Sin and Salvation in Early Modern France: Three Women’s Stories (Volume 53) (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series) [1 ed.] 9780866985710, 0866985719

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Marguerite d’Auge, Renée Burlamacchi, and Jeanne du Laurens

Sin and Salvation in Early Modern France: Three Women’s Stories Colette H. Winn Nicholas Van Handel and Colette H. Winn

E d i te d , a n d w i t h a n i ntr od u c ti o n by t ra ns l ate d by

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 53

SIN AND SALVATION IN EARLY MODERN FRANCE

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 53

MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE TEXTS AND STUDIES VOLUME 515

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Se rie S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Se rie S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series Madre María Rosa Journey of Five Capuchin Nuns Edited and translated by Sarah E. Owens Volume 1, 2009 Giovan Battista Andreini Love in the Mirror: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Jon R. Snyder Volume 2, 2009 Raymond de Sabanac and Simone Zanacchi Two Women of the Great Schism: The Revelations of Constance de Rabastens by Raymond de Sabanac and Life of the Blessed Ursulina of Parma by Simone Zanacchi Edited and translated by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Bruce L. Venarde Volume 3, 2010 Oliva Sabuco de Nantes Barrera The True Medicine Edited and translated by Gianna Pomata Volume 4, 2010 Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Sainctonge Dramatizing Dido, Circe, and Griselda Edited and translated by Janet Levarie Smarr Volume 5, 2010

Pernette du Guillet Complete Poems: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Karen Simroth James Translated by Marta Rijn Finch Volume 6, 2010 Antonia Pulci Saints’ Lives and Bible Stories for the Stage: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Elissa B. Weaver Translated by James Wyatt Cook Volume 7, 2010 Valeria Miani Celinda, A Tragedy: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Valeria Finucci Translated by Julia Kisacky Annotated by Valeria Finucci and Julia Kisacky Volume 8, 2010 Enchanted Eloquence: Fairy Tales by Seventeenth-Century French Women Writers Edited and translated by Lewis C. Seifert and Domna C. Stanton Volume 9, 2010 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sophie, Electress of Hanover and Queen Sophie Charlotte of Prussia Leibniz and the Two Sophies: The Philosophical Correspondence Edited and translated by Lloyd Strickland Volume 10, 2011

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Se rie S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Se rie S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series In Dialogue with the Other Voice in Sixteenth-Century Italy: Literary and Social Contexts for Women’s Writing Edited by Julie D. Campbell and Maria Galli Stampino Volume 11, 2011 Sister Giustina Niccolini The Chronicle of Le Murate Edited and translated by Saundra Weddle Volume 12, 2011 Liubov Krichevskaya No Good without Reward: Selected Writings: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Brian James Baer Volume 13, 2011 Elizabeth Cooke Hoby Russell The Writings of an English Sappho Edited by Patricia Phillippy With translations by Jaime Goodrich Volume 14, 2011 Lucrezia Marinella Exhortations to Women and to Others If They Please Edited and translated by Laura Benedetti Volume 15, 2012 Margherita Datini Letters to Francesco Datini Translated by Carolyn James and Antonio Pagliaro Volume 16, 2012

Delarivier Manley and Mary Pix English Women Staging Islam, 1696–1707 Edited and introduced by Bernadette Andrea Volume 17, 2012 Cecilia Del Nacimiento Journeys of a Mystic Soul in Poetry and Prose Introduction and prose translations by Kevin Donnelly Poetry translations by Sandra Sider Volume 18, 2012 Lady Margaret Douglas and Others The Devonshire Manuscript: A Women’s Book of Courtly Poetry Edited and introduced by Elizabeth Heale Volume 19, 2012 Arcangela Tarabotti Letters Familiar and Formal Edited and translated by Meredith K. Ray and Lynn Lara Westwater Volume 20, 2012 Pere Torrellas and Juan de Flores Three Spanish Querelle Texts: Grisel and Mirabella, The Slander against Women, and The Defense of Ladies against Slanderers: A Bilingual Edition and Study Edited and translated by Emily C. Francomano Volume 21, 2013

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Se rie S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Se rie S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series Barbara Torelli Benedetti Partenia, a Pastoral Play: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Lisa Sampson and Barbara Burgess-Van Aken Volume 22, 2013

Tullia d’Aragona and Others The Poems and Letters of Tullia d’Aragona and Others: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Julia L. Hairston Volume 28, 2014

François Rousset, Jean Liebault, Jacques Guillemeau, Jacques Duval and Louis De Serres Pregnancy and Birth in Early Modern France: Treatises by Caring Physicians and Surgeons (1581–1625) Edited and translated by Valerie WorthStylianou Volume 23, 2013

Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza The Life and Writings of Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza Edited and translated by Anne J. Cruz Volume 29, 2014

Mary Astell The Christian Religion, as Professed by a Daughter of the Church of England Edited by Jacqueline Broad Volume 24, 2013 Sophia of Hanover Memoirs (1630–1680) Edited and translated by Sean Ward Volume 25, 2013 Katherine Austen Book M: A London Widow’s Life Writings Edited by Pamela S. Hammons Volume 26, 2013 Anne Killigrew “My Rare Wit Killing Sin”: Poems of a Restoration Courtier Edited by Margaret J. M. Ezell Volume 27, 2013

Russian Women Poets of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Amanda Ewington Volume 30, 2014 Jacques du Bosc L’Honnête Femme: The Respectable Woman in Society and the New Collection of Letters and Responses by Contemporary Women Edited and translated by Sharon Diane Nell and Aurora Wolfgang Volume 31, 2014 Lady Hester Pulter Poems, Emblems, and The Unfortunate Florinda Edited by Alice Eardley Volume 32, 2014

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Se rie S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Se rie S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Previous Publications in the Series Jeanne Flore Tales and Trials of Love, Concerning Venus’s Punishment of Those Who Scorn True Love and Denounce Cupid’s Sovereignity: A Bilingual Edition and Study Edited and translated by Kelly Digby Peebles Poems translated by Marta Rijn Finch Volume 33, 2014 Veronica Gambara Complete Poems: A Bilingual Edition Critical introduction by Molly M. Martin Edited and translated by Molly M. Martin and Paola Ugolini Volume 34, 2014 Catherine de Médicis and Others Portraits of the Queen Mother: Polemics, Panegyrics, Letters Translation and study by Leah L. Chang and Katherine Kong Volume 35, 2014 Françoise Pascal, MarieCatherine Desjardins, Antoinette Deshoulières, and Catherine Durand Challenges to Traditional Authority: Plays by French Women Authors, 1650–1700 Edited and translated by Perry Gethner Volume 36, 2015

Franciszka Urszula Radziwiłłowa Selected Drama and Verse Edited by Patrick John Corness and Barbara Judkowiak Translated by Patrick John Corness Translation Editor Aldona ZwierzyńskaColdicott Introduction by Barbara Judkowiak Volume 37, 2015 Diodata Malvasia Writings on the Sisters of San Luca and Their Miraculous Madonna Edited and translated by Danielle Callegari and Shannon McHugh Volume 38, 2015 Margaret Van Noort Spiritual Writings of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God (1635–1643) Edited by Cordula van Wyhe Translated by Susan M. Smith Volume 39, 2015 Giovan Francesco Straparola The Pleasant Nights Edited and translated by Suzanne Magnanini Volume 40, 2015

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Se rie S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Se rie S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

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Anna StanisŁawska Orphan Girl: A Transaction, or an Account of the Entire Life of an Orphan Girl by way of Plaintful Threnodies in the Year 1685: The Aesop Episode Verse translation, introduction, and commentary by Barry Keane Volume 45, 2016 Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi Letters to Her Sons, 1447–1470 Edited and translated by Judith Bryce Volume 46, 2016 Mother Juana de la Cruz Mother Juana de la Cruz, 1481–1534: Visionary Sermons Edited by Jessica A. Boon and Ronald E. Surtz. Introductory material and notes by Jessica A. Boon. Translated by Ronald E. Surtz and Nora Weinerth Volume 47, 2016 Claudine-Alexandrine Guerin De Tencin Memoirs of the Count of Comminge and The Misfortunes of Love Edited and translated by Jonathan Walsh Volume 48, 2016

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Se rie S ed i to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Se rie S ed i to r , e ng l i Sh te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

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MARGUERITE D’AUGE, RENÉE BURLAMACCHI, AND JEANNE DU LAURENS

Sin and Salvation in Early Modern France: Three Women’s Stories •

Edited, and with an introduction by COLETTE H. WINN

Translated by NICHOLAS VAN HANDEL and COLETTE H. WINN

Iter Press Toronto, Ontario Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Tempe, Arizona 2017

Iter Press Tel: 416/978–7074

Email: [email protected]

Fax: 416/978–1668

Web: www.itergateway.org

Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Tel: 480/965–5900

Email: [email protected]

Fax: 480/965–1681

Web: acmrs.org

© 2017 Iter, Inc. and the Arizona Board of Regents for Arizona State University. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data This publication was submitted to the Library of Congress for cataloging. The catalog record was not available at the time of printing. ISBN 978-0-86698-571-0 Cover illustration: St. Mary Magdalene Writing, c.1500–50 (oil on panel), Master of the Female Half Lengths, (c.1490– c.1540) / © Czartoryski Museum, Cracow, Poland / Bridgeman Images CZA 229158. Cover design: Maureen Morin, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries. Typesetting: Becker Associates. Production: Iter Press.

Contents Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 Marguerite d’Auge, The Pitiful and Macabre Regrets, 1600

29

Renée Burlamacchi, Memoirs Concerning Her Father’s Family, 1623

43

Jeanne du Laurens, The Genealogy of the du Laurens, 1631

55

Chronology 81 Bibliography 85 Index 93

Acknowledgments Several of my students have played a significant role in the pursuit of this project. I am especially indebted to Laura Edison, Nicolas Garzon, Brett Jordan, and Elisabeth Stocking who assisted me with the first version of Burlamacchi and du Laurens’s translations. I am grateful to my friend and colleague, Nancy Frelick, for editing a first version of the introduction. I would like to express special thanks to the readers and to Margaret King for her continued support through the various stages of this work and for her meticulous editing. Thanks also go to Margaret English-Haskin for her fine job in seeing this project to its completion.

xiii

Introduction The Other Voice From 1350 to 1650, for the first time, women entered into the intellectual mainstream of European civilization. At first only a small vanguard, but in increasing numbers, they acquired literacy and learning and engaged in the world of ideas from which they had long been excluded. Misogynistic critics still opposed them, but they themselves, and some male defenders, argued for the mental and moral capacity of women in what has been called the querelle des femmes (the “debate about women”), until by the mid-seventeenth century a new consensus was emerging, though it was not yet triumphant, that the “mind has no sex.” The increased use of the modern vernaculars (rather than Latin, the language of the professions and the universities), as well as the availability of the printing press, allowed women to reach new audiences. Most of these women authors, however, who were able, in the words of French poet Louise Labé, “to raise their minds a bit above their distaffs and spindles,”1 came from the nobility or urban elites, and their works were often in genres that permitted little direct personal expression. This volume presents three French women authors born to mercantile or professional families who write in a powerfully personal voice about real experiences and immediate events. Their works are remarkable for the vivid profiles that emerges of their creators, and for the unusual stories they have to tell. The Pitiful and Macabre Regrets of Marguerite d’Auge (1600) was published once, soon after the author’s execution; Renée Burlamacchi’s Memoirs Concerning Her Father’s Family (1623) and Jeanne du Laurens’s Genealogy of the du Laurens (1631) remained in manuscript versions until their modern editions.2 How did these women withstand the prejudice against female authorship still prevalent in early modern France? How could a woman like Marguerite d’Auge be empowered to speak of what she did when her actions threatened the patriarchal family and the social order it sustained? How did Burlamacchi and du Laurens end up writing the stories of their respective families when, at the time (at least in France), such a task was ordinarily entrusted to the males of the family? And in which ways did gender affect their handling of the family memoir genre? Additional questions present themselves with regard to the issue of religion, the common 1. Louise Labé, Complete Poetry and Prose: A Bilingual Edition, ed. and trans. Deborah Lesko Baker (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2006), 43. 2. Translations of these works appear in this volume at, respectively, 29–42; 43–54; and 55–79. Citations of original versions and modern editions of all three works appear in the first section of the Bibliography, “Works Translated in This Volume.”

1

2 Introduction

thread that runs through these works. In times of religious conflict, how could women convey their views on issues such as sin, grace, redemption, and salvation without transgressing gender expectations? Close reading of these women’s narratives invites further reflection, which, it is hoped, will deepen our understanding of the relations between gender, religion, and creativity.

Lives and Works Marguerite d’Auge (15??–1599) The only information we know about Marguerite d’Auge is what is found in her Pitiful and Macabre Regrets, in Pierre de L’Estoile’s chronicle Mémoires-journaux,3 and in court records from 1599.4 According to Louis Le Caron’s court records, Marguerite d’Auge was known for her exquisite beauty and her loose mores.5 She was married to Claude Antoine, a wine merchant from Paris, to whom she bore one daughter named Marie. For over a year, she had a liaison with Daniel Jumeau, a financial clerk from Surgères. When her husband learned of the affair, apparently from his own mother Claude Macon, he beat his wife and forbade Jumeau to come by his house. On March 5, 1599, Antoine was killed as he was returning home. The corpse was discovered the next day. Rings and money found on the victim proved that the murder was not motivated by financial gain. Marguerite and Jumeau were taken into custody; the case was prosecuted and judgment rendered. Marguerite was condemned to death by hanging; Jumeau was sentenced to live dismemberment on the wheel, although the dismemberment actually took place after his death. La Houssaye, the actual murderer, was sentenced to three days in prison and his estate was seized. On March 10, 1599, the executions took place at the Place Maubert in Paris. That same day at 6 p.m., Marguerite was buried at Saint Cosme, and Jumeau at Saint Innocent. In addition to a brother and a sister, Marguerite left behind one daughter who received her mother’s belongings and the sum of two thousand livres from Jumeau’s estate in compensation. Marguerite d’Auge’s Pitiful and Macabre Regrets is a twenty-two-page long broadside. The sole known edition of this text (Lyon: Fleury Durand, 1600) is preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France as BnF 8-LN27–46809. Judging from the widespread popularity of criminal broadsheets at the time, it is quite 3. Pierre de L’Estoile, Mémoires-journaux, 1574–1611, ed. Gustave Brunet et al. (Paris: Librairie des bibliophiles, 1875–1896; reprint Paris: Tallandier, 1982), 7:179–80. 4. Louis Le Caron, “Du Lundy huictiesme Mars, 1599,” Resolution de plusieurs notables, celebres, et illustres questions de droict tant romain, que françois, coustumes et practique (Paris: chez la vefve Claude de Monstr’œil, 1613), 404–406. 5. Le Caron, Resolution, 405.

Introduction 3 possible that this story was printed again in France or another European country, as popular stories often appeared with little alteration and sometimes in a different language. A modern edition of the work by Jean-Philippe Beaulieu is found in his Remontrances, prophéties et confessions de femmes, 1575–1650 (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2014), 133–54.

Renée Burlamacchi (1568–1641) On March 25, 1568, Renée Burlamacchi was born in Montargis (France) into an urban, upper-middle class family of Italian Protestant refugees. She was the first of seven siblings, followed by Camille (1569–1646), Jacques (1570–1630), Suzanne (1572–1633), Philippe (1575–?), Madeleine (1579–1663), Claire (1580– ?); an eighth, Elie, born between Suzanne and Philippe, died within a month. Her parents came from Lucca in northwestern Tuscany: Michele Burlamacchi (1532–1590), son of Francesco Burlamacchi (who had instigated the rebellion against Florentine overlordship resulting in his execution in 1548),6 and Chiara Calandrini (1545–1580). Following the papal bull of July 21, 1542 (Licet ab initio) of Pope Paul III that founded the Roman Inquisition, repressive measures were taken in Lucca—a city known to be deeply affected by Protestant influences.7 Protestants fled in massive numbers to France (Lyon, in particular), Switzerland (Geneva), and the Netherlands (Amsterdam). In March 1567, Michele and his young wife Chiara left Lucca in the company of Chiara’s uncle Benedetto Calandrini and his wife Madalena Arnolfini, in order to profess openly their Protestant (and specifically Reformed, or Calvinist) faith. Before bringing his family to France, Michele had stayed in Lyon on several occasions, and had been naturalized in 1566. At first, the Burlamacchis settled in Paris, but when the city became unsafe for Protestants (in France known as Huguenots), they were forced to relocate. For a short time they stayed in Montargis where Renée was born. In June 1568, two months after the Peace of Longjumeau that ended the Second French War of Religion, the Burlamacchis returned to Paris, where Michele had business to conduct. A few months later, conflicts between Catholics and Protestants arose again, and the Burlamacchis had to leave the city once more. This time they moved to Sedan where the situation appeared more promising than in Montargis, even though the city of Sedan was not at that time entirely won over to the Reform. The reason for the Burlamacchis’ departure from 6. On Francesco Burlamacchi, see Simonetta Adorni-Braccesi, “Religious Refugees from Lucca in the Sixteenth Century: Political Strategies and Religious Proselytism,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 88 (December 1997): 343–48. 7. On Lucca, “an infected city,” see the notice by M. E. Bratchel, in Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, ed. Paul F. Grendler (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1999), 3:455–57, and Adorni-Braccesi, “Religious Refugees,” 338–48.

4 Introduction

Sedan remains unclear, but in October 1570, when Jacques was born, they seem to have moved to Luzarches, then again to Paris, and they were still there in 1572 when the tensions that had been escalating between Catholics and Protestants exploded into the mass violence of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.8 Renée’s parents Michele and Chiara fled to Sedan and sought refuge at the residence of Henri-Robert de La Marck, duke of Bouillon and prince of Sedan. They spent the next five years (1572–1579) there, while the fourth and fifth Wars of Religion raged and the Catholic League was formed in Paris to eradicate Protestants from Catholic France. In 1579, they moved once again and settled for several years at Muret on the land of the Protestant Henri de Bourbon, prince of Condé. In 1580, Renée’s mother Chiara died. Michele made a good living taking care of the financial affairs of Charles III, duke of Lorraine, and the prince of Condé, but left with his children in 1585 for Geneva, where a small Italian community had gathered. That year, his name appeared as one of the members of the Italian Church of Geneva and, the following year—some twenty years after he left his hometown of Lucca— he was granted the right to participate in city affairs as a citizen of Geneva. On May 29, 1586, Renée was married to Cesare Balbani (1556–1621), a wealthy merchant from Lucca who had been living in Geneva since 1573. In June 1602, she experienced a miscarriage but subsequently bore ten children who all died in infancy.9 Her father had died in September 1590, and after a long and childless marriage, in April 1621, her husband died of nephritic colic after nearly three weeks of agony. Renée was left with a considerable fortune and a vast patrimony in and around the city of Geneva. On April 24, 1623, at the age of fifty-five, Renée married the septuagenarian Théodore Agrippa d’Aubigné, renowned author, Protestant captain, and former councillor to Henri de Bourbon, king of Navarre, later King Henri IV of France. Staunchly loyal to the Protestant cause even after the latter’s conversion, Aubigné fled France in September 1620 to avoid persecution and settled in Geneva. Judging from the close collaboration that existed between Aubigné and his second wife, this was a happy union. Renée served as secretary to her aging husband. By writing letters for him and copying his manuscripts, she had access to discussions of extreme importance concerning the political and religious activities of the Protestant party. This was a privileged position that very few women enjoyed 8. For the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, see below at 23 and n. 48. 9. This record of Renée’s late experience of reproductive difficulties is not derived from her own Memoirs, but from the related Descrittione della vita et morte del signor Cesare Balbani, in Vincenzo Burlamacchi, Libro di ricordi degnissimi delle nostre famiglie, Ms. suppl. 438 (Geneva: Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire), fols. 33r–34r, and in the edition of Simonetta Adorni-Braccesi (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, Rerum italicarum scriptores recentiores, no. 7, 1993), at 126–128; and is discussed in Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, ed. Susan Broomhall and Colette H. Winn (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2008), 9–20.

Introduction 5 at the time. This is not to suggest that Aubigné consulted her about military, political and religious concerns, but the fact that he relied on her as the mediator of his thoughts on such important issues indicates his trust in her integrity and in her intellectual capacities. As a further sign of his regard for her, by his death on May 9, 1630, Aubigné bequeathed to Renée all of his books in French and Italian. She conveyed his manuscripts to his close friend, the pastor Théodore Tronchin, who had been designated executor of his estate. Thus widowed in 1630 for a second time, Renée died eleven years later, on September 11, 1641, in the little community of Saconnex near Geneva in the house that Cesare Balbani had bought in 1598. She was buried at Plain-Palais, according to her will, alongside her first husband. Even though parts of Renée Burlamacchi’s life remain unclear, she left personal documents of which we have knowledge, a rarity for an early modern woman. In addition to letters that she herself wrote to her relatives and those she transcribed under the instruction of Agrippa d’Aubigné, we have her will and the memoir that is translated in this volume, her Memoirs Concerning Her Father’s Family, that tells the story of her family’s wanderings during the French Wars of Religion. Originally this memoir was written by Burlamacchi in Italian, the mother tongue of the first generation of Protestant refugees. We know of two Italian versions: the first one, in an Italian close to French, is included in Vincenzo Burlamacchi’s Libro di ricordi degnissimi delle nostre familiglie (fols. 50r–54v) under the title Descrittione della vita e morte del signor Michele Burlamacchi gentilhuomo lucchese, missa in luce dalla signora Renea Burlamacchi sua figlia nel mese di gennaro del 1623 in Geneva (Description of the life and death of signor Michele Burlamacchi, gentleman of Lucca, published by signora Renée Burlamacchi in the month of January of 1623 in Geneva). This version is preserved as Ms. suppl. 438 at the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire of Geneva. The second version, entitled Memoria dell’uscita di Lucca delli signori Michele Burlamacchi e Benedetto Calandrini l’anno 1567 fatta dalla signora Renea Burlamacchi (Memoir of the flight from Lucca of the gentlemen Michele Burlamacchi and Benedetto Calandrini in the year 1567, composed by signora Renée Burlamacchi), is held in Geneva in the Archives Turrettini, Fonds 2, B7, fine secolo XVII, 12 carte. The first of these manuscripts significantly provides a date for the composition of this family memoir as January 1623, after the marriage to Balbani and before that to Aubigné. In addition, three French translations of the Descrittione have been discovered to date under the title Mémoires concernant Michel Burlamacchi et sa famille (Memoirs concerning Michele Burlamacchi and his family). Vincenzo Burlamacchi, who had been born in France and knew several languages, most likely authored one of them.10 Two of these translations are located in Geneva: one at the 10. Vincenzo Burlamacchi (1598–1682) is the son of Fabrizio Burlamacchi, a remote relative of Renée’s father Michele. Fabrizio died in 1598 during a plague outbreak in Geneva, and his wife Guiditta,

6 Introduction

Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire (Ms. suppl. 84, cc. 2r–8r, secolo XVIII) and the other at the Archives d’État among the Archives de la famille de Vernet, feuilles alliées, no XXXII, pages 2–14. The third is found at the Library of Trinity College of Dublin: TCD Ms. 1152. These various translations, and the fact that one of them appeared in the Dublin manuscript alongside other similar memoirs of refugee families also from Lucca like the Calandrini and Diodati shows how important it was for the Protestant diaspora to preserve the memory of the community.

Jeanne du Laurens (1563–after 1631) On May 1, 1563, Jeanne du Laurens was born to a large Catholic family (nine sons and two daughters) in the southeastern city of Arles. Her father, Louis du Laurens (1511–1574), “came from little,” as she later will write in her history of the family,11 but he was “one of the best and most capable of his profession.” Her mother, Louise de Castelan (1527–1598) came from a noble family “with means and connections.” Louis studied medicine with Louise’s brother, Honoré de Castelan.12 Shortly after his sister’s marriage, Honoré left Montpellier where he practiced and taught medicine in order to become physician-in-ordinary to the Kings Henri II, François II, and Charles IX, and first physician to the Queen Mother Catherine de Médicis. The du Laurens had moved to Arles so that the boys could attend a good school and prepare for a career in medicine, theology, or law. In addition to Conchet, a poor relative that the du Laurens had taken in as their own son, three of the boys followed in Louis du Laurens’s footsteps and became physicians: Charles (1555–1588), André (1558–1609), and Richard (1564–1629). André, whose career was by far the most brilliant of the three, was urged by his parents to become a monk. Jeanne reports the conversation she had with her brother André concerning daughter of Pompeo Diodati, died four years later. At her death, Renée and her husband Cesare Balbani were entrusted with the care of the children, and Renée raised Vincenzo like her own son. See Descrittione della vita e morte del signor Cesare Balbani, fol. 35r, and in the edition of Adorni-Braccesi, 130. 11. Du Laurens, The Genealogy of the du Laurens, abbreviated henceforth as Genealogy, at pages 63 and 58. References given henceforth in parentheses in the text, with page numbers referring to the English translation given below in this volume. 12. It was customary at the time to marry someone from the same workplace, and the wife frequently came from an upper class. The du Laurens had several prominent physicians in their family. In addition to being Louis’s brother in law, Honoré de Castelan was Honoré’s godfather; François Valleriola, physician at Valence and Arles was François’ godfather, and Julien Collin, physician at Avignon, was Julien’s. On such practices, see Alison Klairmont Lingo’s study of the medical circles in two major cities of France, The Rise of Medical Practitioners: The Case of Lyon and Montpellier, PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1980.

