Edgar Quinet (French:[kinɛ]; 17 February 1803 – 27 March 1875) was a French historian and intellectual.
Quinet was born atBourg-en-Bresse, in thedépartement ofAin. His father, Jérôme Quinet, had been a commissary in the army, but being a strongrepublican and disgusted withNapoleon's18 Brumaire coup, he gave up his post and devoted himself to scientific and mathematical study. Edgar, who was an only child, was usually alone, but his mother (Eugénie Rozat Lagis, who was an educated person with strong, albeit original, Protestant religious views) exercised great influence over him.[1]
He was sent to school, first in Bourg and then inLyon. His father wished him on leaving school to go into the army, and then enter a business career. Quinet was determined to engage in literature, and after a time got his way when he moved to Paris in 1820.[1]
His first publication,Les tablettes du juif errant ("The Tablets of theWandering Jew"), which appeared in 1823, symbolized the progress of humanity.[1] He became impressed with German intellectual writing and undertook the translation ofJohann Gottfried Herder'sIdeen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit ("Outlines ofPhilosophy of the History of Man"). He learnt German for the purpose, published his work in 1827, and obtained through it considerable credit.
At this time he was introduced toVictor Cousin, and made the acquaintance ofJules Michelet. He had visitedGermany and the United Kingdom before the appearance of his book. Cousin obtained for him a position on a government mission inGreece, the "Scientific Expedition of Morea", in 1829 (at the end of theGreek War of Independence against theOttoman Empire), and on his return he published in 1830 a book onLa Grèce moderne ("Modern Greece").[1] With Michelet he published a volume of works in 1843, denouncingJesuits and blaming them for religious, political and social troubles. He also became acquainted with and a lover of the works ofRalph Waldo Emerson in 1838. Quinet wrote several lectures praising Emerson's works which were published with the title ofLe Christianisme et la Revolution Francaise in 1845.[2]
Hopes of employment that he had after theJuly Revolution were frustrated by his reputation as a speculative republican. Nonetheless, he joined the staff of theRevue des deux mondes, and for some years contributed numerous essays, the most remarkable of which was that onLes Épopées françaises du XIIème siècle, an early, although not the earliest, appreciation of the long-neglectedchansons de geste.Ahasverus, his first major original work, appeared in 1833—it is a singularprose poem.[1]
Shortly afterwards he married Minna More, a German girl with whom he had fallen in love some years before. Growing disillusioned with German thought because of Prussian aggressive tactics,[3] he visited Italy, and, besides writing many essays, produced two poems,Napoléon (1835) andProméthée (1838), both written in verse and seen as inferior toAhasverus published in 1833. In 1838 he published a strong reply toDavid Strauss'Leben Jesu, and in that year he received theLegion of Honour. In 1839 he was appointed professor of foreign literature at Lyon, where he began the highly influential course of lectures which formed the basis for hisGénie des religions. Two years later he was transferred to theCollège de France, and theGénie des religions, published (1842), he sympathized with all religions but did not favor one above all.[1]
Quinet's Parisian professorship, which began in 1842, was notorious as the subject of polemics. His chair was that of Southern Literature, but, neglecting his proper subject, he chose, in conjunction with Michelet, to engage in a violent polemic with the Jesuits and withUltramontanism. Two books bearing exactly these titles appeared in 1843 and 1844, and contained, as was usual with Quinet, the substance of his lectures.[1]
These lectures excited great debate and the author obstinately refused to return to literature strictly construed; consequently, in 1846, the government put an end to the lectures, a measure that was arguably approved by the majority of his colleagues.[1] He was dismissed in 1846 by the Collège de France for his adamant attacks on the Roman Catholic Church, exaltation of the revolution, support for the oppressed nationalities of France and for supporting the theory that religion is a determining force in societies.[citation needed]
By this time Quinet was a pronounced republican, and something of a revolutionary. He joined the rioters during the1848 Revolution which overthrewKingLouis-Philippe of France, and was elected by thedépartement ofAin to theConstituent and then to theLegislative Assembly, where he affiliated with theextreme radical party.[1]
He had published in 1848Les Révolutions d'Italie ("The Revolutions ofItaly"), one of his main works. He wrote numerouspamphlets during the short-livedSecond French Republic, attacked theRoman expedition with all his strength and was from the first an uncompromising opponent ofPrinceLouis-Napoléon Bonaparte (Napoleon III).[1]
