18 JANUARY 1868, Page 3

M. Athanase Coquerel pere, for thirty years the pastor of

the Reformed Church in Paris, and the head of its Presbytery, has died within the last week in Paris in his 73rd year. He was one of the least orthodox of the French Protestant clergy, and is generally understood to have been almost, if not quite, a Unitarian. He was in great part educated by his aunt,—an English lady, well known to Sir Roundel]. Palmer and other hymnologists for one or two very beautiful hymns,—Miss Helen Maria Williams. M. Coquerel was one of the curious group of clergy returned to the Chamber of Deputies under the Republican Government of 1848, when the celebrated heretic Lamennais and the equally celebrated Dominican Lacordaire were also returned. M. Coquerel supported the Government of General Cavaignac, and afterwards that of the Prince President Louis Napoleon ; and he even, Protestant as he was, gave his sup- port to the Roman expedition of the former in 1849, sent to sup- port the temporal power of the Pope. Probably his motive, like that of the great Orleanists Thiers and Guizot, was in reality as much jealousy of Italy, and a desire to see France dictating the ecclesiastical policy of Europe, as any less disinterested motive.