MAROT, CLEMENT, 1495-1544; b. in Cahors, France; studied law, found it repugnant, attracted the attention of 3larguerite de Valois, and was made valet de chambre to Francis I. His father was court poet of Anne of Bretagne, and had also been valet de chambre of the same king. Mantes wit, poetic faculty and charming manners secured the favor of the monarch, to whom he had dedicated a poem, the Temple of Cupid. At the battle of Pavia, in Italy, he was taken prisoner with Francis I. Returning to France not long after, he was imprisoned for supposed sympathy- with the reformers in religion, suggested by his poem L'Enfer. Released by his friend, the bishop of Chartres, his pen became. more lively and caustic than before, as will be seen by the following verse from L'Epitre aux Dames de Paris: L'olsivete des moines et cagots, Je la dIraes,mais je crains les fagots; Et des alms dont reglise est four6e, J'eu parlerais, intus garde la bouree.
He was ag,ain imprisoned (1530), hut obtained the favor of the king by a poem and war‘ again released. Dreading further imprisonment, he sought refuge, in 1535, at the court of the queen of Navarre. In 1536 we find him at Ferrare, Italy, at the court of the• duchesse Renee, where he formed a friendship with Calvin. Pope Paul III. ordered the duchess not to harbor those pestilent men. They left together and went to Venice. But he was no suitable companion for Calvin; Marot was shuply a frce-thinker. Their bond of friendship was hatred of the corruptions of the church. 'Calvin was building ;L 'faith hedged round about with the same dogmatism that he was combating. Marot would soon have lampooned that as caustically as he had the Roman church had Calvin not been a fellow-sufferer from persecution. Marot reappeared at court between 1538
and 1545, but was considered a dangerous heretic; yet he obtained employment in trans '.ating the Psalms of David from the Hebrew into French rhythm. The church con demned it, the kincr interdicted its publication; but it circulated nevertheless, and became one of the favorite studies of the Jansenists and Calvinists. The psalms were set to music by Goudimel, and sung in the meetings of the Protestants. Marot felt himself in danger in Paris, and joined Calvin in Geneva. But he found the austerities of the latter and his followers as repugnant to him as the weaknesses of the monks. Accused of playing backgammon and other frivolities, he found it more pleasant to leave the city than to reside in it, and sought refuge in Turin, where he died poor at the age of 50. La Harpe says of him: "The name of Marot marks the first epoch really notable in the history of our poetry." Another critic considers him remarkable chiefly as being the first to mold French to a really polished and melodious verse. His works form a singular variety of tracts, song,s, ballads, letters, cock-and-bull stories, madrigals, epio-rarns, epitaphs. He was the Tom Moore of his day—precise in the expression of his tCought, and at once witty and graceful. The Roman de la Rose, Frere Lubin„ Frere Thibeaud, A Madame d'Alen,pon, and the translations of the Psalms, are'a few of his numerous works. His letters, Epitres, are considered his finest work.