Introduction 7 his ambition to become a physician and not a cleric. This episode is meant to show the responsibility parents have in shaping their children’s future and in ensuring that they pursue the inclinations they may have. Jeanne takes this opportunity to call attention to the role she herself played in the professional development of her brother, the famous physician André du Laurens. When she became aware of her brother’s special calling, she willingly spoke on his behalf to their mother in order to facilitate the communication between mother and son. After receiving his medical degree in Avignon in 1578, André studied in Paris under the well-known physician Louis Duret. In 1583, he passed his medical examination to qualify for the chair of medicine at the University of Montpellier left vacant after the death of Honoré de Castelan in 1582. After occupying this chair for ten years (1586–1596), André became the personal physician to Louise de Clermont Tallart, Madame de Crussol, duchess of Uzès. It was she who introduced him to the French royal court. From this connection came many opportunities, and André took full advantage of each and every one of them. In 1596, he became physician-in-ordinary to King Henri IV. Four years later, he was appointed first physician to Queen Marie de Médicis. In 1603, he became chancellor of the University of Montpellier while residing at court. In 1606, the duchess of Uzès died, and André was elevated to the post of first physician to the king. Among Louis du Laurens’s sons, two studied theology: Julien (1557–?) and Jean (1565–1617). Both became clerics, and died with the reputation of having lived saintly lives.13 Gaspard (1567–1630) studied law at Bourges under the prominent jurist Jacques Cujas, but he felt a calling for religious life. In 1597, he became abbot of the monastery of Saint Pierre de Vienne. At the same time, he entered the Benedictine order and took monastic vows.14 Two other sons in addition to Gaspard studied law. Antoine (1560–1631?) became an avocat au conseil, the official responsible for presenting cases to the royal councils. Honoré switched to law, which he studied at Turin and Avignon, even though his godfather (Honoré de Castelan) had made financial arrangements for him to study medicine in Paris. Honoré became a successful barrister at the regional Parliament of Aix-en-Provence, then succeeded his father-in-law as lawyer to the king. When his wife died, Honoré took clerical orders and became the archbishop of Embrun, due to his brother André’s influence at court. A few years later, Gaspard obtained the archbishopric of Arles in the same way. In her memoir, Jeanne recalls with a certain pride the time when she saw her two brothers, Honoré and Gaspard, “preach in the church of Saint Trophime in Arles, each wearing a miter” (Genealogy, 77), the headdress signifying the high authority of bishops and abbots. 13. According to Joseph Bergin, Jean, who became a major figure in the Capuchin order of Marseille and of Provence, rejected episcopal office; see The Making of the French Episcopate 1589–1661 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 613. 14. See Bergin, Making of the French Episcopate, 613.

8 Introduction

Like male children in wealthier families, the boys in the du Laurens family were given the opportunity to pursue their studies at the university. When their father died, however, Charles was expected to support the family with his income and share with his mother the responsibility of raising the younger children. Boys and girls were taught to love, respect, and obey their parents without fail. They were chastised when they behaved badly or told lies. Girls were raised to be passive, compliant, and submissive. The desired goal for them was to marry (rather than enter the convent) and follow in the footsteps of their mother by tending to the children and the household. Of Jeanne in particular, we know that she read extensively (Genealogy, 75). In June 1581, she was married to the “very honorable Monsieur Achard.” Her marriage only lasted “four years, four months, four days and four hours” (Genealogy, 70) and from it was born only one child, a son, on December 19, 1582. In her memoir, Jeanne expresses a special sentiment for her first son, an exceptional child in many ways, who would die at the age of seventeen. After spending 1586 with her mother-in-law (the year that followed her widowhood, as was the custom in Provence), Jeanne was called back home by her mother, who believed that “girls should never be separated from their mothers” (Genealogy, 69). Shortly after, she was remarried to a certain Monsieur Gleyse to whom she bore four sons and one daughter. Jeanne was sixty-eight in 1631, when she wrote the Genealogy, the last known event of her life. The Genealogie de Messieurs du Laurens descrite par moy Jeanne du Laurens Veufve à Monsieur Gleyse et couchée nayvement en ces termes is the only work that we have of Jeanne du Laurens. The autograph manuscript is preserved at the Bibliothèque Méjanes in Aix-en-Provence as Ms. Provence Recueil K 843 (827), pièce 29. Most likely, this twenty-seven-folio text was written in one sitting. In addition to the date at the end (“Done this 1st July 1631”) and the author’s statement (“I wrote this memoir as concisely as I could”), several features corroborate this idea: the regularity of the writing, the uniform color of the ink, the general coherence of the text, and its clean presentation with only a few sentences added in the margins. As far as we know, the Genealogy has not been transcribed elsewhere. Jeanne concludes her memoir by saying that it was solely intended for “[her] children and those who depend on [her]” (Genealogy, 79). In 1867, the Genealogy was published for the first time by Charles de Ribbe under the title Une famille au XVIe siècle (Paris: Joseph Albanel), an edition reprinted in 1868 and, revised, in 1879. Besides the 2008 edition by Susan Broomhall and Colette H. Winn in their collection Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, XVIe–XVIIe, this work has received scant critical interest.

Introduction 9

Study of the Texts The links between the three texts included in this volume are of two kinds: genre and theme. With respect to genre, d’Auge’s Regrets (1600), Burlamacchi’s Memoirs (1623), and du Laurens’s Genealogy (1631) exemplify the forms women’s historical writings took in early modern France. Where the first shares similarities with news broadsheets,15 the latter two display the characteristics of the livre de raison.16 With regard to theme, while d’Auge’s Regrets features a woman whose misdeed tarnished the memory of her family and her immediate community, Burlamacchi’s and du Laurens’s memoirs aim, in contrast, to preserve the memory of their respective families and communities and pass on family values to the next generations. At the same time, the three texts explore different understandings of faith and salvation amid an era of religious disruption and reform. The following analysis explores the complex character of these three texts and their interrelationships.

The Gender of Authorship in d’Auge’s Regrets The Pitiful and Macabre Regrets of Marguerite d’Auge17 is remarkable as a broadsheet that gives voice to a female criminal who is doomed to be executed. The inclusion of the female name in the title implies that what we are about to hear are a personal statement, the true words of the repentant woman, in contast to the more commonly encountered eyewitness account of a convict or felon.18 Broadsheets originated as early as 1530 and developed throughout the early modern period. Initially they were meant to satisfy the public’s appetite for sensational affairs, and they disappeared when this interest faded. Printed on one side of a single sheet of paper, they were inexpensive and thus accessible to readers from all parts of society. Street sellers loudly hawked these broadsheets, which covered unusual weather events, unfamiliar illnesses, supernatural phenomena, monstrous births, and offences of all kinds, in particular theft and murder. Among the latter, the crime passionnel (crime of passion) enjoyed the greatest popularity. Criminal broadsheets typically featured a narrative in prose or a poem with a descriptive title and perhaps a woodcut depicting the event. Supposedly based on actual facts, they were intended to inform and edify readers while providing entertainment. 15. Broadsheets are viewed as history in the sense that they offer valuable insights into past customs and mentalities, and into the people’s perceptions of, and reactions to, crime and justice. 16. The term livre de raison refers to household inventories or account books that often included family documents or histories. 17. Henceforth abbreviated as Regrets and cited in parentheses in the text. Page numbers refer to the English translation given below in this volume. 18. See J. A. Sharpe, “‘Last Dying Speeches’: Religion, Ideology and Public Execution in SeventeenthCentury England,” Past and Present 107 (1985): 145–67.

10 Introduction

Most were written anonymously. Relatively few were authored by women or featured a female criminal—one who had murdered her husband or her child, as these were the two crimes for which women were principally prosecuted. Despite the fact that the narrative voice is ostensibly female, the voice that we consistently hear sounds male: it criticizes, warns, and threatens. Marguerite is portrayed as vain, deceitful, manipulative, libidinous, adulterous, and treacherous. This representation of woman as the embodiment of the most traditional flaws of her sex is typical of misogynistic literature of the Renaissance. A large portion of the text is devoted to the advice given to women not to follow in the footsteps of Marguerite but instead to respect and obey their husbands, resist unruly passions, refrain from extramarital affairs, and be mindful of their reputations. Some of this advice is so exaggerated or so irrelevant as to come off as parody. Married women are told that they should comply with the needs of their husbands, and that “[their] powerful charms [should] serve only to please them!” (Regrets, 35) They are reminded that they should “obey their husbands … since they are the masters who hold the key to [their] heart and control [their] emotions at will” (Regrets, 35). Marguerite’s deviant behavior demonstrates just the opposite. D’Auge offers advice and employs the technique of counter-exemplarity in a mode similar to the prescriptions found in exemplary literature, sermons, and conduct books for women. “Women and maidens,” she writes, for example, “ … open your eyes and ears in order to ponder and benefit from the lament of a miserable woman…. May my misfortune be a cause of happiness for you, so that you will … humble your pride and love your husbands as virtuous wives should, instead of treating them with contempt” (Regrets, 35). The tone of intimidation and the recurrent mention of the harsh consequences of bad conduct indicate that the greatest concern here is to exert ideological control and reinforce patriarchal values. At the time, stories of female criminals and their punishment served to reassert the state’s authority as well as certain values of obedience and conformity.19 Emphasis on the inevitability of the punishment for misdeeds and the irreparability of loss serves as a potent reminder not to transgress family values and social order. A permanently tarnished reputation, an end to past happiness, and the prospect of future happiness—the joy a mother could expect from securing a good marriage for her daughter and having grandchildren—provide powerful ­examples: “If I had loved you, as many virtuous women love their husbands, I would not be the talk of the town…. I would stand with pride, I would be happy, and everyone would honor me” (Regrets, 32). But the most powerful of all is the loss of physical appeal. Extremely effective in making this loss real is the juxtaposition of contrasting portraits. The portrayal of Marguerite whose “charms are gone” (Regrets, 33), which comes immediately after the description of her enticing beauty and how it enflamed young men’s longing for her is particu19. See Sharpe, “‘Last Dying Speeches,’” 148 and 156–67.

Introduction 11 larly striking: “My eyes whose light served as the sun to many. My charms whose blazing flames consumed, without being consumed, many young hearts …. My charms are gone; my eyes clouded …” (Regrets, 33). Marguerite’s forthright penance runs contrary to the modes of self-presentation found in female pardon tales.20 Where, in the latter, women seeking mercy remained, for the most part, “silent about their feelings or many-tongued,”21 Marguerite accuses each part of her body of tricking her into infidelity and then into killing, thus admitting to premeditated murder. The term “regrets” in the title of the work indicates that this is a confession and that the most intimate thoughts, particularly the darker motivations, and events that are normally kept secret are about to be revealed. The generic label serves to set certain expectations and pique readers’ curiosity. The fact that Marguerite’s confession is addressed to an intimate circle of friends (as opposed to the “last dying speeches” of criminals that are typically public) is yet another strategy to rouse readers’ interest. In addition to those directly concerned, like her husband and lover, Marguerite speaks to female relatives (her sister and her mother-in-law), and to both unmarried and married women of her acquaintance. The topos of intimacy (a topos used by early modern women writers to justify public speech) adds authenticity to Marguerite’s speech and one has the impression of eavesdropping on “the secrets of women.”22 Here we hear Marguerite tell young maidens about the dream she once had of being married to someone she loved23; there we overhear an exchange with her mother-in-law; elsewhere we are privy to a conversation Marguerite has with her sister who is also disenchanted with marriage. We learn that she left home and took a lover in despair, searching for a better life.24 20. See Natalie Zemon Davis, “Bloodshed and the Woman’s Voice,” Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987), 77–110. 21. Davis, Fiction in the Archives, 103. 22. See Anne R. Larsen, “‘Un honneste passetems’: Strategies of Legitimation in French Renaissance Women’s Prefaces,” L’Esprit Créateur 30 (Winter 1990): 11–22. 23. Marguerite claims that her upbringing is not the cause of her deviant behavior (Regrets, 37), but that the absence of love for her husband is the real cause and the source of her hostility toward him: “with me he only lived in perpetual discord without a single hour of rest” (Regrets, 33); “If I had loved you, … I would stand with pride, I would be happy,” (Regrets, 32). Marguerite’s complaint is reminiscent of the chanson de la mal mariée. These twelfth- and early thirteenth-century chansons express the grievance of a woman unhappily married to an old and jealous boor and yearning for a young male liberator. However, though most of these poems are anonymous, they are generally thought to have been written by men. 24. “And you, my dear sister… How could you have changed my heart, when you too failed to love your husband? How could you have shown me how to love my own husband, when you had left yours and dreaded the sight of your home? Did you not retreat to my house to enjoy more freedom and live more comfortably away from your husband?” (Regrets, 37).

12 Introduction

The confession scenario allows truths about women to be brought to light, displaying the extent to which a woman who is out of control will go in order to indulge her desires. Marguerite uses the act of confessing as a tool to claim an “accepted” space in which to enjoy her uncontrollable passion.25 The abundant use of words in the first part of the text and the use of sensual images to describe illicit love suggest that, as she speaks about it, Marguerite enjoys her love encounters with Jumeau all over again.26 Indeed, some of Marguerite’s declarations reveal that her passion is not extinguished: “My sin, though hidden, still sparks some flames” (Regrets, 31). Her farewell to Jumeau, despite its spiritual overtones, expresses the wish not to be separated from him but to be reunited forever: “I bid you farewell with a holy kiss and wish to unite your soul with mine, if possible; my tears bear witness to my feelings for you” (Regrets, 39). In the last third of the text a very different image of Marguerite emerges, that of a poised and strong woman. Where Marguerite’s cold-blooded murder inspired awe and indignation, her calm acceptance of the verdict, her attempt to make peace before the execution, and her fortitude in front of death make her a likely object of admiration. Her words of encouragement to Jumeau toward the end of the confession as she urges him to be brave and face his death steadfastly are striking:27 “Take heart; suffer with patience the blows you are about to receive…. Must a woman, who is but a fragile vessel, show you endurance by going to her punishment first?” (Regrets, 39). Totally unexpected after the negative view of women that dominates the first part of the narrative, this assertion of female courage is disconcerting—while at the same time it attests to the persistence of the biblical notion of woman as the “weaker vessel” (1 Peter 3:7). Reading d’Auge’s Regrets prompts these questions: Is this the literary invention of early modern theologians and moralists written as a way to remind women of their place at home and in society and of the submissive behavior expected from them? Is this a hoax fabricated by a male writer to make his book an immediate 25. The Angoysses douloureuses of Hélisenne de Crenne (1538), a bestseller that recounts the illicit love of Hélisenne and Guénélic, includes a similar scene: the eponymous character explicitly uses confession to prolong her desire rather than to quell it. On the question of authorship and gender in the Angoysses douloureuses, see Anne Réach-Ngô, L’écriture éditoriale à la Renaissance: Genèses et promotion du récit sentimental français, 1530–1560 (Geneva: Droz, 2013). 26. In her Debate between Love and Folly, Louise Labé has Apollo declare: “The greatest pleasure there is, after love, is talking about it.” See Labé, Complete Poetry and Prose, 89. 27. According to Claude La Charité, the ambivalence of this female first-person voice can be best understood in the light of Aristotle’s Poetics and his prescriptions for the tragic persona. Thus, Marguerite d’Auge could be seen as a transitional figure anticipating Racine’s later female tragic personae. See “L’ethos pathétique de Marguerite d’Auge dans Les pitoyables et funestes regrets (1600),” in Masques et figures du sujet féminin aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles, ed. Claude La Charité, Tangence 77 (Winter 2005), especially 94–106.

Introduction 13 bestseller? Could the repentant woman have become a crusader against the crime she committed and thus assume the moralizing male voice? The questions this text raises regarding the gender of authorship show the problematic nature of female authorship in early modern times, hence the need to carefully examine any claim of authorship, as François Rigolot writes, “in the light of the specific conditions that made it possible for a woman to become a published author.” In early modern France, women did publish, but as Rigolot aptly remarks: “they were most successful when they were clones of Athena, directly born of Jupiter’s brains, and ready to punish female dissidents who did not conform to [the] Olympian order.”28

The Commemorative Role of Women: Burlamacchi and du Laurens The works of Burlamacchi and du Laurens presented here differ markedly in tone from d’Auge’s Regrets: for they are the works not of rebellious wives, but dutiful daughters, who have assumed as their task the preservation of family honor. They execute that task by adapting the genre of the livre de raison. The French term livre de raison designates a broad category of early modern books in which families would record household data and family events. Some family books exclusively recorded financial transactions (profits and expenses) and acquisitions of property, often beginning at the time of marriage. Others contained data about marriages, births, and deaths, the education and careers of husbands and sons, the social positions held, and so forth. In addition, some family books would focus on the particulars of the family’s story, and recount those episodes that might be of value to the authors’ descendants with advice for them to follow. The rationale for compiling these histories was to commemorate the deeds of fathers and sons, and set a model for their male followers. In general, the father was responsible for safeguarding the family memory. After his death, the eldest son assumed that responsibility. Initially, family histories may have been the prerogative of women as Barbara Caine notes,29 but at the time when du Laurens and Burlamacchi wrote, only

28. François Rigolot, “The Invention of Female Authorship in Early Modern France,” in Teaching French Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation, ed. Colette H. Winn (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2011), 92–93. 29. Barbara Caine gives as examples the Commentarii of the Roman empress Julia Agrippina (first century CE), Radegund’s Epistolae (sixth century CE) and Princess Anna Kommena’s Alexiad (twelfth century). See Caine, “Family,” in Companion to Women’s Historical Writing, ed. Mary Spongberg, Ann Curthoys and Barbara Caine (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 160–70. On the role of medieval women in family commemoration, see Elisabeth Van Houts, Memory and Gender in Medieval Europe, 900–1200 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 65–92.

14 Introduction

a handful of women engaged in writing history.30 What then prompted Burlamacchi and du Laurens to take on the male role of reminding their children of their ancestors? After all, both of them had male relatives who could have recorded the family’s history. What could have drawn them to try their hand at this particular genre? Was there an opportunity for them, given the set format of these family histories,31 to appropriate the genre and be innovative in some way? Were their perspectives different from those found in family memoirs authored by men? The private dimension of family histories allowed Burlamacchi and du Laurens to write at a time when women were encouraged to retreat from public discussion and hide from view. The subject matter (the family) and the self-effacing approach in both these narratives conformed to society’s expectations regarding women’s acceptable occupations and proper place within the family. Both authors seem to have realized that focusing on the family enabled them to take the pen, an opportunity they may not have had otherwise. In writing about their families, they could commemorate relatives lost and express their devotion and gratitude to their parents, but also tell the story of their families from their own point of view. In both narratives, gender shaped the writing of family history.

Women and the Memory of the Community in Burlamacchi’s Memoirs Right from the start of her Memoirs, Burlamacchi introduces herself as the widow of Cesare Balbani: “I, Renée Burlamacchi, widow of Cesare Balbani.”32 In the opening paragraph, another name is mentioned, that of her father. The name of Cesare Balbani is associated with Burlamacchi’s marriage after she moved to Geneva where the Luccan community reunited and with “the beginning of the restoration that God granted [her] poor family” (Memoirs, 52). The name of Michele Burlamacchi brings to mind the Protestant Luccan families who left their homeland after the Roman Inquisition was established in 1542. These two names serve as indicators of the geographical limits—from Lucca to Geneva—of the two interrelated stories recounted in this memoir: the story of Michele and his community, which is presented as an illustration of the trials and tribulations of 30. The only example Natalie Zemon Davis gives for sixteenth-century France is Charlotte Arbaleste. See “Gender and Genre: Women as Historical Writers, 1400–1820,” in Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past, ed. Patricia H. Labalme (New York: New York University Press, 1980), 153–81. 31. See Davis, “Gender and Genre,” 162: “[t]he subject of the family history was in principle the same no matter who wrote it.” 32. Burlamacchi, Memoirs Concerning Her Father’s Family, 45. Henceforth abbreviated as Memoirs and cited in parentheses in the text. Page numbers refer to the English translation given below in this volume.

Introduction 15 God’s elect; and the life of Renée, which is told implicitly and exclusively from the points of view of daughter, wife, and Christian. Burlamacchi’s memoir provides insight into the upheavals in the everyday lives of the Italian refugees and into the ways in which they were touched by religious persecution, from physical deprivation, to the ever-present insecurity forcing them to constantly relocate in order to save their lives, to the perils of traveling in wartime. Mention of dates—dates of important events and places where they took place, as well as dates of the family’s journeys and places where they originated and ended—are a recurrent feature, creating a repetitive pattern that gives the reader a realistic sense of what life on the run may have entailed for a family with young children. Selection, Giovanni Ciapelli notes, “is an essential orienting principle in the production of family memory.”33 Michele’s flight seemed like an appropriate time to begin the memoir since it was a landmark in both his personal life and the history of the Italian Reformed community.34 Few episodes of the Burlamacchis’ lives are fully developed. Because of their scarcity, these narratives stand out against the repetitious backstory. Practically all of the episodes in Michele’s life that Burlamacchi focuses on are associated with important national political events:35 the repressive edicts of King François I following the “Affair of the Placards” (1534); the beginning and later the end of the Second War of Religion (1567–1568), and the beginning of the Third (1568–1570); the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572), and so forth.36 Various examples are given to show the impact these events had on family life. For example, some of the children could not be baptized immediately after their births as was customary. Among the more fully developed episodes, one passage in particular illustrates Burlamacchi’s unassuming style. Michele and his relatives, forced to flee once again, follow the army of Louis de Bourbon, prince of Condé, as he retreats to Luzarches after the defeat of Saint Denis. The scene has great emotional potential, but Burlamacchi provides just enough information to help her reader visualize the situation: “Both my mother and her sister Laura, the wife of Pompeo, 33. See Giovanni Ciapelli, “Family Memory: Functions, Evolutions, Recurrences,” in Art, Memory, and Family in Renaissance Florence, ed. Giovanni Ciappelli and Patricia Lee Rubin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 31. 34. This appears to be typical of family histories. See Nicolai Rubinstein, “Family, Memory, and History,” in Art, Memory, and Family, 41: “There seems to have been a tendency to start the writing of ricordanze at a moment that the author considered a landmark in his life.” 35. On the historical aspects of family memoirs, see Rubinstein, “Family, Memory, and History,” 39–43. 36. In contrast, du Laurens’s Genealogy contains only three references to historical events: the invasion of Provence by Charles V in 1536; the visit of Marie de Médicis to Marseille on November 3, 1600; and the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572. She says that her brother Charles was in Paris at the time of the Massacre, and that he wrote a long letter to his family about his experience of it, but she abstains from detailing the content of his letter.

16 Introduction

were pregnant with their first child. This journey, which lasted twelve days, would not have been possible without much suffering and great discomfort, since they had to endure extreme hunger and cold” (Memoirs, 46). Further down, she simply observes the empathetic response of those present at the scene: “When they arrived at Montargis, by the goodness of God, the Duchess Renée of Ferrara, whom our people had begged for lodging, took great pity on the state of those two young pregnant women” (Memoirs, 46). The fact that it was Renée with whom her mother was pregnant indicates that Burlamacchi’s account is her personal story, which may explain her self-effacing narrative strategy. Other events that receive attention include the Burlamacchis’ encounters with important people like Renée of France, duchess of Ferrara; Louis, the prince of Condé; Henri, the duke of Guise; Henri-Robert de La Marck, the duke of Bouillon; and the French regent Catherine de Médicis. Clearly the most memorable is the encounter with the duchess of Ferrara at her château of Montargis. Burlamacchi was born there and named after Renée of Ferrara, who had offered her parents refuge after they fled the Catholic city of Paris at the beginning of the Second War of Religion. In the turbulent decade between 1560 and 1570, the duchess of Ferrara gave asylum in her château of Montargis to thousands of Italian refugees as she had done for French fugitives in the 1530s at the court of Ferrara. But after the rise of the Protestants in Orléans on August 20, 1569, Renée was compelled to expel over 460 of her refugees. Also deemed worthy of recollection is the encounter of the Burlamacchi family with the duke of Bouillon when they lived in Sedan, and the special friendship that developed between him and Michele. Such events not only had a decisive bearing on the family’s welfare, but also situate the family story in a wider historical context. Burlamacchi may have hoped to give wider resonance to the experience of the Luccan refugees by aligning familial experience with historical events of national importance and with key political and spiritual leaders. As mentioned earlier, Burlamacchi’s memoir opens with her father’s flight from Lucca, and closes with his settling in Geneva. The cyclic story serves as a demonstration that all the sufferings endured by the Luccan refugees were not in vain. God’s elect were reunited after they had been scattered. This may have been a message of hope to future generations.

A Daughter’s Tribute to Her Mother: the Genealogy of the du Laurens As may be expected in family memoirs, du Laurens begins by recounting the exemplary life and medical career of her father Louis du Laurens. After we are told of his death, however, the focus shifts to her mother, Louise de Castelan, who becomes the center of attention for the remainder of the story. While ostensibly

Introduction 17 writing about the careers and public achievements of her brothers, du Laurens portrays Louise as the force responsible for keeping the family together and promoting her sons’ professional advancement. Initially, Louise is described as acting to fulfill her husband’s intentions, but little by little she is shown taking things into her own hands, managing the family’s income, and making important decisions like selling family property in order to allow her sons to pursue their studies. It is quite clear that she has made the values promoted by her husband her own. From then on, she is shown reminding her children of the importance of hard work, of honesty and kindness to others, and of unwavering faith in God. Obviously, du Laurens uses the family memoir genre to explore questions of parental responsibility for the raising and rearing of children, but she also crafts it to show the crucial role that the widowed mother played in seeing to it that each of her sons receive a good education and so enter a respectable career. A distinctive feature of this memoir is the use of direct speech. 37 Du Laurens frequently lends her voice to her mother. Over and over again, she cites the words spoken by her mother as if she could still hear them loud and clear in her memory. At one point, we hear Louise speak to one of her sons: “Go in God’s care. May he give you the grace to be as good a man as your father was” (Genealogy, 67). Elsewhere, we hear her voice again, as she reprimands her grandson for committing a petty theft: “Your mother told me that you will no longer be a thief ” (Genealogy, 76). In addition to gaining in authenticity, passages in direct speech have greater force. The memoir contains several stories that Louise told her daughter38 in order to illustrate a particular point or recall a special event in the family history. A crucial episode in the lives of the du Laurens was the visit that Honoré de Castelan arranged for his nephews to meet King Charles IX. The words of the king, reported in direct discourse by the mother to her daughter, are given as a good omen and as a sign that the family’s rise to prominence suited the king’s will and, through him, God’s will: “I will remember them” (Genealogy, 62). The stories the mother shares with her daughter show the role women played as keepers of family histories. They also serve to illustrate the importance of storytelling as a means for women to preserve and transmit knowledge about ancestry from one generation to the next.39 Judging from Louise and Jeanne’s exchanges, a strong bond must have existed between mother and daughter. The widowed mother frequently confided 37. On the use of direct speech in du Laurens’s Genealogy see Colette H. Winn, “La mise en scène de la parole et ses implications pour la mémoire familiale dans la Généalogie de Messieurs du Laurens (1631),” in Sens et enjeux de la mémoire dans la société moderne: De la Renaissance au seuil du siècle classique, ed. Colette H. Winn, Tangence 87 (Summer 2008): 63–85. 38. These stories are introduced in the text by such phrases as these: “I once heard her tell a good story that I will briefly recall here”; “My mother often told us this story” (Genealogy, 59, 62). 39. On the commemorative role of women and the female tradition of storytelling, see Van Houts, Memory and Gender, 65–92.

