Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/256

Benoist 1816. He moved to London and in 1823 he settled at Paris, where a third edition of the work just named was printed in 1826. He published also the 'Traveller's Pocket Diary and Student's Journal' and a 'Treatise on Life Assurance.' Quérard also states him to have written some opuscules littéraires, of which no details are available. He travelled about over the continent: but from 1830 to 1836 he was the director of a librairie des étrangers in Paris, founded by Bossange and Renouard. Afterwards he acted as an insurance agent, and in addition was librarian to the British embassy. He was also at one time the editor of 'Galignani's Messenger.' When in France he ceased to be a member of the Society of Friends but always professed an attachment to their principles. 'At the time of the revolution,' says Smith, 'he peacefully retook the royal flag, for which he was knighted by the king.' There is apparently some error in this statement; for, according to Vapereau, he did not receive the decoration of the Légion d'Honneur until 1854. According to Smith, most of his property was lost at the time of the last revolution presumably the coup d'état of 1852, soon after which he retired into private life. He was nearly burned to death by the great fire which destroyed the government bakeries during the Crimean war, and most of his valuable library was consumed at that time. Enough was left, however, to found a free library in his native city, to which he left over 10,000 volumes.

A collection of coins which he had made was stolen between the time of his death and the arrival of his executor, Edward Bennis, of Bolton. He died 1 Jan. 1866, and was buried at Paris: but by his own desire no tombstone marks his resting-place.

[Smith's Descriptive Catalogue of Friends' Books, London. 1867: Quérard's France Littéraire, t. i., Paris. 1827; Quérard's Littérature Française Contemporaine, t. i., Paris, 1842; Vaperreau's Dictionaire des Contemporains, Paris, 1858; information of J. F. Bennis of Limerick.]

 BENOIST, ANTOINE (1721–1770), draughtsman and engraver, was born at Soissons in 1721. Early in life he was brought to England by Claude du Bosc, the engraver, and found employment as a teacher of drawing in many private families of the higher class. Among his engravings are a portrait of Louis XV, after Blackey, dated 1741; a frieze on two plates representing 'A Procession of Free-Masons in London.' dated 1742; and some small etchings of the battles and sieges of the French armies in the reign of  Louis XIV but it is doubtful whether the latter are by Antoine Benoist or by C. L. Benoist, who was living in Paris about the same time. Antoine died in London in August 1770.

[Meyer's Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon, 1872, &c., iii. 544; Portalis and Béraldi's Graveurs du dix-huitième siècle, 1880-2, i. 160; Didot's Graveurs de Portraits en France, 1875-7, i. 33.]

 BENOLT, THOMAS (d. 1534), herald, was Berwick pursuivant in the reign of Edward IV, Rougecroix pursuivant in the reign of Richard III, and Windsor herald under Henry VII. His further promotions were as follows: Norroy king-at-arms 20 Nov. 1510, and Clarencieux king-at-arms 30 Jan. 1511. The date of this last appointment is erroneously given in Noble's ‘College of Arms’ as 1516. His life was a much more active one than falls to the lot of most heralds, as he was almost constantly employed in missions to foreign courts, either alone or attached to embassies. In 1514 he went to France to be present at the marriage of Henry VIII's sister Mary with Louis XII, and stayed there till the following spring. He visited the French court again in 1520, when he published the challenges for the tournaments at the Field of the Cloth of Gold at the principal courts of Europe. Two years later (May 1522) he carried to Francis I Henry's defiance for real, not mimic, war, and in 1528 (Jan. 22) he acted a similar part towards the Emperor Charles V at Burgos, in company with the French herald Guyenne. An account of this ceremony is extant in a letter from him preserved in the British Museum (Vesp. c. iv. 231). The embassy of Sir Francis Poyntz, which was a preliminary to this declaration, was not in 1526, as Noble states in his life of Benolt, but in June 1527. Clarencieux was also frequently sent to Scotland. His first journey there was in August 1516, when the Duke of Albany was ruling the kingdom in the name of the infant King James V during his mother's absence in England. His instructions were to obtain a ratification of the truce between the two countries, and to arrange for Albany's passing through England on his way to France. These negotiations took a long time to settle, and Benolt went to and fro three times before the following spring. Having gained the confidence of Queen Margaret, he was employed again at her desire to treat for a truce in November 1522, when Albany had just left Scotland, after an abortive invasion of England. The Scotch lords, however, had not the same confidence in him that the queen had, and