Jean Bouhier (16 March 1673,

Dijon Dijon (, , ) (dated) * it, Digione * la, Diviō or * lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920. The earlies ...

– 17 March 1746,

) was a French magistrate, jurisconsultus, historian, translator, bibliophile and scholar. He served as the first

président à mortier The ''président à mortier'' () was one of the most important legal posts of the French ''Ancien Régime''. The ''présidents'' were principal magistrates of the highest juridical institutions, the ''parlements'', which were the appeal courts. ...

to the parlement de Bourgogne from 1704 to 1728, when he resigned to devote himself to his historic and literary work following his 1727 election to the

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

Biography

From the rich Bouhier family (his brother

Claude Bouhier de Lantenay Claude Bouhier de Lantenay (19 October 1681 – 19 June 1755) was a French clergyman and the second bishop of Dijon The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dijon (Latin: ''Archidioecesis Divionensis''; French: ''Archidiocèse de Dijon'') is a diocese o ...

became the second

bishop of Dijon The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dijon (Latin: ''Archidioecesis Divionensis''; French: ''Archidiocèse de Dijon'') is a diocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in France. The archepiscopal see is Dijon Cathedral, which is located ...

in 1744), Jean Bouhier had a vast network of correspondents right across Europe. The Eltons write of him: He was renowned as much for his erudition as for the splendid library he had inherited from his ancestors, which he expanded and put at the disposal of the poets and writers he welcomed to his hôtel on rue Vauban in Dijon. At the end of his life the library held 35,000 works and 2,000 manuscripts, but all his collections were dispersed after his death and were mostly sold to

Clairvaux Abbey Clairvaux Abbey (, ; la, Clara Vallis) was a Cistercian monastery in Ville-sous-la-Ferté, from Bar-sur-Aube. The original building, founded in 1115 by St. Bernard, is now in ruins; the present structure dates from 1708. Clairvaux Abbey was a ...

Works

Besides his treatise on Burgundian customs (considered his masterpiece), Jean Bouhier was the author of several works on jurisprudence as well as many dissertations. He also translated Latin classical texts, some in collaboration with the abbé d’Olivet, though Bouhier's translations were more appreciated by his contemporaries for their closeness to the original than for their style – his wife said to him "You take care of thinking, and leave me with the writing"

D’Alembert Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert (; ; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the ''Encyclopédie ...

said of him :

History and jurisprudence

*''Traité de la succession des mères en vertu de l’édit de Saint-Maur, avec une dissertation sur les droits de la mère en la succession de ses enfans, au cas de la substitution pupillaire, principalement par rapport à l’usage du Parlement de Dijon'' (1726) *''Dissertation sur la représentation en succession, suivant la coutume du duché de Bourgogne, avec une explication de l’article XXV de la même coutume'' (1734) *''Traité de la dissolution du mariage pour cause d’impuissance, avec quelques pièces curieuses sur le même sujet'' (1735) *''Supplément au Journal du règne d'

Henri IV Henry IV (french: Henri IV; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry or Henry the Great, was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarc ...

, depuis le 2 août 1589 jusques au 1er avril 1594 ; depuis le 1er de l’an 1598 jusques en 1602 et depuis le 1er de janvier 1607 jusques au mois de juin 1610'' (1737) *''Les Coutumes du duché de Bourgogne, avec les anciennes coutumes tant générales que locales de la même province'' (2 volumes 1742–46) *''Œuvres de jurisprudence '' (2 volumes, 1787–88)

Translations

*''Tusculanes de Cicéron'' (''The

Tusculanae Quaestiones The ''Tusculanae Disputationes'' (also ''Tusculanae Quaestiones''; English: ''Tusculan Disputations'') is a series of five books written by Cicero, around 45 BC, attempting to popularise Greek philosophy in Ancient Rome, including Stoicism. It is s ...

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...

'', 1737) *''Poëme de Pétrone sur la guerre civile entre César et Pompée, avec deux épîtres d’Ovide, en vers français, avec des remarques et des conjonctures sur le poëme intitulé "Pervigilium Veneris"'' (''Poem by

Petronius Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter"
Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

, in French verse, with remarks and conjectures on the poem entitled

Pervigilium Veneris ''Pervigilium Veneris'' (or ''The Vigil of Venus'') is a Latin poem of uncertain date, variously assigned to the 2nd, 4th or 5th centuries. It is sometimes thought to have been by the poet Tiberianus, because of strong similarities with his po ...

', 1737) *''Les Amours d’Énée et de Didon, poëme traduit de Virgile, avec diverses autres imitations d’anciens poëtes grecs et latins'' (''The Loves of

Aeneas In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons ...

and

Dido Dido ( ; , ), also known as Elissa ( , ), was the legendary founder and first queen of the Phoenician city-state of Carthage (located in modern Tunisia), in 814 BC. In most accounts, she was the queen of the Phoenician city-state of Tyre (t ...

, poem translated from

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

,Book 4 of the ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan_War#Sack_of_Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to ...

''. with several imitations of ancient Greek and Latin poets'', 1742) *''Remarques sur Cicéron'' (''Remarks on Cicero'', 1746) *''Recherches et dissertations sur Hérodote'' (''Researches and dissertations on

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...

'', 1746)

Memoirs and correspondence

*''Souvenirs de Jean Bouhier, président au Parlement de Dijon, extraits d’un manuscrit autographe inédit et contenant des détails curieux sur divers personnages des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècle'' (1866) *''Correspondance littéraire'' (1974)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bouhier Writers from Dijon 1673 births 1746 deaths French jurists 18th-century French writers 18th-century French male writers 18th-century French historians French philologists French literary historians Latin–French translators Greek–French translators French classical scholars French book and manuscript collectors Members of the Académie Française History of Burgundy French male non-fiction writers 18th-century jurists