See A. Ver Hull, _Jacobus Houbraken et son oeuvre_ (Arnhem, 1875), where 120 engraved works are fully described.
HOUDENC (or HOUDAN), RAOUL DE, 12th-century French trouvère, takes his name from his native place, generally identified with Houdain (Artois), though there are twelve places bearing the name in one or other of its numerous variants. It has been suggested that he was a monk, but from the scattered hints in his writings it seems more probable that he followed the trade of jongleur and recited his chansons, with small success apparently, in the houses of the great. He was well acquainted with Paris, and probably spent a great part of his life there. His undoubted works are: _Le Songe d'enfer_, _La Voie de paradis_, _Le Roman des eles_ (pr. by A. Scheler in _Trouvères belges_, New Series, 1897) and the romance of _Méraugis de Portlesguez_, edited by M. Michelant (1869) and by Dr M. Friedwagner (Halle, 1897). Houdenc was an imitator of Chrétien de Troyes; and Huon de Méri, in his _Tournoi de l'antéchrist_ (1226) praises him with Chrétien in words that seem to imply that both were dead. _Méraugis de Portlesguez_, the hero of which perhaps derives his name from Lesguez, the port of Saint Brieuc in Brittany, is a _roman d'aventures_ loosely attached to the Arthurian cycle.
See Gaston Paris in _Hist. litt. de la France_, xxx. 220-237; W. Zingerlé, _Über Raoul de Houdenc und seine Werke_ (Erlangen, 1880); and O. Boerner, _Raoul de Houdenc. Eine stilistische Untersuchung_ (1885).
HOUDETOT, a French noble family, taking its name from the lordship of Houdetot, between Arques and St Valéry. Louis de Houdetot went with Robert, duke of Normandy, to Palestine in 1034, and the various branches of the family trace descent from Richard I. de Houdetot (fl. 1229), who married Marie de Montfort. Charles Louis de Houdetot received a marquisate in 1722, and on his son Claude Constance César, lieutenant-general in the French army, was conferred the hereditary title of count in 1753. His wife (see below) was the Madame de Houdetot of Rousseau's _Confessions_. Their son César Louis Marie François Ange, comte de Houdetot (1749-1825), was governor of Martinique (1803-1809) and lieutenant-general (1814) under the Empire. His son Frédéric Christophe, comte de Houdetot (1778-1859), was director-general of indirect imposts in Prussia after Jena, and prefect of Brussels in 1813. He acquiesced in the Restoration, but had to resign from the service after the Hundred Days. He became a peer of France in 1819, and under the Second Empire he was returned by the department of Calvados to the Corps Législatif. His half-brother, Charles Île-de-France, comte de Houdetot (1789-1866), was wounded at Trafalgar and transferred to the army, in which he served through the Napoleonic wars. He retired at the Restoration, but returned to the service in 1823, and in 1826 became aide-de-camp to the duke of Orleans, becoming lieutenant-general in 1842. He sat in the Chamber of Deputies from 1837 to 1848, when he followed Louis Philippe into exile. A third brother, César François Adolphe, comte de Houdetot (1799-1869), was a well-known writer on military and other subjects.