Aurélien de Courson (historian, born 1808)
Aurélien Marie de Courson de la Villeneuve, comte de Courson (20 November 1808 – 2 November 1889) was a French archivist and historian and one of the initiators of the revival of Breton historiography in the 19th century.
Biography
Aurélien de Courson was born in Port Louis, Mauritius, the son of Parfait Amand Marie Constant de Courson de la Villeneuve (1774–1849) and Charlotte Clémentine de Forancy (1786–1869). He had to abandon his military career after falling from a horse. He then turned to historical studies. In 1835, under the guidance of François Guizot and Augustin Thierry, he moved to Rennes and then Nantes to study charters and other archival sources. He then moved to Quimper and in 1840 published in Paris an Essay on the History, Language and Institutions of Armorican Brittany, which attracted considerable attention.
Aurélien de Courson was assistant archivist at the Finistère Departmental Archives from 1841 to 1845. In 1842 he founded the Revue de l'Armorique with his father-in-law Jean Alexandre Le Jumeau de Kergaradec (1787–1877) a member of the Academy of Medicine. He then helped found the Revue Archéologique in 1844 and became Secretary of the Archaeological Society of Finistère. He was then successively Curator of the Louvre Library, then of the National Library, of which he was deputy director.
He left a vast body of work spanning more than thirty years. Aurélien de Courson died in Bayonne at the age of 80.
See also
Private life
On 12 October 1840, in Quimper, he married Pauline-Marie Le Jumeau de Kergardec (1821–1885), who gave him seven children.
- Marie Marthe Therese de Courson de la Villeneuve (1841–1924)
- Arthur Eudoxie Marie de Courson de la Villeneuve (1843–1923)
- Robert Alexandre Marie de Courson de la Villeneuve (1845–1923)
- Marguerite Marie Charlotte de Courson de la Villeneuve (1847–1924)
- Paul Aurélien Charles Marie de Courson de la Villeneuve (born 1849)
- Marie Alphonsine Irène Elisabeth de Courson de la Villeneuve (1854–1891)
- Aurélien Georges Marie Joseph de Courson de la Villeneuve (1858–1923)
He was the grandfather of General Maurice de Courson de La Villeneuve.
External links
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