Thomas Carlyle, François Guizot and the Brothers Ruffini: An unpublished letter

Abstract

This article presents a letter from the great Victorian man of letters Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) to François Guizot (1787–1874), the de facto premier of France, recently discovered in the Archives Nationales in Paris. In the letter, Carlyle requests Guizot’s help in procuring visas for two of his friends, the exiled Italian revolutionaries Giovanni and Agostino Ruffini, who were hoping to visit their mother in France. The letter serves as an entry point into a wider consideration of the relationships between Carlyle, Guizot and the brothers Ruffini, all of which have been overlooked in the existing scholarship on Carlyle. In particular, the article provides an English translation of Giovanni and Agostino’s significant accounts of their relations with Carlyle (and his wife Jane), originally written in Italian.