GAILLARD, GabrielHenri (1726-1806), a French historian, was born at Ostel, Picardy, in 1726. He was educated for the bar, but after finishing his studies adopted the literary profession, ultimately devoting his chief attention to history. In 1801 he was chosen a member of the French Academy, and he was also one of the original members of the Institute. For forty years he was the intimate friend of the minister Malesherbes. He died at St Firmin, near Chantilly, 13th February 1806. Gaillard is painstaking and impartial in his statement of facts, and his style is correct and elegant, but the unity of his narrative is somewhat destroyed by digressions, and by his method of treating war, politics, civil administration, and ecclesiastical affairs under separate heads.

His most important work is his Histoire de la rivalité de la France et de V Angleterre, in 11 vols., 1771—1777; and among his other works may be mentioned Essai de rhétorique française, à l'usage des jeunes demoiselles, 1745, often reprinted, and in 1822 with a life of the author; Histoire de Marie de Bourgogne, 1757; Histoire de François I., 7 vols. 1776-1779; Histoire des grandes querelles entré Charles V. et François I., 2 vols., 1777; Histoire de Charlemagne, 2 vols., 1782; Histoire de la rivalité de la France et de T Espagne, 8 vols., 1801; Dictionnaire historique, 6 vols., 1789-1804, making part of the Encyclopédie méthodique·, and Mélanges littéraires, containing éloges on Charles V., Henry IV., Descartes, Corneille, La Fontaine, Malesherbes, and others.