; his work was continued by several collaborators, the most active of whom was Dom Michel J. Brial, and already comprised thirteen volumes when it was interrupted by the Revolution. In 1733, Antoine Rivet de La Grange produced vol. i. of the Histoire littéraire de la France, which in 1789 numbered twelve volumes. While Dom C. François Toustaint and Dom René Prosper Tassin published a Nouveau Traité de diplomatique (6 vols., 1750–1765), others were undertaking the Art de vérifier les dates (1750; new and much enlarged edition in 1770). Still others, with more or less success, attempted histories of the provinces.
In the second half of the 18th century, the ardour of the Benedictines of St Maur diminished, and scientific work passed more and more into the hands of laymen. The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, founded in 1663 and reorganized in 1701, became its chief instrument, numbering among its members Denis François Secousse, who continued the collection of Ordonnances des rois de France, begun (1723) by J. de Laurière; J.-B. de La Curne de Sainte Palaye (Mémoires sur l’ancienne chevalerie, 1759–1781; Glossaire de la langue française depuis son origine jusqu’à la fin de Louis XIV, printed only in 1875–1882); J.-B. d’Anville (Notice sur l’ancienne Gaule tirée des monuments, 1760); and L. G. de Bréquigny, the greatest of them all, who continued the publication of the Ordonnances, began the Table chronologique des diplômes concernant l’histoire de France (3 vols., 1769–1783), published the Diplomata, chartae, ad res Francicas spectantia (1791, with the collaboration of La Porte du Theil), and directed fruitful researches in the archives in London, to enrich the Cabinet des chartes, where Henri Bertin (1719–1792), an enlightened minister of Louis XV., had in 1764 set himself the task of collecting the documentary sources of the national history. The example set by the religious orders and the government bore fruit. The general assembly of the clergy gave orders that its Procès verbaux (9 vols., 1767–1789) should be printed; some of the provinces decided to have their history written, and mostly applied to the Benedictines to have this done. Brittany was treated by Dom Lobineau (1707) and Dom Morice (1742); the duchy of Burgundy by Dom Urbain Plancher (1739–1748); Languedoc by Dom Dominique Vaissète (1730–1749, in collaboration with Dom Claude de Vic; new ed. 1873–1893); for Paris, its secular history was treated by Dom Michel Félibien and Dom Lobineau (1725), and its ecclesiastical history by the abbé Lebeuf (1745–1760; new ed. 1883–1890).
This ever-increasing stream of new evidence aroused curiosity, gave rise to pregnant comparisons, developed and sharpened the critical sense, but further led to a more and more urgent need for exact information. The Académie des Inscriptions brought out its Histoire de l’Académie avec les mémoires de littérature tirés de ses registres (vol. i. 1717; 51 vols. appeared before the Revolution, with five indexes; vide the Bibliographie of Lasteyrie, vol. iii. pp. 256 et seq.). Other collections, mostly of the nature of bibliographies, were the Journal des savants (111 vols., from 1665 to 1792; vide the Table méthodique by H. Cocheris, 1860); the Journal de Trévoux, or Mémoires pour l’histoire des sciences et des beaux-arts, edited by Jesuits (265 vols., 1701–1790); the Mercure de France (977 vols., from 1724 to 1791). To these must be added the dictionaries and encyclopaedias: the Dictionnaire de Moréri, the last edition of which numbers 10 vols. (1759); the Dictionnaire géographique, historique et politique des Gaules et de la France, by the abbé J. J. Expilly (6 vols., 1762–1770; unfinished); the Répertoire universel et raisonné de jurisprudence civile, criminelle, canonique et bénéficiale, by Guyot (64 vols., 1775–1786; supplement in 17 vols., 1784–1785), reorganized and continued by Merlin de Douai, who was afterwards one of the Montagnards, a member of the Directory, and a count under the Empire.
The historians did not use to the greatest advantage the treasures of learning provided for them; they were for the most part superficial, and dominated by their political or religious prejudices. Thus works like that of Père Gabriel Daniel (Histoire de France, 3 vols., 1713), of Président Hénault (Abrégé chronologique, 1744; 25 editions between 1770 and 1834), of the abbé Paul François Velly and those who completed his work (Histoire de France, 33 vols., 1765 to 1783), of G. H. Gaillard (Histoire de la rivalité de la France et de l’Angleterre, 11 vols., 1771–1777), and of L. P. Anquetil (1805), in spite of the brilliant success with which they met at first, have fallen into a just oblivion. A separate place must be given to the works of the theorists and philosophers: Histoire de l’ancien gouvernement de la France, by the Comte de Boulainvilliers (1727), Histoire critique de l’établissement de la monarchie françoise dans les deux Gaules, by the abbé J. B. Dubos (1734); L’Esprit des lois, by the président de Montesquieu (1748); the Observations sur l’histoire de France, by the abbé de Mably (1765); the Théorie de la politique de la monarchie française, by Marie Pauline de Lézardière (1792). These works have, if nothing else, the merit of provoking reflection.
At the time of the Revolution this activity was checked. The religious communities and royal academies were suppressed, and France violently broke with even her most recent past, which was considered to belong to the ancien régime. When peace was re-established, she began the task of making good the damage which had been done, but a greater effort was now necessary in order to revive the spirit of the institutions which had been overthrown. The new state, which was, in spite of all, bound by so many ties to the former order of things, seconded this effort, and during the
