Jacques Basnage

1653-1723. Huguenot scholar. Educated at the Huguenot seminary at Saumur, and at Geneva (under F. Turretin) and Sedan (under P. Jurieu), he was ordained in 1676 but nine years later was forced to flee to the Netherlands when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes.* He settled in Rotterdam as pastor of the Walloon (French) church there. The Dutch statesman Heinsius (Heyns), impressed with his talents, asked him to become preacher in The Hague, where he could also assist in contacts with the French government; he aided Heinsius in preparing the Peace of Utrecht, and later the Triple Alliance (1717) with France and England. His unceasing attempts to gain toleration for the Huguenots were unsuccessful; despite this, he opposed the last-ditch revolt of the Huguenot Camisards (1702) and counseled obedience to the French monarchy. As a scholar, Basnage wrote several works in church history, especially Histoire de la religion des églises réformées (1690), a skillful rejoinder to Bossuet's derogatory history of the Reformation (1688).