1031 



THIERSCH, PRIEDRICH WILHELM. 



THION DE LA. CHAUME, CLAUDE-ESPRIT. 



1032 



then resumed the Ministry of the Interior, in which capacity he had 

 to direct measures for the suppression of the Lyon insurrection. w Ho 

 retained the same ministry, under Marshal Gerard and M. le Due 

 de Broglie till February 1836 ; and he was at the side of Marshal 

 Mortier when that general lost his life by the explosion of Fieschi's 

 infernal machine (July 28, 1835). At length, on the dissolution of 

 the Broglie ministry, Thiers attained the highest political position to 

 which he could- aspire, in being named by Louis Philippe to the 

 presidency of the council and tho ministry for Foreign Affairs (Feb. 

 22, 1836). He remained at the head of the government till August 

 1836, when a difference with the king on Spanish affairs obliged him 

 to resign. He was again chief minister in 1840, and then showed 

 himself rather against the English alliance and eager for a war-policy 

 which would gratify the military passions of France ; but Quizot at 

 length succeeded in adapting himself to the tastes and wishes of Louis- 

 Philippe, and during the last years of this king's reign, the Thiers 

 party was one of the elements of the opposition in its own opinion, 

 the most powerful element, though not in reality such. It was at this 

 time that M. Thiers, relieved from official duty, returned to author- 

 ship and produced, in continuation of his former work, his well-known 

 ' History of the Consulate and the Empire ' (1845). While the literary 

 merits of this work are acknowledged, its accuracy has been impeached 

 on various hands. 



The revolution of 1848, proving as it did that there were deeper 

 forces at work in France than were represented by the alternative of a 

 Thiers ministry or a Quizot ministry, seems to have terminated the 

 political existence of M. Thiers as well as that of his rival. During 

 the Revolution, indeed, Thiers was for a moment seen exerting himself 

 as the man to whom it fell of right to be called in when Guizot had 

 disappeared ; but he was immediately swept away along with the 

 Orleanistn which he represented, and the Republicans had the use of 

 the victory which the people had gained. While the republic lasted, 

 Thiers, so far as his influence was openly exerted at all, appeared 

 chiefly as the opponent of the Socialist party, and of the tendencies 

 of the Republic generally. He spoke against the " right to labour " 

 and the " ateliers nationaux " in the National Assembly (of which, 

 as well as of the Constituent Assembly, he was a member) ; and he 

 wrote at the same time his treatises 'Du Droit de Propriete"' (1848) 

 and 'Du Communisme" (1849) by way of answer to the theories of 

 the-Socialists. His real political aim at this time was doubtless the 

 restoration of the Orleans djnasty in some form or other; and, it was 

 supposed to be in the interest of this aim that in 1851, during the 

 Presidency of Louis Napoleon, he visited the exiled Orleans family in 

 England. The coup d'dtat came to destroy all Orleanist schemes as 

 well as those of the Republicans and the Legitimists ; and M. Thiers 

 found himself au exile for a time. He resided first in Brussels; and 

 was afterwards again in London. He now resides in Paris, acquiescing 

 in the Empire like so mauy others once prominent in active French 

 politics, but not reconciled to it so as -either to be offered or to accept 

 employment under it. He is understood to be engaged in literary 

 labour, like his old rival Guizot; for whom however now that the lives 

 of both are seen in retrospect, men in general seem to entertain on 

 the whole a far higher degree of respect than they accord to the 

 nimble and volatile Thiers. Want of earnest principle is a common 

 charge against politicians ; but against no politician of modern times has 

 the charge been so incessantly repeated both by French and by foreign 

 writers as against M. Thiers ; and among numerous French sketches 

 of his life and character there are few that are not hostile in spirit. 



* THIERSCH, FRIEDRICH- WILHELM, privy counsellor and 

 professor of ancient literature in the University of Munich, was 

 born on June 17, 1784, at Kirschcheidungen near Freiburg, in the 

 Grand Duchy of Baden. After being prepared at school he was sent 

 to the college at Naumberg. He then went to the University of 

 Leipzic in 1804, where he studied theology and philosophy, which last 

 became his favourite pursuit. In 1807 he removed to Gottingen, 

 studied under Heyne, and received a degree in 1808 after delivering 

 an essay, ' Specimen editionis Symposii Platonis,' and was appointed a 

 teacher in the Gymnasium of that town. The remarkable talent for 

 instruction which he here displayed occasioned his being appointed 

 professor in the newly-established Gymnasium at Munich, where he 

 became, by his active exertions, the great promoter of philological 

 studies in Bavaria. The appointment however of a foreigner as he 

 was then considered, caused much dislike among many, and the oppo- 

 sition was carried on with extreme virulence, while a paper which he 

 published in 1810 on the recognised difference between North and 

 South Germany, increased it to such an extent that it is asserted his 

 life was attempted, and it no doubt disturbed, though it could not 

 altogether impede, his exertions. Of this contest, which however he 

 lived down, Jacobs has given a trustworthy account in his ' Persona- 

 lien,' published in 1840. Towards the end of this unworthy quarrel he 

 established a philological institute, which in 1812 was united with 

 the Munich Academy, and at the same time, to unite the talent of the 

 scholars, he commenced publishing the ' Acta philologorum monacen- 

 Eium,' which contained papers by several eminent men besides him- 

 self, and was continued from 1811 to 1825, forming three volumes. 

