Célestin Port (23 May 1828 – 4 March 1901) was a French archivist and historian.

Early life and education

Born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

to a modest family (his father ran an umbrella shop), he studied at the

École des chartes École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

, composed a thesis entitled ' '' ssay on the maritime commerce of Narbonne/nowiki>'' (submitted in 1852) and, in 1854, became archivist of the Department of Maine-et-Loire.

Career

Spurred on by his teacher Jules Quicherat, he dedicated forty-seven years of his life to the history of Anjou, on which he published several important works. His masterpiece — often plagiarised — is his "'" published in three volumes from 1874 to 1878. He also studied the

War in the Vendée The War in the Vendée () was a counter-revolutionary insurrection that took place in the Vendée region of French First Republic, France from 1793 to 1796, during the French Revolution. The Vendée is a coastal region, located immediately so ...

. He worked at the same time on the classification of the departmental archives and, in 1891, he donated his personal collection of archival material to the departmental archives.

Other interests

Célestin Port made no mystery of his militant

republic A republic, based on the Latin phrase ''res publica'' ('public affair' or 'people's affair'), is a State (polity), state in which Power (social and political), political power rests with the public (people), typically through their Representat ...

an sympathies, but he kept his distance from party politics. His other interests included the theatre and

Latin poetry The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus, the earliest surviving examples of Latin literature, are estimated to have been composed around 205–184 BC. History Scholars conv ...

. He also amassed a collection of engravings and photographs.

Publications

* 3 volumes, also published by Lachèse et Dolbeau, Angers. * 40 pp * 628pp. Also published by (Angers)

Bibliography

* (Reprinted from journal edition originally themed: "Républiques & républicains d'Anjou")

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Port, Celestin 1828 births Writers from Paris École Nationale des Chartes alumni Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres French archivists 19th-century French historians 1901 deaths French male non-fiction writers 19th-century French male writers