François Victor Alphonse Aulard

François Victor Alphonse Aulard (19 July 1849 – 23 October 1928) was the first professional French historian of the French Revolution and of Napoleon. He argued:

Aulard's historiography was based on positivism. The assumption was that methodology was all-important and the historian's duty was to present in chronological order the duly verified facts, to analyze relations between facts, and provide the most likely interpretation. Full documentation based on research in the primary sources was essential. He took the lead and publication very important documents, and in training advanced students in the proper use and analysis of primary sources. Aulard's famous four volume history of the Revolution focused on parliamentary debates, not action in the street; in institutions, not insurrections. He emphasized public opinion, elections, parties, parliamentary majorities, and legislation. He recognized the complications that prevented the Revolution from fulfilling all its ideal promises – as when the legislators of 1793 made a suffrage universal for all men, but also established the dictatorship of the Terror.