MAROT, Clément. — French poet, b. at Cahors on 23 Nov. 1496, d. at Turin on 12 Sept. 1544. Page to the Villeroy family, he later became valet de chambre to Francis I, enjoying the king’s good graces and benefiting from royal intervention whenever he found himself in difficulties caused by his sharp satire.
Accused of adhering to the reform movement, he left France (1534), taking refuge in Italy, subsequently in Ferrara and Venice. He returned to France in 1536 and was again received at court, remaining there until 1542, when, once more suspected because of his translation of the Psalms, he was forced to flee first to Switzerland and then back to Italy, taking refuge with the House of Savoy in Turin, where he soon after died. A sensitive and refined poet, he felt the upheavals of an age dense with unrest and religious questioning. Though his fame is essentially tied to his lyric poetry, Marot is a typical figure of the French “reformist” circles.