Charles Read (French historian)
French scholar and historian of French Protestantism
Charles Read (22 January 1819 - 19 December 1898) was a French historian, specialising in 16th and early 17th century history and the history of Protestantism in France.
He was the founding president of the Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français in 1852, founded l'Intermédiaire des chercheurs et curieux and took a major part in the creation of what became the musée Carnavalet.
Life
Early life
He was born in the 4th old arrondissement of Paris to Augustine Brulley and her Scottish husband William Read. He studied classics at the collège Louis-le-Grand then trained at the Faculté de droit de Paris. He was received as a lawyer, joined the bar in 1841, and two years later became a magistrate as a substitute for Montélimar. In 1845 he moved to be a substitute for Montargis. The French Provisional Government of 1848 made him sub-prefect of Blaye and Villeneuve-d’Agen and the following year he joined the Ministry for Education and Religions as head of the service for non-catholic faiths.
In that role he intervened in the reorganisation of French protestant churches and took a major part in the preparations for the 1852 decrees which replaced the consistories with presbyterial councils. 1852 also saw him found the Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français - a devout adherent of the Reformed faith himself, he edited the society's Bulletin historique et littéraire for fourteen years and managed its library at 54 rue des Saints-Pères. The Ministry's head Gustave Rouland accused him of favouring the Protestants over the State and so Read left that role in 1857 to become director of the litigation department for the Seine prefecture.
“Charles Read (French historian)” enters the record as french scholar and historian of French Protestantism. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Charles, Read and French can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2960086. VIAF identifies the subject as 19785470. The Library of Congress control number is no2001019138. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1819, 1898, 1852 and 1841.
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This entry incorporates text from “Charles Read (French historian)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.