[Magdalen] Les Huguenots.

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

There apparently a long line of priests among the Huguenots with the family
name Maturin. Some relocated to Ireland, and one, Gabriel Maturin, became a
dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. He was on the staff under
Johnathan Swift, who had the effrontery not to die for a very long time, so
when Gabriel finally got to be dean, he only lasted a year.  However, he
has a nice place in history I would not have known about, had we not met
with some historians while we were in Dublin.
It seems that, as an assistant to Swift, Maturin was in charge of
children's affairs.  It seems that some promoters wanted to have the
premier of a new piece by a noted composer, and it was hoped that the
choirs of the two Church Of Ireland cathedrals could provide the vocal
forces for the event. However, Rev. Swift was dead set against this, for
reasons that were not made clear. However, it was at least due in part to
the intervention of my ancestor, that Swift relented, and the premiere of
handel's _Messiah_ took place in a hall within about a block of St.
Patrick's. It has long since been replaced by a hotel, the George Frederic
Handel Hotel. And the children's services of Dublin did benefit from this
wonderful event.  Promoters feared attendance would be very high, and
ladies were asked to please leave their skirt hoops at home.





James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 8:00 AM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
>
> In a message dated 1/10/2016 12:53:54 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> mjl at ix.netcom.com writes:
>
> Msgr  Ronald Knox's "Enthusiasm" has a helluva section on the Huguenots,
> and it's  rather entertaining.  They really were the Pentecostal Holy
> Rollers
> of  their time and place.  Ghastly at times, actually.  Fun
> stuff.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
>
> Huguenots invented the word, "iconoclasm."  They loved to come  into
> a RC church and smash the place up.  There was widespread damage
> in this manner to many sites in France.  They were so efficient at  this
> they finished off wrecking the medieval Orleans Cathedral, France which
> had been previously damaged in the 100 Years War.  It took until  the
> nineteenth century for a neogothic replacement structure to be  finished.
>
> Much as the majority of the French disliked this iconoclasm, the most
> critical problem lay in the fact that the Huguenots were more
> well-educated
> and wealthier than the general French public, and then throw in  Cardinal
> Richelieu, advisor to Louis XIV, and who had an especial dislike for
> Huguenots, and you have the deadly revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
> the religious toleration act (1685).
>
>
>
> David Strang.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>