NAUDÉ, GABRIEL. – Scholar, born in Paris on 2 Feb. 1600, died at Abbeville on 29 July 1653. He earned his medical degree at Padua in 1625. He served as physician to Louis XIII. He traveled throughout France, Italy, and elsewhere, devoting himself primarily to bibliographic research. He was librarian to Cardinal Richelieu, to Cardinal Mazarin, and, in Stockholm, to Christina of Sweden.
He compiled numerous prefaces to philosophical and literary works by Italian authors such as Cardano, L’Arétin, Doni, Nifo, etc.; he wrote on political and religious history, dealing with the times of Louis XI; but the work that most widely spread his name was a defense of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, entitled *Considerations politiques sur les coups d’état* (Rome 1639), which became in the 17th century the most famous manual of Machiavellian political art. He departed from the beaten paths of Italian literature on “reason of state” and from the literature of *arcana* inaugurated by Clapmar (*De arcanis rerum publicarum libri VI*, 1605), and aligned himself, in addition to Machiavelli, with Justus Lipsius (*Manuale di politica*, 1589) and Charron (*De la sagesse*, 1601), though maintaining the principle that the permission granted to the statesman to act immorally does not justify an internally unlimited and tyrannical arbitrariness. He also refuted a series of pamphlets written against Cardinal Mazarin, demonstrating historical culture and sound doctrine. Notable is the work entitled *Apologie pour tous les grands personnages qui ont esté faussement soupçonnez de magie* (Paris 1625).
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