Albert Mathiez

French historian, best known for his Marxist interpretation of the French Revolution. In his masterwork La Révolution française (3 vol. 1922–1924), Mathiez emphasized class conflict. He argued that 1789 pitted the bourgeoisie against the aristocracy and then the Revolution pitted the bourgeoisie against the sans-culottes, who were a proletariat-in-the-making. Mathiez greatly influenced Georges Lefebvre and Albert Soboul in forming what came to be known as the orthodox Marxist interpretation of the Revolution. Mathiez admired Maximilien Robespierre, praised the Reign of Terror and did not extend complete sympathy to the struggle of the proletariat.

Mathiez held the highly prestigious Sorbonne chair in French Revolutionary Studies and was the founder of the Societe des Etudes Robespierristes which led to the creation in 1908 of the highly regarded journal Annales révolutionnaries that became Annales historiques de la Révolution française in 1924.

Albert Mathiez died in Paris on 25 February 1932 at age 58.