trs. = translations; MS = manuscript
A Dictionary of Hymnology
John Julian
Dover Publications, 1892

Psalters, French.  The French Psalters, in common with the English, the German, and others, require a distinct history from the hymnody of the same nation.

i.  Clément Marot.

   1.  Very few trs. of the Psalms have been found prior to the great Psalter of Marot and Beza.  The germ of this work was Ps. 6, attached to the Miroir de tres chrestienne Princesse Marguerite de la France Royne de Navarre, Duchesse d’Alençon (1533).  At least 13 others must have been tr. by 1539 (§ 2).  In 1540 the psalms which Marot had then written and circulated in MS., were in the highest favour with Francis I., Catherine de Médicis, the Dauphin, and the court.  They were sung to ballad tunes.  Charles V. rewarded Marot with 200 golden doubloons for his present of 30 Psalms, and asked him to versify for him “Confitemini Domino” (prob. Ps. 18).
   2.  The earliest printed psalms by Marot emanated from the Protestant party of the Reformation, and it is not clear from what source Calvin obtained them.  The text also of these early psalms differs from the first edition afterwards pub. by Marot himself.  In an unique book in the library at Munich, entitled Aulcuns Pseaumes et Cantiques mys en chant, Strasbourg, 1539—the earliest effort of Calvin to introduce singing into public worship at Strasburg—there are 18 psalms, together with the Song of Simeon, the Creed, and Ten Commandments.  There are melodies to each piece.
      Of these psalms 13 are, in a form varied from his own subsequent ed. of 1542, by Marot.  (Pss. 1, 2, 3, 15, 19, 32, 51, 103, 114, 115, 130, 137, 143.)  Of the other pieces, two (Ps. 113 and the Creed) are in prose.  The other pieces (Pss. 25, 36, 46, 91, 138, The Song of Simeon, and The Ten Commandments) are strongly marked off from Marot’s pieces by their inversions, want of feminine rhymes, and German melodies.  They are probably by Calvin himself.
  3.  In 1541 appeared Psalmes de David, translatez de plusieurs autheurs, et principallement de Cle. Marot, veu, recongneu et corrigé par les theologiens, nommeement par M. F. Pierre Alexandre, concionateur ordinaire de la Royne de Hongrie.  Anvers.  (An unique copy is in the possession of M. Henri Lutteroth.)  The contents of this volume are 30 psalms by Marot, and 15 by ten or eleven different authors.  Some of these latter are alternative versions of the same psalm.  Tunes of the day are named for one of Marot’s psalms and nine of the others.  The text of the 30 psalms of Marot, though, in the 13 Pss. named above, identical with that found in the Strasburg edition, differs from that of Marot’s own edition (1542) of these same 30 psalms.  Pierre Alexandre may have received Marot’s psalms from the Queen of Hungary, who may herself have obtained them from her brother Charles V.  Alexandre was inclined to the Huguenot doctrines, and at a later period (1555) became pastor of the Reformed congregation at Strasburg.
   4.  A very curious Liturgy (of which there is an unique copy in M. Gaiffe’s possession) appeared in 1542.

    La manyere de faire prieres aux eglises francoyses . . . ensemble pseaulmes et canticques francoys quon chante aus dictés eglises . . . (the title is of great length).  At the end of the psalms there is the following note:  “Imprimé à Rome par le commandement du Pape, par Théodore Brusz Allemant, son imprimeur ordinaire.”  The Psalms in this edition comprise all the psalms by Marot and others in the Strasburg ed. (1539); the other 17 psalms of Marot contained in the Antwerp ed., and 4 others from the same book (43rd signed “C.D.,” 120th anon, 130th signed, “A.,” 142nd signed “D.”).  To these are added the Song of Simeon, Creed, and Ten Commandments of the Strasburg book, and Marot’s Pater Noster from the Miroir.  The 21 melodies of the Strasburg book are re-printed, together with 8 new ones.  The pretended imprimatur of the Pope was a pious fraud, of which there is a similar example in one of the works of Lefévre d’Etaples, the first translater of the Bible in French.  The real place of printing seems identified as Strasburg by a letter of Pierre, the pastor of Strasburg, 25th May, 1542 (Opera Calvini vi. 15), addressed to the chief magistrate at Metz, in which he says that a new ed. of the Liturgy and the psalms had been made, the previous one being exhausted; and begs him to recover 600 copies of it, which had been seized at Metz on acount of an inconsiderate addition of the printer “Imprimé à Rome avec privileges du Pape.”  The internal evidence afforded by a comparison of the liturgical portions with subsequent liturgies at Geneva (1542) and Strasburg (1545) is consistent with this assumption.  The printer was very probably Jehan Knobloch.  Pierre Brully, the pastor, was perhaps the editor.
