Jean-Barthélemy Hauréau

Historian and publicist; b. at Paris, 1812; d. there, 1896. He was educated at the Louis le Grand and Bourbon colleges in his native city, and won high honours at his public examination. After graduating he became a journalist, and soon was a contributor to several democratic papers: "La Tribune", "Le National", "Le Droit", "La Revue du Nord". In 1838 he took the chief editorship of the "Courrier de la Sarthe" and was appointed librarian of the city of Le Mans, which position he retained until 1845, when he was dismissed on account of comments of his on the daring speech of the Mayor of le Mans to the Duke of Nemours. He returned to Paris and once more became one of the editors of "Le National". In 1848 the department of la Sarthe sent him to the Constituent Assembly, but his political career was neither long nor remarkable. In the same year he had been appointed keeper of the manuscripts at the Bibliotheque Nationale, but he resigned in 1851 in order to protest against the coup d'état of Louis Napoleon. In 1861 the Association of Advocates chose him as its librarian and in 1862 he became a member of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. From 1871 to 1882 he was director of the Imprimerie Nationale. While Hauréau was not always sound in his philosophical views, he died as a good Catholic, after receiving the sacraments of the Church.

Hauréau was a voluminous writer. He contributed the "Pharsale" of Lucan and the "Facétie sur la mort de Claude" of Seneca, two translations, to the collection of Latin classics of Nisard. Besides writing numerous articles for political and historical cyclopedias, he published a number of important works on history and philosophy :—"Critique des hypothèses métaphysiques de Manès, de Pélage et de l'idéalisme transcendental de saint Augustin" (Le Mans, 1840); "Histoire littéraire du Maine" (Paris, 1843-52), "Manuel du Clergé" (Paris, 1844), "Histoire de la Pologne" (Paris, 1846); "Charlemagne et sa cour" (Paris, 1854); "François Ier et sa cour" (Paris, 1855); "Hugues de saint-victor" (Paris,1859); "Singularités historiques et littéraires" (Paris, 1861); "Histoire de la philosophie scolastique" (Paris, 1872-80), the best-known of his works, "Le commentaire de Jean Scot Erigène sur Martinus capella" (Paris, 1861), etc. He is also the author of vols. XIV and XV of "Gallia Christiana" (Paris, 1856-1865).

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