The Memoirs

Early Years and Education

Philippe de Mornay was born at Buhy, in the French Vexin on Nov. 5th 1549, two hours before the dawn, and was baptized the nth day of the same month. His father was Messire Jacques de Mornay, chevalier and lord of Buhy, and his mother was Dame Francoise de Bee Crespin, daughter of Messire Charles de Bee,1 viceadmiral of France, and of Dame Madeleine de Beauvillier, daughter of the Count of Saint- Aignan and of Antoinette de la Tr^mouille. His godfathers were Messire Philippe de Roncherolles, baron of Heuqueville, and his paternal uncle, Messire Bertin de Mornay, granddoyen of Beauvais and abbe" of Saumur au Boz near Boulogne. His godmothers were his maternal great-aunt, Madame Jehanne de Beauvillier, Lady of Puyset and of du Plessis Marly, and Dame de la Neuville, Lady of Morvillier. His nurse, whom I should be loth to forget, was Marguerite Madon, a native of Buhy, a woman of a sweet nature. The late M. de Buhy, his father, lived a blameless life to the age of forty-eight, never once failing to play his part in the wars and to do his service to his King. But the wars once over he retired to his own house, indifferent alike to court life and ambition, although opportunities for both were not lacking. He loved horses, and in peace,

1 Charles de Bee Crespin, Seigneur de Bourri and de Wardes, Vice- Admiral of France.

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as in war, always kept a good establishment ; he took his pleasure with his friends and neighbours and was considered by all to be a very honest and scrupulous man as times then were ; he was a devout worshipper in the Roman Church and brought up his children to be the same ; he loved the poor and was liberal to them ; above all things he hated lying and swearing ; and thus he lived in sweet and honest converse with all men. He died in the year 1559 on the last day of November. God gave him grace at his death to call to mind the many words of good purport which were daily spoken by his wife concerning the errors of the Roman Church which were not unknown to her, and he would have neither priest nor any superstitious ceremony, feeling full assurance of his salvation by the sole passion of Jesus Christ. He was visited, aided and admonished during his illness by M. d'Ambleville and M. de Villarceaux, father and son, his near relatives and bearing the same surname, and also by Master Antoine Quarr£, a doctor of Gisors and by Mademoiselle de Buhy, his wife, who had herself called them all in, knowing that they were instructed in the true faith. Thus he passed from this life into that of the blessed on the eve of St Andrew at the hour of noon. His body was buried at Buhy where it lies at rest till the last day. He made no will, telling Mademoiselle de Buhy, his wife, that he left his children and his house in her care in full confidence.

This same Dame Francoise de Bee, his wife, was thus left a widow at the age of twenty-nine, having been married at sixteen and having borne her husband tenchildren, of whom four sons and two daughters were living, all very young. Now for the past six or seven years she had had her eyes opened to the errors of the Papacy and had longed to profess the reformed religion. But the fires of persecution were still at that time alight in France and terror for the ruin of her house made her dissemble, the more so as M. de Buhy, her husband, was not of one mind with her. She often spoke with him on the subject and some-

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times he would find her reading the Bible or the Psalms or some other book, at which he never showed any displeasure ; merely warning her not to bring him into trouble seeing how cruel the times were. So now being a widow she had no wish to make any sudden change nor to declare herself openly before the funeral ceremonies and obsequies were over. And when the late M. d'Ambleville, father of M. de Villarceaux, cadet of the Mornay family, and Madame de Villarceaux, his daughter-in-law, told her how wrong she was, knowing the errors of Rome, to go on practising them and this all the more because her late husband had scorned its superstitions at his death, she replied that she had no mind to begin with the funeral ceremonies lest it should be said that she did it to save the twelve or fifteen hundred crowns they would cost her. This being so she observed all the ordinary mourning and ceremonies. Later on and little by little she left off going to mass, now on the pretext of her mourning, now on that of ill-health, but she continued to send her children, more especially the younger ones. At length warned by God in a grievous illness she and all her children made public profession in the year 1560, and ever after she persevered in the same faith in spite of wars, persecutions and massacres. Nor did she spare to do everything that lay in her power for even in the time of the St Bartholomew, when the Scripture was silenced throughout the land, it was still read in her house.

As for her family and household she had always ruled them with much honour and praise from all, and now in her widowhood she continued to spend all her time in building up and taking care of her children's welfare, in •* which she took a singular pleasure all the days of her life. She married one of the daughters left to her, Francoise de Mornay, to Anthony le S£ndchal, Seigneur d'Auberville, a scion of one of the oldest families of Normandy who professed the true religion, of which marriage there were several children. She has still two sons left to her and at this very hour when I write she is busied in

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dividing the property of the late M. de Buhy and her own between them, they having come to an agreement together and having begged her to be their sole arbitrator, so that, when it should please God to call her, they can live in the same friendship which has lasted unbroken through her lifetime and can each retire to live in peace in his own house at her death.

