"sagacity not surpassable." High though such eulogies are, they are scarcely adequate. In Thibaut's works are promises which he did not fulfil, and they contain fertile suggestions which future jurists may utilize. It was not the least of his merits that he introduced scientific methods into legal practice and practical sense into jurisprudence.(J. M†.)
THIELT, a town of Belgium, in the province of West Flanders, 15 miles south-south-east of Bruges, on a branch line between Ingelmunster and Deynze. It manufactures linen and woollen goods, gloves, vinegar and spirits, and has tanneries and bleacheries. There is also some trade in cattle and grain. The town was of considerable import ance in the Middle Ages, but was almost entirely destroyed by fire in 1383, a calamity from which it never wholly recovered. The population in 1876 was 10,527.
THIERRY, the name of two excellent French historians, brothers (Augustin and Amedee), both of whom, though their literary and historical faculty was not quite equal, displayed the same devotion to historical study.
I. Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry (1795-1856), the elder and most gifted, was born at Blois on the 10th May 1795. He had no advantages of birth or fortune, but was greatly distinguished at the Blois grammar school, and entered the Ecole Normale, an establishment which, designed on the best principles to supply France with perfectly equipped teachers, has on the whole done more service to journalism and literature than to pedagogy. He appears to have been very susceptible to personal influences, and was for a time docile to St Simon and afterwards to Cotnte. But his real bent was towards more solid studies, and, under the impulse of the strong current setting at the time towards mediaeval research, he began, and in 1825 published, his History of the Norman Conquest of England, much altered and improved in the later edition of 1840. Two years later he published important Lettres sur V Histoire de France, attacking the traditional method of history-writing, and recommending recourse to the original documents. About this time the heavy calamity of blindness threatened him, and by 1830 he had totally lost his sight. His marriage, however, with Julie de Qu6rengal, a woman of ability, considerably lightened his misfortune, and about the same time he was elected to the Acade"mie des Inscriptions. He continued to pursue his historical studies, now through other eyes, and in 1834 published Dix Ans d j Etudes Historiques, which was followed by his capital work, the Recits Merovingiens, in 1840. His later years were chiefly occupied in the study of the history of the Tiers Etat, which bore fruit in more than one publication. He died at Paris on May 22, 1856.
The duller school of picturesque Dryasdusts (a rather miraculous combination) who have profited by Thierry's labours and continued his work have sometimes charged both him and his brother with having entered on history with their minds full of Walter Scott, and with having subordinated facts to graphic presentation. The charge is entirely unjust, and is generally found in the mouths of those who are particularly ill qualified to make it, inasmuch as they owe Thierry nearly everything in style. By others he is described as the founder of the picturesque school, and in this capacity, no doubt, he has much to answer for. His own work, however, is of a very high and remarkable character. He had hardly any forerunners, unless Gibbon may be counted as one, and his freedom from the besetting sin of his own school the subordination of sober history to picturesque description and romantic narrative is best seen by comparing him with his contemporary Barante, who, however, is himself not to be named otherwise than honoris causa.
II. Amédée Simon Dominique Thierry (1797-1873) was the younger brother of Augustin, and was born on the 2d August 1797. He began life as a journalist (after an essay, like his brother, at schoolmastering), was connected with the famous romantic harbinger the Globe, and obtained a small Government clerkship. His first book was a brief history of Guienno in 1825, and three years later appeared the Histoire des Gaulois, which was received with much favour, and obtained him, from the royalist premier Martignac, a history professorship at Besangon. He was, however, thought too liberal for the Government of Charles X., and his lectures were stopped, with the result of securing him, after the revolution, the important post of prefect of the Haute-Saone, which he held eight years. During this time he published nothing. In 1838 he was transferred to the council of state as master of requests, which post he held through the revolution of 1848 and the coup d'etat till 1860, when he was made senator a paid office, it must be remembered, and, in effect, a lucrative sinecure. He also passed through all the ranks of the Legion of Honour, became a member of the Academie des Inscriptions in 1841, and in 1862 received the honorary degree of D.C.L. at Oxford. He had, except during the time of his prefecture, never intermitted his literary work, being a constant contributor to the Revue des Deux Mondes, his articles (usually worked up after wards into books) almost all dealing with Roman Gaul and its period. The chief were the Histoire d'Attila (1856), frequently reprinted, the Histoire de la Gaule sous V Administration Romaine (1840-2), a Tableau de VEmpire Romain, and, in imitation of his brother, certain Recits of Roman history, a book on St Jerome in 1867, and one on Chrysostom and Eudoxia in 1873. He died March 27, 1873.
His literary and historical genius was perhaps inferior to his brother's, and he exhibits more of the defects of the anecdotic method of writing history, but he shared Augustin's passion for going to the fountainhead and for animating the dry bones of mere chronicles and mere academic discussions with accounts of the life of peoples.
THIERS, a town of France, chef-lieu of an arrondissement in the department of Puy-de-Dome, on the railway between Clermont and St Etienne, 24 miles east-north east of the former town. It is most picturesquely situated on the side of a hill, at the foot of which the Durolle rapidly descends through a narrow valley into the Dore, in its turn a tributary of the Allier. The streets, rising in steep rows, contain many wooden and gabled houses, some of which are as old as the 15th century, and a fine view of the Plain of Limagne and the Dome Hills is obtainable from the terraces. All the processes of making cutlery maybe seen at Thiers, giving employment to 12,000 work men in the town and the villages within a radius of 6 to 7 miles. Sheath-making, tanning, and paper-making (chiefly stamps and playing cards) employ 8000 hands, and the business done reaches 1,200,000 per annum. The church of Le Moutier, so named from a Benedictine monastery of which it formed part, contains building of the 7th, 8th, and 11th centuries; the tower is more modern. There were 12,005 inhabitants in 1886 (commune 16,754).
Thiers was sacked in 523 by the soldiers of Thierry, the son of Clovis; and Gregory of Tours speaks of a wooden chapel which then existed here (on the site of the present church of Le Moutier). The church of St Genez was built in 573 by Avitus, bishop of Clermont, on the site of the ancient Tigernum Castrum, was rebuilt in 1016 by Wido, lord of Thiers, and again in the 12th century. There is some curious mosaic work of the 12th century, and a fine tomb of the 13th. The commercial importance of Thiers was greatly increased three centuries ago, when the manufacture of the larger kinds of cutlery was introduced from Chateldon, between Vichy and Thiers.
