Portraits from the French Renaissance and the Wars of Religion Habent sua fata libelli Early Modern Studies Series General Editor Michael Wolfe St. John’s University Editorial Board of Early Modern Studies Elaine Beilin Raymond A. Mentzer Framingham State College University of Iowa Christopher Celenza Helen Nader Johns Hopkins University University of Arizona Miriam U. Chrisman Charles G. Nauert University of Massachusetts, Emerita University of Missouri, Emeritus Barbara B. Diefendorf Max Reinhart Boston University University of Georgia Paula Findlen Sheryl E. Reiss Stanford University Cornell University Scott H. Hendrix Robert V. Schnucker Princeton Theological Seminary Truman State University, Emeritus Jane Campbell Hutchison Nicholas Terpstra University of Wisconsin–Madison University of Toronto Robert M. Kingdon Margo Todd University of Wisconsin, Emeritus University of Pennsylvania Ronald Love James Tracy University of West Georgia University of Minnesota Mary B. McKinley Merry Wiesner-Hanks University of Virginia University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Portraits from the French Renaissance and theWars of Religion ANDRÉ THEVET translated by EDWARD BENSON edited with introduction and notes by ROGER SCHLESINGER foreword by T. K. RABB Early Modern Studies 3 Truman State University Press Copyright © 2010 Truman State University Press, Kirksville, Missouri USA All rights reserved tsup.truman.edu Cover: “L’Assassinat de Coligny.” © copyright Société de l’histoire du protestantisme fran- çais, Paris. Cover design: Teresa Wheeler Type: Minion Pro and Myriad Pro © Adobe Systems Inc. Printed by: Versa Press, Inc., East Peoria, Illinois USA Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thevet, André, 1502–1590. [Vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres. English. Selections] Portraits from the French Renaissance and the Wars of Religion / by André Thevet; foreword by T. K. Rabb; translated by Edward Benson; edited, with introduction and notes, by Roger Schlesinger. p. cm. — (Early modern studies series ; 3) Thirteen selections from André Thevet’s Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres, originally published in 1584. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-931112-98-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. France—Biography. 2. Renaissance—France—Biography. 3. France—History—Wars of the Huguenots, 1562–1598—Biography. I. Benson, Edward. II. Schlesinger, Roger, 1943– III. Title. CT1010.T48 2009 944'.029—dc22 2009039072 No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any format by any means with- out written permission from the publisher. The paper in this publication meets or exceeds the minimum requirements of the Ameri- can National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992. Contents Foreword ix Translator’s Acknowledgments xii Editor’s Acknowledgments xii Introduction xiii Map of France xxxii Map of northern Italy xxxiii Genealogy of the French royal family from Louis IX to Henri IV xxxiv MONARCHS François I, King of France (1494–1547) 1 Henri II, King of France (1519–1559) 23 Charles IX, King of France (1550–1574) 41 ARISTOCRATS /WARRIORS Gaston de Foix, Duke of Nemours (1489–1512) 57 Philippe Chabot, Admiral of France (1480–1543) 69 Guillaume du Bellay, Sieur de Langey (1491–1543) 79 François de Lorraine, Duke of Guise (1519–1563) 89 Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France (1493–1567) 103 Michel de L’Hospital, Chancellor of France (1505–1573) 115 Charles de Lorraine, Cardinal (1524–1574) 127 Blaise de Monluc, Marshal of France (1499?–1577) 137 SCHOLARS Guillaume Budé, Parisien (1468–1540) 149 Guillaume Postel (1510–1581) 159 Epilogue 169 Works Cited 175 Suggestions for Further Reading 183 About the Translator and Editor 203 Index 205 Foreword T. K. RA bb Editor’s Introduction Collections of brief biographies are among the most ancient of the enter- prises of the historian. Thus, although the magisterial accounts of Rome by Livy and Tacitus occupy a central place in our understanding of the government and society they portrayed, many of the most interesting insights into the age come from the pioneering practitioners of the art of multiple biography, Plutarch and Suetonius. What they perfected was the brief, incisive portrait of the great and famous—in Suetonius’ case, they were all emperors. And what their short biographies permitted was an attention to the telling detail that brings a period as well as a person to life by means that the more ambitious historians would only rarely employ. Thus Suetonius, after having presented Germanicus as an ideal and heroic figure, cuts him down to size and reveals the effort behind the image in one incisive sentence: “His legs were too slender for the rest of his figure, but he gradually brought them to proper proportions by constant horse- back riding after meals.” For the France of the sixteenth century, André Thevet