Jacques Auguste de Thou (Thuanus) (8 October 1553,

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

– 7 May 1617, Paris) 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 ...

, book collector and president of the

Parliament of Paris The Parliament of Paris (french: Parlement de Paris) was the oldest ''parlement'' in the Kingdom of France, formed in the 14th century. It was fixed in Paris by Philip IV of France in 1302. The Parliament of Paris would hold sessions inside the ...

Life

Jacques Auguste de Thou was the grandson of , president of the

(d. 1544), and the third son of Christophe de Thou (d. 1582), '' premier président'' of the same '' parlement'', who had had ambitions to produce a history of France. His uncle was

Nicolas de Thou Nicolas de Thou (1528 – 5 November 1598) was a French prelate of the Catholic Church. He was a cleric, Bishop of Chartres, and, in politics, a figure instrumental in the coronation of Henry IV of France, the first monarch of the Bourbon dynast ...

Bishop of Chartres The oldest known list of bishops of Chartres is found in an 11th-century manuscript of Trinity Abbey, Vendôme. It includes 57 names from Adventus (Saint Aventin) to Aguiertus (Agobert) who died in 1060. The most well-known list is included in the ...

(1573–1598). With this family background, he developed a love of literature, a firm but tolerant piety, and a loyalty to

the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

. At seventeen, he began his studies in

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

, first at

Orléans Orléans (;"Orleans"
(US) and Bourges, where he made the acquaintance of

François Hotman François Hotman (23 August 1524 – 12 February 1590) was a French Protestant lawyer and writer, associated with the legal humanists and with the monarchomaques, who struggled against absolute monarchy. His first name is often written 'Francis' ...

, and finally at Valence, where he had

Jacques Cujas Jacques Cujas (or Cujacius) (Toulouse, 1522 – Bourges, 4 October 1590) was a French legal expert. He was prominent among the legal humanists or ''mos gallicus'' school, which sought to abandon the work of the medieval Commentators and conce ...

for his teacher and

Joseph Justus Scaliger Joseph Justus Scaliger (; 5 August 1540 – 21 January 1609) was a French Calvinist religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek and Ancient Roman history to include Persian, Babylonian, Jewish a ...

as a friend. He was at first intended for the Church; he received the

minor orders Minor orders are ranks of church ministry. In the Catholic Church, the predominating Latin Church formerly distinguished between the major orders —priest (including bishop), deacon and subdeacon—and four minor orders—acolyte, exorcist, lec ...

, and on the appointment of his uncle Nicolas to the episcopate succeeded him as a canon of Notre-Dame de Paris. During the next ten years he seized every opportunity for profitable travel. In 1573 he accompanied Paul de Foix on an embassy, which enabled him to visit most of the Italian courts; he formed a friendship with

Arnaud d'Ossat Arnaud d'Ossat (20 July 1537 – 13 March 1604) was a French diplomat and writer and a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, whose personal tact and diplomatic skill steered the perilous course of French diplomacy with the papacy in the reign o ...

(afterwards

Bishop of Rennes The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Rennes, Dol, and Saint-Malo (Latin: ''Archidioecesis Rhedonensis, Dolensis et Sancti Maclovii''; French: ''Archidiocèse de Rennes, Dol et Saint-Malo''; br, Arc'heskopti Roazhon, Dol ha Sant-Maloù) is a dioces ...

, bishop of Bayeux and a cardinal), who was secretary to the ambassador. In the following year he formed part of the brilliant cortege which brought King Henry III back to France, after his flight from his Polish kingdom. He also visited several parts of France, and at Bordeaux met Michel de Montaigne. On the death of his elder brother Jean (5 April 1579), who was ''

maître des requêtes A Master of Requests () is a counsel of the French ''Conseil d'État'' (Council of State), a high-level judicial officer of administrative law in France. The office has existed in one form or another since the Middle Ages. The occupational title ...

'' to the ''parlement'', his relations prevailed on him to leave the Church, and he entered the parlement and got married (1588). In the same year he was appointed '' conseiller d'état''. He served faithfully both Henry III and Henry IV, because they both represented legitimate authority. Jacques Auguste de Thou, president of the parliament of Paris

Jacques Auguste de Thou, president of the parliament of Paris

He succeeded his uncle Augustin as ''

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. ...

'' (1595), and used his authority in the interests of religious peace. He negotiated the

Edict of Nantes The Edict of Nantes () was signed in April 1598 by King Henry IV and granted the Calvinist Protestants of France, also known as Huguenots, substantial rights in the nation, which was in essence completely Catholic. In the edict, Henry aimed pr ...

with the Protestants, while in the name of the principles of the

Gallican Church Gallican may refer to: * Gallican Church (), a term referring to the Catholic Church in France * Église gallicane, a Catholic denomination founded in 1869 by Hyacinthe Loyson * Gallicanism, a doctrince that civil authority over the Catholic Chu ...

he opposed the recognition of the

Council of Trent The Council of Trent ( la, Concilium Tridentinum), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described a ...

. After the death of Henry IV, de Thou had a disappointment; the queen regent,

Marie de Medici Marie de' Medici (french: link=no, Marie de Médicis, it, link=no, Maria de' Medici; 26 April 1575 – 3 July 1642) was Queen of France and Navarre as the second wife of King Henry IV of France of the House of Bourbon, and Regent of the Kingdom ...

