Hippolyte Nicolas Honoré Fortoul (4 August 1811 – 4 July 1856) was a French journalist, historian and politician.

Early years

Hippolyte Fortoul was born on 4 August 1811 in Digne,

Alpes-de-Haute-Provence Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (sometimes abbreviated as AHP; ; ; ), formerly until 1970 known as Basses-Alpes (, ), is a department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France, bordering Alpes-Maritimes and Italy to the east, Var to the sou ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

as the son of an attorney who began a prefectural career in 1831. He attended secondary school in Digne and then

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

. Between 1829 and 1837, he was a journalist in Paris and traveled to Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and England between 1834 and 1837. In 1837 he decided that there was no future in journalism, and decided to enter the academic world. In 1838 he published a history of the 16th century and an autobiographical novel. In 1840 he traveled in southern Germany and northern Italy. He earned a PhD in 1841 with a thesis on Aristotle written in Latin. In 1841 Fortoul was appointed professor of literature at the University of Toulouse. He married that year. He published a two-volume work on German Art in 1841-42. In 1845 he was appointed professor of French literature and dean of the faculty of letters at

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence, or simply Aix, is a List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, city and Communes of France, commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. A former capital of Provence, it is the Subprefectures in France, s ...

Political career

After the February Revolution of 1848, Fortoul ran for 1848 Constituent Assembly election, but was defeated. He was elected as deputy for Basses-Alpes in the 1849 French legislative election. He steadily moved towards a Bonapartist position. In October 1851 he was appointed Minister of the Navy, and on 3 December 1851 he became Minister of Education and Religious Affairs. He was appointed

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

in 1854. He died of a heart attack on 4 July 1856 in Bad Ems, Germany.

Principal works

*''Grandeur de la vie privée''. Paris : Gosselin et Coquebert, 1838, vol.1; vol. 2. *''Du génie de Virgile''. Lyon : Boital, 1840. *''De l’art en Allemagne''. Paris : Jules Labitte, 1841-1842, 2 vol. *''Essai sur les poëmes et les images de la danse des morts''. Paris : Jules Labitte, s. d. 842 *''Essais sur la théorie et sur l’histoire de la peinture chez les anciens et chez les modernes''. Paris : Jules Labitte, 1845 (extrait de L’Encyclopédie nouvelle). *''Études d’archéologie et d’histoire''. Paris : Firmin Didot, 1854, vol. 1; vol. 2.

References

Citations Sources * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fortoul, Hippolyte 1811 births 1856 deaths 19th-century French historians Ministers of public education and religious affairs of France French male non-fiction writers 19th-century French male writers