Jean Albert d'Archambaud

Jean Albert d'Archambaud, comte de Bucquoy, better known as the Abbé Bucquoy (c.1650 – 14 November 1740), was a French clergyman known for his adventures.

Biography Born in Champagne around 1650 into a noble family originally from Artois, Bucquoy was orphaned at the age of four; his early education was subsequently neglected. His family had a military background: a notable relation was Charles-Bonaventure de Longueval, also comte de Bucquoy (1571 – 1621), who had distinguished himself as a general in the service of the Spanish King Philip II during the Thirty Years' War. Jean Albert decided to pursue a military career as well.

However, the studies he pursued with this aim ended up by undermining his faith, and in 1704 Bucquoy decided to return to military service. He was getting ready to raise a regiment when his preaching against despotism and abuse of power, and in favor of a band of faux-saulniers (salt smugglers), led in his arrest.

Bucquoy was then taken to the Bastille, where he was put under rigorous surveillance. On 4 May 1709, after four years in prison there, he escaped; the daring nature of this exploit, and its subsequent colorful documentation by Madame du Noyer, have earned Bucquoy his legacy. He then passed into Switzerland, where he petitioned to recover his seized assets and to reconcile with the authorities in France. Having failed at this, he traveled to Holland, and then to various German courts, where he was received with the recommendation of Johann Matthias von der Schulenburg. Bucquoy also figures in Nerval's Les Illuminés (1852) as a "precursor of socialism."

Works

L'Antimachiavelisme ou Reflexions metaphisiques sur l'authorité en général et sur le pouvoir arbitraire en particulier, 1717 read online on Gallica Événement des plus rares, ou L'histoire du Sr abbé Cte de Buquoy : singulièrement son évasion du Fort-l'Évêque et de la Bastille, l'allemand à côté, revue et augmentée, 1719 read online on Gallica De la vraie et de la fausse religion, 1732 Méditations sur la mort et la gloire, 1736 Histoire de mon évasion, 1719