Rene Aubert de Vertot

The abbot Rene Aubert de Vertot , born with the castle of Bennetot in the Country of Caux in Normandy the November 25th 1655 and dead the June 15th 1735 with Paris, is a Historien French.

Origin

He was the second wire of a gentleman rather poor, but combined at all the large houses of Normandy. His/her older brother, who died young person and without leaving children, was Chambellan of Mister, brother of Louis XIV. Rene de Vertot embraced the ecclesiastical state, not by family settlement, but by a true vocation. He had made his studies with the college of the Jésuite S, with Rouen.

Religious course

A burning piety, as passions of this age, determined it to enter to the seminar, of the assent of his/her parents. It had been there for two years, when suddenly it disappeared. Its family, her friends sought it with sharp concerns. At the end of six months, one discovered that it had been locked up with the convent of the capuchins to Argentan. One made vain efforts to divert it of his intention: it made profession and took the name of brother Zacharie . While being devoted to its pious zeal, it did not risk less than its life. It had had, a few years before, an abscess with the leg: the bone had been partly decayed. A cruel operation had been necessary, an exact mode and precautions had been prescribed to him. The severe rule of the order of Saint-François, the naked legs, the friction of the dress of bore-hole, had envenimé its evil again soon. He agree to go to receive the care of his family. By take some, one cures it. His/her parents renewed all then their authorities so that it left the order of the Capuchins. Reports/ratios of doctors, consultations of Sorbonne, finally succeeded in calming the scruples of the young monk. One obtained his assent, and, which was easier, a brief of the pope, to authorize it to pass under a less austere rule.

Prémontrés

It entered the abbey of Prémontrés to Valsery. It was then twenty-two years old. The abbot Colbert was at this time general of the Prémontrés. He heard of the spirit and of the talents of the young abbot of Vertot, called it close to him, appointed it its secretary and to shortly after conferred him the priory of Joyenval. A rule of Canon law prohibited with any monk who had obtained the permission to pass from an order in another faculty to have no load there nor benefit. The favors which the general had just granted to its protected excited great murmurs among prémontrés. Vainly a brief of the pope had especially authorized this nomination, the provincial council was provided juridically against the brief and, without letters of the king, he had been declared null and nonwhich occurred. Either by a scruple that could not dissipate acts of authority, or by love of the rest, that it would not have found in an abbey where the monks would have looked it like a superior imposed by force, the abbot of Vertot dislocated themselves without delay of its priory and asked a simple cure dependant on the order, that of Croissy-the-Garenne, close to Marly. There finally it found the rest and the leisure. Without neglecting of anything the duties Pasteur of countryside, it was delivered with taste to the study of the letters.

Conspiracy of Portugal

He was known still little, but he had as friends his compatriots Fontenelle and the abbot of Saint-Pierre, his compatriots. Their talks and their vote encouraged it and it is ensured that it was them that it accepted the council to write the history. In 1689, it made print its first work: History of the conspiracy of Portugal . This book had all at once a great success.

We read, with my son, the Conjuration of Portugal , which is extremely beautiful

wrote Madam de Sévigné shortly after the publication. The father Bouhours the, most famous criticizes time, ensured that he did not know in French a more beautiful style.

It is a feather cut to write the life of Turenne

said Bossuet to the cardinal of Bubble. The revolution of England, from which each one discussed then and who was very recent, threw on the Révolution of Portugal a kind of interest of the moment. Each one found allusions, although the author had by no means thought of it. Success will not enivra it. Any neighbor who it was of Paris, it sought neither the noise of it nor the flatteries. After having written its book, if something still occupied it, said it, it was the desire to turn over in its province, of which he regretted the stay.

Revolutions of Sweden

He requested and obtained soon another cure, in the country of Caux. He had of it then a third, of a rather large income with the doors of Rouen, which, not belonging to prémontrés, completely drew it from the bonds of the Regular clergy. Free, rich and content, he worked about it only with more heat. He liked the books and now could buy some. Seven years after its first work, it published the History of the Revolutions of Sweden , whose accounts had more variety and of interest still that the revolution of Portugal. Gustave Vasa, proscribed, hidden in the mines of Sweden, going up on the throne by the enthusiasm which it inspired with the country poor, was a very other character that the secretary Pinto gaining the crown for an irresolute and indolent Master. The success of this second work was also very large. Five editions appeared back-to-back, with the same date. It was translated into several languages. The court of Stockholm charged its envoy, who left for France, making knowledge with the author and committing it with to compose a general history of Sweden . This envoy believed, while arriving at Paris, to find the abbot of Vertot mingled with all the men of letters and spread in the largest world. It was surprised to learn that it was a country priest, alive in province and whose works alone were known. He occurred from there that the negotiation did not have leader character and that the abbot of Vertot did not act as Historiographe of Sweden.

