Henri Sauval

Henri Sauval (1623 - 21 March 1676) was a French historian.

Son of an advocate in the Parlement, he was born in Paris, and baptized on the 5th of March 1623. He devoted most of his life to researches among the archives of his native city, and in 1656 even obtained a licence to print his "Paris ancien et moderne"; but on his death (21st March 1676) the whole work was still in manusript. A long time afterwards it appeared, thanks to his collaborator, Claude Bernard Rousseau, under the title of "Histoire et recherches des antiquites de la ville de Paris" (1724), but remodelled, with the addition of long and dull dissertations which were not by Sauval.

The work was not without merits, and it was re-issued in 1733 and 1750. The original manuscript first belonged to Montmerqu, and then passed into the possession of Le Roux de Lincy, who prepared an annotated edition; unfortunately this material, together with the original MS., was lost in the incendiary fires which took place under the Paris Commune (1871). There remain, however, Le Roux de Lincy's researches, a series of articles on Sauval which appeared in the "Bulletin du bibliophile et du bibliothcaire" in 1862, 1866 and 1868. See also the "Bibliographie de Paris avant 1789", by the Abbe Valentin Dufour (1882).

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