Abraham Nicolas Amelot de la Houssaye

Abraham Nicolas Amelot de la Houssaye (1634–1706) was a French historian and publicist.

Life

He was born at Orléans in February 1634, and died at Paris on 8 December 1706. Little is known of his personal history beyond the fact that he was secretary to an embassy from the French court to the republic of Venice.

Works

In his Histoire du gouvernement de Venise he undertook to explain, and above all to criticize, the administration of that republic, and to expose the causes of its decadence. The work was printed by the king's printer and dedicated to Louvois, which points to the probability that the government did not disapprove of it. It appeared in March 1676, and provoked a heated protest from the Venetian ambassador, Giustiniani. The author was sent to the Bastille, where he remained, however, only six weeks (Archives de la Bastille, vol. viii. pp. 93 and 94).

A second edition with a supplement, published immediately after, drew forth fresh protestations, and the edition was suppressed. This persecution gave the book an extraordinary vogue, and it passed through twenty-two editions in three years, besides being translated into several languages; there is an English translation by Lord Falconbridge, son-in-law of Oliver Cromwell. Amelot next published in 1683 a translation of Fra Paolo Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent. This work, and especially certain notes added by the translator, gave great offence to the advocates of unlimited papal authority, and three separate memorials were presented asking for its repression. Under the pseudonym of La Motte Josseval, Amelot subsequently published a Discours politique sur Tacite, in which he analysed the character of Tiberius.

The most important re-interpretation of Amelot's role has been provided by Jacob Soll in his <Publishing the Prince> (2005). Soll argues that Amelot, having been jailed for his political criticism in the <History of the Government of Venice>, turned to annotated editions of classic and renaissance texts in order to continue his critique of the absolutist government of Louis XIV in 17th century France. Amelot's versions of Tacitus' account of Tiberius and other sections of the <Annales>, along with his influential translation of Machiavelli's <The Prince>, became crucial elements in the growth of critical political analysis during the Ancien Regime. Soll's book shows how Amelot functioned under conditions of censorship, thinly veiling his political views as comments on other writers, and opening the hidden princely world of "reason of state" to the view of the literate bourgeoisie. <1>

Notes

<1> Jacob Soll, <Publishing The Prince: History, Reading & the Birth of Political Criticism> Ann Arbor 2005.

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