The Academy of the inscriptions

In 1701, the king gave a new form to the Académie of the inscriptions and the humanities and increased the number of its members. The abbot of Vertot was named associated academician. He was flattered, but embarrassed this favor. The payment required residence: it would thus have been necessary to leave its cure and the abbot of Vertot did not have other income only the three thousand francs that it withdrew some. One made him well hope for some grace of the king, but he wanted a resource more assured. Two years later, it had accepted readily, said he, because then it would have had the time of exercise necessary to obtain a pension on his cure. One was not thus to be astonished if, despite everything the desire which it had to devote entirely to the letters, it sought to ensure the necessary one, not by favor, but by law and according to the rigor of the laws. With the remainder, he promised to send to the Academy works, which would be better than its person. The minister and the Academy slackened readily rigor of the payment.

The abbot of Vertot sat only in 1703. It was the term of a career which, in a narrow and modest circle, various and had however been agitated. There finishes what, by allusion under his historical works, one named the revolutions of the abbot of Vertot. In 1705, it was named academician boarder and consequently no one was not shown assiduous any more nor more dedicated, the History and the Mémoires of the Academy make some, faith, I] S contain many essays all relating to the usual studies of the author and especially to the French history.

Madam de Staal

In one of the voyages which it sometimes made in Normandy, it was brought by one of his friends to the Couvent from Saint-Louis in Rouen and it saw there Marguerite de Launay, which was since baroness of Staal. This young graduate was not beautiful, but its character and its spirit had much charm. She was without null fortune and its situation interested all those which knew it. The abbot of Vertot was caught of a sharp friendship for it. II had nearly sixty years and its imagination was still burning as at the days of its youth. It from went away speaking to each one of the merit about Miss de Launay and maintained some to its booksellers. He wanted to place his small fortune on their two heads. Finally its eagerness, though respectful and retained by the proprieties of its age and its state, could not hide. Miss de Launay was embarrassed of it than flattered. However it did not cease showing him the most tender interest constantly. She brings back in her memories a letter of the abbot of Vertot, written tone of a society man, but more lightness than one would not suppose any while thinking of the pious enthusiasm of his youth.

The hope to see you, says it, will make me pass over a certain decency of philosophy.

The mobility of Brittany

In 1710, it made appear a Traité mobility of Brittany . Although the French public law did not borrow consequently almost no true authority at the origins of French monarchy, by a kind of tradition, the majority of the writers attempted to represent the royal capacity like having always been central and universal. It was a remainder of the tendency of the communes to seek near the throne their recourse against the feudal dominations. On the contrary, the desire to defend their privileges and a certain self-esteem of country gave to some provinces a different spirit. The Breton S, more than of others, liked to be presented rather in the form of dependant that as confused with French monarchy. Their historians enjoyed to tell the old independence of their country and so to speak renewed the quarrels which one had formerly seen to rise with each service of faith and homage of the Dukes of Brittany. It was initially in the center of the Academy that Vertot undertook to refute the Breton claims. Its essay having acquired some publicity, it gave him more extent. The quarrel became animated.

Other writers took share there: the Breton ones retorted. The abbot of Vertot carried, in this question, his ordinary promptness. It was in its eyes like a rebellion of Brittany, the more so as it rose there, at that time and that was not rare, some disorders against royal agents. From all that resulted, several years afterwards, a complete Histoire of the establishment of Breton in Gaules . One would examine the question today more coldly and with a more enlightened criticism, one would not carry there either this practice to want absolutely to find in old times the ideas of right, order and legitimacy which are hardly of use in the beginning of the empires. Thus the abbot of Vertot, against all testimonys and all appearances, wanted to establish the Union of Brittany in France under the first race, but then the book appeared with the Académie of the inscriptions anything to leave something to be desired and the Breton ones passed for good and duly convinced to have been from time immemorial under the sovereignty of the king of France.

Revolutions of the Roman republic

It was not the principal occupation of the abbot of Vertot. Its favorite work to which he worked with the most taste and of heat, it was the History of the revolutions of the Roman République . It did not make new research on the history of Rome. He did not make an effort, as one made at the 19th century, to discover through the epic color whose poetry, the traditions, the historians themselves covered annals of the mistress of the world, which were its true origins, its social state, his government and his laws at the various times. He took for true this Rome such as our traditional studies created it in our imagination. Moreover great minds than the abbot of Vertot well also adopted it for base of their political sights. Moreover he liked to tell and to paint, the history appeared to him under its dramatic aspect, II wrote the revolutions of Rome as Corneille composed its tragedies and he took the thing so strong in heart, than one saw it melting in tears with the Academy by reading the speech of Veturia to Coriolan. Thus it is especially the talent of the account which it is necessary to seek in its book. Still should not one hope to find there the color of time and the places. The feelings, manners, the social relations, all takes a modern aspect, like in a tragedy of the French Théâtre. It was kind which one represented, at that time, either antiquity, or foreign regions. The translations were even written in this system. Nowadays, imagination is liked the tables which have all the local nuances, the original costume, the naivety of the feelings and the language. The more the objects are represented different from what surrounds us, the more the painter succeeds in charming us. Time when Vertot lived, it was different. Then it seemed to the authors that they could be rendered comprehensible only by seeking the analogies which brought closer ancient or foreign manners to manners of their time and their country. They translated into French, not only the words, but the thoughts and the feelings. They sought to transfer onto the modern scene the ancient characters, while present the modern spectator asks to be led on the ancient scene.

