Jacques, a learned author, and pastor of the Walloon church at the Hague, was born at Rouen in Normandy on the 8th of August 1653. He was the son of Henri Basnage, one of the ablest advocates in the parliament of Normandy. At the age of seventeen, having made himself master of the Greek and Latin authors, as well as of the English, Spanish, and Italian languages, he went to Geneva, where he began his theological studies under Mestrezat, Turretin, and Tronchin; and completed them at Sedan, under the professors Jurieu and Le Blanc de Beau- lieu. He then returned to Rouen, where he was received as minister in September 1675; and in this capacity he remained till the year 1685, when the exercise of the Protestant religion being suppressed at Rouen, he obtained leave of the king to retire to Holland. He settled at Rotterdam, and continued a minister pensionary there till 1691, when he was chosen pastor of the Walloon church of that city.

In 1709, the pensionary Heinsius got him elected one of the pastors of the Walloon church at the Hague, intending to employ him not only in religious but also in civil affairs. Accordingly he was engaged in a secret negotiation with Marshal d'Uxelles, plenipotentiary of France at the congress of Utrecht; a service which he executed with so much success, that he was afterwards intrusted with several important commissions, all of which he discharged in such a manner as to establish a high character for ability and address. Indeed, a celebrated modern writer has said of him, that he was fitter to be a minister of state than the minister of a parish. The Abbé Dubois, who was sent to the Hague in 1716, as ambassador plenipotentiary from His Most Christian Majesty, in order to negotiate a defensive alliance between France, England, and the States General, received instructions from the Duke of Orleans, then regent of France, to address himself to M. Basnage, and to follow his advice; they accordingly acted in concert, and the alliance was concluded in January 1717. His published works, which are mostly in French, spread his reputation over the greater part of Europe. Among these are, The History of the Religion of the Reformed Churches; Jewish Antiquities; The History of the Old and New Testament; Dissertation on Duels, &c. He died on the 22d September 1723.

Basnage, Henri, Sieur de Bernac, was the second son of Henri Basnage, and brother of the preceding. He studied the law, and was admitted an advocate in the parliament of Rouen in 1679. He practised with great reputation, till the revocation of the edict of Nantes obliged him to fly to Holland, where he composed the greater part of his works. He died in 1710, aged fifty-four. His chief work is his Histoire des Ouvrages des Sceaux, Rotterdam, 24 vols. 12mo.