1029 



THIERS, LOUIS-ADOLPHE. 



THII-HS, LOUIS-ADOLPHE. 



1030 



for which her husband wrote an introduction. She was also the author 

 of a number of clever essays in the ' Revue des deux mondes.' She 

 died on June 10, 1844. 



* THIERS, LOUIS- ADOLPHE, French statesman and historian, 

 was born at Marseille on the 16th of April 1797. His father was a 

 working locksmith ; his mother was of a mercantile family of the 

 town which had fallen in circumstances, but could boast of having 

 given birth to Joseph and Andrew Chenier. Through the influence of 

 bis mother's family, Thiers was admitted when a boy to the Lyceum 

 of Marseille, where he was one of those who received a gratuitous 

 education at the imperial expense. It was intended that he should 

 proceed from the school to the flcole Polytechnique, in order to be 

 educated for the military service of the empire ; but the fall of the 

 empire and the restoration of the Bourbons having put an end to this 

 design, he resolved to become an ' avocat ' and went to Aix to study 

 jurisprudence. It was at the college of Aix that he formed his 

 acquaintance with M. Mignet, then also a student of law there, and 

 between whom and M. Thiers there has ever since been a close in- 

 timacy both personal and political. At Aix young Thiers distinguished 

 himself by his vivacity and talent, and his fondness for historical and 

 economical studies. A curious story is told illustrative of his clever- 

 ness while at college. The authorities of the college had offered a 

 prize for the best eloge on Vauvenargues ; and Thiers had given in 

 an eloge which was found to be the best. At that time, however, 

 political feeling ran high among the authorities of the college some 

 being eager liberals, and others eager royalists; and, it having trans- 

 pired, before the opening of the sealed packets containing the com- 

 petitors' names, that the author of the successful e"loge was the 

 young liberal M. Thiers, the royalist party among the judges were 

 strong enough to prevent the prize being awarded. No prize was 

 given, and the same subject was prescribed for competition in the 

 following year. That year Thiers again sent in the identical eloge 

 which had in his opinion been unfairly treated in the former year. 

 It was pronounced to be second in merit, the prize being awarded to 

 another essay which had been sent from Paris. It remained to ascer- 

 tain who was the author of this piece ; and greatly to the discomfi- 

 ture of the judges, when the sealed packet containing the name was 

 opened, it was found that the writer of this eloge also was M. Thiers, 

 who had resorted to this trick, partly by way of revenge, partly by 

 way of frolic. 



His education having been finished, M. Thiers began practice as an 

 'avocat,' but had little success. He therefore, turned his attention 

 to literature, and removed to Paris. Many stories are told of his 

 extreme poverty at this time, and of the shifts to which he was put ; 

 but these are contradicted by his friends, who assert them to be the 

 calumnies of political animosity. At all events, about the year 1823, 

 M. Thiers having made the acquaintance of M. Manuel, whose political 

 influence was then at its highest, was by him introduced to M. Etienne, 

 the conductor of the ' Constitutionnel,' and began to contribute re- 

 gularly to that journal on political and other subjects. While thus 

 earning a moderate livelihood as a liberal journalist under the 

 Restoration, he was privately engaged in authorship of a more ambi- 

 tious kind. As early as 1823 he had written a sketch entitled ' The 

 Pyrenees and the South of France during the months of November 

 and December 1822,' of which a translation appeared in English ; and 

 about the same time, assisted by information on financial subjects 

 supplied him by M. le Baron Louis, a great authority on such matters, 

 he wrote an account of Law and his schemes, which appeared in a 

 review. But the work which he had prescribed for his leisure was a 

 'History of the French Revolution.' He had diligently gathered 

 documentary materials ; and, in order to inform himself on special 

 topics, he made it his business to become acquainted with survivors 

 who had acted special parts in that great; crisis. The first volume 

 appeared in 1823, and the others were successively published, till the 

 work was completed in 1830. At first the work did not attract much 

 attention ; but before it was concluded, it had produced a powerful 

 sensation. Since that time there have been many histories of the 

 French Revolution; but, published as the work of M. Thiers was 

 during the Restoration, the sympathies which it showed with the 

 Revolution, and the boldness with which it endeavoured to revive the 

 reputations of the great actors in that extraordinary drama, were 

 something original in French historical literature. Even now, though 

 its accuracy has been assailed in many points, and though there are 

 many rival-histories of the Revolution, characterised by merits of a 

 different kind, the work, by reason of its fullness of detail, and its 

 vivacity of style, retains a high place both in France and in other 

 countries. 



It was the Revolution of 1830 however that brought M. Thiers into 

 prominence in the active politics of France. M. Cormenin, one of his 

 bitterest critics, thus sarcastically sums up the tenor of the life of M. 

 Thiers prior to this epoch, in one of his well-known sketches published 

 under the name of Timon. " Born poor, he required fortune ; born 

 obscure, he required a name ; an unsuccessful ' avocat ' he became a 

 'lite'rrateur,' and threw himself into the liberal party rather from 

 necessity than from conviction." At the Revolution of 1830, he con- 

 tinues, M. Thiers was nothing, " neither elector nor eligible, neither 

 deputy nor minister, nor even academician : " and but for this event, 

 he says, " he would have grown old in the esteem of a literary clique." 