18 Introduction

in her eldest daughter. Louise shared her concerns with Jeanne when she felt that her brothers were going astray and when she found herself helpless to combat their insatiable ambition: “My daughter, your brother has sent the title of another abbey. I want to write him that I take no pleasure in this extravagance. You had enough with the first abbey, and you should not think so much of worldly honors” (Genealogy, 73–74). Shortly before her death, Louise called upon Jeanne to write down her last words to each of her brothers. The last conversation she had with her mother is reproduced towards the end of her memoir. It reads like a summary of what has been told earlier but this time the story is told from the unique perspective of Louise who looks back at her own life, at the role she played as head of the family, and at the choices she made regardless of the advice given to her by her friends. We hear Louise express once more her views on the importance for parents to teach their children the fear of God, give the boys the opportunity to go to good schools so as to achieve excellence in the profession they choose, and to marry the girls well. The stories told during these conversations between mother and daughter, particularly this last one on the eve of Louise’s death, show that Louise, even more than Jeanne, saw it as her duty as head of the family to transmit the family memory. In taking the pen to write her family history, Jeanne was in fact merely preserving the family’s oral tradition and pursuing the task her mother was unable to complete. As has been seen, Burlamacchi combines Protestant advocacy literature, the literature of pain and suffering, and the lives of great men within one text in her attempt to inscribe the communal experience of Italian refugees into the larger picture of the Reformation. In contrast, du Laurens turns to various genres like advice manuals on parenting, moral treatises, and the lives of exemplary women to pay tribute to motherhood and to her mother in particular. Louise is portrayed as an influential model of female strength and piety. Through the voice of the daughter, the voice of the mother is preserved and her stories are passed down as an essential part of the family memory.

The Question of Sin and Salvation During the religious conflicts that divided sixteenth-century France, the theological concepts of sin and salvation and all that they entailed regarding the issues of predestination, election and divine grace, man’s free will, devotion and good works fueled countless debates. Negative sentiments about women delving into theological debates abounded, as religious authorities invoked Saint Paul’s injunction against female expression (1 Corinthians 14:34) in order to exclude women from participating in such debates. Others, like the humanist Montaigne, claimed that it was not a woman’s business to discuss theology. Montaigne pointed to the

Introduction 19 twenty-fifth of the tales collected in Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron (1558), featuring a hypocritical young man and easily-deluded monks, as an example of why women were not fit to discuss theological matters.40 Ironically, Marguerite’s Mirror of the Sinful Soul (1531), a serious devotional work in which she explores the progression of the loving soul toward God, was immediately blacklisted as heretical by the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris. Women did, nonetheless, participate in the religious discussions that characterized the era. Recent scholarship shows that many taught or discussed theological doctrine, engaged in scriptural exegesis, and penned proselytizing writings of all sorts.41 Our three authors, as well, engage in religious discussion, and controversial notions of sin and salvation are crucial in the texts included here. The treatment of the question of penance and redemption after a sinful life in d’Auge’s Regrets should be read in light of the revival of the cult of Mary Magdalene during the Counter-Reformation and Baroque periods.42 The issues of faith and salvation in the family memoirs of Burlamacchi and du Laurens are approached from two personal and unique perspectives—one Protestant and one Catholic—but both show the key role women played in the transmission of faith from one generation to the next. The religious dimension of each of these three works is explored in the following sections.

The Penitent Harlot in d’Auge’s Regrets Tales of female criminals were meant to exemplify a world of vice and corruption and provide a means for readers to share in the depths of sin, while anticipating their own spiritual salvation. For “transgress[ing] the holy laws of matrimony” (Regrets, 37) and plotting her husband’s murder, d’Auge was condemned to die “a shameful death” by execution. As was customary in last dying speeches, she begins her lament by confessing to her sins. She assumes full responsibility for her deed, and claims that she not only persuaded her lover that they should kill her husband, but also gave him the sum of fifty écus to have a certain La Houssaye 40. Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays of Montaigne, trans. Donald M. Frame (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958), “Of Prayers,” 1:56, at 235. 41. On women’s religious writings, see Alison Weber, “Literature by Women Religious in Early Modern Catholic Europe and the New World,” and Jane Couchman, “Protestant Women’s Voices,” in The Ashgate Companion to Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, ed. Allyson M. Poska, Jane Couchman, and Katherine A. McIver (Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2013): 33–51 and 149–70. 42. On the Magdalene of the Baroque era, see Ingrid Maisch, “The Penitent Magdalene: A Symbol of the Baroque Era,” Mary Magdalene: The Image of a Woman through the Centuries, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1998), 62–81. For a general overview of the significance of Mary Magdalene, see Susan Haskins, Mary Magdalene: Myth and Metaphor (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1993).

20 Introduction

execute the murder.43 She admits that she deserves to die for her “pride and disdain” in wishing to be married to someone ranked higher in society,44 and for her unruliness and her lust. Next she asks all those she offended for forgiveness. Then she professes her faith; forgives her executioner—as was customary, following the example of Christ who petitioned God to forgive those responsible for his death (Luke 23:34); and comforts those left behind, including her lover, who has been condemned to be quartered. In a period of increasing sensitivity to violence, gory details were not spared. Such details were expected in the sensational and bloody canards, or broadsheets, sold in the streets of Paris,45 and in flourishing genres closely related to them like Baroque tragedy and the tragic tale.46 Clearly the author was aware of the emotional appeal and special resonance bloody imagery47 could have for readers. Particularly striking are the depictions of Jumeau’s mutilated body and the emphasis on blood imagery: “body pierced and tormented by the arrows of death” … “his blood spills from his wounds,” “must your limbs be broken” (Regrets, 31, 36, and 39). For the reader of late sixteenth-century France, such images evoked the violent spectacle of public executions. But for the Christian of that period, the image of blood spilled was inseparable from man’s sin and Christ’s freely consented sacrifice. The references to the “sacrilegious hands stained red,” hands that “will not enjoy rest until they received the punishment they deserve,” and to the “precious blood” (Regrets, 31 and 32) function as reminders that humans will have to account for their conduct someday and will be judged accordingly. Could there have been a more shining example of conversion than the figure of Mary Magdalene that appears in the last part of the text? With much insistence, to emphasize the point to the reader, shared characteristics between the repentant Marguerite and the Magdalene are underlined, beginning with their names and the way they sound. Like the Magdalene before her conversion, Marguerite is shown to have indulged in vanity and in frivolous and selfish pleasures, the outward signs of lust: “What has become of the ornaments that embellished 43. “Did I not give you money for the wretched murderer who carried out this pernicious murder with you?” (Regrets, 34). 44. She admits having wished “to rise to the status of lady, not content with that of honorable bourgeoise” (Regrets, 33). 45. Thomas Cragin, Murder in Parisian Streets: Manufacturing Crime and Justice in the Popular Press, 1830–1900 (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2006), 25–27. 46. See Louise Frappier, “Histoire tragique et tragédie: Anatomie du pathétique dans les nouvelles de François de Rosset,” Tangence 96 (Summer 2011): 11–25. On the affinities between these genres and d’Auge’s Regrets, see La Charité, “L’ethos pathétique.” 47. In the last third of the sixteenth century, blood was practically a cultural obsession as shown by the poetry about the religious wars. See Henri Weber, “Poésie polémique et satirique de la Réforme sous les règnes de Henri II, François II et Charles IX,” CAIEF 10, no. 1 (1958): 116.

Introduction 21 my head; of the aromatic perfumes, of the jewels that shone in my hair; of the pearls from the Orient that adorned my neck; of the alluring lace that slightly exposed my bosom; […] of the fancy clothes that enhanced my beauty and appeal?” (Regrets, 31 and 32). In the depiction of Marguerite’s charms “whose blazing flames consumed, without being consumed, many young hearts” (Regrets, 32), one can easily recognize the traditional image of the Magdalene as a temptress. Marguerite, like the Magdalene, claims to have become unfaithful partly because she was unhappily married: “If I had loved you …” (Regrets, 32). But where the Magdalene, according to the legend, was persuaded by her sister Martha to end her dissolute life and follow Jesus Christ, Marguerite is portrayed as the one who makes the deliberate choice to repent. When she imagines the mutilated body of her husband (as the Christian, in contemporary devotional literature, was urged as a spiritual exercise to contemplate the wounded body of Christ), she immediately realizes the gravity of her sin and even tries to persuade her sister who has also strayed from the right path to end her sinful life. Marguerite’s spiritual enlightenment is indicated by a single phrase that marks a turning point in the narrative: “Must I fear death’s fatal blow, when it is through death that I acquire eternal life” (Regrets, 38). From then on, her repentance becomes the sole focus. Marguerite’s bodily posture, the kneeling position, is indicative of her sorrow and her remorse: “your mournful wife, who on her knees asks your forgiveness for the crime she has committed” (Regrets, 31). Her downward gaze, avoiding the scrutiny of others and especially of God (a posture also signifying awareness of the inescapability of death and of the nothingness of man), bespeaks her shame and her humility: “And how will I ask your forgiveness, when I do not dare lift my eyes to the heavens to look at you?” (Regrets, 38). Her complete submission to God is demonstrated by her prayers and supplications: “On his mercy depends my hope for salvation”; “I have hope in your mercy, trust in your grace, and faith in your final decision to receive the soul of a poor sinner repentant of her crimes, who desires your grace with a contrite heart and implores your help” (Regrets, 31, 38). Emphasis is put here on Marguerite’s humility, shown by her recognition that all that she does to achieve spiritual salvation is useless without the grace of God. But as the end of the work approaches, images reminiscent of Marguerite’s sinful past reappear. The “indecent and adulterous kisses of [her] lascivious love” which are juxtaposed with “celestial pleasures,” her gaze directed unabashedly toward the heavens (“No matter how unworthy I am of lifting my gaze to the heavens to admire your works”), and her “sinful tongue,” (Regrets, 39), all serve as reminders of her pride and her sexual licentiousness. As Marguerite’s confession comes to a close, the reader is left with the striking image of the repentant harlot. The paradox inherent in this image, which is reminiscent of the fine line between the erotic and the holy, held much attraction for early modern Christians.

22 Introduction

Burlamacchi’s Memoirs: A Testimony to “the blessings that the Lord has given me” Burlamacchi begins her family memoir with the claim that she took up the pen, “reflecting on the blessings that the Lord has given [her] since he brought [her] into this world” and hoping that her descendants “may appreciate how good the Lord is to his own” (Memoirs, 45). This declaration serves as the introduction to the story of her father Michele Burlamacchi, which is offered as yet another example of the favor God shows to his own. The story of Michele reads like a series of tribulations and trials from the time he left Lucca with his relatives and his pregnant wife until the time he settled with his children in Geneva to reunite with the Italian Reformed community. In all these episodes, both adversity and the ability to overcome it are presented as evidence of the family being chosen by God. One of the challenges facing the family constantly forced to relocate is the loss of property and possessions. One particular passage where Burlamacchi recounts how her family was able to retrieve a large sum of money from an unnamed debtor, serves to illustrate the unpredictable ways in which God intervened in favor of his own: “Whereas God let others act without compassion and deny what they owed us, he touched the heart of this particular man so that he compensated us” (Memoirs, 49). Later on in the memoir, Federigo Burlamacchi’s generous gesture toward the family after the death of his brother is given as yet another example of divine grace: “after our father’s death, God touched the heart of his brother Federigo Burlamacchi: he saw to it that we were paid five hundred écus of that which belonged to my father for the property we still had in Lucca” (Memoirs, 53). Among the episodes illustrating the notion of election, two take on a symbolic dimension: the time when the family is miraculously saved from torrential rains on the way to Geneva, and the night of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. The flood story is reminiscent of biblical narratives: the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites as they flee the Egyptian army (Exodus 14) and the story of Noah’s ark (Genesis 6–9). It serves two purposes at once: as proof that God’s elect cannot possibly be lost; and as a reminder that judgment on sin— the “papist abominations,” that is, of the family’s Catholic oppressors (Memoirs, 45)—will come: “During that journey … [i]t rained continuously, and we nearly drowned as we left that place. We recognized the intervention of God, who guided us through this hardship so that our coach did not turn over” (Memoirs, 51). The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was triggered by the failed attempt on August 22, 1572, to assassinate the Protestant captain, the Admiral Gaspard de Coligny. Coligny had come to Paris, a Catholic stronghold, along with the core of the Huguenot nobility, to celebrate the wedding of the Huguenot Henri de Bourbon, king of Navarre and future King Henri IV, to the Catholic Marguerite

Introduction 23 de Valois, sister of the reigning King Charles IX. Prompted by an order from unknown persons above, on August 24, French Catholic soldiers launched a general massacre, targeting and killing the Protestant leaders—Coligny first among them. Catholics as well as Protestants were victims in the ensuing disorder that lasted for more than a week, and the violence spread to the cities of Lyons, Bourges, Bordeaux, and Orleans, where thousands more were slaughtered.48 But this epochal event in Reformation and European history is told in Burlamacchi’s Memoirs from her unique perspective as a child. Most likely, this was not her true recollection of the event (as she was only four years old at the time) but rather the story her parents told her. On the night of the Massacre, she and her younger brother were left behind along with their governess, while their parents were forced to flee for their lives. Burlamacchi shows how families were torn apart, not just physically but also ideologically since the children left behind risked being pulled away from the faith of their fathers. At first, the children were hidden at the home of a certain treasurer named Jean le Clerc, lord of Tremblay, but somehow they ended up at the home of Henri I, the duke of Guise, who saw an opportunity to make good Catholics out of the young children. For eight days, they were kept in a room with no means of getting out, “as if in prison” (Memoirs, 49). As they were about to be re-baptized, they were miraculously spared by the intervention of the queen regent Catherine de Médicis, who had them released. But at the home of the Protestant Monsieur de Bouillon where they were taken next, another danger awaited them: the temptation to go to mass, which the Bouillon family saw as the only way to save their lives in this time of religious conflict. Highlighting the ever-present risks that Protestant worship entailed, this poignant episode gives a vivid sense of the struggles of Protestant existence at the time. With the help of God, Burlamacchi notes, her family resisted temptation, and even the youngest children remained loyal to their faith. The narrative ends with the striking image of the innocent child who maintains his faith despite all: “Monsieur de Bouillon reluctantly gave in to the temptation to go to mass in this time of religious conflict, but God gave our family such strength that none of us succumbed to temptation, not even the young children whom Monsieur de Guise had intended to raise in the Catholic faith” (Memoirs, 49). The reader is constantly reminded of the presence of God in the itinerant lives of the Burlamacchi family, and of his guidance in their spiritual journey. 48. For a concise account of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, see Barbara B. Diefendorf, “Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre,” Europe, 1540 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World ( 2004), at Encyclopedia.com , and bibliography there cited. See also the recent authoritative account by Arlette Jouanna, The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre: The Mysteries of a Crime of State, 24 August 1572, trans. Joseph Bergin (Manchester: University of Manchester Press; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

24 Introduction

After a while it becomes clear that all the anecdotes included in the memoir serve one sole purpose: to prove that the Burlamacchis were chosen by God to test their faith and were given, with each new trial, the opportunity to renew and strengthen their dedication to God. Indeed the family memoir reads like a testimony to the favor the Burlamacchis and their community found in the eyes of God. Writing about God’s elect also offers Burlamacchi the opportunity to commemorate those who played an important role in her life, like her aunt Madalena Calandrini who took care of her and her siblings when her mother died, and others who had died. For “those who will come after [her],” her father is shown to be the incarnation of Protestant values and the perfect role model (Memoirs, 45): “at the age of fifty-eight, …[God] put him to rest, after he bore witness in his life and death to his piety and his fear of God and after he endured with patience the hardships sent to him by God. He took his material losses with joy, knowing that God has reserved him celestial rewards” (Memoirs, 53). Finally, recording what happened to her kinfolk provided Burlamacchi with a context within which she, too, was able to communicate her personal experience of the upheavals associated with the Reformation and demonstrate her unwavering commitment to the Protestant cause.

The Mathematics of Salvation in du Laurens’s Genealogy The du Laurens family story is articulated around two main themes: material prosperity and spiritual welfare, concerns that are theoretically incompatible for Catholics, but were not seen as such by many Europeans. The fact that the same amount of space is devoted in the story to temporal matters and spiritual matters indicates obvious links between the two. What, then, was the attitude of the du Laurens toward earthly riches? Did worldly matters impact the way they lived their faith? Early on in the story told in the Genealogy, much is said about the family’s precarious economic situation. In describing the experience of her parents, Jeanne repeatedly mentions her father’s ability “to be content with little.” Here, Louis du Laurens is described as one “who asked for nothing more than to spend one day after the next” (Genealogy, 74). There, we are told that he often provided care to his patients without pay. Elsewhere, the use of free indirect discourse49 intimates that Louis’s generous spirit had become a concern for the family: “he had some property in Savoy that he never wanted to sell, leaving it to the use of his poor relatives, and yet he had ten children to take care of ” (Genealogy, 66; my emphasis). As the 49. The words attributed here to the character denote what the narrator is thinking. This literary technique, known as “free indirect discourse,” is commonly associated with the style of the ninetheenthcentury French novelist Gustave Flaubert. However, this example demonstrates that this technique appeared earlier.

Introduction 25 family grows in number with little to live on, Louis’s wife Louise, Jeanne’s mother, becomes more and more troubled. One particular episode in the life of the young couple, the purchase of three pièces de terraille—literally, but not in fact, parcels of land (see Genealogy, 59)—helped Louise realize two things: first, the fact that the material future of the family rested on her shoulders; second, the importance her husband placed in faith in God. Repeated over and over again, the words expressing Louis’s belief that faith alone is what counts and that God is the provider of man’s needs constitutes a leitmotif in the Genealogy: “[O]nly hope in God; serve him, love him, honor him with all your heart, with all your might. Use your time well and God will give us more than we deserve” (Genealogy, 63). After Louis had died, Louise repeats the same words to her sons, and they, her brothers, to Jeanne. This superimposition of voices serves to show the impact Louis’s unwavering faith had on those around him, first on Louise and, through her, on her children. Again direct speech is an extremely effective technique to illustrate the importance of oral communication and the central role the mother played in passing on the spiritual heritage from one generation to the next. The insecurity Louise experienced about the family’s economic situation early in her married life resurfaced even more strongly when she found herself a widow with ten children, none of whom could provide for themselves, except for Charles, who was at the time a doctor working for the city of Arles. While she does all she possibly can to allow her sons to pursue their studies and help them make useful connections in order to establish themselves in their respective professions, she urges them to live a just and honest life so as to secure their eternal destiny. She is aware of the threat riches and earthly fame pose for eternal salvation and constantly reminds her sons to prepare for death throughout life with good behavior and good works, setting an example of how to live and die well. In the Genealogy, the description of deathbed scenes is always accompanied by a comment regarding the way the dying person lived his life. About his father’s death Jeanne remarks: “he died a good man, and before his death he did everything a good Christian ought to do” (Genealogy, 65). A similar comment is made about Jean, the Capuchin friar and about Gaspard, Archbishop of Arles: “he died known as a godly man” (Genealogy, 62); “he died with dignity after living a virtuous life and was lamented by everyone” (Genealogy, 77). In the spiritual treatises of the mid-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the main purpose was no longer to prepare the dying for death, but to teach the living to meditate on death and prepare for spiritual salvation during their lifetime. Further, the manner in which Jeanne’s relatives died is mentioned as an indicator of the strong faith of the du Laurens and of personal salvation. Each time, emphasis is placed on a symbolic element of death: for Louis du Laurens, it is the time of the year (Christmas Eve); for Charles the age (thirty-three was the age of Jesus Christ when he died); for

26 Introduction

Jean the state of his body, which was found two weeks after he drowned at sea “neither spoiled nor corrupted” (Genealogy, 70). The last third of the Genealogy shows the ways in which each of the sons overcame the dangers opulence posed for personal salvation. The impact their upbringing and the principles of Christian morality that they were taught early on had on their lives and deaths is evident. After his wife passed away, Honoré “chose never to remarry, and instead lived as a cleric” (Genealogy, 72). Julien “willingly [put] himself at risk to help the victims of the plague” (Genealogy, 60) and attained saintliness through self-abnegation: he walked on foot for miles, never slept in a bed but instead rested in a chair, wore a hair shirt, and ate just enough to sustain himself. Gaspard embraced apostolic poverty. As he was to be buried, poor people would snip locks of his hair to keep as relics. As the first physician to the king, André received numerous gifts from the king for himself and also for his brothers. But Honoré refused the post of first president of the Parliament of Aix offered to him, and Jean turned down the Archbishopric of Embrun because “he had vowed to live a life of poverty” and “wished to die poor” (Genealogy, 77). In their later years, the du Laurens seem to have been mostly concerned with ensuring a better journey for themselves in the afterlife. In addition to donating many of their possessions to the poor and the church, they commissioned the repair, embellishment, or construction of chapels like the chapel of Saint Felix in Arles, where Richard was buried. The last pages of du Laurens’s livre de raison read like a ledger detailing her brothers’ investments in the afterlife. In sum, when considering the socio-economic background of the du Laurens—financial hardship during childhood, material prosperity during adulthood—it is tempting to see a cause-effect relationship between the ups and downs that prevailed in the early days and the devotional practices they favored later on in their attempt to achieve spiritual salvation.50 It has been seen previously how, in recounting the hardships suffered by her father and his community during the French Wars of Religion, the Calvinist Renée Burlamacchi perceives the operation of God’s will for his elect. Similarly, in tracing the social ascent of her family, the Catholic Jeanne du Laurens underlines the importance of a solid Christian education and an honest and pious life in order to achieve spiritual salvation. Where their understanding of God’s grace and human works reflects their confessional differences, their views of adversity as an opportunity to approach closer to God present striking similarities.

50. On the ideas developed here, see Colette H. Winn, “La Genealogie de Messieurs du Laurens escrite par moy Jeanne du Laurens (1631) et l’économie du salut,” in Les écrits du for privé en Europe: Du Moyen Âge à l’époque contemporaine: Enquêtes, analyses, publications, ed. Jean-Pierre Bardet, Elisabeth Arnoul and François-Joseph Ruggiu (Pessac: Presses universitaires de Bordeaux, 2009), 443–55.

Introduction 27

Note on the Translation This is the first time the texts included in this volume are translated into English. The Regrets of Marguerite d’Auge is translated from Beaulieu’s edition. The translations of Burlamacchi’s Memoirs and du Laurens’s Genealogy are based on original manuscripts: the first from Geneva Ms. suppl. 84, critically edited by Broomhall and Winn, and the second from Aix-en-Provence Ms. Provence Recueil K 843 (827), pièce 29. Our primary objective has been comprehensibility and readability while bringing the twenty-first century reader as close as reasonably possible to the experience of reading the original text. The bracketed page numbers in the texts, corresponding to the pagination of the base texts used in this translation, will assist readers who wish to consult the originals. By far the most challenging text has been d’Auge’s Regrets, characterized by intricate syntax, nuanced terminology, and elaborate visual imagery. For the sake of readability, we have cut long winding sentences into independently significant shorter units. As would be required in any translation from French to English, we altered the order of words or substituted a grammatical category so as to respect proper English syntax. In some cases we modified the word order to foreground meaningful parallelism. We have made every effort to retain the intricacies of the original prose, indicative of the intricacy of the narrator’s emotions. However, as translation inevitably requires interpretation, we have clarified awkward and unclear passages. We eliminated some of the repetitions when we felt they did not contribute to the meaning or even obscured it. In cases where there existed confusion due to the switch between different addressees with little or no transition, we used a proper name in place of pronouns to avoid ambiguity. We omitted some connecting words like “et,” “parquoy,” and “mais” when they were used repeatedly and thus failed to express opposition. Finally, we eliminated interjections such as “Oh,” “Ha,” “Mais helas” when they sounded clumsy in English and seemed to diminish the climactic effect. It was not always possible to retain the exact nuances found in the sixteenth-century French language of emotions. For example, the terms “affections” and “amitié” were both rendered by the word “love” which was sometimes accompanied by an adjective to render the nuance: virtuous, honest, etc. Connotations were expressed as much as possible. Thus, the word “faute,” depending on the context, may be translated as either “crime,” or “sin.” Pairs of synonymous nouns or adjectives, the so-called “doublets”—a common feature of sixteenth-century French, were retained when the repetition in and of itself was judged to convey semantic emphasis. Otherwise, they were translated by a single word. The dramatic character of this text highly depends on its visual imagery. Images of the human body, comparisons, metaphors, and simile of all sorts abound

28 Introduction

here. We tried to preserve them as much as possible. Many images were retained and sometimes translated literally or almost literally like death’s arrows or scythe, the mutilated body with blood spilling from its wounds, the hands stained red, and the imagery of the shipwreck. However, in some cases, we substituted the image for a more meaningful one in English: “à mains jointes” was rendered by “on her knees,” and “les broderies et ouvrages qui en partie voiloient mon sein” was rendered by “the alluring lace that slightly exposed my bosom” to capture the sensual nature of the image. In sentences where flame imagery was excessive, we opted not to render each specific instance. Only those images that could not be rendered without obscuring the meaning of the sentence were eliminated. For the sake of readability, “au lieu de avoir mis un beau chapeau de triumphe sur le chef ” was rendered by “you should have received glory.” Both Burlamacchi’s Memoirs and du Laurens’s Genealogy make extensive use of apposition, and in particular of the present participle, which results in long, unwieldy sentences. For the sake of readability, we frequently cut these long sentences into shorter units. Another feature of these long winding sentences was unclear logical relations between each clause with contradictory or unlikely implications. As a result, we sometimes had to change the order of clauses within longer sentences in order to clarify causality. In the following example, the clause “mais il se trouva absent” obscures the causal relationship between “J’ecrivis enfin à Mr Conchet” and “car ma mere luy avoit escript.” We reestablished this causality and translated “J’ecrivis enfin à Mr Conchet nostre cousin à Avignon, mais il se trouva absent, car ma mere luy avoit escript comme à un de ses enfans, luy recommandant surtout l’amitié” as “Last, I wrote to Monsieur Conchet, our cousin in Avignon, since my mother had written to him as to one of her children, offering him her love. However, it turned out he was gone.” In other instances, we opted to remove cumbersome transitions and connecting words that did not add any meaning to the text. For both of these texts, we left titles such as “Monsieur” in the original French. We also left occupations in the original French when we could not find a satisfactory English equivalent. On the other hand, we decided to translate “Messieurs” as “the du Laurens” in the title of the text to clarify for an English-speaking audience that the text refers to the entire family. A characteristic feature of sixteenth-century French, triplets (three synonymous nouns or adjectives) were frequently rendered with a single word in English when we thought the repetition did not add to the meaning. For example, “tant de miseres, d’epreuves et de tribulations” was translated as “so many hardships.” To retain the original flavor of the time period, we left distances and currencies in the original language in both Burlamacchi’s and du Laurens’ texts.

