Some articles which Fauriel in 1800 published in the Decade on a work of Madame de Stael were the means of ripening his slight acquaintance with that distinguished authoress into intimate friendship—a friendship which in its intellectual relations had considerable influence on her future career. Through her he was shortly afterwards introduced into the literary society of Auteuil. Neither in the literary history of his time nor in that particular circle can Fauriel be called the most prominent figure, but his position would not have been so unique in relation to either had it been more obtrusive. By nature strongly sympathetic, gifted also with a finely balanced judgment which was informed and cultivated to a high degree of perfection by an almost unexampled erudition, and so intensely interested in all that related to literature and history as to be almost forgetful of self and devoid of the love of fame, he soon became the confidant and almost the literary mentor of the most distinguished of his contemporaries, whom he benefited, not only by his contagious enthusiasm and suggestive criticism, but by placing at their disposal the results of his own laborious researches. Those who enjoyed his closest intimacy were the physiologist Cabanis and the Italian poet Manzoni, and perhaps after these, the historians Guizot and Thierry, the latter of whom in his preface to his Etudes historiques speaks of him as the friend and sure and faithful counsellor, whose judgment was his rule in doubt, and whose sympathy with his labours his greatest incentive to progress. During his connexion with Auteuil the attention of Fauriel was naturally turned to philosophy, and from the letter which Cabanis addressed to him on final causes it would appear that he must be named the precursor of that school of philosophy in France which recognizes Cousin as its head—that he was the first to direct attention to the importance of studying philosophy in its historical relations, and to advocate what is known as eclecticism. His great merit indeed is in emphasizing the necessity of studying, not only the philosophy, but the general literature and civilization of modern times in their primitive sources; although it must be admitted that his preference for early and uncultured forme of literature has in it something of exaggeration. For some years he was engaged on a history of Stoicism, but perhaps more on account of his attention having been accidentally directed to the subject by others than from any special interest in philosophy, and at any rate the work was never completed, all the papers connected with it having accidentally perished in 1814. He also occupied himself at the same time with the study of Arabic, Sanskrit, and the old French dialects, but all with a special reference to his historical researches. The chief task he had set before him was an inquiry into the origin of modern civilization, the wide range of his preliminary studies being accounted for by the fact that they were of the nature of soundings taken with a view to discover with some approximation to certainty where the treasure he was in search of was concealed; and it was because he became convinced that the object of his quest was to be found in southern Gaul that his studies gradually came to have a bearing more or less direct on the elucidation of the early history of that country. His opinions on subjects which had an incidental relation to his chief purpose were occasionally contributed to periodicals; and as a kind of interlude to his severer studies he published in 1810 a translation of the Parthenais oder die Alpenreise of the Danish poet Baggesen, with a preface on the various kinds.of poetry; in 1823 translations of two tragedies of his friend Manzoni, with a preface Sur la théorie de l ’ art dramatique ; and in 1824 his translation of the popular songs of modern Greece, with a Discours préliminaire on popular poetry, in which he claims for that species of literature a preference in some respects over the most cultivated and artistic productions on account of its freshness and its intimate connexion with nature and reality, and also as the best key to the comprehension of a nation’s history inasmuch as it is the spontaneous expression and outflow of its peculiar genius and of its deepest experiences.

After the revolution of 1830 the Government was persuaded by his friends to establish expressly for Fauriel a chair of foreign literature. In 1836 he was elected a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres, and in the same year he published in four volumes L’Histoire de la Gaule méridionale sous la domination des conquérants Germains— the second portion of a work which, when completed, was to have consisted of three parts, the first on southern Gaul under the Roman dominion, and the third and most important embracing the period from the dismemberment of the empire of Charlemagne to the end of the 13th century, and including the brilliant though premature spring-time of early literature and culture which for a short period relieved the sterile winter that had so long overshadowed the intellect of Europe. In 1837 Fauriel published, along with an introduction, a translation of the Provençal poem on the war of the Albigenses, and in 1839 he became a member of the commission of the Histoire littéraire de la France, to which work he contributed a number of articles on the writers of the 13th century. He died 15th July 1844. After his death appeared, in 1846, Histoire de la littérature provençale, which formed his course of professorial lectures for 1831-32, and may be regarded as a portion of the third part of the great work which he had sketched out on the history of southern Gaul. In these lectures he sought to prove that from the embers of the. civilization of Greece and Rome, which, by a peculiar combination of circumstances, had been transferred not wholly quenched to the foreign soil of Provençe, was lighted the spark which originated the greater part of the romances of chivalry (that is, not only those of the cycle of Charlemagne, but of the cycle of the Round Table), and thus kindled the civilization of modern Europe. Various opinions have been formed as to the amount of truth in this theory, and it must at least be admitted that Fauriel has been somewhat hampered and biased in his inquiry by preconceived conclusions; butin any case he must be allowed the merit of having first fully revealed the importance of the epoch of which he treats, and having supplied the greater part of the materials for the solution of the problems which it presents for discussion. Indeed, the distinguishing quality of his writings is their suggestiveness, and their value is therefore scarcely lessened even when their conclusions are disputed. The statement of Renan, made in 1855, that he is the man of our times who has put in circulation the greatest number of new ideas, can scarcely, however, be accepted, even when we remember his indirect influence on the contemporary writers of France; but none was more than he en rapport with the spirit of the 19th century, or has done a more important work in reference to those problems which are strictly literary or historical. The professorial lectures of Fauriel for 1833-34 were published in 1854, under the title of Dante et les origines de la langue et de la littérature italiennes ; and among his miscellaneous writings the most important are his examination of the Système de M. Raynouard sur l’origine des langues romanes, contributed to the Bibliothèque de l ’ École des Chartes, and his lives of Dante and Lope de Vega in the Revue des Deux Mondes ior October 1834 and September 1839 respectively.

The best and fullest account of Fauriel is that by Sainte-Beuve in his Portraits Contemporains, vol. iv. See also the review of FaurieΓs work on Provençal literature by H. Fortoul in the Revue des Deux Mondes for May 1846, and the short notice of his work on Dante by Renan in the Revue des Deux Mondes for December 1855.