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Marguerite d'la Bergerac

© Virginia Marin

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In my previous article, I introduced the Society For Creative Anachronism. Today, I would like to present my persona, Marguerite d'la Bergerac, a Huguenot who lives in the French town of Bergerac in Guyenne. This is a folktale of my family and something of their lives as Huguenots before the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Although a tale, the events and locations are based on fact for, in actuality, Marguerite and Pierre are two of my immigrant ancestors and progenitors...

In the name of God. Amen. I, Marguerite Villepontoux d'la Bergerac, forty and six years of age, formerly of Bergerac in Guyenne of France do pledge allegiance in the duty of being loyal to my new country on the shores of the Great Ocean, and in the Colony of New Amsterdam, on this day, the thirteenth of April, in the year of our Lord, sixteen-hundred-and-twenty-six. New Amsterdam. Our home.

My vision wandered over our small group as my Pierre took my hand and pulled me and our three children close to him. Moist eyes caught sight of our pastor, the Reverend Jabot, his big smile fortelling a future of hope and safety. But, it was not always so...

I was born in 1580 in Bergerac, one of ten children to Jaques Gervais and Jeanne (nee Rivasson). My parents were French Protestants, Calvinists, by specific belief. We were one of several families in Guyenne who upheld the doctrines of the Reformer Jean Calvin who lived between 1509 and 1564. We were collectively known to our countrymen as Huguenots. The Huguenots were not well-liked, but our French compatriots, thinking we were somewhat lax in intelligence, put up with us as long as we remained in the background and kept quiet.

The Nuns of Lisseaux, though aware of our proclivity to non-Catholic belief, provided me with an excellent education which included Latin, mathematics, the clasics and all of the needle skills befitting young ladies whose life would be devoted to her home and family. They seemed to take pride in the fact that a Calvinist possessed the probity to complete classical studies, though this was not strange to me or to my family.

Life was fairly static between our two religious groups, though there were sporatic rifts which the King frowned upon. But for my parents and grandparents there was a time of horrible bloodletting--the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. This was the slaugter of the French Huguenots which began on St. Bartholomew's Day, the twenty-fourth of August, fifteen-hundred-and-seventy-two, in Paris and the provences. It began at the instigation of Catherine de'Medici, the mother of Charles IX. I have heard tell that fifty-thousand souls murdered is a low number.

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