The Pitiful and Macabre Regrets of Marguerite d’Auge about the murder of her husband Claude Antoine committed by J. Jumeau in which, repentant of her adultery, she asks God for forgiveness and urges women to love their husbands. Executed in Paris. In Lyon, by Fleury Durand. 1600. With permission.

The Pitiful and Macabre Regrets of Marguerite d’Auge Miserable beauty! Miserable youth! What use to me is this body molded in the image of God, when it yields to its vile pleasures! These pleasures filled with horror and infidelity were meant to deceive my husband but they deceived me as well. My sin, though hidden, still sparks some flames, or at least releases the appearance of smoke and reveals itself to all. The omniscient eye that sees everything and penetrates the depths of our souls from the heavens1 does not leave our misdeeds unpunished. Our sin cannot be hidden from ourselves, for it serves as the executioner who intensifies the pain caused by the sores of our souls. I must therefore cry aloud without shame. Alas! my dear Antoine, hear the lament of your miserable wife! But how dare I call out your name, when I have extinguished its memory? How can I ask your forgiveness, when my mistake is irrevocable? Will you be able to hear my prayers when your soul [4] is so distant from mine? Your soul is blissful before the throne of our powerful God and basks in eternal glory. If the blissful souls can hear our prayers, will you be inflexible toward your mournful wife, who on her knees asks your forgiveness for the crime she has committed? Alas! How dare I address you, when I must implore our powerful God for his forgiveness. On his mercy depends my hope for salvation; he alone can fulfill my wishes. Alas! my dear friend, where are your eyes that longed to contemplate my beauty, your arms that longed to embrace me, and your sensual lips that longed to breathe in my sweet kisses. What a curious metamorphosis! What a horrendous spectacle! I see instead your eyes shut, your arms crossed over your stomach, and your lips once so sensual robbed of their vermillion hue. I see instead your body pierced and tormented by the arrows of death. Oh miserable! Oh guilty conscience! Oh traitorous, murderous hand! Why have you deprived me of my happiness and made me the most miserable of my sex? Alas! if only I had been by your side when you let out your last breaths, I believe that upon hearing my remorse and repentance, you would have granted me forgiveness. But how would I have shown myself to you when I did not dare look at your mutilated body. Oh beautiful eyes! How could you have witnessed the ingratitude and betrayal of your cruel wife? For just a moment, bear witness to the repentance of my plaintive voice. Pale and numb lips [5], breathe life into my veins! Ears, listen to my pitiful farewell! Will I touch your body with my sacrilegious hands—these hands that were soiled after breaking their promise, instead of serving as witness to our fidelity until our bodies turned to ash? Oh face! oh body! Am I imagining it when I see you now in such a pitiful state, wounded by such a cruel wife? If only, when I shed my tears, pull out my hair, and expel my murderous 1. Biblical reminiscence; see Job 34:21, Proverbs 5:21, 15:11, Hebrews 4:13, etc.

31

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soul from my pernicious body, I could redeem your precious body and revive it. A thousand deaths would please me, a thousand afflictions could not diminish my love, and right now I would prove my good will by beginning to make amends. The sea restless with Aeolus’2 sighs does not have more ripples than I do passions in my soul; nor does the sturdy ash beaten by the Southern wind shake more than my wretched limbs. Tormented as they are and stained red by your precious blood, they will not enjoy rest until they receive the punishment they deserve. Alas! Of what use to me are so many grievances? Is it right to love you now? How can I honor you, and fulfill the service owed to a faithful spouse, now that my happiness is lost, along with the hope of returning to your good graces? I took away life from him who made me the happiest of women; my adultery caused me to lose this happiness and to commit a most pernicious act: the absence of love for you and my disregard for your life were the arm and sword that delivered the blow. [6] If I had loved you, as many virtuous women love their husbands, I would not be the talk of the town and you would still be alive. I would stand with pride, I would be happy, and everyone would honor3 me. Instead, I dare not lift my eyes to heaven, for I have lost my honor. Was there ever a lady in town happier than me? Did my husband not grant each and every one of my desires? I cannot think of my past happiness without crying, especially when I consider the misfortune that follows close at my heels. Ah, cruel fate! I have reason to speak out against you. Why did you elevate me to the top of your wheel when you lowered me into the abyss at the same time? Where are my graces that captivated the most beautiful of souls? My eyes whose light served as the sun to many? My charms whose blazing flames consumed, without being consumed, many young hearts? My lips whose sweet talk allured even the most rational minds? My hands whose lascivious caresses were the expression of my love! My breast whose soft sighs bore witness to my lack of shame.4 What has become of the ornaments that embellished my head; of the aromatic perfumes, of the jewels that shone in my hair; of the pearls from the Orient that adorned my neck; of the alluring lace that slightly exposed my bosom; of the bracelets and rings that adorned my hands; and of the fancy clothes that enhanced my beauty and appeal?5 Oh, good God! Can I speak 2. Aeolus, the keeper and ruler of the winds, gave Odysseus a bag full of captured winds so that he and his crew could safely return to Ithaca on the gentle westerly wind: Homer, Odyssey, 10:1–55. 3. Women were particularly vulnerable to dishonor and shame. As Laura Gowing notes, “[to] accuse a woman of unchastity undermined her whole character. Every commentary on morality placed continence at the heart of female character, and made it the proof of her virtue.” Gender Relations in Early Modern England (Harlow, Essex, UK: Pearson, 2012), 62. 4. All these traits were viewed as the signs of harlots. “The whore was the archetype of sin, and unchastity the focal point of rhetoric against all sorts of offences.” Gowing, Gender Relations, 62. 5. In male-authored conduct literature, sumptuous clothes and adornments were identified as devices of women’s deceit, vanity, and immodesty.

The Pitiful and Macabre Regrets (1600) 33 of their curious metamorphosis without losing my wits and bursting into tears? My charms are gone; my eyes clouded [7]; my graces impotent; my hands limp and stained red; my head adorned with a simple bonnet; my hair sheared and disheveled; my neck strangled by a rope; my breast branded and trampled; my hands tied; and my clothes torn up and covered in dust. How miserable I am! What must I do? Where will I find aid in such a wretched state? Where are you now, maids of honor, who escorted me and considered yourselves happy whenever you rendered me an agreeable service? My service has changed, for instead a cruel executioner escorts me, who any time now will unleash upon me the punishment I deserve. How tough must the heart be, and how ruthless the soul, to not take pity on the sight of the happiest woman becoming the most miserable. She who was prized among the most fortunate of her sex, is now despised by the lowest. She who with pomp and magnificence surpassed the most noble women, is now the most reviled and contemptible? How happy I would have been if my birth and my death had occurred on the same day, so as to save me from the misery of this world! I would be among the innocent, my Antoine would be alive, he would be happily married with someone else and live in peace, whereas with me he only lived in perpetual discord without a single hour of rest. Where did this hostility come from, what was its cause? Pride and disdain prevented me from appreciating the honor he brought me, the wealth he acquired for me, and the intense pleasures he gave me, and caused my loss, as did the ambitious desire to rise to the status of lady, not content with that of honorable bourgeoise. [8] Whereas I should have behaved as an honest spouse in my husband’s absence, I laid with the man who killed him two nights before his death. Once Antoine was dead, I took as my husband the man whose lascivious charm had triumphed over my immodest heart and reduced me to this odious woman. My vow to love him was signed by our blood. Oh beauty! Oh alluring charms! Why did you not disfigure me at birth with some deformity, so that my beauty not provoke men to sin and my charms not cause my misfortune?6 You who are the cause of my loss, were you not content to soil his bed? Was it not enough to harvest the fruits that belonged to him? Did you have to pursue his death in addition to the wrongdoing you caused him? Did you have to fall for my raving madness? Should you not have been wiser, and foreseen the despair that would come about from homicide? Did you not know that our powerful God, from whom nothing

6. Reference to ancient and medieval heroines who actually disfigured themselves for fear that their beauty become an occasion for others to sin. A more recent example appears in Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron, where Floride, the protagonist of novella 10 mutilates herself in order to appear unappealing and escape rape.

34 Marguerite D’Auge

can be hidden, would avenge such a heinous crime, and that the birds of Tibicus7 would one day bear witness against us? Alas, miserable soul! Your mind, preoccupied with the present, failed to imagine what would follow once your crime was discovered. How would you have hidden it, when you came to tell me right after delivering the blow? Did your sin weigh you down? Did the blood of my husband demand vengeance? What, then? Must I make you guilty to claim my innocence? Are the townspeople not already satiated by seeing me accused of causing your misfortune? Do my cries and tears, my hair sheared [9], my throat beaten, and my clothes tattered not bear witness to my betrayal? Would I have been brought to such despair had I been innocent? Did our passionate love and the hope I gave you not drive you to such an act? Did I not give you money for the wretched murderer who carried out this pernicious murder with you? Alas! did you really have the heart to carry out this wretched crime? Your heart is even harsher than that of Procne8 and Medea.9 Was our sensual love not worth more to you than the risk of despair? God, if my words ever expressed sweetness, may they now show some sign of it, may such indisputable witnesses as the tears, regrets, and continual sighs that burst from my soul convince my Antoine of my repentance! How foolish of me! I should implore God to bring him back so that I may explain myself to him in the flesh and soften further his gentle heart. If he saw me content, he would have reason to forgive me. His presence would be a more efficient cure for me than a balm for a wound. Neighbors, implore God to bring him back so that I can better express the cause of my misery, once my wit has returned. Women and maidens, who must love your own sex out of natural instinct, I implore you to open your eyes and ears in order to ponder [10] and benefit from the lament of a miserable woman. If my charms have ever shown their power, may they now open your hearts to lament that woman who seemed to be a new sun in your midst, and whose scorching brightness finally consumed her in her own flames. Noble ladies, gaze at the spectacle of a murderous wife! Look at her whom the rest of the world once thought the happiest woman! She is now the most miserable because of her adultery. The blood that stained her hands red has tarnished your reputation forever. Must my name be immortalized by such a pernicious act? Must I rank among murderers and adulteresses instead of honest and chaste women? Win glory from my misfortune! Make triumph from my remains! May 7. Probably an error for Tibullus whose Elegies tell of premonitions, curses, and birds of evil omen (see 1.3.17); cf. Beaulieu, Remontrances, 122n2. 8. After she learned that her husband Tereus had raped her sister Philomela, Procne slew their son Itys and served him to Tereus as supper: Ovid, Metamorphoses, 6.412–674. 9. When Jason deserted her for Creon’s daughter, Medea killed Jason’s new wife by offering her a poisoned robe and crown for her wedding, and murdered the two sons she had with Jason: Euripides, Medea.

The Pitiful and Macabre Regrets (1600) 35 my misfortune be a cause of happiness for you, so that you will resist unruly passions; so that you will rise above the mire of sensual pleasures; so that you will humble your pride and love your husbands as virtuous wives should, instead of treating them with contempt; so that you will obey them, since they are the masters who hold the key to your heart and control your emotions at will. May your sweet disposition compel them to love you! May your powerful charms serve only to please them! May your gracefulness prompt them to renew over and over again their vows, and set your love ablaze every hour in this holy union. [11] May you then live happy and content, untroubled with the passions that made me miserable! Pleasures cannot be eternal, and love armed with immodest arrows produces fruits full of bitterness. Delights arouse us for some time, then drive us into a fatal despair. Women of the bourgeoisie or of whatever social standing you may be, do not search happiness in sensual pleasures that vanish in a moment. Love virtue, if you want to find eternal pleasure. Stay away from shameful desires that bring about tragic misfortunes. May you learn from my death and ruin to strengthen your virtue, which will steer you away from shipwreck! Avoid being crushed as I was when my vessel broke into pieces against the rock of sensual pleasures. May your heart be content with modest and legitimate love and turn away from the consuming fire of lascivious pleasures. Beware of its sparks, which will leave us widows in the abyss of our immodest sensual pleasures. Even if you deceived everyone with your duplicity, you could not deceive our powerful God, who sees all of our actions from high in heaven. Stifle these foolish desires with honor as the antidote! Abhor adulterous kisses that soil your husbands’ beds, and love a chaste marriage as ordered by God, in order to attain glory in his heavenly kingdom! Lead for posterity the path of virtue with your good example! Alas, my God! Will I let my offense to my mother-in-law silently pass by? Will I not ask her forgiveness [12] for the wrong I caused her son? Alas, mother! It is too late to confess my sin. I neglected to listen to your admonitions; it is too late now to benefit from them. The wound is too deep, death followed, and no remedy will be of any use. It was not without reason that you said to me upon seeing your son dead (knowing so well my pride and ambition): “You lost a merchant, but you will find a gentleman.” You knew that adultery was the cause of this homicide and foresaw then my misfortune. You knew that your son had forbidden my Jumeau from coming around his house, and that I had been beaten10 because of him. Will I now reveal my sin to all? Will I declare without horror my enormous sin? Have I not let my 10. Extramarital sex was condemned by all, but women’s sexual misconduct was judged more harshly. The punishment for adulterous wives was usually very severe, and could vary from humiliating punishments, to imprisonment in a convent, and even to death. See, for example, Ulinka Rublack, The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999).

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Jumeau know that I was beaten because of him? Did I not tell him that my Antoine had gone to his manor near Paris, and that he would find the opportunity to avenge the wrong he had caused me? Is this not sufficient testimony to incriminate me, and to let it be known that I am the cause of his death? Alas, my dear mother! Forgive me, so that I can die and suffer my punishment more willingly, and show my constancy until the end. And yet, my sweet mother, how can you forgive me when your son’s murder demands vengeance as his blood spills from his wounds before your eyes, and your loss endures in your mind? [13] Your granddaughter, who grieves in your arms the loss of her father, is a constant reminder of my crime: her sorrow makes your grief more painful and compels you to curse the birth of the woman who brought about the death of your dear son. But what use to me is so much crying? Can my tears bring you back to life, my Antoine? Do my regrets diminish my crime? Will my sighs redeem me from death? By killing myself, will I diminish my sorrow, will I recover that which I have lost? What, then? I leave a labyrinth of thorns to be devoured in that of the Minotaur. I am mad to beg Ariadne11 to help me escape when she is inflexible to my cries. My dear daughter, where are you? Can you look at your father’s wounded body without breaking down into tears? Although your young age prevents you from recognizing my cruelty, can you take pity on my misery and jump up in my arms to embrace me? Nay, for my crime touches you too closely. Alas! in just one week, I, with my own hands, put your father and mother in the grave and tarnished your reputation. Alas! My dear child, if I had been a true mother to you I would have loved he whom God chose to bring you into the world; if I had loved him, I would not be in the state where I am: I would be happy and would still savor the sweet fruits of holy matrimony;12 I would watch you grow with wisdom and beauty, and you would bring me so much happiness. I would hope to have a son-in-law, who would bring me honor. In holy matrimony he would have beautiful and well-born children [14], who would call me grandmother in the future. But such is not my fate. You should have received glory and praise for following the path of good conduct shown by your virtuous and honest mother. Instead, people will say, I fear, no matter how truly innocent of my crime you are, “That’s the daughter of Madame Antoine, the daughter of

11. Reference to Ariadne’s assistance to Theseus in his quest to slay the Minotaur: see, among others, Ovid, Metamorphoses, 8.175–182 and Hyginus, Fabulae, 43. 12. For an overview of “the nuptial or conjugal imaginary,” and the different ways Catholics and Protestants viewed marriage, see Claire L. Carlin, ed., Le mariage sous l’Ancien Régime, in Dalhousie French Studies 56 ( 2001), and Brigitte Roussel, “Nicole Estienne’s Les misères de la femme mariée and the Marriage Controversy in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century,” in Teaching French Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation, ed. Colette H. Winn (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2011), 25–33.

The Pitiful and Macabre Regrets (1600) 37 the woman who caused her husband’s death, and who was publicly executed for adultery and murder.”13 My father and mother raised me well and were considered good people, but I did not follow the path of good conduct they showed me.14 Instead, I yielded to sensual pleasures and went astray. My dear daughter, redeem my crime with your virtue, crush evil in me with your wisdom, and keep to this good path to silence your detractors. As for you, my brother, do not let my squandered life silence my voice! Do not let death veil my face! Tell me one more word to prolong my life! May you show your generous nature by forgiving your own blood and praying that our great God forgive it too, even if flames of resentment still burn in your heart and prevent you from recognizing me as your sister. Use good judgment to look upon my fragile sex and pray with a brotherly heart for a miserable woman! Oh destiny, you are so cruel! You drive me to an abyss for asylum. Fates,15 you came to help [15], but too late! Why do you not put me out of my misery in one swift blow, and protect me from the spectacle of so many misfortunes? And you, my dear sister, occasional companion in my misfortune, why did you not use your good judgment to pull me away me from the vices into which I had plunged? How could you have changed my heart, when you too failed to love your husband? How could you have shown me how to love my own husband, when you had left yours and dreaded the sight of your home? Did you not retreat to my house to enjoy more freedom and live more comfortably away from your husband? I beg you out of my love for you and out of the bonds of blood that kindle in our hearts to abandon your pernicious desires and to love your husband more ardently than ever. Once you embrace God’s will, you will hold your head high without fearing the world’s condemnation. Look at your sister, who will soon be handed over to a heartless executioner to meet her end with a shameful death! My pride and sensual pleasures brought about the abominable adultery that caused me to stop loving my husband and to transgress the holy laws of matrimony. Dear sister, I beseech you to return to your husband, to love him and live in peace with him. Fate is not yet cast, you can hold onto it easily and redeem part of my crime with your virtuous life. As for you, my dear Jumeau (too cherished [16] for my honor), will you not lament the misery of your miserable partner? 13. “Reputation,” Gowing rightly notes, “applied not only to individuals, but also to households and families”: Gender Relations, 62. 14. Education was conceived as a preventive method serving to shape and discipline in order to avoid having to reshape and reform later; see, for example, the magisterial statement of this principle by Desiderius Erasmus in On Education for Children, ed. and trans. Beert C. Verstraete, in Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 26 (= vol. 4 of Literary and Educational Writings, ed. J. Kelly Sowards), 291–346 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985). 15. D’Auge calls on the Parcae, the female personifications of the Fates in Roman religion; see Encyclopedia Mythica: .

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Will you not share in my tears? Will the flames of my ardent passion not soften your heart to cry over our miseries? Alas! Our passion once set ablaze by our sweet love has become icy through a curious metamorphosis, and our amorous fire could not stay hidden long. It would not have consumed us had we tried to resist its earliest efforts, which while delicious at first were followed by venomous misfortunes. How dare I recall love’s false promises? Am I spurred on by my loving caresses? Do I still wish to indulge in indecent readings instead of honest ones, which could have led me to the path of honor and modesty? Great God who presides over the sacred mysteries of marriage and to whom its fruits are dedicated, prepare my heart to receive your grace and obtain your mercy, which I cannot attain without your help. But, my God! How will I present myself before your celestial throne when I have transgressed your holy commandments? How could you be willing to see an immodest woman, when you radiate with honor? And how will I ask your forgiveness, when I do not dare lift my eyes to the heavens to look at you? Do I find myself in despair? I have hope [17] in your mercy, trust in your grace, and faith in your final decision to receive the soul of a poor sinner repentant of her crimes, who desires your grace with a contrite heart and implores your help. I see that the time approaches; I see cruel and pitiless death rushing toward us with scythe in hand, ready to cut the thread of our life.16 Cruel death! Could youth and beauty17 not soften your heart and restrain your fury? Is it time for our eyes to be obscured by your darkness? Must your cruelty deprive them of their beautiful light? Must they be confined to a dark tomb before they have reached a mature age? You have no regard for youth. Those who seek you out in their old age have difficulty finding you, and those who try to avoid your fatal arrows are instead stricken in a moment. Miserable! It may sound as if I wish to return to my earthly existence and dwell on material things, as if I blaspheme against God’s will to punish evildoers and attribute to death the throne that God has given to justice. Must I fear death’s fatal blow, when it is through death that I acquire eternal life?18 Why do I lament dying so young, when I put an arrow in my heart with my own hand? Alas, poor Jumeau! Come closer so that our shared grief may be resolved more easily, and that we may be better prepared to suffer the punishment that awaits us now. The judge is coming to deliver our sentence. I see the executioner getting ready to 16. Traditional medieval representation of Death, bearing a scythe and entering the life of mortals with a formidable energy: see Paul Binski, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 158. 17. A reminder of the inevitability of death and the equality of all before death typical of the memento mori tradition; see Christopher P. Vogt, “The Art of Dying,” in Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience, ed. Clifton D. Bryant and Dennis L. Peck (Los Angeles, CA: Sage, 2009), 1:70–72. 18. Cultivating detachment from earthly matters and turning one’s attention towards the afterlife was a common advice in meditations on death to combat the fear of dying; see Vogt, “Art of Dying.”

The Pitiful and Macabre Regrets (1600) 39 bind our bodies. Let’s be brave; let’s confess [18] that we deserve the death that we are about to suffer. Let’s promise each other to face our death steadfast. As proof of my resolve, I have already worn my mourning dress in memory of my deceased Antoine to celebrate our funeral with my own. It is therefore now, poor Jumeau, that I bid you farewell with a holy kiss and wish to unite your soul with mine, if possible; my tears bear witness to my feelings for you. May it please God that we be united in our suffering, in order for me to bear the sole burden; this would be what I deserve for my crime, since I was the beginning and end of your misfortune, and caused your transformation into this horrid murderer. Must your limbs be broken, and must you endure such torment because of me? Must my suffering be less severe than yours, when my crime is greater? Come on, Jumeau, be brave; can you endure less than I can? Must a woman, who is but a fragile vessel, show you endurance by going to her punishment first? Be assured and patient not to dread what is bound by time. Do you compare a moment to eternity? Does the fear of imminent death drive you to despair? Do you prefer to remain indebted in the other world rather than pay back in this one here? Take heart; suffer with patience the blows you are about to receive. Consider that the weakest blow that my deceased Antoine received was far more cruel and painful than your own will be: his blows were innumerable, [19] and blood spilled from his wounds; his death was slower than yours will be, and his innocence makes it more deplorable. Take this death as willingly as we took the indecent and adulterous kisses of our lascivious love, kisses that we must put out of our minds to enjoy eternal celestial pleasures. Had we aspired to these pleasures, we would have found felicity and would have avoided this ignominious death. So many lords and ladies, and nearly the entire population of Paris, would not be assembled here to gaze at us. So many rumors would not be spread about the death of Madame Antoine and poor Jumeau; so many scaffolds and windows would not be filled with such crowds, and so many carriages and horses would not run through the streets to gaze at this punishment. A punishment, however, that we must embrace since it redeems us from another punishment and gives us eternal life, provided that we cleanse ourselves from the filth of this world, repent of our sins and ask forgiveness of our great God. Let us run to him; his grace gives us assurance; his mercy awaits us, and his arms are open to receive us. What then? Do I still want to postpone my death? Executor of high justice, be ready to carry out your duty as soon as I have said my prayers. May it please you, great merciful and forgiving God, to look upon this wretched soul who burdened with sins presents herself with humility before your divine majesty! This soul hopes to obtain your grace, which reaches out towards those who repent of their sins and ask for your forgiveness. [20] No matter how unworthy I am of lifting my gaze to the heavens to admire your works, and of moving my sinful tongue to speak to your divine power, I trust that you will lend

40 Marguerite D’Auge

your ear to the afflicted when they run to you. This trust emboldens me to present myself before you with my hands stained red by my husband’s blood and with my soul tainted by the ignominious sin of adultery, knowing that your mercy is infinite and that you will listen to me just as you have listened to so many sinful men and women. Great God, who knows my will and can read into the depths of my soul, you must know that I am remorseful for my sin and implore your grace. Prepare me to receive it, and don’t let the fear of death drive me to despair, but fortify my spirit with your grace; help me rise above mundane things to reach the heavens. If not fortified with your power, the fragility of my nature, and above all that of my sex, will fail to resist the temptations of this world. Good God, please be my support until my last sigh, help me with your usual mercy, so that I can patiently face this death, which may seem ignominious to this world, but too light considering my enormous sin. Open your arms, my God, to receive my soul in your holy paradise. Thanks to your mercy and to the holy and precious blood of your dear son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns eternally with you and the blessed Holy Spirit, the soul of this poor sinner has found redemption. THE END

The Pitiful and Macabre Regrets (1600) 41

[21] To the Ladies Sonnets Look, ladies, look at this tearful woman Who cries, but too late, over her enormous sin: By her lascivious charms she seduced A monster, who devoured her soul. Procne’s sin is more pardonable, and even Medea Did not fail as I did, even though she sicced Death on her children, but I did not prevent The murder of my spouse, who loved me so. This monster is adultery, where to complete abandon I revealed my God-given beauty To he whose cruelty tormented me. You can call yourself cruel, since all at once, With one blow of your hand, you killed three, And I, the last one to die, am the most odious. Lament, Ladies, lament the macabre preparations Of she for whom love had no limit; Of she who seemed to be a rose of the elite, Whose unrestrained ardor caused her to dry up in the sun. My all too lascivious love never had an equal: Alas! I was compelled by holy matrimony To love my husband; if I had done so, for true merit, One would have cherished my grace and my beautiful vermillion complexion. By scorning my husband, I scorned myself, And by neglecting to love him I neglected to love myself, Since together we formed a single body. Farewell, my dear husband, if I dare call you such, Farewell, my soul, my body aspires until death to be united with thee Farewell, my fortune, my Good, and all my beautiful treasures. [22] When the verdict of my sentence was rendered, At once I wanted to dress in mourning for the both of us, And crying out with tears in my eyes, I am fully repentant of my crime. And to show my great endurance

42 Marguerite D’Auge

I consoled him, who sent my husband to his grave By giving him the final blow, and whose pride Led him to foolish hopes. I said to him, Jumeau, do you dread the passing Of a moment which is bound by a sudden death? Have you already lost your strength and courage? Where is your fierce heart, filled with fury When you struck his body: ah wicked! You should have Tempered your rage for fear of your punishment. I cannot without horror blame his cruel death, And our tragic loves; I cannot without crying See my poor Jumeau, and can only expect The punishment as the result of my unfaithful love. Let us die then, my Jumeau, and with a holy and good zeal! Let us forget our loves and aspire To the heavens! Our yearning for them will bring joy To our souls and bodies. I hear God calling us. Let us go to him, the heavens are open to us! Let us leave behind the pleasures of this material world! Let us reach, through death, immortal life! Let us repent and beg for forgiveness from the All-Powerful! Let us chase far away this roaring dragon, Who wants to deprive us of eternal glory! THE END

Memoirs of Demoiselle Renée Burlamacchi Concerning Her Father’s Family

Memoirs Concerning Her Father’s Family [2r] I, Renée Burlamacchi, widow of Cesare Balbani, after retiring to my estate in Saconnex and reflecting on the blessings that the Lord has given me since he brought me into this world, have dedicated myself to putting these memories in writing to serve as a record for those who will come after me. I hope that they may appreciate how good the Lord is to his own and how he leads those who fear him to achieve all things, as Saint Paul1 tells us. The family of my father, Michele Burlamacchi, experienced the greatness of God through the many ordeals and afflictions that our Lord had them endure. Michele was the son of Francesco Burlamacchi2 and Catarina Trenta,3 and he was born in Lucca on August 25, 1532. On January 7, 1566, in Lucca, he married Chiara, daughter of Giuliano Calandrini4 and Catarina Balbani. In March 1567, he and my mother decided to depart from Lucca alongside Benedetto Calandrini, brother of Giuliano, and Madalena Arnolfini, his wife, in order to leave behind papist5 abominations and seek refuge in the church of the Lord. Once they arrived in Paris, they bought a house and settled down. [2v] In 1567, that same year, religious war began again in France,6 which made them believe they were not safe in Paris. They thus left for Luzarches, about seven lieües [30 miles] from Paris, where Pompeo Diodati7 had rented a place 1. Romans 8:28: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (NIV) 2. Francesco Burlamacchi was famously executed in 1548 for leading a rebellion against Florentine overlordship; see Adorni-Braccesi, “Religious Refugees,” 343–345. 3. Daughter of Federigo Trenta and Catarina Calandrini; see Broomhall and Winn, Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, 77n3. 4. Giuliano Calandrini (c. 1510–1573) fled religious persecution and settled in Geneva in 1560, then moved to France in 1567 where he had family and probably died of the plague of 1573 in Sedan; see Adorni-Braccesi, “Religious Refugees,” 370, and Broomhall and Winn, Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, 77n4. 5. Derogatory expression Protestants used of Catholics. 6. This date marks the beginning of the Second War of Religion (1562–1563) after the Protestants’ attempt to free the French King Charles IX from Guise domination failed; see Mack P. Holt, The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 7. In the mid 1560s, Pompeo Diodati (1542–1602), who was under ban, took refuge with his mother and future wife Laura Calandrini first in Lyon, then at the château of Montargis under the protection of the duchess Renée of Ferrara, and finally in Geneva, where he resumed his mercantile activities trading silk; see Adorni-Braccesi, “Religious Refugees,” 370, and Broomhall and Winn, Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, 78n7.

