Boulainviller, Henri de or Henri de Boulainvilliers (1658-1722). French polymath, free-thinker, and political theorist. Personally unfortunate, of ancient lineage, he devoted himself to scholarly writing, mainly historical and religious, which is original to the point of eccentricity. He was a friend of Saint-Simon, who reports on his astrological pursuits, and Fréret, who wrote a memoir on his life. His political works—for instance, the Essais sur la noblesse de France (1732)—were well-known and influential but unpublishable until after his death because of their hostility to royal policy. They express an extreme version of the ‘thèse nobiliaire’, the argument for giving political power to the aristocracy: the nobles of the Germanic tribes which conquered Roman Gaul ruled by right of conquest and were equal in authority to the king; their prerogatives, gradually eroded by the increase in power of the king and the bourgeoisie, should be restored to their descendants, superior to commoners by blood. Feudalism was ‘le chef d'œuvre de l'esprit humain’. Boulainviller probably remained true to Catholicism, but was attracted by Spinoza, and wrote a deistic Vie de Mahomet and series of essays on the religious beliefs of the ancients [see Clandestine Manuscripts].
— Christopher Betts
