Man of letters and man of war, Agrippa d’Aubigné was born in the area surrounding Pons (Saintonge) in 1552. At first, companion of Henry IV, he retreated after the abdication of the king and, from 1550 to 1601, wrote his Universal History, devoted to the French reform party. The work brought him exile and in 1620 he sought refuge in Geneva, where he had already lived as a student. To be precise, he chose to live in Jussy, where he had built what is now known as the Château du Crest.

Agrippa d’Aubigné worked to provide the city of Calvin with new fortifications (Saint-Jean and Saint-Victor) and to bring together the Swiss towns into a federation of protestant powers.

At the end of his life, the author of Les Tragiques was to regret the recantation of his son, Constant, who would later father Françoise d’Aubigné, the future Madame de Maintenon.

It is ironic that the grand-daughter of the Calvinist writer married Louis XIV, who would revoke the Edict of Nantes which guaranteed freedom of belief to the Huguenots and which his grandfather Henry IV had granted them largely due to pressure from Agrippa d’Aubigné.

© UNHCR