Louis Cousin

Its life and its work

Intended first of all for the ecclesiastical state, it makes studies of Théologie and it is received Bachelier. Then, the circumstances of its family having changed, it achieves studies of right and follows during several years the lawyer occupation, to become then president of the court of the Currencies and royal critic. The leisures which its functions leave him make it possible him to be devoted to the translation of the Greek historians. Its work is judged thus by Voltaire:

Nobody opened more than him them sources of the history. Its translations of the Byzantine collection and Eusèbe de Césarée put everyone in a position to judge truth and forgery, and to know with which prejudices and which spirit of party the history was almost always written. One owes him much of translations of Greek historians, that only made known to him.

Of 1687 with 1701, president Cousin is the writer of the Journal of the sçavans . Louis de Sacy known as in connection with its reports:

The duties of a Historian were all his rule, it sçavoit that one luy request only of the choice, the order, clearness, of fidelity, & that largest of all the defects, it is to be partial or malignant.

Judgment that of Alembert begins again in these terms in its Éloges :

Never he forgot only in his extracts, he was rapporteur and not judge. He was more attentive to unearth in the manure the pearl which hid there, that to stir up in a wearying manner a debris heap to crush the unhappy one which had had the stupidity to gather them.

Qualities whose made to watch president Cousin are worth to him to be elected member of the French Academy in 1697, election that D' Alembert comments on as follows:

Translator, journalist and critic, president Cousin seemed to have limited his work to be exerted on that of the others. Nevertheless, the fidelity of its translations and the merit of its newspaper, made it judge worthy to enter to the Academy. It fills perfectly the idea that one had had of him, by the knowledge which it showed in the assemblies, and by a character of softness, courtesy and modesty which expensive returned it to its fellow-members. If the Academy is a company of men of letters, it is, before all things, a company; and if the merit alone has the right to knock on the doors of this Company, it is with social qualities to make them open.

To his death, president Cousin bequeathed his library to the abbey Saint-Victor, which it also equipped with funds important to increase it, and founded six purses at the university of Paris.

Works

History of Constantinople since the reign of Justin until the end of the Empire, translated on the Greek originals by Cousin (8 volumes, 1672-1685)
History of the Church, written by Eusèbe, translated by Mr. Cousin (4 volumes, 1675-1676)
Principles and rules of the Christian life, treaty made up in Latin by Mr. cardinal Bona and translated into a François by Mr. Cousin (1675)
Roman History, written by Xiphilin, Zonare and Zosime, translated on the originals Greeks by Mr. Cousin (1678)
History of the Western Empire of Xiphilin, translated by the president Cousin (2 volumes, 1683)
Speech of Clement Alexandrin to exhort the payens to embrace the Christian religion, translated by Mr. Cousin (1684)
Speech of Eusèbe, concerning the miracles allotted by the payens to Apollonius de Thyane, translated by Mr. Cousin (1684)
the Morals of Confucius, philosopher of China (1688). Allotted. Text in line
History of several saints of the houses of the counts de Tonnerre and of Clermont (1698)

Notes, sources and references

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