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LOUSE IN THE
AISSANCE
THE FLORAL GAMES; UNIVERSITY AND STUDENT
LIFE; ETIENNE DOLET (1532-1534)
BY
JOHN CHARLES DAWSON
PART I
THE FLORAL GAMES OF TOULOUSE
(LES JEUX FLORAUX)
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, IN THE FACULTY OF
PHILOSOPHY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1921
LIBRARY
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University of California, San Diego
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OCT 09 1993
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STUDIES IN ROMANCE PHILOLOGY
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Facsimile of folio 8 r" of the Livre Rouge (Vol. 1.); date 1550. Bibliotheque des Jeux
Floraux de Toulouse.
TOULOUSE IN THE
THE FLORAL GAMES; UNIVERSITY AND STUDENT
LIFE; ETIENNE DOLET (1532-1534)
BY
JOHN CHARLES DAWSON
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, IN THE FACULTY OF
PHILOSOPHY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1921
tfXCHAMCMK
Copyright, 1921
67 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Printed from type. Published May, 1921
DEDICATED TO THE
MAINTENEURS
OF THE
JEUX FLORAUX OF TOULOUSE
PREFACE
In the spring of 1919 I was stationed at Toulouse as the Amer-
ican Dean of twelve hundred American soldier students in the
University. While performing my duties in connection with the
Army Educational Corps, I became interested in all phases of Tou-
louse life, and especially in the Academy of the Floral Games. This
interest was heightened by my close personal friendship with Mon-
sieur Joseph Anglade, professeur d'fitudes Meridionales in the
University and Mainteneur of the Floral Games. Through Pro-
fessor Anglade, I had the privilege of visiting several times the
Hotel d'Assezat, home of the Academy of the Floral Games, and of
attending the annual meeting of the Academy of the 1-3 of May.
After becoming personally acquainted with the Mainteneurs and
learning the history of that ancient body, it occurred to me that
some phase of the history of the Floral Games would make a good
subject for investigation. When the American Mission, which
visited France in the summer of 1919 to aid in promoting a more
cordial understanding between the two countries, came to Toulouse,
I discussed the matter with Professor H. A. Todd, of Columbia
University, who was a member of the Mission. Professor Todd
not only gave me encouragement, but approached the Mainteneurs
on the subject. The latter readily gave assent and offered to aid in
every way possible. They suggested that a study be made of the
society in the period of the Renaissance; and in order to facilitate
the work, Monsieur Frangois de Gelis, historiographer of the Floral
Games, proffered the loan of a manuscript copy of the Livre Rouge,
the secretary's record from 1513-1641.
In the summer of 1920, I came to Columbia University and
began an intensive investigation of the Floral Games. Since certain
features of the history of this society in the period of the Renais-
sance had already been presented by M. de Gelis in his scholarly
Historic critique des Jeux Floraux (1912), I felt that my efforts
should be confined in the main to supplementing his work. For this
viii Preface
reason, after giving a brief survey of its earlier history, I have
attempted to deal with the transformation of the mediaeval society
into the College of the Art and Science of Rhetoric at the beginning
of the sixteenth century, and to point out the strong influence of the
Rhetoricians of the north on the reorganized body, as well as the
influence later of the general ideas of the Renaissance and of the
Pleiade. In treating the poets, I have endeavored to show the nature
in general of their poetry, and have selected for fuller study certain
of the contemporaries of the Pleiade poets. The influence of Du
Bellay and Ronsard was felt very early at Toulouse, but it was not
until the seventeenth century that the substance and spirit of the
poems for which prizes were awarded underwent strongly the influ-
ence of the Pleiade. Although the poems for which prizes were
awarded were composed very largely throughout the sixteenth cen-
tury according to tradition and the conventions imposed by the
society, many of the poets became successful followers of the
Pleiade, and among them perhaps the most elegant imitator was
Pierre de Brach, of Bordeaux, contemporary and friend of Mon-
taigne. Several poets of wide reputation, who made distinctly valu-
able contributions to the poetry of France in the sixteenth century,
began their poetic careers at Toulouse, and are to be counted as
direct products of the influence of the Floral Games. Robert Gar-
nier, the dramatist, was twice a winner of floral prizes and published
his first volume of poetry while a student at Toulouse. Du Bartas
was a student in the university and won a prize in the Floral Games ;
it is probable that he composed his Judith at Toulouse. Guy du
Faur, sieur de Pibrac, author of the Quatrains, while he never con-
tested for a prize, was a Mainteneur of the Floral Games, and
underwent the influence of his Toulouse environment. While for
the most part only a follower, Brach contributed to the poetic ideas
of his times by composing a series of sonnets as a vehicle for satire.
Throughout the century a large proportion of the competing poets
of the Floral Games were students of the university, who after their
departure from Toulouse, doubtless spread abroad throughout
France the interest in poetry which they had acquired. I believe
that I am the first to develop the connection between the Rhetori-
cians and the Floral Games, to point out that the influence of the
Preface ix
Pleiade was felt at Toulouse as early as 1551, and to indicate that
Guillaume Saluste, who won a prize in 1565, is to be identified as
Du Bartas, the celebrated author of La Semaine.
Although my first intention was to study the Floral Games
only, I perceived while perusing the pages of the Lvure Rouge that
many of the young poets were students in the university. As a
result of the interest stimulated by this discovery, I have devoted
Part II of my study to university and student life at Toulouse in
the sixteenth century. After a preliminary sketch of the founding
of the university and its history during the mediaeval period, I have
attempted in broad outline to picture university life in the sixteenth
century, portraying especially the intellectual and political struggles
of the first half of the century, particularly of the decade from 1530
to 1540, the clashes between the humanists and reactionaries, the
earlier phases of the Reformation, the bitter rivalry for precedence
on the part of the capitouls, the seneschalty and the parlement; the
struggles of the prof essors and students to retain their ancient privi-
leges; the reorganization of the student fraternities or "nations,"
and the role played by them in the stirring drama of the Renais-
sance. In dealing with the second half of the century, I have
attempted to outline the course of events leading up to the Protestant
Conspiracy of 1562, and finally to the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
In both of these tragic events the students had a conspicuous part,
especially in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, which, at Toulouse,
was in the main conducted by students. Many names celebrated
in French literature and history are connected with Toulouse in the
sixteenth century, among them Jean de Pins, Guillaume Bude,
Michel de 1'Hospital, fitienne Dolet, Jean Voulte, fitienne Pasquier,
de Thou, Henri de Mesmes, Jean de Boysson, Cujas, Rabelais,
Margaret of Navarre, Jean de Coras, Arnauld Ferrier, and many
others.
While investigating university and student life, I naturally
became interested in fitienne Dolet, who was a student of law at
Toulouse from 1532 to 1534, and in the latter year a contestant
in the Floral Games. After reading the works of the several
biographers of Dolet, I was aware that his career at Toulouse had
not been clearly understood and it was evident that confusion existed
x Preface
as to the proper sequence of events narrated concerning him. For
this reason I have devoted Part III to a fresh study of that part of
his life. I have attempted to arrange the events of his career in
their natural and logical sequence, and to give to the material a new
interpretation. While I am offering no new facts concerning Dolet
himself, I have introduced new material relating to the life at
Toulouse during the period of his stay there, and have been able to
show clearly the reasons for his final expulsion from Toulouse and
the bearing that his life there had on his after career. I have also
shown very conclusively why Dolet did not win a prize in the Floral
Games in the contest which he entered at the annual meeting of
May, 1534, presenting to the judges ten Latin poems. During the
earlier period of this literary society, known as the period of the
Gay Science, one of the inviolable rules governing the contests had
been that the poems for which prizes were to be awarded should be
written in langue d'oc, the language native to Toulouse. When the
Gay Science was transformed into the College of the Art and
Science of Rhetoric, at the beginning of the sixteenth century,
French was substituted for the native tongue as the language in
which the competing poets should compose their works. Every
winning poem transcribed on the pages of the Livre Rouge is in
French. However superior Dolet's Latin poems may have been,
he could not win a prize because he did not conform to one of the
most important rules laid down for the guidance of the aspiring
poets. Dolet's bitterness towards Gracien du Pont, lieutenant of
the seneschalty, is to be explained in part by the fact that Gracien
du Pont was a mainteneur of the Floral Games, and therefore one
of the judges of the contest. Dolet entered the faculty of law at
Toulouse in 1532. As a freshman or bejaune he underwent the
usual period of probation, at the end of which he was "purged of
infection " and became a fully recognized student or " antique." He
was at once elected as "orator" of the student fraternity or
"Nation" of France, delivering, in October, 1533, the "oration"
on behalf of his "nation" at the first general assembly of the
"nations" in the Estudes. Upon this occasion he clashed with
Pierre Pinache, "orator" of the Gascon nation. In January, 1534,
Dolet was elected head or Prior of the Nation of France. His
Preface xi
election was followed, probably a week after on the occasion of his
"Triomphe," by a second "oration," in which he dealt unsparingly
with his enemy, Pierre Pinache, and the Gascons. One of the first
qualifications demanded of a Prior was that he should be able to
manipulate skilfully the two-handed sword and to defend his fellow
"nationnaires" against all comers. That the students at Toulouse
were adepts in wielding the sword is noted by Rabelais in his book.
In 1531 the parlement had passed a decree abolishing the "nations,"
but the fraternities had failed to disband. In the spring of 1534
efforts were made to disperse the " nations " by arresting the ring-
leaders. The arrests were made early in April by order of Gracien
du Pont, lieutenant of the seneschalty. Pinache was in part at least
responsible for Dolet's arrest. Upon the intervention of Jean de
Boysson, professor of law, and Jean de Pins, bishop of Rieux, Dolet
was released, by order of the parlement. He entered the contest of
the Floral Games in May and failed to win a prize. Humiliated at
his arrest and chagrined over his failure in the Floral Games, he
turned the shafts of his pen against Gracien du Pont, who a few
months previously had published a scurrilous book on women. Pur-
sued by his enemies. Dolet fled to the country where he remained in
hiding until the close of the university session in June, when a
decree of expulsion was passed against him. Accompanied by
Simon Finet, he made his way on foot to Lyons, where some time
later he had an encounter with an artist by the name of Compaing
and killed his adversary with a sword. The death of Compaing led
to Dolet's imprisonment in Lyons and his final execution at the stake
in the Place Maubert at Paris. In depicting Dolet's career at Tou-
louse, I have endeavored to portray the general situation of the
times both in the university and the town and to point out their in-
fluence upon the fortunes of the young humanist. The scholastic
session of 1533-34 was one of the most turbulent in the history of
the university, caused by the shifting intellectual and political inter-
ests of the earlier renaissance. The struggles between the humanists
and reactionaries had become more acute owing to the visit of King
Francis I to Toulouse in August, 1533. The hostility between
Dolet and Pinache was due partly because they were " orators " of
rival " nations," in part to the strong sectional feeling existing be-
xii Preface
tween the students of the north and the south, and also to the fact
that as a "Grammarian" Pinache was opposed to the humanists, of
whom Dolet was one of the most aggressive leaders. Two of
Dolet's most bitter enemies were Pinache and a certain Maurus,
both of whom were Grammarians. At the founding of the Uni-
versity of Toulouse in 1229, a provision had been made that two
of the teachers should be professors of grammar. A separate
faculty of grammar arose. Grammar was the "art of explaining
poets and historians, the art of correct speaking and writing," and
included the study of Donatus and Priscian, together with many of
the foremost classical authors. By the end of the middle ages, the
study of grammar had become vitiated, and the reading of the
ancient authors came to be confined to the elementary reading books
Cato, Aesopus and Avianus. The Cato was a collection of maxims
and proverbs. The other two, as is obvious, were collections of
fables. The Grammarians had a monopoly of teaching the classics
at Toulouse. It is readily seen that there would be bitter enmity
between these representatives of the perverted study of the classics,
and the humanists, who stood for the restoration of the study of
the best classical authors. In the fall of 1533 the struggles of both
professors and students to defend their privileges became acute, the
former to preserve their ancient right of exemption from taxation,
the latter to retain their " nations." The troubles of the professors
came to a crisis in November when they declared a " cessatio " or
strike, refusing for a time to deliver their lectures. Student affairs
culminated the following spring in the arrest of the leaders of the
" nations." The efforts of the capitouls or aldermen to cling to their
ancient authority and the struggle of the seneschalty against the
growing power of the parlement were a disturbing element and had
their influence both on the life of the university and also on the
Floral Games, as is shown by the pages of the Livre Rouge. In the
beginning, the discipline of the students had been intrusted by the
Pope to his representatives at Toulouse. With the growth in
authority of the king of France, the students had gradually come
under the direct control of the seneschal and his officers. Dating
from the third quarter of the fifteenth century, the parlement had
begun to have a hand in the discipline of the students, and that its
Preface xiii
authority had become very strong in the period under discussion is
evidenced by the increasing number of decrees passed by the parle-
ment regulating student life. The struggle for precedence at Tou-
louse between the seneschalty and the parlement increased in bitter-
ness until the middle of the sixteenth century, when the latter gained
a footing in the Palais de Justice. From that moment the prestige
and authority of the seneschalty steadily declined. Dolet had been
arrested by the officers of the seneschalty and set free by the parle-
ment. While his attacks on Gracien du Pont doubtless had some
influence on his flight and expulsion, the main explanation of his
misfortune is to be found in the rivalry between these two bodies.
His expulsion put him under a cloud, and it was the skill he had
acquired at Toulouse in the use of the sword which enabled him
later to kill his adversary, Compaing. Thus I have attempted to
point out the direct bearing of Dolet's student life upon his mar-
tyrdom and to show that his career as a humanist was only in part
responsible for his tragic fate. The charge of heresy served merely
as a pretext to procure his execution.
Part I of this study, dealing with the Floral Games, has been ac-
cepted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
doctor of philosophy in Columbia University. Owing to the exces-
sive cost of printing which prevails at present, I have limited this
publication to Part I, but expect later to publish the work in its
entirety. In addition, I am expecting to make a study of the Floral
Games in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
In writing this book I have had the advice and assistance of
Professors J. L. Gerig and H. A. Todd, who have specialized in the
fields represented in the work of investigation. Professor Gerig's
broad knowledge of the sixteenth century and Professor Todd's
rare scholarship in Provengal language and literature have been of
inestimable value to me in the preparation of the work. Professor
Raymond Weeks, a specialist in Old and Modern French literature,
has offered valuable suggestions, and has furnished me with several
notes. He carefully scrutinized each chapter in manuscript. To
all of these professors I wish to acknowledge a deep debt of grati-
tude. They have been unusually sympathetic and have given me
every encouragement in the prosecution of the task. I am espe-
xiv Preface
cially grateful to Professor Anglade and to M. de Gelis, as well as
to the other Mainteneurs of the Floral Games. Miss I. G. Mudge,
reference librarian of the Columbia University Library, deserves
thanks for her untiring interest in the progress of the work, and
has been of great assistance in the assembling of books bearing on
the subjects of the several chapters.
JOHN C. DAWSON.
Columbia University,
May, 1921.
PART I
THE FLORAL GAMES OF TOULOUSE.
(Les Jeux Floraux.}
FOUNDED three hundred years before the French Academy, the
society of the Floral Games of Toulouse is the oldest of the
modern academies of France, forming a connecting link with the
middle ages and the Troubadours. The purpose of the founders of
this literary association, which in the beginning was known as the
Gay Science, was to foster lyric poetry, in the native language,
the langue d'oc or Provengal (in its later development called some-
what infelicitously by Raynouard and his followers the langue
rontane). The old Provengal Poetry had reached its height in
the twelfth century, and the decline of the Troubadours and their
poetry came early in the thirteenth century with the crusade against
the Albigenses, when the Troubadours were scattered far and wide,
the nobility wiped out or ruined, and the splendid civilization of
south France broken up. However, the poetic tradition lingered,
and the popularity of poetry and its appeal to all classes of people
was still very strong in the fourteenth century. 1 Before its decline,
the Troubadour poetry had been essentially aristocratic, intended
1 Guilhem Molinier, in announcing to the public of his day the " promul-
gation " of the Leys d' Amors (Laws of Poetry; the poet was known as the
Fin Amanf), a combined "Rhetoric" and "Art of Poetry," or code of laws,
drawn up for the guidance of young poets of the Floral Games, sent out a letter
in verse, which is evidence of the wide appeal which poetry still possessed in
the fourteenth century:
" Als excellens e redoptatz
Reys, princeps, dux, marques e comtes,
Dalfis, admiratz e vescomtes,
Doctors, maestres, cavayers,
Licentiatz e bacheliers,
Baros, nautz, justiciers, borgues,
Aptes escudiers e cortes,
Avinens mercadiers e gays,
Francs menestrals sobtils. . . ."
Las Leys d' Amors (tome i, p. 39),
edited by Joseph Anglade, Toulouse, Privat, 1919.
i
2 Toulouse 'in the Renaissance
for the nobility and for the courts, appealing to the middle classes
but rarely, and to the common people not at all. 2 Distinctly a
product of the feudal society of southern France, the Troubadour
poetry was produced for the entertainment of the nobles in manor-
house and chateau. The nobles themselves, even kings and princes,
pursued the art of poetry and became patrons and protectors of the
Troubadours. With the passing of the poets, the last princely pro-
tectors of the Troubadours had disappeared. It is significant that
only one of the seven founders of the Gay Science (Gay a Sciensa)
was of the nobility. 8 With one exception these men belonged to the
bonne bourgeoisie of the times. The rise of the middle class dates
from the thirteenth century. While the influence of the impover-
ished nobility was waning, the bourgeoisie, engaging in successful
trade and commercial enterprises, became enriched, and its influence
increased in proportion to its economic independence. Along with
the acquisition of wealth came the temptation to imitate the nobility
by becoming protectors of poetry ; and while the term " Trouba-
dour," as applied to themselves by the seven founders of the Gay
Science, may not be strictly correct, they were at any rate the patrons
and protectors of the Troubadours and the mainteneurs of the beau
langage rowan. 4 So far as is known, only one of the Seven was a
poet, the dantoiseau Bernard de Panassac, two of whose poems have
survived, one addressed to the Virgin, the other a profane chanson. 5
In response to the appeal of the VII Troubadours, poets from
various places assembled in Toulouse, bringing with them their
poems. They were " right honorably " received by the VII Trouba-
dours and the capitouls or aldermen of the city. The exercises occu-
1 H. J. Chaytor : The Troubadours, p. 10. Cambridge University Press, 1912.
3 The only noble among the founders of the Floral Games was Bernard de
Panassac, seigneur of Arrouede, who was a routier (brigand) of the most
dangerous type. About the beginning of the year 1336, he was accused of having
contributed, along with other Gascon lords, to the assassination of Geraud
d'Aguin, dantoiseau. Panassac's chateau of Arrouede srved as a refuge for
murderers who had been banished, not only from the seneschalty of Toulouse,
but from the whole kingdom of France.
4 F. de Gelis : Histoire critique des Jeux Floraux, Toulouse, Privat, 1912,
P- 13-
Joseph Anglade: Les Origines du Gai Savoir, Recueil de I'Academie des
Jeux Floraux, 1919, p. 183. Also, his edition of the Leys d'Amors, Toulouse,
Privat, 1920, t. iv, p. 19.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 3
pied three days, and on the last day, May 3, 1324, the prize, a
Golden Violet ( Violeta del aur) , was awarded to the poet Arnaud
Vidal, of Castelnaudary, for a chanson in honor of the Virgin :
Mayres de Dieu, verges pura,
Vas vos me vir de cor pur,
Ab esperanza segura, etc.*
During the mediaeval period, the society of the Floral Games
was known as the Consistory of the Gay Science (Gaya Sciensa:
otherwise called Gay Saber). Early in the sixteenth century the
Consistory became the College of Rhetoric (College de I' Art et Sci-
ence de Rhetorique) , and French took the place of the langue d'oc as
the language of the competing poets. In 1694, letters patent granted
by the King, Louis XIV, converted the society into an institution of
state under the name of " Academy of the Floral Games of Tou-
louse " (Acadcmie des Jeux Floraux}. Since the end of the fif-
teenth century the society had been popularly known under the title
Jeux Floraux? apparently an effect of the influence of the Renais-
sance a reminiscence of the ancient Floral Games at Rome.
CONSISTORY OF THE GAY SCIENCE.
On Tuesday after All Saints' Day of the year 1323, the " right
gay company of the VII Troubadours of Toulouse," as they had
styled themselves,
La Sobregaya Companhia
Dels .VII. Trobadors de Tolosa,
met under a laurel tree in a garden or grove in one of the fau-
bourgs of Toulouse, and sent out a letter in verse to all the poets of
the langue d'oc, inviting them to appear on the first of May of the
following year (1324) for a poetic tournament in Toulouse. The
names and callings of these VII Troubadours have been preserved.
Noulet : Recueil de Poesie en Langue Romane, " Las Joyas del gay saber,"
p. 3. The poem is here called a ciruentes, but it is a chanson.
7 The first official mention of this title is to be found in the Secretary's
record (Le Livre Rouge) for the year 1555. For the significance of the earliest
title, consult Anglade's edition of the Leys d' Amors, t. i, pages ^ and 8; also, t. 4.
4 Toulouse in the Renaissance
One was a noble (damoiseau) , one a bourgeois, 8 two were bankers,
two merchants, and one a notary.
Thus was established the ancient and honorable Academy of
the Floral Games of Toulouse. The time of the first meeting, May
1-3, was adopted as the date for the annual reunion of the poets, a
code of laws or art of poetry (Leys d' 'Amors) was drawn up
under the leadership of Guilhem Molinier, 9 and the cultivation of
the Muses in the langue d'oc continued to the period of the Renais-
sance. The list of winning poems of this earlier period exhibits
a variety of poetic forms: sirventes, canso, vers, planh, complanh,
pastorela, dansa, letra. They are generally of a religious or patri-
otic import, the majority of them being addressed to the Virgin
Mary. The distinctly religious tendency of the society and the
nature of its poetry are well expressed by the author of the Leys
d' Amors:
" In times past, there were in the royal and noble city of Toulouse,
seven distinguished seigneurs, learned, subtle and discreet, who pos-
sessed a good desire and a great affection for finding this noble, excel-
lent, marvellous, and virtuous Dame Science, that she might give and
furnish them with the gay knowledge of writing in verse, in order to
know how to compose good poems in rowan, whence they might be able
to say and recite good and remarkable words, in order to give good
doctrines and good instructions, in the praise and honor of God, our
Lord, and of his glorious Mother, and of all the Saints in Paradise,
for the teaching of the ignorant, for restraining mad and foolish
lovers, for living with joy and mirth, and for fleeing ennui and sadness,
enemies of the Gay Science." 10
Although only one prize, the Golden Violet (Violeta del aur}
was offered in the beginning, it was not long before two others were
added: the Eglantine (Ayglentina or Englantind) and the Mari-
gold (Gauch: French Souci), which were of silver. Throughout
this earlier period the Violet was considered the principal ioya or
8 The term bourgeois seems to be, in this connection, almost the equivalent
to a title of nobility.
