born March 18, 1830, Paris, France
died Sept. 12, 1889, Massy
French historian.
He had a brilliant teaching career at the University of Strasbourg (186070) and later received other academic appointments. He championed the importance of objectivity and the unreliability of secondary sources, which became important tenets of modern historiography, and his insistence on the use of contemporary documents led to the full use of the French national archives in the 19th century. Most of his work, including La Cité antique (1864) and La Gaule romaine (1891), dealt with Roman Gaul and the Germanic invasions of the Roman Empire.