132 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



here be noted that the handwriting of Bouhereau's coevals is quite modern in 

 style and easy to read ; the men of the older generation formed their letters 

 in quite a different fashion, and one extremely baffling to unaccustomed eyes. 



Elie Bouhereau was sent to the most important of the Protestant 

 academies of France — that of Saumur (founded by Duplessis-Mornay in 1599, 

 suppressed, 1685, but according to E. Lane Poole, Jan. 8, 1684). Weiss {Hist. 

 French Prat. Refugees, trans., p. 37) enumerates the following eminent 

 persons produced by this seat of learning : — Amyraut, Saint-Maurice, 

 Desmarets, Tanneguy Le Fevre, to whom should be added the names of Louis 

 Cappel and Cameron. Three of these scholars presided over the education 

 of the young Bouhereau. The inscription in the prize book won by him in 

 1656 is in the handwriting of Cappel, who signs himself as Piectore . . . 

 S. Thcol. et lingiiae Heh"^^ Professore; and beneath are the signatures : Mose 

 Amyrcddo, G-7/mnasiarcJid ; Bcaujardino, pastore ; TanaquUlo FaMo, ii class, 

 -praeceptore. 



Cappel was " the first to overthrow the authority of the Hebrew vowel- 

 points, and of the Massoretic text of the Old Testament " ; and he may be 

 justly called " the founder of modern Biblical criticism." Moise Amyraut, or 

 Amyraud, was a voluminous writer, as Bouhereau's library testifies, on the 

 Eoman and Calvinistic controversies. Eeginald Lane Poole, to whose 

 History of the Huguenots of the Dispersiun I am indebted for most of what is 

 here noted about Saumur, states that this Academy influenced those of Sedan 

 and Montauban in the direction of Arminian or Eemonstrant views of the 

 doctrine of grace, and in liberalism generally. Amyraut died, as I gather 

 from references in Bouhereau's correspondence, at 1 p.m., 18th January, 1664, 

 and was buried next day at 5 o'clock, in obedience to an order of 1662, which 

 forbade Protestants to bury their dead, save at day-break or night-fall 

 (Weiss, op. cit., p. 51).^ 



Le Fevre, or Faber, as the name is Latinised, was a brilliant classical 

 scholar, and father of the celebrated Madame Dacier, who inherited his tastes 

 and genius. He died in 1672. The letters in the collection signed Ze Fevre 

 are from some relative. There are among Bouhereau's books some nine or ten 

 that once belonged to Le Fevre. He seems to have sold them in Nov., 1662. 

 He received his co7ige from the Academy about 1670. There are in these 

 letters hints at various irregularities in his conduct, both private and 

 academical. 



Beaujardin, whose name is also on the fly-leaf of Bouhereau's prize, was 



1 In February, 1676, the Protestants at JIarans 'ivere threatened with a lawsuit for burying one 

 of their pastors, Bogaert, at 4 p.m. 



