Les Pseaumes de David mis en rime françoise (Genevan / Huguenot Psalter)
Les Pseaumes mis en rime françoise par Clement Marot et Theodore de Beze
Catalogue updated 2026-06-08
Que Dieu se montre seulement, Et l'on verra dans un moment Abandonner la place…
Our renderingLet God but show himself, and one will see in a moment the enemy abandon the field…
What it is
The complete 150-psalm Huguenot Psalter in French verse, published in Geneva in 1562. Over 30,000 copies circulated within a year, and it became the single most formative devotional text for French Protestant nobility, functioning simultaneously as prayer book, hymnal, and identity marker. Gaspard de Coligny, Louis I de Condé, and their families sang these psalms at daily prayers, before battles, and in camp services conducted by Reformed chaplains. Psalm 68 ('Que Dieu se montre seulement') served as the Huguenot battle anthem at multiple engagements; Psalm 118 was sung by Condé's forces kneeling before the Battle of Coutras (1587); Psalm 144 was the victory cry at Sancerre (1572). Bèze preached from this psalter in the lodgings of both Condé and Coligny during the early 1560s.
Why it still matters
Still used in Francophone Reformed worship and by any Christian wishing to pray the Psalms in French verse; the complete psalter with its original tunes is freely available and remains among the finest metrical psalters in any language.
Horæ starter guide
Never lose the rhythm again
Chosen Portion delivers your morning, midday and night office to your phone — the Hours, without the bells.
- Three daily prayer moments scheduled around your real calendar, not a monastery's
- Psalms and historic prayers sequenced for you — no page-flipping or decision fatigue
- A visible streak of completed offices, so the rhythm compounds instead of collapsing
Kept alongside
La forme des prières et chants ecclésiastiques (Calvin's Genevan Liturgy)
La forme des prières et chantz ecclesiastiques, avec la maniere d'administrer les sacremens
Calvin's order of Reformed worship, first published in Geneva in 1542 and the foundational liturgical text of the French Reformed (Huguenot) churches. It contained the form of public confession and absolution, the structure for psalm-singing, sermon, long prayer for princes and the church, and the administration of the sacraments. Coligny's household chaplains and those of Louis de Condé followed this liturgy for daily and Sunday worship; Théodore de Bèze's preaching sessions in Condé's and Coligny's Parisian lodgings in the early 1560s were conducted within this form. The text shaped the entire prayer life of Huguenot noble households and was the manual through which children of the Châtillon and Condé houses were trained in corporate prayer.
Introduction to the Devout Life
Introduction à la vie dévote
Composed initially as spiritual direction letters for Madame Louise de Charmoisy — wife of Claude de Charmoisy, ambassador of the Duke of Savoy — this work was explicitly written for lay people living 'in town, within families, or at court.' It received a royal privilege from Henri IV of France on 10 November 1608 and was first published at Lyon in 1609. Francis de Sales shaped each of its five parts around the practical rhythms of court and household life, treating topics from meditation and vocal prayer to temptation and worldly conversation. The Introduction circulated widely in the dévot circles of the French court and became the devotional manual par excellence for Catholic lay formation in the early modern period.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (Institutio Christianae Religionis)
Institution de la religion chrestienne
Calvin's systematic theology in French, the foundational doctrinal text of Huguenot noble formation. Coligny read it attentively after his conversion during captivity at Saint Quentin (1557–59), and it structured the theological understanding that shaped his subsequent role as protector of French Protestant churches. Louis de Condé, who converted around 1555–58, came to faith in the theological world the Institutes defined. Théodore de Bèze's exposition sessions in Condé's and Coligny's lodgings in the 1560s were essentially guided instruction in Calvinist doctrine drawn from the Institutes. Coligny's brother François d'Andelot sent Coligny a French Bible while imprisoned — the same evangelical context in which the Institutes circulated among nobles under house arrest or on campaign.