  5.  In the library at Stuttgart there is an unique copy of Calvin’s first Liturgy pub. at Geneva, entitled
      “La forme des prieres et chantz ecclésiastiques avec la maniere d’administrer les Sacremens, et consacrer le mariage, selon la coustume de l’Eglise Ancienne, 1542.”
      There is no name of place or printer; but the device of an olive branch, ending in an ornamental “G.,” is known to be the mark of Jean Gérard or Girard, a Genevan printer.  The liturgical contents of this volume are of great interest; but the only portion of them that concerns our subject is the preface, which exhibits Calvin’s sentiments on the use of music in public worship.
      The Psalms are a reprint of those in the last-mentioned ed., known as the Pseudo-Roman, with the omission of the prose 113th Ps., and the 4 by various authors (43, 120, 130, 142).  The other pieces of the Pseudo-Roman are also reprinted , with the exception of the prose Creed, which is exchanged for Marot’s Creed, pub. in the Miroir.  Some slight alterations are made in the text of the Psalms.  But considerable alteration is made in the melodies.  Only 17 are common to this and the Pseudo-Roman ed., and modifications which lessen their German character are made in these.  There are 22 new melodies, 14 as substitutes for rejected tunes of the earlier edition, 8 set to psalms, which previously had no melodies attached to them.  This musical contribution is probably the work of Louis Bourgeois.
      A second ed. of this book, probably only a reprint with no material alteration, is known to have been pub. later in the year.  These several editions show plainly that for nearly three years the psalms of Marot were in favour alike in the Catholic court and the Huguenot worship.
  6.  In 1542, Marot himself pub. his 30 Psalms.  The title of the book is—
      Trente Pseaulmes de David, mis en francoys par Clement Marot, valet de chambre du Roy, avec privilege.  Imprimé a Paris, N. D.  (An unique copy is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.)
      It contains the privilege from the King, dated Nov. 30th, 1541; an epistle dedicatory to Francis I., not without evidences of real religious feeling, in which Marot contrasts the true inspiration of David with the fabled muse of Greece and Rome; and the 30 Pss. of the other editions (1-15, 19, 22, 24, 32, 37, 38, 51, 103, 104, 113, 114, 115, 130, 137, 143).  At the head of some of the Psalms are short indications of the nature of the metre, but no suggestions of melodies, and no music.  The text of this ed. varies, as has been said, greatly from that in the editions noticed in the last section.  Whether both texts are by Marot himself, or whether the editions of 1539 and 1541 represent a text revised by other hands than his, it is difficult to decide.
      M. Douen has printed the principal variations in the first 8 Psalms, and pronounces that the Paris text is infinitely superior in elegance and rhyme; that in only 4 places (of these 8 Pss.) are the variations in the other editions more literal than in Marot’s:  and that of these 4 Marot himself adopted 3 in his ed. of 1543.  On the ground of its superiority, and of the phrases on the Antwerp title-page (“recongneu etcorrigé”), which indicate revision in that ed., he decides that the Paris ed. for the first time prints Marot’s genuine text, and that the others exhibit a text that has been altered by Pierre Alexandre and the Theologians.  To this verdict however the 13 Pss. in the Strasburg ed. (1539) which are identical in text with those of Pierre Alexandre’s book (1541) are a considerable objection.  The imprimatur of Pierre Alexandre also in the Antwerp ed., does not seem necessarily to indicate extensive alteration, for he says, “nec in ipso reperi quod possit pias aures offendere:”  and the other 14 psalms by various authors would share the revision with the 30 of Marot.
