Born in
Toulouse, Auguste Molinier was a student at the
École Nationale des Chartes, which he left in 1873, and also at the
École pratique des hautes études; and he obtained appointments in the public libraries at the
Mazarine (1878), at
Fontainebleau (1884), and at
Sainte-Geneviève, of which he was nominated librarian in 1885. He was a good
palaeographer and had a thorough knowledge of archives and manuscripts; and he soon achieved a high reputation among scholars of the history of
medieval France. His thesis on leaving the École des Chartes was his '
(inserted in vol. xxxiv of the '), an important contribution to the history of the
Albigenses. This marked him out as a capable editor for the new edition of '''' by
Dom Vaissète: he superintended the reprinting of the text, adding notes on the feudal administration of this province from 900 to 1250, on the government of
Alphonse of Toulouse, brother of
St Louis (1220–1271), and on the historical geography of the province of
Languedoc in the Middle Ages. He also wrote a '''', which was awarded a prize by the
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, but remained in manuscript. He also published several documents for the
Société de l'Orient Latin ('''', in collaboration with Carolus Kohler, 1885); for the
Société de l'Histoire de France ('
, assisted by his brother Émile, 1883); for the (', by Suger, 1887); for the ('
, 1894–1900); for the Recueil des historiens de la France (' 1904, 1906), etc., and several volumes in the ''''. Applying to the French classics the rigorous method used with regard to the texts of the Middle Ages, he published the
Pensées of
Pascal, revised with the original manuscript (1887–1889), and the
Provinciales (1891), edited with notes. In 1893 he was nominated professor at the , and gave a successful series of lectures which he published ('
, 1902–1906). He also taught at the . He died after a short illness, leaving in manuscript a criticism on the sources of the ' of
Vincent de Beauvais. His elder brother, Charles (born 1843), is also of some importance as an historian, particularly on the history of art and on the heresies of the Middle Ages. He was appointed professor of history at the
university of Toulouse in 1886. A younger brother,
Émile (1857–1906), was keeper at the
Musée du Louvre and a well-known connoisseur of art. ==Works==