Quinet fled Louis Napoléon's 1851 coup d'état to Brussels until 1858 and then fled toVeytaux, Switzerland, until 1870.[1] His wife had died some time previously, and he now marriedHermiona Asachi (orAsaky), the daughter ofGheorghe Asachi, a Romanian poet.[citation needed] In Brussels, Quinet lived for some seven years, during which he publishedLes Esclaves ("The Slaves", 1853), a dramatic poem,Marnix de Sainte-Aldégonde (1854), a study of the Reformer in which he emphasizes Sainte-Aldégonde's literary merit, and some other books.[1]
In Veytaux, his literary output was greater than ever. In 1860, he published a unique volume, partly reflecting the style ofAhasverus, and entitledMerlin l'enchanteur (Merlin the Enchanter); in 1862, aHistoire de la campagne de 1815 ("History of theCampaign of 1815"), in 1865 an elaborate book on theFrench Revolution, in which the author depicts atrocities carried out by revolutionary forces (causing his rejection by many other partisans of republican ideas). Many pamphlets date from this period, as doesLa Création (1870), a third book of the genre ofAhasverus andMerlin, but even vaguer – dealing with physical science rather than history, legend, or philosophy for the most part.[1]
Quinet had refused to return to France to join theliberal opposition against Napoleon III, but returned immediately after theBattle of Sedan in theFranco-Prussian War. He was then restored to his professorship, and during thesiege of Paris wrote vehemently against theGermans. He was elected deputy to theNational Assembly by thedépartement of theSeine in 1871, and was one of the most obstinate opponents of the terms of peace between France and Germany. He continued to write till his death, which occurred atVersailles in 1875.[1]
Le Siège de Paris et la défense nationale ("The Siege of Paris and the National Defence") appeared in 1871,La République ("The Republic") in 1872,Le Livre de l'exilé ("The Book of Exile") in the year of its author's death and after it. This was followed by three volumes of letters and some other work. Quinet had already in 1858 published a semi-autobiographical book calledHistoire de mes idées ("History of My Ideas").[1]
According to theEncyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition:
His character was extremely amiable, and his letters to his mother, his accounts of his early life, and so forth, are likely always to make him interesting. He was also a man of great moral conscientiousness, and as far as intention went perfectly disinterested. As a writer, his chief fault is want of concentration; as a thinker and politician, vagueness and want of practical determination. His historical and philosophical works, though showing much reading, fertile thought, abundant facility of expression, and occasionally, where prejudice does not come in, acute judgment, are rather (as not a few of them were in fact) reported lectures than formal treatises. His rhetorical power was altogether superior to his logical power, and the natural consequence is that his work is full of contradictions. These contradictions were, moreover, due, not merely to an incapacity or an unwillingness to argue strictly, but also to the presence in his mind of a large number of inconsistent tastes and prejudices which he either could not or would not co-ordinate into an intelligible creed. Thus he has the strongest attraction for the picturesque side ofmedievalism andcatholicity, the strongest repulsion for the restrictions which medieval and Catholic institutions imposed on individual liberty. He refused to submit himself to any form ofpositive orthodoxy, yet when a man likeStrauss pushed unorthodoxy to its extreme limits Quinet revolted.As a politician he acted with the extreme radicals, yetuniversal suffrage disgusted him as unreasonable in its principle and dangerous in its results. His pervading characteristic, therefore, is that of an eloquent vagueness, very stimulating and touching at times, but as deficient in coercive force of matter as it is in lasting precision and elegance of form. He is less inaccurate in fact than Michelet, but he is also much less absorbed by a single idea at a time, and the result is that he seldom attains to the vivid representation of which Michelet was a master.[4]
His numerous works appeared in a uniform edition of twenty-eight volumes (1877–79). His second wife, in 1870, published certainMémoires d'exil, andLettres d'exil followed in 1885. In that year Prof.George Saintsbury published a selection of theLettres à ma mère (Letters to My Mother) with an introduction.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Saintsbury, George (1911). "Quinet, Edgar". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 755–756. This, in turn, gives the following references:
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