Daniel Benoit was a leading historiographer of French Protestantism, as attested by two works from his considerable corpus, namely the successful Marie Durand and his republication of L’histoire des martyrs de Crespin. But Benoit’s significance far surpasses these works. He thus offers us a glimpse of the way a historian far removed from Paris went to work, highlighting the difficulties he faced and the measures he undertook to overcome the considerable obstacle the distance still represented in the nineteenth century. Benoit’s work is also important in that it allows us to gauge the professionalization of French Protestant ‘pastor-historians.’ And last, but certainly not least, his work unveils how historians worked to construct French Protestant memory, seeking both to ward off ignorance and to reclaim their own time and space.