Il professore e l’operaio. Michelet nel ricordo di un comunardo

Abstract

We present a diplomatic transcription (and a photographic reproduction) of the autograph draft of a detailed memory about the historian Jules Michelet, written a few days after his death by a journalist and politician who had assiduously frequented him between 1859 and 1867. The author, Pierre Denis, who played a non-marginal role during the Paris Commune, proves to be an attentive observer able to capture the essential elements of the personality and the method of a man considered “father of the historiography of France”. He provides us a portrait of this man and his time, lively and rich in insights. It is particularly interesting the Denis’ appreciation of Balzac’s works, a judgment that has strong analogies with Marx’s and Engels’ opinion,  (the Comedié humaine as a “realistic history of French society”).

Keywords: Denis; Michelet; Balzac; Marx; French social history.