1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boivin, François de

BOIVIN, FRANÇOIS DE, Baron de Villars (d. 1618), French chronicler, entered the service of Charles, Marshal Brissac, as secretary, and accompanied him to Piedmont in 1550 when the marshal went to take command of the French troops in the war with Spain. Remaining in this service he was sent after the defeat of the French at St Quentin in 1557 to assure the French king Henry II. of the support of Brissac. He took part in the negotiations which led to the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in April 1559, but was unable to prevent Henry II. from ceding the conquests made by Brissac. Boivin wrote Mémoires sur les guerres démêlées tant dans le Piémont qu’au Montferrat et duche de Milan par Charles de Cossé, comte de Brissac (Paris, 1607), which, in spite of some drawbacks, is valuable as the testimony of an eye-witness of the war. An edition, carefully revised, appears in the Mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France, tome x., edited by J. F. Michaud and J. J. F. Poujoulat (Paris, 1850). He also wrote Instruction sur les affaires d’état (Lyons, 1610).

See J. Lelong, Bibliothèque historique de la France (Paris, 1768–1778).