The literary and cultural transition between the Catholic aristocracy and Protestantism was incarnated by one of the most attractive poetic figures on the cultural scene: Clément Marot (c. 1496-1544), a poet of the court of Francis I and protégé of Queen Marguerite de Navarre. This author had exalted the courtesan in his well-known poetic creation Dedans Paris, ville jolie/ Un jour, passant melancolie, / Je prins alliance nouvelle/ A la plus gaye damoyselle/ Qui soit d’icy en Italie. [In Paris, beautiful town/ one day, passing sadly through/ I struck up a new alliance/ with the most lively girl/ to be found from here to Italy]. In 1526 a spurned woman reported Marot and he was jailed in the Chatêlet prison, accused of sympathising with the Reformation, meaning that he suffered persecution first hand. This period of imprisonment inspired him to write an allegorical satire of justice titled L’Enfer [Hell]. Prior to 1534 he was a brilliant court poet, but the Affaire des Placards cast a shadow over his career. On the night of Saturday 17 to Sunday 18 October that year posters were put up in Paris, Orleans and other French towns violently attacking the horribles, graves & insupportables abus de la messe papale [the horrible, serious and insupportable abuses of the papal authority]. A poster had even been hung on the king’s own door, causing him to become angry and unleash a bloody repression against the Protestants, some of whom were burnt alive in the squares of Paris. Marot was considered a suspect, and before he was imprisoned he went into exile into Navarre, where he obtained the protection of Queen Marguerite. In a favourable environment, protective of the “evangelists” or reformers, it was the Queen who encouraged him to begin translating the Psalms of David. In 1533 the poet would take refuge in Lyon, an intellectual and artistic capital frequented by poets and humanists. There he would come into contact with writers such as Maurice Scève, Pontus de Tyard and Louise Labé, the belle cordière, author of famous sonnets (O beaux yeus bruns, ô regars destournez… [O fair brown eyes, o averted glances]), much criticised by Calvin, whom the latter defined as plebeia meretrix in a debate with a Catholic. Centuries later, Rilke translated her poetry in his Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge, 1910).

Muttering the melodies

Once in Lyon and after acquiring royal favouritism yet again, Marot abjured his “errors” and returned to the Paris court. As destiny would have it, once again he was forced to leave, but this time he was bound for a place full of significance: Geneva, the city in which Calvin would live in exile from 1538. In Strasbourg, together with Martin Bucer and Capito, he discovered the liturgy in the German language that had been used from 1524 onwards and used it as his inspiration to put together a French liturgy. It was in Geneva that the complete translation of the Psalms was prepared.