45

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with Giuliano Calandrini, whose other daughter Laura he had married. My father had all of his possessions sent there from Lucca. On November 13 of that year [1567], the army of Louis de Bourbon, prince of Condé, head of the Protestant party, was defeated close to Saint Denis [then just outside of Paris] and retreated to Luzarches in an act of desperation.8 My father, along with our other relatives, saw that we could no longer stay there without risking danger and, not knowing where else to go, decided to follow that army. They had to leave behind all of their possessions, which were stolen by both locals and soldiers soon after we left. In that group were Giuliano Calandrini and his wife, who had accompanied him since they left Lucca, Pompeo Diodati and his wife, and my father and mother. Both my mother and her sister Laura, the wife of Pompeo, were pregnant with their first child. This journey, which lasted twelve days, would not have been possible without much suffering and great discomfort, since they had to endure extreme hunger and cold. When they arrived at Montargis,9 by the goodness of God, the duchess Renée of Ferrara,10 whom our people had begged for lodging, took great pity on the state of those two young pregnant women. Although she knew nothing [3r] of our world, she took into account the fact that they were Italian and very cordially welcomed them into the castle, while she turned away others. From then on she received them at her house, and while they were there, she generally showed to them all the kindnesses one could desire. It was in that town of Montargis that I was born on March 25, 1568 and was presented for baptism by the duchess, Madame [Renée], who gave me her name, and by Monsieur Giuliano Calandrini, my grandfather. From then on, our family remained at Montargis until June 1568 when we returned to Paris, once peace was reinstated in France.11 Camille, my sister, was born July 10, 1569 in Paris and we could not have her baptized at that time, as we did not have any way to do so. When war was 8. On November 10, 1567, the army of Condé that was blockading Paris from the north was defeated by the larger royal army. This battle was the sole major battle of the Second War of Religion (1567–1568): Holt, French Wars of Religion, 64–65. 9. A town in the Loire valley 68 miles south of Paris. 10. On the protection Renée of Ferrara offered during the wars of religion to persecuted Protestant preachers and adherents who had been exiled from their homes, see Rev. James Anderson, Ladies of the Reformation: Memoirs of Distinguished Female Characters, Belonging to the Period of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century (London: Blackie, 1857), 523–48; and Roland H. Bainton, Women of the Reformation in Germany and Italy (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1971), 235–52. A daughter of the French royal family, Renée had been married to the duke of Ferrara for more than thirty years, supporting the Reformation cause in that city before returning to France in 1560, and so was disposed to favor Italian adherents to Protestant reform. 11. Peace was reinstated on March 23, 1568 with the Edict of Longjumeau.

Memoirs Concerning Her Father’s Family (1623) 47 declared against the Protestants,12 we were once again forced to leave Paris and flee to Sedan.13 Toward the end of May 1570, my father left Sedan for Paris to fetch my sister, whom we had left there in the care of her wet nurse.14 After taking her to Sedan, he himself returned on June 24, 1570. On the 29th, she was presented for holy baptism by our great-uncle Benedetto Calandrini and his wife Madalena. My brother Jacques was born in Luzarches, Picardy, in the castle of Saint Côme October 25, 1570 and was not able to be baptized until March 11, 1571 in Versine at the home of a nobleman named Monsieur de Saint Roman de la Faiette.15 The godfather was Monsieur Pompeo Diodati and the godmother was Madame Turquet.16 [3v] On March 17, 1572, my sister Suzanne was born in Paris and on April 20 of the same year was baptized in Versine. Her godfather was Monsieur Francesco Spinelli,17 a Florentine nobleman, and Seigneur de Berninville, and the godmother was Madame Susanne de Mannemars, dame de Luzarches.18 12. Even though the main battles of the Third War of Religion (1568–1570) took place in the districts of Poitou, Saintonge, and Guyenne, Paris was not safe for Protestants. 13. The city of Sedan had been independent from the kingdom of France since 1560, ruled by the sovereign prince of Sedan, the Protestant Henri-Robert de La Marck (1539–1574), son of Robert IV de La Marck and Françoise de Brézé, duke of Bouillon. It was “a significant center of Huguenot strength in an otherwise strong Catholic Northeast.” See Mark W. Konnert, Local Politics in the French Wars of Religion: The Towns of Champagne, the Duc de Guise, and the Catholic League, 1560–1595 (Aldershot Hants., UK: Ashgate, 2006), 183. See also 29–30, 72–74, and 183–85. 14. Wet-nursing was commonly practiced in well-to-do families. As an example see Caroline Castiglione, “Peasants at the Palace: Wet Nurses and Aristocratic Mothers in Early Modern Rome,” in Medieval and Renaissance Lactations. Images, Rhetorics, and Practices, edited by Jutta Gisela Sperling (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013), 79–100, and more generally Valerie Fildes, Wet Nursing: A History from Antiquity to the Present (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988). 15. Claude de La Fayette, baron de Saint Romain, Massiers, La Malmaison, etc., husband of Marie de Suse, dame de la Versine and daughter of Philippe, seigneur de la Versine: Louis Moréri, Le grand dictionnaire historique, rev. ed. (Paris: Jacques Vincent, 1732), 3:583. 16. Louise Le Maçon, daughter of Antoine Le Maçon, treasurer-at-war during the reigns of François I and Henri II, and wife of Louis Turquet de Mayerne (1550?–1618), French Huguenot historian and translator of Guevara, Vives, and others, descendant of a powerful Piedmontese mercantile family that settled in Lyons: Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, vol. 37 (New York: Macmillan, 1894), 150. 17. Descendant of the Spinelli of Florence, a powerful family of merchant bankers, some of whom worked for the Medici bank in Lyons; see Philip J. Jacks and William Caferro, The Spinelli of Florence: Fortunes of a Renaissance Merchant Family (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001). 18. It has not been possible to identify this figure.

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When, on [Saint Bartholomew’s Day,] August 24, [1572], the cruel massacre of the faithful took place in Paris,19 our poor family was saved by the miraculous providence of our Lord, who acted through one of our friends from Lorraine, a treasurer named Le Clerc.20 At the first signs of war, those of our household fled to his home, namely my father, my mother, Monsieur Benedetto Calandrini and his wife, since my grandfather, Giuliano Calandrini, and his son-in-law, Pompeo Diodati, were still in Luzarches. But they were only able to save themselves, leaving many of their belongings inside the house. Camille, Jacques and I had stayed in the house with some servants, but our parents sent for us as soon as they could and had us brought to the home of the treasurer, Monsieur Le Clerc. They stayed there from the morning of Sunday the 24th until midnight on Monday the 25th, when one hundred Swiss soldiers came to accompany them to the home of [Henri-Robert de La Marck,] duke of Bouillon. Since a very rigorous decree had been issued so that nobody could harbor any [of the Protestant] faithful in their homes,21 Monsieur Le Clerc was no longer able to keep them in his house. We were left there anyway, for fear [4r] that if they brought us along in the middle of the night, they would be given away by children’s cries. We stayed in that house until Tuesday after dinner with our governess from Lucca, Caterine, nicknamed Tine, and another girl, Cressine. Since some of our papist [i.e., Catholic] Italian relatives were in Paris, they all decided that we three children would stay at the home of [Henri I,] duke of Guise, since he harbored religious fugitives in his house, although he was one of the instigators of this massacre.22 We were taken there by those relatives and particularly by the Seigneurs Gasparo di Poggio23 and Fabrizio Burlamacchi, who visited us every day during our stay. The duke saw us upon our arrival, and apparently wanting the best for us, he specifically asked the wife of one of the servants to look after us. He left Paris that same day, pretending to believe that, as someone had told him, our father had been killed. We were 19. For the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, see above, Introduction, 23 and note 48. 20. Jean le Clerc, lord of Tremblay; see Adorni-Braccesi ed. of Vincenzo Burlamacchi, Libro di ricordi degnissimi, 169n6, and Broomhall and Winn, Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, 82n20. 21. A reference to François I’s edicts of 1534 (immediately after the “Affair of the Placards”), 1538, and 1540, investing the tribunals and the magistrates with inquisitorial powers against those deemed to be heretics — as all Protestants would be, thirty years thereafter — and those who shielded them. 22. The plot of the duke of Guise (1550–1588) was to assassinate Coligny, whom he held responsible for the killing of his father, François de Guise, in 1563. Coligny was wounded in an assassination attempt on August 22, and then murdered in the general massacre that began August 24. It remains unclear which persons in high position masterminded the conspiracy —the Guises and the regent Catherine de Médicis have both been suspected of involvement — against the Protestants of Paris. 23. Possibly a member of the Pietro Poggio family, a merchant banker family that immigrated from Lucca to Lyons; see Marcel Vigne, La banque à Lyon du XVe au XVIIIe siècle (Lyon: A. Rey; Paris: Guillaumin, 1903), 87.

Memoirs Concerning Her Father’s Family (1623) 49 kept in a room where we remained without any means of getting out, as if in prison. Meanwhile, our house was ransacked. Our servant Jean Madame, husband of Tine, who had remained there until that point, escaped over the rooftops. He entered an unknown house through the roof under the cover of night and found a maid who gave him something to hold him over, as he had gone twenty-four hours without eating. She kept him there until the morning, at which point she had him leave, after putting a white paper cross on his hat [4v] so that he would not be taken for a Protestant. When he found out where his wife was, he came to find us that night in the house of Monsieur the duke of Guise. His unexpected arrival overjoyed his wife, who had mourned him as dead. The duke of Guise being due to return to Paris imminently, my father feared that the duke would seek to have us rebaptised [i.e., as Catholics]. He had to request that Monsieur [La Marck, duke] of Bouillon approach the queen mother [the regent Catherine de Médicis], and she agreed [to secure our release]. Thus we left the home of Monsieur de Guise after eight days, and we were taken to the home of Monsieur de Bouillon, where we stayed with our relatives. We stayed in that house, but we exposed ourselves to considerable danger, as we were tempted on several occasions to go to mass, which we saw as the only way to save our lives. Monsieur de Bouillon reluctantly gave in to the temptation to go to mass in this time of religious conflict, but God gave our family such strength that none of us succumbed to temptation, not even the young children whom Monsieur de Guise had intended to raise in the Catholic faith. We left Paris accompanied by the duke of Bouillon, and with the aid of God we arrived safely in Sedan. Since we had lost all of our belongings, Monsieur de Bouillon wanted to provide us with the means to get by, and as soon as we arrived in Rheims, [5r] he had us meet with a man named … who owed my father four thousand lire and who paid him back, although nobody asked, since all of the documents, including their agreement, had been lost in Paris, which had caused us considerable loss. Whereas God let others act without compassion and deny what they owed us, he touched the heart of this particular man so that he compensated us. This was a great help to us in Sedan, since without this we would not have been able to provide for our family. Everything was so expensive back then, and the town was filled with so many people that the poor families would take lodging in the streets, for lack of other housing. We stayed in Sedan for seven years and were well liked and highly regarded by everyone and especially by this seigneur the duke of Bouillon, who so enjoyed talking with Monsieur Benedetto Calandrini and my father that he sent for them every morning to eat with him. Monsieur Giuliano Calandrini, our grandfather, died in Sedan in December 1573. Upon his death [on December 2, 1574,] the duke of Bouillon passed away, he was bitterly mourned by the entire town. He passed on his duties to his

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wife, the duchess, who fulfilled them with such prudence that all the poor refugees were able to stay there until France was in a more stable state. She granted our family some very considerable favors and services. On July 9, 1573, my mother had a son [5v] who was presented for baptism on the 10th by Monsieur Claude Debons, seigneur de Pas,24 and Madame de Cussy de Remont from Normandy, his godmother. He was named Elie, and he died twenty-six days later.25 On April 21, 1575, my brother Philippe was born in Sedan, and he was presented for baptism by our uncle Filippo Calandrini (who later married and died in La Rochelle26 in 1586) and Mademoiselle Dumenil, wife of Commander Dumenil, 27 who died in the massacre [of St. Bartholomew’s Day]. In the month of … 1579, we left Sedan and took lodging on the land of Henri, prince of Condé in Muret,28 a two-day journey from Paris. My father had rented this chateau since it was not far from Paris and he could go there to take care of his affairs. My sister Madeleine was born there on August 23, 1579, and was baptized at Saint-Pierelle,29 about four lieües away, where we went to worship. The godfather was Monsieur Desfossés30 and the godmother was our aunt Madalena [Arnolfini, the wife of Benedetto Calandrini]. On September 5, 1580, my mother gave birth in Muret to another daughter, who was named Claire. She was baptized at Saint Pierel and presented by Monsieur Colladon, secretary of the

24. Father of Anselme de Bons, who initiated the Protestant branch of the family. See Charles-Louis de Bons, Origine et généalogie de la famille de Bons (Sion, s.n., 1864), 6. 25. Mortality below one year old was high in early modern Europe; see David I. Kertzer and Marzio Barbagli, eds., The History of the European Family: Family Life in Early Modern Times, 1500–1789 (New Haven: Yale University Press 2001), 164–173. 26. In western France on Bay of Biscay, nearly three hundred miles southwest of Paris. After 1568, La Rochelle became the main Protestant stronghold in France; see Judith Chandler Pugh Meyer, Reformation in La Rochelle: Tradition and Change in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1568 (Geneva: Droz, 1996), 119–152. 27. Jérôme du Mesnil (son of Jean du Mesnil, who was Prosecutor in Parliament), Commander of Saint Anthony; see Adorni-Braccesi, ed. of Vincenzo Burlamacchi, Libro di ricordi degnissimi, 173n23, and Broomhall and Winn, Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, 86n35. 28. The Château of Muret, near Soissons, in Picardy, about 60 miles from Paris. 29. The parish of Saint-Pierelle Aigle, in the Aisne department, embraced the Protestant faith between 1576 and 1584, and Pierre du Mesnil served as minister; see Broomhall and Winn, Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, 86n35. 30. Perhaps a member of the prestigious Fossa family established in Geneva; see E. William Monter, “The Italians in Geneva, 1550–1600: A New Look,” in Genève et l’Italie: Études publiées à l’occasion du 50e anniversaire de la Société genevoise d’études italiennes, ed. by Luc Monnier and Enea Henri Balmas (Geneva: Droz, 1969): 53–77.

Memoirs Concerning Her Father’s Family (1623) 51 prince of Condé.31 On September 16, 1580, following this birth, God called back to him my dearest mother. My father found himself in great despair when he lost such a good companion who supported him with constance and a joyful disposition for the short time32 [6r] they spent together. They lived through so many hardships, and yet she remained at his side until the very end. Before passing away, she urged our wonderful aunt, [Madalena Arnolfini], the wife of Monsieur Benedetto Calandrini, to take care of her family. Madalena had already been like a mother to her when, after the death of Catarina Balbani, wife of Giuliano Calandrini, her father, who left six very young children, Giovanni, Cesare, Filippo, Chiara, Laura and Camilla (who died in Lucca in 1566 before the family’s departure), she went to stay with her husband to stay at the home of the Sieur Giuliano, her brother-inlaw, in order to raise his children, which she did with great care. She promised my dying mother to continue caring for us and to treat us like her own children, and she fulfilled her promise very generously and charitably. She raised us all, especially the four girls whom she always kept at her side. She was helped by the aforementioned Mademoiselle Dumenil, who relieved her and took it upon herself through great tenderness to teach us reading and needle skills, and especially to have fear of God, for which we are all still greatly indebted to her memory. With the outbreak of the wars of the [Catholic] League,33 we had to think about leaving. Mademoiselle Dumenil fled to Sedan and we went to Geneva. During that journey we encountered terrible [6v] dangers, from which God delivered us. Our great-uncle [Benedetto] Calandrini and his wife [Madalena] were recovering from a severe illness. My great-uncle was so weak that he could not even stand up. We also had heavy rain, and for this reason we had to stop [midway through the journey] in a place called Fontenay. It rained continuously, and we nearly drowned as we left that place. We recognized the intervention of God, who guided us through this hardship so that our coach did not turn over. Thus, under the guidance of our good heavenly Father, we arrived in Geneva on a Monday morning, September 28, 1585, and received consolation from our relatives, who came to meet us in Versoix [just north of that city]. Our relatives Carlo Diodati, Horatio Micheli, Pompeo Diodati, Manfredi Balbani, Virginio Sbarra, and Cesare

31. Claude de Colladon was the secretary of Henri de Condé in 1583 and one of his emissaries. He was one of King Henri IV’s key advisors in the 1590s. 32. On Protestants’ views about the spousal relationship, see A. G. Roeber, Hopes for Better Spouses: Protestant Marriage and Church Renewal in Eary Modern Europe, India, and North America (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2013), 1–33. 33. The Eighth War of Religion began in 1585 as the League was taking control of northern France.

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Balbani34 welcomed us with great affection. We went to stay with Monsieur Pompeo Diodati, my mother’s brother-in-law. On May 29, 1586, I became part of the Italian congregation in the church of Saint Germain through my marriage to my dear husband, Monsieur Cesare Balbani. We were married by the minister Niccolao Balbani.35 Our marriage marked the beginning of the restoration that God granted our poor family, which was deprived of so many earthly comforts. We once again left much behind in Muret, [7r] both personal belongings and property. All had since been lost, partly because of the ruin brought by the war, and partly because of the poor conduct of Etienne Grimoin, in whose care my father had left everything. My father had placed too much faith in him, and Etienne tragically deceived us and appropriated our wealth. Sometime after my father had arrived in Geneva, he decided to go to Muret by himself in order to see to his affairs. When he reached Nancy in Lorraine, however, he was unable to go any further and had to retrace his steps back to Geneva. On May 30, 1587, our great-uncle Benedetto Calandrini died in Geneva. On July 9th of that same year, my sister Camille married Monsieur Francesco Turrettini36 and moved to Zurich the following October. The war reached Geneva in 1588 and 1589, and we had to move to Basel, where we stayed until we returned to Geneva in early 1590. On August 2 1590, Horatio Micheli and Arrigo Balbani asked my father to travel around France for the affairs of the Arnolfinis and the Michelis from Lyon. After he arrived at the court and saw to his own affairs, he was seized by a high fever [7v], from which he died in mid-September, at the age of fifty-eight, having been until then strong and rather healthy. At the time of his death, he was in the employ of Monsieur Francesco Turrettini. This position apparently would have provided him the means to reestablish his family, had he lived longer. But God wished to proceed in a different way: he put him to rest, after he bore witness in his life and death to his piety and his fear of God and after he endured with 34. Very successful Luccan merchant bankers who had controlled the economy and finance in Lyons; see Vigne, La banque à Lyon, ch. 3. 35. Son of Agostino Balbani, forced to flee to Geneva in 1556 where he served as minister of the Italian Church of Geneva from 1561 until 1587; see Jean-Barthélemy-Gaifre Galiffe, Le refuge italien à Genève aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Geneva: H. Georg; Paris: G. Fischbacher, 1881), 152; and AdorniBraccesi, “Religious Refugees,” 353–58 and 364–70. 36. Found guilty of heresy, Francesco Turrettini (1547–1628) was forced to flee Lucca and lead an itinerant life, going from Lyons to Geneva to Anvers to Frankfurt to Basel and finally Zurich. He spent five years in Geneva (1574–1579), where he became chief of the Gran bottegha, the famous cartel formed by Geneva’s richest Italian merchants. See Monter, “The Italians in Geneva,” 72; also Ole Peter Grell, Brethren in Christ: A Calvinist Network in Reformation Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 19–64, esp. 33–34.

Memoirs Concerning Her Father’s Family (1623) 53 patience the hardships sent to him by God. He took his material losses with joy, knowing that God has reserved him celestial rewards. Our aunt [Madalena] Calandrini found herself entirely responsible for the rest of our family after the death of my father. My two sisters Suzanne and Madeleine were still too young and were not provided for. There was no hope of regaining any of that which was due to us in France, since my brothers, still young, had neither the capacity nor the experience to retrieve it themselves. All this resulted in tremendous loss for us, which displeased our aunt greatly. Nevertheless, after our father’s death, God touched the heart of his brother Federigo Burlamacchi: he saw to it that we were paid five hundred écus of that which belonged to my father for the property [8r] we still had in Lucca. We placed the money in the enterprise of Monsieur Francesco Turrettini, and it appreciated in value, which helped quite a bit in arranging the marriage of my sister Suzanne. Her marriage to Monsieur Vincenzo Minutoli37 took place on June 10, 1596, in our Italian church in Geneva and was blessed by Monsieur Giovanni Bernardo Basso.38 On December 4, 1600, that same minister of the Italian church blessed the marriage of my sister Madeleine to Monsieur Giovanni Diodati, professor, and then minister of the Holy Gospel.39 Like my other sisters, she also had one thousand écus as a dowry, which were given to her by our aunt [Madalena] Calandrini, who had withdrawn this sum from her brothers from Lucca. She was content, since she had adopted us as her children, to marry all of us off as honorably as if we had remained in our country in full possession of our properties. My brother Jacques was also married in Geneva in December 1598 to Anne, the daughter of Monsieur Carlo Diodati. Philippe, my other brother, was wed in February 1605 in Amsterdam to Elisabet, oldest daughter of Monsieur Jean Calandrini, son of Giuliano, and went to live in London. Our aunt [Madalena] Calandrini died [8v] in Geneva on March 7, 1601, stricken with colic. She was seventy-three years old. We lost in her a great support and profoundly missed her. God had made use of this virtuous lady to relieve and raise, like a mother would, the Calandrini family, the sons and daughters of her brother-in-law. And so, they always called her by the name of mother. God used 37. Vincenzo II Minutoli (1576–1641) is a member of a Luccan family whose wealth derived from banking and silk trade; see Vigne, La banque à Lyon, 89. 38. Giovanni Bernardo Basso (ca. 1547–1612), from the Piemontese family of silk manufacturers and traders, was minister of the Italian Church of Geneva between 1590 and 1612; see Broomhall and Winn, Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, 90n48, and Arturo Pascal, “La colonia piemontese a Ginevra nel secolo XVI,” in Ginevra e l’Italia: Raccolta di studi, ed. Delio Cantimori (Florence: Sansoni, 1959), 78 and 84. 39. Son of Carlo Diodati, professor from 1597 and later Rector (1618) of the Genevan Academy, and pastor of the Reformed Church of Geneva (1608); see Grell, Brethren in Christ, 251–53.

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her as well to help our family even more, since she served as both mother and father when we lost our parents. Although God had denied her children of her own, she became in this way the mother of several children. This is why I say that our good heavenly Father, who had us witness so many marvels of his holy providence and mercy, as we came to know them, should be rendered forever and ever all glory and praise, AMEN.

The Genealogy of the du Laurens described by me, Jeanne du Laurens, widow of Monsieur Gleyse, and written truthfully in these terms

The Genealogy of the du Laurens [1] The origins and early life of my late father, Monsieur Louis du Laurens, are thus: he was from a village named Pugnet near Chambéry in Savoy.1 His parents only had him and a daughter, and they all lived in Turin, [Italy], where my father went to school. In those days, a gifted nobleman from his town wanted to study at the university in Paris. Having caught wind of this, my father went to find this man without informing his parents and offered to accompany him to Paris as his tutor and assistant.2 He was courteously received by this nobleman and went on to travel with him. He performed his duties with dignity to the satisfaction and honor of the one he had taught so well, and in doing so he laid the foundation of his future advancement. When he returned home, this nobleman, hoping to show his gratitude, and seeing that my late father intended to cultivate himself (which was entirely to his credit) gave him a sum of money to meet his needs and fulfill his goals. Thanks to this assistance my father was able to study medicine with Honoré de Castelan,3 with whom he graduated in Paris.4 His father and mother died during his stay in Paris. Shortly after, Monsieur de Castelan came to Avignon, where his parents, natives of Riez5 in Provence, were living because of war in their province.6 He brought my father home with him, for he knew firsthand his loyalty. This took place during the reign of Emperor Charles V and King François I. The father of Monsieur de Castelan, a nobleman with means [2] and connections, saw his son’s potential and procured him a chair of medicine at Mont-

1. In southeastern France, approximately seventy miles southeast of Lyon, and about two hundred miles northeast of Arles. 2. This was a common practice in families with little income; see Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962), 369–70. 3. On Honoré de Castelan, see Albert Leenhardt, Montpelliérains, médecins du roi (Largentière: E. Mazel, 1941). 4. On medical schools and their reputation among contemporaries, see Nancy G. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 48–77. 5. A town approximately ninety miles east of Arles and Avignon. 6. During the Italian Wars, in response to the capture of Turin by French King François I, Emperor Charles V invaded Provence on June 2, 1536, and took Aix-en-Provence on August 13, but was stopped by the French; see Michael E. Mallett and Christine Shaw, The Italian Wars, 1494–1559: War, State and Society in Early Modern Europe (Harlow, Essex, UK: Pearson, 2012), 233.