The elder is M. Pierre de Mornay, Seigneur de Buhy, etc., who married Dame Anne d'Enlezy, sole heiress of a good family in Bourbonnais, and whose father owned a great deal of land in Normandy which she inherited. The second son is Philippe de Mornay, lord of Plessis, etc., my highly honoured lord and husband, about whom I have a mind to write, with God's help, as a means of strengthening our posterity in their fear of God and in their hope in Him after we are gone hence.

Now Philippe, after having been reared under the care of his foster-mother in his father's house up to the age of five, was placed in the charge of one Adrian, priest of Beauvais, so that he might be taught reading and writing and the rudiments of latin. At that time it was under consideration whether Philippe should enter the Church ; and this was all the more likely because Messire Bertin de Mornay, granddoyen of Beauvais and abbe of Saumur near Boulogne, who enjoyed over 20,000 livres in benefices, was very fond of the child and was willing to resign them all in his favour. But God, not wishing that Philippe should be plunged into idolatry, removed this temptation by the death of his uncle, the granddoyen, who died in his abbey of Saumur in October 1556. Feeling himself stricken with illness he sent for his brother, M. de Buhy, who went to his aid, but Mademoiselle de Buhy, his sister-in-law, could not go for she was then great with child. The granddoyen left his brother sole heir of all his patrimony and bequeathed to his nephew, Philippe de Mornay, all his property which was not entailed, both what he had inherited and what he had since acquired. He showed the greatest regret at dying before he had

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done all that he wished and intended to do for his brother and nephews. However M. de Buhy, on account of his grief at the approaching loss of a brother whom he dearly loved, would not allow a word to be said on the subject of the resignation of these benefices ; and the sick man himself neither remembered nor spoke of them in spite of the goodwill which he manifested up to his last moment for all his family, and more especially for Philippe de Mornay, who was the only person to whom he bequeathed anything. After his death the late M. de Lizy, Archbishop of Aries (of the house of Monjay), their cousin and very good friend, who had credit at the court, induced the late King Henri (II) to give all the granddoyen's benefices to the late M. Disgue, chancellor to Queen Eleanor of Austria,1 who was M. de Buhy's maternal uncle, and this he did in the hope that they would thus be secured to Philippe through him. But as M. Disgue was eighty years old M. d'Estrde,2 grandmaster of the artillery, immediately obtained a grant for their reversion from King Henri II, so that as M. Disgue died two years afterwards without resigning them in favour of his great-nephews they passed out of the Mornay family. Manifestly it was God in His mercy who so ordered things for, having later on come to a knowledge of the true religion, it would have been a great hindrance to that open profession of faith which, by God's help, they made.

At the death of the late Dean M. du Plessis was seven years old. At that time he was in the care of Gabriel Prestat of Sedan in Brie, who taught him, but without appearing to do so, the principles of the true religion of which he himself had knowledge. But he did not openly discuss them, partly because of Philippe's childish age and partly for fear of M. de Buhy, who was ignorant that his son's pr^cepteur was a lutheran, as they were then

1 Widow of Francois I. sister of Charles V Emperor.

2 Jean, Marquis d'Estree, 1486-1471. Grandfather of Gabrielle d'Estree.

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called. It was Mademoiselle de Buhy, his mother, who had taken pains, through M. Morel, a learned man in much repute at that time, to engage Maitre Prestat, so that her sons might be instructed betimes in the fear of God. He had under his charge Pierre and Philippe de Mornay, her two elder sons (the others were too young), and he also had one of her nephews, George de Bee Crespin, now Seigneur of Bourry. To keep M. de Buhy in ignorance of the religion of the said Prestat and of the instruction that he was giving the boys, after he and his pupils had lived for some time at Buhy, Mile, de Buhy sent them all to her eldest brother's house, where Prestat was well known, and where M. du Bourry approved of the teaching given to his son and nephews. M. du Plessis made his first efforts in scholarship at Bourry and gave promise that he would make rapid progress. At the age of eight, towards the end of 1557, Philippe was taken to Paris by his father, M. de Buhy, and placed in the College of Lisieux, in the charge of Maitre Paschal Diepart, who is at present practising as an advocate at Rouen. He belonged to the Roman Church and instructed Philippe in its practices. Not long after Maitre Diepart betook himself to the study of the law and left his pupil in the hands of Maitre Marin Liberge, a native of Mantes, now docteur regent at Angers ; this Maitre Liberge, besides being himself devoted to the Roman religion, had in his house a canon named La Chapelle who never let a day pass without hearing M. du Plessis recite his hours and vigils, and so imbued the boy with these observances that he became very diligent in them of his own accord. M. de Buhy, coming to Paris observed his son carefully and bade him grow up a worthy man and to go daily to Mass, in which the whole of religion seemed to consist. He was at this college for two years but his studies were greatly interrupted by illnesses so that he never got beyond the fourth form.

