Huguenot Experience of Persecution and Exile – Three Women′s Stories

Colette H. Winn, professor of French at Washington University, specializes in the edition and the study of early modern writings by women.Lauren King is completing a PhD in French literature at Washington University. Her doctoral dissertation examines conceptualizations of the Other in seventeenth-century French literature.

Three Women’s Stories of the Huguenot experience in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France is a fine addition to The Other Voice series. Lively and interesting translations accurately reflect the different styles of the originals. Charlotte Duplessis-Mornay’s Memoir of her husband records her own escape during the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and the death of her son in the religious wars that would follow. Anne de Chaufepié’s Journal, “based on what I wrote in France as those things were happening,” is a fascinatingly detailed account of her own experiences, and those of the women who suffered imprisonment and exile with her. Anne Marguerite Petit Du Noyer, writing nearly twenty years after her own adventurous flight, describes her journey from Lyon to Geneva and on to The Hague.—Jane Couchman, Professor Emerita, Glendon College and the Faculty of Graduate Studies, York University

• Acknowledgments xiiiIntroduction 1The Other Voice 1Charlotte Arbaleste Duplessis-Mornay (1548–1606) 3Anne de Chaufepié (February 20, 1640–?) 7Anne Marguerite Petit Du Noyer (1663–1719) 10A Brief History of the Huguenots 14Calvinist Theology and Human History 18Tales of Survival 23Women Crossing Borders 24Families in Crisis 28Women’s Friendship and Solidarity 32Note on the Translation 38Madame de Mornay, Memoirs (1584–1606) 43Part One: The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre 43Part Two: The Death of Her Son Philippe 53Anne de Chaufepié, Journal (1689) 59Madame Du Noyer, Memoirs (1703–1710) 81AppendicesGlossary of Places 105Table of Currencies and Values 111Chronology 113Testimonial Literature by Huguenot Women 123Bibliography 127Index 139