DUPLESSIS MORNAY, PHILIPPE. - Calvinist writer, b. at Buhy in the Vexin on 5 Nov. 1549, d. at La Forêt-sur-Sèvre on 11 Nov. 1623. Drawn from childhood toward Calvinism, he placed the resources of a brilliant intellect and above all of an intensely active life at the service of heresy, which earned him the title of "pope of the Huguenots." The painful episode of the night of St. Bartholomew drove him to publish, under the pseudonym Brutus Stephanus Iunius, the important work: Vindiciae contra tyrannos, Edinburgh 1579 (this authorship, however, is not yet settled by scholars), from which the Huguenots drew the polemical weapons to defend the right of rebellion. Through his skill he succeeded in gaining the confidence of Henry IV, King of Navarre, who appointed him his counselor. He exploited this position to the advantage of his coreligionists, pressing the king to promulgate the Edict of Nantes (1598).
The publication of a work of his on the Eucharist: De l'institution, usage et doctrine de l'Eucharistie en Eglise ancienne, comment, quand et par quels degrez la Messe s'est introduite à sa place (La Rochelle 1598), rekindled most vigorously the struggle with Catholics, who found their defender in the Bishop of Evreux, Jacques Davy Du Perron. D. P. had adduced in support of his thesis an abundant body of material, nearly 5000 citations, drawn from the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers with evident haste, without the most elementary criticism. It was easy for Du Perron to accuse D. P., before public opinion, of incompetence and bad faith; and D. P., stung to the quick, demanded a disputation. The affair went beyond the limits of a simple polemic; the fame of the two men created a singular expectation in the public. Henry IV, having meanwhile become a Catholic and manifestly favoring the return of the Calvinists to the Church, willingly consented that the dispute take place at Fontainebleau, entrusting the presidency to Bellièvre and appointing two Catholics and two Calvinists as arbiters. D. P. at first sought to postpone the meeting; then, compelled by circumstances to sustain the debate, he defended himself so poorly that Du Perron won an easy triumph. D. P., however, wished to make a self-defense and presented the meeting of Fontainebleau in a very different light in the Discours véritable de la conférence tenue a Fontainebleau (Paris, Sedan, La Rochelle, Montauban 1600), which not only failed to reconcile him to favor, but harmed him all the more because his opponent found himself compelled to make public the proceedings of the meeting: Actes de la conférence tenue a Fontainebleau (Evreux 1601). D. P., irritated, tried to reopen the debate by publishing a Réponse au livre publié par le sieur Évesque d'Evreux (Saumur 1602), but by now his prestige was compromised. Nor did his other work, published about 10 years later, profit him: Le mystère d'inquiète (ibid. 1611), full of poisonous attacks against the Pope, whom he presented as a usurper of authority. He also wrote 4 vols. of Mémoires, published posthumously, the first two at La Forêt 1624-25 and the other two at Amsterdam 1652-53. All his works are on the Index (decrees 31 May 1629; 11 Sept. 1629).