lebrated Historian of France was given in _The
Times_, Feb. 12, 1874, two days after his decease. _The Times_ states
that he "died of heart disease":--

"Michelet, Jules, one of the greatest of contemporary French writers,
was born at Paris on the 21st of August, 1798. In the introduction to
his little book, 'Le Peuple,' Michelet has told the story of his early
life. He was the son of a small master printer, of Paris, who was
ruined by one of the Emperor Napoleon's arbitrary measures against the
Press, by which the number of printers in Paris was suddenly reduced.
For the benefit of his creditors, the elder Michelet, with no aid but
that of his family, printed, folded, bound, and sold some trivial
little works, of which he owned the copyright; and the Historian of
France began his career by 'composing' in the typographical, not the
literary, sense of the word. At twelve he had picked up a little Latin
from a friendly old bookseller who had been a village schoolmaster; and
his brave parents, in spite of their penury, decided that he should go
to college. He entered the Lycee Charlemagne, where he distinguished
himself, and his exercises attracted the notice of Villemain. He
supported himself by private teaching until, in 1821, he obtained, by
competition, a professorship in his college. His first publications
were two chronological summaries of modern history, 1825-26. In 1827
he essayed a higher flight by the publication, not only of his 'Precis
de l'Histoire Moderne,' but by that of his volume on the Scienza Nuova
of Vico ('Principes de la Philosophie d'Histoire'), the then
little-known father of the so-called philosophy of history, whose work
was thus first introduced to the French public, and, indeed, to that of
England. These two works procured him a professorship at the ecole
normale. After the Revolution of the Three Days, the now distinguished
professor was placed at the head of the historical section of the
French archives, a welcome position, which gave him the command of new
and unexplored material for the History of France. The first work in
which he displayed his peculiar historical genius, was his 'Histoire
Romaine,' 1831, embracing only the History of the Roman Republic. From
1833, dates the appearance of his great 'History of France,' of which
still uncompleted work, twelve volumes had appeared in 1860. In 1834,
Gruizot made the dawning Historian of France his _suppleant_, or
substitute, in t