"Revenge moy prens la querelle,"
"Stand up, O Lord! to revenge my quarrel,"
to the air of a dance of Poitou. Diane de Poictiers chose
"Du fond de ma pensée."
"From the depth of my heart."
But when from interest in her psalm-song she wished to further read and
study the Bible, she was warned from the danger with horror by the Cardinal
of Lorraine. This religious awakening and inquiry was of course deprecated
and dreaded by the Romish Church; to the Sorbonne all this rage for
psalm-singing was alarming enough. What right had the people to sing God's
word, "I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall be continually
in my mouth"? The new psalm-songs were soon added to the list of "Heretical
Books" forbidden by the Church, and Marot fled to Geneva in 1543. He had
ere this been under ban of the Church, even under condemnation of death;
had been proclaimed a heretic at all the cross-ways throughout the kingdom,
and had been imprisoned. But he had been too good a poet and courtier to be
lost, and the king had then interested himself and obtained the release of
the versatile song writer. The fickle king abandoned for a second time the
psalm versifier, who never again returned to France.
The austere and far-seeing Calvin at once adopted Marot's version of the
Psalms, now enlarged to the number of fifty, and added them to the Genevan
Confession of Faith,--recommending however that they be sung with the grave
and suitable strains written, for them by Guillaume Frane.
The collection was completed with the assistance of Theodore Beza, the
great theologian, and the demand for the books was so great that the
printers could not supply them quickly enough. Ten thousand copies were
sold at once,--a vast number for the times.
But Marot was not happy in Geneva with Calvin and the Calvinists, as we can
well understand. Beza, in his "History of the French Reformed Churches"
said, "He (Marot) had always been bred up in a very bad school, and could
not live in subjection to the reformation of the Gospel, and therefore
went and spent the rest of his days in Piedmont, which was then in the
possession of the king, where he lived in some security under the favor of
the governor." He lived less than a year, however, dying in 1544.
These psalms of Marot's passed through a great number and variety of
editions. In addition to the Genevan publications, an immense number were
printed in England. Nearly all the early editions were elegant books;
carefully printed on rich paper, beautifully bound in rich moroccos and
leathers, often emblazoned with gold on the covers, and with corners and
clasps of precious metals,--they show the wealth and fashion of the owners.
When, however, it came to be held an infallible sign of "Lutheranisme" to
be a singer of psalms, simpler and cheaper bindings appear; hence the dress
of the French Psalm-Book found in New England is often dull enough, but
invariably firm and substantial.
These psalms of Marot's are written in a great variety of song-measures,
which seem scarcely as solemn and religious as the more dignified and even
metres used by the early English writers. Some are graceful and smooth,
however, and are canorous though never sonorous. They are pleasing to read
with their quaint old spelling and lettering.