David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

“ Like his noble old chief, the Marquis de Ruvigny, De la Bastide foresaw the extinction of all liberty of worship for Protestants in France, while he made as good a fight as he could. The Romish clergy assembled in 1682, and fulminated their execrations and menaces. ”

“ Like the Huguenot literati in general, De la Bastide enjoyed the confidence of the great Valentin Conrart, the father of the French Academy. Conrart had begun a revision of Clement Marot’s Psalms, but at his death (23d September 1675) the task was unfinished. De la Bastide continued it, and the Provincial Synod of the Isle of France (27th April 1679) recognised his undertaking of that revision. It was not completed when he became a refugee. The revision was published at Berlin in 1701, “avec privilege du Roi de Prusse.” ”

“ A police report described him and his supposed tendencies thus:— “An able man and learned — a man of experience in worldly affairs and in negotiations — a man both honest and sensible — seems to be kept in his religion by a certain worldly sense of honour.” ”