RENE DE VOYER

This article appears in Volume V02, Page 458 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: RAY-RHU

RENE DE VOYER , seigneur d'Argenson (1596-1651), French statesman, was born on the 21st of November 1596. He was a lawyer by profession, and became successively avocat, councillor at the parlement of Paris, maitre des reguetes, and councillor of state. Cardinal Richelieu entrusted him with several missions as inspector and intendant of the forces. In 1623 he was appointed intendant of justice, police and finance in Auvergne, and in 1632 held similar office in

Limousin

, where he remained till 1637. After the death of Louis XIII. (1643) he retained his administrative posts, was intendant of the forces at Toulon
458
(1646), commissary of the king at the estates of

Languedoc

LANGUEDOC

(1647), and intendant of Guienne (x648), and showed

great

GREAT

capacity in defending the authority of the crown against the rebels of the Fronde. After his wife's death he took orders (February 1651), but did not cease to take part in affairs of state. In 1651 he was appointed by Mazarin

ambassador

AMBASSADOR (also EMBASSADOR, the form sometimes still used in America; from the Fr. ambassadeur, with which compare Ital. ambasciatore and Span. embajador, all variants of the Med. Lat. ambassiator, ambassiator, ambasator, &c., derived from Med. Lat. amba

at Venice, where he died on the 14th of July 1651.
His son, MARC RENE DE VOYER, comte d'Argenson (1623-1700), was born at Blois on the 13th of December 1623. He also was a lawyer, being councillor at the parlement of Rouen (1642) and maitre des requites. He attended his father in all his duties and succeeded him at the embassy at Venice. In 1655 he returned from his embassy, ruined, and lost favour with Mazarin, who removed him from his office of councillor of state. He then gave up public affairs and retired to his estates, where he occupied himself with good works. In September 1656 he entered the Company of the Holy

Sacrament

SACRAMENT

, a

secret

SECRET (Lat. secretum, hidden, concealed)

society for the diffusion of the Catholic religion. Besides writing the Annals of the society, he composed many pious works, which were destroyed in the fire at the Louvre in 1871. Some of his correspondence with the once famous

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

-writer, Jean Louis Guez de Balzac (1597-1654), has been published. He died in May 1700, leaving two sons, Marc Rene (see below), and Francois Elie (1656-1728), who became archbishop of Bordeaux.
See Fr. Rabbe, " Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement," in the Revue historique (Nov. 1899) ; Beauchet-Filleau, Les Annales de la compagnie du Saint-Sacrement (Paris, 1900) ; R.

Allier

ALLIER
ALLIER (anc. Slaver)

, La Cabale des divots (Paris, 1902).

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