Antoine Varillas (1624 – 9 June 1696) was a French

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

, best known for his history of

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

Life

He was born in

Guéret Guéret (; Occitan: ''Garait'') is a commune and the prefecture of the Creuse department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in central France. Geography Guéret is a light industrial town, the largest in the department, with a big woodland a ...

and made a troubled way as a man of letters in Paris. He worked as a historian for Gaston, Duke of Orléans. Through an introduction from Pierre Dupuy, he was able to have library access, leading to work on manuscripts for Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Colbert, however, was dissatisfied with his work and replaced him. Varillas enjoyed support from Pierre Huet but became a marginal figure.http://www.histoire-gueret.fr/index.php?2007/11/03/143-antoine-varillas-1624-1696

Works

His writings attracted a great deal of interest amongst his contemporaries; serious if partisan criticisms of the

historical method Historical method is the collection of techniques and guidelines that historians use to research and write histories of the past. Secondary sources, primary sources and material evidence such as that derived from archaeology may all be drawn ...

of his earlier work led to his losing his reputation as a scholar. His works included: *''Histoire de l'heresie de Viclef, Iean Hus, et Jerome de Prague: avec celle des guerres de Bohéme qui en ont esté les suites''; *''Histoire de Louis Onze''; and *''Histoire des révolutions arrivées dans l'Europe''.

Notes

1624 births 1696 deaths People from Guéret 17th-century French historians French male non-fiction writers 17th-century French male writers {{France-historian-stub