Name Henri de | ||
Died May 29, 1710, The Hague, Netherlands | ||
Henri Basnage de Beauval (7 August 1657 – 29 May 1710) was a French Huguenot historian and lexicographer, known also as a journal editor.
Contents
Life
He was born at Rouen, son of the advocate Henri Basnage de Franquesnay and brother of Jacques Basnage. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he made some attempts to stay in France, but left for Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1687. He died in The Hague.
Works
He wrote Tolerance des religions, published by Henri de Graeff at Rotterdam in 1684; it was a plea to French Catholics for religious tolerance. His Histoire des Ouvrages des Savans was a periodical appearing from 1687 to 1709; it was a sequel to the Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres of Pierre Bayle, who had sheltered him and his brother Jacques. The change of title was in fact cosmetic, to avoid trouble with the publisher of the Nouvelles. Basnage himself did almost all the editorial, and the review's of John Locke's works, in particular, did much to spread his ideas.
He worked over the Dictionnaire universel of Antoine Furetiere, producing an expanded edition; it went through numerous editions, before being taken up by Jean Brutel de la Riviere (1727, The Hague). Basnage's version was considered "Protestant"; the Jesuits of the Memoires de Trevoux found heresy in articles where they considered he had introduced a Protestant view. Basnage defended himself in the Journal des scavans, but the Jesuits went ahead with an expurgated edition, a model for the Dictionnaire de Trevoux. Basnage's lexicographical approach was in fact more descriptive than normative.
Under the pseudonym Le Fevre, Basnage also wrote the Lettre sur les differends de M. Jurieu & de M. Bayle.
His publications were: