Pierre du Moulin’s Quest for Protestant Unity, 1613-18

Abstract

Pierre Du Moulin was the leading intellectual in the French Reformed Church in the early seventeenth century. His influence within French Protestantism rivalled and complemented that of Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, the prominent nobleman, soldier, and adviser to Henry of Navarre, the Huguenot leader who became Henry IV of France. If Duplessis-Mornay was, as he is sometimes called, the ‘Huguenot Pope’, Du Moulin, the pastor of the congregation of Protestants in Paris, was the chief cardinal. A prolific writer and a skilful speaker, Du Moulin became noted for his success as a polemicist. Yet during a period of five years, 1613–18, Du Moulin was also the chief spokesman for a plan which would unite the English, Calvinist, and Lutheran Churches. The rather startling final point of the plan called for the reunited Protestants to make a fresh approach to Rome. Du Moulin’s volte-face in 1613-18 — his sudden emergence as an irenicist — has never been satisfactorily explained.