Spotlight 5
Charenton Temple
Further to his interest in the history of Charenton Temple, Miff has translated some old articles which help us to understand the spiritual life of our ancestors during the years when Huguenots (French Calvinists) enjoyed the freedom of worship in France under the protection of the Edict of Nantes. The Protestant temple at Charenton (east of Paris) was the place of worship in the 1600's where several of our ancestors were married, buried and baptized.
A nice computer-model reconstruction based on sketches and floor plans accompanies this presentation. This is a great improvement over earlier drawings that gave us only a rough idea of what the interior of Charenton temple may have looked like.
Also there is a sizeable list of ancestors whose names appeared in the Charenton registers in connection with their various rites of passage. These church registers no longer exist because they were consumed in the fire that destroyed the archives at Paris City Hall in 1871. However notes of their contents were made by the Haag brothers before the fire and then later compiled by another researcher, Pierre Harmant, in the 1990's. Thus interesting genealogical information has been preserved for us over many centuries even though the original registers no longer exist.
A Charenton New Testatment/Psalter dated 1656 purchased by Miff recently is also an interesting artifact related to this historic place of worship frequented by our ancestors.
