Nicolas Perrot d'Ablancourt

Upon returning to France, he established links with contemporary intellectuals,[2] and in 1637 he was elected a member of the Académie française.

Between 1637 and 1662, he published numerous translations of classical Greek and Latin texts; including the works of Julius Caesar, Cicero, Frontinus, Homer, Plutarch, Tacitus, Thucydides and Xenophon, as well as other less well known writers, and some contemporary Spanish works, such as the writings of the chronicler Luis del Mármol Carvajal.

He followed the somewhat contentious practice of Valentin Conrart, one of the founding fathers of the Académie française, of modifying or modernising expressions in the original text for reasons of style.

While some authors praised the elegance and subtlety of Perrot d’Ablancourt's translations,[3] a disparaging remark by one of his contemporary critics gave rise to the expression « la belle infidèle ».

The French scholar Gilles Ménage is reported to have compared the translation to a woman he had once loved, who was “beautiful, but unfaithful”.