1 Agrippa d'Aubigné, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Réaume and Caussade, iv (Paris, 1877), 321. This work will be cited hereafter in this form: Oeuvres, iv, 321. The Discours par stances appears in several other collections of d'Aubigné's poetry published in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Adolphe van Bever's edition in his Oeuvres choisies d'Agrippa d'Aubigné (Paris, 1905), pp. 146-165 is superior to that in Réaume and Caussade because of the editor's indications of variant readings and the introduction of historical notes to the poem. However, the van Bever collection was published in a very small edition and is difficult to obtain; the Oeuvres edited by Reaume and Caussade is available in most major libraries.

2 Agrippa d'Aubigné, Histoire Universelle, ed. A. de Ruble, TX (Paris, 1897), 475-476. This work will be cited hereafter in this form: HU, IX, 476.

3 This article is a revised version of a paper delivered before the Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference held at Portland State College, Portland, Oregon, on 11 May 1962, and is based in part upon research done with a grant from Washington State University.

4 Oeuvres, IV, 314.

5 Ibid., 315.

6 Ibid., 315. From the repetition of this warning in the third section of the poem, it appears certain that d'Aubigné refers here to the possible murder of Louis xni by another Jesuit-inspired (as he thought) Ravaillac.

7 l'Estoile, Pierre de, Journal de l'Estoile, 1610-11, ed. A. Martin (Paris, 1960), p. 78.Google Scholar

8 Oeuvres, IV, 316-317.

9 Ibid., 319.

10 Ibid., 320.

11 Ibid., 321.

12 Ibid., 322.

13 Ibid., 323.

14 Ibid., 325.

15 HU, I, 15.

16 Oeuvres, I, 200, 467, 471.

17 Ibid., I, 474.

18 HU, vi, 358 and ix, 476. D'Aubigne inserted an appendix at the end of the second of the three volumes of his History and a preface before volume three, in addition to the preface and Appendix at the beginning and end of the History as a whole. This appendix and this preface within the History do not deal with Henry iv primarily.

19 HU, 1, 10. The interpretation of Henry's life developed in the preface is in no way inconsistent with the interpretation developed in the Appendix.

20 The first four stanzas, which mention his birth amid wars and his later victories, serve merely as a means of introduction to the real theme of the poem, as we have seen. The parallel is so exact that these four stanzas are borrowed from the Discourse to serve as the introduction to the theme of the Appendix too. Cf. HU, ix, 456.

21 HU, ix, 455-456.

22 Ibid., 457-458.

23 Ibid., 460. A reference to the teachings in favor of tyrannicide of such Jesuits as Mariana, teachings held to be connected with the 1594 attempt on the king's life by the assassin Chastel.

24 Ibid., 459.

25 HU, IX, 465 and 469-470.

26 Ibid., 456.

27 Ibid., 469, italics added. The first lines of this stanza in the Appendix are not precisely the same as they appear in the complete version of the Discourse printed in Oeuvres completes. Here is the version given in the Appendix:

D'Aubigne obviously reworked this stanza later. Did he rework it to the point of only adding the angels’ disfavor for the enterprise after the History had been published in 1620? It seems unlikely, for this is the only case among the 10 stanzas quoted in the Appendix where d'Aubigne inserts an ‘etc.’ instead of giving the complete stanza. Strong reasons must have persuaded him to destroy the rhyme scheme in a single instance; given the purpose of the Appendix, this destruction of poetic unity in order to suppress the condemnation of Henry's enterprise in the last two lines was absolutely necessary.

28 Ibid., 475.

29 Ibid,, 471-472.

30 Ibid., 475.

3l Ibid., 474-475.

32 Ibid., 475.

33 The only works by d'Aubigne published before 1616 were minor: the Vers funebres ... sur la mort d'EstienneJodelle (Paris, 1574), the Balet comique de la Royne (Paris, 1584), and the De la Douceur des afflictions (n.p., 1600 and again in 1601): cf. Armand Gamier, Agrippa d'Aubigne et lepartiprotestant, in (Paris, 1928), 187-193. Between 1616 and 1620, on the other hand, he published 18 editions of five different works. Cf. Jacques Pannier, 'Agrippa d'Aubigné et son imprimeur a Maillé', Bulletin de la Societe de I'histoire du protestantismefrancais LXXVI (1927), 490.

