Frantz Funck-Brentano

Frantz Funck-Brentano (15 June 1862 – 13 June 1947) was a French historian and librarian. He was born in the castle of Munsbach (Luxembourg) and died at Montfermeil. He was a son of Théophile Funck-Brentano.

After graduating very young from the prestigious École Nationale des Chartes, Frantz Funck-Brentano was in 1885 named curator of the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, of which he never became director. His research focussed especially on the Ancien Régime, primarily because this library housed the archive of documents from the Bastille, which represented an incomparable source for the history, in particular the political history of the Ancien Régime. Funck-Bentano himself compiled the voluminous and exhaustive catalogue of this archive while he was curator. The depths of this resource led him to study all aspects of the history of the Ancien Régime: its institutions, peculiarities, personalities and famous events, which he made the subject of highly referenced books that brought great success to the library.

In 1900 he became replacement professor at the Collège de France, in the chair of comparative legislative history, where he dealt with the foundation of western European cities.

In 1905 he was appointed a principal lecturer of the Alliance française to the United States. At the same time he was mandated by the French government to study the spread of French literature in the United States, Canada and Cuba. In this capacity he spoke before President Theodore Roosevelt in the White House. On his return to France, he was made a knight of the Légion d'honneur.

In 1909 he spoke before French circles of Austria-Hungary, in Vienna, Prague and Budapest, on the history of France through the ages.

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