Michel Vovelle (6 February 1933 – 6 October 2018) was a French historian who specialised in the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

.James Friguglietti, 'Michel Vovelle and the Revolutionary Succession', ''French Politics and Society'', No. 8 (December 1984), pp. 24–28. Vovelle was born in

Gallardon Gallardon () is a commune in the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. Population See also *Communes of the Eure-et-Loir department The following is a list of the 365 communes of the Eure-et-Loir department of France. The communes ...

, near

Chartres Chartres () is the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 170,763 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Chartres (as d ...

and he was educated at the

Lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on rue Saint-Jacques in central Paris. It was founded in the ...

, the

Lycée Henri IV In France, secondary education is in two stages: * ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15. * ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...

, the École Normale Supérieure of St Cloud and at the

University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

. He passed his ''agrégation d'histoire'' in 1956 and in 1963 published his first work, an edition of

Marat Marat may refer to: People *Marat (given name) *Marat (surname) **Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793), French political theorist, physician and scientist Arts, entertainment, and media *''Marat/Sade'', a 1963 play by Peter Weiss * ''Marat/Sade'' (fil ...

's writings. Vovelle's 1971 doctoral dissertation analysed the decline in religious observance in

Provence Provence (, , , , ; oc, Provença or ''Prouvènço'' , ) is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which extends from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the Italian border to the east; it is bor ...

from 1680 to 1790. He wrote a volume for the "Nouvelle histoire de la France contemporaine" series titled ''La Chute de la monarchie, 1787–1792'' (1972) and in 1976 produced ''Religion et Révolution: La Déchristianisation de l'an II''. He spent a large part of his academic career at the

University of Provence The University of Provence Aix-Marseille I (french: Université de Provence) was a public research university mostly located in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille. It was one of the three Universities of Aix-Marseille and was part of the Academy of ...

before being appointed in 1983 to the Chair of the History of the French Revolution at the University of Paris. In 1983, Michel Vovelle became president of the scientific and technical council of the

Musée de la Révolution française The Musée de la Révolution française (Museum of the French Revolution) is a departments of France, departmental museum in the French town of Vizille, south of Grenoble on the Route Napoléon. It is the only museum in the world dedicated to the ...

. He was closely associated with the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

References

Further reading