TOUSSAIN, tü"san' (TOSSANUS),
DANIEL: French Reformed; b. at Montbéliard (36 m. w. of Basel) July 15, 1541; d. at Heidelberg Jan. 10, 1602. His father was Pierre Toussain (q.v.), and the son was educated at Basel and Tübingen. Returning to France he preached for six months in his native town, and went to Orléans, 1560, where, after being a teacher of Hebrew, he was ordained minister of the local Reformed church in 1561. In 1568 he was forced to flee with other Protestants, but was soon discovered and imprisoned over two weeks. He then fled with his family to Montargis, where he was protected by the duchess of Ferrara until the king of France demanded the expulsion of all Huguenots. He now sought refuge in Sancèrre, and, after one year, returned to Montbéliard. Here he was charged with teaching Calvinistic and Zwinglian heresies, his reply being an affirmation of his Lutheran belief. In 1571 he was recalled to Orléans, and held services in the castle Isle, a few miles away, but at the news of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, he fled just in time to escape the total massacre and pillage of Isle the next day; and he was concealed by a Roman Catholic nobleman at Montargis and later by the duchess in a tower of her castle. In Nov., 1572, he was able to return to his father at Montbéliard, but Lutheran intolerance again drove him out, and he accepted a call of the French refugees at Basel. In Mar., 1573, he was appointed chaplain to the Count Palatine Frederick III. at Heidelberg, but in 1576 the Calvinistic Frederick was succeeded by his son, the Lutheran Louis VI., and the Reformed were expelled. They found a Calvinistic patron, however, in John Casimir, the brother of the count, at Neustadt, where Toussain became inspector of churches and also helped found an academy in which he was one of the teachers. After the death of Zacharias Ursinus (q.v.) he was also preacher to the refugees' church of St. Lambert. In 1583 Louis VI. died, and John Casimir became regent. Calling Toussain into his council, he expelled the Lutherans from Heidelberg, and Toussain later became professor of theology, and, in 1584, rector. As an author he was prolific, being credited with no less than thirty-three works, for a list of which and his correspondence cf. F. W. Cuno,
Daniel Tossanus (Amsterdam, 1898).
(JOHN VIÉNOT.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY: P. Tossanus. Vitae et obitus D. Toasani . . .narratio, Heidelberg, 1603; A. Müller, Daniel Tossanus, Leben and Wirken, 2 vols., Flensburg, 1884; F. W. Cuno,Daniel Tossanus, Amsterdam, 1898; J. Vienot, Hist. de la réforme dans Ie pays de Montbéliard, Montbéliard, 1900.
TOUSSAIN (TOSSANUS),
PIERRE: French Reformer of Montbéliard, and father of the preceding; b. at St. Laurent, near Marville (145 m. e.n.e. of
Paris), 1499; d. at Montbéliard (36 m. w. of Basel) Oct. 5, 1573. Educated at Metz, Basel, Cologne, Paris, and Rome, he became a canon of Metz in 1515, where he first heard of Protestant doctrines, and, being suspected of adherence to them, he was forced to flee to Basel. After a sojourn at Paris, he attempted to introduce the new doctrines into Metz, only to be imprisoned at Pont à Mousson. On Mar. 11, 1526, deprived of his benefice, he was expelled from Metz. He now returned to Paris, where he became an almoner of Margaret of Navarre, but in 1531 was again obliged to flee from France. After
visiting Zwingli in Zurich, Gillaume Farel in Grandson, and Simon Sulzer in Basel, he went to Wittenberg. While in Tübingen on his return, he gladly accepted the invitation of Duke Ulrich of Württemberg to continue the Reformation begun by Johann
Gayling and Farel in Montbéliard. Within four years (1535-39) Protestantism was definitely established, the mass was abolished, and the most of the canons retired to Besançon. Toussain became the head of the new ecclesiastical organization, which, being French and Swiss in character, became involved in serious controversies with the German chaplains of Count Christopher of Württemberg, who took up his residence at Montbéliard in 1542. As a result he retired to Basel, 1545-46, but returned to Montbéliard when the difficulty was finally adjusted. He was one of the few clergy undisturbed during the interim (1548-52), and on the second suppression of the Roman Catholics in Montbéliard in 1552 he
resumed his position as superintendent at the head of the Protestant clergy. In 1559, under the guardians of the new count, Frederick, the Württemberg agenda were introduced, but the stubborn resistance of Toussain and his clergy forced the count's guardians to make concessions, especially to permit the use of Toussain's liturgy for the time being. In 1568, however, all pastors who refused to adopt the Württemberg agenda were deposed. When, in 1571 Jakob Andreä (q.v.) was sent by the Württemberg government to Montbéliard, the clergy were strictly examined, Daniel Toussain (q.v.), the reformer's son, was banished, and his father was pensioned and replaced by a Lutheran. All the clergy who professed either Zwinglianism or Calvinism were gradually removed, and the Tübingen dogmas were enforced. Strict in life, Evangelical in spirit, Toussain was a model pastor and wise organizer. His sole literary production was
L'Ordre qu'on tient en
l'église de Montbéliard en instruisant les enfans, et administrant les saints sacramens avec la forme du mariage et des prières (1559), of which only a single copy seems to exist.
(John Viénot.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Viénot, Hist. de la réforme dans le pays de Montbéliard, 2 vols., Montbéliard, 1903.
