The mother of Guizot escaped the fate of her husband, being in that respect more fortunate than the wives of most of the victims sacrificed to the vengeance of the Jacobins, and removed with her children to Geneva, to which Calvinistic city she originally belonged. She was a woman of strong mind and sound religious principles: she proved an excellent parent to Guizot and his younger brother, to whose training and education she devoted herself with exemplary solicitude. The care of an affectionate and virtuous mother is the most precious boon to man in his tender years, and there is scarcely an instance of one rising to high celebrity who has not enjoyed the fostering tutelage of maternal superintendence in his boyhood. This advantage Guizot possessed in a supreme degree: and it has been related by a visitor, who found her with him on her knee, reading to him incidents from the lives of the great Reformers, that she remarked, 'I wish to show my Frank, by these examples, how much may be effected by determination and diligence;' and assuredly her lessons were not thrown away, for these are the very qualities which have chiefly distinguished him through life. At the age of twelve, having already made considerable progress in the acquisition of the classical and principal modern languages, he was placed under the charge of M. de Joux, a minister of the Reformed Church of Geneva, who was at the head of a considerable seminary in that city. Under the auspices of this instructor of youth he made rapid progress in his studies, seeking still to master the difficulties which shroud from the unenlightened the immortal compositions bequeathed from antiquity or illumining more recent eras. In four years—such was the ardour of the young student—he could boast an intimate acquaintance with all the most illustrious of the Greeks and Romans, with all the most renowned of the nations of modern Europe. Homer, Thucydides, Demosthenes; Cicero, Seneca, Tacitus; Dante, Tasso, Ariosto; Schiller, Goethe, Fichte; Shakespeare, Milton, Locke; Racine, Fenelon, Montesquieu—these were the great minds with which he cultivated a familiar intercourse, these the sources from which he drank of the fountain of knowledge, these the ennobling inspirers of his dawning genius. Happy the youth who can embrace the opportunity of such learning, happier he who can appreciate its incomparable virtues, its ineffable charms, its exalted benefits; for no education can be more admirably adapted to refine the mind, develop the understanding, invigorate the intellect, or fill the soul with the divine breath of philosophy!
It was natural that the subtle questions which possess such interest in the minds of reflective men, and which involve the enigma of human existence, should present themselves to the thoughtful Guizot as fitting topics of contemplation. Consequently, we find him turn with avidity to metaphysics, and steep himself in sleepless ponderings on their sublime but inextricable problems. He thus acquired, more perhaps than even from his previous studies, that profound and detective cast of mind which is so perceptible in his works, and which makes the elucidation of causes the distinctive feature, the inestimable merit of his dissertations. But the time arrived when the pleasures of academic training must be exchanged for the toils of active life, since no patrimony removed the necessity of earning a subsistence by labour; and Madame Guizot, after consultation with her friends, determined that his father's profession was the most appropriate for her accomplished son. In 1804, accordingly, she left Geneva and returned to Nismes, whence, after tarrying a few months to inhale his native air, Guizot proceeded to Paris, then the glittering capital of the European world, and resplendent with the lustre of Napoleon's imperial throne. The scene, however, was singularly unfitted to a young adventurer, armed doubtless with much recondite lore, versed in all the learning of the schools, attuned to austerity as a Genevese neophyte: the military career was the great high road to fortune and distinction under the rule of the mighty conqueror. Mere civil virtues or mental acquirements were less in repute, and especially the profession of the law languished under the sceptre of the sword. In the midst of a society thus resonant with the tramp of warriors, the poor student felt abashed and forlorn; he sought in seclusion to escape its noise and glare, and the first year of his residence in Paris he still passed in solitude and study. But it was incumbent on him to exert himself for a livelihood, and he justly conceived the functions of a preceptor equally well suited to his capabilities as congenial to his tastes. In his quest for an engagement in this capacity, it was his good fortune to encounter M. Stapfer, himself a native of Switzerland, and formerly the Swiss minister to France, who took him into his house as tutor to his children. M. Stapfer had been originally a preacher of the Gospel, and likewise a professor