9 Et adonc comezero de bocca a mestre Guilhem Molinier, savi en dreg, que
el fes e compiles las ditas reglas, etc. Leys d' Amors, edit. Anglade, t. I, p. 14.
10 Joseph Anglade : Origines du Gai Sovoir, Recueil de I' Academic des Jeux
Floraux, 1919, p. 179. Las Leys d' Amors, t. I, p. 8.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 5
prize, and the more dignified forms of verse were reserved for it.
A study of the winning poems that have been preserved 11 shows
that the principal prize was always bestowed for poems written in
the form of a canso, or vers. While the poem of Arnaud Vidal,
who was the first to win a prize, is described as a sirventes, it is in
reality a canso. The only exceptions to the above rule are one
example of the planh and one of the pastorela. 12
Latin civilization had been transplanted to southern Gaul during
the period of the greatest glory of the Roman Empire. Lyons,
Avignon, Aries, Marseilles, Narbonne, Nimes and Toulouse became
centers of Roman culture at its best. The museums of Toulouse and
Aries, the Maison carree, Temple of Diana, and the Arena at
Nimes, the Theatre of Orange, and the old Roman walled city of
Aiguesmortes, are all mute and silent reminders of a past glory.
With the decay of the Empire, this civilization became gradually
transformed into a brilliant feudal and chivalric society. The cul-
ture of the past was not lost, but transmuted, finding its expression
in the lyric art of the Troubadours. Lyric poetry, as we have it
preserved in the great literatures, is the offspring of an advanced
civilization. While the elegant Troubadours of the south were sing-
ing their refined and intricate lays at the courts of sovereign princes,
or in the manor houses and chateaux which dotted the country-side,
their ruder brothers of the north, the Trouveres, were singing in
epic strains the death of Roland, the prowess of Charlemagne and
his twelve peers, the deeds of recalcitrant nobles, or the adventures
of the Crusades. With the ancient Provincia as his base, Caesar
had, in eight successive campaigns, covering as many summers, con-
quered from the Gauls the territory of the west and north. And
while the north underwent the influence of Roman civilization, it
was the culture of Rome in its declining days, and it was a retarded
civilization. The result was, that while the south produced a refined
11 See Noulet's edition of the Fleurs du gai Savoir.
12 In 1471 Berenger de 1'Hospital had for his subject the struggle of
western Europe against the Turks, a contemporary event. Because he had
treated a subject of vital interest rather than one of the conventional themes,
he was awarded the prize, although neither the planh nor the pastorela were
forms for which the Violet was usually awarded. By treating a subject of live,
contemporary interest, the young poet introduced a new element into the con-
tests of the Gay Science.
6 Toulouse in the Renaissance
literature of an advanced civilization, at the corresponding period
the poets of the north were composing epics, the outgrowth of a
more primitive life.
The poetry of the Troubadours, with its ennobling themes of
chivalry and love, was not only a source of amusement and enter-
tainment, but it was a powerful force in the social and political life
of the times, and the Troubadour's position in southern society was
in a way somewhat comparable to that of the journalist of the
present day. He took an active interest in the troubled life of his
times, and the fierce invectives of his sirventes were as much feared
by the powerful lords of his day as is the violent editorial by the
politician of the present. Not only did he wield his pen with deadly
effect, but he injected himself frequently in other ways into the
movements of his time. So violent a sower of strife was Bertran
de Born, that Dante, in his Divine Comedy, placed the old Trouba-
dour in hell, "and there is no need to describe his picture of the
Troubadour "
"Who held the severed member lanternwise
And said, Ah me!" (Inf. xxviii, 119-142.)
The greatest lords sought the good will of the Troubadour, and the
fairest ladies were proud of becoming the inspiration of his verses ;
for it was held a peculiarly great honor in those days for a lady to
become the object of the affection and admiration of a poet.
If the Troubadours inspired noble and chivalric thoughts in
palace and chateau, their humbler companions, the Joglars (French :
Jongleurs) , who frequently sang or recited their masters' improvisa-
tions, spread throughout the land a taste for poetry and music;
beneath the branches of the ancient village oak, or in the shadow
cast by the elms at the well in the public square, the common people
would assemble, after the occupations of the day, to hear and to
repeat the songs sung by the Joglar to the accompaniment of the
vielle. Young girls and amorous youths lent breathless attention
to the loves of Guilhem de Cabestanh and the beautiful Sermande.
We can imagine them shivering with horror when Raymond de
Castel-Roussillon informed his wife that she had just eaten the heart
of her lover, and all eyes would be filled with tears when the unfortu-
The Floral Games of Toulouse 7
nate chatelaine, in response to her husband's demand as to how she
liked her frightful meal, replied that she had found it so good that
she would never eat another, rushed to the window of the castle and
hurled herself into the yawning abyss. Turning from sterner pic-
tures of love and hate, of infidelity and revenge, the Joglar would
relieve the gloomy impression which had been produced upon his
audience. To the serious song succeeded the gay refrain and verses
filled with covert malice toward the lords and princes. As the Joglar
sings his lay and thrums the strings of his vielle, a distant sound is
heard. All turn, and in the distance is descried a gray-robed pil-
grim, who approaches chanting solemn hymns of the sublime mys-
teries. For a moment the Joglar ceases to be the center of interest,
and all listen to the pilgrim's tales of journeys to holy places and to
the land of miracles. The pilgrim passes, and new interest is found
in the music of the hautbois and tambourin a prelude to the dance
on the village green. 13
Although the princely families were broken up and the occupa-
tion of the Troubadour sadly diminished, the spirit of poesy re-
mained abroad in the land, and the Troubadours found their suc-
cessors in the bourgeois society of Toulouse of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. And while the life of the poets of the Floral
Games lacks the picturesqueness of that of their ancestors, it is not
without its interest. A mural painting in the Hotel de Ville at Tou-
louse portrays the poetic contests which were held in a pleasant
grove outside the city walls. Upon a rostrum erected under the
symbolic branches of a laurel tree stands the poet facing the
judges of the contest. In his hand he holds a scroll or parchment
upon which is inscribed a rhythmic prayer to the holy Virgin,
mother of God, or an invocation to one of the saints in paradise.
In measured or impassioned tones, as the case may be, the seeker
after Dame Science recites his composition, which is listened to in
enraptured silence by the imposing audience grouped about the
speaker's stand. As the assembled throng hears the liquid syllables
flow from the mouth of the poet, one of the auditors, a mere youth,
in whose breast perhaps the divine fire of the Muses is already stir-
ring, starts forward, drinking in with eager attention, the lines of
the canso or vers.
18 Moline de Saint Yon : Histoire des Comtes de Toulouse, vol. i, p. 545.
8 Toulouse in the Renaissance
Poetry is not dead ; but instead of dwelling in the great mansion
as the companion of noble lords and fair chatelaines, she has been
caught up in the all-embracing arms of the church and henceforth,
for two centuries, will be but a handmaiden to serve the church's
interests. In the course of time, the religious fervor which ruled
the spirits of men at the beginning of the Gay Science, lessens and
grows lukewarm ; the power and authority of the church weakens,
and men begin to have disturbing and rebellious thoughts on the
subject of religion. The language and ideas of the victorious
north have gradually won their way into the centre of the con-
quered country; along with the lessening of religious fervor, the
poets of the Gay Science tire of writing in their ancient tongue, and
become weary of the constant annual repetition of the ancient Pro-
venc,al forms of verse. As the end of the fifteenth century draws
near, the languishing spirit of the Gay Science all but dies. With
the advent of Louis XII, the influences from the north penetrate
with renewed vigor. Lacking within herself the power of renas-
cence, Dame Science forms a union with Dame Rhetoric, and for
two centuries more the poetry of the Floral Games becomes the
grafted product of the dying spirit of the south and the decadent
spirit of the north. 14 During this period the poets lack inspiration,
poetry expresses itself in the narrow trammels of the ballade and
chant royal, and comes to be written in a language that is foreign
to the poets and to which they adapt themselves only with difficulty.
The simplicity of the reunions in the garden outside the city walls
has been replaced by formal gatherings in the city hall. The dis-
interested spirit of the early founders becomes replaced by the desire
for honors, and the office of mainteneur is sought more and more
frequently by the regents of the university, the higher officers of
the seneschalty and the members of the parlement. 15 With the rise
of the parlement to the first place of influence, the offices of the
Floral Games are more and more preempted by it, until by the
seventeenth century, the society has become, as it were, an adjunct
of the parlement, and the red robe of the parlementaires becomes
14 Dumege, Histoire des institutions de Toulouse (tome 4), mentions the
Rhetorical influence, but does not develop the subject.
18 The French form of this word is preserved throughout in preference to
the English word "parliament."
The Floral Games of Toulouse 9
the symbol of the pomp, display and conventionality surrounding
the annual reunions. No longer do the poets from the plains of
Gascony and the valley of the Aude turn their faces each passing
year toward the city of the Muses. The cultivation of poetry be-
comes an exercise of the students in the university and the clerks
of the Basoche, 16 and whatever of inspiration these may possess is
stifled by the religious traditions descending from Dame Science
and the restricting and artificial trammels of the chant royal, the
legacy of Dame Rhetoric. The result is, that for two hundred
years not a single poem above the second order is produced by the
contestants for honors in the Floral Games. And yet, notwith-
standing the mediocrity in general of the poems for which are
awarded prizes at the annual reunions, the society exerts a whole-
some influence on poetry; and French literature, as we shall see,
becomes enriched by it.
COLLEGE OF THE ART AND SCIENCE OF RHETORIC
The second epoch in the history of the Floral Games, that of the
College of Rhetoric, extends from 1513 to 1694. The principal
sources of information concerning this period are the secretary's
record known as the Livre Rouge, extending from 1513 to 1641 ;
and from the latter date to the raising of the society to the rank of
an Academy under royal protection in 1694, the " Triumphs "
(TriompHes) of the winning poets. The Triomphes were little
volumes of poems published usually by Colomies or Boude, bearing
symbolic and frequently fantastic titles, such as : Le Mont de Par-
nasse pour le Triomphe de la Violette, Les Larmes de Clytie, pour
le Triomphe du Soucy, or Le Vice abattu et la Vertu triomphante
pour le Triomphe de l'glantine. In them the poet included his
winning poem, a number of other compositions which he had in all
probability read before the judges, and the madrigals of praise and
congratulation composed by his friends. The Livre Rouge is a
precious record, without which very little could be known of the
Floral Games in the period of the Renaissance. It was begun in
16 The Association of the Clerks of the Parlement. The Basoche (basilica)
at Paris had considerable influence on the history of French comedy. The
corporation passed out of existence at the time of the French Revolution.
io Toulouse in the Renaissance
1550 by the greffier or secretary, Bernard Coderci, who inserted into
his book all of the loose leaf records he could find from previous
years. The two volumes of manuscripts of the Livre Rouge, pre-
served in the archives of the Floral Games at Toulouse, are of the
format petit in-folio, and contain the annual proceedings of the
College of Rhetoric from 1513 to 1641. The first of them covers
the period 1513-1583 ; the second that of 1584-1641. Each of them
contains 363 sheets, or in all, 1452 pages, written in cursive and
Gothic characters, displaying the most varied specimens of the
handwritings in vogue during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies. In them are to be found the names of the chancellors, main-
teneurs, maitres, capitouls, the candidates who competed for honors,
and the texts of the winning poems for which were awarded the
Violet, the Eglantine, and the Marigold in the annual contests
of the third of May. The original cover of the first of these
volumes caused it to be called the Livre Rouge. The second volume,
also because of the color of its cover, was known as the Livre Vert.
The two volumes, now in uniform binding, red morocco with gros
filets dores, are commonly known as the Livre Rouge. At the begin-
ning of each volume are illuminated pages representing Christ on
the Cross, together with four short extracts from the Gospels
according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It was upon this
illuminated text that new officials took the oath of office, swearing
fidelity to the society and its interests. Up to 1550 the annual
records were evidently left in loose-leaf form and, with the excep-
tions noted just below, were lost. Owing to the forethought of the
secretary, Bernard Coderci, the proces-verbaux for the years 1513,
I 5 I 9 J 535 * 539-* 549. were included in the new book, and they
are a source of valuable information on the Floral Games during
the earlier Renaissance. 17 From the year 1550 the complete record
was preserved of the three annual sittings : that of the first of April
(Sejnonce}, that of the first of May (Ouverture des Jeux}, and
that of the third of May (Distribution des prix}.
17 During the late war, Monsieur Francois de Gelis, mainteneur of the
Floral Games, was, on account of the state of his health, honorably discharged
from the French army. He spent the period of convalescence in transcribing
and editing the contents of the Livre Rouge. The present writer was permitted
to bring this manuscript copy to America, and it has become the basis of his
The Floral Games of Toulouse n
Both the decadence of the langue d'oc in the fifteenth century
and the progress toward the unification of the kingdom of France,
had their influence upon the substitution of French for the old native
language in the poetic contests of the Consistory of Gay Science.
The triumph of French over Latin as the official language of France,
came with the decree of Villers-Cotterets promulgated by Francis I
in 1539; but the complete ascendancy of French as the national
language was delayed until the seventeenth century. It is of sig-
nificance, therefore, that French made its appearance in Toulouse
as a literary language as early as 1513, the year in which the native
langue d'oc appeared for the last time in the poetic contests of the
Floral Games. Although the young poets were permitted to read
poems in their native tongue in the annual gatherings throughout
the sixteenth century, in no case was a prize given for a poem in any
language except French. Coincident with the change of language
was the change of name to that of the College of the Art and Science
of Rhetoric (College de I' Art et Science de Rhetorique), a title
clearly inspired by the reigning school of French poets, the Rhetori-
cians (Grands Rhetoriqueurs) . With the change of language also
came a change of form in which winning poems must be composed.
We have noted previously the various forms that were in vogue in
the period of the Gay Science. These old Provencal genres were
replaced by the ballade and chant royal. Since the vers and canso
were the traditional forms for which the main prize, the Violet, had
been awarded, it is probable that these two survived longer than any
of the others. At any rate, in 1513 (date of the beginning of the
records in the Livre Rouge) we find that one of the prizes was
awarded for a vers and the other two for ballades. In 1519, the
next year in which the Livre Rouge contains a record all three of
them were awarded for ballades. By that time the ballade had
become recognized as the sole form in the awarding of prizes. No
mention is made in the Leys d' Amors, the handbook of the earlier
poets, of the ballada or ballade. In the poems of the Gay Science
work. The manuscript copy is a faithful and accurate transcription, line for
line and page for page, of the original. The annotations which it contains are
of a scholarly and illuminating character, and they have been of invaluable
assistance to the writer in acquiring a comprehensive and appreciative knowl-
edge of the records contained in the Livre Rouge.
12 Toulouse in the Renaissance
that have come down to us, occur no poems designated by this
name. A form of balada had been cultivated by the ancient Trou-
badours, but it had nothing in common with the ballade except that
it had a refrain. The last extant poem of the Gay Science is of the
year 1498. The use of the ballade evidently came into vogue in the
Floral Games between this date and 1513. The life of the ballade
in the contests of the Floral Games was comparatively short. As
stated above, the winning poems of 1513 consisted of one vers and
two ballades. By 1519 the ballade, evidently an importation from
north France, had fully superseded the vers, and the transition to a
north French form was then complete. But there soon came a
struggle between the ballade and the chant royal. In 1539, the first
year for which the winning poems are transcribed on the pages of
the Livre Rouge, we find two poems, one of which is a ballade and
the other a chant royal. By 1540, all of the winning poems are
chants royaux, and while an occasional ballade is found in the
records after that year, 1540 may be accepted as the date of the con-
quest of the chant royal over its rival. The year 1554 marks the
introduction into the records of the sonnet, but at no time was a
prize ever awarded for a poem of this genre. The inclusion of an
occasional sonnet along with a winning chant royal shows that the
poets of the Floral Games were in the habit of reading other than
the conventional forms before the judges. In the course of time, the
sonnet became the only one used in the Essay, an impromptu trial
by which the merits of the various candidates were tested. 18 From
18 The Essay, established in 1540, developed into a regular feature of the
annual contests. In the year mentioned, owing to the fact that there were
several candidates of apparently equal skill and merit, the judges had difficulty
in coming to a decision. In order to determine the winners, they resorted to an
impromptu test which they called examen. The device was resorted to again
the following year, and was then called the Essay. Such tests became a regular
practice, and the name Essay was adopted. By 1565 the practice arose of
selecting a group of candidates, whose works were clearly superior, for the
trial by Essay. This was done regardless of difficulty in selecting the winners,
and the custom prevailed throughout the period (at least) covered by the
Livre Rouge. The purpose of the Essay was to test the candidates' ability
to compose verses on the spot. The aspiring poets wefe assigned a " last line "
of poetry by the judges, as for example,
" La chaleuf du soleil est la vie du monde,"
upon which they were to construct their verses. At first, the poems thus com-
The Floral Games of Toulouse 13
1540, with the exception of a few ballades and an oraison a Dieu
by which Jehan Flavin won the Violet in 1548, the chant royal is
the sole form for which prizes are awarded, fitienne Pasquier in
his Recherches (liv. vii) says:
" Vray que comme toutes choses se changent selon la diversite des
temps, aussi apres que nostre Poesie f rangoise fut demeuree quelques
longues annees en friche, on commenga d'enter sur son vieux tige,
certains nouueaux fruits auparauant incogneus a tous nos anciens
Poetes : Ce f urent Chants Royaux, Ballades, & Rondeaux. Je mets en
premier lieu le Chant Royal comme la plus digne piece de ceste nouuelle
Poesie, & se faisait, ou en 1'honneur de Dieu, ou de la Vierge sa mere,
ou sur quelque autre grand argument, & non seulement la plus digne,
mais aussi la plus penible. Et parce que depuis le regne de Henry
deuxieme nous avons perdu 1'vsage de ces trois pieces, ie vous en
representeray icy le formulaire. Au Chant Royalle fatiste (ainsi
nommerent-ils le Poete d'vn mot Frangois symbolizant auecques le
Grec) estoit oblige de faire cinq onzaines en vers de dix syllabes, que
nous appellons heroiques, & sur le modele de ce premier, falloit que
posed had to be in the form of a quatrain, huitain, or dixain. Later, when the
sonnet had become popular in France, it was adopted, and soon became the
sole form used in the Essay. In undergoing this trial, the poets were shut up
under lock and key. While they were thus engaged, the judges and other
officials partook of the banquet, which was a part of the annual program.
While the banquet was still in progress, the poets were released, were brought
into the presence of the judges in the banqueting hall, and there read the verses
which they had just composed. The Livre Rouge does not contain any speci-
mens of such verses, but the writer has been able to secure a transcription of
one contained in a small collection of poems published as a Triomphe by
Gregoire de Barutel, winner of the Eglantine in 1651 :
SONNET DE L'EssAY.
FRANCE, quoy que 1'orgueil d'vn bany te menace,
Sgaches qu'il n'est plus temps de reprendre des pleurs,
Et que les immortels apres tant de douleurs
Vont te faire jouyr d'une longue bonace.
Tes plus fiers ennemis ont perdu leur audace,
La peur les a fletris de ses pasles couleurs,
Depuis que le Ciel sait epanouir les Fleurs
Que le malheur fermoit dans le Haure de Grace.
Ces Illustres Captifs que la rigueur du fort
Auoit presque reduits a deux doigts de la mort,
Ont este iustement deliurez d'esclavage.
Les Parlemens les ont rendus aux bons Francois,
Eun chacun d'eux peut crier a haute voix
Mes ennemis sur may n'auront point d'auantage.
14 Toulouse in the Renaissance
tous les autres tombassent en la mesme ordonnance qu'estoit la rime du
premier, & fussent pareillement accolez mot pour mot du dernier vers,
qu'ils appelloient le Refrain. Et en fin fermoient leur Chant Royal par
cinq vers, qu'ils nommoient Renvoy, gardans la mesme reigle qu'aux
autres, par lesquels, les addressant a Vn Prince, ils recapitulaoient en
bref ce qu'ils auoient amplement discouru dedans le corps de leur
Poeme." 19
Noulet, in the introduction of his edition of the " Joy as del gay
saber/' 20 says, in speaking of the earlier history of the Floral Games :
" It was necessary to remain true to the Catholic faith and to com-
pose in pure roman (the ancient langue d'oc or Provengal). Then, the
poets were to have in view only the quest of the beau and the honnete,
and, in order to arrive at this result, to treat only religious subjects, or
at least those bearing the imprint of a high moral character. 21 All that
19 The chant royal, in its definitive form, had five stanzas and an envoi.
Each stanza was composed of eleven lines, and the rhyme scheme of each was
the same. The envoi of five lines repeated the rhyme scheme of the last five
lines of the stanzas. The refrain was the last line of the first stanza repeated
as the last line of each succeeding stanza, and as the last line of the envoi.
In the poetry of the Floral Games, the lines were of ten syllables until the
Alexandrine came into use, when the line of twelve syllables was substituted
for that of ten. Also, in the Floral Games the envoi came to be known as the
allegorie, an innovation of the poets of Toulouse. Because of the religious
traditions connected with it, the chant royal stuck more closely to the original
intention of the genre in the poetry of the Floral Games than elsewhere. This
species of poem continued to be cultivated by the aspirants to honors until the
College was transformed into an Academy in 1694. Among the statutes enacted
for governing the Floral Games at the time of the transformation, is to be
found the following statement : " The poems for which in earlier times prizes
were given, being out' of use, and the chant royal, which succeeded them, having
been abandoned in recent years as a poetry too restrictive. . . ." The chant
royal was cultivated by several of the great poets of the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries, passing out of vogue with La Fontaine. It was revived in
the nineteenth century, and has been cultivated by several of the modern Eng-
lish poets, of whom one of the earliest was Edmond Gosse,
A useful study of the origin and nature of the chant royal is contained in
Appendix III of Cohen's The Ballade, Columbia University Press, 1915.
20 French = Joies du gai savoir.
21 Les troubadours de la decadence partagaient leur talent entre la poe"sie
profane et la poesie religieuse. L'ecole toulousaine alia plus loin; elle n'admet
plus que cette derniere. L'amour de Dieu et surtout de la Vierge furent a
peu pres les seuls sentiments qu'il fut permis d'exprimer. Joseph Anglade,
Las Leys a" Amors, Toulouse, 1920, tome 4, p. 47.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 15
appertained to profane love, and even that ideal love, cult of the knights
and troubadours of the past, was severely interdicted, or rather the
expression of this last sentiment was bestowed upon a single object,
the Virgin Mary."