34 Cf. Gamier, op. cit., 11, 181 and 173.

35 Agrippa d'Aubigne, Les Tragiques, ed. Gamier and Plattard, 1 (Paris, 1930), 14.

36 Cf. Jules Bonnet and Gustave Masson, ‘Poesie inédite de d'Aubigne', Bulletin de la Societe de I'histoire du protestantisme francais xv (1866), 52-56 and 227-236. This edition of the poem was made from a manuscript originally belonging to d'Aubigne now in the British Museum; as compared with the d'Aubigne manuscripts at Bessinges (the socalled 'Tronchin manuscripts’ from which Reaume and Caussade made their edition of the Oeuvres), it omits several stanzas and contains minor differences of arrangement and wording. The Tronchin manuscript seems to be a later, improved version of the poem and it is thus preferable to use the version in the Oeuvres of 1877. Cf. Gamier, op. cit., in 186, on the British Museum manuscript, in addition to Bonnet and Masson.

37 The stanzas from the Discourse quoted in the preface, like those appearing in the Appendix to the History, are not precisely the same as they appear in the complete version of the Discourse printed in d'Aubigné's Oeuvres complètes (cf. note 36). One line has been altered in the Oeuvres version from ‘Servir Dieux, c'est regner: ce regne est pur et doux' to ‘Servir Dieu, c'est regner d'un regne seur & doux', an obvious improvement. In addition, there is in the Oeuvres version an additional stanza between the second and third of those quoted in the preface to Les Tragiques. Thus, as in the case of the quotations in the Appendix, the stanzas quoted in Les Tragiques indicate a less finished state of the poem than that contained in the Tronchin manuscripts. Nevertheless, the design of the Discourse as we have it was finished by 1616, as is indicated by the fact that the stanzas quoted in Les Tragiques come from the third and last section of the poem.

38 This was not a new opinion in 1616. The Confession catholique du sieur de Sancy, written in^the years after the Edict of Nantes, contains bitter satire against turncoat Protestants. D'Aubigné's bitterness and low opinion of his coreligionaries seems to have increased during the years of Catholic reaction following Henry iv's death (cf. the Caducee de la Paix of 1612). Cf. also the satiric epigram which d'Aubigne wrote on the mercenary behavior of'les grands’ at the peace conference of Loudun (Oeuvres, IV, 376). Finally, in 1617 d'Aubigne wrote Les aventures du baron de Faeneste, a much mellower piece of mockery—another example of the mood of retirement which overtook d'Aubigne after 1616 (cf. note 57).

39 The stanzas from the Discourse are adroitly chosen to illustrate d'Aubigné's firm belief in the monarchic form of government.

40 HU, IX, 456.

41 Ibid., 470.

42 There is a possibility that the Appendix was written long enough before, rather than long enough after, the composition of the preface to Les Tragiques for him to have changed his mind about publication. This possibility seems ruled out by the following circumstances : (1) We have seen that the preface to the whole History contains a schematization of Henry's life into four stages, of which the fourth consists of the events leading up to and including the assassination. Therefore, the preface was written after 1610. But the opening paragraph of the Appendix, in speaking of how God had unexpectedly ‘prolonged the days of my old age’ (cf. the second quotation below) so that d'Aubigné could complete the composition of the History, indicates the lapse of some years between the composition of the preface and that of the Appendix. (2) D'Aubigné in the preface to his History indicated that the third part of his History would be completed by his children: ‘Ainsi veritable tesmoin des yeux et des oreilles, j'escrits de la main qui a quelque petite part aux exploicts … esperant planter deux collomnes sur ce tombeau, non de tuffe venteuse que la lune et l'hyver puissent geler, mais d'un marbre de verite, de qui le temps ne void la fin. Je laisse aux miens, s'ils en sont dignes, l'honneur de couronner ces pilliers par un arc triomphal sacre a la posterite.’ (HU, 1, 15-16.) But in the Appendix he speaks of how he himself has finished the History since God humiliated him by giving him'un fils dégénéré': 'Dieu, qui n'attache ses grâces à la chair et au sang, m'ayant humilié par un fils dégénéré, auquel, en la préface de tout l'oeuvre, j'avois appresté l'honneur de poser ce chapiteau, m'a releve d'une main et prolongé les jours de ma vieillesse pour sacrer ce dernier present sur son autel’ (HU, IX, 454-455). This son is Constant, a wastrel who deserted his father in 1616 to make his fortune at court and who, heavily in debt from gaming, apparently deserted Protestantism for Catholicism about 1618 in the hope of court preferment (Garnier, op. cit., III, 58-59). Until the time of Constant's flight to Paris (May 1616), d'Aubigne seems to have aided his son in every way possible, and consequently it is unlikely that he would have written the above. It is much more likely that such a statement, destined for publication ‘to posterity', was made only after Constant's apostasy in 1618. (3) However that may be, the shift from the plural ‘children’ in the preface, to the singular ‘son' in the Appendix, could scarcely have been written before 1614. D'Aubigne had five children, three boys and two girls. At some date after 1600 but before 1610 two of the boys died, leaving Constant, Marie, and Louise (cf. Gamier II, 162, where all three boys are documented as alive after 1600, and III, 29-30, where only Constant is referred to in a document of 1610). Louise was married in October 1610 and Marie in December 1613. Consequently, it was only after 1613 that d'Aubigne would probably feel that his ‘children' had been reduced to one son, a ‘degenerate’ one.

