JEAN BODIN ( 1530-1596) was a Frenchman, born at Angers.
He studied law at the University of Toulouse, where he lat-
er taught. He gave up teaching, however, to practice law at
Paris. There he came into contact with Henri III. His gifts
and personal attractiveness appealed to that monarch, as well
as to his brother, the Duc D'Alençon, and in 1576 Bodin was
appointed attorney for the crown at Laon. At the same period
he also attended the meeting of the Estates-General at Blois as a
representative of the Third Estate. There he was instrumen-
tal in defeating an attempt of the nobles and clergy to promote
an active persecution of Protestants, thus demonstrating his
tolerant attitude and furthering that social peace he considered
basic.

A few years later, in 1581, he went to England as secretary to
D'Alençon, whither the latter betook himself in a vain attempt
to persuade the Virgin Queen that an alliance with him offered
signal compensations for abandoning the condition of single
blessedness. To Bodin, however, the trip was gratifying, even
if it also gave him a new task: he was flattered to discover that
his Six Livres de la République, published in 1577, was known
and read, but since the translation used was poor Latin, he felt
it incumbent on him to remedy the defect. Whether England
also influenced his thought in any way is a different matter.
Save, however, for two works, one on French monetary policy
and one on witchcraft, spiritualism, and allied matters, Bodin's

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