CAPEFIGUE, Baptiste Honoré Raymond (1801 — 1872), a French historian and biographer, was born at Marseilles in 1801, At the age of twenty he left his native town in order to study law at Paris; but he soon deserted law for journalism. He became editor of the Quotidienne, and was afterwards connected, either as editor or leading contributor, with the Temps, the Messager des Chambres, the Revolution de 1848, and other papers. During the ascendency of the Bourbons he held a post in the Foreign Office, for which he was indebted to the royalism of some of his newspaper articles. Indeed all Capefigue’s works receive their colour from his legitimist politics; he preaches divine right and non-resistance, and finds polite words for even the profligacy of Louis XV. and the worthlessness of his mistresses. His style bears evident marks of haste, and although he had access to an exceptionally large number of sources of information, including the state papers, inaccuracies are not infrequent. This is not surprising when we consider the astonishing number of his biographies and histories. The former include the lives of Catherine and Maria de’ Medici, Anne and Maria Theresa of Austria, Catherine II. of Russia, Elizabeth of England, Diana of Poitiers, and Agnes Sorel. The latter, besides histories of the Jews from the fall of the ΛIaccabees to the author’s time, of the first four centuries of the Christian church, and of European diplomatists, extend over the whole range of French history. As among the most important, and as illustrative of the extent of the field which he traversed, mention may be made of his histories of the Norman invasions, of the kings from Hugh Capet to Philip Augustus, of the constitution from Louis VIII. to Louis XI., of the Reformation and the ...