Fauriel

Fauriel, CLAUDE CHARLES, author, was born at St Etienne, 21st October 1772, served for a time in the army and was secretary to Fouché, but soon devoted himself entirely to letters. He put in circulation, says M. Renan, a greater number of ideas than did any contemporary writer. After the July revolution he was appointed a professor in the Paris Faculté des Lettres, and was elected to the Academy in 1836. He died at Paris, 15th July 1844. His earliest works were translations of Baggesen's Parthenais (1810), Manzoni's tragedies (1823), and modern Greek folk-songs (1824). In 1836 he published his chief work, Histoire de la Gaule Méridionale (4 vols.); the year after, an edition of the Provençal rhymed chronicle on the crusade against the Albigenses. A very important essay was Sur l'Origine de l'Épopée du Moyen Âge (1833). His Histoire de la Poésie Provençale (3 vols. 1846), in which he endeavoured to show that to the Provençals are to be attributed the greater portion of the romances of chivalry, and his Dante et les Origines de la Littérature Italienne (1854) are based on his lectures. See Sainte-Beuve's Portraits Contemporains.