INTRODUCTION

History of France he had already made several ventures. Of these earlier writings the studies on the historian Vico, the generalizer and believer in regular progression, suggested the philosophy by which he explains the apparently disconnected facts of history. The immediate cause of Michelet's greatest work was the Revolution of July, 1830, which aroused an intense feeling in his breast and made him look on France as a soul and a person. It is thus that he writes the History; this is a vivid portrayal of the combats and struggles of a soul or of a person who attempts to throw off the shackles of a tyrannical past and to obtain justice and liberty.

Michelet is the most vivid of the French historians. In his own words he wished to resurrect the past, and this he has marvelously achieved in his History of the Middle Ages. Here he is comparatively free from the strong prejudice which marked his later work on the modern period. The eternal question that he demands of the modern kings: "What have you done for the people?" has not yet become necessary, and he is. free to sympathize with all the joys and sorrows of the old France. In Michelet's eyes all the achievements of the reign of Louis XIV do not counter-balance the poverty-stricken condition in which this king left the country and the people. His strong republicanism, his intense personal prejudice and lack of sympathy render this later work inferior to his study of the Middle Ages.

As an historian Michelet is a peculiar mixture of poetry and science. His poetic feeling enabled him to accomplish his resurrection of the past, and he had a scientific tendency, strong enough to lead him to consult the original