ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the reactions of a Lyonnais merchant, Benoist Rigaud, to the climax of religious violence in his city. Lyon was one such place: a city with a vocal Protestant constituency supported economically by healthy trade and intellectually by nearby Geneva. Rigaud printed up pamphlets that functioned as public statements of celebration or mourning by commemorating special occasions such as royal entries, weddings, or funerals. Lyon supported a large population of printers, from enterprising merchant-publishers such as Antoine Vincent and publisher-printers such as Rigaud and Saugrin to the master craftsmen and printers' journeymen who ran the presses. Merchants and bourgeois in late sixteenth-century Lyon did not claim enough power against public authority to garner control in the public sphere. Romans, Valence, and Chateaudouble all lay within fifty miles of Lyon, which sat at the northern tip of Dauphine.
