Ogier Ghislein de Busbecq (1422 - 1492)

Born in Comines in 1522, a natural child recognized by his father, Lord of Busbecq, he received the best possible education.

Noted as a negotiator by Ferdinand I, Emperor of Austria, he was sent to England and from 1554-1555 to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.

A brilliant intellectual, he discovered manuscripts which he had sent to scholars of the time, and, in 1555, the inscription of the monument of Ancyre which he made known throughout Europe through his writings.

He was passionate about animals that he collected in his ambassador's house in Constantinople, such as monkeys, bears, deer, deer, lynx... and birds, eagles, crows, partridges, owls, ducks... as well as by plants, "exotic" at the time, which he helped introduce in Europe such as tulip, lilac and the chestnut tree of India.

He spent part of his fortune buying back Christians, enslaved by the Turks.

Returning to Vienna in 1562, he was entrusted by the emperor with the tutoring of his two grandsons, Rodolphe and Mathias, future emperors themselves and appointed Grand Chamberlain of Elizabeth of Austria, widow of Charles IX, King of France.

In October 1592, aged 70, minister of the Austrian emperor Rodolphe II, he obtained a 10-month leave to visit his friends before retiring to his hometown in Belgium.

Here is what M. de Beaurepaire wrote in volume 5 of the bulletin of the Commission of Antiquities of Seine Inférieure):

"Being in the village of Cailly where he received hospitality, a troop of soldiers, coming from a nearby station, seized him violently. But as he is filled with constancy and greatness of soul, he complains of the violence he is subjected to and that he is ransomed against the right of the people, endowed with the dignity of ambassadors, and robbed of his luggage, not by the order of the governor of Rouen, as these robbers blared but out of pure looting spirit. The next morning, the soldiers frightened and troubled by the reproaches of their conscience give him everything back and immediately flee. To the governor of Rouen apologizing for their evil deed and promising to punish them, he replies that he prefers peace and tranquillity to the revenge of the insult he has suffered.

Suffering from an illness that he predicted to be fatal, he was taken to the nearby castle of Mailloc, hosted by Charlotte de Mailloc, a woman of rare distinction and Lady of the Place, near the church of Saint-Germain. 11 days later, he died on the fifth of the November calendar (25 October 1592).

His body was honorably buried in that same church. His heart, encased in a lead tear was carried to Busbecq in the magnificent monument of his ancestors."

We have from him some works in Latin, noticed by the purity and vigour of the style, by the depth and sagacity of the views that are exposed. They were reunited in an Elzevier, published in Leiden in 1633, under the title: "A. Gislenii, Busbequii omnia que extant cum privilegio."

His Turkish Letters were translated into French by Dominique Arrighi and published in 2009 by Honoré Champion.

The church of Saint Germain was destroyed in the first quarter of the 19th century and the whole of its furniture transferred into Cailly church.

As for the rests of Ogier Ghislein de Busbecq ...