Aubigné, Agrippa d' (Théodore Agrippa d' Aubigné) (1552-1630). French poet, historian, satirist, and polemicist of the Protestant Reformation, and also a long-serving soldier. He was educated in Paris and Geneva in both humanism and reformed doctrine. In 1560, after the Conjuration d'Amboise, his father made him swear vengeance on the heads of those executed; he fought at Jarnac and in other battles and became a companion of Henri de Navarre (later Henri IV). His love for Diane Salviati, niece of Ronsard's Cassandre, was thwarted by her family and inspired his Printemps (Hécatombe à Diane, Stances, and Odes), written 1571-3, later repudiated as ‘un printemps de péchés’ and not published until 1874. In spite of some Petrarchan preciosity, the evident sincerity of these poems and their basis in lived experience, together with the contrast between the serenity of love and the despair of rejection, conveyed by images of violence and war, continue to attract readers.
At the time of the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre d'Aubigné was absent from Paris by chance, but this tragic event was of great psychological importance to him. During 1573-6 he joined Henri de Navarre in Paris and lived as a courtier, a life he later regretted. After being wounded at Castel-Jaloux in 1577, he broke with Henri and began to write Les Tragiques, most of which was completed by 1579 and circulated in manuscript. He continued to fight for the cause until the conversion of Henri in 1593, which he had done his best to prevent. He then devoted his energies to Protestant assemblies. He continued to add to Les Tragiques after 1600, and published the book in 1616, and again, after condemnation by the Châtelet in 1620, with further additions in 1623.
D'Aubigné wrote another work, parallel to Les Tragiques, entitled L'Histoire universelle; he started it in 1601 and published it progressively from 1618 to 1620. This chronological prose version of some of the same events owes something to the historian de Thou. D'Aubigné intended it to be more complete and impartial than Les Tragiques, but it is still passionately committed. In a lighter vein is the satirical prose work Aventures du baron de Faeneste (published 1617-30 and then not again until 1855), a picaresque novel which contrasts d'Aubigné himself, in the character of Enay (from the Greek einai, to be), with Faeneste (from phainesthai, to appear). The Confession catholique du sieur de Sancy, mostly written 1598-1600 but not published until 1660, is a court satire attacking Protestants who abjure their faith, directed primarily at Sancy, but also at cardinal du Perron, who helped to convert him to Catholicism (this book has similarities with ‘Princes’ in Les Tragiques).
In 1620 d'Aubigné fled to Geneva after being involved in a conspiracy, and there he was entrusted with various military responsibilities. In 1628 he was present at the siege of La Rochelle. In the following year he composed his autobiography, Sa vie à ses enfants, and in 1630 (the year in which he died) he published his Méditations sur les Psaumes and Petites Œuvres mêlées, containing Poésies religieuses and Psaumes en vers mesurés.
[Peter Sharratt]
Bibliography
- J. Bailbé, Agrippa d'Aubigné. Poète des Tragiques (1968)
- M. Soulié, L'Inspiration biblique dans la poésie religieuse d'Agrippa d'Aubigné (1977)
