• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

AGRIPPA D'AUBIGNE: HUGUENOT HISTORIAN DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate Sohool of The Ohio State University By MALCOLM MORGAN WYNN, B. A., M. A ****** The Ohio State University 1958 Approved by* Department of History TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION iii I D’AUBIOTE’S LIFE AND TIMES ...................... 1 II POSSIBLE SOURCES FOR THE HISTOIRE UNIVERSELLE. 27 III D'AUBIGNE’S SOURCES EOR HIS ACCOUNT OF THE REIGN OF FRANCIS I I ................... 47 IV D'AUBIGNE’S SOURCES FROM 1570 THROUGH THE ST. BARTHOLOMEW MASSACRE AT PARIS............. 81 V D'AUBIGNE'S SOURCES FOR THE YEARS 1576 AND 1577. ............................ 131 VI D'AUBIGNE'S SOURCES FOR THE YEARS 1588 AND 1589.................... .............. 167 VII A S T U M OF D'AUBIGNE’S HISTORICAL CHARACTERIZATION................................ 228 VIII D’AUBIGNE’S HISTORICAL METHOD...................... 294 CONCLUSIONS AN EVALUATION OF THE HISTOIRE UNIVERSELLE............................ 350 APPENDIX I ......................................... 336 APPENDIX II.......... 342 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................... 347 ii INTRODUCTION In 1912 the distinguished Frenoh historian Henri Hauser ■wrote, “The studies, sometimes distinguished, that have been conse­ crated to d'Aubign4 envisage the man, the soldier, the writer, but very rarely the historian."^ In 1926 H, Courteault pointed out that no oareful historiographioal study had been made of d'Aubign4's Histoire universelle as had been made of Blaise de Monluc's Commentaires.** Two years later A. G a m i e r admitted in his exhaus­ tive and remarkable biography of the Huguenot historian that he felt a historiographical study was “too important to be treated superficially here."® And in 1930 S. Rooheblave published an interesting work on d'Aubign4 in whioh he asserted that the Histoire universelle "has never yet been judged on its merits. *H. Hauser, Les Sources de 1 'histoire de Franoej XVI0 sidcle (1494-1610) (Paris, 1909-16), III, p. 27. In 1876 G. Monod sum­ marized Frenoh historical writing since the Henaissanoe and devoted several pages to the sixteenth century and suoh authors as de Thou, La Popelinidre, and numerous others. Surprisingly, he omitted d'Aubipid's name from a rather detailed list of Frenoh historians of the Reformation era. Cf. G. Monod, “Hu Progrds des dtudes histor- iques e» France depuis le XVI® siicle," Revue historique, I (1876), pp. 5-38. H. Courteault, “Rapport de M. Henri Courteault,“ Annuaire- Bulletin de la sooi6t6 de 1'histoire de France. LXIII (1926), p. 120. ®A. Gamier, Agrippa d'Aubignfi et le parti protestant (Paris, 1928), II, p. 178."^ “ ---- ---------- ^S. Rocheblave, Agrippa d'Aubign4 (Paris, 1930), p. 213, iii iv This situation still prevails in the late 1950's. In addition to Gamier and Rooheblave, J. Plattard has published a fine C general study of d'Aubignd's oareer. Recently two admirable books oonoeming d'Aubign^'s epic poem, the Tragiques, have come from the pen of Amerioan literary critics.® However, there has been a sur­ prising void, exoept for rare periodical articles or short chapters in general works, of studies devoted to Agrippa d'Aubignd's historical labors. It was the Histoire universelle whioh he considered to be the most significant of his literary efforts.1^ The increasing interest today in historiography, particularly sixteenth-century historiography, makes thiB laouna even more astounding.® The present study was initiated beoause of this deficiency and also beoause of an interest in the history of history. Only the Histoire universelle, including the unfinished fourth tome, has been considered as proper material for the evaluation of d'Aubignd's ®J• Plattard, Une Figure de premier plan dans nos lettres de la renaissancet Agrippa d*Aubignd~TParls, 1931). ®I. Buffum, Agrippa d'Aubignd's Les Tragiques: A Study of the Baroque Style in Poetry (New Haven, 195l) and H. Sauerwein, Agrippa d'Aubignd's Les Tragiques: A Study in Structure and Poetio Method (Baltimore, 1953). “ 7a. Gamier, op. oit., Ill, p. 79, writes, "The Histoire universelle was his grand oeuvre— he placed it considerably above the Tragiques— /the Histoire was/ a work slowly erected and proudly dedicated to Posterity." 57.also Gamier, op. oit., Ill, p. 150. ®E. H. Harbison, "The Meaning of History and the Writing of History," Church History, XXI (1952), pp. 97-107. V historical work. Moreover, only four typical sections of the Histoire have been given detailed study for sources and aoouraoy. For, as Booheblave has written, "the proof and verification of this enormous subjeot would require a lifetime."® Sinoe the two seventeenth-century editions (1618-20 and 1626) of the Histoire universelle are virtually inaccessible to American scholars, the nineteenth-oentury edition edited by Baron Alphonse de Ruble has been utilized.