Albert Sorel (August 13, 1842 - June 29, 1906), was a French historian. August 13 is the 225th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (226th in leap years), with 140 days remaining. ... 1842 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... June 29 is the 180th day of the year (181st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 185 days remaining. ... 1906 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Generally speaking, a historian is a person who studies history. ...

He was born at Honfleur, and remained throughout his life a lover of his native Normandy. His father, a rich manufacturer, wanted him to take over the business, but his literary vocation prevailed. He went to live in Paris, where he studied law, and after a prolonged stay in Germany entered the Foreign Office (1866). He had strongly-developed literary and artistic tastes, was an enthusiastic musician, even composing a little, and wrote both poetry and novels, which appeared a little later (La Grande Falaise, 1785-1793, in 1871, Le Docteur Egra in 1873); but he was no great socialite. Honfleur is a harbour commune in the Norman (département of the Calvados) located on the southern bank of the estuary of the Seine, very close to the exit of the Pont de Normandie. ... Mont Saint Michel is a historic pilgrimage site and a symbol of Normandy Normandy is a former country (a Duchy) situated in northern France occupying the lower Seine area (upper or Haute-Normandie) and the region to the west (lower or Basse-Normandie) as far as the Cotentin Peninsula. ... The Eiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... Poetry (ancient Greek: poieo = create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ...

Anxious to understand present as well as past events, he was above all a student. In 1870 he was chosen as secretary by M. de Chaudordy, who had been sent to Tours as a delegate in charge of the diplomatic side of the problem of national defence; he proved a most valuable collaborator, full of finesse, good temper and excellent judgment, and at the same time hard-working and discreet. After the war, when Emile Boutmy founded the Ecole libre des sciences politiques (which later became the Institut d'études politiques de Paris or, as it is more widely known, Sciences Po), Sorel was appointed to teach diplomatic history (1872), a duty which he performed with striking success. Some of his courses were converted into books: Le traité de Paris du 20 novembre 1815 (1873); Histoire diplomatique de la guerre franco-allemande (1875); and the Précis du droit des gens which he published (1877) in collaboration with his colleague Theodore Funck-Brentano. 1870 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Tours is a commune of France, the préfecture (capital city) of the Indre-et-Loire département, on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. ... The Institut détudes politiques de Paris (Paris institute for political studies), familiarly known as Sciences Poo, is Frances premier institute for the study and research of politics, international relations, and other related subjects. ... The Franco-Prussian War (July 19, 1870 – May 10, 1871) was fought between France and Prussia (backed by the North German Confederation) allied with the south German states of Baden, Bavaria and Württemberg. ...

In 1875 Sorel left the Foreign Office and became general secretary to the newly-created office of the Présidence du sénat. Here again, in a position where he could observe and review affairs, he performed valuable service, especially under the presidency of the duc d'Audiffred Pasquier, who was glad of his advice in the most serious crises of internal politics. His duties left him, however, sufficient leisure to enable him to accomplish the great work of his life, L'Europe et la revolution française. His object was to repeat the work already done by Heinrich von Sybel, but from a less restricted point of view and with a clearer and calmer understanding of the chessboard of Europe. He spent almost thirty years in the preparation and composition of the eight volumes of this diplomatic history of the French Revolution (vol. i., 1885; vol. viii., 1904). 1875 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... The Senate (in French : le Sénat) is the upper house of the Parliament of France. ... Heinrich von Sybel (December 2, 1817 - August 1, 1895), German historian, sprang from a Protestant family which had long been established at Soest, in Westphalia. ... The period of the French Revolution in the history of France covers the years between 1789 and 1799, in which democrats and republicans overthrew the absolute monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church was forced to undergo radical restructuring. ...

