Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 7 - Section VII
VII. Mussard.
Jean Mussard, goldsmith, took refuge in Geneva, flying out of France at or before 1579. By Anne Le Grand, his wife, whom he had married in 1574, he had five sons. The second, named Jean Mussard, married Clermonde Crespe in 1609, and had two daughters and three sons, of which sons both the eldest and the youngest bore the name of Pierre; the latter, who was born in 1627, was styled le cadet (the younger). This was the learned, eloquent, and orthodox Pasteur Pierre Mussard.
Having settled in France as a pasteur, and being of a French family, he is entitled to a place among the Huguenot refugees. The city of Lyons was his home as a French minister; there he was ordained and inducted in 1655. He sat as a representative member in the National Synod of Loudun in 1659-60.
Mussard’s learning and talents secured for him a host of admirers, including his dignified neighbour, the Archbishop of Lyons (Cardinal De Villeroy). In 1667 he published anonymously (at Leyden) his famous book, “Les Conformités des cérémonies modernes avec les anciennes, ou il est prouvé que les cérémonies de L’Eglise Romaine sont empruntées des Païens.” It was professedly a sequel to a treatise by another author, which had been published in France in 1662, entitled:— “Traité des Anciennes Cérémonies: ou Histoire, contenant leur naissance et accroissement, leur entrée en l’Eglise, et par quels degrez elles ont passé jusques à la Superstition,” dedicated to Charles II., King of Great Britain, by Jonas Porrée. In 1669 Mussard was President of the Provincial Synod of Burgundy, which met at Is-sur-Thil; its minutes have been preserved, and form an important document in Church History.
Soon afterwards, through a trick of the Jesuits, Mussard had to leave Lyons, and removed to Geneva, having received an invitation from the municipal council of that city. The company of pasteurs, not having been consulted, did not give him the right hand of fellowship. They pressed him to sign their formula, but he preferred to resign his charge in Geneva. It seems that, in 1675, he was enrolled as a pasteur of the French Church of the City of London. He may have officiated there at that time. However, he did not finally pitch his tent in our metropolis till 1678. In 1673 and 1674 he had published two volumes of sermons, and in 1675 a Latin treatise entitled “Historia deorum fatidicorum cum eorum iconibus, et Dissertatio de divinatione et oraculis.” Another tractate is also mentioned, “Jugement de Messieurs de la Propagation de la Foi sur le traité du Purgatoire de Mr. A. Robie.”
The children of Monsieur Mussard, by his first wife, Clermonde Sermand, were Francoise (Madame Du Teil), a son, Jacques, and another son, Antoine, who, by his wife, Jacqueline Mollet, had a daughter Anne, and a son Louis Benigne Mussard — this grandson had two descendants, Michael-Charles and Theophile.
Returning from great-grandsons to the old pasteur, we chronicle his second marriage to Marguerite Chouet, probably a near relative to Chouet, the librarian of Geneva, at whose request Mussard’s Latin treatise was composed. The offspring of this marriage were Anne and Theophilus Mussard; the latter died without issue in 1747. The exact date of the death of the pasteur himself is not known, but it was before 1692, the year of the publication of Quick’s Synodicon, for the last page of that work records his death in the service of the French Church of London, or before 1686, according to Haag. All the readable facts in his biography are due to the reverend puritan, John Quick, who says, in the above-quoted page, “He told me” the trick of the Jesuits by which he was outed from the Reformed Church at Lyons. “His modesty made him not put his name to his works, but he himself told me he was the author of them. Les Conformités doth speak English, for I have seen the translation in a bookseller’s shop.” So said the Rev. John Quick in 1692. Two translators, one in 1732, the other in 1745, were of opinion that Les Conformités had not been translated into English before their day. The dedication of the translation published in 1732 is signed James Du Pré, and the title is, “Roma Antiqua et Recens, or the Conformity of Ancient and Modern Ceremonies, showing from indisputable testimonies that the Ceremonies of the Church of Rome are borrowed from the Pagans.” The translation of 1745 is anonymous, and entitled, “The Conformity between Modern and Ancient Ceremonies, wherein is proved by incontestible authorities that the Ceremonies of the Church of Rome are entirely derived from the heathen. With an appendix shewing the conformity of their conduct toward their adversaries.”
*⁎* “Philip Musard, son of John, born at Geneva,” was naturalised in England by Act of Parliament in 1677. Mary, daughter of Mr Philip Musard, jeweller to our Queen Anne, was married in 1706 to Christopher, eldest son of Sir Christopher Wren, Architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and grandson of Christopher Wren, D.D., Dean of Windsor, and was the mother of a fourth Christopher Wren.