Born under Louis XVI and died under Mac Mahon, François Guizot (1787-1874) spent half a century as one of the most prominent figures in France and Europe. This Protestant bourgeois was recognised as the greatest historian of his time, making the notion of civilisation a new object of study. As a philosopher, he was at the origin of the French version of political liberalism, influenced by England, whose history of the Revolution he wrote. As a Member of Parliament for Calvados from 1830 onwards, both in the Chamber and in government, he tried to introduce the representative system in France. As a statesman, in a law passed in 1833 that has remained famous, he founded primary education in France and, as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1840 to 1848, carried out the first Entente cordiale with England. He also inspired a veritable remembrance and heritage policy. Swept away by the fall of the July monarchy in February 1848, he then exercised a kind of intellectual and moral magistracy until the end of his life. Tocqueville, Marx and Renan have all acknowledged their debt to his work. In his Memoirs, and above all in his immense and magnificent correspondence, the richness of his family life and friendships, as well as his female attachments, reveal a man very different from the caricatures he endured, but also provoked. For, having ignored or neglected the democratic aspirations that his own politics had in part aroused, he stands out as a defeated man in political history. The establishment of the Republic in France, which he had always opposed, long relegated him to the category of conservatives blinded by their membership of the bourgeoisie. Over the last thirty years or so, his work and his person have been reconsidered, and restored to their time.
The aim of the François Guizot Association is to raise awareness of the body of work, particularly the intellectual and political work, of François Guizot and his family.
The aim of this website is to make available to researchers and the general public a collection of unpublished archives and articles on François Guizot, and to centralise all works on his subject.
The horizontal navigation bar allows you to explore the whole of Guizot's family, political and intellectual life. The side navigation bar provides access to additional documentation. The biographical and thematic documentation has been compiled by the historian, a specialist in Guizot's work, Laurent Theis.
The side navigation bar provides access to additional resources. Since 2019, the François Guizot Association has been carrying out a publishing project in the digital environment of the Guizot archives: the Guizot epistolary project provides access to the digitised correspondence of François Guizot.
It also runs a number of initiatives to promote this heritage, such as the Prix Guizot awarded by the Calvados General Council from 1993 to 2012, and the Prix François Guizot-Institut de France, created in 2013 under the patronage of the three academies The aim of the François Guizot Association is to publicise the work of François Guizot and his family, particularly in intellectual and political terms.
The aim of this website is to make available to researchers and the general public a collection of unpublished archives and articles on François Guizot, and to centralise all works on his subject.
The horizontal navigation bar allows you to explore the whole of Guizot's family, political and intellectual life. The side navigation bar provides access to additional documentation. The biographical and thematic documentation has been compiled by the historian, a specialist in Guizot's work, Laurent Theis.
The side navigation bar provides access to additional resources. Since 2019, the François Guizot Association has been carrying out a publishing project in the digital environment of the Guizot archives: the Guizot epistolary project provides access to the digitised correspondence of François Guizot.
It also runs a number of initiatives to promote this heritage, such as the Prix Guizot awarded by the Calvados General Council from 1993 to 2012, and the Prix François Guizot-Institut de France, created in 2013 under the patronage of the three academies of which Guizot was a member.