Avec Lipse dans la tourmente Louis du Gardin traducteur de la Diva Virgo Hallensis

The acts and writings of Louis du Gardin (1572-1633), town physician of Douay and professor of medicine at its Catholic University founded in 1560 by King Philip II of Spain, are considered in the context of what is called nowadays the process of “confessionalisation”. Like Saint-Omer, Lille, Valenciennes, Arras and Cambray, the city of Douay, now in the North of France, belonged to the Southern Netherlands under Habsburg rule. The archduchess Isabel, daughter of Philip II, and her spouse Albert, once a cardinal, governed the Netherlands in a spirit true to the decrees of the Council of Trent. The first official publication of Du Gardin is considered in the perspective of the religious politics of Isabel and Albert. This modest publication, dedicated to both, is a translation of the first of Justus Lipsius’ writings in praise of the Virgin Mary. Lipsius, one of the leading humanists of his time, had caused a scandal in the protestant world by leaving the University of Leyden in Holland, founded by William the Silent, leader of the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, and by accepting a chair at the University of Louvain in the Southern Netherlands, where he entered in close contact with major Jesuit scholars and became a mouthpiece of archducal politics. By translating Lipsius’ booklet in praise of the Virgin of Hal, Du Gardin expressed his allegiance to these politics. He was proud to be a former student of J. Viringus, a pious professor of medicine at the University of Louvain, who in later life took religious orders and became a canon of the Notre-Dame cathedral of Arras; in this capacity, he served as a priest at the archducal court. As all his later writings show, Du Gardin became, like his teacher, an ardent promotor of Counter-Reformation ideals. Of special interest is his engagement in the cultural life of the city of Douay, where he spent the rest of his life. As a university professor, he was a prominent member of the small urban society he chose to live in. In many ways he voiced his adherence to Roman Catholic orthodoxy. As a physician, he published his ideas about the exact moment the soul entered the body of a newly born child. As a poet in the city’s leading artistic society, he helped organising a yearly contest of religious poetry. Thus, in all his words and deeds he expressed those convictions he already so strongly adhered to in his rendering in everyday French of Lipsius’ lofty praise of the Diva Virgo Hallensis.