Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont (30 November 163710 January 1698) was a French ecclesiastical

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 species; as well as the ...

Life

He was born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

into a wealthy

Jansenist Jansenism was a 17th- and 18th-century theological movement within Roman Catholicism, primarily active in France, which arose as an attempt to reconcile the theological concepts of free will and divine grace in response to certain development ...

family and was educated at the ''Petites écoles'' of Port-Royal, where his historical interests were formed and encouraged. At the age of twenty, he began his two monumental works, the ''Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique des six premiers siècles'' and the ''Histoire des empereurs et autres princes qui ont régné pendant les six premiers siècles de l'Église''. The first is a history of the first six centuries of the Christian Church. The second is a history of the Roman emperors during the same period. Tillemont became a priest at the age of 39 and settled at Port-Royal. When Port-Royal was dissolved in 1679, he moved to his family estate at Tillemont, where he spent the rest of his life, pursuing his historical work with great devotion. His ''Histoire'' began to issue from the press in 1690 and his ''Mémoires'' in 1693. The publication of both works was not complete at the time of his death. The final volumes were completed and published posthumously by his secretary Michel Tronchay. Tronchay also published a biography of Tillemont in 1706 titled ''Idee de la vie et de l'esprit de M. L. de Tillemont''. Tillemont is cited frequently by

Edward Gibbon Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English essayist, historian, and politician. His most important work, ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, is known for ...

in his ''

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', sometimes shortened to ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', is a six-volume work by the English historian Edward Gibbon. The six volumes cover, from 98 to 1590, the peak of the Ro ...

''. Tillemont's works were among the first to provide critical surveys of the full range of source material. His prose style is considered dry, but he had a reputation for accuracy, detail and conscientiousness. His work was attacked on a large scale by Honoratus a Sancta Maria in his three-volume ''Réflexions sur les règles et l'usage de la critique'' (1712–1720).

Selected works

* (6 vol.), 1690–97, 1701, 1738. * (16 vol.), 1693–1712. * (6 vol.), editor Jules Renouard, Paris, 1847–1851. *, 1919.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Le Nain De Tillemont, Louis-Sebastien 1637 births 1698 deaths French Roman Catholic writers 17th-century French Roman Catholic priests Writers from Paris Jansenists 17th-century French male writers 17th-century French historians French male non-fiction writers