The coup d’état lost Michelet his place in the Record Office, as, though not in any way identified with the republic administratively, he refused to take the oaths to the empire. But the new régime only kindled afresh his republican zeal, and his second marriage (with Mlle Adèle Malairet, a lady of some literary capacity, and of republican belongings) seems to have further stimulated his powers. While the history steadily held its way, a crowd of extraordinary little books accompanied and diversified it. Sometimes they were expanded versions of its episodes, sometimes what may be called commentaries or companion volumes. In some of the best of them natural science, a new subject with Michelet, to which his wife is believed to have introduced him, supplies the text. The first of these (by no means the best) was Les Femmes de la révolution (1854), in which Michelet's natural and inimitable faculty of dithyrambic too often gives way to tedious and not very conclusive argument and preaching. In the next, L’Oiseau (1856), a new and most successful vein was struck. The subject of natural history was treated, not from the point of view of mere science, nor from that of sentiment, nor of anecdote nor of gossip, but from that of the author's fervent democratic pantheism, and the result, though, as was to be expected, unequal, was often excellent. L’Insecte, in the same key, but duller, followed. It was succeeded by L’Amour (1859), one of the author's most popular books, and not unworthy of its popularity, but perhaps hardly his best. These remarkable works, half pamphlets half moral treatises, succeeded each other as a rule at the twelve months' interval, and the succession was almost unbroken for five or six years. L’Amour was followed by La Femme (1860), a book on which a whole critique of French literature and French character might be founded. Then came La Mer (1861), a return to the natural history class, which, considering the powers of the writer and the attraction of the subject, is perhaps a little disappointing. The next year (1862) the most striking of all Michelet's minor works, La Sorcière, made its appearance. Developed out of an episode of the history, it has all its author's peculiarities in the strongest degree. It is a nightmare and nothing more, but a nightmare of the most extraordinary verisimilitude and poetical power.
This remarkable series, every volume of which was a work at once of imagination and of research, was not even yet finished, but the later volumes exhibit a certain falling off. The ambitious Bible de l’humanité (1864), an historical sketch of religions, has but little merit. In La Montagne (1868), the last of the natural history series, the tricks of staccato style are pushed even farther than by Victor Hugo in his less inspired moments, though—as is inevitable, in the hands of such a master of language as Michelet—the effect is frequently grandiose if not grand. Nos fils (1869), the last of the string of smaller books published during the author's life, is a tractate on education, written with ample knowledge of the facts and with all Michelet's usual sweep, and range of view, if with visibly declining powers of expression. But in a book published posthumously, Le Banquet, these powers reappear at their fullest. The picture of the industrious and famishing populations of the Riviera is (whether true to fact or not) one of the best things that Michelet has done. To complete the list of his miscellaneous works, two collections of pieces, written and partly published at different times, may be mentioned. These are Les Soldats de la revolution and Légendes démocratiques du nord.
The publication of this series of books, and the completion of his history, occupied Michelet during both decades of the empire. He lived partly in France, partly in Italy, and was accustomed to, spend the winter on the Riviera, chiefly at Hyères. At last, in 1867, the great work of his life was finished. In the usual edition it fills nineteen volumes. The first of these deals with the early history up to the death of Charlemagne, the second with the flourishing time of feudal France, the third with the 13th century, the fourth, fifth, and sixth with the Hundred Years' War, the seventh and eighth with the establishment of the rural power under Charles VII. and Louis XI. The 16th and 17th centuries have four volumes apiece, much of which is very distantly connected with French history proper, especially in the two volumes entitled Renaissance and Réforme. The last three volumes carry on the history of the 18th century to the outbreak of the Revolution. Michelet was perhaps the first historian to devote himself to anything like a picturesque history of the middle ages, and his account is still the most vivid that exists. His inquiry into manuscript and printed authorities was most laborious, but his lively imagination, and his strong religious and political prejudices, made him regard all things from a singularly personal point of view. Circumstances which strike his fancy, or furnish convenient texts for his polemic, are handled at inordinate length, while others are rapidly dismissed or passed over altogether.
Uncompromisingly hostile as Michelet was to the empire, its downfall and the accompanying disasters of the country once more stimulated him to activity. Not only did he write letters and pamphlets during the struggle, but when it was over he set himself to complete the vast task which his two great histories had almost covered by a Histoire du XIXe siècle. He did not, however, live to carry it farther than Waterloo, and the best criticism of it is perhaps contained in the opening words of the introduction to the last volume—“l’âge me presse.” The new republic was not altogether a restoration for Michelet, and his professorship at the Collège de France, of which he contended that he had never been properly deprived, was not given back to him. He died at Hyères on the 9th of February 1874.
Almost all Michelet's works, the exceptions being his translations, compilations, &c., are published in uniform size and in about fifty volumes, partly by Marpon and Flammarion, partly by Calmann Lévy. He has not received much recent attention from critics and monographers, but his Origines du droit français, cherchées dans les symboles et formules du droit universel was edited by Émile Faguet in 1890 and went into a second edition in 1900. See G. Monod, Jules Michelet; Études sur la vie et ses œuvres (Paris, 1905). (G. Sa.)
MICHELET, KARL LUDWIG (1801–1893), German philosopher, was born on the 4th of December 1801, at Berlin, where
he died on the 16th of December 1893. He studied at the
gymnasium and at the university of his native town, took
his degree as doctor of philosophy in 1824, and became professor
in 1829, a post which he retained till his death. Educated
in the doctrine of Hegel, he remained faithful to his early teaching
and spent his life in defending and continuing the Hegelian
tradition. His first notable work was the System der philosophischen
Moral (Berlin, 1828), an examination of the ethical
theory of responsibility. In 1836 he published, in Paris, a
treatise on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, written in French and
crowned by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.
He wrote also two other treatises on Aristotle. Nikomachische
Ethik (2nd ed., 1848) and Die Ethik des Aristoteles in ihrem
Verhältniss zum System der Moral (1827). His own views are
best expressed in his Vorlesungen über die Persönlichkeit Gottes
(1841) and Die Epiphanie der ewigen Persönlichkeit des Gottes.
The philosophical theology developed in these works has been
described as a “Neo-Christian Spiritualism.”
Among his other publications may be mentioned Geschichte der letzten Systeme der Philos. in Deutschland von Kant bis Hegel (1837–1838); Anthropologie und Psychologie (1840); Esquisse de logique (Paris, 1856); Naturrecht oder Rechtsphilosophie (1866); Hegel der unwiderlegte Weltphilosoph (1870), Wahrheit aus meinem Leben (1886). From 1832 to 1842, Michelet was engaged in publishing the complete works of Hegel, and in 1845 he founded the Berlin Philosophical Society, which has continuously represented the Hegelianism of Germany. He was the first editor of Der Gedanke (1860), the official organ of the society.
MICHELL, JOHN (1724–1793), English natural philosopher and geologist, was born in 1724, and educated at Queens College, Cambridge. His name appears fourth in the Tripos list for 1748–1749; and in 1755 he was moderator in that examination. He became M.A. in 1752, and B.D. in 1761. He was a fellow of his college, and was appointed Woodwardian professor of geology in 1762, and in 1767 rector of Thornhill in Yorkshire, where he died on the 29th of April 1793. He was
