I 1 11 <> 



894 



T H <> 



PMMB 



in that c 

 the accc 



them ut 



e reWes that hr saw the dead body of Co- 

 ( from tin- gibbet <>n Moutmarlrc. The next 



in tin 1 

 \ . on n 



named 



rv till ' 71. and 



irv III., tin- I.. 

 , u IV !-'(>i\ home. Ill 1 .'>, 



a journey to Flanders and IIoll;viul. In l.*7 

 Jean dc la Garde, Sieur - 



iral counsellors "n entrance 



public life "Inch, li 

 withdrawing him in p 

 and the cultivation of literature, in which he would have 

 been much better pica.-, -d to spend his days. The next 

 e l,t his . .;u this time it began 



proposed that, for :: chance of continuing 



the family, his original destination should be changed, ana 

 that he should quit his ecclesiastical for a ci\ii career. 

 Some years elapsed however before this scheme was 

 finally "determined upon. Meanwhile he continued to 

 pursue his usual studies : and he states that he had already 

 conceived the project of his great historical work, and 

 begun industriously to collect materials for it wherever he 

 went. 



It was in the year 1582, while on a \i~it to Bord 

 that he made the acquaintance of Montaigne, whose cha- 

 racter ns well a.s genius he lias warmly eulogized. 

 tame year his lather died: and having alto by this time 

 lost his second brother, he. in 1" 1 his rank 



-Kisticid counsellor, and on the 10th of April in 

 pointe<l by the king to the office of master of rc<. 

 which 1 he'll wa> wont to be held indill'erently by eccle- 



ct or laymen. Two years after he obtained the re- 



n of the place held by bis uncle, of one of th. 

 sidcnts au mortier in the parlement de Paris ; and in l.>7 

 he married Marie, daughter of Francois Harbanson, Sieur 

 de Cam. \Vhcn, in the next vear. in the increasing dis- 

 tractions of the state, Henry III. found himself obliged to 

 I'an-. He Thou, who, as well as bis lather and his 

 brothers, adhered steadily throughout the troubles of tin- 

 time to the royal party, accompanied his majesty to Nor- 

 mandy, and alters aids to 1'icardv. At Chart res, in August, 

 lie was admitted a counsellor of state : and from this 

 date he took a leading part in all the principal public 



Actions which followed. When the estates of the 

 kingdom were assembled at BloU. in October of this year. 

 De Thou, as he tells, was there couited with much bland- 

 ishment by the duke of Guise, but steadily resisted the 

 attempt to seduce him from his loyalty. He had left Blois 

 and was in Paris when the news of the murders of the 

 duke of Guise and his brother the cardinal (on the j:!:d 

 and '.Mill of December readied the capital; and li 

 (Treat difficulty in effecting his escape from the popular 

 ceded however in rejoining tile king at 



: and having soon alter been dispatched on a mission 

 into Germany and Italy iccours of men and 



money for the royal cause, he 1 was at Venice when he 

 heard' of the death' of Henry, in August, i:>s:i. II, imme- 

 diately set out bv the 1 way of Swit/erland for ' 

 met the king of rsavarre, now calling himself Henry IV.. 

 dun. He wa" received very graciously; and 

 lor some years from tliis time he was constantly with 

 Henry, or employed on m: - ittcrent quarters in his 



In 1591, while Henry was at Nantes, he received no- 

 counts of the death n. I A n \erre reiv 

 for his translations of Plutarch and other (ireek autl 

 upon winch his majesty immediately bestowed his office 



the royal De Thou. It was in the 



year 1503, as he has noted, that he at last actually com- 



.(I the composition of his History . which I. 

 4te he had conceived in bis mind so loi 



'U the diatti of his uncle opened to him hi> 

 reversionary office of one of thi 



'.HIS. 



Among other important transactions in which he 1 

 part after this. : the Kdiet of Nantes, pn! 



in 15;)H. which IK was greatly instrumental ii 

 i an left an account of his own life. 



i lull, in which tb. 

 li the di-atli ol . . ! 



he published the first eig v .' The 



was r, 



public thro: and, 



juvc umbrage t 

 Catholic faith, it was not till 



erary 



in it 





. . 



:\'.. in ItilO, did not deprive DC Thou of 1 - the 



mnistry; but he had no longer the same inf 



' and a new appointment, which he received the 

 following year, of one of the three directors charged with 

 he management of the finances, on the retirement of the 



v as felt by himself to he not so much mi :: 

 cr or honour, as a burdensome and obno-. 

 oilice forced upon him. for which he was titled neither by 

 habits, nor cr.. -. In tin- same year Ins 



brother-in-law, Ac-hill- 

 first president of the -, 

 De Tnou would be nominated hi 



.en to another. These disappointment. 1 ; ai:> 



er with the loss of a second wife, n 



hortened the life of De T! 

 the 7th of May, 1017, in his sixty-fourth year. V, 



I wife, whose family name 



three sons and three daughters, one ol ' 'iOm, 



Francois Auguste de Thou, the inheritor of 1 

 virtues and of a considerable share of hi- U a 



snciitice to the inexorable revengeofCiudiir.il Richelieu, 

 one of whose last acts was his putting this nnfor' 

 young man to death for his alleged participation in 



vied tin conspiracy of ( 'in(|innrs : 1 



at l.yon, in hi.s thirty-fifth year, on the 121!' nber, 



1(!4'2. not three months before Richelieu's own death. 



The president De Thou is the author of a i 

 Latin poems, one of the principal of which, entitled 

 De He Accipitraria' (on Hawking , was published in 



: but his lame rests, upon bis Ilistona sni ", 

 jioris,' or 'History of his own Time,' written :il 

 Latin, in Ills books, of which Hie th.-l sn :i| 

 his lifetime, the remainder not till l(i'3>. The space over 

 which it extends is from the year 1044 to 1C07. compre- 

 hending the closing years of the reign of Francis I., the 

 entire reigns of Hein'y II., Francis II.. Chailes IV. 

 Henry HI., and nearly the whole of that of Henry IV. 

 For about one-half of this period of sixty -tin. 

 has the value belonging to the narrative of one wh 

 himself a principal actor in many of the affairs which he 

 relates, and who with regard to many others was so placed 

 as to have air opportunity of seeing much that was con- 

 cealed from the. common eye: hut in truth, from the 

 author's family connections, anil his extended acquaintance 

 among the eminent and remarkable persons of his time, 

 this is an advantage which belongs in some degree ' 

 earlier a.s well as to the later part of the woik. It i- 

 admitted to have throughout the merit of a rare ii. 

 tiality : with no deficiency of patriotic feeling, and j 

 steadiness to his own political principles. De Th. 

 always ready liunkly to recognise the high oualiti 

 what'ever kind, thai may have belonged either to the 

 citizen of a rival state or a part) opiionmt. As for 

 oils prejudice, he shows so little of that, aslo haveev 

 himself to tin- imputation ol having i 

 of not being really a believer in the form 

 the Uomai. which he professed. Bn' 



of tbi us In be no ground. 



tation of his ]! , ever stands not so milch 



the i. ined in it. that are not elsewhere ' 



found, as upon the skill displaced in its composition 



.li upon the material as upon the workmanship; 

 and it is vciy evident that with all the pains 1 

 the collecting of information, this was the praise of which 

 lie was t! nbitions, .is indeed may ] 



with the most fainiM.* 



t i Hume and Gibbon an.- Hut De Thon's 



T of wilting, though flowing and eloquent, i 



; iiing 

 --.. by 



writii. ' 'it in style, with 



till if- ' lie has 



