THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
he would heal many sicknesses gratuitously. Froment was a capital teacher; he used the Bible as a text-book and crowds of people, old and young, came to him. On New Year's Day, 1533, so many wished to hear him that he was compelled to preach in the market-place. Taking Matt. vii. 15-16 as his text, he criticized the pope, the monks, and the priests as false prophets and denounced their shameful living. He was soon obliged to depart from Geneva, but when the Protestant party became stronger and was supported by Bern he came back (July 1533). The bishop of Geneva, Pierre de la Baume, had just left the city. Froment resumed his Evangelistic work with great success. The Roman Catholic party called a popular preacher, Guy Furbity, a doctor of divinity of the Sorbonne, as Advent preacher. When he spoke violently of the new doctrine in a sermon Froment answered in the church of St. Pierre. A great tumult followed and once more Froment was compelled to leave Geneva. Bern took offense at Furbity 's preaching and threatened to break its alliance with Geneva if an apology was not made (Jan., 1534). Froment and Yiret came back with the Bernese deputies. The government of Geneva gave way and the Reformation made steady progress. After Mar., 1534, Froment went to the Waldenses in Piedmont and Dauphine. In 1535 he was in Geneva when the priests, it is alleged, induced a female servant to give a poisoned soup to the Reformers, of which fortunately neither Farel nor Froment partook, but Yiret was taken very seriously ill. Meantime Protestantism gained so much ground that the majority of the citizens favored the new doctrine. In Aug., 1535, the mass was abolished and the Reformation practically established. Froment ministered for a time in the Bernese province of Chablais and was deacon at Thonon, but he was busier as a merchant than as a pastor. Then his wife, Marie Dentiere of Tournai, a former abbess, became unfaithful to him, and he had to resign his charge. He acted for a time as secretary to Bonivard, the former prior of St. Victor and prisoner of Chillon, then (Dec. 31, 1552) he was appointed notary. In 1562 he was put in prison and banished, being convicted of unchastity. For ten years the old man led a poor and miserable life; at last he was allowed to come back to Geneva (1572) and even to resume his place as notary (1574). His most notable work is: Les Acteset gestes merveilleux de la cite de Geneve (ed. G. Revilliod, Geneva, 1854), a chronicle of the years 1532-36, very interesting, but not always accurate.
Eugene Choisy.
Bibliography: E. and E. Haag, La France protestante, ed. Henri Bordier, vol. v., Paris, 1886; A. L. Herminjard, Correspondance des rfformateurs, 9 vols., Geneva, 1866-97; A. Guillot, Les Debuts de la Reformation a Geneve, Geneva, 1885.
FRONTON, freh"t6n', DU DUC (also Fronton le Due; Lat. Fronto Ducceus): A learned Roman Catholic writer; b. at Bordeaux 1558; d. in Paris Sept. 25, 1624. He was a son of a councilor of the parliament of Bordeaux, entered the Society of Jesus in 1577, and acted as teacher at Pont-a- Mousson, Bordeaux, and Paris, where he became
librarian of the College of Clermont in 1604. A friend of Casaubon and very well known as a Greek scholar, he revised the text of the works of the Greek Fathers and translated them into Latin with the addition of notes (Bibliotheca patrum grceco-latina, 2 vols., Paris, 1624). He also wrote three volumes against Du Plessis-Mornay's book on the Eucharist (Bordeaux, 1,599-1602).
Eugene Choisy.
Bibliography: NiceYon, Memoires, xxxviii. 103; A. and A. de Backer, Bibliotheque des ecrivains de la socifh' de Jesus, iii. 233, 7 vols., Liege, 1853-61; H. Hurter, A'omenclator literarius recentioris theologies catholics, i. 330 Innsbruck, 1892.
FROSSARD, fres"sar', BENJAMIN SIGISMOND :
French Protestant; b. at Nyon (14 m. n. of Geneva) Switzerland, 1754; d. at Montauban (110 m. s.e. of Bordeaux) Jan. 3, 1830. He studied theology at Geneva and in 1777 became pastor of the Reformed Church at Lyons, where he remained till the siege of the city in 1793. While visiting England in 1785 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford. In 1795 he became professor of morals in the Ecole Centrale of Clermont- Ferrand. Later he went to Paris, became a member of the consistory there, and collaborated with Rabaut-Pommier in the preparation of the organic articles of the Reformed worship. In 1809 he was charged with the organization of a Protestant theological faculty in Montauban, where he became pastor and president of the consistory. In 1810 he became the first dean of the new faculty and professor of morals and sacred eloquence. The reaction of 1815 deprived him of both deanship and pastorate, though he retained his professorship. His chief publications are a translation of Hugh Blair's sermons (3 vols., Lyons, 1782); La Cause des esclaves negres et des habitants de la Guinee (2 vols., 1789); and Le Christianisme des gens du monde mis en opposition avec le veritable Christianisme (2 vols., Montauban, 1831), a translation of Wilberforce's Practical View. Bibliography: Lichtenberger, ESR, v. 345-346, Paris, 1878, where sources are indicated.
FROTHINGHAM, OCTAVIUS BROOKS: Rationalist; b. in Boston Nov. 26, 1S22; d. there Nov. 27, 1895. He was graduated at Harvard in 1843, and at the divinity school in 1846. He filled charges at Salem, Mass. (1847-55), Jersey City, (1855-59), and New York City (1859-79), resigned on account of ill health in 1879, and after 1881 lived in Boston. He founded the Free Religious Association (q.v.) in 1867 and was its president till 1S7S. He was noted for eloquence and scholarship, but was extreme in his religious views. His New \ ork church was originally called The Third Unitarian but it separated from that denomination in IS/ 4 and was called The Independent Liberal Church of New York. He published lives of Theodore Parker (Boston, 1874), Gerritt Smith (New York, 1S7S\ George Ripley (Boston, 1882), and William Henry Channing (1886); The Religion of Humanity (New York, 1873); A History of Transcendentalism in New England (1876); Boston Unitarianism, lSM-M, a study of the life and work of his father, Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham (1890).