  7.  The publication of the 30 Psalms drove Marot from France to Geneva.  Though the privilege for it had been signed by three doctors of theology, the book was condemned by the Sorbonne, and Marot was only saved from arrest by flight.  In August, 1543, he pub., evidently at Geneva, 
      Cinquante Pseaumes en francois par Clement Marot.  Item une Epistre par luy nagueres enuoyée aux dames de France.
      The contents of this book are:—
      An  Epistle to the Ladies of France; an Epistle to the King; the 30 psalms already pub., revised and corrected; 20 fresh psalms (the Song of Simeon counting as one); the Commandments, the Articles of the Faith (the Creed); the Lord’s Prayer; the Angelic Salutation; and two prayers, one before, one after meals.  The Epistle to the King is very brief.  It contains an allusion to the fact that Francis had commanded him to continue the work of translation.  The Epistle to the Ladies of France is in the courtier vein.  He bids them quit 
their love-songs to Cupid to sing Him, Who is love indeed, “O bien heureux qui voir pourra, Fleurir le temps que l’on oira Le laboureur à sa charrue, Le charretier parmi la rue, Et l’artisan en sa boutique Aveques un Pseaume ou Cantique En son labeur se soulager.”  The new psalms are Pss. 18, 23, 25, 33, 36, 43, 45, 46, 50, 72, 79, 86, 91, 101, 107, 110, 118, 128, 138.  There is no music to this ed.  A few months later however an ed. (now lost) of these Fifty Psalms, with music, was pub. along with the Liturgy and Catechism by Calvin.  The 5 psalms, generally assigned to Calvin, which had hitherto come down from the Strassburg ed. (1539) were in this ed. replaced by Marot’s.
  8.  Marot’s death (1544) arrested the progress of the Genevan Psalter.  But his psalms were utilised in other quarters.  Editions of them appeared in Paris, Lyons, Strasburg, and Geneva; 16 of which are extant.  The Strasburg ed. of 1545, printed 10 of the new psalms, together with the psalms and pieces of Marot and others in the Pseudo-Roman ed., the Commandments by Marot, and a hymn, “Salutation à Jésus-Christ,” beginning “Je Te salue, mon certain Rédempteur” (p. 579 i.) Louis Bourgeois pub. a harmonised ed. of the Cinquante Pseaumes in 1547.  A compilation of Marot’s psalms, 29 by Gilles d’Aurigny, 42 by Robert Brincel, 31 by “C. R.” and “Cl. B,” forming an entire Psalter, was pub. in Paris (1550).  And Poitevin’s 100 psalms (Poictiers 1550) were bound up, in later editions, with Marot’s 50 as a complete Psalter.

ii.  Completion of the Psalter by Beza.

  1.  The Genevan Psalter was completed by Thèodore de Beze, at the request of Calvin, who had found on his table a tr. of Ps. 16.  The first instalment of them was principally written at Lausanne.  On March 24, 1551, he requested from the Council of Geneva permission to print “the rest (le reste) of the Psalms of David,” which he “has had set to music,” and asked for a privilege of exclusive sale.  They were however very far from being completed at that date; and on June 24 Calvin wrote to Viret asking Beza to send what psalms he had, without waiting for the versification of their companions.  Accordingly before the year closed there appeared:—
      Trente quatre pseaumes de David, nouvellement mis en rime francoise au plus pres de l’Hebreu, par Th. de Besze de Vezelay, en Bourgogne.  Geneve.  1551.
      This volume contains a dedicatory epistle, “A l’Église de nostre Seigneur,” and the new psalms by Beza.
