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Spifame, Jacques Paul

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Sieur de Passy, was descended from an Italian family of rank originally from Lucca, and was born in Paris in 1502. He studied law, and obtained a good position, in which he distinguished himself by talent and business tact, especially in the, management of finances, and soon became councilor in Parliament, then president aux enquetes, maitre des requetes, and finally councilor to the State. Suddenly, for reasons not now known, he entered the clerical ranks, and began a new and not less brilliant career. He was made canon at Paris, chancellor of the university, etc. and vicar-general to cardinal Lorraine, whom he had previously known, and whom he accompanied to the Council of Trent. In October 1548, he became bishop of Nevers, which dignity he, however, resigned after eleven years, in favor of a nephew, Egide Spifame, who died at Paris in 1578. He then went to Geneva and became a Protestant. The reasons which governed him are not well known, but his relations to Catherine de Gasperne were certainly among them. This person was the wife of a royal procurator in Paris, whom he seduced, and who bore him a son, Andrew, before her husband died, in 1539. Afterwards she lived with Spifame, and gave birth to a second child, a daughter, Anna. He endeavored to legitimate these children and make them his heirs, and therefore revealed his relations with Catherine to the Genevan Council and Consistory, declaring that, as a clergyman, he was not allowed to marry, and that he had fled through fear of persecution. His marriage was accordingly solemnized June 27, 1559. He lived in luxurious style, but was very charitable, and his broad culture and great skill were in constant demand by the French Protestants. In October he became a citizen of Geneva. Soon afterwards he requested to be ordained a Protestant clergyman; and, as neither Calvin nor Beza objected, his wish was granted, and he became pastor at Issoudun in 1560. Other communities demanded his services also, among them his former congregation at Nevers; and he labored in Bourges and Paris. When the first religious war broke out, a more important range of duty was opened to him. Conde delegated him to the diet of princes held at Frankfort (April to November 1562), in order to secure the non-intervention of Germany. He submitted to the emperor Ferdinand a confession of faith as held by the evangelicals of France; laid before him four letters from Catherine de Medici to Conde, in which she encouraged him in his opposition to the Guises; and, finally, he asked that recruiting against his coreligionists might be stopped. On his return to France, he undertook the civil administration of Lyons, after that city fell into the hands of Soubise and after the conclusion of the treaty of Amboise (March 19, 1563) returned to Geneva, where he had in the meantime been elected into the Council of the Sixty (Feb. 9), at almost the moment when the Parliament of Paris, which had previously summoned him, had condemned him, in contumaciam, to be hanged (Feb. 13). In January 1564, he went to Pau to settle the affairs of queen Joanna d'Albret of Navarre, but was not successful, and, moreover, incurred her enmity by rashly charging that she had lived in adultery with Merlin, a clergyman, and that Henry IV was the fruit of that connection. Soon after his return to Geneva, it was rumored that he was negotiating with France to obtain the bishopric of Toul or the intendency of finance. His nephew, who knew all about the connection with Catherine de Gasperne, had brought suit to disprove the legitimacy of her children, and prevent their entering on Spifame's property. In addition, Servin, the attorney of queen Joanna, accused him of defaming the royal house of Navarre, and, according to the Genevan custom, both were placed in prison, March 11, 1566. At the same time rumors of Spifame's adultery and connected forgeries began to circulate, and an examination was ordered, which resulted in the finding of a forged contract for a marriage of conscience with Catherine, dated Aug. 2, 1539, but which she acknowledged to have signed only two years before the discovery, and containing the forged consent of Catherine's father and uncle to her relations with him after her widowhood began. He confessed the forgery, but pleaded the lapse of time and his subsequent marriage and blameless life. The charge that he had written against the house of Navarre was indignantly denied; that he had desired the bishopric of Toul was conceded, but he denied any intention of reuniting with the Romish Church. His intention was to become a true and evangelical bishop. The Council of Geneva condemned him to die because of the proven forgery, and the intercession of the Bernese and of Coligni (the latter too late), as well as the memory of the services rendered by him to the republic and the cause of Protestantism, was of no avail to avert his fate. He was beheaded March 23, 1566, and suffered with great fortitude. See Memoires de Conde, vol. 4; Beza, Histoire Ecclesiastique, vol. 2; also Haag, France Protestante, vol. 9; Senebier, Histoire Litteraire, 1, 384 sq.; Spon, Histoire de Gen ve (ed. Gautier), vol. 2; Sponde, Annalium Baronii Continuatio (1639), 18.