Émile Gabory
Émile Jules Marie Emmanuel Gabory (17 December 1872 – 15 March 1954), was a French historian, poet, archivist and winemaker.
Biography
Émile Gabory was born in Vallet, Loire-Atlantique into a family of winemakers. He attended primary and secondary school at Saint-Stanislas College in Nantes, studied philosophy for a year in Carnac under the direction of Abbé Dejoie and obtained his law degree.
He then did his military service for two years in the 93rd line infantry regiment in La Roche-sur-Yon. On the advice of the Count of Berthou, he entered the National School of Charters on November 7, 1896. In 1899, while still a student, he was seriously wounded[1] in a train wreck that left many dead near the Juvisy station. The compensation he received from the railway company allowed him to visit Greece, Egypt and Palestine. He graduated from the School of Charters and obtained the title of archivist-paleographer on January 30, 1902, after having defended a thesis in 1901 entitled La Marine et le commerce de Nantes au XVIIe et au début du XVIIIe siècle (1661-1715).
On April 20, 1905, he was appointed archivist of the Vendée department, then of the Lower Loire in 1911 and began his historical studies. Gabory became involved in historical methodology. He was discharged from the army in 1914 because of his injuries. He was then in charge of the refugee service of Lower Loire.
He retired on February 17, 1937 and became first deputy mayor of Vallet. He was elected to the general council in 1938 and re-elected in 1945.
Writings
For the historian Jean-Clément Martin, Gabory "was one of the first to systematically study the archives of the English funds concerning the Vendée, while writing a history that was also rather favorable to the Whites".[2] The historian Alain Gérard, for his part, considers Émile Gabory to be "a true historian whose independence had made him suspicious of both sides".[3]
According to Jacques Hussenet: "the books of Émile Gabory constitute an excellent transition between the works of the nineteenth century and the research of the second part of the twentieth century, which they prefigure by making the best possible use of archival documents. We owe them, among other things, new contributions on refugees and relations with England".[4] A right-wing Republican, "archivist of the Vendée from 1905 to 1910, then of the Loire-Inférieure from 1911 to 1937, he never made a secret of his Vendée sympathies, which led him to be almost systematically listed among the counter-revolutionary authors. This is an error of appreciation, for Émile Gabory, a tireless tracker of archival documents, including in England, constantly reasoned as a historian and not as a militant or hagiographer. More often than not, he achieves impartiality, unlike Crétineau-Joly, Michelet, Muret, Chassin, Abbé Deniau, Jaurès or Mathiez".[5]
Works
- Les Visions et les Voix (1902; poetry)
- L'Édelweiss (1904; poetry)
- Napoléon et la Vendée (1912; awarded the Prix Thérouanne by the Académie française in 1914)
- Les Guerres de Vendée (1912)
- Les Bourbons et la Vendée (1923; awarded the Prix Thérouanne by the Académie française)
- Un Département Breton pendant la Guerre (1914-1918). Les Enfants du Pays Nantais et le XIe Corps d'Armée (1925; preface by Marshal Foch)
- La Révolution et la Vendée 1926; 2 volumes)
- La Vie et la Mort de Gilles de Raiz, dit à tort Barbe-bleue (1926)
- Le Meurtre de Gilles de Bretagne: 1450 (1929)
- L'Angleterre et la Vendée (1931; 2 volumes)
- Les Femmes dans la Tempête; Les Vendéennes (1935)
- Anne de Bretagne, Duchesse et Reine (1941)
- Un Grand Évêque Oublié: Monseigneur Duvoisin, Évêque de Nantes, Aumônier de l'Impératrice Marie-Louise (1947)
- Les Grandes Heures de la Vendée: Les Convulsions de l'Ouest (1963)
Notes
- ↑ Leg fracture and hip dislocation. See Le Figaro (7 août 1899), p. 2.
- ↑ Martin, Jean-Clément (2007). La Vendée et la Révolution. Paris: Perrin, p. 70.
- ↑ Hussenet, Jacques, ed. (2007). "Détruisez la Vendée!" Regards Croisés sur les Victimes et Destructions de la Guerre de Vendée. La Roche-sur-Yon: Centre Vendéen de Recherches Historiques, p. 12.
- ↑ Hussenet (2007), p. 435.
- ↑ Hussenet (2007), pp. 87–88.
References
- Berranger, Henri de (1954). "Nécrologie: Émile Gabory." In: Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, 112. Paris: Librairie Marcel Didier, pp. 322–23.
