GABRIEL

See also:

• MONOD, ADOLPHE (1802–1856)
• GABRIEL MONOD (1844– )

MONOD (1844– )  , French historian, was born at Havre on the 7th of March, 1844 . Adolphe Monod (q.v.) was his uncle . Having studied at Havre, he went to Paris to complete his education, and whilst there lived with the family of De Pressense . The influence of Edmond de Pressense, a pastor and large-minded theologian, and of Madame de Pressense, a woman of superior intellect and refined feeling, who devoted her life to educational works and charity, made a great impression on him . In 1865 he left the ecole normale superieure, and went to Germany, where he studied at Gottingen and Berlin . The teaching of George Waitz definitely directed his studies towards the history of the middle ages . Returning to France in 1868 he was nominated by V . Duruy to give lectures on history, following the method used in German seminaries, at the ecole des hautes etudes . When the Franco-Prussian War broke out, Gabriel Monod, with his cousins, Alfred and Sarah Monod, organized an ambulance with which he followed the whole campaign, from Sedan to Mans . He wrote a small book of memoirs of this campaign, Allemands et francais (1871), in which he spoke of the conquerors without bitterness; this attitude was all the more praiseworthy as his mother was an Alsatian, and he was unable to resign himself to the loss of Alsace and Lorraine . The war being over he returned to teaching . At this period of his life he wrote Gregoire de Tours et Marius d'Avenche (1872); Fredegaire, whose history, taken from original MSS., he published in 1885; a translation of a book of W .

Junghans, Histoire critique des regnes de Childerich et de Chlodovech, with introduction and notes (1879); Etudes critiques sur

les sources de t'histoire carolingienne (1898, 1st part only published); and Bibliographic de l'histoire de France (1888) . He himself said that his pupils were his best books; he intended to teach them not so much new facts as the way to study, endeavouring to develop in them an idea of criticism and truth . They showed their gratitude by dedicating a book to him in 1896, Etudes d'histoire du moyen dge, and after his retirement in 1go5 by having his features engraved on a slab (see to Gabriel Monod, en souvenir de son enseignement: ecole pratique des hautes etudes, 1868–1905, ecole normale superieure, 1880–1904 . May 26, 1607) . In 1875 he founded the Revue Historique, which rapidly became a great authority on scientific education . Some of his articles in this and other periodicals have been put together in book form, Les Maitres de l'histoire: Renan, Taine, Michelet (1894); Portraits et souvenirs (1897: on Hugo, Fust& de Coulanges, V . Duruy, &c.) .