 During the war of Liberation he took an active part in the military 

 organisation of the students. In 1813 he journeyed to Paris, where he 

 formed an intimacy with Visconti; thence he visited England; and 



was then sent as commissioner from Bavaria to demand the restitution 

 of the objects of art of which it had been despoiled. He also, at this 

 time, took a warm interest in the re-establishment and liberation of 

 Greece, endeavouring to promote a scientific union with Germany by 

 means of the Munich Academy, and by the constitution _of an Athe- 

 naeum in which young Greeks might bo educated. To further his 

 object he visited Count Capo d'Istria at Vienna in 1815, but took no 

 part in his political designs. At this time all his literary activity took 

 this direction, either in reference to the language or the antiquities of 

 that country. In 1812 he published a Greek grammar, particularly 

 of the Homeric dialect, in which the syntax is explained from its 

 simplest to the most complicated forms, and which has gone through 

 several editions. In 1820 he published an edition of Pindar's Odes, 

 with an introduction, explanatory notes, and a German translation in 

 verse, a work that was received with great approbation, as was also 

 that ' Ueber die Epochen des bildenden Kunst unter den Griechen' (On 

 the Epochs of the Plastic Art among the Greeks), between 1816 and 

 1825, in 4 vols., and which has been since reprinted. To extend and 

 improve his archaeological knowledge he visited Italy in 1822, and the 

 result was given to the world in 1826 in his 'Reisen nach Italien,' in 

 which he was assisted by Schorn, Gerhard, and Klenze. In 1831 he 

 made a jour 1 :ey to Greece, where he was warmly welcomed, and his 

 exertions had no doubt considerable influence in procuring the settle- 

 ment of the crown of Greece on the head of Otho, the son of the king 

 of Bavaria. On his return, he published in 2 vols., in 1833, 'De 1'dtat 

 actuel de la Grece et des moyens d'arriver a sa restoration," a work 

 written in French, of which language he was by no means a complete 

 master. The first volume contains an account of the adminis- 

 tration of Capo d'Istria, and of his own proceedings for the pro- 

 motion of Otho's election, both the facts and the opinions propounded 

 therein being liable to considerable doubt. In the second volume, 

 ' On the situation of Greece, and the Means to be adopted to restore 

 it to tranquillity,' the most valuable parts are those in which he 

 treats of the antiquities, his political schemes being very vague and 

 indefinite. 



In the meantime he had become involved in a fresh subject of con- 

 troversy. He had been commissioned to make an investigation of the 

 state of the Gymnasiums (or higher schools) in Bavaria, and in 1826 he 

 published his first not very favourable report of them ' Ueber ge- 

 lehrte Schulen, mit besonderen Riicksicht auf Baiern ' ( On Classical 

 Schools, particularly as to those of Bavaria), and which by 1837 was 

 increased to three volumes, and to which another, 'Ueber die neuesten 

 Angriffe auf die Universitateu ' (On the latest Attacks on the Universi- 

 ties), forms a necessary appendix, for there he warmly supports the old 

 classical studies, and he has had a host of antagonists who advocate in 

 preference the Real schools. [The Real schools, it may be necessary to 

 state, are schools in which the study of the classics is not made impera- 

 tive, and to some extent they resemble the proprietary or commercial 

 schools of England, in which what is called a more generally useful 

 system of instruction is pursued.] It is not necessary to detail this 

 controversy, which is not ended, though Thiersch continues to maintain 

 his position. In 1847 he rendered considerable service by repressing, 

 by his influence and advice, an outbreak of the ultramontane party 

 among the students of the University. Thiersch, in addition to the 

 works above mentioned, has been a frequent and valuable contributor 

 to the publications of the Munich Akademie der Wissenschaften, and 

 has written and published pamphlets on some subjects of exciting 

 though temporary interest ; one, in which he supported the exemption 

 of Protestants from the necessity of bowing the knee on certain cere- 

 monials, is highly valued by his fellow-believers. His contributions to 

 classical literature, his activity in advocating the freedom of Greece, 

 and his strenuous exertions for the promotion of education of a high 

 order, not only in Bavaria but throughout the whole of Germany, have 

 acquired him a high and well-deserved estimation among the whole of 

 his fellow-countrymen. 



THION DE LA CHAUME, CLAUDE-ESPRIT, an eminent French 

 physician, was born at Paris, January 16, 1750. His father, who was 

 a banker, gave him an excellent education, and destined him originally 

 for the bar, but he himself preferred the study of medicine. He 

 commenced his studies at Paris with great success, but, for some 

 unknown reason, took his Doctor's degree at Rheims. In 1773 he was 

 appointed physician to the military hospital at Monaco in Italy, 

 which was then occupied by a French garrison; and in 1778 to that 

 at Ajaccio in Corsica. His zeal and talents were rewarded by the 

 rank of chief physician to the troops destined to lay siege to Minorca 

 and shortly afterwards to Gibraltar. Here' he had to treat a fatal 

 epidemic which prevailed among the combined French and Spanish 

 forces in a typhoid form, the description of which same disease 

 immortalised the name of Pringle towards the middle of the last 

 century. This same squadron had already put ashore and left at 

 Cadiz a great number of Frenchmen that had been attacked by the 

 disease, when, in the beginning of September 1782, it came to the bay 

 of Algesiras. Here the naval hospital could only receive fifty of their 

 sick, while as many as five hundred were in want of admission ; and 

 to place these in private houses was not only a very difficult, but also 

 an undesirable proceeding. In these embarrassing circumstances 

 Thion de la Chaume conceived the happy idea of making the sick 

 encamp under tents as soon as they landed, an arrangement which was 



