“ GEFFROY, MATHIEU AUGUSTE (1820–1895) , French historian, was born in Paris. After studying at the École Normale Supérieure he held history professorships at various lycées. His French thesis for the doctorate of letters, Étude sur les pamphlets politiques et religieux de Milton (1848) , showed that he was attracted towards foreign history, a study for which he soon qualified himself by mastering the Germanic and Scandinavian languages. In 1851 he published a Histoire des états scandinaves, which is especially valuable for clear arrangement and for the trustworthiness of its facts. ”

“ To the second volume he appended a critical study on Marie Antoinette et Louis XVI apocryphes, in which he proved, by evidence drawn from documents in the private archives of the emperor of Austria, that the letters published by Feuillet de Conches (Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette et Madame Elisabeth, 1864–1873) and Hunolstein (Corresp. inédite de Marie Antoinette, 1864) are forgeries. ”

“ Later, a long stay in Sweden furnished him with valuable documents for a political and social history of Sweden and France at the end of the 18th century. In 1864 and 1865 he published in the Revue des deux mondes a series of articles on Gustavus III. and the French court, which were republished in book form in 1867. ”