The poets of the College of Rhetoric were compelled to follow
in the traditions of their predecessors of the Gay Science. From
time to time the restrictions were renewed, as is intimated to us by
numerous entries in the Litre Rouge, As late as 1573 the Livre
Rouge contains an entry enjoining on the poets to present poems in
praise of God, the Virgin Mary, and the saints : " let the works they
shall desire to recite and pronounce, be composed in honor and
praise of God, of the holy and blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God,
saints (saincts et sainctes) of paradise, and of Lady Clemence
Ysaure of good memory." 22
Toulouse had been the center of the Albigensian heresy, and
after this had been wiped out through the conquest of the south by
the king of France and the pope, the latter had determined to make
Toulouse a stronghold of the Catholic faith. As a part of the plan
to accomplish this, the university was founded and the Inquisition
22 The Livre Rouge affords a good study of the evolution of the legend of
Clemence Isaure, as the restorer of the Floral Games. This legend had its
birth at the close of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century, just at
the moment of the transformation of the Gay Science into the College of
Rhetoric The controversy as to her real or imaginary existence lasted for sev-
eral centuries, but scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have
demonstrated conclusively that no such character ever existed. The oraison
of Clemence Isaure is still pronounced at each annual meeting of the Floral
Games, but the legendary patroness has become nothing more than a shadowy
ideal of poetry. Beginning with the Latin poem in her honor read in the con-
test of 1534 by fitienne Dolet (at the time a student in the faculty of law at
Toulouse), Dame Clemence became the inspiration of many of the young poets
for several centuries. In the eighteenth century Florian made her the subject
of his celebrated romance, Estelle (set to music by Cherubini). For interest-
ing studies on Clemence Isaure see: Roschach, Variations du roman de Cle-
mence Isaure, and Les Avatars de Clemence Isaure, in the Memoires de fA-
cademie des Sciences of Toulouse; also Francois de Gelis' splendid and com-
plete treatment, La Legende de Clemence Isaure, in his Histoire critique des
Jeux Floraux, Toulouse, 1912. Among earlier writers on the subject see Catel,
Lafaille, Ponsan, Dom Vaysette, Lagane, Dumege. The last was an ardent
believer in the existence of Clemence Isaure. His views may be seen from
articles in his Biographic Toulousaine, Michaud, 1823 ; and in his Histoire des
Institutions de Toulouse.
16 Toulouse in the Renaissance
was instituted. 28 By the beginning of the fourteenth century Tou-
louse had been converted into an orthodox Catholic city, and it was
under the influence of this reactionary religious impulse that the
Floral Games had been established.
The most striking feature of the old Troubadour poetry was its
treatment of the theme of love. The Troubadour conception of love
was the outcome of the theory of knighthood or chivalry under the
influence of mariolatry. In the eleventh century the worship of the
Virgin Mary became widely popular ; the reverence bestowed upon
the Virgin was extended to womanhood in general, and as a vassal
owed obedience to his feudal overlord, so did he owe service and
devotion to his lady. 24 While the poetry of the Troubadours
doubtless had its rise under religious influences, it was not a religious
poetry. Not until towards the close of the thirteenth century did
distinctly religious poetry begin to be cultivated in the south of
France. Guiraut Riquier, known as " the last Troubadour," 25 who
died in the last decade of the thirteenth century, wrote distinctly
religious verse. The founders of the Floral Games followed his
example in writing on religious subjects, and so strong was the
religious reaction of the times that the poets of the new school were
in full revolt against the profane themes of the earlier Troubadours.
By 1356, the year in which the Leys d" Amors appeared, the tradition
had become fixed, and the Leys d' Amors, written as a grammar,
rhetoric and poetic art, for the guidance of the Fins Amants (as the
contestants were called) 28 laid down the rule that the poems pre-
sented for prizes should be of a distinctly religious import, in praise
of God, the Virgin and the saints, or at least of a lofty moral nature.
This last clause was a distinct hit at the old Troubadour poetry,
which to the men of the fourteenth century seemed trivial with its
endless variations of profane love.
28 The Inquisition was not fully abolished at Toulouse until 1772. Its influ-
ence on the founders of the Gay Science may be seen by the following paragraph
from the Leys d' Amors (edit. Anglade, t. II, p. 23).
"Errors es lo majors vicis de totz, quar es contra la fe catholica; per que
horn ne deu recebre ni dar joya per dictat que parle de la santa theologia, en cas
doptos, si donx la sentensa no era cl'ara e manifesta, o aproada per I'Enqueridor."
24 Chaytor : The Troubadours, p. 15.
26 See the admirable book of Professor Joseph Anglade, of the University
of Toulouse: Le Troubadour Guiraut Riquier, Paris, 1905.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 17
Du Bellay, in his Defence et Illustration de la langue fran-
foise (1549), counsels the young poets to leave such trifles as the
ballade and chant royal to the Floral Games of Toulouse and the Puy
of Rouen. That the poets of the Floral Games, in spite of the
glorious efflorescence of classical forms of lyric poetry in the north
during the sixteenth century, continued to cultivate exclusively the
chant royal until at least 1641, 27 and for the most part if not ex-
clusively until i694 28 seems less strange when we consider the
historical background. It must be borne in mind that the tradition
of the Floral Games was more religious than poetic. Founded in
the orthodox Catholic faith, the society maintained its religious tradi-
tions throughout the sixteenth century in spite of the bitter struggles
of the period of the Reformation. That the religious revolution
was felt within the society is proven by many entries in the Livre
Rouge. 29
26 Provengal : Fis Aytnans, Fin Ayman.
27 The year in which the records of the Livre Rouge end.
28 The year in which the College of Rhetoric became the Academy of the
Floral Games.
29 An entry in the Livre Rouge for the year* 1563 reads as follows: "A
este remonstre par led. seigneur Coignard, la calamite du temps que se pre-
sentoit, tant de mort cruelle et hostille que de peste et famyne, et mesmes que
aux envyrons ou bien pres de lad. ville y avoit plusieurs assemblies ou moien
de quoy se faisoient plusieurs incursions hostilles, que debvoit esmouvoir les
assistans, faire cesser toutes assemblies et lettures publiques."
An entry of 1564 reads: " Semblablement est inhibe a toute qualite de gens
de porter arnoiz a ladicte assemblee, centre les edicts du Roy, ne faire tumultes,
noise, ne insolances, a peyne de prison et autre exemplaire."
In 1568 " feust diet et remonstre publiquement que attendu la calamite du
temps, advenue pour raison des troubles qui sont en France, et mesmes en
environs de ceste ville, au moien desquelz et que 1'assemblee qui communement
se faict de toute qualite de gens les premier et tiers jours de May ordonnes,
pour ouyr prononcer les pohesmes et faire le jugement des fleurs, suivant
1'institution de dame Clemence et coustume antienne, se pourroit en suivre
quelque escandalle, par quoy avant faire la semonce acoustumee faicte, sem-
blable jour, seroit expedient de traiter coment conviendra en user pour ceder
au temps."
1569: ". . . mais aussi sur 1'election du chancellier vichancellier et autres
maincteneurs en lad. science, absans, fugitifs, mortz ou autrement condamnes."
An entry of 1571 has to do with Jean de Coras, who was the next year one
of the victims of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew : " Ledict sieur Durant,
mainct'eneur, a remonstre par messieurs les maincteneurs, cappitoulz bayks et
M" [for maitres], avoyr este esleu a 1'estat de maincteneur vaquant par
1 8 Toulouse in the Renaissance
When the transition was made from the langue d'oc to the
French, it was but natural that French forms should be adopted
along with the language. The ballade and the chant royal were the
two, and especially the latter, which best accorded with the
traditions of the Gay Science. For this reason, the chant royal
became eventually the sole form in which the winning poems were
composed. But if the poets were compelled to conform to conven-
tions in order to win the prizes, they were free to read poems before
the judges constructed in any form and written in Latin, French, or
in the native language. In 1534, fitienne Dolet presented ten poems
written in Latin and of various genres. At early as May, 1551 a
poet from Beam, Bernard de Poey, at the time a student in the uni-
versity, in all probability read odes in the presence of the judges. In
I 554 a sonnet was included along with a winning chant royal in the
records of the Livre Rouge. And, as above stated, the poets con-
tinued to read poems in the langue d'oc throughout the sixteenth
century.
The precise moment of the transition from the Consistory of
Gay Science to the College of the Art and Science of Rhetoric is
unknown; but the change took place between 1498 and the opening
records of the Livre Rouge. As has already been said, the entries
in the Livre Rouge begin with the year 1513, and that has been
accepted as the date of the reorganization of the society. It is
1'absence de monsieur M e Jehan de Corras et parceque led. de Corras, conseiller
en la court, au moyen de 1'edict de pacification est remis en ses honneurs et
(lignites, declaire n'entendre 1'empescher aud. lieu de maincteneur ne aulcune-
ment contrevenir a 1'edict de pacification et pour le reguard de la requisition
faicte par led. scindic, il n'y peult oppiner." The record for 1572, on the very
eve of the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, has an intensely interesting entry
with regard to Coras. Coras, who was a Protestant, refused to join the
mainteneurs and capitouls in celebrating the mass, which, as usual, preceded the
sittings of the officials of the Floral Games, but joined them afterwards. The
record reads: ". . . led. de Coras absent et retire, entrarent apres lad. messe
dicte dans le grand concistoire de lad. maison de ville, assistes aussi dud. de
Coras. . . ." The record of 1573 speaks casually of the " decease " of Coras :
" Et que a present seroit advenu que ledict de Coras, en absence duquel il auroit
este esleu maincteneur en lad. annee mil V c LXIX, seroit decede, a supplie la
compagnie vouloir faire adviser. . . ." Jean de Coras was a brilliant humanist
and occupied chairs of civil law in various universities of Italy and France.
After the middle of the century he forsook the scholastic robe for the red robe
of the parlement.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 19
unfortunate that a Frederic Mistral could not have appeared at the
opening of the sixteenth century. If a strong, virile, patriotic writer
had appeared at that time, the language and literature of the south
might have been revived, and the subsequent history of the Floral
Games would surely have been different. At any rate, it is to be
regretted that the reorganization was not deferred until a half cen-
tury later, when the Renaissance influences in France were in full
swing. A reorganization at this later time would have had very
vital consequences, and the influence of the Floral Games on the
history of French literature would certainly have been far-reaching
and noteworthy.
The reorganization of the Floral Games came just at the moment
when the influence of the decadent Rhetoricians of the north had
become widespread, infesting France like the plague. 30 The decay
of the earlier epic literature of north France had paralleled that of
the lyric Provencal literature of the south ; and whereas the ancient
Troubadours had been succeeded by the Fins Amants of the Con-
sistory of Gay Science at Toulouse, the Trouveres of the north had
found their successors in the poetic school of the Rhetoricians, and
for two centuries poetry came to be known as Rhetoric. 31 The rules
for the composition of poetry were multiplied, and numerous
treatises for the guidance of aspiring poets were published, bearing
frequently grandiose and fantastic titles, which are of themselves
suggestive of the conception that men of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries had of poetry. The names of some of these treatises on
poetic art are illuminating. Between the Art de Dictier of Eustache
Deschamps in 1392 and the Art poetique of Thomas Sibilet in 1548,
there is a long line of such manuals. The titles of a few of them
are sufficient for illustration : 32 Les regies de la Seconde Rhetorique
(1411-1432), Le Doctrinal de la Seconde Rhetorique (1432),
Traite de I' Art de Rhetorique (between 1433 and 1466), Jean
Molinet's Art et Science de Rhetorique (1493), Le Jardin de
plaisance et fleur de rhetorique (1499); Pierre Fabri's Grant et
80 Lanson, Histoire de la litterature franfaise, p. 182.
81 Prose was called the art of First Rhetoric ; and Poetry was known as
the art of Second Rhetoric,
32 See Petit de Julleville, Histoire de la Litterature franfaise, for more com-
plete information. Also Cohen's The Ballade, Columbia University Press, 1915.
2O Toulouse in the Renaissance
Vraie Art de Pleine Rhetonque (1521), Gracien du Font's Art et
Science de Rhetonque metrifiee (1539 at Toulouse).
What is now generally known as the school of the Rhetoricians
(Grands Rhetoriqueurs) was not a conscious and definite movement
in literature, as for instance at later periods that of the Pleiade and
that of the Romanticists, but was a gradual outgrowth correspond-
ing to the decay of feudalism and the rise of the middle class which
paralleled the literary changes in the south. In reviewing the litera-
ture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it has been seen that
the earliest tendencies toward regarding literature as Rhetoric are
to be found in Guillaume de Machault in the earlier fourteenth cen-
tury, of whom Lanson says : " to him the honor of having revealed
the secret of serpentine, equivocal, leonine, alternate or retrograde,
sonant or consonant, rhymes." Although a mere name to-day,
Machault was in the eyes of his own age a great poet. He was imi-
tated by the English writers, among others Chaucer, and gave to
English literature the heroic couplet. The most striking evidence of
his popularity is the effect that he had on poetry. He was a musician
in an age when music was much cultivated. " By devoting par-
ticular attention to the union of verse and music and the composi-
tion of songs he became largely responsible for the vogue of com-
plicated metres in which poets began to delight, metres which be-
came daily more involved until they culminated in the verbal atroci-
ties of the rhetoriquenrs who carry into belles-lettres the precedes
of the schoolmen. He, himself, for instance, took chief pride in the
lai which was, if anything more complicated than the other metres.
But the form which won chief favor was the ballade, as marked a
feature of early poetry as the sonnet was of the later." 33 Of the
influence of this school which found its ancestor in Machault, Lanson
says : 34 " There will be no further change in things until the Renais-
sance. For almost two centuries the same genres will be cultivated :
above all, the ballade will be the master form of poetry, cherished
by the professional poets (Eustache Deschamps composes them in
J 374)> practiced by amateurs (the Book of the Hundred Ballades
is the collective work of princes and lords of the court of Charles
"C. H. C. Wright: A History of French Literature, p. 112. Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1912.
** Lanson : Histoire de la Litterature fratifaise, p. 144.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 21
VI) : the ballade will be what the sonnet was in the decadence of the
Renaissance before the maturing of the classic genius. . . . The
name which is henceforth to be used of poetry, the name which
depicts marvellously the poetry of two centuries, from Machault and
Deschamps to Cretin and Molinet, which the fourteenth century
adopts and perpetuates, that name is Rhetoric."
It is extremely difficult to appreciate at their true value the
Rhetoricians. With the passing of feudal and chivalric ideals, there
came a readjustment and reconstruction of society over the whole
of France. The literary product of feudal society ceased to have a
vital meaning, and, like the social order under whose influence it
had been composed, it passed away. To meet the needs of the
renewed society which gradually evolved between the thirteenth
and fifteenth centuries, a new literature had formed, one which
beyond doubt reflected the ideals and intellectual aspirations and
needs of the public for which it had been written. In the old society
intellectual ideals had been lacking. The literature which had been
produced under its inspiration, while marvellous in its simplicity
and the fidelity with which it depicted the spirit and manners of the
age, was the product of an epoch intellectually uncultured. With
the loosening of the bonds between overlord and vassal, with the
growth of commerce and the rise of a middle class of importance,
with the development of an office-holding class in the employ of the
king, as for example the numerous officials of the seneschalty and
the parlements, with the growing authority of the church over the
minds of men, with the rise and development of the mediaeval uni-
versities, there had gradually come to be formed a wider range of
interests, and it was the task of the Rhetoricians to produce a litera-
ture which would meet the needs of this new social order in the
making. In order to understand just how well they performed their
work, it would be necessary to have a complete understanding of
the intellectual and spiritual forces of the age as represented by
scholasticism. The literature of the Rhetorical school went hand in
hand with scholasticism, and both became outworn and were cast
aside. With the difference, however, that while certain phases of
scholastic thought continued until the seventeenth century, Rhetoric
suffered a complete breakdown early in the sixteenth century. At
no time in the history of the world, perhaps, has the literature of an
22 Toulouse in the Renaissance
age collapsed more completely and spectacularly than did that of
France at this period. The sign of decadence was not that men
ceased to write, but that writers greatly multiplied, and the quality
of the product diminished in proportion to the increase. Letters lost
their vitality, authors became mere imitators, and imitators of the
eccentricities and worst features of their models ; so that for more
than a generation a veritable host of writers busied themselves with
the composition of works that are now regarded as the most absurd,
ridiculous, and fantastic ever produced. Critics in estimating the
worth of the Rhetoricians have been too apt to judge them at their
worst, and their condemnation has been severe. But that the
Rhetoricians hold a definite place of importance in the history of
French letters, there can be little, if any, doubt, and while the litera-
ture of France of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries may not
appeal to the modern world as much as that which preceded or fol-
lowed it, neither do those centuries appeal to us to-day, in general,
as much as the periods of chivalry and of the Renaissance. Two
services, at least, were performed by the Rhetoricians which were
to be of capital importance to the succeeding school of the Pleiade.
Under their influence the audience for literature was greatly ex-
tended. Literature does not flourish without an audience any more
than does the stage. In the second place, they kept alive and stimu-
lated interest in antiquity. They misunderstood antiquity, but it
attracted them nevertheless, and they gave voice to the notions that
generally prevailed at that time concerning it. When Du Bellay and
Ronsard began to write, they found an audience already formed
and one already familiar after a fashion with the antiquity which
they sought to revive and truthfully imitate. Had it not been for
the work of the Rhetoricians, the gulf between the revived antiquity
of the Renaissance and the people of France would have been much
greater than it was. It is true that the knowledge which the
Rhetoricians had of antiquity was practically confined to Rome.
Greece was scarcely known to them. But the Renaissance, when it
came, was a Latin Renaissance, and not until the seventeenth cen-
tury did it become a widespread movement covering both Greece
and Rome. 85
* 5 The most recent work on the development of French Classicism is
Professor C. H. C. Wright's French Classicism, Harvard University Press, 1921.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 23
If the decadent Rhetorical poetasters suffered from a poverty of
thought, and if they debauched poetic art, their most unpardonable
sin was against the language. Under their influence French verse
became at times utterly unintelligible. The following lines are good
illustrations of their writing at its worst:
In 1471 Jean Molinet addressed a letter in verse to one of his
friends which is a queer macaronic mixture of French and Latin :
. . . Si de meo statu petis,
Perdus sommes grans et petis:
Habuimus multa bella
Depuis qu'Amiens se rebella . . .
fitienne Pasquier, in his Recherches, notes the following :
Iliades curae quae mala corde serunt,
which may be read in French,
II y a des cures qui mal accordes seront.
The fondness for alliteration is to be seen in the following lines
from Jean Boucher:
Frangoys faitiz, francz, fors, fermes au fait,
Fins, frais, de fer, feroces, sans frayeur . . .
Verse reached the stage of utter unintelligibility under the pen
of Andre de la Vigne. In an invective against Atropos he indulges
in the following:
Trie, trac, troc, trop, trousselant, triquetroque,
Trainc tres terreux, trep de triquenoque,
Traistre trousson, triquenique tribraque,
Truye troussine, triquedondayne troque,
Triste truande, triple trouble tibroque,
Tresvil trect traict, traffigue tripliarque,
Trace trouvee, tribullante trymarque . . . 8a
It was the debauching of the language which most of all caused
88 The examples given are taken from Henry Guy's Histoire de la potsic
fronfaist au xvi e siecle (2 vols.), vol. i, L'Gcole des Rhetoriqueurs. Paris,
Champion, 1910.
24 Toulouse in the Renaissance
the Rhetoricians to fall under the utter condemnation which was
heaped upon them by the generation of the Renaissance; and yet,
the Pleiade themselves were not able to steer clear of excess in
language, and it was that more than anything else which caused such
a violent turning from them in the seventeenth century.
The rhetorical tendencies in French literature reached a climax
in the group of poets gathered around Marguerite of Austria in
Flanders, in the court poets of Burgundy, and finally at the court of
France under the protection of Anne of Brittany. At the dawn of
the sixteenth century literature was still under the complete sway of
mediaeval ideas. " The self-centered intellectual life of the fifteenth
century had lacked critical taste or discernment. Learning was
turgid and pedantic and by the end of the century all of the tenden-
cies were towards involution and complication." This was the age
of the last effete descendants of a long line of poets, the grands
rhetoriqueurs, the chief of whom was Jean Molinet, official poet of
the court of Burgundy. The poets of Burgundy gave the tone to
the rhymesters of the other feudal courts. " Louis XI," says Lan-
son, 37 " was too bourgeois, too sensible, too positive, to fall in line
with such nonsense. But after him, . . . The young Duchess Anne
. . . attracted from all corners of the kingdom all the grands,
moyens, petits et tout petits rhetoriqueurs. They infested the court
of Charles VIII, then that of Louis XII, and in all ranks, and from
all the provinces, they sprang up, each more devoid of sense and
more extravagant in form than the other. The most endurable are
those who have the least genius : their platitude condemns them to
being intelligible, or almost so. . . ."
From the above, it will be clearly seen that the reorganization of
the Gay Science into the College of Rhetoric corresponded precisely
in point of time with the universal popularity of the decadent
Rhetoricians. Charles VIII, while passing out of a dark gallery at
the castle of Amboise, in April, 1498, struck his head against the
top of a doorway so violently that he died a few hours afterwards.
With him the direct line of Valois kings became extinct. He was
succeeded by Louis, Duke of Orleans, who ascended the throne as
Louis XII. The last record that has been preserved of the Con-
7 Lanson, op. cit., 181-183.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 25
sistory of Gay Science is of 1498, the year of the death of
Charles VIII. During the succeeding reign, the College of Rhetoric
came into existence. Founded under a strongly orthodox religious
influence, guided by the rules laid down in the Leys a" Amors, skilled
in the composition of intricate rhymes and metrical devices, it can
be easily seen that the cultivation of the genres in vogue among the
Rhetoricians of the north could not have been an abrupt transition.
