LANGUET, HUBERT (1518-1581 ), French Huguenot writer and diplomat, was born at Vitteaux in Burgundy, of which town his father was governor. He received his early education from a distinguished Hellenist, Jean Perelle, and studied law, theology and science at the University of Poitiers (1536-39) then, after some travel, attended the universities of Bologna and Padua, receiving the doctorate from the latter in 1548. At Bologna he read Melanchthon's Loci communes theologiae and was so impressed by it that in 1549 he went to Wittenberg to see the author, and shortly afterwards became a Protestant. He made his headquarters at Wittenberg until the death of Melanch thon in 1560. In 1557 he declined the invitation of Gustavus I. to enter the service of Sweden, but two years later accepted a similar invitation of Augustus I., elector of Saxony. He showed great ability in organizing the Protestants. He represented the elector at the French court from 1561 to 1572 except when troubles in France occasionally compelled him to withdraw. In 1567 he accompanied the elector to the siege of Gotha. He de livered a harangue before Charles IX. of France in 1570 on be half of the Protestant princes, and escaped death on St. Bartholo mew's Day (1572) only through the intervention of Jean de Morvilliers, bishop of Orleans. He represented the elector of Saxony at the imperial court from 1573 to 1577. Financial em barassment and disgust at the Protestant controversies in which he was forced to participate caused him to seek recall from the imperial court. His request being granted, Languet spent the last years of his life mainly in the Low Countries, and though nominally still in the service of the elector, he undertook a mission to England for John Casimir of Bavaria, and was a valuable adviser to William the Silent, prince of Orange. Languet
died at Antwerp on Sept. 3o, 1581. For his relations with Sidney, see SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP.
Collections of Languet's letters, which are important for the history of his time, are : Arcane seculi decimi sexti, ed. Ludovicus (Halle, 1669) ; Langueti epistolae ad Joach. Camerarium, patrem et filium (Groningen, 1646) ; and the correspondence with Sir Philip Sidney (Eng. trans. by S. A. Pears, 1845). His acknowl edged work includes Hatorica descriptio (Gotha, 1568), de? ling with the siege of Gotha. His fame rests on the attribution to him of the Vindiciae contra tyrannos (Basle, 1579; Eng. trans., 1689), which purported to be published at Edinburgh and written by Stephanus Junius Brutus, a Celt. The work upholds the doctrine of resistance, but maintains that resistance itself must originate in properly constituted authority; that is to say, it was directed against tyranny on the one hand and the excesses of anabaptism on the other.
See Ph. de la Mare, Vie d'Hubert Languet (Halle, 170o) ; H. Chevreul, Hubert Languet (1852) ; J. Blasel, Hubert Languet (Breslau, 1872) ; 0. Scholz, Hubert Languet als kursdchsischer Berichterstatter u. Gesandter in Frankreich wdhrend 1560-1572 (Halle, 1875) ; G. Touchard, De politica Huberti Langueti (1898). There is a good article on Languet by P. Tschackert in Hauck's Realencyklopddie, 3rd ed., xi. 274-280.