Bougeant, Guillaume-Hyacinthe

BOUGEANT, GUILLAUME-HYACINTHE. - French Jesuit, historian and theologian, b. at Quimper on 4 Nov. 1690, d. at Paris on 3 Jan. 1743. Having entered the novitiate in 1706, he taught humanities and rhetoric at Caen and at Nevers and was then assigned, at only 31 years of age, to the group of "scriptores" of the Louis-le-Grand college in Paris.

He remained there all his life, apart from brief interruptions, and collaborated assiduously on the so-called Mémoires de Trévoux on the most varied subjects. He entered into controversy with Fr. Lebrun, of the French Oratory, on theological questions: Réfutation de la dissertation du p. Lebrun sur la forme de la consécration de l'Eucharistie (Paris 1727), which was followed by Traité théologique sur la forme de la consécration de l'Eucharistie (2 vols., Lyon 1729). He intervened in the controversies surrounding the bull Unigenitus, ridiculing the Jansenists in certain satirical comedies. The best known, La femme docteur, ou la théologie tombée en quenouille (Liège [but Lyon] 1730), was adapted and almost translated (with a genuine plagiarism) by the German writer Lud. Gottsched against the Pietists: Die Pietisterey im Fischbein-Rocke oder die doktormätsige Frau (Rostock [but Leipzig] 1736). B. caused some stir with the Amusement philosophique sur l'âme des bêtes (Paris 1739), which nevertheless had reprints and two Italian translations (1742 and 1776). His catechism, Exposé de la doctrine chrétienne par demandes et réponses, divisée en trois catéchismes (that is, historical, dogmatic and practical catechism, ibid. 1741), was reprinted in French until 1875, and in Italian from 1742 to 1867.

But B. earned his most lasting reputation as a historian, with his Histoire des guerres et négociations qui précédèrent les traités de Westphalie sous le règne de Louis XIII et le ministère du cardinal Mazurin (3 vols., ibid. 1727), later reprinted as Histoire des traités de Westphalie ou des négociations qui se firent à Münster et à Osnabrück pour rétablir la paix entre tous les princes de l'Europe (2 vols. in-4° or 4 vols. in-12°, ibid. 1744; 3 vols., ibid. 1767). The author goes back as far as the time of Luther, but does not develop the subject fully until 1632 onward. From this point on, his text takes on the value of a source: he uses, in fact, and cites diplomatic documents, principally the papers of the count d'Avaux, one of the two French plenipotentiaries, and reproduces a part of them.

Edmondo Lamalle