LOUIS GEORGES OUDARD FEUDRIX DE

See also:

• LOUIS GEORGES OUDARD FEUDRIX DE BREQUIGNY (1714–1795)

BREQUIGNY (1714–1795)  , French scholar, was born at Gainneville near Havre, on the 22nd of February 1714, and died at Paris on the 3rd of July 1795 . His first publications were anonymous: an Histoire des revolutions de Genes jusqu'd la paix de 1748 (1750), and a series of Vies des orateurs grecs (1752) . Elected a member of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres in 1759, he contribu ted an Histoire de Posthume empereur des Gaules (vol. xxx., 176o) to the collected works of that illustrious society, and also a Memoire sur l'etablissement de la religion et de l'empire de Mahomet (vol. xxxii., 1761–1763) . After the close of the Seven Years' War he was sent to search in the archives of England for documents bearing upon the history of France, more particularly upon that of the French provinces which once belonged to England . This mission (1764–1766) was very fruitful in results; Brequigny brought back from it copies of about 7000 documents, which are now in the Bibliotheque Nationale . A useful selection .of these documents was published (unfortunately without adequate critical treatment) by Jean Jacques Champollion-Figeac, under the title Lettres de rois, refines et autres personnages des tours de France et d'Angleterre, depuis Louis VII. jusqu'd Henri IV., tirees des archives de Londres par Brequigny (collection of Documents inedits relatifs (i l'histoire de France, 2 vols., 1839, 1847) . Brequigny himself drew the material for many important studies from the rich mine which he had thus exploited . These were included in the collection of the Academic des Inscriptions: Memoire sur les diferends entre la France et dAngleterre sous le regne de Charles le Bel (vol. xli.); Memoire sur la vie de Marie, reine de France, sceur de Henri VIII., roi d'Angleterre (vol. xlii.); four Menzoires pour servir d l'histoire de Calais (vols. xliii. and 1.); and Memoire sur les negotiations touchant les projets de mariage d'Elizabeth, reine d'Angleterre, d'abord avec le duc d'Anjou, ensuite avec le duc d'Alencon, tous deux freres de Charles IX . (vol . 1.) . This last was read to the Academy on the 22nd of January 1793, the morrow of Louis XVI.'s execution . Mean-while, Brequigny had taken part in three great and erudite works .

For the Recueil des ordonnances des rois de France he had prepared volumes x.-xiv., the

preface to vol. xi. containing important researches into the French communes . To the Table chronologique des diplo"mes, chartes, lettres, et actes imprimes concernant l'histoire de France he contributed three volumes in collaboration with Mouchet (1769—1783) . Charged with the supervision of a large collection of documents bearing on French history, analogous to Rymer's Foedera, he published the first volume (Diplomat at . Chartae, &c., 1791) . The Revolution interrupted him in his collection of Memoires concernant l'histoire, les sciences, les lettres, et les arts des Chinois, begun in 1776 at the instance of the minister Bertin, when fifteen volumes had appeared . See the note on Brequigny at the end of vol. i. of 'the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions (1808) ; the Introduction to vol. iv. of the Table chronologique des diplo"mes (1836) ; Champollion-Figeac's preface to the Lettres des rois et reines; the Comite des travaux historiques, by X . Charmes, vol. i. passim; N . Oursel, Nouvelle biographic normande (1886); and the Catalogue des manuscrits des collections Duchesne et Brequigny (in the Bibliotheque Nationale), by Rene Poupardin (1905) . (C .