AUBIGNE, 6'1WDyfi', THEODORE AGRIPPA D' le.1550-10301. A French 'Huguenot soldier, mili tant poet, historian, and statesman. Iic was born near the town of Pons in Saintonge. As a child he was a brilliant classical scholar. He early em braced the Huguenot cause, was captured, con demned to death, escaped, and in 1564 was present at the siege of Orleans, where his father was killed. His guardian sent him to Geneva to escape persecution. Ile studied under Beza, but in 1567 enlisted under Conde, and later served Henry of Navarre as soldier, and sometimes over candid counselor. After Henry's assassination AnbignO fell into disfavor, and in 1620 sought refuge at Geneva, whence he superintended the fortifications of Bern and Basel. In spite of his storm-tossed life, he had found time to produce much of value to literature and to contemporary history. His Histoirc •-niverselle. 1550-101, published at Amsterdam (1616-20), was officially burned in France, as was also his autobiographi cal Histoire secrete, on its appearance in 1721. These are very valuable, but bitterly satirical, as is his controversial Confession eatholiquc du Ftieur de Sauey and Les arentures du baron de Fa'neste (1617), one of the earliest realistic novels of the Seventeenth Century. His greatest work, begun while recovering from a wound (1577), is a group of satirical poems, Les tra gigues (1616), which are sombre and unexcelled descriptions of the horrors of religious warfare. They are divided into "The Miseries," "The Princes," "The Gilded Chamber" (i.e. the courts), "The Fires," "The Swords," "The Vengeances," and "The Judgment," where the Huguenot, oppressed on earth, cites his persecutor be fore the bar of God at the Resurrection. The
9000 verses are a strange mingling of beauty and chaos, often reckless, sometimes obscure, but with passages of a fierce inspiration, a brilliant imaginative enthusiasm, that have earned de served immortality, both for their own sake, as the noble utterance of an offended conscience, and as a true expression of the faith, courage, restless searching of spirit, presumption, and pride, that characterized the movement in which he bore a brave part. He is a striking figure, writing with the style of Rabelais and the spirit of Henri Estienne (see STEPHANUS) in the days of Malherbe and Richelieu, without elegance, clear ness, precision, or composition, but with the energy born of the Renaissance and the Reforma tion. An almost universal scholar in the learn ing of his time, AubignO was never a pedant. For that he was too sincere, intense, earnest; and, even in bitterness, he strove to be just. Thus his History presents the mind of his epoch, even when it distorts its facts. His complete Works have been edited by Reaume and Caussade (6 vols., 1873-93), the Tragiques by Lalanne (1857) and Heade (1872) ; Histoire unirerselle, by Ruble (1886-97). Consult: Morillot, Discours sur la vie et les a-urres d'Agrippa d'Aubigne (Paris, ]885) ; Salis, Agrippa d'Aubigne (Heidelberg, 1885), and a Life in French by G. Guizot, Agrip pa d'Aubigne (Paris, 1890) ; also Ki3rting, Gc sehichte des franzosischen Romans in XVII. Jahrhundert (Oppelmi, 1891).