pposition during the Restoration. His _Histoire de la Revolution
Francaise_ appeared between 1823-1827, and brought him much reputation,
which was very ill deserved as far as fulness and accuracy of
information are concerned. French readers, however, have ever been
indifferent to mere accuracy, and are given to admire even a superficial
appearance of order and clearness; at any rate, the book, added to his
considerable reputation as a political writer, made him famous. A paper,
which he founded in the beginning of 1830, the _National_, had much
share in bringing about the Revolution of that year. After it Thiers was
elected to the Chamber of Deputies for Aix, and in a short time became a
renowned debater. He held office again and again under Louis Philippe,
and was believed to be in favour of a warlike policy. When he retired
from office he began his principal literary work (a continuation of his
first), 'The History of the Consulate and the Empire.' He took no part
in the Revolution of 1848, and accepted the Republic, but was banished
at the _coup d'etat_, though not for long. In 1863 he re-entered the
Chamber, having constantly worked at his History, which tended not a
little to reconstruct the Napoleonic legend. Yet he was a steady though
a moderate opponent of the Second Empire. On its downfall, Thiers, as
the most distinguished statesman the country possessed, undertook the
negotiations with the enemy--a difficult task, which he performed with
extreme ability. He then became President of the Republic, which post he
held till 1873. He died on the 3rd of September, 1877. The chief fault
of Thiers as a historian is his misleading partiality, which is
especially displayed in his account of Napoleon's wars, and reaches its
climax in that of the battle of Waterloo. He has, however, great merits
in lucidity of arrangement, in an eloquent, if rather declamatory style,
and in a faculty of conveying a considerable amount of information
without breaking the march of his narrative.

[Sidenote: Guizot]

By a curious coincidence, the chief rival of Thiers in politics (at
least during the greater part of his life) was of his own class and
condition, and, like him, primarily a man of letters. Francois Pierre
Guillaume Guizot was, however, ten years the senior of Thiers, having
been born in 1787, at Nimes. Guizot was a Protestant, and his father
perished in the Terror. He was educated at Geneva, but went to Paris
early, and produc