In 1576, during the French Wars of Religion, the advocate Jean David died under mysterious circumstances while returning from Rome to Paris. Among his effects was allegedly an account of a meeting with the pope that outlined a plot to overthrow Henri III, king of France, and to replace him with the Duke of Guise in order to ensure France’s Catholic allegiance. Two versions of David’s Mémoire were published soon after, and both attack the Guises in order to discredit them but on slightly different fronts: one focused on their internal threat and the other, the threat posed by foreign powers looking to intervene in France’s civil and religious disputes. In either case, David’s papers and the texts published with them demonstrate through their rhetorical and editorial strategies the emerging and enduring power of the short printed text in the politics of this contentious era of French history.