of philosophy, which he laboured strenuously to invest with a religious character. He was deeply versed in German metaphysics, then bewildered by the novel and abstruse speculations of Kant, and with them he thoroughly embued the mind of Guizot, whom he treated at once as his disciple and his friend. Under the roof of this estimable personage, who has left behind him several valuable critical essays, Guizot found time, moreover, to follow the example of Gibbon and other men of illustrious name in literature, imposing on himself a rigorous and laborious recast of all his previous studies, analytically digesting them and arranging them in that clear and substantive manner which is essential for a permanent and productive groundwork. Whilst thus engaged in the duties of teaching, in the enjoyments of intellectual intercourse, and in the grateful toils of private application, he passed two happy and fruitful years. Through the introduction of M. Stapfer, he became known to M. Suard, whose house was the rendezvous of all the chief literary men of the day, and where he mingled on a footing of perfect equality with its most distinguished visitors, of whom the first in name and lustre was Chateaubriand, who had just electrified, and in part reclaimed, the infidel mind of France by his brilliant and fervent effusion, the 'Génie du Christianisme'—[the Genius of Christianity].
Sedate, modest, and retiring, Guizot was nevertheless twenty-one years old, and at an age when romance appears decked in a guise of irresistible attraction. Yet it was not love that allured him, but rather generosity and sympathy with misfortune that fired his ingenuous ardour. It chanced that a young lady, by name Pauline de Meulan, already past the bloom of womanhood, had been appointed chief contributor to a journal established by M. Suard, called the Publicist. This highly-gifted person unfortunately contracted a dangerous illness in the year 1807, which incapacitated her from continuing her contributions to the Publicist, on the proceeds of which she depended for the support of herself and her aged mother. No sooner did Guizot hear of her calamitous situation, than he sat down and composed an article in imitation as much as possible of her style and manner, which having completed, he sent to her anonymously, with an intimation that, if agreeable, a similar article would be forwarded for each future number of the journal. It is needless to say that the invalid authoress received the article and the offer with gratitude; and until her restoration to health, her mysterious benefactor perseveringly fulfilled his promise. The extraordinary circumstance was subsequently mentioned by her in the saloon of M. Suard, and in the presence of Guizot, who long refrained from disclosing the secret. When it was at length divulged, it was natural that a very cordial intimacy should ensue between the parties, which, after the lapse of some years— namely, in 1812—resulted in their marriage, although the lady had the advantage in age by at least fourteen years. Nevertheless, the union was a happy and auspicious one, proving also profitable even in a pecuniary view, since M. Guizot found in his wife an able and sedulous assistant in his literary labours. To her severe purity of mind also it is understood that he is much indebted for that lofty probity and adherence to principle which so strikingly distinguish him from the great herd of his contemporaries.
Thus fairly introduced to a literary life, he applied himself to its pursuits with unwearied industry. Under the rigorous censorship in which Napoleon kept the press, a very limited range of subjects was permitted to an author—anything bearing on politics, even in historical, critical, or philosophical dissertation, being strictly forbidden. In this dismal state of restriction, Guizot's first regular work, published in 1809, was an edition of Gerard's French Synonymes, with additions, accompanied by an original treatise on the philosophical character of the French language. This was followed in 1811 by a translation of 'Spain in 1808,' from the German of Rehfus, and by an essay on the state of the fine arts in France. In the course of that year he also received the appointment of conductor of a periodical entitled 'The Annals of Education,' which appeared for some years under his editorship. Before the end of 1812, he produced a translation of Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which was a work of many hands, even Louis XVI., when dauphin, being said to have executed part of it; but the whole of which was carefully revised and annotated by Guizot before publication. At the close of this same year he obtained, through the influence of M. de Fontanes, the professorship of history in the university of Paris, a situation which brought him in contact with Royer-Collard, likewise a professor in the same college, and between them a friendship sprang up, which afterwards bore happy fruits, and had an important influence on the future career of M, Guizot.