At the close of the fifteenth century the reputation of Jean Molinet
was at its height. In 1493 he had published his Art et Science de
Rhetorique. 58 The very title of his book suggests that the reorgan-
ized society had derived its name from it. That it did derive it from
Molinet's book is all the more probable when we consider that the
Fins Amants had depended since 1356 upon the work of Guilhem
Molinier, and that this guide to the composition of poetry had to be
of necessity discarded when the change was made. Perhaps, in con-
sidering the reorganization of the Gay Science, the mainteneurs had
adopted Molinet's book as the new guide for the poets, and its title
for the new name of the society. Then the name Molinet. Is it not
suggestive in itself? Molinet and Molinier, if not identical names
with variant spelling for north and south France, respectively, are
at least enough alike to have attracted the attention of the main-
teneurs, and especially so, as Molinet, a prominent ecclesiastic, was
the reigning poet of the northern school. So it is in all probability
the Burgundian school of poets that we must regard as the direct
inspiration of the poets of Toulouse after the decay of their own
poetry. This view is further borne out by examining the products
of the poets of Toulouse in the early sixteenth century. Although
it is not until 1539 that any of the poems of the College of the Art
and Science of Rhetoric are transcribed on the pages of the Lvure
Rouge, information is not entirely lacking as to the character of the
poems composed prior to that date for the annual contests. From
the meager indications afforded by the Livre Rouge, we know that
the ballade had come into use by 1513, and that it held sway until
1540. As has already been shown, the ballade was the favorite
form of the poets of north France. While it is true that no poems
bearing the name ballade have come down from the period of the
88 For long ascribed to Henri de Croy.
26 Toulouse in the Renaissance
Gay Science, there is in fact one poem of this genre which has been
preserved under the name of letra d' amors, for which a poet by the
name of Janilhac was awarded a prize in 1471. Janilhac was a
Parisian and a student in the University of Toulouse. His poem
was written in the native langut d'oc, and was awarded the prize,
not, although so stated, because he could write in the native idiom,
but because by writing in it he conformed to one of the established
regulations of the Gay Science. One of the cardinal rules laid down
in the early history of the society was that the poets should compose
in the language native to Toulouse. If Janilhac conformed to the
rules with respect to language, he did not meet the requirements
with respect to form. The ballade was not an accepted form of the
Gay Science, but the prize bestowed was a special one known as the
joya extraordinaria, and the contest was not one held at the regular
time (1-3 of May), but at Pentecost. Special prizes were some-
times awarded in response to a citatio or summons at other than the
regular contests. On such occasions the mainteneurs sent out a
letter in verse beginning : " De mandement de Messenhos Chancelier
he Mantenidos (By order of the chancellor and the mainteneurs)" in
which they advertised a contest at a given date, and assigned a
refrain upon which the poets should compose their verses. Such
a letter was sent out in August, 1468, inviting "all experts in the
art of Rhetoric, vulgarly called the Gay Saber,"
" A totz spertz en Tart de Rectorica
Ha vulguarment apelat Saber Guay,"
to appear the next Sunday with poems constructed to the refrain:
*Al cor me fier la Pera del enguoys (" the choke-pear strikes me to
the heart "), for which the winner should receive a branch d' argent,
presumably a silver olive branch. Such contests were held in various
places, and not confined to the town hall, as was the case with the
regular contests.
The above quotation is the earliest reference to the poetry of
the Floral Games as the Art of Rhetoric, " vulgarly called the
Saber Guay" From this reference and from Janilhac's ballade, we
know the precise moment at which the influence of north France
began to invade the Consistory of Gay Science. The transition,
The Floral Games of Toulouse 27
therefore, from the Gay Science to Rhetoric was a gradual one,
covering a period of not less than forty or fifty years. In the
absence of concrete documents it is impossible to assert positively
that the College of the Art and Science of Rhetoric replaced Guilhem
Molinier and his Leys d' Amors by Jean Molinet and his Art et
Science de Rhetorique, but it is quite certain that the reorganized
society was very strongly under the influence of the reigning school
of poetry of north France. When once the influence of the Rhetori-
cians had entered, it was felt until the society was again reorganized
in 1694 as the Academy of the Floral Games. The influence of the
Rhetoricians may be divided into three periods : that of the ballade,
that of the chant royal, modified gradually by the general ideas of
the Renaissance and to a certain extent by the Pleiade; and lastly,
the period when the chant royal undergoes very strongly the influ-
ence of the Pleiade, both in its content and in its language. The
first of these extends from 1513 to 1540; the second from 1540
until the end of the century; and the third from that time until
1694. This division is made on the basis of the poems recorded in
the Livre Rouge for which prizes were awarded. From the middle
of the sixteenth century the poets were strongly swayed by the gen-
eral ideas of the Renaissance and while the influence of the Pleiade
was comparatively small before the close of the century, it was
immediately felt by the poets at Toulouse. As has been previously
stated, it is almost certain that Bernard de Poey read odes at the
meeting of 1551. In this same year, not only he, but Pierre du
Cedre as well, composed sonnets, and in 1554 a sonnet was inserted
in the Livre Rouge along with a winning chant royal. In 1555,
Pierre de Ronsard was awarded an honorary prize by the main-
teneurs. That the influence of the Pleiade on the poems for which
prizes were awarded was not at once felt, was due to the conven-
tional restrictions placed upon the competing poets.
The chief representatives of the period before 1540 were Blaise
d'Auriol and Gracien du Pont. 39 Each of them occupied a promi-
nent place at Toulouse in an official capacity and as writers. The
former became chancellor of the university and was the author of
a work which enjoyed a wide popularity, known as La Chasse et
89 See part iii for fuller account of both.
28 Toulouse in the Renaissance
le depart d' amour, in part a plagiarism of Charles d'Orleans and
partly his own composition. He was the first native of Toulouse to
compose poetry in French. He was a wretched poet, but no worse
than a horde of Rhetorician poets of north France who were his
contemporaries. The Livre Rouge shows that he was a maitre
(master) of the Floral Games in 1513, after having won all three
of the prizes. He was a mainteneur from about 1522 until 1540.
Gracien du Pont was the lieutenant of the seneschalty at Toulouse
and mainteneur of the Floral Games from 153- to 1545. He was
the author of a work called Les Controverses des sexes Masculin et
Femenin, in which he dealt disparagingly with women. Such works
had been common among the Rhetoricians of north France since the
days of Jean de Meung. He was also the author of an Art and
Science of Rhetoric (Art et Science de Rhetorique metrifiee), in
which " he explained every conceivable form of rhythmical puer-
ility." 40 This work, published at Toulouse in 1539, was 1 based upon
the book of Pierre Fabri, 41 published at Rouen in 1522, which in its
turn was composed entirely in accord with the practice of the
Rhetoricians. 42
THE POETRY OF THE LIVRE ROUGE.
While winning poems were not transcribed in the Livre Rouge
before 1539, there is sufficient information in the records to enable
us to determine the nature of them. In 1513, Hugues Roguier won
the GaucH (Souci) or Marigold for a ballade in the langue d'oc.
This seems to have been the last time that a prize was awarded for a
poem in the native language. 43 The Violet was awarded to a stu-
40 Tilley : The Literature of the French Renaissance, vol. i, p. 69. See also,
Cohen: The Ballade, Columbia University Press, New York, 1915.
41 For the influence of Guilhem Molinier's Leys d' Amors on the book of
Gracien du Pont, see Joseph Anglade's edition of the Leys d'Amors, tome 4,
p. 119. Toulouse, 1920.
42 The title of Fabri's book is : Le grand et vray art de pleine Rhetorique.
It was reprinted at Rouen in two vols. in 1889-1890, with notes by A. Heron,
for the Societe des bibliophiles normands. It was composed, no doubt, under
the inspiration of the Puy of Rouen. Since Gracien du Font's book at Toulouse
was based mainly on this work, and no doubt had some influence on the southern
poets, there is probably found here a connecting link between the two societies.
48 While no poems composed in the language of the South were awarded
prizes during the period covered by the Livre Rouge (1513-1641), it was not
: I Hie t mx a.ttvv<xf,wx rumen ct <KVX
*^KU-U ^
^?'" f
Facsimile of folio 252 rof the Livre Rouge (Vol. I.); date 1570. Bibliotheque des Jeux
Floraux de Toulouse.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 29
dent, Jacques Sapientis, for a ballade unisonant et entrelassee, upon
the blason of the counts of Toulouse. From 1514 to 1518, the
records are wanting. In 1519, Jean de Villeneuve was awarded
the Marigold for an oraison de Notre Dame in the form of a ballade.
Jehan de Vignes, a priest, won the Eglantine for a ballade unisonante
in praise of Saint Sebastian ; and the Violet was won by Jehan Perot
student, for a ballade on the university of Toulouse. The refrain
of his poem,
" Le dieu Phoebus est venu d'Ylion,"
shows a fondness for parading classical names, one of the marked
characteristics of the Rhetoricians. The next record (1535) is
taken up with a quarrel between the mainteneurs and the capitouls 44
over the election of a chancellor, and no mention is made of the con-
test. The next is that of 1539, the time when the winning poems
began to be inscribed in the Livre Rouge. Of the two poems re-
corded, one is a chant royal by Pierre Trassabot, a native of Tou-
louse who acquired considerable reputation as a musician, painter
and sculptor. This is the first chant royal of which there is any
record, and may have been the first for which a prize was awarded
in the Floral Games. The theme, that life is a constant struggle, is
commonplace, and the refrain reflects the Rhetoricians' liking for
sententious or proverbial sayings: 45
"Que vye humaine a icy tous jours guerre."
The poet injects into his composition a certain imagery and portrays
faithfully enough the life of the soldier of his day as well as the
longing for peace and the hopes aroused over the prospect of it ; the
disillusionment that comes as other ills spring up to take the place
of war ; the cold, the heat, the storms, and all the things that beset
man on his journey through this world.
long after this period that Gregoire de Barutel in 1651 won the Eglantine for a
chant royal composed in the Gascon dialect (see p. 12). This was no doubt
an exceptional case. The practice of awarding prizes for poems in Provencal
was revived only in the later nineteenth century, and at present they have their
regular place in the annual competition for prizes.
44 The capitouls, or city fathers, participated in the Floral Games as repre-
sentatives of the city, which furnished the funds to pay for the annual prizes.
45 " La fagon dont les rhetoriqueurs concevaient la morale les conduisait
necessairement a 1'exprimer en proverbes. . . ." Henry Guy: op. cit., p. 68.
3O Toulouse in the Renaissance
The ballade for which Hector du Pertuiz won the Violet shows
the influence of the Roman de la Rose in its personification of
Melancholy, War, Death, etc.
" Fuyez chagrin, chassez melancolye,"
says the poet, as he proceeds with a banal paean of praise in honor
of his sovereign, whom it would be impossible to recognize if we
did not know that Francis I was reigning at the time.
With 1540, begins the sway of the chant royal. In that year
all of the winning poems were of this genre, and, as has already been
stated, with few exceptions the chant royal will hold undisputed
sway in the Floral Games until the end of the seventeenth century.
Throughout the sixteenth century, the content and spirit of the win-
ning poems will be determined by the models of the Rhetoricians.
Not that no influence will be exerted by the new spirit of the Renais-
sance as represented by the Pleiade, but that this influence is com-
paratively limited before the seventeenth century. In the seven-
teenth century, Pleiade influences will alter profoundly the content
and spirit of many of the winning poems, but the form remains and
the general conception of the chant royal lingers. In the sixteenth
century it is the general ideas of the Renaissance, especially philoso-
phy and science that attract the young poets, and their influence
overshadows that of the Pleiade. Aside from the thought, the great-
est innovations of the sixteenth century are, perhaps, the change
from the verse of ten syllables to the alexandrin (in 1556), and the
introduction of certain words and turns of expression characteristic
of the Pleiade. In their language the poets of the Floral Games are
not imitators of the effete Rhetoricians. French is a foreign lan-
guage to many of them, and their works display the crudeness that
accompanies the effort to write in a foreign tongue, but they have a
respect for the language that was not possessed by the later Rhetori-
cians. Their attempts to express in French abstract and philosophical
ideas which they have but poorly digested, often leads them into
absurd turns of expression and grotesque figures of speech, but one
is impressed by the seriousness with which the poets approach their
task. With the progress of time, the language of the poets improves,
and in the winning poems of the seventeenth century we see a
The Floral Games of Toulouse 31
gradual approach toward perfection ; many of the poems containing
lines and passages worthy of the great poets.
At the hands of the poets of the Floral Games, the chant royal
becomes an instrument for the portrayal of allegory to the extent
that the envoi loses its name and is succeeded by the word allegorie.
Had the allegorical features of the poems been introduced in a skil-
ful and natural manner, the poems that have been preserved in the
Livre Rouge might stand as monuments of allegorical literature.
But the reader after wading through five strophes in which are
paraded names belonging to ancient mythology is suddenly startled,
when he reaches the envoi or allegorie, to discover that Jupiter is
God, that Apollo is Jesus, and that Daphne is the Virgin Mary. As
was the case with their models, the poets of Toulouse had an arti-
ficial conception of allegory. Whatever of vitality there had been
in the allegorical treatment of literary themes had long since passed
away. For the poets of Toulouse, antiquity presents the same sort of
fascination that it did for their models of the north; nor do the
former understand the ancient world any better than the latter. The
difference between the Rhetoricians and the Pleiade is that while the
former knew about antiquity, the latter knew it. Like the Rhetori-
cians, the poets of the Floral Games have a fondness for parading
their knowledge. Under their pens long enumerations are made of
the heroes of antiquity: heroes and heroines of mythology, great
writers, characters from history. The occult sciences, astrology and
alchemy, have an irresistible charm. Abstruse questions of philoso-
phy attract these student poets as the flame does the moth. The
burning questions of the times hardly disturb them at all. But for
an occasional poem on the reigning sovereign or the dauphin, there is
scarcely any portrayal of the times in approximately three hundred
chants royaux recorded in the Livre Rouge, covering a period of
a hundred years, the period which witnessed the struggles of human-
ism and the Reformation, and in the political realm the growth of
France into an absolute monarchy under the strong hand of
Richelieu.
A survey of a few of the poems contained in the Livre Rouge
will furnish the key to the contents as a whole. By 1540, as already
stated, all of the winning poems were chants royaux. In that year
32 Toulouse in the Renaissance
a young poet, Corriere, celebrates a shepherd guarding his flocks in
a " sumptuous valley." In the envoi we are told that the shepherd
is God, the flock is human nature, the lamb is the Saviour, and the
sheep, the Virgin. Claude Terlon 48 depicts the passion of our Lord.
Apollo is Jesus, Daphne is his body born in chastity. Jehan Rus, of
Bordeaux, celebrates " 1'arbre passant toute oeuvre naturelle." This
marvellous tree, situated " towards Greece," has a powerful attrac-
tion:
De toutes partz, pour ce boys a grand presse
Vous eussiez veu gens venir et aller. 47
The Grand Turk appears to mar the perfect bliss and happiness of
the scene. The tree is Jesus, the Grand Turk is the Devil.
Qui fist mourir (au moings comme il pensoit)
L'arbre passant toute oeuvre naturelle.
In 1541, Pierre du Cedre, who was to play a leading part as a
Huguenot in the religious troubles at Toulouse in the second half of
the century, celebrated the excellence of Poetry in crude verses in
which he enumerated a list of names from the Bible and from Greek
and Roman antiquity: Moses, David, Orpheus, Museus, the Sybil,
Lynus, Plato, Homer, Virgil, and Ovid, concluding his argument
with the refrain:
" Laurier sans f euille et sans loz bon poete."
Mercadier de Besse wrestles with the " Cognition de la chose
divine." In 1543 Pierre Pascal introduces us to another wonderful
tree, this time the marvellous tree is " towards Judea," and is a tree
" Que 48 1'homme rend a jamais bien heureux."
In 1544, fitienne Forcatel, 4 ' who later was selected as professor of
48 Also spelled = Trellon.
47 Some of the poems cited have been previously printed, but many are here
published for the first time.
48 Should be qui.
49 In the Livre Rouge, he signs his name thus, but it has usually appeared
in print as Forcadel.
60 Known as the Father of Modern Law.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 33
law in the university for the chair for which Cujas 50 had entered
into competition, began an unintelligible philosophical poem :
" Demagorgon, le grand pere des dieux,
Sortit du creux de I'abisme du monde. ..."
In 1548, Anthoine Noguier, who wrote in Latin a well known
history of Toulouse is obsessed with the idea of primal causes, the
remoteness of which he seeks to impress upon the reader by the
repetition of the word "avant:"
"Avant le poix, avant nombre et mesure,
Avant Chaos et, son encombrement,
Avant le cours de Phoebus qui mesure
Les chaudz et froidz sentiers obliquement,
Avant que fust du monde la machine,
Avant la mer et son ample piscine,
Avant que feust le Centre mesure,
L'idee estoit sans fin nulle et naissance
Et contenoit en son sein azure
Ung tout en trois d'une mesmes essence."
From the allegoric we learn that the " tout en trois " is the Trinity.
In 1549, Helie Boyresse's vision is dazzled by a green tree,
" pleasant and delectable ; " from the refrain we learn that it is
" La verte olyve en ce monde honnoree."
and from the Envoi, the son of God " f ruict sortant de la pucelle."
In the same year Mathieu de Chalvet, afterwards first president of
the parlement of Toulouse, and translator of Seneca, carried his
audience into a " cloz delicieulx " to witness
" Le seul Phenix, se tuant pour renaistre."
In 1550, Jehan de Flavyn has an eye single to
" Le poinct parf aict dont deppend tout le monde."
In 1551, Pierre de Sainct Aignan celebrates
" La nef flottant pour le salut du monde."
34 Toulouse in the Renaissance
In 1554, an honorary prize was awarded to Pierre de Ronsard, 61
and for the first time a sonnet appeared upon the records of the
Livre Rouge, not as a winning poem, but accompanying a ballade,
for which Sanxon de la Croix, escollier, was awarded the Violet.
Since the ballade had practically ceased to be a form of the Floral
Games, we are led to suspect that the judges were influenced in their
decision by the sonnet :
" Chantez, mes vers, entonnez un tel son
Que vous puissiez plaire aux doctes oreilles,
Et toy, mon luth, fredonne les merveilles
De 1'fiternel, en ta doulce chanson.
Tu as apriz de Phebus ta lec,on,
Ces chantz secretz et choses nonpareilles
Et pourquoy done est-ce que tu sommeilles,
Te congnoissant des Muses nourrisson?
Fay moy parler tes resonnantes cordes
Le loz divin que sur elles accordes,
Et charge-moy sur tes chansons de miel,
Ann qu'estant sur leur eschigne forte,
Je puisse ung jour aller frapper la porte
Du temple sainct qu'ont les Muses au ciel."
A few sonnets aside, the first sustained breath of the Renais-
sance is to be found in a hymn on the Nativity, a poem of almost a
hundred lines in alexandrins, which Loys du Pin inserted, along
with a conventional chant royal, in 1569:
" Sus ! laisses voz brebis et voz troupeaulx de bestes ;
Accoures tous ensemble aveques voz musetes,
Prenez, voz chalumeaux et d'un son gracieux
Chantes et rechantes chascun a qui mieulx mieulx,
Car c'est a ceste nuict que le filz du grand pere
Est sorty des liens du ventre de sa mere.
Sus done ! despeches vous, en Bethleem coures,
Ou sur ung peu de foin 1'enfant vous troeuveres."
The poets of the Floral Games of the sixteenth century have a
51 An honorary prize was awarded to Baif in 1586.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 35
fondness for miraculous trees and paradisiacal gardens. Frangois
de Chalvet succeeds in giving an atmosphere of actuality to such
threadbare themes when he introduces us to
" Le jardin fleurissant sur les bordz de Garonne."
The " chaste pucelle " who graces it with her presence is Clemence
Ysaure, " les grand dieux " are the capitouls, and the flowers that
adorn it are the Violet, Eglantine and Marigold of the Floral Games.
The poem is grotesque; but perhaps the most sublimely ridiculous
poem in the whole collection is one by which the same writer won
his third prize, the Eglantine, in 1581. The refrain indicates the
nature of the poem :
" L'oeuvre qui se parf aict dans le vase alchimique."
The ceuvre is the philosophical egg,
" C'est 1'ceuf philosophal dans lequel on proiete
Durant trois mois triples nostre pierre secrete."
In 1577, Jehan Sevestre, a Parisian, presented a chant royal and
won the Eglantine. His poem in honor of the holy and sacred
Trinity, the poet calls a chant royal monocole, dedocastrophe, inter-
calaire, acrostiche. He calls the first strophe Proode, the second
Strophe, the third Mesode, the fourth Antistrophe, the fifth
Epode, and the envoi, Epirrheme. Thus, in this poem are blended
ill-digested ideas of the Rhetoricians and the Pleiade. For all the
poet's pretensions, the poem does not differ from the other chants
royaux except that it is an acrostic and instead of being monocle,
perfectly homogeneous, as the author claims, is perhaps more inco-
herent than the majority of the poems contained in the Livre Rouge.
The first letters of the lines of the first strophe spell the poet's name.
Those of the second strophe rell that he is " Parisien," and the first
lines of the remaining strophes announce the subject of the poem:
" En 1'honneur de la saincte et sacree Trinite." The first strophe
illustrates sufficiently the chant royal as a whole:
" /e chanteray 1'honneur souverain de nature,
Apres Pythagoras, montant dessus les cieux,
Way ant encore aucun fraye cest' adventure,
36 Totilouse in the Renaissance
Sur le plus hault esprit j'esleveray mes yeux.
n 1'unite on voit 1'origine premiere
Fn principe comun de toute la matiere
Et de la forme ornant cest univers parf aict ;
Toute loy tend a un, ainsi qu'un a tout faict,
/?etourne tout en un, comenqant un en nombre
Et finist on en un, car tout faict et refaict
L'unite divisant et unissant tout nombre."
The poet's belief in the virtue of numbers is a reminiscence of
the Pythagorean philosophy which was reduced by the schoolmen of
the middle ages to abstract formulas. To certain numbers, such as
I > 3 4, 5, 9> an d IO > marvellous powers or properties were attributed,
From the time of Dhuoda, who wrote in Latin in the ninth century,
to go back no further, down through the middle ages, the science of
numbers had attracted writers. Frequently the poets of the Floral
Games enveloped their poems in the mystery and allegory of
numbers.
"Le trois, nombre sacre, moulle de toute essence."
"Le rond qui du quadrangle est le centre immobile."
" Les trois angles esgaulx du parf ait isoplure."
" Le rond qui de trois ronds est le centre immobile."
Excursions into physics, chemistry, or medicine, give such
lines as:
" L'aymant qui donne vie au metal insensible."
" L'eau fort qui des metaux divise la substance."
" Le simple distille dans le bain de Marie."
" Le corail destruisant le charme des sorcieres."
" Les effets merveilleux de 1'eau de jalousie."