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pellier, where he won fame for his public lectures. As for my father, he was lodged by Monsieur de Castelan in Tarascon,7 where he first practiced medicine. The fame of Monsieur de Castelan spread day by day in Languedoc8 and became so great that the people wanted to keep him in the area; he was thus married in Beaucaire9 to a respectable lady, sister of the late Monsieur de Caleycouses.10 Monsieur de Castelan brought his new wife and my mother to Montpellier and carried out his duties so well that the fame of his skill reached the ears of King Charles IX, who wanted to have Castelan in his service. Before his departure, however, he visited his parents in Avignon, where he had left his wife for some time. When my father learned of this, he left right away to say goodbye to Castelan and thus renew their friendship. Monsieur de Castelan looked kindly on this gesture and spoke to my father from his heart: “Before I leave, I would like to see you marry my widowed sister.” 11 My father replied humbly that he did not deserve such favor. Monsieur de Castelan assured my father that he did not make this proposal lightly—he knew that his parents, and even his sister, would consent. The marriage took place in February of 1553. So much did Monsieur de Castelan love and respect my father that he privately told his sister: “I give you a man without means, but one of the best and most capable of his profession—a man who knows the fear of God.” She was very pleased by this and lived a happy married life with the grace and blessing of heaven. Her name was Louise de Castelan. So began her second marriage. Now Monsieur de Castelan went to the court [3] and soon became first physician to the king. My father returned to Tarascon, where he practiced his profession honorably and my mother had five children. The first was Honoré, who bore the name of our uncle, Monsieur de Castelan. He would later succeed his father-in-law Monsieur d’Ulme and become the king’s lawyer in Aix, and later the archbishop of Embrun. He was born in 1554

7. A town approximately fourteen miles south of Avignon and twelve miles north of Arles. 8. A former province in southeastern France, of which the leading cities were Toulouse and Montpellier. 9. A town twelve miles north of Arles. 10. As in this case, it has been impossible to identify all the figures named by the author. 11. Although widows were permitted to remarry after the proper time of mourning (usually over one year), the Catholic church discouraged widows whose wealth was sufficient to sustain themselves from doing so; see Olwen Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe, vol. 1 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 223–28; and Lyndan Warner, “Widows, Widowers and the Problem of ‘Second Marriages’ in Sixteenth-Century France,” in Widowhood in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Sandra Cavallo and Lyndan Warner (Harlow, Essex, UK: Pearson, 1999), 84–107.

The Genealogy of the du Laurens (1631) 59 and baptized12 March 7th at Saint Martha’s Church in Tarascon. The abbess was his godmother. My parents were married, as I said, in the year 1553, with very few resources except my mother’s dowry, 13 which was only six hundred florins, and a small sum of money that my father had earned previously. He used this money to buy a modest house in Tarascon. Seeing the precarious situation in which her growing family lived, my mother would have lost hope had she not placed her trust in God and her husband’s loyalty and tender loving care. I once heard her tell a good story that I will briefly recall here. One day my father bought three pièces de terraille14 while passing through the town square. My mother rejoiced, thinking he had purchased some land and was not so poor as she had imagined. This elation was over, however, when my father told her she would have to send a servant to pay for and fetch them from the shop where he had left them. My mother therefore resolved to try her hardest to lift her family out of poverty, so that they live an honest life while raising the children God gave them. She would not have done so if she were wealthy, for riches turn anyone proud and lazy.15 She continued this way of life until my father died, at the age of sixty-three, and tried to do even better after his death. Getting back to our story, in 1555, on September 21, my mother had another son in Tarascon, who was named [4] Charles-Baptiste and baptized at Saint Martha’s. His godfather was a nobleman, Charles de La Motte, and his godmother was my maternal grandmother. He was the first doctor of Arles and died quite young. 12. Infant baptism, seen by the Catholic church as necessary for salvation, “was a very important religious and civil act, recording entry both into a society of Christians and into a particular community, a record of identification which would be carried through life.” Hufton, The Prospect Before Her, 192. 13. On the importance of the dowry in the making of marriages, and on the weight given to its size and composition, see Diane Owen Hughes, “From Brideprice to Dowry in Mediterranean Europe,” in The Marriage Bargain: Women and Dowries in European History, ed. Marion A. Kaplan (New York: The Institute for Research in History: The Haworth Press, 1984), 13–58. 14. The word terraille means both “land” and “soil.” The French is retained in order to keep the intended effect of surprise when it is learned that du Laurens had purchased three bags of soil, and not three parcels of land. 15. Early modern advice books express similar concern about the negative effect of riches on the conduct of maidens and wives; see Ann Rosalind Jones, “Nets and Bridles: Early Modern Conduct Books and Sixteenth-Century Women’s Lyrics,” in The Ideology of Conduct: Essays in Literature and the Theory of Sexuality, ed. Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse (New York: Methuen, 1987), 52–55. When compared to her father’s words to her mother upon Honoré de Castelan’s death (“if your brother had lived, our children might have become layabouts, dependent on his help and favor,” [Genealogy, 63]), Jeanne’s comment shows how much she has internalized the values promoted first by her father, then by her mother.

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In 1557 my mother gave birth to another son who was baptized on the 27th of May and named Julien. His godfather was a doctor from Avignon named Monsieur Julien Collin and his grandmother was Lady Dupré from Tarascon. He was the first theologian of Arles and forever a religious man, who willingly put himself at risk to help the victims of the plague.16 My brother André was born in the same place and baptized in the same church on December 9th, 1558. His godfather was the respected gentleman Monsieur André Monyroux from Avignon, and his godmother was Mademoiselle de Terne. My brother André would later become the chancellor of the University of Montpellier, and then first physician to King Henri IV—he would be celebrated as a famous man. In the year 1560, again at Tarascon, my brother Antoine was born and was baptized in the same church. His godfather was Monsieur Antoine du Ray; his godmother was Mademoiselle Florimonde de Cauvin. A widely known man and a lawyer in the Privy Council, Antoine is my only living brother. He resides in Paris and is married to an honest woman, the daughter of the late and highly acclaimed Monsieur [Anne] de Robert from Paris. Those are the five children my parents had while in Tarascon. The other seven, including me, were born in Arles after my father was called there—there were eleven of us altogether.17 Because my father was one of the best physicians of his time, he was called to all the surrounding towns. He was so good that those he had once treated called for him whenever they needed medical care. This was especially true in Arles, where he was so well loved that he retired there and lived out the rest of his sixty-three years. My father had a kindly approach to practicing medicine: he took great care of his patients and would usually visit them when they took their medicine. This meant he always rose early [5]. If asked why he took the trouble, he would say it was to see how they had fared overnight, for he was afraid that if some accident happened, they would not take their medicine as they should. He would often say that in any profession, especially when it concerns a man’s life, one must make every effort to do one’s job well. Seeing that his children were growing older and that they ought to learn virtue and read the classics, he resolved to take his whole family to Arles, where he knew there was a good school. 16. From 1534–1683, new plague outbreaks occurred every seven to thirty-one years, while in Provence, plague receded in 1546, 1553, 1580, and 1588–1589; see Patrice Bourdelais, Epidemics Laid Low: A History of What Happened in Rich Countries, trans. Bart K. Holland (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 13 and 24. 17. Because infant mortality was so high, one had several children in order to keep just a few, and the average mother had seven to eight live births over fifteen years; see Ariès, Centuries of Childhood, 38–39; and Beatrice Gottlieb, The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 121–24.

The Genealogy of the du Laurens (1631) 61 In the beginning, he taught surgeons in the morning and apothecaries in the afternoon in order to further their professional development,18 and to benefit the public as well. In so doing, he made everyone, especially his students feel indebted to him and he became so familiar with them that when he was not busy with his practice he would often collect medicinal plants19 with them in the mountains of Gordes20 and other neighboring places. His visibility and the respect he earned led to his having a bigger practice than he could handle. What is most remarkable is that he so disliked taking money from the poor that he would even give them money if they needed it.21 He did the same with priests, young scholars, and other learned men. He was loved dearly, and because of his large practice he grew in skill and reputation day by day. My brother François was born in Arles on November 9, 1561. He was baptized at the Church of Saint Trophime; his godfather was Dr. François Valleriola,22 and his godmother was Madame de Bastony. Little François died at age five. I, Jeanne du Laurens, was born in Arles on May 1, 1563, and baptized at the church of Saint Martin. My godfather was Monsieur Vincent, a canon of the church of Saint Trophime, and my godmother was Madame de Mondragon, then a governess of Arles. In those days [6] we had externally-appointed governors but now we only have city magistrates. My brother Richard was born August 1st, 1564. He was also baptized at the church of Saint Martin. His godfather, Monsieur Richard de Sabatier, was a city magistrate. Mademoiselle de Crest, a lady from Saint Just, was his godmother. Richard became a learned physician and practiced in Lyon. He died in Arles in 1629 and was buried with the Capuchin monks at the Chapel of Saint Felix, whose construction he had arranged shortly before his death. 18. As the surgeon Ambroise Paré’s fame grew, surgeons acquired a better reputation, but apothecaries continued to be targets of satire. See Symphorien Champier, Le myrouel des appothicaires et pharmacopoles … ; item les lunectes des cyrurgiens et barbiers (Lyon: P. Mareschal, 1525); Sébastien Colin, Declaration des abuz et tromperies que font les apothicaires (Lyon: Michel Jove, 1556); Laurent Joubert, La pharmacopée (Lyon: Antoine de Harsy, 1588). 19. Many medications were herbal, and local herbs might be prescribed for the treatment of local diseases. On the flowering of medical botany in the sixteenth century, see Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine, 141–52. 20. A town about twenty miles east of Avignon and fifty northeast of Arles. 21. Knowledge was perceived as a gift of God and therefore could not be sold. Thus it was judged unethical to deliver certain services only for a fixed payment. Patients too poor to pay the doctor’s fee were visited out of charity. On the relation between gifts and sales in connection with the privileged realm of knowledge, see Natalie Zemon Davis, The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 44–51. 22. Reputed for his erudition, François Valleriola (1504–1580) taught medicine at Valence, Arles, and Turin, and authored several widely-read medical works.

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In 1565 my brother Jean was born and was baptized in the same church as Richard and I. His godfather was the nobleman and city magistrate Jean de Romieu, and his godmother was the wife of Dr. Fauchier.23 Jean was a Capuchin friar for thirty-six years, and three times head of the order in his province, an office he held at the time of his death in Martigues. He died known as a godly man.24 On September 14, 1567, my brother Gaspard was born; he was baptized in the church of Saint Martin. His godfather was the nobleman Gaspard de Beaumartin and his godmother was the wife of Monsieur de Robiac. Gaspard was the archbishop of Arles when he died. On January 7, 1569, my sister Honorade was born and was baptized in the same church as Gaspard. Her godfather was Maître Antoine, a lawyer, and her godmother Mademoiselle Honorade de Castelan, sister of my late mother. A very honest woman, Honorade died the wife of a judge in Tarascon. Thus far I have recounted the births of all my siblings whom my father and mother took great pain and care to raise and educate,25 as much as any father and mother have ever done. In the year 1565, King Charles IX came to Arles, accompanied by my uncle Monsieur de Castelan, his doctor. Castelan stayed with my father, where he was very well received. As soon as he arrived, Castelan had my older brothers prepare verses to recite to the king and then presented them to his majesty, saying: ”Someday, Sire, you will find brave servants in these boys.” The king responded: “I will remember them.” My mother often told us this story. Then Monsieur de Castelan told my late father and my mother: “Raise your children to be virtuous, and do not bother yourselves with other things. With God’s help, I will provide for them all.” After that, he took his godson—my brother Honoré—to study at the university in Paris. Castelan did not live much longer after arriving. [7] My uncle provided for Honoré’s education in his will so that my brother could continue his studies to become a doctor. When the news of his death came to Arles and we read the letter, my mother fainted in shock at the loss of her wise and kind brother. He 23. Jean Fauchier (15 ?–before 1591), son of the apothecary Guillaume Fauchier, studied at the medical school of Montpellier and practiced medicine in Beaucaire. 24. On the importance placed on the good death, described by many popular artes moriendi (guides to the “art of dying”), see Philippe Ariès, The Hour of Our Death, trans. Helen Weaver (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), 107–110; and Mary Catharine O’Connor, The Arts of Dying Well: The Development of the Ars Moriendi (New York: AMS Press, 1966). 25. Parental responsibility for the spiritual and moral education of children was a critical issue to moralists and theologians; see, for example, two concerned with the rearing of daughters: Juan Luis Vives, The Education of a Christian Woman: A Sixteenth-Century Manual, ed. Charles Fantazzi (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000), book 2, ch. 9; and Anne de France, Lessons for My Daughter, ed. and trans. Sharon J. Jansen (Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: D. S. Brewer, 2004), ch. 27.

The Genealogy of the du Laurens (1631) 63 had promised much for her children, promises he would have kept if only God had granted him a longer life. I remember my mother was so devastated that she could not accept the loss, but rather wished to die. My father, seeing her in such despair, tried to console her thus, “Cheer up, my wife, all that happens to us comes from God. We must comply with his divine will and place our hope in him, rather than in men. You never know, if your brother had lived, our children might have become layabouts, dependent on his help and favor. Having lost such an uncle, however, they will have to cultivate virtue instead.” He repeated these words: “One must never place his hope in man, only in God.26 As a Christian, have no worries; do not hope in men, but in God, who is the father of us all and meets all our needs. Do not hope in men—you must pray to God for your soul and he will reward us in the next world.” My father then turned to his children: “Do not hope in men, only hope in God; serve him, love him, honor him with all your heart, with all your might. Use your time well and God will give us more than we deserve. I came from little but now I have such a beautiful family, and we have all that we need. Let us be devout, live virtuously, and trust in God.” He gave this noble advice with deep affection and raised us as best he could with all he had. He provided for his children’s tutor as his own parents had done and held feasts for their professors to motivate them to teach well and thereby make his children virtuous. As for his medical practice, as I said above, he had so many patients that, with God’s provision, he was able to support his family. He had to take a small mule to visit his many patients, as it was too much to travel by foot. [8] He had a poor relative in Savoy named Conchet, whom he sent for to look after the mule, always saying that we must take care of our relatives and do everything we can for them. Thus Conchet would look after the mule and then go inside to study with my brothers. My mother performed all kinds of servile tasks so that he would have more time for his studies. Conchet did so well that he became my young brothers’ tutor and devoted himself entirely to his studies. He taught all the classes in Arles, and when he earned enough money, he went to study medicine in Paris with my late brother Charles. Since he had little income other than his savings, Conchet lived very poorly; seeing the increased price of wine, which sold for twelve sols a bottle, he settled for water. My brother Charles wanted to do the same, but he developed a stomach illness and did not live past the age of thirty-three. As he was still in Paris in 1572, Charles was terrified by his experience of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre,27 and he wrote to us about it in detail. Speaking of it now brings back memories. Although Charles lived frugally, he never failed to make good use of his time, which made my father and 26. Sentiment often expressed in Scripture, and especially in the psalms; see, for example, Psalm 146:2–3: Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. (NIV) 27. For the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre that began on August 24, 1572, see above, Introduction, 23 and note 48.

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mother miss him even more and regret the fact that his thrift had been detrimental to his health. Charles would say, “parents should do two things for their children: educate them well and raise them honestly. Beyond that, if they can also leave something to their children, good—otherwise, as long as they provide a good education and moral upbringing, their children have enough.” As for my brother Honoré, he was also studying in Paris, thanks to the late Monsieur de Castelan’s inheritance, as I mentioned earlier. But until then he had not used his time well; he was studying medicine, but his heart was not in it. When my brother Charles became aware of this, he summed up his courage, although he was younger, and said to him, “Please forgive me, brother, for what I am about to say to you. You are my elder, but you are less knowledgeable than I am in our field of study. If you understood our family’s situation, you would use your time [9] better than you do and would pursue a virtuous life. There are ten of us, and our parents do not have great means—if we do not do our absolute best, we will fall into poverty.” Honoré responded, “A child who depends on the welfare of his father does not deserve to live. Our father would need to be a magician to leave us an inheritance with as many children as he has. We already owe him much for bringing us into the world. By pursuing virtue, we become who we wish to be. If I were given the opportunity to study law, I would do all I could to become the premier president of Provence. If I am as ignorant as you claim, it is because I do not want to be a physician and will never do anything of worth in that field.” My brother Charles wrote to my parents about Honoré’s wish. They sent for him, saying to themselves, “Sometimes God inspires children to follow their vocation; it does no good to object.” When he arrived at home, Honoré made my father the following promise:28 “I will make you and my mother proud. You will never have cause to complain since God has called me to a profession that comes to me more naturally. I will work as hard as I can, for it is through labor that one reaches one’s goals. No good comes without effort, and the man who labors is happy, for idleness is the mother of wickedness and vice.”29 Seeing his resolve, my parents sent Honoré to study law at the university in Turin, where he soon began to excel and earn renown. Once they completed their studies, Charles and Conchet came to Aix-enProvence, and my late father took them to become doctors in Avignon. When he returned from Avignon, my elderly father developed kidney stones after a strenuous seven-hour journey on horseback. He fell ill and died not long after. During 28. The verb is missing in the French text. 29. Early modern moralists condemned idleness as the mother of all vices, for it was thought to induce men to waste their means upon selfish indulgences. However, there also existed more positive views of otium. See Brian Vickers, “Leisure and Idleness in the Renaissance: The Ambivalence of Otium,” Renaissance Studies 4, no. 1 (1990): 1–37, and no. 4 (1990): 107–54.

The Genealogy of the du Laurens (1631) 65 my father’s illness, my godfather, a priest at Saint Trophime named Monsieur Vincent, also became very ill, and his benefice was bequeathed to my late brother Julien. After Julien became a member of the chapter, he came dressed as a priest to see my late father. My father said to him: “My child, let all be well. As long as you are a priest, carry out your duties as an honest man would do. This is why the canons were founded. But, if Monsieur Vincent recovers, return his canonry to him. God, who is our common Father, will provide for all your needs.” The next day [10], Christmas Eve 1574, my father died. Before his last breath, he had us all kneel before him and gave us his blessing, putting a young boy in place of my brother Honoré, who was still in Turin, and encouraged us to live in love and fear of God, to be humble and obedient to our mother. My mother broke into tears upon seeing her wise and good husband, who had provided for his family and raised his children so well. When he saw her in tears, the good man told her: “My wife, I beg you, don’t cry any more—console yourself with our Lord. I am going somewhere else, where I will do more good for them than I do here. I did not feed our children; it was God our father who took care of them until now, and God will take care of them as long as they live. Raise them well, help them achieve the vocation that is good for them and to which God will call them, and do not worry about the future. God provides everything that He knows we need.” Then he told her: “Pray for me.” He died that evening. After he had died, the priests who had called on him30 knelt down, and my mother and all of us children prayed all night. The next morning when the neighbors heard of his death, they were amazed that they had not heard screams—instead of this customary way of mourning,31 our late mother had used this time to pray for her husband. He was buried in the church of the Dominican fathers in Arles, much lamented by both rich and poor. He died a good man, and before his death he did everything a good Christian ought to do—he took the last rites and asked the priests forgiveness32 in these words: “Gentlemen, this city has long provided for me. I beg your pardon for any mistakes I made while I was in service, and I also require a favor of you. Will you take on my son Charles, who is now a doctor in the service of this city? He is not yet at my level of expertise, so he will settle for 30. In Catholic artes moriendi, the presence of the priest was deemed necessary to accompany the dying person’s struggle with temptations; see O’Connor, The Arts of Dying Well. 31. A reference to the customary weeping and wailing of the mourners at the moment of death and during the vigil, a practice condemned by the church as excessive; see Ariès, The Hour of Our Death, 142–46 and 325–27. 32. The rituals of dying with the dying person’s general confession and performance of the last sacraments were carried out as a public ceremony with relatives including children, friends, and neighbors present. Louis’s pious death as described here was believed to be an indicator of true faith and of personal salvation. See Philippe Ariès, Western Attitudes toward Death from the Middle Ages to the Present, trans. Patricia M. Ranum (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), 8–14.

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less pay—you give me 120 écus, but half of that would be enough for my son.”33 This favor was granted and immediately put into effect. He had some property in Savoy that he never wanted to sell [11], leaving it to the use of his poor relatives, and yet he had ten children to take care of. After his death, my mother sold it to keep our family afloat.34 When my good father was about to die, he remembered Conchet and sent for him. My father told him: “Go to Lambesc,35 where I have friends. There you can pursue your vocation as honestly as you can, and in time your reputation will take you from villages to large towns.” Conchet did so, with the happy result that he died the best doctor in Avignon. He always loved and respected my mother as if he were her own son. My mother found herself a widow with ten children, none of whom could provide for themselves, except for Charles, who practiced medicine for the benefit of the city [of Arles], as my late father had requested. Charles managed as best he could with the few patients God sent him. Nevertheless, he gave the money he made to my mother in order to provide for the family, and she did everything she could to keep him happy. Charles also took over the role that my late father had played in my brothers’ education: before dinner and supper, he had them share what they had learned that day in the presence of their tutor. Each one had to propose an idea that served as instruction and discussion throughout the meal.36 By assuming such responsibility, poor Charles became more virtuous and avoided idleness. He helped and protected us all as long as he lived. I said earlier that my mother remained a widow with ten children, none of whom could provide for themselves, apart from Charles. Honoré was still a student, since he had started his studies late. You will ask, “But wasn’t Julien a canon?” He was, but when Monsieur Vincent recovered, Julien gave back his canonry as my father had ordered. There were some who told my mother that she had done little good for her household by returning the canonry, that she should leave the good man his income, since he was old, but retain the benefice to provide for my brother. But my late mother responded that she did not want to live off of simony,37 that

33. Doctors of medicine employed by the city were usually paid a sum by the month or the year; see Lingo, The Rise of Medical Practitioners, 55–56. 34. In mentioning this, du Laurens removes from her mother any suspicion of usury, which was once considered a mortal sin by the Catholic church; see Jean Delumeau, Le péché et la peur: La culpabilisation en Occident, XIIIe–XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Fayard, 1983), 246–55. 35. A town about thirty-five miles east of Arles, lying midway between Avignon and Marseille. 36. An illustration of the humanist preference for critical thinking to mere memorization, to be promoted even when the family gathered for a meal; see, for instance, François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, trans. Michael A. Screech (London: Penguin, 2006), Gargantua, 278–87. 37. The practice of selling church offices, a common but officially condemned abuse in the Catholic church.

The Genealogy of the du Laurens (1631) 67 she placed all her trust in God, and that he had always helped her until now and would until the end. [12] Since my brother Julien told my mother that he wished to be a priest, she sent him to study theology. As for my brother André, the Messieurs de Monmajour38 had promised my father that they would have a position for him in their abbey after my father’s death. My late mother would often seek out the abbot with my brother and me in order to secure this position, but the abbot was never available to speak to her. André, who was aware of this, told me on our way back: “Sister, I do not believe that God wants me to be a monk. Clearly these people did not wish to speak to Mother, and I also have no desire to become a monk. I would like to be a doctor like our father, if our mother would approve.” I told this to my mother, who called André and said: “Your sister says that you want to be a doctor.” He blushed and hesitated to say freely what he thought in fear of offending her. So I said: “This is what you said to me, I am not lying.” My mother replied: “Speak freely because your sister is not a liar. She and you know well that I chastise those who tell lies.”39 This was true. If we told lies or said something unkind to the maidservant, we were immediately punished without mercy. The good woman would say that all mistakes arise from bad habits and it is therefore necessary to chastise youths for their own benefit and their parents’ honor.40 Then my brother said: “Mother, my sister speaks the truth, if you will allow it.” My mother responded to him: “Go in God’s care. May he give you the grace to be as good a man as your father was.” After that, my brother studied medicine and had great success. As for my brother Honoré, once he had finished his studies and returned from Turin, my mother made sure he received his certification in Aix-enProvence. You may be wondering, how did she manage to get her sons through school and attain university degrees, when my father left us so little money? In fact, he left my mother a few properties he had purchased—whenever she wanted one of her sons to go to school or to university, she sold one of these properties and kept the money in a purse. This way, all of her sons were able to study and graduate without having to borrow anything. No sooner had Honoré received his degree than his practice began to flourish. One day he pleaded a case and won without speaking to his client or seeing the case documents beforehand. He only knew [13] the subject of the case from the prosecutor, but he responded so well to the other party’s arguments that he won. Everyone admired this feat, even though the prosecutor did not share their esteem, for he knew quite well that Honoré won without any preparation. Yet as 38. That is, the monks of Monmajour, a Benedictine monastery three miles north of Arles. 39. Telling lies was considered a venial sin by the Catholic church, but was taken as a serious matter in advice manuals; see, for instance, Anne de France, Lessons for My Daughter, ch. 5. 40. Hufton notes that “[t]o discipline the child through corporal punishment and moral strictures was seen as the positive obligation of the parent”; The Prospect Before Her, 211–12.

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he encountered so many people and tried to win everyone’s good graces, he began to fall into debauchery, which greatly saddened my mother. Monsieur de Biord, son of the lieutenant of Arles, received his certification in Aix-en-Provence, for which he needed three or four people to endorse him. He wanted my brother to be one of them, and Honoré gladly accepted. His presentation was highly praised. Monsieur d’Ulme, who was then the king’s lawyer in Parliament, heard about it and recommended him over a councilor named Monsieur Marguellit, saying “If Monsieur [Honoré] lives long enough, he will be one of the most exceptional men of his time.” The councilor replied: “In that case, why don’t you give him your daughter’s hand?” Ulme responded: “May it please God that it shall be!” From then on, the councilor spoke about marriage, and when my mother heard, she would have nothing to do with it. She insisted that to marry such a young, penniless, and debauched man would make for a miserable household. However, my brother Charles saw to it that the marriage took place, and Honoré stayed in Aix to practice law. As he gained experience in his field, he became even-tempered and abandoned all his bad habits. Shortly after he succeeded his father-in-law as lawyer to the king, a position he held for more than eighteen years before becoming archbishop of Embrun. After studying diligently, my brothers Julien and André pursued their doctorates on my mother’s recommendation. They completed their degree on the same year and day in Avignon, Julien in theology and André in medicine. Julien settled in Arles, where he preached; André stayed in Avignon, where he taught surgeons in the morning and apothecaries in the afternoon. This gave him the means to practice his profession and provide for himself. He was the fourth doctor in our family. As for my brother Antoine, he did all he could to obtain a law degree. My mother did everything in her power to send him to Bourges to study under Monsieur Cujas,41 a man of great reputation. When he finished his studies, she sent him to Aix-en-Provence to pursue a doctoral degree like the others, and there he gained the title of attorney and set up a practice to support himself. My brothers were blessed that they were all university graduates and all employed; they worked hard (nothing comes without hard work) and thereby lived honorably in their professions. [14] To get back to the story of my brother Julien, a canon of Saint Trophime fell ill with bronchitis. My brother Charles was called and assessed the situation to be critical. When my mother heard about the illness, she went to the canons and asked each of them to choose my brother in the case that canon should die without naming a successor. As she reminded them, he had the honor of being a 41. Jacques Cujas (1522–1590), jurisconsult, humanist, and renowned teacher who taught, among others, brilliant students like Joseph Justus Scaliger and Jacques Auguste Thou.