The first restoration of the Bourbons in 1814 presented to him the opportunity for which his ambition had been already aroused, of entering into political life. Through the recommendation of Royer-Collard, he was nominated by the Abbé de Montesquiou, minister of the interior, secretary to his department; and he followed the king in his flight to Ghent, where he is stated to have successfully exerted his enlightened remonstrances to induce Louis XVIII. to discard from his councils M. de Blacas, whose antiquated royalism had materially availed to precipitate him from his newly-acquired throne. Under the second restoration he held several secondary offices in the administration, and he remained attached to successive ministries until 1820, when the assassination of the Duke de Berri produced a violent royalist reaction, under which the Decazes ministry fell (of which Royer-Collard formed a component part), and in its ruin involved M. Guizot. He then openly joined the party in opposition to M. Villele, the new minister; and having ventured to arraign his measures in a pamphlet, he was suspended from his chair in the university, which he did not regain until the accession of M. de Martignac to power in the year 1828.
Thus deprived of all official income, he was reduced once more to his pen to eke out a subsistence. With a hearty good-will, and a noble spirit of independence, he turned again to his literary labours, which he prosecuted during the ten years from 1820 to 1830 with unexampled diligence, and soon fixed on himself the attention and admiration of his countrymen. It will be sufficient to enumerate his principal publications during this important era of his life.
1. A Collection of Memoirs relative to the English Revolution, with Historical Notes and Explanations, 25 vols. 8vo; followed by a History of the English Revolution in 2 vols. 8vo, which has not yet been completed according to the authors original intentions.
2. A Collection of Memoirs relative to the History of France from the Foundation of the Monarchy to the Thirteenth Century, with an Introduction, Supplement, Notices, and Notes, 29 vols. 8vo.
3. A new edition of Rollin and Letourneur's Translation of Shakespeare, with great Amendments, and illustrated by Critical Notes and Historical Notices.
4. The 'Revue Française,' a periodical established by him during this period, may be accounted in the number of his works, together with the principal articles in the journal called the 'Globe.'
In the execution of all these labours he was constantly assisted by his wife, who sat in the same room with him in which he carried on his literary operations, attended by her two nieces, and surrounded by a number of young men, who acted in various capacities as copyists, arrangers, and amanuenses: the whole group presenting a picture of silent activity and resolute industry the most interesting that can be conceived.
At this period M. Guizot lived in a quiet retired house in a small street behind the Madeleine, which he has rendered in some degree famous by the indefatigable labours of which it was the scene. He has since lived in sumptuous palaces; but it is probable that in this modest abode he had more real enjoyment than when seated amid the magnificence of high official pomp. Though he was well known to be poor, and to be dependent on literature for a livelihood, his condition, which in England would have been considered one of the most degraded possible, was no drawback to his social position, and his residence was the resort of nearly all the most eminent men of the day both in literature and in politics. On his reception nights his little rooms were crowded with people of distinction, anxious to partake the intellectual feast served out on such occasions; for no substantial viands were there to regale them beyond a cup of tea, dispensed by the fair hands of Madame Guizot and one or two female friends—often the late Duchess de Broglie, a woman of superior attainments. Yet sorrow, too, fell on him in this otherwise cherished home, for here his wife died in the course of 1827, and shortly after her his only son. With her dying breath she besought him to marry one of her nieces, who resided with them; and in the following year he fulfilled her wish by espousing Eliza Dillon, the eldest, whom he has likewise had the misfortune to lay in the tomb, after bearing him two daughters. It was in this same year, 1828, that the liberal ministry of M. de Martignac was formed, one of whose first acts was to restore M. Guizot to his professorship of modern history in the Sorbonne, and in which situation he will he perhaps hereafter held to have earned his chiefest glory.