Gabriel Monod

Returning to France in 1868 he was nominated by Victor Duruy to give lectures on history, following the method used in German seminaries, at the École des hautes études.

He himself said that his pupils were his best books; he intended to teach them not so much new facts as the way to study, endeavouring to develop in them an idea of criticism and truth.

They showed their gratitude by dedicating a book to him in 1896, Études d'histoire du moyen âge, and after his retirement in 1905 by having his features engraved on a slab (see À Gabriel Monod, en souvenir de son enseignement: École pratique des hautes études, 1868–1905, École normale supérieure, 1880–1904.

Some of his articles in this and other periodicals were put together in book form, Les Maîtres de l'histoire: Ernest Renan, Hippolyte Taine, Jules Michelet (1894); Portraits et souvenirs (1897: on Victor Hugo, Fustel de Coulanges, Victor Duruy, etc.

)[1] In 1903 he published Souvenirs d'adolescence, and in 1905 Études sur Michelet, sa vie et ses Œuvres.