In their wide interest in knowledge, in their boldness in approach-
ing the most abstruse questions of philosophy, astrology, alchemy,
astronomy, physics, medicine, chemistry, or what not, the poets of
the second half of the sixteenth century at Toulouse are of the
Renaissance. They represent the natural development of the tenden-
The Floral Games of Toulouse 37
cies of the Rhetoricians modified by the new spirit. By comparing
them with the Pleiade, it is easy to see what a profound revolution
was worked in French poetry by Du Bellay, Ronsard, Desportes,
and other members of the group. The following lines, most of them
refrains, will give some notion of the variety of the topics which
these riders of an unruly Pegasus undertook to treat: 52
1552. "La ronde sphere a son centre fondee."
1553. " Le petit monde estant encor a naistre."
1554. " Les deux liqueurs arrosans tout le monde."
1558. "L'esprit universel infuz en ce bas monde."
1559. "La pure et simple forme exempte de nature."
1560. "Les formes qui sans forme ont forme la machine."
1561. " L'astre qui plus reluict au zodiaque oblique."
1562. " L'edifice immortel de la divine essence."
1564. " L'eschelle qui conjoinct la terre avec les cieux."
" La lune du soleil empruntant la lumiere."
1567. " La clarte flamboiant dans la lampe eternelle."
1569. " L'accord entretenant le ciel, la terre et 1'onde."
1570. " L'estoille mariniere aux navigans propice."
1573. " La matiere aspirant a la forme parfaicte."
1573. " L'ame vivifiant ce que le ciel enserre."
1577. " L'estoile par 1'escler du soleil redoree."
1579. " Les trois poinctz rapportes en la ligne ecliptique."
1581. " L'oeuvre qui se parfaict dans le vase alchimique."
1584. "Les discors accordes d'eternelle discorde,"
1586. " Le cristal honorant la fontaine de vie."
1586. " Le luth qui remplist tout d'une saincte harmonic."
1589. "Le triangle accompli de trois lignes esgalles."
" Astrologue subtil, qui as la cognoissance,
De maintz evenements que tu vas predisant."
1590. " Le charme qui nous lie a 1'amour eternelle."
I 59 I - " J e sm ' s grand alchimiste et qui de la nature
Recherche curieux les plus rares secretz."
1593. " L'esprit, Tame et le cors de la pierre alchimique."
1596. " La navire bruslee au miroir d'Archimede."
82 Monsieur Frangois de Gelis, mainteneur of the Floral Games, has
recently written an article upon the humanistic tendencies of the poets of the
Floral Games. See Memoires de I' Academic des Sciences de Toulouse, 1919:
Les Poetes humanities des Jeux Floraux.
38 Toulouse in the Renaissance
1598. " Du bel astre argente la lumiere eclipsee."
1600. " La Colure marquant 1'un et 1'autre solstice."
1602. " Les sept astres puyssants qui esclairent le monde."
1604. " La verge descouvrant les richesses du monde."
1604. " Les douze astres bornans du soleil la carriere."
1613. " Le diamant brize par ung coup de tonnerre."
1614. " Le ruisseau qui resoult les pierres endurcies."
1615. " Le neant devenu de 1'infini capable."
Let it be recalled that the purpose of the poems, as reiterated
again and again in the pages of the Livre Rouge, was to glorify
God, the Virgin, and the saints. The effect of the Rhetorician influ-
ence and of the paganizing influence of the Renaissance was to
deflect the poems from the stated purpose. The semblance of a
religious import or intention was preserved by explaining in the
envoi or allegoric that the things treated in the poem were sym-
bolical, and had some religious or moral significance which the poet
proceeds to indicate.
The fondness for the occult sciences on the part of the Toulouse
poets was probably due to the impetus which they had received in
France at the opening of the century. Cornelius Agrippa had lived
for some time in Lyons. Other mediaeval scientists were there also,
as for example, Simon de Phares, whom Charles VIII visited in
1495, an d an Italian who boasted of transmuting baser metals into
gold. The celebrated Nostradamus lived in Provence in the earlier
sixteenth century, and Julius Caesar Scaliger lived at Agen, not far
from Toulouse. 58
While influences of the Pleiade are not entirely wanting in the
poems of the Floral Games in the sixteenth century, it is not until
the beginning of the seventeenth that the Pleiade influence makes
a sufficient impression to materially improve the poetic quality of
the chant royal. In 1601, Paul du May, a young poet of Toulouse,
won the Eglantine for a poem which shows a wide departure from
the preceding poets.
" C'estoit en la saison que Taisle peinturee
De Zephir esvantoit maint fleuron gracieux,
Dont le nouveau printemps rend sa flore pourpree,
For a good account of Scaliger, see Christie, Etienne Dolet.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 39
Descouvrant cest esmail qui decore les cieux,
Quand je vis ces thresors dont la vermeille aurore
A la pointe du jour son visaige redore.
Et le tige amoureux du soucy blondissant
Qui baisoit le beau tainct de 1'oeilhet rougissant;
Admirant la beaute de sa fleur nompareille
Le soleil entr'ouvrist mes yeux esblouissant
Les lis d'or embrassans la fleur de Us vermeille."
This poem, on the marriage of Henry IV to Marie de Medicis
and the arms or blasons of the two families, is conceived more
nearly in the manner of the Pleiade than any of the poems, perhaps,
that had preceded it. In this same year, a sonnet was inserted in
the Livre Rouge, which is of interest as showing the influence of
Desportes :
" Et quoi, mon cher souci, serez-vous toujours telle?
Aimez-vous toujours a me faire mourir?
Ha ! que le Ciel fist mal de vous former si belle
Et de tant de beaux dons vostre esprit f avorir !
Mais bien, si tant vous plaist, une mort bien cruelle
Bornera mes tourmens, sans gueres plus souffrir,
Puisque par trait de temps mon service fiddle
N'a sc.u de vos beaux yeux la rigueur amoindrir !
Ainsi parloit Philon, aiant Tame blessee
Des beaux yeux ennemis de sa belle Dircee,
Trop beaux et trop cruelz a ses contentemens.
Mais enfin ce berger, apres tant de souffrances,
Comme un ruze soldat, il a donne dedans,
Aiant par son discours abbattu les deffences."
In 1618, Jean Allard, of Mirapoix, was awarded the Eglantine
for a chant royal, " a 1'imitation des tableaux de Philostrate." This
poem presents a curious blending of pagan sensuality and Christian
morality :
" Voyes son sein de neige ou mesmes dans la glace
Amour nourrit ses f eux et garde son flambeau ;
Sur ces deux petits monts quelquefois il prend place
4O Toulouse in the Renaissance
Et ressemble Apollon sur le double coupeau.
Son col dessur 1'yvoire emporte 1'avantage,
Mais 1'art de la nature est plus grand au visage,
Les lys y sont mesles d'un beau teint de pudeur,
La rose est sur sa bouche, au dedans son odeur,
Et Zephire amoureux d'une si doulce haleine,
Baise sans estre veu, tout pasme de douceur
Susannc qui se lave au bord de la fontaine.
In the reddition de I'allegorie we learn that Suzanne is the soul of
the sinner.
The poem which is perhaps the best sustained throughout and
which presents the most vivid imagery is that of Bernard d'Alies,
of Toulouse, Doctor of Theology, for which the Violet was awarded
in 1623:
CHANT ROYAL.
POUR UNE DESCRIPTION D'UN POURTRAIT DE
SAINCTE MAGDELAINE.
Quel est ce beau pourtrait ? Seroit-ce Magdelene ?
Mais pourquoy les couleurs 1'ont peinte sans couleur?
Elle qui parloit tant, va souspirant a peine,
Elle qui rioit tant est pleine de doleur.
Ses yeux qui les espritz rengeoient sous le servage,
S'abaissent soubs la Croix et luy rendent homage.
Ses mains, filles d'honeur, qui soignent sa beaute,
En conspirent la perte avec sa cruaulte.
Elle ravissoit tout, elle est touste ravie.
Non, sans doubte, voila, foulant la vanite,
Magdelene pleurant le printems de sa vie.
Elle est la de son long, sur 1'herbe, la mondaine,
Ainsin 1'orage abat une nouvelle fleur
Qui rehaussoit 1'honneur et le pris d'une plaine,
Et luy couvre son tainct d'un voile de palleur.
Mille amours de ses yeux fuient a vol, a nage,
Les petitz-filz des eaux craignent-ilz le naufrage?
Sur ce front, pres des yeux, quelqu'un en est monte,
Dans son sein, sur deux montz, les pleurs en ont porte,
The Floral Games of Toulouse 41
Qui dega, qui dela, quelque route a suivie,
Abandonant au deuil, en ceste extremite,
Magdelene pleurant le printems de sa vie.
Ce corail anime par ou sort son haleine
Dans la mer de ses pleurs a laisse la rougeur ;
Les roses et les lis dont sa face estoit plaine,
N'ont garde que 1'espine en noyant la fraicheur.
Ses cheveux tout mouilles s'attachent au visage,
Leurs noeuds sont relaches et leur foible cordage
Ou tant et tant de coeurs perdoient la liberte,
Ne les retiennent plus dans la captivite.
Son sexe a sa beaute ne porte plus envie,
De tous ses dous appas les plus dous ont quitte
Magdelene pleurant le printems de sa vie.
Telle se lamentant on pourroit peindre Helene,
Quand le Grec d'llion demeura le vainceur,
Si Ton ne sgavoit pas qu'elle estoit toutte vaine,
Que les pleurs de ses yeux n'estoient pas ceux du coeur!
Mais regardes la nostre avec quel fort courage
Pour 1'amour de son Dieu son beau corps elle outrage!
On diroit que son bras n'est jamais arreste,
Qu'un coup a 1'autre coup est tous jours adjouste,
Et ny lasse jamais, ny jamais assouvie,
Extreme on voit tousjours, en son austerite,
Magdelene pleurant le printemps de sa vie.
Elle mesle son sang a ses pleurs, 1'inhumaine,
Son ame seullement conserve sa blancheur.
Un ruisseau de son sang coule de chasque veine,
Elle veut y noyer son crime et son erreur.
Son Dieu qui pend en croix sur le hault de 1'ouvrage,
Semble de son amour lui rendre tesmoignage.
Voyes ! elle se veut cacher en son coste
Et son esprit de zelle et d'ardeur transporte,
D'y faire sa demeure a jamais la convie,
Logeant dans le sejour de la felicite
Magdelene pleurant le printemps de sa vie.
42 Toulouse in the Renaissance
REDDITION D'ALLEGORIE.
Unc ame qui cognoist le seigneur yrrite,
Qui demande pardon a sa divinite,
Rendant sa volonte soubs ses lois asservie,
Elle est dans ce pourtrait, cerchant (sic) 1'eternite
Magdelene pleurant le printemps de sa vie. 6 *
Not often do the poets of the College of Rhetoric strike a per-
sonal note. There are, however, some cases :
J'estois pres d'ung ruisseau dont les ondes sucrees
Arrousoient de nectar les campaignes sacrees.
J'esleve mon esprit vers la voute azuree,
Pour chanter la bonte des secourables dieux.
Master Bertrand Larade shows himself a true Gascon : 55
Une nouvelle ardeur eschauffe mon courage
Et 1'anime si fort qu'il se treuve emporte
Du dezir violant d'entreprendre ung ouvrage
Qui puisse faire ung jour, honte a 1'antiquite.
Infrequently, the poets attempt to portray external nature. The
following lines from Catel, 58 1617, illustrate the ability of the young
poets to deal with nature :
Les pluies, les frimas, la glace et la gelee,
La neige et la rigeur d'un hyver ocieux
Aux bruslantes chaleurs esgalement meslee,
**Lwre Rouge, vol. 2, f. 271. Published as a whole for the first time.
Bertrand de Larade was born in 1581 at Montrejeau. He became a poet
and made his reputation by La Muse gasconne which he composed in 1607.
This volume is made up of pastorals, chansons, odes and sonnets. In his
Hittoire littfraire des patois, Dr. Noulet represents him as a poet of little
originality but of pleasing naivete. In 1910 a commemorative tablet was placed
upon the house which he had inhabited at Montrejeau, accompanied by eulogies
in verse and prose, the most excessive of which characterised him as the Homer
of Languedoc. The different editions of his works are: La Margalide gasconne
(1604), La Muse gasconne (1607), La Muse piranese (1609). All three were
printed at Toulouse by Colomies.
* Charles Catel, whom Dumege affirms, but without furnishing proofs,
to have belonged to the family of the well-known historian, author of Les
Comtes de Toulouse.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 43
Nous dement maintenant ung printemps gracieux,
Le soleil nous aproche et la terre plus belle,
Tapissee de fleurs, met sa robe nouvelle.
Tout rit a ce beau May, les petitz amoreaux
Dansent f olastrement sur le bord des ruisseaux.
Et Zephir qui flechit soubz leur obeissance
Faict esclorre parmi la verdure des preaux
La fleur qui rend I'odeur au point de sa naissance.
The later Greek influence of the Renaissance which reached its
most perfect expression in Racine, was felt at Toulouse. A strophe
from a chant royal for which Bernard Boyssonade was awarded
the Marigold in 1640, will be sufficient to illustrate the poet's ability
in handling a Greek subject :
POLIXENE.
Ilion n'estoit plus; desja toute la Grece
Songe a recevoir ces filz ou ces peres absans,
Lorsque la terre s'ouvre au milieu de la presse ;
On oit de bruits confus et de cris languissans;
Achille en sort et dit : " Race lache et maudite,
" S'il te souvient encor de mon peu de merite,
"Que Polixene meure! En cela seullement
" Rends un juste devoir a mon ressentiment.
" Elle verra mon sang pour le sang de Troile,
" Dois-je pas veoir aussy, pour mon soulagement,
"Polixene immolee au sepulchre d' Achille f"
The Livre Rouge contains several poems of more or less his-
torical interest. Among them is one on the crowning of Louis
XIII at Rheims: 57
Les Frangois, dans 1'exces d'une joye incroiable,
Alumoint mille feus par touts les carrefours;
On n'oyoit dedans Reyms qu'un meslange agreable
De leurs chantz d'alegresse et du son des tambours;
Le pave parseme d'une moisson fleurie
Paroissoit soubs leurs pas une belle prairie ;
Un ciel de drap, tendu pour la solempnite,
67 Livre Rouge, vol. 2, f. 325, v. Hitherto unpublished.
44 Toulouse in the Renaissance
Deroboit a leurs yeux le ciel plain de clarte,
D'ou pour nouveau subject de leur resjouissance
Venoint en ce moment a leur prince indompte
Les lys donnes du ciel au sceptre de la France.
Le devant des maisons, a ce jour memorable,
Effagoit tout 1'eclat des plus superbes Cours,
II ne paroissoit plus a soy mesme semblable,
Revestu de drap d'or, de pourpre et de velours ;
Les festons, les tableaux et la tapisserie
Changeoient la moindre rue en riche galerie,
Chaque place sembloit un palais enchante
Tant elle avoit de pompe et de diversite,
Lorsque, pour acomplir ceste magnificence
On vit reluire en 1'air, plain de serenite,
Les lys donnes du ciel au sceptre de la France.
Louis sortoit alors de ce temple admirable
Ou son coeur abjura ses dieux foibles et sourds
Pour celuy qu'il avoit epreuve secourable,
Sy tost qu'a sa puissance il avoit eu recours ;
Ses precieux habits brilhoient de broderie,
Ou ce meloit la perle avec la pierrerie ;
Son front d'une charmante et douce gravite
Mettoit d'accord 1'amour avec la majeste,
Et ne faloit que veoir son aymable presence
Pour croire que le prince avoit bien merite
Les lys donnes du ciel au sceptre de la France.
Aussy veoit-il soudain un heraud favorable
Qui luy porte d'en haut ce visible secours;
II est surpris de veoir son visage adorable
Qui ternit les appas du plus beau des amours,
Son maintien le ravit, ou, sans affeterie,
Avecque la douceur la beaute ce marie ;
II admire ces yeux, dont la vivacite
Fait veoir quelque rayon de la divinite,
Et commence a porter plus haut son esperance
Despuis qu'entre ses mains ont si bien eclate
Les lys donnes du ciel au sceptre de la France.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 45
Grand Dieu, s'ecrie alors ce prince incomparable,
N'estoit-ce pas asses, pour bien heurer mes jours,
D'avoir ceste liqueur, a jamais perdurable,
Qui doit de nos bonheurs eterniser le cours,
Sy pour mieux tesmoigner que ma chere patrie
Sur tous autres pais de ton coeur est cherie,
Tu n'usses le ciel mesmes en nos mains transporte,
Et des trois astres d'or son azur marquete.
Continue enve(r)s nous, Seigneur, ta bienveillance,
Et defens a jamais, de toute adversite,
Les lys donnes du ciel au sceptre de la France.
Allegoric.
Mon Roy, qui de nos maux a la source tarie,
Est ce brave Louis, chassant 1'idolatrie,
Et le grand Richelieu, dont la fidelite
Maintient les trois estats sous son authorite
Et par qui son Empire est mis en asseurance,
Est cet ange qui porte en toute surete
Les lys donnes du Ciel au sceptre de la France.
Jean Doujat (i634). 58
In 1639 appeared a chant royal by a poet named Clarac in honor
of the birth of the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XIV. 59 The author
wrote also a comedy published at Lyons, entitled: Arlequin ou
Grapignan gascou. Following is an extract of the poem :
" L'on voit autour de luy que la terre f econde
Ne laisse jamais rien ny secher ni pourrir.
Une source de lait 1'arrouse de son onde,
Dont le cours immortel ne peut jamais tarir.
La le monde semble entre en sa premiere enfance,
Et le plaisir s'y prend avec tant d'innocence
58 Jean Doujat, born 1606 died 1688, became a member of the French
Academy in 1650. He was professor of canon and civil law in the university of
Toulouse. It is said that he spoke nearly all the languages known, both ancient
and modern. He collected a large library of works on theology, history and
philology. He was the author of a well known Dictionnaire de la langue
toulousaine. Before his death he was appointed historiographer to the king.
In 1634 and 1638 he won the Eglantine and the Violet in the Floral Games.
59 Born September 5, 1638.
46 Toulouse in the Renaissance
Que les plus medisans n'y peuvent rien forger.
Dans cet heureux climat, Silvie et son berger
Enflammes des ardeurs d'une amour mutuelle,
Centre celles du jour cherchent pour s'ombrager
L'arbre qui rajunit par une ante nouvelle.
" Cet arbre ne craint pas qu'on le coupe ou 1'esmonde,
Son bonheur est cy grand qu'il n'a rien a souffrir ;
S'il gresle, s'il fait vent, si le tonnerre gronde,
C'est pour grossir les fruitz et les faire meurir.
Par ses proprietes Dieu fait veoir sa puissance,
II l'a vouleu douer d'une telle excellance
Que mesme en le touchant Ton ce peut alleger
Du plus cruel des maux qui nous viene affliger,
Et ceste qualite qu'il a sy naturelle
Fait souhaiter sans cesse au pais etranger
L'arbre qui rajunit par une ante nouvelle.
" Tout le monde est ravi des biens dont il abonde,
La terre, 1'air, le feu, sont faitz pour le nourrir,
Et si 1'on veoit ici que 1'Ocean inonde,
C'est afin que cet arbre y puisse refleurir.
Les cieux lui font tribut et pour recognoissance
Versent en sa faveur leur plus douce influance.
Tous les ans le printems reviend pour 1'obliger ;
L'este meurit les fruitz que d'un soin homager
L'automne lui presente en offrande immortelle,
Et 1'hiver rigoreux n'oseroit outrager
L'arbre qui rajunit par une ante nouvelle." 60
CONTEMPORARIES OF THE PLEIADE.
BERNARD DE POEY.
It has already been shown that while the chant royal was the
sole form for which prizes were awarded, the poets were permitted
to read poems of other genres before the judges of the Floral
Games. The major part of two, and sometimes three days was
spent in listening to the poets read their compositions. The number
read or recited by each candidate no doubt depended largely on the
80 Livre Rouge, vol. 2, f. 353, r.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 47
number that his genius and inclination had led him to compose. In
all probability a prize was bestowed frequently for the poet's works
as a whole, rather than for a single chant royal. The fact that sup-
plementary poems are inserted from time to time in the Livre Rouge
lends color to this supposition. Since a sonnet appears in the Livre
Rouge in 1554* and since in that same year an honorary prize was
awarded to Pierre de Ronsard, we know that the influence of the
Pleiade was not long in being felt at Toulouse. As early as 1551,
one of the poets of the Floral Games, Bernard de Poey (whose
latinized name was " Podius "), of Luc in Beam, published at Tou-
louse a small volume of verse entitled: Odes du Gave fleuve en
Beam, du fleuve de Garonne avec les tristes chans & sa Caranite. In
addition to the odes and tristes chans, the volume contained three
sonnets, one of which was by Pierre du Cedre, whom we have
already mentioned. Du Bellay's Deffence and his Olive had ap-
peared in 1549, and Ronsard's first volume of Odes had appeared
in 1550. Among some Latin poems which he also published in 1551,
Poey had one addressed to Ronsard. Thus, it is certain that the
influence of Du Bellay and Ronsard was immediately felt at Tou-
louse. Bernard de Poey was a student, probably of medicine, 61 in
the decade from 1550 to 1560. From May, 1551, to May, 1660,
he won at intervals all three of the prizes of the Floral Games and
became a master. All three of his winning chants royaux are re-
corded in the Livre Rouge, but none of them shows any marked
Pleiade influence. In addition to his volumes of French and Latin
poems, Poey translated works on veterinary surgery from the Latin
and from the Italian. Guillaume Colletet, who in the seventeenth
century prepared in manuscript the lives of several hundred of the
French poets, 62 included a sketch of Bernard de Poey. Colletet's
ei Poey translated works on veterinary surgery ; one of his poems was ad-
dressed to a physician; he was a friend of Julius Caesar Scaligef, a physician,
at Agen, and had relations with a certain Ferrier of Toulouse, doubtless Augier
Ferrier, a celebrated physician and afterwafds professor of medicine in the
university.