      The Psalms are:  16, 17, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 47, 73, 90, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134.  The dedicatory epistle is justly eulogised by M.M. Douen and Bovet.  It illustrates the difference of standpoint and temper between the two poets.  In place of the lighter grace, the classical and mythological allusions, and the courtier vein of Marot’s addresses to the King and the Ladies of France, we have the strong firm tone, the contempt of worldly poetry, the sense of endurance, hardness, even scorn, left by persecution, which marks the Huguenot theologian.  The Church to which he dedicates his work is the “petit troupeau,” which, despite its lowliness is the treasure of the earth, the kings he honours are not Francis the king of flatterers, but the champions of the Reformation in Germany and Edward VI. of England.  There is however a high eulogium of Marot, “Las! tu es mort sans avoir avancé Que le seul tiers de l’œuvre commencé, Et qui pis est, n’ayant laissé au monde, Docte poéte homme, qui te seconde Voila, pour quoi quand la mort te ravit, Avec-ques toy se tent aussi David.”
  
   2.  In 1554, 6 new psalms (52, 57, 63, 64, 65, 111), 4 of them without melodies, the other 2 set to previous tunes, were added as an appendix to the combined ed. of Marot and Beza which had been pub. under the title of Pseaumes Octante trois in 1552.  In an ed. without date, Ps. 67, the Song of Moses, the Song of Simeon, and the Ten Commandments are added.
  3.  The various volumes extant show no further increase of pieces until 1562, when the complete Psalter appeared, entitled
  Les Pseaumes mis en rime françoise par Clément Marot et Théodore de Beze.
  The privilege for this ed., obtained from Charles IX. (!), is dated Dec. 26, 1561.  It was printed for Antoine Vincent at Geneva, Paris, Lyons, Caen, and other places, in 24 editions at least of that year.  There are 60 new psalms, and 40 new melodies; the total of melodies is raised to 125.  The Pater Noster and the Creed are no longer included; the Song of Simeon and the Ten Commandments are alone appended.
  4.  The music of the Psalter is beyond our scope.  It is treated fully in M. Douen’s work, in a series of articles in The Musical Times (1881), and in several articles of The Dictionary of Music.  The melodies in the Strasburg ed. (1539) are of German descent.  The editor of the Genevan psalters (1542-5 probably, 1545-57 certainly) was Louis Bourgeois.  Only 11 of the Strasburg melodies are retained in the complete Psalter, most of them in a modified form; 74, the finest in the Psalter, are by Bourgeois; the 40 of 1562 are by an unknown hand.  Side by side with the work of Bourgeois, Guillaume Franc, cantor at Lausanne, wrote in 1551 melodies for the psalms then recently translated by Beza, and obtained a license to print them at Geneva, together with the original melodies to Marot’s psalms.  Nothing further however, as far as is known, was done until 1565, when a psalter was printed at Geneva for use at Lausanne.  The bulk of the tunes in this psalter were derived from that of Geneva, 4 melodies by Bourgeois, and 15 by the unknown editor of 1562.  The new tunes introduced by Franc were 46 in number, of which 26 were by himself, one from the first Genevan psalter of 1542, and afterwards omitted, with 19 from other sources.  Harmonised editions, though never admitted for public worship, were printed from the first.  Among these may be named 50 Psalms by Bourgeois in 5 parts (1545); 31 Psalms by Pierre Certon (1546) for the Sainte Chapelle, at Paris (!); Goudimel’s three celebrated editions (1564, 1565, 1566), the latest of great elaboration; Claude Le Jeune’s (pub. posthumously in 1601).  The immense popularity of the music contributed largely to the wide spread of the Psalter in translations, the melodies necessitating the adoption of the French metres.
