GAILLARD

gaillard, gabriel henri (1726-1806), french historian, was born at ostel, picardy, in 1726. he was educated for the bar, but after finishing his studies adopted a literary career, ultimately devoting his chief attention to history. he was already a member of the academy of inscriptions and belles-lettres (1760), when, after the publication of the three first volumes of his _histoire de la rivalite de la france et d'angleterre_, he was elected to the french academy (1771); and when napoleon created the institute he was admitted into its third class (_academie francaise_) in 1803. for forty years he was the intimate friend of malesherbes, whose life (1805) he wrote. he died at st firmin, near chantilly, on the 13th of 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 rivalite de la france et de l'angleterre_ (in 11 vols., 1771-1777); and among his other works may be mentioned _essai de rhetorique francaise, a 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 francois i^er_ (7 vols., 1776-1779); _histoire des grandes querelles entre charles v. et francois i^er_ (2 vols., 1777); _histoire de charlemagne_ (2 vols., 1782); _histoire de la rivalite de la france et de l'espagne_ (8 vols., 1801); _dictionnaire historique_ (6 vols., 1789-1804), making part of the _encyclopedie methodique_; and _melanges litteraires_, containing _eloges_ on charles v., henry iv., descartes, corneille, la fontaine, malesherbes and others.