1715 Constantin de Renneville imprisoned

René Auguste Constantin de Renneville (October 9, 1650 – March 13, 1723), was a French writer. He was born in

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,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 ...

principles, Renneville left France for the

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in 1699. On his return three years later he was denounced as a spy and imprisoned in the

Bastille The Bastille (, ) was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was stor ...

, where he remained until 1713. During his imprisonment he wrote a series of poems on the margins of a copy of ''Auteurs déguisés'' (Paris, 1690), which he called ''Otia bastiliaca''. These were rediscovered by James Tregaskis in 1906. Renneville was freed through the intercession of Queen Anne, and made his way to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. There he wrote his ''Histoire de la Bastille'' published in 1715 (volume 1) and 1719 (volumes 1–4 with a new preface) in Amsterdam with Étienne Roger, a publisher who addressed the European market. The publication was dedicated to

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and appeared simultaneously in an abridged English and an illustrated German edition.The German edition is said to have appeared in Nuremberg so Zedler's ''Universal-Lexicon'', vol. 31, col. 608. A Dutch edition followed in 1717. At the time of his death in 1723 he was a major of

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in the service of the elector of

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. His other important work is a ''Recueil des voyages qui ont servi a l'établissement de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales aux Provinces Unies'' (10 vols, new ed., Rouen, 1725). The English version of ''L'inquisition Françoise'' is of greater interest as it was published with William Taylor, the publisher

Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel '' Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its ...

chose for his ''

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'' in 1719. Both titles eventually shared aspects of realism and romanticization, an interest in the hardly credible "romantic" story of a survivor.

References

Works

* ''Cantiques de l’écriture sainte paraphrasés en sonnets'' (Amsterdam: Étienne Roger, 1703). * ''L'inquisition Françoise ou l'histoire de la Bastille. Par Mr. Constantin de Renneville''

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(Amsterdam: E. Roger, 1715). :* erman:''Entlarvte und jedermann zur Schau dargestellte französische Inquisition, oder: Geschicht der Bastille'' ( ürnberg,1715). :* nglish, abridged:''The French Inquisition: or, The History of the Bastille in Paris'' (London: A. Bell/ T. Varnham/ J. Osborne/ W. Taylor/ J. Baker, 1715). :* utch:''Historie van de Bastille of inquisite van Staat in Vrannryk'' (Amsterdam, 1717). * ''Psaumes de la Pénitence paraphrasés en sonnets '' (La Haye, 1715). * ''L'inquisition Françoise ou l'histoire de la Bastille. Par Mr. Constantin de Renneville'', 4 Vols. (Amsterdam: E. Roger, 1719). * ''L'inquisition françoise : ou, L’histoire de la Bastille'' (Amsterdam: B. Lakeman/ Leiden: J. & H. Verbeek, 1724). * ''Supplément à l’histoire de l’inquisition françoise ou de la Bastille'' (Amsterdam: Étienne Roger, 1719). * ''Poème en vers libre pour le jour de l’heureuse naissance de S.A.S.M. Charles, Landgrave de Hesse'' (Cassel, 1722). * ''Recueil des voiages qui ont servi à l'établissement & aux progrès de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales, formée dans les Provinces-Unies des Païs-Bas'' (Amsterdam: J. F. Bernard, 1725). * ''Œuvres spirituelles contenant diverses poésies chrétiennes'' (Amsterdam: 1725). * ''Anecdotes bas-normandes'', 1724, rééd. par Paul Le Cacheux (Évreux: Impr. de l’Eure, 1899).

Literature

* Olaf Simons, ''Marteaus Europa oder Der Roman, bevor er Literatur wurde'' (Amsterdam, 2001), p. 647-661. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Renneville 1650 births 1723 deaths French Protestants Renneville French male writers