Clément Marot

MAROT, Clément. b. Cahors, 1496; d. Turin/Torino, Italy, 1544. He was the son of the poet and rhetorician Jean Marot. He played a leading role in the development of French poetry and hymnology. He had possibly received a musical education, allowing him to sing and play an instrument. He was first at the service of Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy, and secondly, around 1519, of Marguerite d'Alençon (1492-1549), sister of Francis I. In 1527, he was appointed as a ‘valet de chambre’. In 1529, he was imprisoned because of his support for the Reformation, then released, and then again imprisoned for helping a prisoner. Thanks to the favourable intervention of the king, he became the...