Pierre Richier

Who is Pierre Richier?

Pierre Richier, also Pierre Richer, dit de Lisle, was a French Calvinist theologian, who accompanied Philippe de Corguilleray on a French expedition to Brazil in 1556, to reinforce the colony of France Antarctique. He was a member of a contingent of 14 Calvinist people dispatched from Geneva. He later became the main actor in developing La Rochelle as a Huguenot capital.

Pierre Richer was initially ordained as a Carmelite and was from the congregation of Albi. He was a member of a Paris convent, when he fled the Order for Geneva in 1556.

Pierre Richier accompanied Philippe de Corguilleray to Brazil in 1556 at the request of the French soldier and explorer Villegagnon. After the failure of the expedition, Pierre Richier returned in 1558 to the city of La Rochelle, where his preaching became very influential.

Pierre de Richier became "Ministre de l'église de la Rochelle", and was able to grow considerably the Huguenot presence in La Rochelle, from a small base of about 50 souls who had been secretely educated to Lutheranism by Charles de Clermont the previous year. La Rochelle, together with a few other cities such as Sancerre, became the last Protestant strongholds in the French Wars of Religion, following the failure of colonization ventures in the New World which Gaspard de Coligny had been promoting.