  5.  The fortunes of the Genevan Psalter, thus completed, were brilliant and singular.  Its use even among Catholics did not cease for awhile.  It was among the books which Francis I. cherished on his deathbed.  Henry II. used one of Beza’s psalms as a hunting song (!).  Among the Huguenots, psalm-singing became universal.  Catholic troops, wishing to disguise their identity, would raise a psalm.  Crowds sang psalms in the streets.  At the Pré aux Clercs, multitudes, among whom were the King and Queen of Navarre, sang them enthusiastically.  In Poitou the Catholic curé mixed psalms with the Latin hymns.  Florimond de Rémond, a contemporary author, dates the foundation of the Huguenot Church by the practice of psalm-singing.  The necessity of conciliating the Huguenot power accounts for the singular fact that Charles IX., and Charles V. (probably really the Duchess of Parma, acting as his Vicegerent) in the Low Countries, granted a privilege for the sale of the book.  MM. Douen and Bovet have collected together the glorious and touching records of its use on the battle-field and at the stake in the days of Coligny, and in the dragonnades after, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.  The 65th was the psalm of battles.  The 51st, the Song of Simeon and others, were sung in the flames.  The number of editions of the book is enormous.  The splendid bibliography of M. Douen gives 1400 editions of French metrical psalters, far the largest share of which is composed of Marot and Beza’s psalms.  The influence of this book extended far beyond France.  In German, 50 of these psalms were translated by Melissus of Heidelberg, at the command of the Elector Palatine Frederick II. (1572).  A complete version, following the text, metres, and melodies of the French, presented (1565) to Albert of Brandenburg, was pub. by Ambrosius Lobwasser, a Lutheran (1573), with Goudimel’s harmonies.  Though never accepted by the Lutherans, it became the recognised Psalter of Germany and German Switzerland, and was frequently revised in the 17th and 18th cents.  Serving as an original, it was re-translated in several dialects of the Grisons (among others in Italian) and in Danish.  The Dutch version of Dathenus (1566) became the universal Dutch Psalter of the Low Countries; 30 revisions of it, all preserving the French metres and melodies, were made before its displacement by a new version (1773).  To these may be added trs. from the French into Italian, Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, Latin, and even Hebrew.  In England a volume entitled All the French Psalm Tunes with English Words (1632) is in the British Museum, Lambeth and Lincoln Cathedral libraries.  At the end of a French tr. of the Liturgy of the Church of England, dedicated to George I. (1719, London), perhaps for the Savoy Church, the psalms of Marot and Beza are printed.  In England’s Hallelujah, by John Vicars (1631), are Divers of David’s Psalmes according to the French forms and metre.  The influence of the French on the O.V. of England and Scotland is only perceptible in a few French tunes and metres; 30 of the Scottish, and a smaller number of the English melodies are French.  Pss. 50, 104, 120, 121, 124, 127, 129, in the English, and Pss. 102, 107, 110, 118 in the Scottish version are identical in melody with the corresponding French Psalms.
  6.  The general verdict of critics from the time of Voltaire to that of Sainte-Beuve has been severe.  MM. Bovet and Douen are more kindly.  Yet the former speaks strongly of the wearisomeness, diffuseness, inversions, obscurity, and vulgar, even gross, expressions in the work of Beza, and the prosy commonplace, inversion and coarseness in the far better verse of Marot.  The judgment of the 16th and 17th cents., when the antiquated language was current, and the coarseness less perceptible, was full of eulogy.  Out of the wide variety of subject matter, emotions and poetical style which the Psalter exhibits, the simplicity, plaintiveness, lyric grace, and subjective meditation are those best reproduced in Marot’s choicest pieces, descending through him into the body of French hymns.  The striking variety of metre evidently impressed Kethe and Whittingham, and an imitation of it was ineffectually attempted by them, as a relief to the humdrum monotony of the English and Scottish versions.  The solidity, the breadth, the celebration of God in nature, on the other hand, which passed from our Old Version into the work of Watts, has no counterpart in the French Psalter, or the hymns that succeeded it.  The contrast is due doubtless to deeper differences in the genius of the nations.  The merit of fidelity has been generally conceded.  The work of Marot was based on the direct translation from the Hebrew by Vatable, and perhaps other Hebrew studies.  Beza was a deep student of the Psalms, as well as a theologian.

iii.  The Revised Psalters of the Reformed Church and Independent Versions.

