This intervention will discuss the influence of the figure of the "Christian Soldier" and, more generally, of an ideological model of warfare, inspired by the Catholic Counter-Reform, on the perception of the Nobility in France in the last decades of the Sixteenth Century. A number of clues point to a revival of a crusading ideology, from the 1560s onwards, on the initiative of the Papacy, in close connection with some religious orders, more particularly the Jesuits. This revival is associated with an unprecedented effort to reform, according to the Post-Trent ideal and principles, the armies, the soldiers and especially the nobles in command, in the perspective of a merciless war against all the enemies of the Church. We will examine how this Counter-Reformed model of warfare, associated with military chaplaincy and handbooks of the "Christian Soldier", contributes to the Critique of the Nobility in France, during the 1580s and 1590s, suggesting a new interpretation of some writings, such as the treatises of Jean de Caumont and Matthieu de Launoy, attacking the nobles for their lack of "virtue".