The Genealogy of the du Laurens (1631) 69 part of their canonry, had earned his doctorate, and currently preached. She said no more about him in order to convince them to take him. They each promised her their votes, without the others knowing. Once the canon had died and the chapter had met, my mother reminded them of their promise. They fulfilled it on the condition that my brother would practice theology. This advantage would grant him the position for life, rather than the usual three-year-term. My brother fulfilled his duties successfully for several years, until a plague came to Tarascon,42 where he was born. He went to the hospital to receive confession from the sick and baptize the babies, and there he died. My brother lived a holy life and, since he had become a clergyman, never slept in a bed but instead rested in a chair. He used to wear a hair shirt and, bareheaded, would take the poor from the hospital to the burial ground outside the city. At mealtimes, he ate only the most plain and crude foods, and only to sustain himself. In short, he both lived and died in a holy way, renouncing earthly pleasures out of love for God and hope in the afterlife. Before going to the hospital, he wrote his will. He gave his chalice and all that is used during mass to the Capuchin fathers, and all the profits from his canonry to the poor. He had earned the canonry honestly, and if he had retained that of my late godfather, [Monsieur Vincent, canon of Saint Trophime], God would not have let him die in sanctity as he did. “Simply live according to God’s commandments,” my late mother and father would say, “and God will provide for your needs.” There were still five of us younger children to raise. My mother took the same care with us that she did with the others. Moreover, my brother Honoré’s wife became pregnant. They asked my late mother to be the godmother of the child she was carrying. She went to Aix-en-Provence before the child’s birth and brought me with her. During our stay, the plague came to Arles. Once the child was born and baptized, my mother promptly left to help our family move and stay quarantined in a safe city. We arrived in Aix on the last day of 1580, and my mother left me there with my aunt who had come from Riez. After Easter, my mother sent my late brother Charles to fetch me. I got along well with my aunt, a very wise and [15] honorable lady, but my late mother said that girls should never be separated from their mothers. My brother took me to Tarascon, where, as I said, my mother had retired in quarantine with the whole family. She followed the common saying according to which the best remedy for the plague is to leave early and return late.43 She returned to Arles after the plague and thought about marrying me off, saying that parents must think about providing for their daughters when they reach the age of eighteen. Both mother and father must 42. The outbreak of 1580 that took thousands of lives in the region. 43. Fugere cito, longe, et tarde reverti, in Latin: “flee quickly, go far away, return long afterward.” ­Bourdelais notes (Epidemics Laid Low, 19) that “[f]light was the most common recommendation of physicians in accordance with Hippocratic and Galenic advice on epidemics.”

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do all they can while they are alive, and not leave it to the good will and discretion of others. Thus, she married me to the very honorable Monsieur Achard. I was only married for four years, four months, four days and four hours, which I could not help noticing. I had a son who lived only to the age of seventeen, but for his age he was unusual: he had done exceptionally well in all of his classes, studied philosophy, and prepared himself to become a lawyer. You may think that I boast too much about my family. I will admit it, but I have said nothing but the truth, and many others remember the benefits of an excellent education and the grace God showed my family. So again the end crowns the work. My son was born on a remarkable day in 1582. It was December 9th, or rather 19th, since ten days were removed from the calendar due to the Gregorian reform.44 After I became a widow and had passed the year of mourning with my mother-in-law, my late mother took me back to her house, saying that a young widow must be watched carefully like a young girl and that I would obey her more than I would my mother-in-law. She had me marry again,45 this time to the honorable Monsieur Gleyze. As for my brother the monk, he entered the clergy the same year I married my first husband. It nearly cost my mother her life,46 as she said that if you choose such a permanent and austere life, you must be certain you will not regret your choice. He began at the right time and for thirty-six years lived more honorably than any Capuchin monk before him. He served three times as provincial [of his order] and died in this role. He preached in all the important cities in France. In many of them, this did not happen just once, but two or three times at Lent. He drowned in a storm at sea between Marseille and Martigues on August 2, 1617. On the 17th of that month in almost the same place, they found his body neither spoiled nor corrupted.47 He was buried and mourned in Marseille. Nearly the entire city attended his funeral. After we returned to Arles, a medical post opened [16] in Montpellier. When my mother found out about it, she quickly called my brother André—who was practicing in Avignon—and encouraged him to apply. She reminded him of our uncle, the late Monsieur de Castelan, who had used a similar opportunity to advance his career twenty years before. My brother listened to her advice and went to Montpellier, saying that he wished to obey her in everything. Despite his 44. This switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1582 by order of Pope Gregory XIII; see Gregorian Reform of the Calendar: Proceedings of the Vatican Conference to Commemorate its 400th Anniversary, 1582–1982, ed. George V. Coyne, S. J., Michael A. Hoskin, and Olaf Pedersen (Città del Vaticano: Pontificia Academia Scientiarum: Specola Vaticana, 1983), 201–42. 45. On the remarriage of widows, see Barbara B. Diefendorf, “Widowhood and Remarriage in Sixteenth-Century Paris,” Journal of Family History 7, no. 4 (Winter 1982): 379–95. 46. Anne de France addresses parental concerns with religious vocations in her Lessons for My Daughter, ch. 25. 47. An incorrupt body was considered a sign of sanctity.

The Genealogy of the du Laurens (1631) 71 talent, many other doctors in the competition intimidated him. In the end, and with much hard work, he won the post, to his great honor. Afterwards, however, some of his competitors took him to trial, and he was forced to go to Toulouse to fight for his claim. André asked to plead his cause, and was permitted to do so. He argued so well that he won, and with this victory he also earned more respect than he ever had before. In Toulouse he found many respectable and able people, among them Madame de Crussol,48 duchess of Uzès, who hired him as her doctor. Having won his case, André returned to his post in Montpellier, and my brother Richard was sent there to study medicine. Some time after André had settled in Montpellier, where he honorably practiced his profession, Madame the Duchess fell ill and, recalling the case she had witnessed in Toulouse, sent for him. My brother went and, with the help of God, as well as the great efforts he took, she recovered and said: “Monsieur du Laurens, I would like to take a trip to court, and I would like you to accompany me. Leave your post in good hands.” My brother, pleased to undertake such an honorable journey at no cost to himself, accepted the offer and found a replacement for his post. His substitute was Monsieur Ranchin,49 who was so honored by this favor that he took the post without pay. As soon as my brother returned to Madame the Duchess, they left for court. During their stay, she often met King Henri IV and always brought my brother with her. One day the king asked her: “Who is that young man?” She replied: “He’s a doctor, the nephew of the late Monsieur de Castelan, first physician to the late King Charles IX and a professor at Montpellier, where this young man is a professor as well. He’s bright—I saw him plead a case in Toulouse that filled me with admiration.” She recounted the episode in detail [17] to the astonishment of the king, and added: “I was ill not long ago, and I sent for him. He came and cured me—without him I would be dead!” From then on, the king looked kindly upon my brother, not just because he was handsome and pleasant. The king fell ill soon after, and the duchess wanted my brother to visit him and take part in a medical consultation. The other physicians were all of the same opinion, but my brother disagreed, and the duchess insisted that they follow his diagnosis. They did, and the king recovered. The duchess joked: “I will give you my doctor—after I’m dead, you understand, and not before. He is one of the best men of his profession.” The duchess did not live long after this exchange, and the king took my brother as his physician-in-­ ordinary. In time, my brother became first physician and remained in this post for 48. Louise de Clermont Tallart, spouse of Antoine de Crussol, vicomte d’Uzès and baron de Crussol, was among the favorites of the regent Catherine de Médicis, and served as governess to Catherine’s son Charles IX. 49. François Ranchin (1571–1641), physician, professor of medicine, chancellor of the School of Medicine of Montpellier (1612), author of scholarly works including a treatise on the plague written during the outbreak of 1629–1630.

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the rest of his life. He was well rewarded, as you will see later. Monsieur Ranchin continued to hold the post at Montpellier without pay, and the king added one hundred écus to the hundred my brother usually received. Thus, this post earned him two hundred écus each year, which my mother used to support herself in her old age. She had raised so many children that she was left with little to live on but God provided what she needed in her old age. While my brother André was at court, my brother Richard moved to Beaucaire, where he taught surgeons and apothecaries. Among them, a surgeon from Lyon persuaded Richard to go there with him. He offered Richard to stay in his home and promised to help him start a practice and give him the opportunity to teach with even more honor. Richard went to Lyon and stayed until my brother Monseigneur d’Arles took over his archbishopric, where he died and was buried, as already mentioned. After all of my brothers had settled down, my brother Charles married a Demoiselle of the Raousset family from Tarascon. She died young, as did her three children. My mother raised the children.50 Only two of the children, a boy and a girl, were still alive when she passed away. The boy died as well, and the girl was honorably married in Aix-en-Provence to the son of the councilor of Chateauneuf, who succeeded to his father’s post. She had a son who lived several years longer than she, and so the father became heir when this son later died. Finally, there was my brother Gaspard, the youngest of all, whom my late mother sent to Orléans to study law. Monsieur d’Ulme, the king’s lawyer, was sent to Aix-en-Provence from Paris by the court of the Parliament of Provence. Monsieur d’Ulme died there [18] and left his office to my brother Honoré, his son-inlaw, who successfully practiced law for eighteen years. He then became a widower but chose never to remarry, and instead lived as a cleric. My brother Antoine was nearby. Since Honoré had become the king’s lawyer, he asked him to find some cases in Paris for him to plead, which Honoré did at the earliest occasion. Antoine carried out his duties so well as a solicitor that he applied to become a lawyer, and he pleaded his case and won. This success encouraged him so much that he decided to remain in Paris, where his law practice flourished. He has three sons and seven daughters who lead honest lives. To return to Gaspard. From Orléans he came to Aix, where he completed his certification with great success, but he had no desire to be a lawyer. He was called to a life of piety, which angered my mother, but she promised to help him as long as she lived. He wished to follow his calling and became a priest. He said his first mass and sermon at Saint Martin. My late mother attended with my 50. On the naming of guardians, see Giulia Calvi, “Widows, the State and the Guardianship of Children in Early Modern Tuscany,” in Widowhood in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 212: “The naming of guardians spelled out a precise hierarchy of kin…. Thus widows were … taken into consideration if all the ward’s paternal relatives were dead.”

The Genealogy of the du Laurens (1631) 73 two sisters. The second, widow of Monsieur de Mende, remarried Monsieur de ­Barreme, a judge in Tarascon. When she died, she left behind nine children, three from her first husband and six from the second. Two children remain from her first marriage: a son who is a canon at Saint Trophime and a daughter married to a gentleman named Monsieur Duzane. Four sons remain from her second marriage: one who is now a magistrate of a viguerie in Tarascon, married to the president of Reauville’s daughter; the second, a lawyer; the third, a Capuchin monk; and the fourth, a soldier. My late husband left me five children. One, a cleric, died at the age of twenty. My eldest, whom I should mention first, is a Capuchin monk and a preacher. The second, a litigator, is married to a wise and virtuous demoiselle with whom he has a son and three young daughters. The youngest is a doctor, but he has not yet begun his practice. He served in the army of the king in Montauban, Holland, La Rochelle, 51 and other places. He is well versed in mathematics and painting. While Breda was under siege from Spinola,52 he painted each of these places. My daughter is married to Monsieur de Gerard, the king’s lawyer in Arles. She has beautiful children to whom she teaches virtue and fear of God. Before my mother’s death, my brother André, physician to the late King Henri IV, received as a gift from his majesty the Abbey of Sénanque,53 which he passed on to Gaspard. When my late mother heard the news, she sent for me to come celebrate with her since I was married at the time. She said: “My daughter, I am so indebted to God! I was so worried for my son Gaspard, but I have received a letter from my son André, the king’s physician [19], in which he tells me he has provided Gaspard with his own abbey. I will surely die happy now that my children are all provided for and have what they need to go through life honorably.” She strongly urged Gaspard to carry out his duties as best as he could and live as a good priest. A few months later, my brother André, the king’s physician, received an even better gift, this time for Gaspard: the Abbey of Saint Pierre de Vienne.54 André sent the title to Gaspard. My mother told me of the news as soon as she found out, just as she had done the first time. Grateful for the grace of God, she said: “My daughter, your brother has sent the title of another abbey. I want to write him that I take no pleasure in this extravagance. You had enough with the

51. Montauban, a town about thirty miles north of Toulouse; Holland, a province of the modern Netherlands, often used to refer to the whole nation; La Rochelle, a city in southwestern France and at this time a Protestant (Huguenot) stronghold. 52. Ambrogio di Filippo Spinola (1569–1630), Genoese military commander in the service of Spain, who in 1625 captured the strategic fortress of Breda in the Netherlands, a victory immortalized by Velasquez’s painting, “The Surrender of Breda” (1635), now in the Prado Museum. 53. A Cistercian abbey founded in 1148 and located near Gordes, fifty-five miles northeast of Arles. 54. An ancient church and monastery located some twenty miles south of Lyon.

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first abbey, and you should not think so much of worldly honors.55 It is enough to live on.” My mother and father were people who asked for nothing more than to spend one day after the next as good people who lived in fear of God. When Gaspard left for the abbey of Saint Pierre de Vienne, my mother admonished him to behave and to do his best to live like the man who founded the abbey. She added that he must not use this position to live lavishly but rather follow the example of the founder. In 1597, he was elected abbot of Vienne, and on the last day of the year, our late mother passed away. At that time, she had two of my late brothers’ children: those of the king’s lawyer [Honoré], who was a widower, and those of Charles, whose wife had also passed away. She retained a tutor to instruct them, a man named Guisonni who had been vicar to my brother who was Monseigneur d’Arles. Before her death she called him and dictated a letter for each of her children. This occurred after Christmas, on the Feast of Saint John the Baptist. She died on the last day of the year. She wrote her first letter to Honoré, the king’s lawyer, as he was the eldest: “This is the last letter I will write you. I urge you to live always in love and fear of God, to always maintain peace and friendship with your brothers and sisters, and to take care of your brother Charles’s children as if they were your own.” These letters all resembled one another in content, except for a few details. She wrote in particular to the Capuchin and the abbot and reminded them to pray for her soul when celebrating the holy sacrifice of the mass. She asked me [20] to send the letters as soon as possible, which I did. I first sent the letter to my late brother, the king’s lawyer, in Aix-en-Provence, and asked that he come since our mother was very sick. As soon as he came, he gave her spiritual guidance, then spent the night devotedly watching over her and praying for her. I also sent for my brother the Capuchin in Marseille, and he found her near death. Thus, both my brothers watched over her and prayed throughout the night. I also wrote to my sister, who came as well. She and I did everything we could for our mother. Last, I wrote to Monsieur Conchet, our cousin in Avignon, since my mother had written to him as to one of her children, offering him her love. However, it turned out he was gone. When our mother died, we buried her in our father’s grave. A few days later, once I had put our affairs in order, I took my niece, the daughter of my brother Antoine, who was the king’s councilor, to Aix-en-Provence. My sister took our brother Charles’s daughter, and my late first husband, whom I should have mentioned first, took his son. I spent two months in Aix, so that I would have the opportunity to recommend my niece to family and friends. As for her brother, we sent him to school. During my stay, my late brother André, the king’s physician, wrote to my brother Honoré, the lawyer. He informed him that the post of first 55. Sixteenth-century moralists frequently cautioned against the desire for honor, power, and glory; see Anne de France, Lessons for My Daughter, ch. 17 and 18.

The Genealogy of the du Laurens (1631) 75 president of Aix was vacant, and he asked my brother to accept it, since it was offered to him and would not cost him a cent. My brother showed me this letter. I saw him refuse what he had predicted in Paris, speaking to my brother Charles, as young as he was, and as I previously said. During the two months I stayed in Aix, my late brother the Capuchin led mass for Lent in Marseille, having done so three times before. This time, the queen of France came to the islands of Marseille.56 My brother wrote to me that I should come see her. When I returned to Aix, my late brother the lawyer said: “My dear sister, tell me about all the beautiful things you saw.” I described it in detail, and he asked: “Did you enjoy it?” “Yes,” I said. He replied: “What did you think when you saw such beautiful things?” “I enjoyed it, and did nothing else. What else should I have done?” “Oh!” he said, “you should have thought, my God! What must heaven be like, if such nothingness gives me so much pleasure? That is what you should have thought about.” [21] The good life my siblings lived was possible because of the care and effort our late parents took in raising us. I find myself happy, and more than happy, for having been raised by such a wise father and mother. I have seen and read a lot, given that I am already old, but I have never seen parents do so much for their children as mine did, sparing neither themselves nor their means to teach us virtue. As for us girls, when we were young, my mother always kept us in front of her, whether at church or elsewhere, keeping track of our actions. If we looked around here and there, as children often do, she would slap us in public to shame us. She used to say that when children walk behind, their parents cannot see what they do, and she used to tell my brothers’ teachers to do the same. She made every effort to teach us virtue. She permitted no vanity and took us to no dances,57 since in her view we were already susceptible to vanity. When I was married, she always admonished me.58 My mother lived to be seventy-five. By the end of her life she had trouble walking, so I would send my children to visit her each week. One summer day three of them were on their way, when the youngest, who was 56. Marie de Médicis arrived at the port of Marseille on November 3, 1600 where she would marry King Henri IV. The artist Peter Paul Rubens has depicted the emotional intensity of this scene in one of a cycle of twenty-one paintings dedicated to Marie, now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. 57. Moralists and theologians tended to view dancing as a threat to chastity and therefore as a risky pastime for young women; see Vives, The Education of a Christian Woman, bk. 1, ch. 13. But dance was also viewed as conducive to virtue. On both attitudes, see Jennifer Nevile, Dance, Spectacle, and the Body Politick, 1250–1750 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 283–97. On the widespread love for dance and its flourishing in Renaissance courts, see Margaret M. McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). 58. According to Vives, a mother should continue to exercise her authority over her children, even after they marry; see The Education of a Christian Woman, bk. 2, ch. 13.

76 JEANNE DU LAURENS

only three and a half, took three beans and three cherries while passing through the square. As soon as they arrived, the two others said: “Grandma, my brother Nicolas (as that was his name) is a thief. He stole three beans and three cherries.” My mother sent him back to me right away with a servant to whom she had said: “Tell my daughter to whip59 him in front of you.” When the servant told me this, I burst into laughter. The servant said to me: “Mademoiselle, you must not expect me to return without seeing you whip him.” I took the whip and used it, as my mother had ordered me to.60 A few days later I went to visit my mother as usual and brought Nicolas with me. When he got to the door, he said that his foot hurt, because he was embarrassed to see his grandmother. I entered without him and told this to my mother. She came out with several cherries in hand and said to him: “I’m giving you these cherries. Your mother told me that you will no longer be a thief, and for this I love you.” This child died at the age of four. [22] Soon after this took place, my mother lectured me about my children’s upbringing. She said that this was my duty, that a good upbringing would honor me and benefit my children, and that well-behaved children are a source of honor for parents. If children are not raised well, nor punished, they become free spirits, and this can have unfortunate consequences. She also said: “My daughter, take good care of your children, and have them learn a profession. With this and fear of God, they will have all they need. Do your siblings want for anything? When I was a widow with so many children, my neighbors and friends were all I had apart from God, as I did not have relatives nearby, given that your father was from Savoy and I was from Haute Provence.61 Considering that I was responsible for so many children, my friends told me: ‘Have one of your daughters become a nun, you will have more to provide for the other. Put one of your sons in each of the city’s abbeys, and the others will be better off doing what best suits them. In this way, all your sons and daughters will be provided for.’ My daughter, I understood what I needed to do to save money and live peacefully, but, after I heard everything, I prayed God to inspire me to raise my children well, since they were born of such a good and wise father. I was very happy to have so many children with him! He himself came from nothing. I hoped that my children, who had been raised so well, would follow in his footsteps. I resolved to do everything in my power to raise them well and to avoid encouraging them to become clerics if they did not wish so. I would raise them the best I could, thinking once they 59. Corporal punishment was widely practiced in the sixteenth century; see Linda A. Pollock, Forgotten Children: Parent-Child Relations from 1500 to 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 144–85. 60. There is a need for more research on intergenerational relationships, for example on the role of a grandmother in preserving family moral and religious values. 61. Haute Provence, a lightly-populated region bordering Italy in southeastern France, was formerly part of the province of Provence.

The Genealogy of the du Laurens (1631) 77 were grown up, if they were not satisfied with being clerics, they could become hermits. It would be fine with me.” Praise be to God, my mother did so well that before her death she saw that all of her children had the means to live honorably, as I wrote above. After her death, in the year 1600, my brother André, the king’s physician, received as a gift from his majesty the archbishopric of Embrun, which he offered to my brother Jean, the Capuchin. However, [Jean] turned down this gift and said that he had vowed to live a life of poverty and that he wished to die poor. André then presented this gift to my brother Honoré, the king’s lawyer, who at that time was a widower and lived as a cleric, but he also refused it. He said that he was unworthy of this post, and that he had enough to do taking care of his own soul without taking responsibility for the souls of others. Thus my brother André wrote to my husband to go to Aix-en-Provence [23] and ask Honoré to accept the post. Honoré accepted it at my husband’s insistence, but had to be persuaded. Once he accepted it, he tried to fulfill his duties as best as possible and led an exemplary apostolic life. He always went by foot on his visits, he preached regularly, and in a place full of heretics he managed to convert many, since he was well versed in religious controversy. He lived as archbishop for twelve years and died poor in 1612, leaving all he had to the poor. He had a son named Jean Baptiste who died as the abbot of Sénanque, as well as a daughter named Loyse, married in Manosque62 in 1599 to Monsieur Hubert de Lincel, seigneur de Saint Martin. In 1603, Monsieur the archbishop of Arles, Horace Montanus, died suddenly. My husband notified my brother the physician who was in Paris with the king. André asked the king to grant this archbishopric to my brother Gaspard, who was abbot of Saint Pierre de Vienne. His request was granted, and so it was that two of my brothers were archbishops at the same time, one in Dauphiné and the other in Provence. I saw my brothers preach in the church of Saint Trophime in Arles, each wearing a miter. I saw my other two brothers, the theologian and the Capuchin, preach in the same church on several different occasions. In his capacity as archbishop, my brother Gaspard gave one of his abbeys to the son of our late brother [Honoré], Monseigneur d’Embrun, as I said, and he passed on the abbey of Saint Pierre to another nephew, [Antoine], the son of my brother the lawyer in Paris. I also saw my nephew preach in the church of Saint Trophime. He is the king’s chaplain, an advisor, and a doctor at the Sorbonne. My brother [Gaspard], the archbishop of Arles died at Salon de Grau63 on July 12th, 1630. He was taken to Arles, where he was buried. He was an archbishop for twenty-six years and ten months. He died with dignity after living a virtuous life and was lamented by everyone. He died poor, as he had donated all 62. A town in Haute-Provence. 63. Probably Saint-Martin-de-Crau, a suburb of Salon-en-Provence.

78 JEANNE DU LAURENS

of his income to both the poor and the church. He made two of his nephews his heirs, the abbot of Saint Pierre and the son of my late brother the king’s physician, both the eldest of their families. He had the city’s churches restored, and in particular Saint Trophime, which includes a large and beautiful chapel where he is buried. He inaugurated the litanies of Our Lady, which are sung with the king’s psalm and accompanied on the organ twelve times a year. [24] In this same place he also established a brief mass that is said every day, as well as an annual mass on the anniversary of his death. For this purpose, his heirs used the money he left and put my eldest son in charge of carrying out his will. He also had a tomb built for the poor priests in the chapel. During his life, he administered confirmation and preached on all of the holy days in addition to the other preaching he did when visiting the Confraternity of Penitents, reinforcing Christian doctrine by his example. He had founded a confraternity to discuss all matters of conscience. Its members met every Thursday at the archbishopric. He always arrived before all the priests and those responsible for the souls of others, who were required to attend. Monsieur le Theologal, as well as vicars and the most erudite clergymen, would also attend to deliberate and resolve those matters of conscience. Every three years he would visit his entire diocese. He would see to all its needs and be the first to contribute. He never hesitated to assign tasks. As I said, he died in Salon, and the day before his death he took the holy sacrament [the Eucharist]. As soon as he heard the bell, he asked to be helped out of bed, kneeled to worship the Lord, and received the sacrament with great humility while offering spiritual guidance to all those present. The day after, he received the last rites with lucidity and great devotion. After he died, he was taken to the parochial church of Salon. Without anyone noticing, the poor people pulled his hair from his head and beard and were pleased to preserve three or four locks folded in paper as a relic. His body was embalmed and then taken to Arles in a hearse. The Capuchin monks of Arles had gone ahead and carried him into the chapel of Saint Felix within their monastery. This was the same chapel whose construction was arranged by my brother Richard, who had died a year earlier. That is basically all I have to say about the births, lives, and deaths of my late parents, brothers, and sister. Of all of them, the only one still alive is my brother Antoine, lawyer of the Privy Council in Paris, who turned 71 on January 15th, 1631. He has ten children, three sons and seven daughters, whom he raised to be virtuous. The only ones who are provided for are the eldest son, an abbot, as I said above, and several daughters, who are [25] nuns. Of my brother the archbishop of Embrun’s children, there remains only his daughter, married to Monsieur de Saint Martin. As for the children of my late brother the king’s physician, a son and two daughters are still alive. The son, who is very capable, currently serves the king. He came to this city on several occasions both during the life of Mon-

The Genealogy of the du Laurens (1631) 79 sieur d’Arles and after his death. Since he was one of his heirs, he stayed longer that that last time until he had put his affairs in order. The only time he left was when he went to see his mother and serve his country. Of his two sisters, one is married to Monsieur du Monceau (ou Monsereau) of Paris. His mother, who is still a widow, is a wise and virtuous woman of the honorable Sanguin family, whose members include a bishop from Senlis, the king’s premier maître d’hotel, and others in honorable positions. My son Honoré was in Salon when my brother the archbishop was dying. He rushed to Piedmont on behalf of the Sieur of Senlis, whose brother is the king’s maître d’hotel, as I said. My son traveled along with my nephew from Ferrieres while on his way to serve his country. They took the news to the king, whom the Sieur de Sanguin asked for the archbishopric. The king said: “I have to think about it.” Monseigneur the bishop of Bazas of the very noble and illustrious Barreau family in Gascogne received the archbishopric. He is a learned man of great piety and virtue, whose father was the king’s ambassador in Spain, as his brother Monsieur le Comte de Barreau is today. He also wrote several good books in defense of the Catholic faith against the errors of Calvinism. May God keep him in good health! It would take too long and would be too tedious to describe the way my late parents and all of my siblings lived. I wrote this memoir as concisely as I could so that my children and those who depend on me will know about my ancestors and will consider the fact that God will always help parents who live and raise their children virtuously. Means and nobility did not raise our family; this was done by virtue, along with divine grace. I urge all my loved ones to live virtuously in love and fear of God, and in this way we will have enough. As this memoir shows, I consider myself more than happy to be born from such virtuous people, and I feel more blessed than if I had an income of one thousand écus. I also hope, and pray to God with all my heart, that [26] all those who depend on me are as content with their lives as I am. When I talk with others and recount the story I recorded here, they tell me, “That was a different time, a time better than the present.” However, I reply that it is possible to live well and virtuously any time, and God is just as powerful as ever, provided that we try to make ourselves worthy of his grace and are grateful to him. The end crowns the work, as you have seen. Praise be to God, whom I plead to show us all mercy. Amen.

