FRANCISQUE XAVIER MICHEL (1809-1887), French antiquary, was born at Lyons on the 18th of January 1809. He became known for his editions of French works of the middle ages, and the French Government, recognizing their value, sent him to England (1833) and Scotland (1837) to continue his researches there. In 1839 he was appointed professor of foreign literature in the Faculte des lettres at Bordeaux. Between 1834 and 1842 he published editions of a large number of works written between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries in French, English and Saxon, including the Roman de la rose and the Chanson de Roland. Subsequently he published French translations of Goldsmith, Sterne, Shakespeare and Tennyson. He died in Paris on the 18th of May 1887.
His original works include Histoire des races maudites de la France et de l'Espagne (1847); Recherches sur le commerce pendant le moyen age (1852, 1854); Les Ecossais en France et les francais en Ecosse (1862); Etudes de philologie comparee sur l'argot (1856); Le Pays basque (1857); Histoire du commerce et de la navigation a Bordeaux (1867-1871); and, in conjunction with Edouard Fournier, Histoire des hotelleries, cabarets, hotels garnis (1851-1854).