Jacques Basnage

Jacques Basnage De Beauval (8 August 165322 December 1723) was a celebrated French Protestant divine, preacher, linguist, writer and man of affairs. He wrote a History of the Reformed Churches and on Jewish Antiquities.

Biography Jacques Basnage was born at Rouen in Normandy, the eldest son of the eminent lawyer Henri Basnage de Franquesnay. He studied classical languages at Saumur and afterwards theology at Geneva. He was pastor at Rouen from 1676 till 1685, when, on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, he obtained leave of the king to retire to Holland. He settled at Rotterdam as a minister pensionary till 1691, when he was chosen pastor of the Walloon church.

In 1709, the grand pensionary Anthonie Heinsius secured his election as one of the pastors of the Walloon church at The Hague, intending to employ him mainly in civil affairs. Accordingly, he was engaged in a secret negotiation with Marshal d'Uxelles, plenipotentiary of France at the congress of Utrecht. He was then entrusted with several further important commissions. ) and the Antiquités judaiques ou remarques critiques sur la république des Hébreux (1713). He also wrote short explanatory introductions and notes to a collection of copper-plate engravings, much valued by connoisseurs, called Histoires du Vieux et du Nouveau Testament, représentées par des figures gravées en taille-douce par R. de Hooge (Amsterdam, 1704).