62 The title of Colletet's manuscript collection as given in the catalogue of
Antoine-Alexandre Barbier (Paris, 1803) was as follows:
Histoire generate et particuliere des Poetes franfois, anciens et modernes,
contenant leurs vies, suivant I'ordre chronologique, le jugetncnt de leurs tcrits
imprimes, et quelques particularites des Cours des Rois et des Reines, des Princes
4 g Toulouse in the Renaissance
work remained in manuscript form and was destroyed in the fire
which consumed the library of the Louvre during the Commune in
1871. Prior to that date, however, Tamizey de Larroque had culled
the lives of the Gascon poets from Colletet's manuscript and had
published them in the Revue de Gascogne** Colletet is severe in
his judgment of Bernard de Poey as a poet. He was comparing
him to the great masters. If we consider Poey's odes in contrast
with his chants royaux and those of others of the Livre Rouge, we
are impressed at least by their simplicity. The native language of
the poet was the Gascon, and at the time at which he composed his
poems, the French had not become fully intrenched in the south of
France. It was still a foreign language ; and it is remarkable that
Poey could have composed poems in it at all. That he acquired a
good knowledge of French is indicated by a reference of Frangois
de Rabutin, who confessed that the Gascon poet had aided him to
polish his French diction. 84
It is almost certain that Bernard de Poey read odes and sonnets
at the meeting of the Floral Games in May, 1551. In his Ode de la
Garonne the poet praises cardinal d'Armagnac, first president of the
el des Princesses sous le regne desquels Us ont fleuri, et qui ont eux-memes
cultives la Poesie; avec quelques autres recherches curieuses que peuvent servir
a fhistoire; par Guillaume Colletet, de I'Academie frangoise.
Colletet lived in the seventeenth century. He had a wide and favorable
reputation as a man of letters. His manuscript was one of those attempts
common to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of which De Thou's Histoire
de man temps, fitienne Pasquier*s Recherches de la France, La Roche Flavin's
Les treize livres des Parlements de la France, have come down as good ex-
amples. Two important essays of restitution on the manuscript of Colletet
have been published: Le manuscrit des Vies des poetes franfois de Guillaume
Colletet, bruit dans I'incendie de la Bibliothtque du Louvre: essai de restitution
par Leopold Pannier (Paris, 1872, in-8, de 19 pp.)i and Contribution a un essai
de restitution du manuscrit de G. Colletet, intitult " Vies des poetes franfois,"
Revue de I'histoire litteraire de la France, 1895 (2), p. 59.
The mainteneurs of the Floral Games awarded an honorary prize to Colletet
in 1651, which according to Lagane, one of the later historians of the Floral
Games, was presented because Colletet had dedicated the first edition of his
works to the officials of that body. The sketch (according to a statement of
Colletet) of Bernard de Poey was written in 1653.
"Tome VI, 1865. Audi.
44 Commentaires des dernieres guerres en la Gaule Belgique, t. vii de la
collection des Memoires relatifs a I'Histoire de France, par MM. Michaud et
Poujoulat
The Floral Games of Toulouse 49
parlement Mansencal, several of the mainteneurs and masters of the
Floral Games, as well as other people of prominence in Toulouse.
Lafaille in his Annales of Toulouse says that cardinal d'Armagnac
made an entry into Toulouse on the eve of the celebration of the
Floral Games, May 1-3, 1551 ; that the capitouls were his hosts and
entertained him at a banquet, which was a regular feature of the
celebration of the Floral Games ; and that he also attended the con-
test in the Hotel de Ville. 65 Poey's poem was composed either in
anticipation of, or shortly after the visit of the cardinal.
In the beginning of his "Ode to the Garonne," the poet cele-
brates the beauties of nature in the region of Toulouse:
Les cieux colourez par nature,
Les traits divers de la peinture,
Arbres charge, champs jaunissants,
L'ouvrage de marqueterie,
Maintes fleurs parmi la prairie
Soulagent les cceurs languissans.
L'oraison enrichit la fable
Comme la viande la table.
Les astres font les cieux luisans.
Divers harnois faut en bataille.
L'email decore la medaille.
Sus done, faisons son bruit durable!
Je luy suis beaucoup redevable,
Ayant receu don precieux
Par 1'ordonnance Clementine,
M'a fait present de 1'eglantine,
Me reservant encore mieux.
He eulogizes Toulouse :
II n'y a lieu qui tant m'agree
Ou mon esprit plus se recree,
65 Dumege thinks Lafaille is mistaken because the visit of cardinal d'Armag-
nac is not mentioned in the Livre Rouge. A study of the Lvure Rouge shows
that the secretaries gave no attention in their records to visitors or to the
audience at the annual meetings. One could scarcely infer from its pages that
the contests were held before the public, or that any one was ever present
other than the officers and contestants.
5o Toulouse in the Renaissance
Contemplant les dons planteureux,
L'excellente beaute des f emmes,
Sans deshonneur et sans diffames.
Qui s'en approche est tres heureux.
In a series of odes, Poey celebrates the beauties of his native
Beam and the rushing, tumbling mountain torrent, the Gave de Pau.
The first ode begins as follows :
Descends, ma Muse, du ciel,
Laisse pour un peu la trouppe
Pour m'instiler de ton miel
Et du nectar en ma couppe.
Ou envoye moy ton ange
Qui me conduise en allant
Haut, pour chanter la louange
Du Gave des monts coulant.
Je voy descend re ton ame
Et sens en moy la douceur.
Peu a peu mon coeur s'enflame
D'une amiable fureur.
Des Nymphes j'entends la voix
Qui des chappeaux me fagonnent.
Je fourvoye par les bois
Et d'un doux accord me sonnent.
Colletet gives grudging praise to Poey's Ode du Gave :
" Et ensuitte il loue selon son genie ce beau fleuve de son pays natal,
et quoique ses vers ne soient pas ny fort beau ny fort esclattans si
est-ce qu'il a peu se vanter d'avoir este un des premiers qui nous a
donne des odes en nostre langue . . . " :
" Gave, de source argentine,
De tout le pays 1'honneur,
Qui par ton eaue cristaline
Sur tous fleuves es seigneur,
Gave, flottant doucement,
Ayme des Muses pignees,
Qui preus cours heureusement
Des montagnes Pyrenees,
The Floral Games of Toulouse 5 1
Gave, que Beam passant,
Qui arrouses le vignoble,
Plus que voirre reluisant,
Tu es fameux et tres noble.
Des biens portes a foison.
Tu nourris truittes dorees,
Parmy tant de beau poisson,
Et lamproyes coulourees,
Le saumon resplendissant
Plus que pierre precieuse
Quand le soleil est luisant
Bondit sur 1'onde amoureuse.
Plus fertile es que le Tage
Plus que le Nil planteureux.
Qui pres a son heritage,
Celuy n'est-il done heureux ? "
Compare with the above the first strophe of the chant royal par
allegoric, du mistere de I'unite et trinite divine, for which Bernard
de Poey had been awarded the Eglantine:
" En ung verger auquel nature humaine
N'a point acces sans contemplation,
Je fut ravy, duquel en rude vayne
Veulx reciter quelque description. .
Moyse fut sur tous elloquent maistre,
En descrivant le Paradis terrestre ;
Homere escript par grand dexterite
D'aulcuns vergiers la belle amenite ;
Mais on n'a veu, en ce terrestre estaige,
Vergier ou soit a perpetuite
L'arbre charge de fleurs, fruict et rantage."
In 1553 Poey was awarded the Marigold. The first strophe of
his poem runs as follows :
" Les Cieulx estoient par cinq cercles haulsez
Ja commengoit la chaleur vehemente
$2 Toulouse in the Renaissance
A descouvrir les monts et boys mussez
En esclairant ceste terre pesante.
Les quatre ventz habitoient pres des cieulx :
L'Eure, Zephire et Auster pluvieux,
Et Boreas tremblant, plein de nuysance,
Ayant choisy chacun sa demourance.
L'eau arrousoit la semence terrestre
Des animaulx nourrissant 1'affluance,
Le petit monde estant encor a naistre."
While the poem as a whole is an abstract and conventional con-
ception, and of little interest, the poet succeeded better with his
second strophe than was usual for the poets in treating philosophical
and scientific subjects:
" Six jours avoit le soleil compassez,
La lune es nuictz, d'humeur estoit coullante,
Ayant les cieux ja six foys repassez,
Rendoient la terre aux bestes verdoyantes,
Le mouvement des cieulx mellodieux
Declairoit 1'ceuvre estoc delicieux.
O faict divin d'esternelle substance,
Du monde rond digne circonference,
Laquelle a pris divinement son aistre,
Pour les vivans certaine residence,
Le petit monde estant encor a naistre."
In 1560, Bernard de Poey won the Violet, and since he had now
won all three of the prizes offered by the Floral Games, he passed
to the stage of Master. The first two strophes of his poem are as
follows :
Le tout etoit en tout et le tout amasse
N 'etoit qu'un lourd monceau, un gros monceau estrange
Sans forme et sans beaulte, nullement compasse.
Le ciel, la terre et 1'eau, ce n'estoit que meslange
Le soleil ne donoit a la terre challeur
Le ciel bigarre ne monstroit sa coulleur,
Les estoilles au ciel que nous voyons errantes
Les estoilles des cieulx au monde estincellantes
N'avoyent assubiecte la terre a leurs effaictz
The Floral Games of Toulouse 53
Pour que Demagorgon des causes transparantes
Le tout de tous produict seul parfaict des parfaicts.
Le ciel tout a la f ois la terre a surpasse,
Des corps luisans, le corps qui quatre f ois se change
A tout cest unyvers a la f ois repasse
Et faict en lumyners ung immortel eschange.
Tout a la f ois des corps le discord et rigueur
Se sont contrechanges en accord et douceur.
La mer a retire ses trasses ondoiantes,
La terre aussi ses fleurs et simes verdoyants,
La terre s'est rendue immobile en son sain,
De son sain la semence et le f onct de ses antes ( ?)
Le tout de tous produict seul parfaict des parfaicts. 90
DU BARTAS AND GARNIER.
Bernard de Poey and the poets of Toulouse from 1550 to 1565
were the precursors of the greatest figure produced by the Floral
Games in the period of the Renaissance, Guillaume Saluste, sieur du
Bartas, who was awarded the Violet in 1565.
Du Bartas was born in 1544 at the ancestral castle at Montfort,
in Gascony. He became a student of law at Toulouse, and it was
while there that he won his prize in the Floral Games, and
that, at the request of Margaret of Navarre, he composed his first
longer work on a Biblical subject, Judith, an epic with appeared in
a volume entitled La Muse chretienne (Bordeaux, I573). 67 This
was followed five years later by his principal work, La Semaine, an
epic on the creation of the world. He was employed by Henry IV
of France on various missions to England, Scotland and Denmark,
and commanded a troop of horse in Gascony under Marshal Mar-
tignan. He was a strong Huguenot, fought at the battle of Ivry,
was wounded, and died from the effects of his wounds some time
between 1590 and 1592. As a writer, he was the idol of the
66 Note that this poem is written in Alexandrins. The Alexandrin had
been introduced in 1556.
67 Tilley (The Literature of the French Renaissance) says that Judith was
written in 1565, the year in which Du Bartas was a contestant in the Floral
Games. Did the request of Margaret of Navarre come as a result of his suc-
cess in the contest? Perhaps Judith was written at Toulouse.
54
Toulouse in the Renaissance
Protestants, who put him on a level with Ronsard ; and it is said that
La Setnaine passed through more than thirty editions in six years.
The religious tone of the work made it a great favorite in England,
where the author was called " the divine Du Bartas." To his trans-
lation of Du Bellay's Antiquites de Rome, Edmund Spenser added
a sonnet of praise in which he coupled the name of Du Bartas with
that of Du Bellay. Ben Jonson spoke flatteringly of him, and
James VI of Scotland tried his " prentice hand " at translating his
poem Uranie, which compliment Du Bartas returned by translating
the king's poem on the battle of Lepanto into French. In 1 584, he
began the publication of the Seconde Semaine. His aim in continu-
ing his earlier effort was to create a great epic which should stretch
from the story of the creation to the coming of the Messiah. The
work was never completely executed. In addition to his religious
poems, Du Bartas composed Les Neuf Muses Pyreneennes, which
were of a profane character, and also wrote poetry in the Gascon
dialect. Before his death he composed a poem on the battle of Ivry.
Du Bartas's experience at Toulouse and his Huguenot environ-
ment caused him to extend his sympathy to the literature of the
Bible as well as to those of Greece and Rome. His fame as a
religious poet extended to many lands. In England, Joshua Syl-
vester acquired a literary reputation for his version of the Semaine,
which became one of the great literary models of the Puritans.
Milton was probably indebted to him for his conception of Paradise
Lost, as well as for various passages contained in it. Abraham
Cowley drew from him for his epic Davideis, and the early Ameri-
can poet, Mrs. Ann Bradstreet (" tenth Muse "), was known as the
" Du Bartas maid." In Italy Tasso imitated him in his Sette gior-
nate del mondo creato, and in Germany, Goethe was attracted by
him, considering him a great master ; he was especially struck by the
passage where God cast his eye over his completed task :
" Ici la pastorelle, a trauers vne plaine,
A 1'ombre, d'vn pas lent, son gras troupeau rameine ;
Cheminant, elle file, et, a voir sa fac.on,
On diroit qu'elle entonne vne douce chanson."
In spite of his universal popularity, the works of Du Bartas soon
The Floral Games of Toulouse 55
fell into an oblivion in France from which they have never re-
covered. For three hundred years there has been no complete edi-
tion of his works published. One poet alone in modern times has
been influenced by him, Heredia (himself half foreign), who took
from an episode in Du Bartas' chief poem the title of his Trophees
There were both external and internal reasons for the fall of Du
Bartas in France. In the first place, he was fully identified with
the Huguenot cause, and his writings became a center of conflict
between the opposing religious and political factions. The Protes-
tants set him over against Ronsard, the Catholic poet of the court.
When the Catholics gained the ascendancy in France, Du Bartas
suffered the fate of the defeated Huguenots. In the second place,
his works have failed to interest Frenchmen of subsequent genera-
tions. This is due partly to the manner in which the author intro-
duced into his works the ill-digested ideas of the Renaissance, partly
to the lack of a close unity and well defined thread of action, partly
to the language, which lacks for the most part the smoothness and
beauty of works produced in the seventeenth century. A compari-
son of the Semaine with Milton's Paradise Lost will show clearly
why Du Bartas has failed to have the lasting popularity enjoyed by
Milton in the English-speaking world. Milton was fortunate in
living in the next generation when the ideas of the Renaissance
had assumed definite form and the language in both France and Eng-
land was tending toward perfection. To Du Bartas is due the credit
of a lofty conception of a Christian epic, and to Milton the per-
fecting of it. Milton's relation to Du Bartas is somewhat analogous
to that of Racine as the follower and perfecter of Corneille.
In the choice of his theme, in his fondness for introducing all
sorts of ideas, such as theology, mythology, history, metaphysics,
mathematics, medicine, and the occult and natural sciences as-
trology, astronomy, alchemy, physics, chemistry, Du Bartas is a
typical poet of the Floral Games. The only difference between him
and his companion poets was that what they attempted on a small
scale, he tried to do on a colossal one. The mystery of the creation
and the beginning of the world haunted the young poets of the
Floral Games. A study of the Livre Rouge from 1550 to 1565, the
68 Wright, Hist, of Fr. Lit., p. 226.
56 Toulouse in the Renaissance
year in which Du Bartas won a prize, is convincing proof that he is
a natural product of the Floral Games. The opening lines of a few
of the chants royaux of this period are a good illustration of what
the poets at Toulouse considered the chief themes of poetic inspira-
tion:
" L'eternite, infinie mesure
N'ayant milieu, fin ni commencement
Faict 1'Univers; 1'Univers se mesure
Du temps qui cause altere changement."
Jehan de Flavyn, 1550.
" Le seul mouvant Tung et 1'autre hemysphere
Et qui ne prend que de soy mouvement,
Mouvant de soy la rondeur de 1'esphere,
L'ung cercle esmeut 1'autre divinement."
Anthoine Noguierys, 1550.
" La cause seulle, en soy indivisible,
Tout produisant de son mesme pouvoir,
Estre ne peult de son oeuvre sensible,
Comprinse en rien, pour son estre et sgavoir."
Guillaume Cay ret, 1552.
" Des grands accordz du monde et de nature
Fut procree Lycaon discordant,
Tant que change de perverse nature
Pour perir tout par tout va regardant."
Deucalion qui restaura le monde."
Jehan Carles, 1552.
" Les cieulx estoient par cinq cercles haulsez
Ja commengoit la chaleur vehemente
A descouvrir les monts et boys mussez
En esclairant ceste terre pesante."
Bernard Podius (Poey), 1552.
" Lorsque ce monde en son centre requis,
Monde parfaict, vray pourtraict de nature,
Brusloit en flamme, a grands tourmentz soubmis,
Ne produisant qu'inf aicte pourriture, ..."
Jehan de Barot, 1554.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 57
" Quand 1'embrouille cahos on desmella,
Et que le feu se separa de 1'onde,
Voire la terre a 1'air ne rebella,
Une clairte embellit tout le monde."
. . . Dubuys, 1555.
" La terre lorde preit sa place et residance,
Au plus loing des haultz cieulx la vagabonde mer
A Tentour de la terre esleut sa demeurance,
Et 1'air jusqu'an plus hault se voulut sublimer, . . ."
Pierre Garros, 1557.
" Cest ouvrier excellent pensoit en son ouvraige
De se rendre a jamais par ses faictz admirable;
Essaiant d'assopir le descord et la rage
Qui regnoit au chaos lordement detestable, ..."
Sanxon de Lacroix, 1558.
"L'ouvrier celeste ayant soing d'esgaller
Au plus parfaict de son myeulx ung ouvrage
Que sien il peult hardiment appeller,
Forma ung corps pourtant de son imaige ..."
J. de Cardonne, 1558.
" Par dela ce grand rond qui la terre enyronne,
De tous solides corps, estant le plus parfaict,
Celluy qui le regit qui 1'anime et luy donne ..."
Guillaume de Lagrange, 1559.
" On a dit vaynement que ceste masse ronde
Son commencement print lors que la paix eust faict
Separer 1'air, le feu, de la terre et de 1'onde
N'estant qu'ung lourd cahos, difforme et contrefaict."
Anthoine de Tinturier, 1560.
" Le tout etoit en tout et le tout amasse
N'etoit qu'un lourd monceau, un gros monceau estrange
Sans forme et sans beaulte, nullement compasse
Le ciel, la terre et 1'eau, ce n'estoit que meslange ..."
Bernard de Poey, 1560.
" Je viz en ung epaiz de mon entendement
L'edifice immortel de la divine essence."
Denys Bouthillier, 1562.
jg Toulouse in the Renaissance
" Lc monde charpente etoit obscur encore
Et encore la nuict ombrageoit 1'univers, ..."
J. Cardonne, 1564.
" Quant ce qui est enclos dessoubz la voute insigne
Du ciel qui va bornant le monde spacieux
Eust receu sa premiere et parfaicte origine ..."
Rodolphe Gay, 1565.
These astronomic citations remain inferior to the splendid pas-
sage of Rotrou (Saint-Genest, Act ii, Sc. 2) :
" J'ose a present, 6 Ciel, d'une vue assuree,
Contempler les brillants de ta voute azuree,
Et nier ces faux dieux, qui n'ont jamais foule
De ce palais roulant le lambris etoile."
In 1564, Du Bartas entered the contest of the Floral Games.
The impromptu trial called the Essay was imposed upon several of
the candidates for one of the prizes. Among them were Guillaume
Saluste (Du Bartas) and Robert Gamier. The prize was awarded
to Gamier. Robert Gamier studied law at Toulouse. He won the
Violet in 1564, and the Eglantine in 1566. He also composed poems
in honor of the entry of Charles IX into Toulouse in 1565. While
at Toulouse he published a volume of poetry entitled Plaintes
atnoureuses. He was destined to occupy a lasting place in the history
of French literature, and had an important hand in shaping the
direction of French drama. His most important dramas were Les
Juives and Bradamante, the first French tragi-comedy.
In the next year, 1565, Du Bartas won the Violet for the follow-
ing chant royal : 89
" Le nocher basane qui de 1'onde azuree
A force d'avirons fend le doz ecumeuz
Ung seul moment de temps n'a la vue assuree
Car oultre la fureur des aquilons emeuz
Centre le dard murdrier du foudroiant oraige,
Oultre le traistre abord d'un sabloneux rivaige,
Oultre mile rochers, mil goufres tournoians
Et mil escueils caiches soubz les flotz aboians,
Livre Rouge, vol. I, f . 200. Hitherto unpublished.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 59
II fault qu'a tous propoz saigement il evite,
Pour trasser sans peril les sillons ondoians,
La voix plongeant les naus dans le sein d'Amphitrite.
Car ez lieux plus frequens de 1'humide contree
Les filles d'Achelous, cest Achelous fameuz
Qui du Pinde roulant tient 1'Actolle emincee
Entre les deux canalz de ses flotz limoneuz,
Tachent des navigans enchainer le couraige,
Avec 1'atraict minhard de leur serain visaige,
Et avec leurs chanssons dont les trompeurs accens
Surpassent en doulceur les soupirs languissans
De 1'oiseau d'Apollon quant la mort le visite,
Si qu'on fuyt rarement comme hamegons nuisans
La voix plongeant les naux dans le sein d'Amphitrite.
D'aultant qu'oultre leur voix d'un doux sucre comblee
Et leur bel embonpoinct qui tenteroit les dieux
Toutes trois ont encor parole emmiellee
Qui charme les espritz des passans curieux,
Leur promettant cent fois d'un affecte langaige
Bienheurer de plaisir le reste de leur aige,
Libre de tous soulciz et chagrins des plaisans,
Mesmes de leurs beautes les rendre jouyssans
S'ilz ancrent a ce bord ou personne n'habite
Que les nimphes des eaux et les tritons oians
La voix plongeant les naux dans le sein d'Amphitrite.
Adonq les mariniers oians Tame emuree
De leurs traitres appas et chantz melodieux
Singlent d'un roide bras leurs barques calfutrees
Pour aborder bien tost un lieu delicieux
Ou les trompeuses seurs degoisent leur ramaige,
Dessus les pasles eaulx monstrent leur blanc corsaige,
Touteffois sur le poinct qu'ilz s'estiment contentz,
Voissi soubdain 1'assault des gros flots floflotans
Qui dans le ventre creuz d'un goufre precipite
Les pouvres nautoniers a bon droict maugreantz
La voix plongeant les naux dans le sein d'Amphitrite.
Mais ceulx f ollement n'ont leur vie occupee
Apres le vain plaisir d'un chant si dangereux,
60 Toulouse in the Renaissance
Aingois bien adiustes ont 1'oreille estoupee,
Pour n'ouir des trois seurs les propoz doulcereuz
Ymitans les soldatz et ceste Ulisse saige,
Qui nonobstant 1'effort de mainct et mainct naufraige
Le palais de Neptune a frequente dix ans,
Conduiront sans peril leurs gallons glissans
Combien que 1'Ocean encontre iceulx s'irrite,
Car couvers de vertu, ils seront desprisans
La voix plongeant les naux dans le sein d'Amphitrite."
Allegoric.