Chronology

Date

Family History

Political and Literary Events

1531

Marguerite de Navarre’s Mirror of the Sinful Soul

1532

Birth of Michele Burlamacchi, father of Renée, in Lucca

1534

Affair of the Placards triggers repressive edicts of King François I

1536

June–August

Emperor Charles V invades Provence, an episode of the Italian Wars

1542

July 1

Papal bull Licet ab initio institutes the Roman Inquisition

1548

Execution of Francesco Burlamacchi, father of Michele, grandfather of Renée

1553

Louis du Laurens marries Louise de Castelan

1554

Birth of Honoré du Laurens, brother of Jeanne

1555

September 21

1557

Birth of Charles du Laurens, brother of Jeanne Birth of Julien du Laurens, brother of Jeanne

1558

Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron

1558

Birth of André du Laurens, brother of Jeanne

1560

Birth of Antoine du Laurens, brother of Jeanne

1561

November 9

Birth of François du Laurens, brother of Jeanne

1563

May 1

Birth of Jeanne du Laurens in Arles

1564

August 1

Birth of Richard du Laurens, brother of Jeanne

1565

Birth of Jean du Laurens, brother of Jeanne

1566

January 7

Michele Burlamacchi marries ­Chiara Calandrini

1567

March

Burlamacchi and Calandrini families flee Lucca to settle in France

1567

September 14

Birth of Gaspard du Laurens, brother of Jeanne .......

81

82 Chronology Date (cont’d)

Family History

1567

Burlamacchi family flees Paris, seeks refuge in Montargis

November

Political and Literary Events

1567– 1568 1568

Second War of Religion in France March 25

Birth of Renée Burlamacchi in Montargis

1568– 1570

Third War of Religion in France

1568– 1572

Burlamacchi family moves between Paris, Sedan, Luzarches, and Paris again

1569

January 7

Birth of Honorade du Laurens, sister of Jeanne

1569

July 10

Birth of Camille Burlamacchi, sister of Renée

1569

August 20

1570

October 25

Birth of Jacques Burlamacchi, brother of Renée

1572

March 17

Birth of Suzanne Burlamacchi, sister of Renée

1572

August 24

1572– 1579

Renée of France expels more than 460 Protestant refugees she had protected in Montargis

Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre begins Burlamacchi family flees Paris and settles in Sedan, under protection of duke of Bouillon

1573

July 9

Birth of Elie Burlamacchi, brother of Renée, who died twenty-seven days later

1574

December 24

Death of Louis du Laurens, father of Jeanne

1575

April 21

Birth of Philippe Burlamacchi, brother of Renée

1579

1579

Burlamacchi family resettles in Muret, under protection of the prince of Condé August 23

1580

Birth of Madeleine Burlamacchi, sister of Renée Death of Julien du Laurens

1580

September 5

Birth of Claire Burlamacchi, sister of Renée

1580

September 16

Death of Chiara Calandrini, mother of Renée Burlamacchi

1581

June

Jeanne du Laurens marries Monsieur Achard .......

Chronology 83 Date (cont’d)

Family History

1582

Jeanne du Laurens gives birth to a son, who would die in 1599

December 9/19

Political and Literary Events

1585

Eighth War of Religion breaks out in France; Burlamacchi family flees to Geneva

1586?

Jeanne du Laurens marries Monsieur Gleyse

1586

Michele Burlmacchi, father of Renée, made a citizen of Geneva

1586

May 29

Renée Burlamacchi marries Cesare Balbani

1587

July 8

Camille Burlamacchi, sister of Renée, marries Francesco Turrettini

1588

Death of Charles du Laurens, brother of Jeanne

1588

December 23

Henri I de Lorraine, duke of Guise, assassinated

1589

August 2

King Henri III assassinated; Henri de Bourbon becomes King Henri IV

1590

September

1593

July 25

1596

June 10

1597

1597

Death of Michele Burlamacchi, father of Renée King Henri IV converts to Catholicism Suzanne Burlamacchi, sister of Renée, marries Vincenzo Minutoli Gaspard du Laurens becomes abbot of the monastery of Saint Pierre de Vienne

December 31

1598

Death of Louise de Laurens, mother of Jeanne Cesare Balbani purchases house in Saconnex, near Geneva

1598

April 30

Promulgation of Edict of Nantes, granting important rights to French Protestants

1598

December

Jacques Burlamacchi, brother of Renée, marries Anne Diodati

1599

March 10

Execution of Marguerite d’Auge and accomplice

1600

The Pitiful and Macabre Regrets of Marguerite d’Auge published in Lyon

1600

November 3

1600

December 4

Marie de Médicis, queen of France, visits Marseille Madeleine Burlamacchi, sister of Renée, marries Giovanni Diodati .......

84 Chronology Date (cont’d)

Family History

1601

Death of Madalena (Arnolfini) Calandrini, aunt of the Burlamacchi children, who had raised them after their mother’s death in 1580 and father’s in 1590

March 7

1603 1605

Political and Literary Events

Gaspard du Laurens becomes archbishop of Arles February

1606

Philippe Burlamacchi, brother of Renée, marries Elisabeth Calandrini André du Laurens becomes first physician to King Henri IV

1609

Death of André du Laurens

1610

May 14

Assassination of King Henri IV

1617

August 2

Death of Jean du Laurens

1620

September

Agrippa d’Aubigné flees France to settle in Geneva

1621

April

Death of Cesare Balbani, first husband of Renée Burlamacchi

1623

January

Renée Burlamacchi’s Memoirs Concerning Her Father’s Family

1623

April 24

Renée Burlamacchi marries Agrippa d’Aubigné

1627– 1628

Siege of French Protestant stronghold at La Rochelle

1629

Death of Richard du Laurens

1630

May 9

Death of Agrippa d’Aubigné

1630

July 12

Death of Gaspard du Laurens

1631

July 1

Jeanne du Laurens’s Genealogy of the du Laurens

1641

September 11

Death of Renée Burlamacchi

Bibliography

Works Translated in This Volume Marguerite d’Auge Les pitoyables et funestes regrets de Marguerite d’Auge. Lyon: Fleury Durand, 1600. Les pitoyables et funestes regrets de Marguerite d’Auge. In Remontrances, prophéties et confessions de femmes, 1575–1650, edited by Jean-Philippe Beaulieu with Diane Desrosiers et Claude La Charité, 133–54. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2014.

Renée Burlamacchi Descrittione della vita e morte del signor Michele Burlamacchi gentilhuomo lucchese, missa in luce dalla signora Renea Burlamacchi, sua figlia, nel mese di gennaro del 1623 in Geneva. In Vincenzo Burlamacchi, Libro di ricordi degnissimi delle nostre famiglie, Ms. suppl. 438, fols. 50r–54v. Geneva: Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire. Descrittione della vita e morte del signor Michele Burlamacchi gentilhuomo lucchese, missa in luce dalla signora Renea Burlamacchi, sua figlia, nel mese di gennaro del 1623 in Geneva. In Vincenzo Burlamacchi, Libro di ricordi degnissimi delle nostre familiglie, edited by Simonetta Adorni-Braccesi, 167– 178. Rome: Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e ­contemporanea, 1993. Descrittione della vita e morte del signor Michele Burlamacchi. In Susan Broomhall and Colette H. Winn, Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, XVIe-XVIIe siècle, Paris, Honoré Champion, 2008, 77–91. Memoria dell’uscita di Lucca delli signori Michele Burlamacchi e Benedetto Calandrini l’anno 1567 fatta dalla signora Renea Burlamacchi. Geneva: Archives Turrettini. Fonds 2, B7, fine secolo XVII, 12 carte. Mémoires concernant Michel Burlamacchi et sa famille. Ms. suppl. 84, cc. 2r–8r, secolo XVIII. Geneva: Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire. Mémoires concernant Michel Burlamacchi et sa famille. Geneva: Archives d’état. Archives de la famille de Vernet, feuilles alliées, no XXXII, pages 2–14. Mémoires concernant Michel Burlamacchi et sa famille. TCD Ms. 1152. Dublin: The Library of Trinity College. 85

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Memoires de Dam.le Renée Burlamacchi concernant la famille de son pere. In Broomhall and Winn, Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, 7–71, 97–106.

Jeanne du Laurens Genealogie de Messieurs du Laurens descrite par moy Jeanne du Laurens Veufve à Monsieur Gleyse et couchée nayvement en ces termes. Ms. Provence Recueil K 843 (827), pièce 29. Aix-en-Provence: Bibliothèque Méjanes. Genealogie de Messieurs du Laurens descrite par moy Jeanne du Laurens Veufve à Monsieur Gleyse et couchée nayvement en ces termes. In Une famille au XVIe siècle: Document original. Edited by Charles de Ribbe. Paris: Joseph Albanel, 1867. Genealogie de Messieurs du Laurens descrite par moy Jeanne du Laurens Veufve à Monsieur Gleyse et couchée nayvement en ces termes. In Une famille au XVIe siècle. Edited by Charles de Ribbe. Paris: Joseph Albanel, 1868. Genealogie de Messieurs du Laurens: Une famille au XVIe siècle, d’après des documents originaux. Edited by Charles de Ribbe. 3rd ed. Tours: A. Mame et fils, 1879. Genealogie de Messieurs du Laurens. In Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, XVIe– XVIIe siècle, edited by Susan Broomhall and Colette H. Winn, 7–71, 139– 172. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2008.

Other Primary Sources Anne de France. Lessons for My Daughter. Edited and translated by Sharon L. Jansen. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: D. S. Brewer, 2004. Broomhall, Susan, and Colette H. Winn, eds. Les femmes et l’histoire familiale, XVIe–XVIIe siècle. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2008. Burlamacchi, Vicenzo. Libro di ricordi degnissimi delle nostre famiglie. Edited by Simonetta Adorni-Braccesi. Rome: Istituto storico italiano per l’età moderna e contemporanea, Rerum italicarum scriptores recentiores, no. 7, 1993. Champier, Symphorien. Le myrouel des appothicaires et pharmacopoles …; item les lunectes des cyrurgiens et barbiers. Lyon: P. Mareschal, 1525. Colin, Sébastien. Declaration des abuz et tromperies que font les apothicaires. Lyon: Michel Jove, 1556. Erasmus, Desiderius. On Education for Children. Edited and translated by Beert C. Verstraete. In Collected Works of Erasmus, 26 (= vol. 4 of Literary and Educational Writings, edited by J. Kelley Sowards): 291–346. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985 Joubert, Laurent. La pharmacopée. Lyon: Antoine de Harsy, 1588.

Bibliography 87 Labé, Louise. Complete Poetry and Prose: A Bilingual Edition. Edited and translated by Deborah Lesko Baker. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2006. Le Caron, Louis. Resolution de plusieurs notables, celebres, et illustres questions de droict tant romain, que françois, coustumes et practique. Paris: chez la vefve Claude de Monstr’œil, 1613. L’Estoile, Pierre de. Mémoires-Journaux, 1574–1611. 12 vols. Paris: Tallandier, 1982. Facsimile reprint of edition of Gustave Brunet et al. Paris: Librairie des bibliophiles, 1875–1896. Montaigne, Michel de. The Complete Essays of Montaigne. Translated by Donald M. Frame. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958. Rabelais, François. Gargantua and Pantagruel. Translated by Michael A. Screech. London: Penguin, 2006. Vives, Juan Luis. The Education of a Christian Woman: A Sixteenth-Century Manual. Edited and translated by Charles Fantazzi. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000.

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Index Bergin, Joseph, 7nn13–14, 23n48 Binski, Paul, 38n16 blood (imagery), 2, 20 Bons, Anselme de, 50n24 Bons, Charles-Louis de, 50n24 Bons, Claude de, 50 Bourbon, Henri de, prince of  Condé, 4, 16, 22, 46n8 Bourdelais, Patrice, 60n16, 69n43 Bratchel, M. E., 3n7 Brézé, Françoise de, 47n13 broadsheets, 2–3, 9n15, 10–11, 11n20 Broomhall, Susan, 4n9, 8, 45nn3–4, 45n7, 48n20, 50n27, 50n29, 58n38 Brunet, Gustave, 2n3 Bryant, Clifton D., 38n17 Burlamacchi, Camille, 3, 46, 48, 52 Burlamacchi, Claire, 3, 50 Burlamacchi, Elie, 3 Burlamacchi, Fabrizio, 5n10, 22, 48 Burlamacchi, Federigo, 53 Burlamacchi, Francesco, 3, 3n6, 45, 45n2 Burlamacchi, Jacques, 3–4, 47–48, 53 Burlamacchi, Madeleine, 3 Burlamacchi, Michele, 3–5, 5n10, 14–16, 22–24 Burlamacchi, Philippe, 3, 50, 53 Burlamacchi, Renée, 1, 3–6, 45 Burlamacchi, Suzanne, 3, 47, 53 Burlamacchi, Vincenzo, 4n9, 5–6, 5n10

Adorni-Braccesi, Simonetta, 3nn6–7, 4n9, 6n10, 45n2, 45n4, 45n7, 48n20, 50n27, 52n35 adultery, 10, 35n10 advice manuals, 10, 59n15, 62n25, 67n39, 74n55, 75n57 Aeolus, 32n32 Affair of the Placards, 15, 48n20 Anderson, James Rev., 46n10 Anne de France, 62n25, 67n39, 70n46, 74n55 Antoine, Claude, 2, 31, 33–34, 36, 39 apostolic poverty, 26 Arbaleste, Charlotte, 14n30 Ariadne, 36n11 Ariès, Philippe, 57n2, 60n17, 62n24, 65nn31–32 Armstrong, Nancy, 59n15 Arnolfini, Madalena, 3, 47, 50–51 Arnoul, Elisabeth, 26n50 Aubigné, Agrippa d’, 4–5 authorship and gender, 9–13 Bainton, Roland H., 46n10 Balbani, Agostino, 52n35 Balbani, Catherine, 51 Balbani, Cesari, 4–5, 6n10, 14, 45, 51–52 Balbani, Manfredi, 51 Balbani, Niccolao, 52 Baldick, Robert, 57n2 Balmas, Enea Henri, 50n30 baptism, significance of, 23, 59n12 Barbaghi, Marzio, 50n25 Bardet, Jean-Pierre, 26n50 Basso, Giovanni Bernardo, 53, 53n38 Beaulieu, Jean-Philippe, 3

Caferro, William, 47n17 Caine, Barbara, 13n29

93

94 Index

Calandrini, Benedetto, 3, 5, 45, 47, 50–52 Calandrini, Catarina, 45, 45n3 Calandrini, Chiara, 3–4, 45 Calandrini, Giuliano, 45, 45n4, 46, 48–49, 51, 53 Calandrini, Laura, 15, 45, 45n7, 46 Calandrini, Madalena, 24, 47 Calvi, Giulia, 72n50 canards, bloody, 20 careers, male, 7–8, 17–18 Carlin, Claire L., 36n12 Castelan, Honoré de, 6, 6n12, 7–9, 17, 57, 57n3, 59n15, 64, 70 Castelan, Louise de, 6, 16–18, 25–26 Castiglione, Caroline, 47n14 Cavallo, Sandra, 58n6 Champier, Symphorien, 59n18 Charles V, 15n36, 57n6 Charles IX, 6, 17, 20n47, 23, 45n6, 57, 62, 71n48 Christ, body of, 20–21 Ciapelli, Giovanni, 15n33 Clermont Tallart, Louise de, 7, 51n31, 71, 71n48 Coligny, Gaspard, 22, 48n22 Colin, Sébastien, 61n18 Colladon, Claude, 50, 51n31 Collin, Julien, 6n12, 60 commemoration, family, 14–19 confession, 11–12, 19–21 conversion, 19–21 Couchman, Jane, 19n41 Coyne, G.V., 70n44 Cragin, Thomas, 20n45 Creon, 34n9 Crussol, Antoine de, 71n48 Cujas, Jacques, 7, 68n41 Curthoys, Ann, 13n29

Davis, Natalie Zemon, 11, 11nn20– 21, 14nn30–31, 61n21 death: attitude toward, 12; good death, 25–26, 65n32; as a passage, 21; shameful death, 2–3, 19–20 Delumeau, Jean, 66n34 de Ribbe, Charles, 8 Diefendorf, Barbara B., 23n48, 70n45 Diodati, Carlo, 51, 53, 53n39 Diodati, Giovanni, 53 Diodati, Pompeo, 6n10, 15, 45, 45n7, 51–52 direct speech, 17–18, 17n37 du Laurens, André, 6–7, 26, 60, 67, 71, 73, 77 du Laurens, Antoine, 6–7, 68, 74, 78 du Laurens, Charles, 6, 15n36, 25, 59, 63–64, 66, 68–69, 72, 74–75 du Laurens, François, 61 du Laurens, Gaspard, 7, 26, 62, 72–74, 77 du Laurens, Honorade, 62 du Laurens, Honoré, 7, 26, 58, 62, 64–69, 72, 74, 77 du Laurens, Jean, 7, 62, 77 du Laurens, Jeanne, 6–9, 61 du Laurens, Julien, 7, 26, 60, 67 du Laurens, Louis, 6–7, 16, 24, 57 du Laurens, Richard, 6, 26, 61, 72 du Mesnil, Jean, 50n27 du Mesnil, Jérôme, 50n27 du Mesnil, Pierre, 50n29 Duret, Louis, 7 education: of females, 1, 8; of males, 7–8 Erasmus, Desiderius, 37n14 executions, public, 2, 9–10, 20 faith, importance of, 17, 19, 24–27

Index 95 Fantazzi, Charles, 62n25 Fauchier, Guillaume, 62n23 Fauchier, Jean, 62n23 fear of God, 18, 24 Fildes, Valerie, 47n14 Flaubert, Gustave, 24n49 Frame, Donald M., 19n40 François I, 47n16, 48n21, 57, 57n5 François II, 6, 20n47 Frappier, Louise, 20n46 free indirect discourse, 24, 24n49

Jacks, Philip, 47n17 Jansen, Sharon J., 62n25 Jason, 34n9 Jones, Ann Rosalind, 1, 1n1, 59n15 Jouanna, Arlette, 23n48 Joubert, Laurent, 61n18 Jumeau, Daniel, 2, 12, 35, 39

Galiffe, J. B. G., 52n35 gender: and authorship, 9–13; and genre, 9–10, 13–18 God (’s elect), 14–16, 22–24 Gottlieb, Beatrice, 60n17 Gowing, Laura, 32nn3–4 Grace, divine, 22–24, 27 Gregory XIII, 70n44 Grell, Ole Peter, 52n36, 53n39 Grendler, Paul F., 3n7 Guevara, 47n16

Labalme, Patricia H., 14n30 Labé, Louise, 1n1, 12n26 La Charité, Claude, 12n27, 20n46 La Fayette, Claude de, 47n15 La Marck, Henri-Robert de, 4, 16, 23, 47, 47n13, 48–49 La Marck, Robert IV de, 47n13 Larsen, Ann R., 11n22 Le Caron, Louis, 2, 2n4 Lee, Sidney, 47n16 Leenhardt, Albert, 57n3 Le Maçon, Antoine, 47n16 Le Maçon, Louise, 47n16 L’Estoile, Pierre de, 2, 2n3 Lingo, Alison Klairmont, 6n12, 66n33 livre de raison, 9, 9n16, 13, 26 love, illicit, 12, 31 lust, 12, 20–21

Haskins, Susan, 19n42 Henri I, duke of Guise, 16, 23–24, 47n16, 48, 48n22, 49 Henri IV or Henri de Navarre, 4, 7, 22, 51n32, 60 Holland, Bark K., 60n16 Holt, Mack P., 45n6, 46n8 Homer, 32n2 Hoskin, M. A., 70n44 Hufton, Olwen, 58n6, 67n40 humility, 21 Hyginus, 36n11 Italian refugees, 3–5, 15–16, 45n4, 45n7, 50n30 Itys, 34n8

Kaplan, Marion A., 59n13 Kertzer, David I., 50n25 Konnert, Mark W., 47n13

Macon, Claude, 2 Maisch, Ingrid, 19n42 Mallett, Michael, 57n6 Maloney, Linda M., 19n42 Marguerite de Navarre, 19, 33n6 marital dysfunction, 10–12, 11n23, 19–20 marriage, Protestant, 51n32

96 Index

Mary Magdalene, cult of, 19–21, 19n42 material prosperity, 25–26 McGowan, Margaret M., 75n57 McIver, Katherine A., 19n41 Medea, 34n9 Médicis, Catherine de, 6, 23, 48n22, 49, 71n48 Médicis, Marie de, 7, 15n36, 75n56 Meyer, Judith Chandler Pugh, 50n26 Micheli, Horatio, 51 Minutoli, Vincenzo II, 53, 53n37 misogynistic literature, 1, 10, 12–13, 18–19 Monnier, Luc, 50n30 Montaigne, Michel de, 19, 19n40 Monter, E. William, 50n30 Moréri, Louis, 47n15 mother and daughter relationship, 16–18 motherhood, 16–18, 24–25 Nevile, Jennifer, 75n57 O’Connor, Mary Catharine, 62n24, 65n32 oral tradition, 17–18 Ovid, 34n8, 36n11 Owen Hughes, Diane, 59n13 Parcae, 37n15 Paré, Ambroise, 61n18 partisan literature, 18–19 Paul III Farnese, 3 Peck, Dennis L., 37n38 Pedersen, O., 70n44 penance, 11, 19–21 Philomela, 34n8 Poggio, Gasparo di, 48 Poggio, Pietro di, 48n23 Pollock, Linda A., 76n59

Poska, Allyson M., 19n41 predestination, 22–24, 26 pride, 10, 21 Procne, 34n8 Protestant(s): hardships and flight, 15–16, 18, 22–24; Refuge, 5, 14–15, 16, 22, 50n30, 52n35; values, 24 querelle des femmes, 1 Rabelais, François, 66n36 Racine, 12n27 Ranchin, François, 71, 71n49, 72 Ranum, Patricia M., 65n32 Réach Ngô, Anne, 12n25 redemption, 2, 18–21 religious persecution, 1–2, 14–16, 22–24 Renée of Ferrara, 16, 45n7, 46n10 Rigolot, François, 13, 13n28 Roeber, A. G., 50n32 Roussel, Brigitte, 36n12 Rubens, 75n56 Rubin, Patricia Lee, 15n33 Rubinstein, Nicolai, 15nn34–35 Rublack, Ulinka, 35n10 Ruggiu, François-Joseph, 26n50 Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, 4, 4n8, 15n36, 22–23, 23n48, 48n19, 50n26, 51nn32–33, 63n22 salvation, 2, 20–21 Scaliger, Joseph Justus, 68n41 Screech, Michael A., 66n36 sensationalism, 9–10 Sharpe, J. A., 9n18, 10n19 Shaw, Christine, 57n6 sin, 2, 12, 18–21 Siraisi, Nancy, 57n4, 61n19

Index 97 Sowards, J. Kelly, 37n16 speeches, last dying, 9, 9n18, 10n11, 11–13, 19 Sperling, Jutta Gisela, 47n14 Spinelli, Francesco, 47n17 Spinola, Ambrogio di Filippo, 73n52 spiritual welfare, 26–27 Spongberg, Mary, 13n29 Starra, Virginio, 51 Stephen, Leslie, 47n16 storytelling, women and, 17–18, 17n39 studies: law, 6–7; medicine, 6–7, 57n4; theology, 6–7 Suse, Marie de, 47n15 Suse, Philippe de, 47n15 Tennenhouse, Leonard, 59n15 Tereus, 34n8, 36n11 Theseus, 34n9 Thou, Jacques Auguste, 68n41 Tibullus, 34n7 Trenta, Catarina, 45 Trenta, Federigo, 22, 45n16 Tronchin, Théodore, 5 Turquet de Mayerne, Louis, 47n16 Turrettini, Francesco, 52, 52n36, 53 Valleriola, François, 6n12, 61n22 Valois, Marguerite de, 22–23 van Houts, Elisabeth, 13n29, 17n39 Velasquez, 73n52 Verstraete, Beert C., 37n14 Vickers, Brian, 64n29 Vigne, Marcel, 48n23, 52n34, 53n37 Vives, Juan Luis, 47n16, 62n25, 75n56 Warner, Lyndan, 58n6

Wars of Religion, 3, 14–16, 45n6, 46n8, 46n10, 46n11, 47nn12–13, 75nn57–58 Weaver, Helen, 62n24 Weber, Alison, 19n41 Weber, Henri, 20n47 widowhood, 8, 24–26, 58n11, 70n45, 72n50 Winn, Colette H., 4n9, 8–9, 13n28, 17n37, 26n50, 45 nn3–4, 45n7, 48n20, 50n27, 50n29, 58n38 women: conduct expected of women, 10, 13; and crime, 9–12, 19–21; as head of the family, 24–26; as keepers of family history, 9, 13–18; and the rearing of children, 17, 24–26; and sin, 19–21; and theology, 18–19; and transmission of faith, 24–26 works, good, 18, 24–26