, refused him the position of ''premier président'' of the parlement, appointing him instead as a member of the ''Conseil des finances'' intended to take the place of Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, Sully. This was to him a demotion; he continued, however, to serve under her, and took part in the negotiations of the treaties concluded at Ste Menehould (1614) and Loudun (1616). He died in Paris. His son was François Auguste de Thou, who was executed by King Louis XIV and Cardinal Richelieu, as an accomplice with Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, Marquis of Cinq-Mars in 1642.

Coat of Arms

Argent, a chevron between three flies sable.

Works and Library

His attitude exposed him to the animosity of the League party and of the Holy See, and to their persecution when the first edition of his history appeared. This history was his life's work. In a letter of 31 March 1611, addressed to the president Pierre Jeannin, he described his labours. His materials were drawn from his rich library, one of the glories of Europe, which he established in the Rue des Poitevins in the year 1587, with the two brothers, Pierre Dupuy (scholar), Pierre Dupuy and Jacques Dupuy, as librarians. It was one of the finest libraries developed during the Renaissance era.Kinser, Samuel (1968). "An Unknown Manuscript Catalogue of J.A. De Thou." ''The Book Collector'' 17 no 2 (summer): 168-176. His object was to produce a scientific and unbiased work, and for this reason he wrote it in Latin, giving it as title ''Historia sui temporis''. The first 18 books, embracing the period from 1545 to 1560, appeared in 1604 (1 vol. folio), and the work was at once attacked by those whom the author himself calls ''les envieux et les factieux''. The second part, dealing with the first wars of religion (1560–1572) including the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, was put on the ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum'' (9 November 1609). The third part (up to 1574), and the fourth (up to 1584), which appeared in 1607 and 1608, caused a similar outcry, in spite of de Thou's efforts to remain just and impartial. He carried his scruples to the point of forbidding any translation of his book into French, because in the process there might, to use his own words, "be committed great faults and errors against the intention of the author"; this, however, did not prevent the Jesuit Father Machault from accusing him of being "a false Catholic, and worse than an open heretic" (1614); de Thou, we may say, was a member of the third order of St Francis. As an answer to his detractors, he wrote his ''Mémoires'', which are a useful complement to the ''History of his own Times''. To de Thou we also owe certain other works: a treatise ''De re accipitraria'' (1784), a ''Life'', in Latin, of Papyre Masson, some ''Poemata sacra'', etc.

Editions

Three years after the death of de Thou, Pierre Dupuy (scholar), Pierre Dupuy and Nicolas Rigault brought out the first complete edition of the ''Historia sui temporis'', comprising 138 books; they appended to it the ''Mémoires'', also in Latin (1620). A hundred years later, Samuel Buckley published a critical edition, the material for which had been collected in France itself by Thomas Carte (1733). De Thou was treated as a classic, an honour which he deserved. His history is a model of exact research, drawn from the best sources, and presented in an elegant and animated style; unfortunately, even for the men of the Renaissance, Latin was a dead language; it was impossible for de Thou to find exact equivalents for technical terms of geography or of administration. As the reasons which had led de Thou to forbid the translation of his monumental history disappeared with his death, there was soon a move to make it more accessible. It was translated first into German. A Protestant pastor, G Boule, who was afterwards converted to Catholicism, translated it into French, but could not find a publisher. The first translation printed was that of Pierre Du Ryer (1657), but it is mediocre and incomplete. In the following century the abbé Prévost, who was a conscientious collaborator with the Benedictines of Saint-Maur before he became the author of the more profane work ''Manon Lescaut'', was in treaty with a Dutch publisher for a translation which was to consist of ten volumes; only the first volume appeared (1733). But competition, perhaps of an unfair character, sprang up. A group of translators, who had the good fortune of being able to avail themselves of Buckley's fine edition, succeeded in bringing out all at the same time a translation in sixteen volumes (De Thou, ''Histoire universelle'', Fr. trans. by Charles le Beau, Le Mascrier, the Abbé Des Fontaines, 1734). As to the ''Mémoires'' they had already been translated by Le Petit and Des Ifs (1711); in this form they have been reprinted in the collections of Claude-Bernard Petitot, Petitot, Joseph François Michaud, Michaud and Jean Alexandre Buchon, Buchon. For his life may be consulted the recollections of him collected by the brothers Dupuy (''Thuana, sive Excerpta ex ore J. A. Thuani per F.F.P.P.'', Paris, 1669 (F.F.P.P.=Fratres Puteanos, i.e. the Dupuy brothers; reprinted in the edition of 1733), and the biographies by J. A. M. Collinson (''The Life of Thuanus'', London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807), and Johann Heinrich Joseph Düntzer, Heinrich Düntzer, (''Jacques Auguste de Thou's Leben, Schriften und historische Kunst verglichen mit der der Alten'', Darmstadt: Leske, 1837). See also Henry Harrisse, ''Le Président de Thou et ses descendants, leur célèbre bibliothèque, leurs armoiries et la traduction française de J. A. Thuani Historiarum sui Temporis'' (Paris: Librairie H. Leclerc, 1905).

Notes

References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Thou, Jacques Auguste De Writers from Paris 1553 births 1617 deaths 16th-century Latin-language writers, Thuanus 17th-century Latin-language writers, Thuanus 16th-century French historians 17th-century French historians French Ministers of Finance Ambassadors of France to the Netherlands French book and manuscript collectors French bibliophiles French male non-fiction writers 17th-century French male writers