On his father's death Mile, de Buhy sent for him so that he might take his part in the funeral ceremonies

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and the mourning for the late M. de Buhy, his father. She chose for his escort a certain Maitre Jean de Luz, a priest and since Curate of Magny, who, suspecting that Mile, de Buhy had no love for the Roman religion, began to sermonize and admonish M. du Plessis on their way home bidding him to remain a good catholic and to live as he had been taught and not to be led astray by his mother's lutheran opinions. This talk troubled the boy and he answered in his childish way that he certainly wanted to remain a catholic but that if he were troubled in his mind he would read attentively in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles, and would conform himself with what he found therein. Thereupon Maitre Jean de Luz made answer that if he did so he would assuredly be lost, and that he must content himself with what he had been taught and that reading books was very dangerous. When he reached Buhy he found all his brothers and sisters with his mother. His eldest brother, Pierre de Mornay, now sieur of Buhy, recently returned from his service as page to the late King Francois II, had been with his mother several times to hear the Word preached at M. de Lizy's house. He had also learnt his catechism and had tried to lend it to his father, but M. de Buhy had refused, being loth to read in any suspect book. He had got hold of a New Testament printed by Rouville of Lyons, in Latin and French, by privilege of the King and with the approbation of the Sorbonne, and in this he diligently studied, seeking to enlighten himself and praying God's help. As he read and re-read he noticed that purgatory and prayers to the saints were never mentioned, whereas idolatry and so forth were expressly forbidden. This made him begin to doubt in other matters and to read not only more carefully but in other books as well, and so little by little he came to a true understanding of the Lord's Supper. Thus, by the grace of God who had turned him to the study of the truth, point after point was searched into, and from the moment that he was enlightened he resolved to

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go no more to Mass although his mother did still occasionally attend. Soon after, and a little before the Colloquy of Poissy in 1561, the whole family, by the goodness of God, forsook idolatry and made open profession of that faith in which we all with His help hope to live and die. About this time M. Philippe de Bee, then Bishop of Vannes and nowadays of Nantes, was awakened to a knowledge of some of the abuses of the Roman Church, and he spoke with some freedom on the subject to his sister, Mile, de Buhy, even lending her certain books which he had formerly brought from England. The bishop was fond of his nephew, M. du Plessis, and thought well of him and intended to resign a part of his benefices in his favour, and so when the boy first went to college he had been dressed as if he were intended for the church. But from the moment that God had opened his eyes even a little to the abuses of the church, Philippe would hear no more talk of taking orders. Some time after his father's death he returned to Paris to the house of M. Prdbet who lived at the back of Boncourt College. He entered the second class and made good progress, and this without taking part in any act of idolatry. Several children of good family were brought up together there, among others the cadets of Rambouillet and Bellenave. But once more, by an ill-luck which seemed to pursue his studies, he could only follow them for two months for in consequence of the troubles which started again in France in 15621 pressure was put on his conscience. In the case of his school-fellows this was successful, but he decided to let his mother know at once. She immediately sent Crespin Guaultrin, her receiver, and some of her servants to bring him home. This Crespin was attached to M. du Plessis, because, in the lifetime of his father, he had been selected to be the guardian of his property on the occasion of the purchase of Ouatimesnil by his uncle the Dean in his nephew's name and for the boy's profit. As a plague was then raging in Paris, and

1 Massacre at Vassy, ist March~i562.

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as even in the very house two of his school-fellows had died of it, M. Prdbet physicked M. du Plessis so severely that he was very ailing in consequence. Notwithstanding his condition he set out the very next day, with a Greek primer tucked between his tunic and his shoulders. On account of the troubles the city gates were guarded. As they were undergoing an interrogation at the Porte St Honore" there chanced to pass by the Corpus Domini, as they call it, on its way to a sick man. M. du Plessis slipped through as nimbly as he could, but if the said Crespin, who was a catholic, had not knelt in adoration he might not have escaped so easily, for every one knows that in those days men and women were killed in Paris by the mob on the merest breath of suspicion. He reached Buhy and immediately fell ill of a severe attack of pleurisy which was followed by a wasting fever. He was then thirteen years old. The doctors attending him thought the illness was caused by the fatigue of the journey following on the severe purging to which he had been subjected and which had heated his blood. His illness lasted nearly three months and during it his mother was obliged to leave her house, on account of the troubles, and to take refuge with Mile, de Montagny, her maternal aunt, who lived a league away from Buhy. She had with her the six children still left to her, four of whom were ill, and her two nephews, M. du Bourry's sons. She took them all, Philippe and Anne de Mornay accompanying her in her own coach as they were the most ill. The whole family stayed at Montagny till the troubles were over and during the whole of the time all her children and both her nephews were ill. M. du Plessis' illness again interrupted his studies and made him forget all that he had hitherto learnt. Seeing which, and he being then thirteen years old, his mother thought of making him into a page, but he begged and prayed her so earnestly not to do this that she abandoned the project, for above all things he longed to get back to his studies.