These remarks are thus not a criticism of the stories of the abbot of Vertot. It was in conformity with its time. Still today, the truth of its impressions, the naturalness and the heat of its language, the honourable independence of its judgments make us conceive great successes of the abbot of Vertot and carry us to ratify them. The Roman Revolutions when they appeared, in 1719, obtained a general applause. We see that it was not less in England than in France. Lord Stanhope, Minister for the king George I {{er}} of England, wrote with the abbot of Vertot in the most flattering way and addressed himself to him as with the writer who could best clear up the doubts than it had on the formation of the senate of Rome. The answer gives few lights on this question, but such a correspondence attests the place which the author had taken in the literary world.

The historian about Malta

Also should not one be astonished if the Ordre of Malta, whose annals are so glorious and chivalrous, was addressed to him to request it to write them in a complete body of history. He agreed to it. This became the work of its old age and its widest work. It has much interest, but this time the interest belongs perhaps more to the subject that with the author. This so sharp and so brilliant imagination had aged. Its facility had become practice and the inspiration had changed into practice. Moreover the taste of time had not deserted yet the traditional concern of the Greeks and the Romans for the memories of the the Middle Ages and the Knighthood and the abbot of Vertot did not take pleasure in this account as far as a writer of today would do it. However the History about Malta is quite higher than the works of order imposed on a historian as office. She is written with an independence of mind also distant from this servile kindness for all the powers, so commune among the historians of the end of the 17th century and the denigration scornful of the philosophical school.

While the abbot of Vertot completed this long work, he still saw improving his situation. The duke of Orleans, wire of the regent, named it secretary-interprets, then secretary of the commands of the Princesse of Bade, which it had just married. The abbot of Vertot had a considerable income, a housing with the Palais Royal and the last share of its life could occur in ease and the rest. He had never thought of fortune: it found it when he had achieved the only goal that never he had ambitionné, the honors of the spirit, but arrived thus at the end of its desires, the fate refused with its old age the pleasure of health.

End

Since 1726, time when it published the History of Malta , it was overpowered and weakened by cruel infirmities. Faculties of its spirit decreased gradually. It had well still the taste and the will to be delivered to historical work. Often he spoke about the projects which he had conceived in his force and his health. Sometimes they was the revolutions of Poland, other times the revolutions of Carthage which he wanted to write, but he was too languid to devote himself to a followed occupation. One represented to him that it could neither read any more nor to write, it answered that to dictate would be easy for him and that besides it could some not to have not new research enough to make. Indeed its manner of composing had never had to give him the taste and the need for a meticulous scholarship. The history was for him, above all, a literary work. The scrupulous detail of the facts imported to him less than their dramatic effect, it did not seek either the truth of color . Thus it had been able well to answer those which offered documents curious to him on the seat about Rhodos: My seat is made.

Thus when faculties weaken, they let see more with full what they missed, even when they were strong and active. The abbot of Vertot died the June 15th 1733, in the Palais Royal, old of almost 80 years.

Analyzes

Its Conjuration of Portugal had initially been only one composition historical, designed on the model of the many conspiracies which had been with the mode in the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV. However it was of a simpler tone and felt less the novel than the Conjuration of Venice , by César Vichard de Saint-Réal. Encouraged by success, the abbot of Vertot sought in following him entirely giving the shape of a book of history. It added to it some details strong shortened on Portuguese monarchy and the reign of Alphonse VI, wire of Jean IV, duke of Bragance. This continuation, where the author reported very recent events, is written on a tone of great sincerity, without precaution nor care for a contemporary prince, this Alphonse VI had died only in 1683. Twenty years after the death of the abbot of Vertot, one published, under his name, two treaties, one on the origin of the court of Rome, the other on the election with évêchés and the abbeys. In its praise, pronounced with the Academy of the inscriptions, where detailed mention was made of all its work, it is not question of these two memories. Nevertheless their authenticity is not disputed. One finds there nothing which cannot be read everywhere where these matters were treated. It would seem that they are notes required or ordered by a minister, in the moment of some momentary disagreement with the court of Rome. Remainder, the abbot of Vertot did not derogate from its accustomed opinions while writing against the pontifical claims. Often, in his History of Malta and in his other books of modern history, one finds passages rather sharp against the policy and the usurpations of the the Holy See. In the report on the elections, not only it sacrifices the papal capacity to the authority of kings de France, but it is also unfavorable to the freedom of election and looks at it, either like a royal concession, or like a usurpation. The essays of the abbot of Vertot, inserted in the collection of the Academy of the inscriptions , are written in a judicious and lit spirit, but are not very curious as of the 19th century, which one gradually pushed much further research on the history from old France. All are referred to it, except a piece on Auguste, Agrippa and Mæcenas, it had written, according to the documents which had given to him the Maison of Noailles, the History of the negotiations of Antoine-François and Gilles de Noailles, under the reigns of the last Valois . The abbot Millot, in its Memories of the marshal of Noailles , known as that it had knowledge of this work, which was, says it, preceded by a historical introduction, but it was not published.

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