" Les hommes aveugles qui durant le voiaige
De ceste frelle vie elisant le servaige
Des sales voluptes sont en fin perissans,
Mais ceulx qui captivans 1'appetit de leurs sens
Rec.oivent la raison pour leur seure conduicte,
Sont toujours bien heureux, justement haissans
La voix plongeant les naux dans le sein d'Amphitrite."
In the phrase flots floflotans began an imitation of the eccen-
tricities of the Pleiade which Du Bartas carried to excess in his
works, and which later not only served to aid in discrediting them,
but the Ronsardist tradition as well. Examples of his tendency to
exaggeration of language which have been frequently quoted, are
his descriptions of the horse and of the lark :
" Le champ plat bat, abat, destrape, grape, atrape
Le vent qui va devant."
" La gentile alouete avec son tire-lire
Tire Tire aux faschez: et d'une tire tire
Vers le pole brillant."
La Semaine contains passages which are evidence of true genius
on the part of the author, but the work as a whole is uneven, and
the inspiration is not sustained. The following reminds one of the
passage which Shakespeare was to write later:
" Le monde est un theatre, ou de Dieu la puissance,
La iustice, 1'amour, le sgavoir, la prudence,
louent leur personnage, et comme a qui mieux mieux
The Floral Games of Toulouse 61
Les esprits plus pesans rauissent sur les cieux.
Le monde est vn grand livre, ou du Souuerain maistre
L'admirable artifice on lit en grosse lettre.
Chasque ceuure est une page, et chasque sien effect
Est un beau charactere en tous ses traits parfaict."
The poet's fondness for simile is again expressed in the follow-
ing passage, which contains some lines which are not lacking in
grace and beauty:
" . . . , ainsi que fait le maistre
D'un bastiment royal, qui plus tost que de mettre
La main a la besongne, eslit vn bastiment,
Ou la richesse & Tart luisent esgalement.
Et ne pouuant trouuer en vn seul edifice
Toutes beautez en bloc, il prend le f rontispice
De ce palais ici, d'vn autre les piliers,
D'vn autre la fac.on des riches escaliers:
Et choisissant par tout les choses les plus belles,
Fait vn seul bastiment dessus trente modelles :
Ains n'ayant rien qu'vn Rien pour dessus lui mouler
Vn chef-d'ceuure si beau, TEternel sans aller
Rauasser longuement, sans tressuer de peine,
Fit 1'air, le ciel, la terre, & 1'ondoyante plaine :
Ainsi que le Soleil, qui, sans bouger des cieux,
Couronne de bouquets le Printemps gracieux :
Engrosse sans trauail nostre mere f econde,
Et, lointain raieunit le visage du monde."
The traditional influence of the Roman de la Rose handed down
by the Rhetoricians is to be seen in such lines as :
" Chasse-ennuy, chasse-dueil, chasse-nuict, chasse-craincte."
As for Du Bartas, he successfully imitated at times the manner
of the Pleiade:
" lamais le gai Printemps a mes yeux ne propose
L'azur du lin fleuri, 1'incarnat de la rose,
Le pourpre rougissant de 1'oeillet a maints plis,
Le fin or de Clytie, & la neige du lis,
Que ie n'admire en eux le peintre qui colore
62 Toulouse in the Renaissance
Les champs de plus de teints que le front de 1'Aurore,
Ains, semblable a la fleur du lin qui naist et tombe
Tout en vn mesme iour, son bers seroit sa tombe,
Son printemps son hyuer, sa naissance sa mort."
Du Bartas' apostrophe to Night is not very different from simi-
lar ones of Shakespeare:
" L'architecte du monde ordonna qu'a leur tour
Le iour suiuist la nuict, la nuict suiuist le jour.
La nuict peut temperer du iour la secheresse,
Humecte nostre ceil, & nos guerets engresse.
La nuict est celle la qui charme nos trauaux,
Enseuelit nos soins, donne trefue a nos maux.
La nuict est celle-la qui de ses ailes sombres
Sur le monde muet fait auecques les ombres
Degouter le silence, & couler dans les os
Des recreus animaux vn sommeilleux repos.
O douce Nuict, sans toi, sans toi 1'humaine vie,
Ne seroit qu'un enfer, ou le chagrin, 1'enuie,
La peine, 1'auarice, & cent fagons de morts
Sans fin bourrelleroyent & nos coeurs & nos corps.
O Nuict, tu vas ostant le masque & la f eintise,
Dont sur 1'humain theatre en vain on se desguise
Tandis que le iour luit, 6 Nuict alme par toy
Sont faits de tout esgaux le bouuier et le Roy,
Le pauure et 1'opulent, le Grec et le Barbare,
Le iuge & 1'accuse, le sc.auuant & 1'ignare,
Le maistre et le valet, le difforme et le beau :
Car, Nuict, tu couures tout de ton obscur manteau."
The following, composed in a manner dear to Du Bartas, recall
some of the lines of the poem of Bernard de Poey, given above :
La terre estoit au ciel, & le ciel en la terre.
La terre, 1'air, le feu se tenoyent dans la mer.
In spite of many striking passages and beautiful lines, La
Semaine is tedious to read. In the vastness of his conception and
the universality of the learning he displays, Du Bartas may be com-
The Floral Games of Toulouse 63
pared with Rabelais. He failed to execute well his conception, and
in his language suffered the same malady that was common to the
poets of the Floral Games. Du Bartas was a Gascon, and never
fully mastered the possibilities of the French language. When he
sought to imitate the language of the Pleiade, he was unable to use
proper discrimination, frequently falling into the worst faults of
his models, and surpassing them in the exaggeration of their de-
fects. Had he lived in the second half of the seventeenth century,
when the ideas of the Renaissance had become clarified and the
language perfected, he would no doubt have produced a lasting
masterpiece.
Guillaume Saluste, sieur Du Bartas, Pierre de Brach, of Bor-
deau, and Pierre Dampmartin, of Toulouse, who were fellow stu-
dents in the study of law, were close personal friends, and all three
courted the Muse in their leisure hours. The last two were winners
in the contest of 1567, Dampmartin obtaining the Violet, and Brach
the Eglantine. Like Du Bartas, they both show the influence of the
Pleiade in their language. The following line is from Dampmartin :
" Restoit encores Mars, ce brave porte-lance"
and these from Brach:
" Empruntant d'Apollon la douxcullante haleine."
" Transmis du darde-foudre en ceste terre basse."
PIERRE DE BRACH.
Pierre de Brach 70 was born at Bordeaux in 1547. From a
reference in his Hymne de Bordeaux, it is quite probable that he
received his earlier training in the famous college of Guyenne. He
studied law at Toulouse, and it was while there that he became in-
terested in poetry. He returned to his native Bordeaux, where he
became a lawyer in the parlement. The interest in poetry which
70 Reinhold Dezeimeris, editor of the works of Pierre de Brach ((Euvres,
vol. ii, p. 298), gives the following footnote on a sonnet written on the poet by
Etienne Pasquier:
"II est a remarquer que Pasquier, dans ses (Euvres, ecrit: BRASCH, ce
qui nous indique la prononciation du temps, laquelle s'est conservee dans la
famille."
64 Toulouse in the Renaissance
had begun at Toulouse was continued, and Brach became one of
the most skillful imitators of the Pleiade, first of Du Bellay and
Ronsard, and later of Desportes. By studying his models, he was
able to acquire a rare polish and finish in his language. His first
volume of poems appeared in 1576 from the press of Simon Mil-
langes, who had just set up the first printing press in Bordeaux, and
who was destined to become the publisher of the Essays of Mon-
taigne. His second volume was composed of imitations of Tasso
and Ariosto, appearing in 1584, from the press of Millanges. His
third volume was a translation of four cantos 71 of Tasso's Jerusa-
lem Delivered, which appeared from the press of Abel L'Angelier
at Paris in 1596. He spent a pleasant life and counted among his
many friends, Montaigne, Du Bartas, Florimond Remond, and
Juste Lipse. He was a liberal Catholic in his views, and his atti-
tude toward the religious agitations of his time was not unlike that
of his friend Montaigne. Du Bartas, the Huguenot champion, and
Florimond Remond, the fire-eating Catholic, were equally dear to
him. It was no doubt this evenness of temperament which pre-
vented him from instilling into his verses that quality of divine fire
essential to immortality. Though only a follower, he was an ele-
gant poet and deserved to be better remembered by posterity. He
is at his best in the hymn to Bordeaux and the Voyage en Gascogne.
The latter is a light letter in verse, of which there is not better exam-
ple in French literature. Pierre de Brach died some time after
1604, according to the sketch of him written by Guillaume Colletet
for his Vies des Poetes franqois. The life of Colletet is included
in the collected works of Brach published under the direction of
Reinhold Dezeimeris. 72
The works of Brach as published under the direction of Dezei-
meris, are in two volumes, the first of which contains the Amours
d'Aymee (in two books, before and after marriage), the Regrets
et Larmes funebrcs, upon the death of Aymee, and a fourth book,
the Tombeau et Regrets funebrcs, made up of poems composed by
friends of the poet upon the death of his wife. The second volume
is composed of four books of Poemes et Meslanges. The poems
71 Sixteenth, fourth, twelfth, and second.
72 Two volumes, Paris, Aubry, 1862.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 65
embrace a variety of forms common to the Renaissance, but are
principally in the form of elegies, odes and sonnets. The Amours
d'Aymee is a collection of elegies, odes and sonnets inspired by
Anne de Perrot, daughter of the seigneur de Crognac, who lived
near Bordeaux. Under the inspiration of an ardent passion, the
poet began a series of poems in which the object of his love is given
the name " Aymee." Anne de Perrot became his wife, and he con-
tinued to sing her praises ; like Petrarch, he sang to his sweetheart
both during her life and after her death. The most striking sonnet
in the collection is the one on Aymee's mirror :
Au lieu de ce miroer qui pend a ta ceinture, 78
Je veux que de mes vers le miroer soit porte,
Miroer, ou vivement ma plume a raporte
Ta beaute, ta rigueur, & le mal que j 'endure.
Pour t'immortaliser j'y fay voir ta figure,
Ta rigueur, pour monstrer quelle est ma fermete,
Mon mal, pour te blasmer de ceste cruaute :
Et tout va tesmoignant combien ma peine est dure.
Sans estre enorgueillie en voyant ton portrait,
Ma belle, souviens-toi que le miroer est fait
Pour voir si quelque tache enlaidist le visage ;
Oste done la rigueur dont le tien est tache.
Rien ne peint un miroer quand 1'objet est cache,
Mais le mien sans objet, paint au vif ton image.
After his master Ronsard, Pierre de Brach celebrates the Rose :
Je veux rendre a jamais, par mes vers, renommee 74
La rose dont Aymee au soir me fist present,
Apres qu'en ma faveur elle 1'eut, en baisant
Un baiser dous-sentant, souefvement en-basmee.
Dans son sein cete rose, estroitement fermee,
Montroit en ses replis son vermeil fletrissant,
Mais je vy la couleur de son taint fanissant,
Se vermeiller aux bords de la bouche d'Aymee.
Ton taint donques, Aymee, a la rose est pareil . . .
Las ! non est : car on voit soubs un mesme Soleil
La rose se f anir, de son bouton eclose :
7 Vol. i, p. 27.
74 Vol. i, p. 102.
66 Toulouse in the Renaissance
Mais ta beaute, trop belle, embellist tous les jours;
Heureux si ta beaute, sujet de mes amours,
Nee & morte en un jour fust ainsi qu'une rose !
The poet sings the death of his beloved Aymee:
Sombre allee, en lauriers espaissemant ombreuse,
Qui me sers de carriere, ou je vay si souvant
Esperonne du deuil, cerchant & ne trouvant
Ce que m'a desrobe la tombe tenebreuse,
Ta belle promenade un temps me fust heureuse,
Quand nos devis alloient tes feuilles esmouvant;
Mais ores que mes pleurs vont la terre abreuvant,
Autant que tu m'as pleu, je te trouve ennuieuse.
Beaus lauriers, je penc.oy, sans ce triste mechef,
Un jour de vos rameaus voir couronner mon chef ;
Je n'ay plus ce desir, & meshuy je proteste
Que mon chef ne sera de verd environne;
Ou, s'il faut que mon front soit un jour couronne,
Ce sera d'un cyprez a la branche funeste.
One of the best of the poems of Brach is La Monomachie in
which he vividly portrays the combat between David and Goliath.
The following is his portrait of Goliath faring forth to battle :
Ainsi done, furieux, de colere enflamee,
II sortit de son camp de pied en cap arme,
Portant un morrion enfonce sur sa teste,
Ombrage d'un panache au dessous de la creste;
Ses deux greves s'armoient de jambieres d'airain,
De cuirasse son dos, d'une lance sa main
Dont la grandeur sembloit estre expres fac.onnee
Pour porter d'une nef la grand voile empennee.
En marchant a grands pas la terre il arpentoit ;
De sa levre baveuse une escume sortoit ;
Une epesse sueur, qui du chef lui degoute
Par les rides du front s'avaloit goute a goute ;
Ses yeux tous enflammes ressambloient a 1'esclair
Que Jupin fait briller par le vague de 1'aer
78 Tome i, p. 236.
'Tome K, pp. 9 ff.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 67
Pour estre avant-coureur du bourdonnant tonnerre,
Que son bras courrousse de son trosne desserre.
The fatal blow and death of the giant are pictured :
Alors centre la terre affermissant son pas,
Faisant d'un demi tour roue'r en 1'aer son bras,
II debanda sa fonde en son doit arrestee,
Au jugement de 1'oeil mesurant sa portee,
La mesurant si bien, que le caillou jette
Au milieu de son front fut droitement porte;
Et la force du coup en le frappant fut telle,
Qu'il cercha soubs le test sa gluante cervelle.
Le sang chaud & vermeil a gros bouillons saillant,
Alloit de toutes pars son visage souillant,
Coulant a longs filets, & la terre alteree,
S'abbreuvant de son sang, de sang fut coloree.
Lors, estourdi du coup, dega, dela tremblant,
De teste & de genous f oiblement chancelant,
II ressembloit 1'ivrogne a qui le pied chancelle,
Pour s'estre trop charge de 1'enf ant de Semelle ;
Mais apres qu'il se fut longuement balance,
II tomba de son long en terre renverce.
De se lever debout par trois fois il essaye,
Par trois fois il retombe, agrave de sa playe,
Secoiiant le jarret, levant en haut la main,
Qui, mi-morte, en tremblant se combatoit en vain. \
In his hymn to his native city, the poet is truly inspired. Under
his pen, alternate praise and description bring before the eye of the
reader in kaleidoscopic fashion the essential qualities and features
of the city and life of Bordeaux : 77
" Ores, d'un masle son, d'une plus forte vois,
Je veux chanter Bourdeaux, jadis siege des rois."
?
"Mais ou, comment, par quoi faut-il que je commence?
Je me trouve indigent en ma riche abondance ; "
77 Tome ii, pp. 63 ff.
68 Toulouse in the Renaissance
" Ainsy voit on souvent la jeune fiancee,
Qui sent d'un chaste amour eschauffer sa pencee,
Errer dans un jardin, pour cueillir de sa main
Un bouquet bien fleurant a mettre dans son sein ;
Ou pour a son ami, le mettant comme en montre,
Lc faire demander a leur premier rencontre.
Elle voit le jardin de fleurs tout diapre:
La 1'aspic porte-epy, ici roeillet pourpre,
La blanchissent les lis, la vermeillent les roses
Au lever du matin nouvellement ecloses ;
Ici jaunit la fleur qui regarde en son cours
Le soleil desdaigneux de ses longues amours,
Et dix mille autres fleurs elle voit devant elle,
Sans pouvoir faire chois de la fleur la plus belle ;
Mais, epointe a la fin d'un mouvement soudain,
Elle arrache la fleur la plus proche a sa main.
Du los done de Bourdeaux cueillons la fleur premiere,
Sans choisir, perennant sa saison printaniere." 78
After singing of the antiquities of Bordeaux, the poet turns to
the modern side, celebrating the churches, the parlement, etc.
" Bourdeaux, si j'ai chante ta plus vieille memoire,
Je veux chanter le los de ta plus jeune gloire,
Ces temples, ces palais, qui en leur nouveaute
Sans mine ont garde leur premiere beaute."
In concluding, the poet says:
" Bourdeaux, il eust fallu, pour chanter tes merites,
Cent mille raretes avoir encor descrites,
Bourdeaux, heureux Bourdeaux, duquel toujours mes vers
'Compare the following fragment from Du Bartas:
"Scais-tu que nous ferons? O Muse, mon soucy,
Mes delices, mon tout! Nous ferons tout ainsi
Que la pucelle main d'une jeune bergere,
Qui ne va despouillant toute la prime vere
De ses peintes beautes, & ne vous ravissant
Un matin tout 1'honneur d'un jardin florissant :
Ains^ coupe, en ce carreau, une fleur azuree,
En 1'autre, une blanchastre, en 1'autre une doree.
De ses cheveux les lie, &, chaste, les baisant,
A son cher fiance s'en-court faire un present."
Tome ii, p. 401, ed. 1611, (Euvres de Du Bartas.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 69
Bruiront & rebruiront le los par 1'univers,
Je te repute heureux, pour ne voir ta contree
Par un Cancre brulant chaudement alteree ;
Heureux, pour ne te voir assis au mesme endroit
Des Scytes englaces, qui, soubs un aer trop f roid,
Et trop loin du Soleil, ont tous jours sur leur teste,
Souffles, neges, glaces, 1'hiverneuse tempeste ; . . ."
Brach's disgust with the study of law at Toulouse is voiced in
the following sonnet :
Pourquoi ne pouvons-nous acheter la science ?
Ou pourquoi ne vient elle avec 1'heredite?
Pourquoi 1'astre eclairant nostre nativite
Ne la darde sur nous avec son influence,
Sans que, pour en avoir la sage connoissance,
Et le corps & 1'esprit soit tousjours tormente,
Souffrant dans un estude ou le chaud d'un este,
Ou d'un hyver glace la f roide intemperance ?
L'aer n'agueres bouilloit soubs le feu du soleil,
Ores il est gele trop lointain de son ceil,
Blutant epessement des neiges farineuses.
Je bruslois lors de chaud ; je glace ores de f roid :
Viola les passetemps que mon esprit rec.oit,
Apprenant les accords de nos lois querelleuses.
He celebrates a sweetheart left behind in Toulouse at the end
of his student days. One will note the beauty and sadness of the
last three lines:
Ny voir a mon retour mes parens contentes 80
Ny voir de mes amis une trouppe cherie ;
Ny voir les champs f ertils de ma chere patrie
D'ou je m'etoi bani de-ja par trois estes;
Ny voir en nostre port mille nouvelletes
Qu'apporte 1'Occean alors qu'il se marie
A nos fleuves Gascons, desquels le cours varie
Par le regorgement de ses flots irrites;
"Tome ii, p. 194.
80 Tome ii, p. 195.
7o Toulouse in the Renaissance
Ny me voir contante d'une large abondance,
Me voyant estre exempt de Pestroite indigence
Que le pouvre escolier a tousjours pres de soi:
Je n'ay de tout cela regeu tant de Hesse,
Que du seul souvenir de ma belle maistresse,
Qui peut estre a perdu le souvenir de moi.
In the following sonnet, Brach struck a chord which brings to
mind Les Facheux, that Moliere was to write in the next century :
Je n'aime point d'ouir les nouvelles qu'on dit ;
Mais tousjours, par malheur, le premier que j'acoste
A leu quelque paquet apporte par un poste,
Et m'asseure avoir veu quelque nouvel edit.
Puis quelque autre nouvelle un autre me redit,
Et, s'il n'en s<jait aucune, il en forge a sa poste ;
Puis quelque autre, arrive f raischement par la poste,
Par quelque autre nouvelle a ceux-la contredit.
Ainsi divenjement je suis contraint d'apprendre
Mille nouvelletes qu'il me f ache d'entendre ;
Mais en me les disant on les dit a un sourd,
Et Ton n'a garde apres de les m'ouir redire,
Car il est dangereux d'en dire ou d'en escrire :
Et j'en prens pour tesmoin les arrests de la Cour.
The above is one of a series of nineteen sonnets satirizing the
condition of France in the midst of the turmoil of the civil and
religious wars. The poet gives voice to his indignation in the fol-
lowing :
Miserables Francois, he ! que voules vous f aire ?
He! pourquoi voules vous, enyvres de courrous,
Enfelonnant vos coeurs, vous occire entre vous,
Et de vos propres mains vous mesmes vous deffaire ?
Miserables Francois, he ! qu'avies vous affaire
En vous remutinant de vous eslever tous ?
Mais encor, qui pis est, he ! pourquoi, pouvres f ous,
Armes vous 1'estranger, pour vuider vostre affaire ?
Las! c'est le plus beau jeu qui lui pourroit venir,
Tome ii, p. 130.
M Tome ii, p. 125.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 71
Soubs couleur de vouloir un parti soustenir,
De pouvoir envahir la France desolee.
Un jouet plus plaisant il ne pourroit avoir,
Que de voir cete guerre entre-vous s'esmouvoir,
Pour pescher, comme on dit, quand la mer est troublee.
The Voyage en Gascogne is a letter in verse which Pierre de
Brach addressed to his friend, Pierre de Dampmartin, fellow stu-
dent and companion of the Floral Games, and in which he describes
a journey which he took to the castle of Bartas at Montfort in Gas-
cony in company with Guillaume Saluste:
" Le soleil se levant de son nuiteux sejour,
Avecques nos travaux nous ramena le jour
Que nous devions partir, Saluste epoint d'envie
D'aller revoir les champs de sa chere patrie,
Et moi de m'esloigner de la confusion
De quelques fols s'armans pour la sedition,
D'ou le peuple auguroit, murmurant par la ville,
L'indomptable fureur d'une guerre civile."
It is probable that this journey was undertaken in the summer
of 1567, shortly after Brach and Dampmartin had won their prizes
in the Floral Games. Affairs in France were heading toward the
Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. So troubled were the times that
the university remained closed in the fall of I567. 83
The poet relates that after visiting the lodging of his friend
Dampmartin, three times in vain, to tell him good-bye, he went in
quest of Du Bartas, or as he calls him, Saluste, and they set out on
horseback at sunrise, determined to arrive at Montfort the same day,
" Bien aises de laisser les prisons d'une ville 84
Ou soubs le joug des loix nostre esprit est servile :
Entamant ce pendant divers propos, affin
De pouvoir en parlant accourcir le chemin."
" Ici le tapis verd d'une plate campagne,
Ici le front bosse d'une haute montagne,
83 R. Gadave, Documents sur YHistoire de I'Universitt de Toulouse, p. 172.
Paris, Picard, 1910.