43 Gamier, III, 84-85.

44 HU, VII, 1.

45 Cf. Garnier, III, 78-85, for details. D'Aubigne states later in the preface to volume three that volume three has not yet been published because he is seeking further materials for this part of the History. It is more probable that the delay in publishing was due to d'Aubigné's continued efforts to obtain a royal privilege. These same efforts explain why d'Aubigne waited over a year after completing the printing of volume one in May 1618 before he published it, and six to eight months after completing the printing of volume two in early 1619 before he published it.

46 Reproduced in Garnier, op. cit., III, 84.

47 As is indicated on the title page, the preface and first pages of volume three of the History were printed at d'Aubigné's chateau, Maillé, in early 1620 (Garnier, op. cit., ni, 85), but before the printing could be completed, d'Aubigné moved to Saint-Jean-d'Angely, a Protestant stronghold where he would be safe from the king's officers. Here the last part of the History, including the Appendix, was published in late 1620. Garnier attributes d'Aubigne's move to Saint-Jean-d'Angely to the fact that he had sold Maille in 1619 to the Duke of Rohan (op. cit., III, 72). But the timing of his removal was probably Qused by the sentence of 2 January 1620, since it was not safe to continue printing the History at the very place named in that edict. News of the edict probably arrived within a week of the date of issuance and d'Aubigne may have been in Saint-Jean-d'Angely by the end of January. The printing of the History must have been completed by mid-August, when d'Aubigne departed from Saint-Jean to join the rebellion of ‘les grands' against Luynes (cf. Garnier, op. cit., III, 85-87).

48 Garnier, III, 83 and n. 3. The first volume was in press in 1616, but was finished only in 1618, while the second was printed immediately afterwards, during the rest of 1618. Volumes one and two were published together in the second half of 1619.

49 The wording of the second ‘demand’ is clearly designed to conceal something: whether it was meant to conceal the condemnation of 2 January or merely the breakdown by mid-1619 of negotiations for a privilege cannot be determined with certainty. Cf. Gamier, op. cit., III, 82.

50 Gamier, III, 81.

51 HU, VII, 4-5.

52 HU, VII, 5-6.

53 Gamier, op. cit., II, 173.

54 HU, ix, 454.

55 Ibid., i, 15-16, quoted in note 42.

56 Cf. p. 254.

57 It is best shown in d'Aubigne's Aventures du baron de Faeneste, begun in early 1617 and added to in later years. In this book Faeneste, who worships only appearances, is opposed to Enay, who sees things as they are. Gamier has shown that Enay represents d'Aubigné's conception of himself (op. cit., III, 44-45). Gamier comments: ‘… Enay ne veut pas parler politique. Son attitude est d'accord avec celle que d'Aubigné adoptait dans une lettre au Roi Louis XIII, ecrite en fevrier 1617…. II profita d'une occasion, un voyage de son gendre, M. de Villette, a Paris, pour y faire porter des protestations de fidelite: “Ce me seroit un grand reboublement [sic] de bonheur s'il plaisoit a Vostre Majeste oiiir de Monsieur de Villette chose que je puis maintenir a toutes sortes de preuves, c'est que despuis la paix de Loudun, je me suis prive de toutes compaignees et que ceux qui III'ont recherche chez moy ne se peuvent vanter que j'aye favorise, ny de parole ny d'effect, aulcun partisan, ne respirant que le service de Vostre Majeste et le repos de ma demiere vieillesse soubz ses bonnes graces.” ‘ (Ibid., III, 46.)

59 These are the terms in which d'Aubigné describes the king in the preface to Les Tragiques (op. cit., I, 31 and 33).