In Boston the Fancuils, Baudoins, Boutineaus,
Sigourneys, and Johannots were all Huguenots, and attended the little brick
church built on School Street in 1704, which was afterwards occupied by
the Twelfth Congregational Society of Boston, and in 1788 became a Roman
Catholic church.
The pocket psalm-book of Gabriel Bernon, the builder of the old French Fort
at Oxford, is one of Marot and Beza's Version, and is still preserved and
owned by one of his descendants; other New England families of French
lineage cherish as precious relics the French psalm-books of their Huguenot
ancestors. There has been in France no such incessant production of new
metrical versions of the psalms as in England. From the time of the
publication of the first versified psalms in 1540, through nearly three
centuries the psalm-book of all French Protestants has been that of Marot
and Beza. This French version of the psalms is of special interest to all
thoughtful students of the history of Protestantism, because it was the
first metrical translation of the psalms ever sung and used by the people;
and it was without doubt one of the most powerful influences that assisted
in the religious awakening of the Reformation.
Clement Marot was the "Valet of the Bed-chamber to King Francis I.," and
was one of the greatest French poets of his time; in fact, he gave his
name to a new school of poetry,--"Marotique.
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