Aubery, Anthony

, a lawyer of Paris, born in 1617, became an indefatigable student, it being his practice to rise at five o’clock every morning, and study without intermission till six in the evening. He scarcely made any visits, and received still fewer, and though he had taken his oath as avocat au conseil, he preferred the silent commerce of his books to the tumult of affairs. The “Remarques de Vaugelas” was his only book of recreation. He died of a fall in 1695, at upwards of 78. Several works of his are to be met with, very inferior in respect of style, but they are not deficient in historical anecdotes and useful remarks. The chief of them are, 1. “Histoire generale des Cardinaux,” 5 vels. 1642, 4to, composed from the memoirs of Naud6 and of du Puy. 2. “Memoire pour rhistoire du Cardinal de Richelieu,1660, 2 vols. folio, and 1667, 5 vols. in 12 mo. 3. “Histoire de me me ministre,1660, folio. The materials here are good, but the best use has not been made of them. The cardinal, whom the author praises without restriction, is not painted in his proper colours, and the author has obviously laid himself open to the charge of flattery. Nor has he discovered much judgment, for, in striving to make too honest a man of the cardinal, he has not made him a politician, which was his distinguishing characteristic. Guy Patin, in his cxxxvith letter to Charles Spon, speaks in a very contemptuous manner of this history: “The duchess of Aiguillon,” says he, “has just had the history of her uncle the cardinal de Richelieu printed, composed from the memoirs she has furnished herself, by M. Aubery; but it is already fallen into contempt, being too much suspected from the quarter from whence it originates, and on account of the bad style of the wretched writer, who, lucro addictus & addductus, will not fail to play the mercenary, and to prostitute his pen to the direction of that lady.” It is said that the queen-mother answered the bookseller Berthier, who expressed his fear that certain persons of the court, of whom the historian spoke by no means advantageously, would bring him into trouble: “Go, pursue your business in peace, and put vice so much to shame, that nothing but virtue shall dare to be seen in France.” 4ubery is one of those who doubt whether the Testament published under the name of the cardinal de Richelieu be really by him. 4. “Histoire du cardinal Mazarin,1751, 4 vols. 12mo, a work in still less credit than the foregoing; | but, as it was composed from the registers of the parliament, many of which have since disappeared, it contains several particulars not to be found any where else. Cardinal Mazarin, whose portrait is much over-charged, and but a very faint likeness, is very often lost among the great number of facts heaped together, and in which he sometimes plays but a very interior part, 5. “Traite historique de la preeminence des Rois de France/' 1649, 4to. 6.” Traite des justes pretensions du Roi de France sur PEmpire," 1667, 4to, which caused him to be thrown into the Bastille, because the princes of Germany thought the ideas of Aubery to be the same with those of Louis XIV. He was, however, soon set at liberty, and even his confinement was made easy. 1

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Moreri. Gen. Dict.