He was not merely a conscientious scholar; the analysis of the documents, mostly unpublished, on French diplomacy during the first years of the Revolution, which he published in the Revue historique (vol. v.-vii., x.-xiii.), shows with what scrupulous care he read the innumerable despatches which passed under his notice. He was also, and above all things, an artist. He drew men from the point of view of a psychologist as much as of a historian, observing them in their surroundings and being interested in showing how greatly they are slaves to the fatality of history. It was this fatality which led the rashest of the Conventionals to resume the tradition of the ancien régime, and caused the revolutionary propaganda to end in a system of alliances and annexations which carried on the work of Louis XIV. This view is certainly suggestive, but incomplete; it is largely true when applied to the men of the French Revolution, inexperienced or mediocre as they were, and incompetent to develop the enormous enterprises of Napoleon I. A psychologist is a researcher and/or a practitioner of psychology. ... This article is about a legislative body and constitutional convention during the French Revolution. ... Ancien Régime means Old Rule or Old Order in French; in English, the term refers primarily to the social and political system established in France under the Valois and Bourbon dynasties. ... Louis XIV King of France and Navarre By Hyacinthe Rigaud (1701) Louis XIV (Louis-Dieudonné) (September 5, 1638–September 1, 1715) reigned as King of France and King of Navarre from May 14, 1643 until his death. ... The period of the French Revolution in the history of France covers the years between 1789 and 1799, in which democrats and republicans overthrew the absolute monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church was forced to undergo radical restructuring. ... For other uses, see Napoleon (disambiguation). ...

In the earlier volumes we are struck by the grandeur and relentless logic of the drama which the author unfolds; in the later ones we begin to have reservations; but on the whole the work is so complete and so powerfully constructed that it commands our admiration. Side by side with this great general work, Sorel undertook various detailed studies more or less directly bearing on his subject. In La Question d'Orient au XVIII' siècle, les origines de la triple alliance (1878), he shows how the partition of Poland on the one hand reversed the traditional policy of France in eastern Europe, and on the other hand contributed towards the salvation of republican France in 1793. In the Grands écrivains series he was responsible for Montesquieu (1887) and Mme de Staël (1891); the portrait which he draws of Montesquieu is all the more vivid for the intellectual affinities which existed between him and the author of the Lettres persanes (Persian Letters) and the Esprit des lois (The Spirit of the Laws). The Triple Alliance was an alliance between England, France and Germany. ... The Partitions of Poland ( Polish Rozbiór or Rozbiory Polski) happened in the 18th century and ended the existence of a sovereign state of Poland (or more correctly the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). ... Eastern Europe is, by convention, that part of Europe from the Ural and Caucasus mountains in the East to an arbitrarily chosen boundary in the West. ... In a broad definition a republic is a state or country that is led by people that dont found their political power on any principle beyond the control of the people living in that state or country. ... Madame de Staël Anne Louise Germaine de Staël ( April 22, 1766 – July 14, 1817) was a French author who determined literary tastes of Europe at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. ... Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... Persian Letters is a satirical story of two Persian brothers travelling through France by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu. ...

Later, in Bonaparte et Hoche en 1797, he produced a critical comparison which is one of his most finished works (1896); and in the Recueil des instructions données aux ambassadeurs he prepared vol. i. dealing with Austria (1884). Most of the articles which he contributed to various reviews and to the Temps newspaper have been collected into volumes: Essais d'histoire et de critique (1883), Lectures historiques (1894), Nouveaux essais d'histoire et de critique (1898), Etudes de littérature et d'histoire (1901); in these are to be found a great deal of information and of ideas not only about political men of the last two centuries, but also about certain literary men and artists of Normandy. Honours came to him in abundance, as an eminent writer and not as a public official. He was elected a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques (December 18, 1889) on the death of Fustel de Coulanges, and of the Académie française (1894) on the death of Tame. Louis Lazare Hoche (June 24, 1768 - September 19, 1797) was a French general. ... Mont Saint Michel is a historic pilgrimage site and a symbol of Normandy Normandy is a former country (a Duchy) situated in northern France occupying the lower Seine area (upper or Haute-Normandie) and the region to the west (lower or Basse-Normandie) as far as the Cotentin Peninsula. ... The Académie des sciences morales et politiques is a French learned society. ... December 18 is the 352nd day of the year (353rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1889 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges (March 18, 1830 - September 12, 1889) was a French historian. ... The Académie française, or French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. ...

His speeches on his two illustrious predecessors show how keenly sensible he was of beauty, and how unbiased was his judgment, even in the case of those whom he most esteemed and loved. He bad just obtained the great Prix Osiris of a hundred thousand francs, conferred for the first time by the Institut de France, when he was stricken with his last illness and died at Paris. The Institut de France (French Institute) is a French learned society, grouping five académies, the most famous of which is probably the Académie française. ...

References

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. Please update as needed. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica ( 1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...