Abraham de Wicquefort ( nl, Abraham van Wickevoort, i=no; 24 December 1606 – 23 February 1682) was a Dutch diplomat.
Born in Amsterdam, Wicquefort was the brother of .
Between 1626 and 1658 he represented
Brandenburg
Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...
at the French court, but
Cardinal Mazarin
Cardinal Jules Mazarin (, also , , ; 14 July 1602 – 9 March 1661), born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino () or Mazarini, was an Italian cardinal, diplomat and politician who served as the chief minister to the Kings of France Louis XIII and Louis X ...
imprisoned him in the Bastille as a result of a suspicious exchange of letters. He was released after one year, was given a French pension and settled in
the Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
as the representative of the
Duchy of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. In 1675 he was put in prison by the Dutch government for treasonous relations with the French. He was given a life-time sentence and his property was confiscated. However, he managed to escape to
Celle
Celle () is a town and capital of the district of Celle, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the river Aller, a tributary of the Weser, and has a population of about 71,000. Celle is the southern gateway to the Lü ...
where he died.
Wicquefort translated travel accounts by
Adam Olearius
Adam Olearius (born Adam Ölschläger or Oehlschlaeger, 24 September 159922 February 1671) was a German scholar, mathematician, geographer and librarian. He became secretary to the ambassador sent by Frederick III, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, to ...
and
García de Silva Figueroa
Don García de Silva Figueroa (December 29, 1550 – July 22, 1624) was a Spanish diplomat, and the first Western traveller to correctly identify the ruins of Takht-e Jamshid in Persia as the location of Persepolis, the ancient capital of the A ...
's account of an embassy to Persia. He is also the author of L'ambassadeur, ses fonctions (two volumes, 1682) and L'histoire des provinces-unies des Pays-Bas (1719), which discusses the
Treaty of Westphalia
The Peace of Westphalia (german: Westfälischer Friede, ) is the collective name for two peace treaties signed in October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. They ended the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) and brought peac ...
.
Sources
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External links
1606 births
1682 deaths
17th-century Dutch diplomats
Diplomats from Amsterdam
Prisoners of the Bastille
{{Netherlands-diplomat-stub