During the turn of the 17th Century, Switzerland, like many nations of central and northern Europe, embraced the reformist ideals of Martin Luther and John Calvin. Unlike it’s neighbouring countries, and in spite of it’s own internal divisions, Switzerland remained largely immune from the resulting Thirty Years War (1618-1648) which pitted the Catholic Hapsburg dynasty in Spain and Germany against an alliance of Protestant nations including Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden for European supremacy.
A master-joiner in later life, it is safe to assume that Pierre Miville would have completed part of his training during his youth in Fribourg. If so, he would have undoubtedly been influenced by the guild behaviour and their largely Protestant ethics. It would have also put the tradesman in direct conflict with the Catholic hierarchy that still dominated the region. In any case, it was more likely economics than religion or politics that drove Miville and his brother Isaac to Brouages in neighbouring France around 1620.
France, itself a staunch ally of the Roman church, conceded some religious freedom to their Protestant minority. King Henry IV, himself a onetime Huguenot, enacted the Edict of Nantes in 1598 which granted rights of worship to French Protestants. His murder in 1610, however, and the subsequent rise to power of Cardinal Richelieu, reinitiated a period of Huguenot suppression.
It has been suggested, and with good reason, that Miville’s move to Brouages was related in some way to the military buildup there by Richelieu. First Minister to Louis XIV, and self-appointed Governor of Brouages, it is well known that Richelieu engaged Swiss Protestants in his fight against the Hapsburgs. A marriage of convenience, the ironic pairing of the chief Catholic bishop of France to Protestant Swiss mercenaries served to impede their common enemy from upsetting the balance of power in Europe.
That Brouages, and the many Swiss garrisoned there, should also be used against the Huguenot stronghold of nearby La Rochelle suggests a conflict of different sorts for the Mivilles. If, indeed, he professed a Protestant faith, would he have used his skills as a joiner or soldier to assault fellow reformers? This is a difficult question to reconcile, and adds much to the debate surrounding this entire issue.