"
Antony, king of Navarre, sung
"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 pensee."
"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.
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