DES ADRETS, FRANcOIS DE BEAUMONT, BARON (c. 1512-1587), French Protestant leader, was born in 1512 or 1513 at the château of La Frette (Isere). In 1562, he joined the Huguenots, probably from motives of ambition and personal dis like of the house of Guise, and waged a successful campaign against the Catholics. In June of that year Des Adrets was master of the greater part of Dauphine. The reprisals he exacted from the Catholics after their massacres of the Huguenots at Orange have left a dark stain upon his name. The garrisons that resisted him were brutally butchered, and at Montbrison, in Forez, he forced 18 prisoners to precipitate themselves from the top of the keep. Having alienated the Huguenots by his pride and violence, he entered into communication with the Catholics and declared himself openly in favour of conciliation. On Jan. 1o, 1563, he was arrested on suspicion by some Huguenot officers and confined for a time in the citadel of Nimes. He died, a Catholic, on Feb. 2, 1587.
See J. Roman, Documents inedits sur le baron des Adrets (1878) ; and memoirs and histories of the time. See also Guy Allard, Vie de Francois de Beaumont (1675) ; l'abbe J. C. Martin, Histoire politique et militaire de Francois de Beaumont (1803) ; Eugene and Emile Haag, La France protestante (2nd ed., 1877 seq.) .