  1.  The version of Marot and Beza was the psalm-book of the Reformed Church.  The French Lutheran Church, which from the first used hymns in worship, felt less the necessity of a complete Psalter.  The Frankfurt Pseaumes, Hymnes, et Cantiques (1612) contains 35 psalms by Mattieu Barthol.  M. Douen also mentions in his bibliography Les Pseaumes de David, avec les hymnes de D. M. Luther et autres docteurs de l’Eglise mis en vers françois selon la rime et composition allemande.  Montbeliard, 1618.  More than 50 versions were pub. in the interval that preceded the revision of Marot and Beza.  Two—a poor one by the Abbé Philippe Des Portes (1591), and that by Godeau, bishop of Grasse (1644), to which Louis XIII. contributed four tunes, and which was interdicted, because the Huguenots, forbidden for the time to sing their own psalms, adopted it—were efforts within the Roman Church.  Those of Baif (1587), J. B. Chassignet (1613), Racan (1631), Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin (1680), were not intended for music.  Louis des Mazures (1557), Cardinal du Perron (1589), Malherbe (1630), Corneille, Racine, and his son Louis, have left partial translations.  In the Reformed Church Charles de Navières, of the suite of the Prince of Orange, pub. (1580) a version, as an improvement in versification on Marot and Beza.  Diodati’s Psalter (1646) testifies to the growing unpopularity (“attiedissemens et desgoutemens”) of the French old version, but was not designed for public use.
  2.  The great change in the French language towards the close of the 16th cent. made the old version grotesque and antiquated.  “People feared,” says M. Bovet, “that the passage of time would gradually make the Psalms unintelligible, and that the reproach of being written in a dead language would be as true of them as of the Latin.”  The general decision of the synods was for a revision, preserving the metres, and departing as little as possible from the old version.  The author of it was Valentine Conrart, the eminent founder of the French Academy.  The first ed. is entitled—
  Le Livre des Psaumes en vers françois.  Par Cl. Marot et Th. de Beze.  Retouchez par feu Monsieur Conrart, Conseiller Secretaire du Roy . . . Premiére partie, 1677.
  It contained only 51 psalms, which are admitted to be the work of Conrart alone.  The complete version—
  Les Psaumes en vers françois, retouchez sur l’ancienne version.  Par feu M. V. Conrart, Conseiller, &c . . . 1679.
was to some extent perfected by La Bastide, to whom Conrart had entrusted his MSS.  Gilbert’s Psalter asserts in the preface that La Bastide had made such large changes in Conrart’s text, that the 99 new psalms are only nominally his.  But M. Bovet’s examination of the evidence decides—on the ground of the expressions in the preface to the ed. of 1677, and the universal ascription of the version to Conrart alone, without mention of La Bastide, in letters and acts of synods of the time—that La Bastide’s alterations were probably trifling.  Conrart’s Psalter, though called a revision, and preserving here and there some phrases, and throughout the metres of the old version, is in reality The French New Version.  When allowance is made for the difficult conditions of production, M. Bovet pronounces it, though unequal and sometimes deficient in spirit, a remarkable work; recalling in parts the naïve simplicity and lyric movement of Marot, in others the noble solemnity of the classic language of the 17th cent.
  3.  The distressed condition of the French Huguenots under Louis XIV. preventing the authorization of this book in France, the French exiles at Zurich appealed to the Church of Geneva as the chief of the French Reformed Churches, to take up the matter.  In reply the Venerable Company of Pastors appointed three of their body, Benedict Pictet, De la Rive, and Calandrin to review the version, adding as a special instruction, that they should remove all phrases that savoured of Jewish imprecations against their enemies.  The work was principally done by Pictet.  Saurin, an avocat of Nismes, also assisted the editors.  Completed in 1693, pub. in 1695, the title of this edition seems to have been:
  Les Psaumes de David mis en Vers françois.  Revûs de nouveau sur les précédents editions, et approuvés par les Pasteurs et Professeurs de l’Église et de l’Academie de Genève.  (Title of 3rd ed. 1701.  The 1st ed. is lost.)
