Jacques Nicholas Augustin, a celebrated French historian, was born of poor parents at Blois, on the 10th of May 1795. He received his elementary instructions in his native town, and entered the normal school in 1811, where he gained considerable distinction as a student. He became a teacher in a provincial school in 1813, but resigning his charge next year, he came to Paris, and enlisted himself in the small but enthusiastic band which were then gathering round the author of Saint Simonianism. Thierry remained with St Simon for three years, during which time he had, as his assistant, aided him in the publication of various works, among others Des Nations et des Leurs rapports mutuels in 1816. Having had enough of Saint Simon, Thierry, in 1817, joined Comte and Dunoyer, as editors of Censeur Européan, where he wrote articles on literature, politics, and history. On the suppression of this journal in 1820, he became a contributor to the Courrier Français, where he published a series of letters on the history of France, which gave high offence to the authorities. He gave up journalism, and took to his historical studies with increased zeal. The Histoire de la Conquête d'Angleterre par les Normands, 3 vols., appeared in 1825; and two years afterwards his contributions to the Courrier Français were published in a collected form. Thierry had not mistaken his rôle, notwithstanding a number of mistaken ideas which he persists in making historical, such as his grand distinction of the Norman and Anglo-Saxon, that the one was born to rule, while the other was born merely to serve. His histories possess very varied merits. He is acute, imaginative, picturesque; and the style of his writings possess all those qualities often in a high degree. If he is less profound than Guizot, and less eloquent than Michelet, he surpasses both in his power of grouping details, although inferior to both in the graces of his style.

The works which Thierry had already published had met with great success; but this success had been purchased at much too high a price. The diligent historian had now become quite blind, and he had to trust, henceforward, to the aid of foreign eyes to decipher the musty records over which the annalist must pore. He was ordered to Hyères, on the Mediterranean, in 1830, for the benefit of his health, and next year he met Julie Quérangel, author of a number of clever essays in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and of Scènes des Mœurs aux 18 me et 19 me Siècles.

Thierry married this lady in 1831, and she watched him with the most assiduous care in his state of total blindness, till she was removed by death in 1844. Between 1831 and 1835 he spent his time partly at Luxeuil, and partly at Haut-Saône, engaged on revising his Dix ans d'Études Historiques, which, with a very elegant introduction, he republished in 1834. He continued, besides, to contribute periodically to the pages of the Revue des Deux Mondes, and commenced the Recits des Temps Maravigiliens, when M. Guizot called him to Paris in 1835. He engaged in editing some Recueils and Collections connected with French history, and published the above Recits in 2 vols. in 1840. The academy awarded to this work their great Gobert prize. The last work of Thierry was entitled, Essai sur l'Histoire de la formation et du progrès du tiers état, 1853; and the author, worn out with labour and suffering, died on the 28th of May 1856. A collected edition of Thierry's works was published in 1853.