Of the two women who knew François Guizot best, the first, Pauline de Meulan, wrote to him in July 1808, even before he married her: «Your talent seems to me eminently suited to history»; and that same year they undertook together a new edition in French of Edward Gibbon's great book, History of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, which was Guizot's first historical work at the age of twenty. The second, his daughter Henriette, said to him in February 1874, a few months before his death: «History is your real passion»; and together they were completing the fourth volume of the’History of France as told to my grandchildren, which was his last work. Guizot's career as a historian thus spanned more than sixty-five years, punctuated by numerous landmark publications, some of which still have real scientific value, principally the’History of civilisation in Europe and the’History of the English Revolution, to which can be added, on another level, the eight volumes of the Memoirs to serve the history of my time, which belong to the prestigious, yet small, category of the great Mémoires d'État, between the Political testament de Richelieu and the Memories of war of General de Gaulle.
Nothing destined the young François Guizot for the profession of historian. By a fortunate coincidence, in July 1812 he was appointed Professor of Modern History at the Faculty of Letters in Paris, a post that had not existed until then. Although the edition of Gibbon, completed that year, had made him known in academic circles, he had not specifically studied history, which had not yet been established as a school subject: it was only in 1818 that Royer-Collard created the first chair of history in secondary education. Nevertheless, he had found his calling: fifteen years later, he was recognised as the greatest history teacher and one of the best historians of his time.