The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Meyer, Paul Hyacinthe

MEYER, [Marie] Paul Hyacinthe, French philologist: b. Paris, 17 Jan. 1840; d. 19 March 1917. He was educated at the Lycée Louis le Grand and at the École des Chartes, specializing in the Romance languages. He was attached to the manuscript department of the Bibliothèque Nationale in 1863-65 and in 1865 founded the Revue Critique. He was keeper of the national archives in 1866-72 and in 1872 founded Romania, to which he was the leading contributor. He was appointed professor of the languages and literatures of southern Europe at the College of France in 1876, and from 1882 he was a director of the École Nationale des Chartes. He became honorary professor at the College of France in 1906. His work in connection with romance literature is of exceptional value and he is considered the leading modern authority on the French language. He was a member of the Institute of France, a commander in the Legion of Honor and an associate of the British Academy. He edited a large number of old French texts, many of which were for the Société de l'histoire de France and the Société des anciens textes français. Among them are ‘Aye d'Avignon’ (1861); ‘Flamença’ (1865); ‘Histoire Guillaume le Maréchal, comte de Striguil et de Pembroke’ (3 vols., 1891-1901); ‘Fragments d'une vie de Saint Thomas de Cantorbéry’ (1885), etc. Author of ‘Rapports sur les documents manuscrits de l'ancienne littérature de la France conservés dans les bibliothèques de la Grande Bretagne’ (1871); ‘Recueil d'anciens textes bas-Latins, provencaux et français’ (2 parts, 1874-76); ‘Alexandre le Grand dans la littérature française du moyen âge’ (2 vols., 1886); ‘Histoire des relations de la France avec Venise’ (1896); ‘Documents linguistiques du midi de la France’ (1909), etc.