La Justice de Dieu: 'Les Tragiques' d'Agrippa d'Aubigné et la Réforme protestante en France au XVIe siècle by Elliott Forsyth

Abstract

MLR, 10I .4, 2oo6 IIII le lieu pacifique n'exclut pas la presence d'une nature menaSante et des cataclysmes de l'Histoire' (p. I I3). Also included in this edition are, first, the text of five sonnets (I572-76), belonging to the tradition of 'eloges des femmes illustres' but linking up with the general philosophical tendencies of the two major collections, and, second, in appendices but fully annotated, the remainder of Pibrac's poetry in French. Petris provides a chronological overview, an exhaustive list of editions, each with one local ization, and a full list of significant variants in those printed during Pibrac's lifetime. A glossary, index, table of incipits and full bibliography complete this model edition. UNIVERSITYOFWALES, LAMPETER TREVORPEACH La 7ustice de Dieu: 'Les Tragiques' d'Agrippa d'Aubigne et laReforme protestante en France au xvie siecle. By ELLIOTT FORSYTH. (Etudes et Essais sur laRenais sance, 57) Paris: Champion. 2005. 567 pp. ?IO5. ISBN 2-7453-I I28-X. Having amply treated the notion of vengeance in the French tragedies of the Renais sance and the baroque period (La TragMdiefranraise deyodelle a Corneille I553-I640 (Paris: Champion, I994)), Elliott Forsyth continues to approach the additional ques tion of divine justice in thework by Agrippa d'Aubigne entitled Les Tragiques. These two themes aremore closely related than one might suppose since the justice present inAubigne's work takes on an essentially vindictive form. The crucial problem with which the Protestants who experienced the religious wars were faced is the following: how to reconcile divine grace and justice with the contemporary events which showed the oppressors triumphing with impunity and the just being persecuted without any apparent reaction from God? Forsyth traces a three-phased evolution of the idea of justice during the Renaissance. In Calvinist thought, the notion of Providence em phasizes the value of salvation in divine justice, which in turn authorizes tribulations as away of testing and correcting the faithful. Yet the reality of the wars rather dis credits this point of view and pushes Calvin's successors to emphasize a punitive aspect of justice which would promise the due punishment of the oppressors for their crimes. After theMassacre of Saint Bartholomew, when there isno apparent evidence of an act of punishment from God, consideration of justice moves to an apocalyptic structure with the Final Judgement carrying the banner of hope, hope that is founded on the immediate judgement of the perverted. The first part (Chapters I and 2) provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of the notion of justice through research in the biblical texts and in the writings of the primary Reformers. Three essential distinctions can be displayed. First there is the difference between two types of justice, which correspond to two different words inHebrew (tsedeq and mishpat): the justice of salvation (iustitia Dei) and the justice of punishment or judgement (iudicium), the first corresponding to providential will designed for the good of the faithful in the scope of the Alliance, the second aimed at the application of the principles of uprightness and equity. Then there is the defini tion of three phases of punitive action: chastisement (of the sinners in order to reform them), vengeance (against the enemies of God, instruments of the punishment of the population), and judgement (which inaugurates the definitive reign of God). Finally there is the distinction between prophecy (which seeks to influence present actions and believes in the possibility of redemption) and apocalypse (which is aimed at the End and insists not on pardon but on the interruption of the cycle of justice). In the second part (Chapters 3 to 7) Forsyth analyses the theme of justice in Les Tragiques. He applies the three-part scheme to the structure of the poem by making Books Iand II the punishment phase, Books iii, Iv, and v he describes as an interme diary moment (God's 'patience', which awaits the 'height of sin' before intervening), I I I2 Reviews Book vi as vengeance, and Book vii as judgement. This part is by far themost fastidi ous. It iscertainly useful for its collection of references to the Bible and toCalvinism as well as for itsmeticulous display of apocalyptic themes and...