D'Aubigne's satirical tale, _Les Aventures du Baron de Faeneste_, contrasts the man who _appears_--spreading his plumes in the sunshine of the court--with the man who _is_, the man who lives upon his estate, among his rustic neighbours, tilling his fields and serving his people and his native land. As an elegiac poet D'Aubigne is little more than a degenerate issue from the Pleiade. It is in his vehement poem of mourning and indignation and woe, _Les Tragiques_, begun in 1577 but not published till 1616, that his power is fully manifested. To D'Aubigne, as its author, the characterisation of Sainte-Beuve exactly applies: "Juvenal du xvi. siecle, apre, austere, inexorable, herisse d'hyperboles, etincelant de beautes, rachetant une rudesse grossiere par une sublime energie." In seven books it tells of the misery of France, the treachery of princes, the abuse of public law and justice, the fires and chains of religious persecution, the vengeance of God against the enemies of the saints, and the final judgment of sinners, when air and fire and water become the accusers of those who have perverted the powers of nature to purposes of cruelty. The poem is ill composed, its rhetoric is often strained or hard and metallic, its unrelieved horrors oppress the heart; but the cry of true passion is heard in its finer pages; from amid the turmoil and smoke, living tongues of flame seem to dart forth which illuminate the gloom. The influence of _Les Tragiques_ may still be felt in passages of Victor Hugo's fulgurant eloquence. In the midst of strife, however, there were men who pursued the disinterested service of humanity and whose work made for peace. The great surgeon Ambroise Pare, full of tolerance and deeply pious, advanced his healing art on the battle-field or amid the ravages of pestilence, and left a large contribution to the literature of science. Bernard Palissy, a devout Huguenot, was not only the inventor of "rustic figulines," the designer of enamelled cups and platters, but a true student of nature, who would substitute the faithful observation of phenomena for vain and ambitious theory. Olivier de Serres, another disciple of Calvin, cultivated his fields, helped to enrich France by supporting Henri IV. in the introduction of the industry in silk, and amassed his knowledge and experience in his admirably-written _Theatre d'Agriculture_. At a later date Antoine de Montchrestien, adventurous and turbulent in his Protestant zeal, the writer of tragedies which connect the sixteenth century with the classical school of later years, became the advocate of a protectionist and a colonial policy in his _Traicte de l'OEconomie Politique_; the style of his essay towards economic reform has some of the passion and enthusiasm of a poet.