Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Louis Pierre Anquetil

ANQUETIL, Louis Pierre, a French historian, was born at Paris, 21st Jan. 1723. He was for some time director of the academy at Rheims, and published in 1757 three volumes of a history of that city. In 1759 he was appointed prior of the abbey de la Roe, in Anjou, and soon after director of the college of Senlis. In 1766 he obtained the curacy or priory of Chateau-Renard, near Montargis, which he exchanged, at the commencement of the Revolution, for the curacy of La Villette, in the neighbourhood of Paris. During the reign of terror he was imprisoned at St Lazare. On the establishment of the National Institute he was elected a member of the second class, and was soon afterwards employed in the office of the minister for foreign affairs. He died on the 6th of September 1808. Anquetil left a very considerable number of historical works; but his style is censurable in many respects, and he appears to have been almost entirely destitute of the critical discernment and philosophical sagacity of a good historian. A list of his works is given in the Biographie Universelle.