BUSSY, ROGER DE RABUTIN, COMTE DE (1618-1693), known as BUSSY-RABUTIN, French writer, was born on April 13, 1618, at Epiry, near Autun. His father, Leonor de Rabutin, was lieutenant-general of the province of Nivernais. Roger entered the army when he was only 16 and fought through several cam paigns, succeeding his father in the office of mestre de camp. In 1641 he was sent to the Bastille by Richelieu for some months as a punishment for neglect of his duties in his pursuit of gallantry. In 1645 he succeeded to his father's position in the Nivernais and served under Conde in Catalonia. He had married in 1643, but his wife died in 1646, and he became notorious by an attempt to abduct Madame de Miramion, a rich widow. This affair was settled by a considerable payment, and he afterwards married Louise de Rouville. When Conde joined the party of the Fronde, Bussy joined him, but a fancied slight on the part of the prince finally decided him for the royal side. He fought both in the civil war and under Turenne in Flanders. He distinguished himself at the battle of the Dunes and elsewhere; but his quarrelsome dis position, his overweening vanity, and his habit of composing libel lous chansons made him eventually the enemy of most persons of position both in the army and at court. In the year 1659 he fell into disgrace for having taken part in an orgy at Roissy near Paris during Holy Week. Bussy was ordered to retire to his estates, and beguiled his enforced leisure by composing, for the amusement of his mistress, Madame de Montglas, his famous Histoire amoureuse des Gaules. This book, a series of witty but ill-natured sketches of the intrigues of the chief ladies of the court, circulated freely in ms., and had many spurious sequels. It was said that Bussy had not spared the reputation of Madame, and the king, angry at the report, was not appeased when Bussy sent him a copy of the book to disprove the scandal. He was sent to the Bastille on April 17, 1665, and a year later he was liberated on condition of retiring to his estates, where he lived in exile for 17 years.
The Histoire amoureuse is in its most striking passages adapted from Petronius, and, except in a few portraits, its attractions are chiefly those of the scandalous chronicle. But his Memoires, pub lished after his death, are extremely lively and characteristic and have all the charm of a historical romance of the adventurous type. His voluminous correspondence yields in variety and inter est to few collections of the kind, except that of Madame de Sevigne, who was his cousin, and whose letters first appeared in it.
The best edition of the Histoire amoureuse des Gaules is that of Paul Boiteau in the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne (1856-59). The Memoires (i857) and Correspondance (1858-59) were edited by Ludovic Lalanne. Bussy wrote other things, of which the most im portant, his Genealogy of the Rabutin Family, remained in ms. till 1867, while his Considerations sur la guerre was first published in Dresden in 1746. He also wrote, for the use of his children, a series of biographies, in which his own life serves a moral purpose.