Phillippe Duplessis-Mornay Meaning "Defences [of liberty] against tyrants," Vindiciae contra tyrannos, published in Basel in 1579, was perhaps the most important tract justifying the Protestant theory of resistance against an unlawful king. Published under a psuedonym, its authorship is disputed, although it is usually assigned to Phillippe Duplessis-Mornay and Hubert Languet, prominent French Huguenots. More temperate than many of the tracts written in the wake of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, it limits the power to resist a king to inferior magistrates, essentially the nobility and gentry, and then only when he breaks the law of God. American constitutionalists consider it as an important influence upon the Founding Fathers.