Estampe LOUIS DUTENS - NE A TOURS LE 15 JANVIER 1730 - MORT A LONDRES EN 1812

Louis Dutens (15 January 173023 May 1812) was a French writer born in

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metro ...

, of

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

parents, who lived most of his life in Britain or in British service on the continent. He went to London, where his uncle was a jeweller, and there obtained a situation as tutor in a private family. In this position he learnt mathematics,

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, Italian, Spanish and several oriental languages. He took orders, and was appointed chaplain and secretary to the English minister at the court of

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. Th ...

in October 1758. From 1760 to 1762, he was

chargé d'affaires A ''chargé d'affaires'' (), plural ''chargés d'affaires'', often shortened to ''chargé'' (French) and sometimes in colloquial English to ''charge-D'', is a diplomat who serves as an embassy's chief of mission in the absence of the ambassado ...

at Turin. Lord Bute, before retiring from office in 1763, procured him a pension. He again went to Turin as chargé d'affaires; and during this second mission he collected and published an edition of the works of

Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mat ...

(''Gothofridi Guillemi Leibnitii Opera Omnia'', Geneva, 6 vols., 1768) and wrote his ''Recherches sur l'origine des découvertes attribuées aux modernes'' (1766). On his return to England the

Duke of Northumberland Duke of Northumberland is a noble title that has been created three times in English and British history, twice in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of Great Britain. The current holder of this title is Ralph Percy, 12th Duke ...

procured him the living of Elsdon, in

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land ...

, and made Dutens overseer and senior travel companion – in effect, tutor – to his younger son during his

Grand Tour The Grand Tour was the principally 17th- to early 19th-century custom of a traditional trip through Europe, with Italy as a key destination, undertaken by upper-class young European men of sufficient means and rank (typically accompanied by a tut ...

. At Rome in 1769, Dutens published ''Le tocsin'' (later published in Paris as ''Appel au bon sens''), a work of Christian

apologetics Apologetics (from Greek , "speaking in defense") is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their beliefs against critics a ...

. He was active in civic life beyond the parish and preached the annual sermon to the Charity School of St Nicholas, Newcastle, in 1768. In 1775, he became a member of the French Academy of Inscriptions and a fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. Dutens was for a third time chargé d'affaires at Turin. He was in Paris in 1783, and returned to London the following year. Between 1775 and 1805, he wrote his ''Memoirs of a Traveler, Now in Retirement'', which contains a wide-ranging miscellany of Dutens' life "interspersed with historical, literary, and political anecdotes relative to the principal personages of the present age".''Memoirs of a Traveler, Now in Retirement'' (vol. 1, London, 1806), title page and p. 3. He died in London in 1812.

References

External links

*
Recherches sur l'origine des découvertes attribuées aux modernes (Google Books)
(Paris, 1766)
Memoirs of a Traveler, Now in Retirement/Dutensiana (Google Books)
(text in 5 volumes: London, 1806, "translated from the French under the superintendence of the author")
Memoirs of a Traveler, Now in Retirement/Dutensiana (Internet Archive)Le tocsin (Google Books)
(Rome, 1769) {{DEFAULTSORT:Dutens, Louis 1730 births 1812 deaths 18th-century French historians 18th-century French writers 18th-century French male writers French editors Fellows of the Royal Society Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres French male non-fiction writers 19th-century French historians