ALEXIS PAULIN PARIS (1800-1881), French savant, was born at Avenay (Marne) on the 25th of March 1800. He published in 1824 an Apologie pour l'ecole romantique, and took an active part in Parisian journalism. His appointment, in 1828, to the department of manuscripts in the Bibliotheque royale left him leisure to pursue his studies in medieval French literature. Paulin Paris lived before minute methods of research had been generally applied to modern literature, and his chief merit is that by his numerous editions of early French poems he continued the work begun by Dominique Meon in arousing general interest in the then little-known epics of chivalry. Admitted to the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres in 1837, he was shortly afterwards appointed on the commission entrusted with the continuation of the Histoire litteraire de la France. In 1853 a chair of medieval literature was founded at the College de France, and Paulin Paris became the first occupant. He retired in 1872 with the title of honorary professor, and was promoted officer of the Legion of Honour in the next year. He died on the 13th of February 1881 in Paris.
His works include: Manuscrits francais de la bibliotheque du roi (7 vols., 1836-1848); Li Romans di Garin le Loherain, precede d'un examen des romans carlovingiens (1883-1885); Li Romans de Berte dux grans pies ( 1832); Le Romancero francais, histoire de quelques anciens trouveres et choix de leurs chansons (1833); an edition of the Grandes chroniques de France (1836-1840); La Chanson d'Antioche (1848); Les Aventures de maitre Renart et d Ysengrin (1861) and Les Romans de la table ronde (1868-1877), both put into modern French.
His son Gaston Paris contributed a biographical notice to vol. xxix. of the Histoire litteraire.