Jules Michelet was a French historian. He was born in Paris to a family with Huguenot traditions. In his 1855 work, Histoire de France (History of France), Jules Michelet was the first historian to use and define the word Renaissance ('Re-birth' in French) as a period in Europe's cultural history that represented a drastic break from the Middle Ages (which he loathed), creating a modern understanding of humanity and its... see more