Charlotte Duplessis-Mornay

Charlotte Duplessis-Mornay (née Arbaleste de la Borde; February 1, 1550 – May 15, 1606) was a French writer of the Reformation, known for her first-person account of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (1572) and for authoring the Memoires de Messire Philippes de Mornay, about her husband, Philippe de Mornay. Family Born Charlotte Arbaleste, in Paris, France, on February 1, 1550, she had three brothers and a sister. Her father was Guy Arbaleste II, Viscount of Melun, Lord of la Borde in 1552. In 1555 he became president of the Paris Chamber of Accounts. He joined the Protestant religion in 1569 and died the following year. Charlotte's mother was a devout Catholic until the day she died in 1590. Life She was born into a well-to-do French family many years before the civil war between the French Catholics and Protestants. During the religious wars in France, her father left the Catholic Church for the Protestant Church, while her mother remained a devout Catholic. Her siblings were divided between Catholic and Protestant, but Charlotte herself left the Catholic Church and remained a devout Protestant. At the age of 17, Charlotte married her first husband, Jean de Pas, the lord of Feuqueres. Jean de Pas was also a converted Protestant, but he had served at the court of Catholic Valois kings in the past. Once they were married, Charlotte was sent by her husband to Sedan, where their daughter was born. Jean died five months later, never meeting his daughter. Charlotte became a Huguenot as an adult and was known for writing a first-person account of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (1572). After being caught up in the massacre she left her daughter in the custody of her Catholic mother and fled to Sedan for safety. In 1576, after she gained notoriety for writing those accounts, she met Philippe de Mornay (1549-1623), a writer who would later become her second husband.