Biography
Having first written a few novels, he later devoted his life to the study of the history of France and wrote an account of it, entitled Histoire de France, a magnificent work in 19 volumes. He brought the history down to 1789, and received from the Institut de France 20,000 francs as a prize in 1869. The Avenue Henri-Martin in Paris is named after him.
Martin was born at Saint-Quentin, into an upper middle-class family. Trained as a notary, he followed this profession for some time but having achieved success with an historical romance, Wolfthurm (1830), he applied himself to historical research. Martin sat in the Assemblée Nationale as deputy for Aisne in 1871, and was elected on June 13, 1878 to seat number 38 of the Académie française, but he left no mark as a politician. Redactor at the Siècle, he was also mayor of the 16th arrondissement of Paris in 1870, deputy of Paris in 1871, senator in 1876, and one of the founders and the first president of the Ligue des Patriotes. He died in Paris on December 14, 1883, and, acclaimed as "national historian" was given a public funeral. A laudatory biography soon appeared: Gabriel Hanotaux, Henri Martin, Paris, 1885.
Read more about this topic: Henri Martin (historian)
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