  The text of Conrart is for the most part retained, with occasional reversions to the language of the Old Version, and occasional excision of phrases of it, which Conrart had spared.  First used in public worship at Geneva in 1698, it was sent (1699) by the Venerable Company to the other Reformed Churches, and generally adopted by the French refugees in Switzerland, and the national Churches of Erguel and Neuchâtel.  The Church of Berlin reserved to itself the right to make a few alterations, which were carried out by Beausobre, whom Frederick the Great called “the best pen in Berlin,” and his subsequent colleague in the translation of the New Testament, Lenfant.  The title of this version is
  Les Pseaumes de David en vers.  Nouv. Ed. retouchée une derniere fois sur toutes celles qui ont précédé, 1702.
  The Church of the United Provinces, under the leadership of Jurieu, resenting the assumption of primacy by Geneva, made a longer resistance.  Bitter recriminations passed, and the adoption of the new version was stigmatized as an act of schism.  An unsuccessful attempt was made to produce a version of their own, and they fell back on the old version.  After Jurieu’s death, Conrart’s version was made the base of a new revision, which is entitled:—
  Les Pseaumes de David mis en vers François et revûs par order du Synode Walon des Provinces-Unies.  1720. 
  It was authorized by the States General in 1727.
  4.  The era of Conrart and Pictet marks the beginning of decline.  The new versions never attained the popularity of the old.  The unsuitability for singing, not only of the imprecations, but of other portions more plainly showed itself.  They ceased to be sung as a whole; and the selection in actual use continually narrowed.  Voltaire expended his ridicule on them.  Even the music began to give way to new melodies.  (The earliest substitution is by De Camus (1760), who abuses the old music roundly.)  Hymns pushed out the Psalms more and more at the close of the 18th century.  The collections of St. Gall (1771) and Berlin (1791) have only from 50 to 60 Psalms.  The Walloon Collection retained the whole Psalter, with a Supplement of hymns (1802).  The ed. of Bourrit, resulting from several commissions of the Churches of France and Geneva (1823), contained the whole Psalter in an abbreviated form, with several new melodies and alterations of the old ones.  That of Gallot of Neuchâtel (1830) was made on the same principle.  Wilhem (1840) pub. a complete Psalter, with changes in the music, alteration of antiquated expressions and softening of the imprecations.  The Recueil des Psaulmes et Cantiques, Paris, 1859, has only 70 psalms:  some of these fragments.
  5.  A few among the 130 names in M. Douen’s list of persons in the 18th and 19th centuries, who have dealt with the psalter, must be added.  Lefranc de Pompignan, Père Manuel, and the Abbé Pellegrin are known also as writers of hymns.  Gabriel Gilbert, Resident of Queen Christina of Sweden at Paris, wrote a version (1680).  Several versions by Pierre Symond, Jennet, Rivasson, and Joncourt appeared in the United Provinces during Jurieu’s opposition to the Genevese revision.  The seventeen odes of J. B. Rousseau, founded on the Psalms (1721), have been greatly admired.  That on Ps. 18, “Les cieux instruisent” is in C.U.  The Psautier Evangélique of Daniel Zacharie Chatelain (1781) is an example of that treatment of the Psalms, which was common among the followers of Luther, and which Watts elaborated—expansion of the Psalms, in the light of their evangelical fulfilment.  César Malan (q.v.) pub. Les Chants de Sion (50 psalms) in 1824, and a complete psalter, Les Chants d’Israel, in 1835.  The version and the music are new.  Among recent editions may be named a Roman Catholic version, approved by Morlot, Abp. of Tours, Les Psaumes mis en Quatrains par un ancien Magistrat (Fey), 1844; that by Hector de St. Maur (1866), commended by M. Bovet; and that of De la Jugie (1863), esteemed by M. Douen the best of modern versions.

  Authorities.  Clément Marot et Le Psautier Huguenot, by M. Douen; Histoire du Psautier des Eglises Réformées, by M. Felix Bovet; Clement  Marot, and the Huguenot Psalter; a series of articles by G. A. C. (Major Crawford) in The Musical Times, 1881.  [H.L.B.]