These are the expressions of a satirist, and the same might be said of 

 many other men who have been eminent in France since 1830. There 

 can be no doubt that Thiers contributed powerfully to the preparation 

 for the Revolution. Both in consequence of bu hiitory and of bis 

 writings as a journalist he was already recognised some time before the 

 Revolution as one of the most active men of the revolutionary party 

 among the French liberals, as distinct from the ' doctrinaire' party, of 

 which the Due de Broglie, M. de Remusat, Duvergie de Hausanne, and 

 Guizot were the heads. He was on ultimate terms with Lafitte, 

 Manuel, Beranger, and Armand Carrell ; and when the last of these 

 projected the famous journal called the ' National,' as an organ of the 

 more revolutionary form of liberalism, he associated Thiers and 

 Mignet with himself for the purpose of carrying it on. It was agreed 

 that the three should be editors in turn, each for a year ; and Thiers 

 was chosen editor for the first year. The first number appeared on 

 the 1st of January 1830, and no journal did more to damage the causa 

 of Bourbon legitimacy during the first half of that year. The main 

 idea of the journal under the management of Tbiers, say the French 

 writers, was " guerre a la royaute", mais guerre legale, guerre consti- 

 tutionelle, guerre au nom de la charte." In other words, the opinions 

 of M. Thiers were not those of the Republic ; and what he wanted was 

 something in France that should be tantamount to the Revolution of 

 1688 in England i.e., that should secure constitutional sovereignty 

 with a change of person. The natural issue of such views was 

 Orleanism; and, accordingly, after the three days of July (during 

 which the office of the ' National ' was the headquarters of the oppo- 

 sition to government, though M. Thiers was afterwards accused of 

 having consulted his personal safety when affairs were at the worst by 

 withdrawing from the immediate scene of danger), M. Thiers had an 

 important share with Lafitte and others in the arrangements which 

 brought Louis Philippe to the throne. This solution exactly answered 

 his views, which were as adverse to a pure Republic as to legitimacy ; 

 he prepared the public mind for it by placards and the like; and 

 it was he who undertook the mission to Neuilly to invite Louis 

 Philippe to assume the government. 



M. Thiers was, of course, a prominent man in the new system of 

 things which he had helped to bring about. He first held an office 

 in the Finance ministry under his old patron M. le Baron Louis, and 

 showed such talent in the office that, when this first cabinet of Louis- 

 Philippe resigned in November 1830, the minister recommended 

 Thiers as his successor. M. Tbiera prudently declined so sudden a 

 promotion, and contented himself with an under-secretaryship in the 

 Lafitte ministry, which lasted from November 1830 till March 1831. 

 In this ministry he still made financial administration his speciality ; 

 while as deputy for Aix he began his career as a parliamentary orator. 

 At first his attempts in this latter character were not very successful, 

 his extremely diminutive, and even odd and mean appearance operating 

 to his prejudice in the tribune ; but very soon he acquired that 

 wonderful volubility and that power of easy, familiar, anecdotic and 

 amusing, and yet bold and incisive rhetoric which have characterised 

 his oratory since, and which contrast so markedly with the graver and 

 more earnest eloquence of Guizot. On the accession of the Casimir 

 Perier ministry in March 1831, M. Tbiers went out of office, and had 

 even to contest the election at Aix with an adherent of the ministry ; 

 but very soon he deserted the opposition and astounded the Chamber 

 by a speech against its policy. The consequence was, on the one 

 hand, that he was appointed chief of the commission on the budget, 

 in whose name he presented the report ; and that, on the other hand, 

 he lost his popularity, and was assailed everywhere as a traitor to 

 liberalism and a mere political charlatan. It was at this time that he 

 visited Italy on a political mission, and conceived the idea of writing 

 a history of Florence. On the accession of the Soult ministry in 

 October 1832 it was with some difficulty that M. Thiers was placed to 

 his mind : at last however he was fixed in the Ministry of the 

 Interior, M. Guizot being appointed Minister of Public Instruction, 

 and M. le Due de Broglie being also in the cabinet. As Minister of 

 the Interior M. Thiers planned and executed the arrest of the Duchess 

 de Berry. On the subdivision of the Ministry of the Interior he chose 

 the Ministry of Commerce and Public Works ; and it was while hold- 

 ing this office that he declared himself hi various important questions 

 affecting the internal politics of France. His interest in the railway 

 system and in the question of tariff reform led him to visit England ; 

 and the result was that though he advocated a political alliance with 

 England, he deprecated a commercial alliance, and declared in favour 

 of a Protectionist policy. "As for freedom of commerce," says one 

 of his biographers, " M. Thiers had little faith in the theories of the 

 cosmopolite dreamers." He also favoured all measures tending to cen- 

 tralisation in France. "M. Thiers," says the same biographer, "loves 

 to cite those two acts of his life which he regards as great services 

 rendered to his country his having saved the national industry by 

 maintaining the protective system, and the French unity by centrali- 

 sation." In general politics the part taken by M. Thiers was such 

 that he was no longer regarded as a popular liberal, but rather as a 

 decided Orleanist and therefore Conservative, His hostility to political 

 associations increased his unpopularity with the Republican or ad- 

 vanced liberal party. In short, Thiers had made up his mind to live 

 and die as a minister of Louis-Philippe. This position he retained 

 after the re-construction of the Soult ministry in April 1834. He 



