Jean Levesque de Burigny (1692-1785) was a French historian born in Reims. In 1713, together with his brothers Champeaux and Levesque de Pouilly, he began to compile a dictionary of universal knowledge, similar to an encyclopaedia, which comprised 12 large manuscript folios and afforded de Burigny with ample material for his subsequent works. In 1718 in The Hague, Netherlands, he worked with Saint-Hyacinthe on L'Europe savante, published in 12 volumes, contributing at least one and a half of these. On his return to Paris he devoted his time to historical research, publishing several works which showed him to be a conscientious scholar. His biography of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), the Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian and jurist, first published in English translation in 1754, includes much interesting information not given elsewhere.