Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Malard, Michael
MALARD, MICHAEL (fl. 1727), French protestant divine, son of François Malard of Vaurenard, near Mâcon, was born at Vaurenard in 1676. His parents were Roman catholics, and he was bred for the priesthood, but after serving for some years as pasteur at Belleville, he came over to England about 1700, and embraced the protestant religion ‘in the French Church of the Great Savoy in London,’ 15 April 1705. Shortly after his conversion differences with the French protestants, whom he offended by becoming an episcopalian, drove him to Holland. He returned to England after a short absence, and earned a precarious livelihood by teaching, but devoted his chief energies to a series of bitter attacks upon the French committee for the distribution of the 15,000l., which since the commencement of William III's reign had been annually charged upon the civil list for the benefit of the French protestants. His first pamphlet, ‘The Case and humble Petition of Michael Malard to the Honourable Committee newly established for the Relief of the Proselytes,’ London, 1717, is rare and curious for its ingenious invective and its blending of French and English idioms. His abuse of the French committee (which had been reorganised in 1715) he defends on the ground that ‘Christ also called the Pharisees of his time Serpents and Hypocrites, and ravenous and faithless Robbers’ (p. 30). In 1718 he published ‘The French Plot found out against the English Church, or a Manifesto upon the unequalness of the Distribution … of the Royal Benificence.’ This professes to be a protest from the body of ‘Ecclesiastick Proselytes’ against the tyranny of the French committee, but doubtless emanated from a very small and inveterate clique of malcontents, of whom Malard was the mouthpiece. It was exhaustively answered by ‘An Appeal to the English Nation’ from J. Armand Dubordieu, one of the ministers in the French Church of the Savoy. Dubordieu convicts Malard of ‘habitual and consummate adultery,’ and attributes the withdrawal of his allowance to his scandalous life. Malard nevertheless continued his attacks in ‘The Proselytish Hercules against the Mystery of Iniquity; or True Light into the Plot of the French Committee and its League against the Church of England,’ 1720, 4to, and an ‘Address and Representation of Grievances to King George and the Parliament,’ 1720, 8vo, containing an answer to Dubordieu and a ‘Short Reply to the Libels of S. Lions, J. R. Holland, and the French Commissioners.’ The controversy throws valuable light upon the views and personnel of the French congregations in London at this time. Besides these pamphlets Malard wrote several manuals of French accidence. He seems to have fallen into obscurity upon the removal of the bone of contention by the abolition of the fund shortly after 1720, and the date of his death is unknown. A portrait, engraved by D. Lockley, was prefixed to Malard's ‘French and Protestant Companion; or a Journey into Europe, Asia, and Africa,’ 1718, 8vo; in this work, a curious combination of a grammar, a guide-book, and a satire upon the church of Rome, dedicated to George I, the author is described as French tutor to the daughters of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II (Noble, Contin. of Granger, iii. 164).
[Malard's Pamphlets in Brit. Museum Library; Kershaw's Protestant Exiles; Watt's Bibl. Brit. p. 636.]