was Plutarch and Suetonius combined. Although his renown was primarily as the writer of travel accounts and geographic treatises, his massive collection of biographies is not only a brilliant window into the development of his- torical writing, but also an unrivalled source for the understanding of his era. His portraits may not have the critical bite of his Roman predecessors, but they rest on an effort of meticulous research that the ancients did not match. Thevet found out everything he could about his subjects, and he offered his readers both a sweep through the past and a virtual encyclo- pedia of his age. Unlike his Florentine contemporary Giorgio Vasari, who compiled the lives of famous artists, Thevet was not trying to promote a particular party line. And unlike his famous successor in England a century later, John Aubrey, he was not on a constant lookout for scandal and juicy stories. This was the sober work of a deeply learned man who wanted the world to know about those whom he considered significant figures of the past, and especially of his own time. That the information about his contemporaries is especially invalu- able is, at least in part, because of the momentous developments of the period through which he lived. For this was not only the century of ix x Foreword Europe’s first major encounter with the rest of the world—a topic The- vet made his own through his travels and writings—but also the cen- tury of the Reformation. The cataclysmic effects of the religious change launched by Martin Luther in Germany and expanded in France by Jean Calvin were felt in every sphere of life: politics, society, literature, and the arts. Every aspect of the history of Thevet’s native land in the 1500s was affected by these changes, and for that reason alone his account of the lives of those who had to struggle with the consequences of the Ref- ormation (whether or not he takes up this theme) is essential reading. One story in particular is illuminated by the biographies collected in this book. Starting in the second half of the fifteenth century, the French monarchy had begun the long and slow process of consolidating its authority over all of France. Following the disasters and disruptions of the Hundred Years’ War with England, the reign of Louis XI (1461–1483) had witnessed a reassertion of royal authority that was to be expanded by his successors for almost a century. They were often involved in for- eign wars, but these served as an excellent distraction for a king’s chief rivals, the landed nobility. What was particularly impressive was the relentless rise in taxation, in the central government’s legal powers, and in the size of the bureaucracy and the army, all of which enhanced the monarch’s stature. That process mirrored similar advances by kings in England and Spain at this time, but in France it was brought to an abrupt halt by the effects of the Reformation. In England, Henry VIII and Elizabeth co- opted the religious reforms and brought their realm into the Protestant fold without major upheaval. Spain remained a vigorous and watchful adherent of Catholicism, where religious dissent could gain no foot- hold. But France was torn apart by confessional dispute. By the middle of the sixteenth century, Calvinism had won hundreds of thousands of adherents, particularly in south-central and southwestern regions of the country, far from the center of royal authority in Paris. With the death of the determined and forceful Henri II in 1559, soon after the conclusion of yet another foreign war, France came under the rule of a succession of weak and uncertain kings. It was inevitable, therefore, that both nobles and Protestants (known to the French as Huguenots) should have reas- serted themselves, and by 1562 civil war had broken out. Thevet was witness to all these events. Although he lived just long enough to see a strong leader, Henri IV, at last come to the throne and issue in 1589 an edict of toleration for the Huguenots that brought the civil strife to an end, his last years were dominated by the chaos and destruction of these so-called Wars of Religion. Writing from within the cauldron and publishing at a time when the prospects for peace were Foreword xi bleak, he was nevertheless able to put together calm, dispassionate, and scholarly portraits of his subjects. We have here the rulers and the aris- tocrats who presided over the remarkable growth of government from the late fifteenth century onward, and who then had to contend with the forces unleashed by civil war. Given his own interests, it is hardly sur- prising that Thevet pays particular attention in these biographies to the cultivation of the arts and the life of the mind. But he also devoted full- scale biographies to writers and scholars like Budé and Postel. Thevet, in sum, is an indispensable gold mine if one seeks to encounter directly some of the most important individuals who shaped sixteenth-century France.