André Du, surnamed the Father of French history, was born at Ile-Bouchard in Touraine in the year 1584. He began his studies at Loudun, and finished them at Paris under the celebrated Julius Caesar Boulanger. His favourite pursuits were geography and history, in which he made such rapid progress that at the age of eighteen he dedicated to his teacher his first book, entitled *Égregiarum seu electorum lectionum et antiquitatum liber*. He next translated into French the Satires of Juvenal with notes and illustrations. By these and other works he gained for himself the favour and protection of some of the leading men of his country. Cardinal Richelieu in particular, who was born in the same neighbourhood as Du Chesne, testified his esteem for him in a variety of ways. In 1608 Du Chesne married. The only fruit of his marriage was a son, who cultivated history with as much zeal, though not with the same success, as his father. In 1640 he was run over by a carriage and killed, while on his way from Paris to his country seat at Verrière.

His principal works are—*Les antiquités et recherches des villes, châteaux, églises, de tout la France; Histoire d'Angleterre, d'Ecosse, et d'Irlande; Histoire des Rois, Ducs, et Comtes de Bourgogne*, 2 vols. fol.; *Historiae Normannorum Scriptores Antiqui*, 1619, fol.; *Historiae Francorum Scriptores*, 5 vols. fol., 1636-49. Besides these Du Chesne published a great number of genealogical histories of illustrious French families; of which the best is said to be that of the house of Montmorency. His Lives of the French Cardinals and of the Saints of France have been published by the Bollandists, Mabillon, and others.