Nicolas Samuel DE TREYTORRENS (ID #I11119)
(male)
- TITLES/'DIT' NAMES/OCCUPATIONS: pietist
- BAPTISM: 1 APR 1671, Cudrefin, Vaud, Switzerland
- DEATH: BEF 1738?
Father: Benedict DE TREYTORRENS (d. AFT 1676)
Mother: Marguerite DE BORSENS (dates unknown)
The story of Nicolas Samuel de Treytorrens is a strange, and to some extent a pathetic one. Henri Vuilleumier (Histoire de l'église réformée du Pays de Vaud sous le régime bernois, Lausanne: Editions La Concorde, 1927-1933, 4 volumes) devotes
50 pages to it (vol. 4, pp. 471-521).
The picture that emerges is that of a pathetic and very depressed man whose life is mainly known from his encounters with the governing authorities of his day—of the rest of his life, there is almost no information at all. However, to form a
complete picture of the man, it would be necessary to study the "Lettre Missive escrite à Leurs Excellences de Berne en Suisse" (1717) in great detail. This would not be an easy task: from the long quotations given by Vuilleumier, we would have to
agree, it is a work of signal obscurity, made worse by poor writing and editing.
For a shorter appreciation, let us quote the summary of his life that appears in the index to the Histoire, compiled by the editor, Frank Olivier. (Vuilleumier died in 1925, and his great Histoire was prepared for publication by a
committee under the auspices of the University of Lausanne.) The volume and page references are included to assist the reader who requires more information.
"Nicolas-Samuel de Treytorrens, sixième des sept enfants de Bénédict, baptisé en 1671 à Montet, perd son père à sept ans, a peut-être été au collège de Payerne, très probablement à celui de Neuchâtel, où sa famille avait de la parenté; ne fait pas
d'autres études; en a, semble-t-il, éprouvé quelque regret. Excerce dès vingt-six ans la mayorie héréditaire. N'est pas sollicité par sa famille ni par son entourage à un piété personnelle vivante ou spéciale; a peut-être subi des influences
neuchâteloises. Se convertit on ne sait comment, se refuse à prendre la sainte cène, est dénoncé par son pasteur et traduit devant l'Illustre Chambre de religion, avant 1705; s'en tire pour cette première fois avec un avertissement et une menace.
"Se résout alors à s'exiler volontairement, plutôt que de répudier tout commerce avec les personnes qu'on représentait suspectes de piétisme, et renonce à ses biens: III, 471-481. De cette nouvelle période, soit douze ans au moins, nous ne savons
pour ainsi dire rien. Doit s'être rendu en Hollande et en Allemagne, où il a mené une vie retirée, sans doute dans les privations, et sans vouloir du mariage. On ne peut que lui supposer des relations avec certains piétistes; il ne dit pas de quel
auteur il s'est nourri, bien qu'il se soit manifestement inspiré de la littérature piétiste, d'Arnold et de Tennhardt incontestablement. En vient à un état d'esprit presque pathologique, mais sans pratiquer ni prêcher le séparatisme.
"On ne sait combien de temps il a vécu à l'étranger; en 1715-1716, passe quelque temps à Berne, allant et venant par son pays, recherchant le commerce des saintes âmes et prenant le parti des anabaptistes traqués par Berne; est renvoyé devant la
Chambre de religion, mis au cachot, banni à perpétuité des terres de Berne; prend congé de sa famille, se rend à Neuchâtel puis gagne l'Allemagne, où il aura mis la dernière main à sa 'Lettre missive': III, 481-491. A partir de sa publication, rentre
pour nous dans l'ombre et le silence. En 1723 nous le savons à Bâle, où il a été traduit devant la Chambre de religion; semble être déjà devenu plus modéré, mais est quand même invité à quitter la ville. On ne sait où il alla; en 1731, il est à
Yverdon. Mort où et quant? On l'ignore. Peut-être avant 1738: III, 519-521.
"...Ame sincèrement religieuse, homme de conviction respectable, mais esprit étroit et borné et voyant volontiers tout en noir: III, 472; piétiste laïque faisant fi de la science humaine et la condamnant contraire au christianisme: III, 497."
We have the impression is that he seized on the idea that his inate unhappiness was due to the material and sensory preoccupations of humanity (and to the extent that he believed his unhappiness was due to the corruption of other people, he is
engaging also in magical thinking), and so he would have made a fine hermit in a desert—but there were no deserts nearby, so he was simply unhappy. His contemporaries said that he eventually mistook the fantasies of his own mind for authentic
prophecy, and thus, if he were among us today, the word "misguided" might be applied.
Exactly why he conceived the idea of intervening on behalf of the anabaptists is not entirely clear. What is clear, however, is that he, like so many others before and since, had absolutely no concept of how to manipulate the Bernese bureaucracy to
achieve his ends. He had thought he could simply ask for their endorsement of his idea to travel to Italy to request the release of the anabaptists (or at least, their better treatment), and that Their Excellencies, responding to everyday logic, would
then send him on his way. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was so simple under Their Excellencies of Bern. He was, therefore, exceptionally naïve as well as misguided.
Who, I ask rhetorically, was equally ill-informed during the history of the Pays de Vaud? The example of Major Davel springs immediately to mind, and it occurs to me they had much in common—a tendency to believe that the simple ideas they found
in their minds would really work, would really make sense to the rest of the world. (Davel also had pietist roots.) We meet such characters frequently in the history of the Pays de Vaud. They seem to have believed that Their Excellencies were good
men, as pious and charitable as their pronouncements were designed to make them appear, but misinformed by the bureaucrats. All that would be necessary, they thought, was to talk to them directly, man to man. They were mistaken, of course, but their
spectacular failures helped to prepare the way for the re-awakening of the Pays de Vaud in 1798.
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_Benedict DE TREYTORRENS _|
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_Benedict DE TREYTORRENS _|
| (.... - 1676) m 1658 |
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|--Nicolas Samuel DE TREYTORRENS
| (.... - 1738)
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|_Marguerite DE BORSENS ___|
m 1658 |
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|__________________________|
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