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David MalUt, Father of the progenitor of
tlu- family in America, was a man of some
prominence in France during the reign of
Louis XIV., and held a position of high
rank in the arim ,
in
ENCYCLOPEDIA OK UK HiRA I'l I V
which five of his sons
also served. From very early times the
famil) of Mallet has been ver) well
known in France, Switzerland, ami England,
ami its members have held high positions
in the official life of the communi-
ties in which they have resided. Koth in
France and in Switzerland many of the
name have been distinguished in literature
and professions, as well as in the army
and the navy. Representatives of the
family are very scattered, but all trace
their ancestry to the Norman tribe or fam-
ily of Mallets, or Malets, who invaded
France from Scandinavia early in the
eighth century, between the years 700 and
750 A. D. According to a letter written
from Southampton, England, in Septem-
ber, 1882, General the Baron de Mallet
Molcsworth traces the origin of the name
Mallet or Malet to a peculiar and distinguishing
weapon carried by the tribe and
used very effectively in combat, "a long
hammer, with a point at the other end"
a mallet with one side pointed, which was
—
perhaps a forerunner of a type of battleaxe
used later. To-day in France, mem-
bers of this family, descendants of the an-
of Hastings and the installation of the
feudal system of land tenure, England
was exclusively in the hands of the Norman
conquerors. In 1069, one of William's
followers, William Mallet, was
second in command of the castle of York,
according to Hume. William Mallet was
killed, with three thousand nun. in the
assault upon the castle of the Dan
Robert de Mallet, one of the Norman
nobles in England, is cited as among those
nobles who influenced Robert,
I Hike of
Normandy, to attempt to seize the Eng-
lish throne from his brother, Henry I.
That the Mallets then in England were
large and powerful landholders is certain
from the fact that then- is mention made
in early records of "the great estates of
Robert Mallet," which were confiscated
and later hot. .wed upon Stephen, after-
wards King of England.
The principal branch of the family in
France is the Malct de Graville line. In
the year 1530, one of the chiefs of this
family, Jacques Mallet, a Huguenot, of
Rouen, was compelled to leave France on
account of persecution of those who ad-
hered to the Protestant belief. He settled
in Switzerland, where Protestantism then
flourished under the rule of Calvin. In
1752, one of his descendants, Paul Henri
Mallet, was called to a professorship of
bcllcs-lctlrcs in Copenhagen. Members of
the family are still to be found in Geneva.
After the Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, persecution of the Huguenots became
more terrible than before, due not
only to the fear of the growing strength of
cient tribe, are to be found nearly every- Protestantism on the part of those high in
where.
civil and religious authority, but also to
The Mallet family was first established the poisoning of the ignorant public mind
in England during the time of the Norman by the church and state, which were both
Conquest, when William the Conqueror in the hands of unscrupulous Catholics.
came to England with his army of Nor- After 1680, thousands of Huguenot famiman
nobles and soldiers. After the battle lies left France, some going to England,
and some to Switzerland and America.
Very early in that period, a colony of
Huguenots of about one hundred and
fifty families settled in New Oxford, Mas-
335
sachusetts; and the early records of the
towns of Charlestown, Massachusetts, of
Warren, Maine, and of Rhode Island,