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Taking his wishes into consideration she next thought of placing him with the Chevalier d'Angouleme,1 since Grand prieur of France, who was carrying out his studies in M. Morel's house, in the hope that M. du Plessis might acquire learning and good manners at one and the same time. But at last she yielded to his persistence and she sent him back to Paris. She engaged as his tutor M. Lazare Ramigny, a native of Linsle in the mountains of Nice, in Provence, a religious and a learned man but vehement in his temper like all his countrymen. He was recommended by M. Mercier, the King's Professor in the Hebrew tongue. M. du Plessis set seriously to make up for time lost through his illnesses and the troubles. Inasmuch as he had to begin over again almost at the very beginning he should have gone to a private college where the lessons are not so difficult, but seeing how tall he was grown he was ashamed to do this. Accordingly he attended the public lectures, and worked so hard during the next three or four years that he overtook, and even outstripped, those of his own age.

Half-way through the four years that he spent at Paris his maternal uncle, the Bishop of Nantes,2 arrived in the city. After testing him in his knowledge of Greek by glancing through several books, his uncle discussed the question of religion with him. Since the troubles began the Bishop had been to the Council of Trent with the Cardinal de Lorraine s and had stifled the knowledge which he had formerly had of the truth. He told M. du Plessis that he had no wish to press him before he was come to a riper judgment, but that his opinions on religion would change with age. M. du Plessis answered, " Sir, if it is nothing but an opinion it would be better to change it at once. I am quite ready to receive instruction and to justify my faith." And at that time no more was said. But on the morrow the Bishop told him that he

1 Henri d'Angouleme, son of Henri II and Lady Flemming. * Philippe de Bee, Bishop of Nantes, 1566-1594, Archbishop of Rheims, 1598-1605. » Charles de Lorraine, 2nd son of Claude, Due de Guise, 1524-1574.

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wanted him to read in the Fathers and that he would see that a bookseller lent him the books. Some days later he spoke of resigning his bishopric in his nephew's favour, and until he attained canonical age, he proposed to make over to him the prevote of Vertou, which he could hold without making any change in religion, on the mere strength of the tonsure he already wore as a student. M. du Plessis thanked him, but said that God would not let him want for anything, for he was loth to lay himself under an obligation to his uncle, lest it should prove a stumbling-block and a reason for following his uncle's counsels. After the Bishop's return to Brittany M. du Plessis wrote to him once a fortnight, dwelling on those passages in the writings of the Fathers, which he diligently read as directed, which confirmed him more and more in the chief points of the (reformed) religion.

At this same time M. de Menneville, the youngest of the Heuqueville family, was studying in Paris and was sometimes to be seen at M. de Longueville's ' house. One day when there, in the presence of the duke's mother, the Marquise de Rothelin * who was of our religion, he boasted that he could defeat the most learned huguenot ministers in a disputation. This boast made her ask if there were no scholar of his own age and rank who would hold an argument with him. M. du Plessis was mentioned, and so she sent for him and told him of her wish. When he heard who was the other disputant he told her they were related but that as it was for religion, and was moreover a discussion in all friendliness, he would not allow the relationship to be a bar. She gathered together a company at her own house, the Hotel Rothelin near les Enfans Rouges, among whom was M. de Longueville her son, the Marquis de Rothelin,8 the count de Rochefort,

1 Leonor d'Orleans succeeded his uncle Francois III, Due de Longueville,

a Jacqueline de Rohan, widow of Francois d'Orleans, Marquis de Rothelin.

* Francois d'Orleans, illegitimate half-brother of Leonor, Due de Longueville.

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M. d'Entragues and several more. The discussion opened on Purgatory, the subject having been set several days beforehand, but after arguments on the one side and the other, M. de Rochefort stopped the disputation, not caring to have it carried further on this point. But as it was only fair to see which of the two had studied best, books in Hebrew, Greek and Mathematics were produced and M. de Menneville had to confess that his studies had not gone so far as M. du Plessis'. Next, the " Timaeus " of Plato was brought forward and discussed till night fell and brought the meeting to a close, since which event M. de Menneville has always felt a certain grudge against M. du Plessis.