René Auguste Constantin de Renneville
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
René Auguste Constantin de Renneville (1650–1723) was a French writer.
He was born at Caen. Because of his Protestant principles, Renneville left France for the Netherlands in 1699. On his return three years later he was denounced as a spy and imprisoned in the Bastille, where he remained until 1713. During his imprisonment he wrote a series of poems on the margins of a copy of Auteurs déguisés (Paris, 1690), which he called Otia bastiliaca. These were rediscovered by Mr James Tregaski in 1906.
Renneville was freed through the intercession of Queen Anne, and made his way to England. There he published his Histoire de la Bastille (5 vols, 1713-24), dedicated to George I. At the time of his death in 1723 he was a major of artillery in the service of the elector of Hesse. His other important work is a Recueil des voyages qui ont servi a l'établissement de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales aux Provinces Unies (10 vols, new ed., Rouen, 1725).
[edit] Reference
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
