Constructing and disseminating an ideal figure through Memoirs: the example of the Huguenot pastor Pierre Du Moulin in the second half of the 17th century

We know of two versions of a singular memoir by the Huguenot pastor Pierre Du Moulin (1568??? 1658): one was published in the nineteenth century and the other is still in manuscript form. Each was written during a different period of the seventeenth century, and while these are the works of Du Moulin, the manuscripts are not in his handwriting. This article analyzes the idealized figure of the pastor that these versions formed and disseminated in France and in other countries where the Protestants had taken refuge. The study of these two versions of the memoir illustrates how gradually the exemplary figure of both a pastor and a believer was created. The comparison of the text reveals that this process of idealization was reinforced from one text to the other, thus linking the policy of repression carried out by the French monarchy, which reached its climax with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. It also shows the process of identity and memory building being carried out within the Huguenot community at the end of the seventeenth century.