^® Unfortunately, this ten- volume de Ruble edition tends to obscure the major divisions of the Histoire universelle, which originally was separated into three tomes.^ The first tome, an "abr6g6," narrates events for the years from 1553 to 1570, the second, the years from 1570 to 1585, and the third and most detailed, the years from 1585 to 1602. ®S. Rooheblave, loo, oit. *°A. d'Aubign6, Histoire universelle (Paris, 1886-1909), 10 vols. •^The de Ruble edition's defeots are referred to by H. Hauser, Les Sources de l'histoire de France, III, pp. 26, 27, and by G. Ellerbroek, Observations sur la langue de 1'Histoire universelle (Amsterdam, 1925), p. 17. CHAPTER I ®»AUBIGNE»S LIFE ARB TIMES Theodora Agrippa d’Aubignd was a person of considerable importance in France during the Reformation era. He was a military and politioal figure whose significance for Frenoh Protestantism, though inferior to that of an Admiral Collgny or a Henry of Navarre (later Henry IV of Franoe), was virtually equal to that of a Philippe du Plessis-Mornay or a Franqois de la Noue. However, d'Aubignd advanoes from the seoond to the first rank in the realm of literature. He was wune figure de premier plan dans ^renol^ . lettres de la Renaissance.11 * Today he is recognized as one of Franoe*s greatest poets, and his satirical works have earned him great esteem also.^ Although not the greatest Frenoh historian of his era— >this title must be reserved for Jaoques-Auguste de Thou— ■ he was one of the foremost. Agrippa d'Aubigpd was born in 1552 in Saintonge and died in 1630 at Geneva; his life spanned eight deoades of European re- •Z ligious strife. The year of his birth was marked by the Peace of Fassau, which for a half-century ended the religious wars of Germany. Plattard, Une Figure de premier plan dans nos lettres de la Renaissanoet Agrippa d*Aubign6. ^Ibid., Chapters III and IV. 3a . Gamier, op. oit.. I, p. 1. Gamier olarifies the various misunderstandings whioh have surrounded the date of d'Aubign^'s birth. 1 Simultaneously, Frenoh Protestantism was expanding and preparing to end its period of helpless martyrdom. D'Aubign4's death ooourred in the midst of the Thirty Years War, which had begun partially as a religious war. Also, his demise followed a few months after the fall of La Rochelle to Cardinal Richelieu's army and the letter's extinction of the military and politioal privileges of the Huguenots- their "state within a state." During his early and middle years d'Aubign4 witnessed and actively participated in th«b ferooious "wars of religion," which raged in Franoe from 1562 until the 1590*8. However, civil and re­ ligious strife was not confined to Franoe during this part of d'Aubign4's life. He was very muoh aware of the disturbances in the Spanish Netherlands, which oommenoed in the 1560's and finally resulted in the independenoe of the Calvinist northern provinces, and of the battles of Elizabethan England against the Catholios. Of oourse the "diabolio" direotor of the attempt to suppress the Ifcitoh heresy and revolt as well as the self-appointed champion of the counter-Reformation was Philip II of Spain. It was he who urged the extirpation of Protestantism upon the Frenoh ruler and sought to overwhelm Elisabeth I of England beoause she discreetly but obstinately supported the Gueux of the Netherlands and the Huguenots of France. As a patriotio Frenchman and ardent Protestant, d'Aubign4 was most oonoemed with the oivil strife within Franoe. These struggles were not continuous but intermittent ones, interrupted by periods of uneasy and insincere peace, which were more like periods of truce than peaoe. These conflicts were not solely religious wars, though the religious fanaticism of the Parisian populaoe in 1572 or 1588 and that of the Boohellois in 1573 or later, as well as the re­ ligious sentiments of innumerable other participants, should not be underestimated. Certainly political and social factors played an important role. In 1559 the cessation for a generation of the Hapsburg-Valois military rivalry released many hundreds of Frenoh veterans— nobles and oommoners, officers and enlisted men— from their military duties. These men, who were either unable or unwilling to find peace-time employ, readily flocked to the banners of national or provincial leaders during the olvil strife,* Furthermore, Frenoh Protestantism was transformed in the 1550's from a body of meek martyrs into a party with the power and the will to defend itself from the inquisitioner’s stake, the hangman's noose, or the exe­ cutioner's axe. The Huguenots of state, mostly gentlemen who had abandoned Homan Catholioism for politioal reasons, came to predom­ inate over the Huguenots of faith. In the 1540's the Frenoh Protestants had been inoapable, even if they had so desired, of defending themselves by rebellion against the crown, but by the I860's such was not the situation. The continued expansion of their % . Hauser, La Preponderance espagnole (Paris, 1933), p.

Load more

  364

Copy Link