BUFFER
514
BUFFER
the tutor. While holding tliis office, he drew up the
plan and directed the preparation of the famous
edition of the ancient classics ad wium Delphini.
He was elected to the French Academy in 1674.
A httle later he decided to embrace the ecclesias-
tical state and was ordained prie-st in 1674, receiving
from the king the Abbey of Aunay, in Normandy.
He retired to Aunay as soon as the Dauphin's edu-
cation was completed (1680), and, giving himself up
to his studies, wrote a number of works which are
mentioned below. In 16S5 he was named to the
See of Soissons, but before being preconized by the
pope, he exchanged it for the 8ee of Avranches.
On account of the difficulties that aro.se between
France and the Holy See, after the Assembly of
1682 (see Gallicanis.m), he did not receive his Bulls
from Rome until 1692. From that time, notwith-
standing his zeal for study, Huet fulfilled his episcopal
duties mo.st conscientiously. He made a visitation
of his diocese on several occasions, in spite of the
difficulties of travelling, and the memorandum of
his ordinances is a witness to his zeal. Nothing was
neglected; he shows his anxiety for public morality,
the education of the young, the care of the churches,
the welfare of the hospitals. At the same time he
put his seminar}' in charge of the Eudist Fathers
and reformetl his clergy, giving them three collections
of synodal decrees. Further he provitled them with
an edition of the Breviary, for which he himself
composed the hymns. After seven years' work in
this ministry, the rigorous climate and his failing
health compelled him, to the great regret of his
clergy, to tender his resignation. The king, in re-
turn, presented him with the .^bbey of Fontenaj',
near Caen; he took up his residence in the house of
the professed Fathers of the Society of Jesus at
Paris. Here his time was spent in exercises of piety,
in interviews with the learned men of the day, and m
composing his works. He died twenty years later,
at the age of ninety-one, bequeathing his magnificent
library to the Jesuits, and leaving the reputation of
being one of the most brilliant minds of the century.
He owed this reputation to the immense number
of his writings, which were as varied as were his
studies. His literary works show him to have in-
herited and developed the spirit of the sixteenth
century, rather than to have identified himself with
the mind of the seventeenth century. He has the
polish and, at times, the charm of the latter age,
with his somewhat antiquated tendencies; he has the
old literary style of Scud(5ry, Mdnage, and Chapelain,
rather than the refined taste and brilliant diction
of Bossuet and Fenelon, whom he was destined to
survive. His historical WTitings and his works in
exegesis display great learning and immense reading,
but he does not exhiliit in them the critical sense of
a Mabillon, the i)enctration of Richard Simon, nor
the talent of Bossuet. Part of his philosophical
writings are directed against Descartes, part against
the worship of human reason. He reproaches Des-
cartes with a want of logic in his method and with
an anti-religious tendency. Bossuet, who was not
an admirer of Descartes's theory, protested, never-
theless, against the injustice and irrelevancy of some
of the criticisms of his learned friend. But it was
his posthumous work on the limitations of the human
mind that drew forth serious protest. In it Huet
is a pure fideist. For him, as for Pascal, reason and
sense are incapable of bringing us to truth with
certainty; that can be done only by faith. The
Jesuits refused at first, in the " ili^moires de Tr^
voux", to believe in the authenticity of the work.
In this they were mistaken; it certainly was H net's;
but they were right when they declared that, by
decrj'ing human reason as it did, such a work was
more likely to weaken than to strengthen the foimda-
tions of faith, as its author had intended.
The following is a list of Huet's wTitings: (a)
Literary. — "De interpretatione libri duo" (Paris,
1661); " L'origine des romans" (Paris, 1670), trans-
lated into English (London, 1672); "Carmina latina
et gra>ca" (Deventer, 1668); " Lettre a Perrault sur
le parallele des anciens et des modernes" (Paris,
1672); "Lettre h. M. Foucault sur l'origine de la
poesie fran^aise" in the " Memoires de Tr^voux"
(1711); "Lettres inedites ou publi(^es" in "Mi-
moires de I'Acadi^mie de Caen" (1900-1). (b)
Historical. — " Les origines de la ville de Caen "
(Rouen, 2nd ed., 1706); "Histoire du commerce et
de la navigation des anciens" (Paris, 1716); " Com-
mentarius de rebus ad eum pertinentibus" (Amster-
dam, 1718), translated into English by John Aikin
(London, 1726). (c) Exegetical or theological. —
" Origenis commentaria in sacram scripturam "
(Rouen, 1608); "Demonstratio evangelica" (Paris,
1679); "Qua-stiones Alnetana; de concordia rationis
et fidei" (Caen, 1690); " De la situation du paradis
terrestre" (Paris, 1692); "Statuts synodaux pour le
diocese d'Avranches" (Caen, 169H), with supplements
1695, 1696, 1698; "De navigationibus Salomonis"
(Amsterdam, 1698). (d) Philosophical. — "Censura
pliilosophiiB cartesians;" (Paris, 16S9); " Nouveaux
memoires pour servir fi I'histoire du cartesianisme"
(Paris, 1692); "Traits philosophique de la faiblesse
de I'esprit humain" (Amsterdam, 1723).
D'Olivet, Huetiana (Paris. 1722); Nickru.n, Memoires pour servir ii I'histoire des hommes illuslres, 1 (Paris, 1729): d'.Alem- BERT. Histoire de I'Acadt-mie Francaise (PanB. 1779); Bar- THOLMESS. Huet, OU le srepticisme thiolotiique (Paris, 1849); YiXiTVES, Etude sur Daniel Huet {)t\nnX\w\\i<yr, 18,57): Trochon, Huet, Evique d'Avranches in the Currespondant (1876-7): Ur- BAiN AND LEVEsgUE (ed.), Correspondance de Bossuet (Paris, 1909).
Antoine Degert.
Huffer, Hermann, historian and jurist; b. 24 March, 1830, at Munster in Westphalia: d. at Bonn, 15 March, 1905. Having finished his classical edu- cation in his native city, he went to Bonn and ap- plied him.self to the study of philology, the history of literature, and history. He was compelled to take up jurisprudence in consequence of a serious tiisease of the eye, but never lost his fondness for history. In the year 18.53 he graduated at Bresl;iu with the dissertation: " Justinianische Quasi-l'ui>ilar-Sul>stitu- tion", and, after a long educational tour in Italy and France, qualified as lecturer on canon and Pru.ssian civil law at Bonn. In 1860 he became professor extra or- dinary, and in 1873 ordinary profe.s.sor. From 1865 to 1870 he was a member of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, and from 1867 to 1870 of the North Cerman Reichstag, but did not affiliate with the Catholic "party" because the formation of a party on sec- tarian lines appeared to him a hazardous experiment. In fact in accordance with his ideal views he always sought to find a hifiher imity in religious, civil, and social life; in his opmion the important and decisive ((Uestion was not that which divides parties, nations, and creeds, but that which binds them together. In addition to numerous essays in periodicals and a few rather vmimportant juristic professional treatises, he published several works on the history of literature as well as on historical subjects — works plaimed on a large scale and elaborated down to the smallest detail. Among the former class his writings on Heine (.Vus dem Leben Heinrich Heines, 1878) and on "Annette von Droste-Hiilshoff und ihre Werke" (1887) are particularly worthy of mention. His contributions to history are confined to a period of scarcely ten years, namely, the early years of the French Republic. They reveal, however, not only a wonderful knowledge of his subject from everj' point of view, but also the mind of a profound and acute scholar, the master of diplomatic and historical research. He threw new light on many hitherto unsolved problems, and created an entirely new conception of the relations of the
