Louis de Mas Latrie

Louis de Mas Latrie
Born
Jacques Marie Joseph Louis de Mas Latrie

Castelnaudary
Died3 January 1897(1897-01-03) (aged 81)
Paris
OccupationHistorian
SpousePauline Rendu

Louis de Mas Latrie (9 April 1815 – 3 January 1897) was a 19th-century French historian.

Biography

After his studies at the École nationale des chartes, Louis de Mas Latrie became an historian and specialized on Cyprus during the Middle Ages. He made several voyages there and is now considered by his peers as the founder of history and archaeology of the island.

In 1848, he succeeded Jacques-Joseph Champollion as professor of diplomatics at the École de Chartes and held that position until his retirement in 1885. He then chose Arthur Giry who had been his assistant for two years to replace him.

He was elected a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1885. He was also a member of the Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques and of the Société de l’histoire de France. His works won numerous awards, including a prize bt the Academy des Inscriptions in 1843, a medal in the competition of National Antiquities in 1850 and first and second Grand prix Gobert in 1862 and 1878.

In 1841, he married Pauline Rendu, the niece of Ambroise Rendu, with whom he had 4 children. Widowed in 1862, he remarried three years later with Julie Anne Chauvet, widow of a cousin of his wife, a former lawyer to the Conseil d'État and the Court de Cassation. In 1875, Pope Pius IX granted Louis Mas Latrie the title of count, transmissible to his male offspring. His eldest son, René de Mas Latrie (1844–1904), a former student of the École des Chartes, published in 1875 a study entitled Du droit de marque ou droit de représailles au Moyen Age. One of the granddaughters of Louis Mas Latrie, Anne (1878–1946), married the royalist polemicist Roger Lambelin.

Principal works