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ANQUETIL, LOUIS PIERRE (1723-18o8), French. historian, was born in Paris, on the 21st of February 1723. He entered the congregation of Sainte-Genevieve, where he took holy orders and became professor of theology and literature. Later, he became director of the seminary at Reims, where he wrote his Histoire civile et politique de Reims (3 vols., 1756-1757), perhaps his best work. He was then director of the college of Senliia, where he composed his Esprit de la Ligue ou histoire politique des troubles de la Fronde pendant le X We et le X Vile siecles (1767). During the Reign of Terror he was imprisoned at St Lazare; there he began his Precis de l'histoire universe/le, afterwards published in nine volumes. On the establishment of the national institute he was elected a member of the second group (moral and political sciences), and was soon afterwards employed in the office of the ministry of foreign affairs, profiting by his experience to write his Motifs des guerres et des traites de paix sous Louis XI V •, Louis X V, et Louis X VI. He is said to have been asked by Napoleon to write his Histoire de France (14 vols., 1805), a mediocre compilation at second or third hand, with the assistance of de Mezeray and of Paul Francois Velly (1709-1759). This work, nevertheless, passed through numerous editions, and by it his name is remembered. He died on the 6th of September 18o8.