Arnaud de Salette

Arnaud de Salette , born towards 1540, died between 1579 and 1594, was a Pasteur and Professor French.

Its life

Wire naturalness of a collaborator close relation of the queen Jeanne d' Albret who will finish president of the sovereign Council of Béarn, Arnaud de Salette (Arnaut de Saleta) is born about 1540, undoubtedly with Pau. Perhaps after studies of right, he follows a moment the lawyer occupation before being received Pasteur in 1567. The same year, it is named as second Pasteur of Orthez where it becomes one of the principal professors of the Protestant academy of the city and undertakes the translation of the psalms as inhabitant of Béarn. The wars then force it to settle with Navarrenx in 1569 then Lescar where was transported the academy. One follows then his trace between Bidache, Lembeye and Serres. In 1578, it is one of the chaplains of Catherine of Bourbon, regent of Béarn.

Its work

Composed between 1568 and 1571, the translation of the Psalms in worms inhabitant of Béarn (Los Psalmes of David metuts in rima bernesa) is one of the monuments of the Gascon literature and occitane. They were published in 1583 per Louis Rabier, “imprimur deu Rei” near the Protestant academy of Orthez, printer which had already published in Orleans in 1565 the first edition of the Psalms put in French worms by Clément Marot and Theodore de Bèze. Based on the melodies chosen for this French psautier, the version of Salette is however not a copy. Expert of Hebrew, it endeavoured to pass directly from the language of the psalmist to that of his country, the Béarn. Its psalms without any doubt were used and sung by the Protestant church inhabitant of Béarn until the annexation forced in France by Louis XIII in 1617 and even afterwards.

Quotations

Laudors has Diu which my ròc estar denha
E which farmhouse mans has tired armed ensenha
E which mos called to the batalha aprén!
Its gran bontat urós known tots me ren,
Eth be my guarda, eth are my fortalessa,
My deliurança E my rondèla espessa,
Jo' m hidi in eth which dejús my poder
Assubjectit my pòple' m He veder.

Praises with God who condescends being my rocher
And which teaches my hands with the handling of the weapons,
And exerts my fingers with the battle!
Its great kindness makes to me happier than all,
It is my guard, it is my fortress,
My delivery and my strong shield;
I entrust in him which allows me voir
My people fixed with my capacity.

Anecdotes

In its address versified with the king Henri III of Navarre, sovereign Viscount of Béarn and future king de France Henri IV, Salette recalls that God wanted that king David sings his Hebrew psalms, that other prophets speak then “Greek and Latin”,…
“Despuish, eth has parlat enter our lo francés,
E macaw, COM auditz, eth spoke lo bernés;
Lo bernés pauc batut will versificatura some,
Totasvetz which receu the medisha mesura
That lo sobte Gascon nor lo francés gentiu,
E expressed plane southerly wind, that cuti-reaction OJ, the ebriu
Of David that los auts. ”
(Then he spoke among us French, and now, as you hear it, he speaks the inhabitant of Béarn; the inhabitant of Béarn little employed in versification, receives however same measurement as the flexible Gascon and noble French; he expresses the others as well as, I think, Hebrew of David.)

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