, a very celebrated French Protestant, was son to John D‘Aubigne,
, a very celebrated French Protestant, was son to John D‘Aubigne, lord of Brie, in Saintonge, and born in 1550 at St. Maury. He made such proficiency under his preceptors, that at eight years old he was able to translate the Crito of Plato. Having lost his father, who left him only his name and his debts, at the age of thirteen, he betook himself to the profession of arms, for which a spirit and zeal particularly ardent and persevering seemed to have qualified him. He accordingly attached himself to Henry then king of Navarre, who made him successively gentleman of his bed-chamber, marshal of the camp, governor of the island and castle of Maillezais, vice-admiral of Guienne and Bretagne, and what D’Aubigne valued most, his favourite. But he lost this last honour by a want of subserviency to his pleasure, and a stern and uncourtly inflexibility. It is well known that ingratitude was not the failing of Henry IV. yet he expended so much in conciliating the catholic lords, that he was often incapable of rewarding his old servants as they deserved, and with the utmost esteem for D‘Aubigne, he had bestowed little else upon him, and was probably not sorry for any pretence to get rid of him. D’Aubigne, displeased with his conduct, left the court, and although Henry intreated and demanded his return, continued inexorable, until he accidentally learnt that upon a false report of his being made a prisoner at the siege of Limoges, the king had ordered him to be ransomed at a great expence. Penetrated by this mark of returning kindness, he again came to court, but persisted in giving the king both advice and reproaches, in a blunt and sometimes satirical manner, which the king scarcely knew how to tolerate, while he felt conscious of the value of so sincere a friend and counsellor.
, a very celebrated French protestant minister, and of the same
, a very celebrated French protestant minister, and of the same family with Charles da
Moulin, was born at Vexin Oct. 18, 1568. He imbibed
the rudiments of literature at Sedan; and, when he arrived at twenty years of age, was sent to finish his education in England, where he became a member of Christ
college in Cambridge. After a residence of four years in
England, he went to Holland in the retinue of the duke
of Wirtemberg, but was shipwrecked in his passage, and
lost all his books and baggage. This occasioned his elegant poem entitled “Votiva Tabula,
” which did him great
credit, and procured him many friends. The French ambassador became one of his patrons (for Henry IV. at that time sent protestant ambassadors into protestant countries),
and recommended him to the queen- mother, by whose interest he obtained the professorship of philosophy at Leyden, then vacant. This he held for five or six years; and
among other disciples, who afterwards became celebrated,
be had Hugo Grotius. He read lectures upon Aristotle,
and disciplined his scholars in the art of disputing; of
which he made himself so great a master, that he was
enabled to enter with great spirit and success into the controversies with the catholics. Scaliger was very much his
patron; and when Du Moulin published his Logic at Ley.
den in 1596, said of the epistle prefatory, “haec epistola
non est hujus sevi.
” He taught Greek also in the divinity
schools, in which he was extremely well skilled, as appears
from his book entitled “Novitas Papismi,
” where he exposes cardinal Perron’s ignorance of that language.