*Tome ii, pp. 176 ff.
72 Toulouse in the Renaissance
Ici 1'ombrage frais des epesses forests,
Ici les riches dons de la blonde Ceres,
Ici d'un champ fertil la terre labouree,
Ici le plain herbu qui bigorre une pree
Esblouissent nos yeux au lustre des couleurs
Que redonne 1'esmail de mille & mille fleurs."
" Nous trouvons en chemin de paisans une presse
Qui leurs biens apportoient dans leur ville maistresse ;
Tout ainsi que Ton voit que les petits ruisseaux
Apportent dans la mer le tribut de leurs eaux.
L'un d'un panier de fruit a la teste chargee;
L'autre porte a plain bras un grand f ais de jonchee ;
L'un porte dans sa main le pepiant poulet,
L'autre dessus son col le beslant agnelet,
Et chacun qui venoit apportoit quelque chose
Pour de sa pouvrete enrichir ta Tolose."
" Alors le clair Phoebus, en sa courge ordonnee,
Estoit au mi-chemin de sa longue journee,
Et du rayon ardent de son ceil enflamme
En feu tout sembloit estre icy bas alume;
Quand, fache de sentir cete chaleur extreme,
Je m'advangay tout seul, batissant en moi-mesme
Mille chasteaux en 1'aer que mon esprit faisoit
Sur le moule incertain de ce qui lui plaisoit.
A la fin, ennuye de ces vaines pencees
Trop souvent a par moi vainement repencees,
Saluste j'appelay & trois & quatre fois;
Comme il ne respondoit, je rehaussay ma vois,
Estimant que Zephir de son alaine mole
Emportast parmi 1'aer le son de ma parole.
Mais je le vi de loin qui venoit pas a pas
Branlant dega, dela, penchant sa teste en bas,
Sur le col du cheval ayant lache la bride,
Qui marchoit a son aise & lui servoit de guide."
" Alors je recommence a 1'appeller plus fort ;
Mais il ne respondoit non plus qu'un homme mort,
Me faisant souvenir en sa forme endormie
The Floral Games of Toulouse 73
De ceux qui sont attains de quelque maladie,
Et qui, pour changer d'aer estants mis a cheval,
Tremblent, mal assures, se plaignant de leur mal."
" Voyant qu'il ne m'oioit, mon chemin je rebrousse,
Je m'approche de lui, roidement je le pousse,
Le tenant toutefois d'une main arreste
De peur qu'il ne tombast devers 1'autre coste ;
A la fin il s'esveille, &, tenant bonne mine,
II dist qu'en son esprit quelque chose il rumine,
Qu'il ravassoit ailleurs, qu'il n'estoit endormi,
Bien que la nuit passee il n'eust guere dormi.
Mais quoi ! tout aussi tost encore il resommeille :
Quatre fois il s'endort, quatre fois je 1'esveille."
" A la fin, pour oster le sommeil otieux
Qui silloit a tous coups la paupiere a ses yeux,
Je lui parlay d'Amour, sc.achant qu'il avoit 1'ame
Captive soubs le joug des beautes d'une Dame:
Le sommeil aussi tost de ses yeux s'en vola;
Sa langue du palais soubdain se decola
En ouvrant le conduit d'une douce eloquence,
Pour me center d'Amour la force & la puissance,
Les esbats, les plaisirs qu'il mesle avec son fiel,
Les peines, les torments qu'il mesle avec son miel."
Night overtakes the youths before the completion of the journey :
"... 1'obscur de la nuit retournee,
Au chasteau du Bartas borna nostre journee,
Bartas ou la nature & 1'art industrieux
Semblent pour 1'embellir avoir mis tout leur mieux."
After halting for the night, the two friends resume their journey
on the morrow, and as they approach Montf ort, Du Bartas exclaims :
" Voila le lieu, dit-il, de ma nativite ;
Voila Monfort qui m'a dans ses bras alaite."
" Approchant de Monfort, les citoyens venoient,
Qui d'un accolement Saluste bien-venoient ;
Et ses autres amis d'une troupe infinie
74 Toulouse in the Renaissance
Jusques dans sa maison nous firent compagnie,
Ou nous prenons 1'esbat de mille passetemps,
Estants ore a la ville, ores estants aux champs,
Visitant c.a & la la Gascongne fertile,
De village en bourgade & de bourgade en ville."
* Et, vaguants au plaisir du vouloir qui nous mene,
Nous lisons quelque histoire ou Frangoise ou Romaine,
Jusqu'a ce que le chaud nous contraint retourner
Enclorre a la maison, jusqu'a 1'apres disner
Que nous cerchons le f rais d'un berceau qui nous couvre, ..."
" Et la Saluste & moi, estendus a 1'envers,
Lisons dans quelque livre, ou composans des vers,
Inspires saintement d'une ardeur poetique,
Estants soubs la f raicheur de cet arbre Delphique."
After tiring of such a pastime, the youths stroll out into the
fields and watch the peasants at the harvest. The poet pictures the
harvest scene in a simple and vivid manner. He closes his poem
with a picture of the charms of rustic life;
" Ainsi, mon Dampmartin, j'aimeroi cent fois mieux
Vivre aux champs en travail qu'en la ville otieux,
Regrettant que le ciel ne m'a voulu permettre
De suivre en travaillant cete vie champestre,
Pour m'estre rejoul aux passetemps divers
Qu'icy je t'ay portraits du pingeau de mes vers."
Following is the second strophe of the chant royal for which
Pierre de Brach was awarded the Eglantine in 1567. A comparison
with the above later poems indicates the evolution of the poet's art :
" Le president du ciel qui de reternite 85
En son tout infini tient I'eternel espasse,
Et qui par 1'esprit sainct de sa divinite
Tout ce que l'homme f aict en ce monde compasse,
Voiant que les humains enflammes de fureur
S'ouvrent mechantement le peche plein d'horreur,
Qui d'un murtrier lien dans 1'enfer les enlasse,
The Floral Games of Toulouse 75
Pour les tirer de la et leur ouvrir les yeux
Qui peuvent ce monter au ciel la gent humaine
Envoya de la-hault en ces terrestres lieux
Le prophete englouty au sein de la baleyne"
GUY DU FAUR, SIEUR DE PIBRAC.
Another illustrious poet of the Floral Games, who was destined
to have a more lasting literary fame in France than either Du Bartas
or Brach, was Guy du Faur, sieur de Pibrac, author of the Quatrains.
Guy du Faur belonged to one of the best known families of
south France in the sixteenth century. He was the son of Pierre
du Faur, president in the parlement of Toulouse and from 1535 to
1558 chancellor of the Floral Games. His uncle, "Michel du Faur
de Saint Jory, was also a president in the parlement and chancellor
of the Floral Games for many years, succeeding to the office upon the
death of Pierre du Faur in 1559. He in turn was succceeded as
chancellor by his son, Pierre du Faur de Saint Jory, who held the
office from 1590 to 1600, and who was first president of the parle-
ment. When Michel du Faur was elevated to the office of chancellor,
his chair as mainteneur was left vacant. His nephew, Guy du Faur,
was elected to succeed him. The record of the Livre Rouge states :
..." fut par commun advis et oppinion desd. seigneurs, chan-
celier, cappitolz, maincteneurs et maistres, arreste que la resigna-
tion faicte par icelluy seigneur chancellier dudict office de maincte-
neur, estoit accepte et en son lieu feust esleu et nomme monsieur
maistre Guy du Faur, seigneur de Pibrac, conseiller au grand conseil
et juge-maige de Tholose." In addition to the offices just mentioned,
Guy du Faur de Pibrac was a deputy to the States General which
assembled at Orleans in 1560, was ambassador from France to the
Council of Trent in 1562; he was also avocat general in the parle-
ment of Paris in 1565. He accompanied the Duke of Anjou to
Poland in 1573. During the reign of this prince, who ascended
the throne of France as Henry III, he was, in succession, councilor
of state, president of the parlement of Paris, chancellor of Margaret
of Navarre, who intrusted him with important missions. An orator
85 Michel du Faur, president of the parlement of Toulouse, was at this time
chancellor of the Floral Games. The poet is playing to the galleries.
7$ Toulouse in the Renaissance
of great eloquence, one of the most erudite men of his time, poet,
diplomat, statesman, Guy de Pibrac was a typical man of the Renais-
sance. As a writer, his works embrace : the Quatrains, many times
reprinted, 86 the Plaisirs de la Vie Rustique, and in prose, Lettres,
Discours, his famous Apologie de la Saint Barthekmy, and the Re-
monstrances which he delivered in his quality of avocat general at
Paris.
De Thou, in his mcmoires, says of Pibrac, that " he was of an
incorruptible probity and of a sincere piety; he had a veritable zeal
for the public welfare, a lofty heart, a generous soul, an extreme
aversion for avarice, a great deal of charm, and a certain gentle-
ness of spirit. He was handsome, of graceful mien, and endowed
by nature with an eloquence which was both harmonious and per-
suasive; he wrote in Latin with elegance, and had much talent for
French poetry ; he was only lacking somewhat in action and vivacity ;
he had never been able to overcome his natural laziness and indo-
lence." 87 Although a Catholic, he displayed a moderate spirit toward
the Huguendts, and spent much time in attempting to smooth out
the differences between the contending factions at Toulouse. He
was a friend of Scaliger, Daurat, Ronsard, Baif and of all the
Pleiade. Florent Chretien translated his Quatrains into Latin and
Greek. Rapin called him " decus secli," and Du Bartas dedicated
to him his Triomphe de la foi. He was likewise on friendly terms
with Scevole de Sainte-Marthe, with De Thou, fitienne Pasquier,
Michel de 1'Hospital, Pithou and Du Vair. He was loved and
admired by Montaigne, who eulogized him in his Essays (III, ix),
The latest edition of the Quatrains is that of Henry Guy, dean of the
faculty of letters in the university of Toulouse, published by Privat at Toulouse,
1904. The poems are preceded by an admirable essay on Pibrac, and the
Quatrains themselves are annotated. See Jules Claretie, Les Quatrains de
Pibrac, Paris, Lemerre, 1874. See also Tamizey de Larroque, Bibliographic de
Guy du Four, de Pibrac, Polybibl., 1869 ; Cougny, Pibrac, sa vie, ses ecrits, 1869.
Early editions: Cinquante Quatrains contenant preceptes et enseignemens
utiles pour la vie de I'homme, composes d limitation de Phocylides, d'Epichar-
mus et autres anciens poetes grecs. Par le S. de Pibrac, 1574, in-8. Ch. Pascal:
Vie tt Maeurs de Messire Guy du Four, seigneur de Pybrac, traduit du latin
par Guy du Faur f Sr. d'Hermay, 1617, in-12. The Quatrains were translated
into English and were included in an early edition, along with the translation
of the works of Du Bartas.
7 Cayla, Histoire de Toulouse, p. 497.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 77
and he is likewise mentioned by Rabelais in his book. In spite of
the universal esteem in which he was held, his reputation suffered
both from his 'Apology for the massacres of Saint Bartholomew,
written as a token of gratitude for favors which had been bestowed
upon him by the queen mother, Catherine de Medicis, and the king,
Charles IX, and from a scandal concerning his alleged relations
with the dissolute Margaret of Navarre, whose chancellor he was.
After the storm arose concerning his Apology for Saint Bartholo-
mew, he retired from the world and composed his Plaisirs de la vie
rustique. The first edition of his Quatrains, fifty in number, ap-
peared in 1574.
The Quatrains had an instantaneous success. In their final form
they were 126 in number. Maxims or proverbs in verse, they were
easily memorized. The form and the moral precepts which they
contained were well adapted for use in the instruction of youth,
and they became the " Bible " of French school children, being freely
quoted until well into the eighteenth century. Of the role which
this work played in education, fitienne Pasquier says: 88 "Jamais
chose ne fut plus utile et agreable au peuple que les Quadrains
. . . Nous les faisions apprendre a nos enfants pour leur servir de
premiere instruction, et neantmoins dignes d'estre enchassez aux
coeurs des plus grands." In the opening scene of Moliere's Sgana-
relle, Gorgibus admonishes his daughter Clelie to throw away the
popular romances which she had been reading and to read instead
the Quatrains of Pibrac:
Jetez-moi dans le feu tous ces mechants ecrits
Qui gatent tous les jours tant de jeunes esprits;
Lisez-moi, comme il faut, au lieu de ces sornettes,
Les Quatrains de Pibrac, et les doctes Tablettes
Du conseiller Matthieu ; 1'ouvrage est de valeur
Et plein de beaux dictons a reciter par cceur.
Madame de Maintenon bears testimony of the place occupied by
the Quatrains in the instruction of children : Je me souviens encore
que ma cousine et moi, qui etions a peu pres du meme age, nous
passions une partie du jour a garder les dindons de ma tante. On
nous plaquoit un masque sur notre nez, car on avoit peur que nous
Recherches, VII, 6.
7 g Toulouse in the Renaissance
ne nous halassions ; on nous mettoit au bras un petit panier ou etoit
notrc dejeuner avec un petit livret des Quatrains de Pibrac, dont on
nous donnoit quelques pages a apprendre par jour. . . ." 8 In her
treatise on the education of girls, 90 Madame de Maintenon observes :
" La plus habile (des gouvernantes) est celle qui sait quelques lignes
de vers, quelques Quatrains de Pibrac qu'elle fait dire en toute occa-
sion, et qu'on recite comme un petit perroquet."
The Quatrains are, according to their author, an imitation of
Phocylides, Epicharmus and other ancient Greek poets. As a matter
of fact, they are drawn from various sources of antiquity, particu-
larly Plutarch, as well as from the Bible. 91 In their sources they
are of the Renaissance ; in their form, of the middle ages. Begin-
ning with the Enseignemens and Prouverbes moraulx of Christine
de Pisan, proverbial poetry had been common in north France
throughout the period of the Rhetoricians. Pibrac handles the
proverbial subjects which he treats after two manners. Some of
the Quatrains form series, others are isolated. The subject is stated
in the first line and developed in the remaining lines of a single
Quatrain or of a series, as the case may be. The intent of the author
is a moral one, and in his Quatrains he voices his moral philosophy.
Guy de Pibrac is a thorough product of the influence of the
Floral Games. While he never won a prize in the annual competi-
tions, except a flower of encouragement in his childhood, 92 he was
a mainteneur in the period when the general ideas of the Renais-
sance were having a strong influence on the young poets of Tou-
louse. Although he did not express himself in the conventional
9 Conseils aux demoiselles, e"diL Lavalle, Paris, 1857, t. I, p. 98. Quoted
by Henry Guy.
"Entretiens sur I'educotion de jeunes filles, edit. Lavalle, Paris, 1854, p.
144. Quoted from Henry Guy.
91 Henry Guy: Les Quatrains de Pibrac, pp. 12 ff., Toulouse, 1904.
92 In 1572, Pierre du Faur, the young son of Guy de Pibrac, was awarded
a flower (prize) of encouragement by the Floral Games in the form of an
crillet, or pink. Upon this occasion his father composed a sonnet, of which the
following is the beginning:
44 Mon fils, tu as gaigne ceste petite fleur
Dont je voy mon enfance a ton age estrenee,
Mais comme elle me fut par mon pere donnee,
J'eusse aussi desire en estre le donneur."
Quoted by F. de Gelis in his manuscript edition of the Livre Rogue, f . 269, v*.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 79
chant royal, he chose a form as truly Rhetorician as that employed
by the Floral Games. 93 That he chose to treat moral subjects is no
doubt due to the environment of his youth and manhood. He came
of a family of parlementaires, and was himself connected with
the parlement. The members of the parlement of Toulouse, particu-
larly in the time of Henry II, had a reputation for stern probity
and incorruptibility. At a time when the corruption of the parle-
ment of Paris was common talk, that of Toulouse was held up as
an example of correctness. The moral side of antiquity was
attractive to the legal and judicial mind. Mathieu de Chalvet, who
was president of the parlement of Toulouse in the middle of the
sixteenth century (as well as poet and mainteneur of the Floral
Games) was especially attracted by Seneca, and translated his
essays. That Pibrac as a poet was the product of his Toulouse
environment, there can be no doubt.
As previously stated, the poet expresses his thoughts in series
of quatrains, of which the following is a good illustration :
Tout 1'vniuers n'est qu'vne cite ronde,
Chacun a droict de s'en dire bourgeois,
Le Scythe et More autant que le Gregois,
Le plus petit que le plus grand du monde.
83 Proverbial refrains were common enough in the chants royaux of the
poets of the Floral Games. In an impromptu trial (essay) by which the merits
of the poets came to be tested, as has been stated elsewhere, the contestants
were shut up in a room and assigned a fefrain, most often in the form of a
proverb, upon which they were compelled to compose verses : at first quatrains,
huitains or dixains, eventually sonnets. The sonnet became the sole form
employed in the Essay. Note the proverbial nature of these refrains which
have been culled from the Livre Rouge:
' Point n'est a tous parvenir a Corinthe."
' Le vice et la vertu ne sont jamais ensemble."
' Une seule vertu mile vices efface,"
' Qui trop ayme la terre est ennemy du cieL"
' Ung chemin aus vertus, plusieurs chemins au vice."
4 Plusieurs vont au combat, un seule gaigne la palme."
' Le f rain de la raison dompte les plus farouches."
' Le seul soing du seigneur est la garde des villes."
' La chaleur du soleil est la vie du monde."
Note the difficulty of the rime word in the first of the refrains cited. It
would take a crested poet to be able to rime to Corinthe! Cf. Rostand's
Cyrano, in Act I, where Cyrano selects the difficult word pleutre as a rime
word in his extemporary ballade.
So Toulouse in the Renaissance
Dans le pourpris de ceste cite belle
Dieu a loge 1'homme comme en lieu sainct,
Comme en vn Temple, ou luymesmes s'est peinct
En mil endroicts de couleur immortelle.
II n'y a coing si petit dans ce Temple
Ou la grandeur n'apparoisse de Dieu :
l/homme est plante iustement au milieu,
A fin que mieux par tout il la contemple.
II ne s<;auroit ailleurs mieux la cognoistre
Que dedans soy, ou comme en vn miroir,
La terre il peut et le ciel mesme voir,
Car tout le monde est compris en son estre. (6-9)
The following illustrates the isolated quatrain:
Ne vois au bal, qui n'aymera la danse,
Ny au banquet qui ne voudra manger,
Ny sur la mer qui craindra le danger,
Ny a la Cour qui dira ce qu'il pense. (105)
The following quatrains illustrate other phases of the poet's
thought :
Qui a de soi parfaicte cognoissance
N'ignore rien de ce qu'il fault sqauoir :
Mais le moyen asseure de 1'auoir,
Est se mirer dedans la sapience. (10)
Heureux qui met en Dieu son esperance,
Et qui 1'inuoque en sa prosperite
Autant ou plus qu'en son aduersite, .
Et ne se fie en humaine asseurance. (22)
Les biens du corps et ceux de la fortune
Ne sont pas biens, a parler proprement :
Us sont subiects au moindre changement,
Mais la vertu demeure tousiours vne. (25)
Ayme 1'honneur plus que ta propre vie :
I'entens 1'honneur qui consiste au deuoir
Que rendre on doit, selon, 1'humain pouuoir,
A Dieu, au Roy, aux Loix, a sa Patrie. (33)
The Floral Games of Toulouse 81
Vertu es moeurs ne s'acquiert par 1'estude,
Ne par argent, ne par fauer des Roys,
Ne par vn acte, ou par deux, ou par trois,
Ains par constante et par longue habitude. (61)
Qui lit beaucoup, et iamais ne medite,* 4
Semble a celuy qui mange auidement,
Et de tous mets surcharge tellement
Son estomach, que rien ne luy profite. (62)
Maint vn pouuoit par temps deuenir sage,
S'il n'eust cuide 1'estre ia tout a f aict.
Quel artisant fut one maistre parf aict,
Du premier iour de son apprentissage ? (64)
In the very narrow confines of his small study chamber, seated
on a high-backed bench, the jurist poet, as he gazed out of the
single narrow window upon the undulating Gascon plain, 95 reflected
upon the moral issues of life and upon the pleasures of a quiet ex-
istence, far from the crowd and surrounded by the peaceful quiet
of the country :
Sans doncques plus avant du propos m'egarer,
Je dis que lorsqu'on voit les champs se bigarrer,
De boutons et de fleurs, alors 1'homme champetre
Rec.oit mille plaisirs : soit qu'il regarde paitre
Ses vaches et ses boeufs et le troupeau menu,
Ou qu'il voise nombrer, quand le soir est venu,
Les agnelets au pare pour en savoir le compte,
Et du beurre vendu, et a quoi le lait monte ;
Ou soit, qu'au point du jour, d'un bouton nouvelet
De quelque franc rosier, il fasse un chapelet
Aux Faunes, citoyens de la foret voisine,
Ou a la terre mere, honorant sa gesine . . . 96
*An English poet said more pointedly of a learned ass:
" Who writes at last laboriously to show
How much a man may read, how little know."
Thomas Franklin, London, 1753.
95 Upon a visit to the chateau of Pibrac in the summer of 1919, the writer
was shown the small room in which, according to monsieur Raoul de Pibrac,
descendant of Guy de Pibrac and present owner of the estate, the poet com-
posed his works.
96 Anthologie poetique franfaise du xvi e sitcle (by Maurice Allem), Gamier
Freres, Paris, Tome 2, p. 29.
82 Toulouse in the Renaissance
Les Plaisirs de la vie rustique, from which the above is quoted,
is a conventional poem after the manner of the Pleiade, but in his
Quatrains the poet makes a genuine contribution to the literature of
the Renaissance.
Other poets of the Toulouse group contemporary with the
Pleiade, who published volumes of poetry and who attained con-
siderable literary reputation, were Jean de Rangouse, 97 rival of
Ronsard for the affections of Helene de Surgeres, maid of honor
to the queen Catherine de Medicis ; Jean de Figon, 98 whom Colletet
included among his lives of the poets, Gabriel de Terlon, 99 and
Pierre Le Loyer.
PIERRE LE LOYER.
Pierre Le Loyer, of Anjou, was a student at Toulouse and won
the Eglantine in 1572. He was the sieur de la Brosse and was born
in 1550 at Huille, a village on the Loire. After studying law at
Toulouse, he went to Paris to practice ; but soon retired to his native
province, where he occupied the office of conseiller au presidial at
Angers. He died in 1634. He was a learned man, versed in the
ancient languages. His erudition turned into a mania for finding
97 Dumege gives a sketch of Rangouse in his Biographic toulousaine. He
was a magistrate and poet. He wrote a large number of chansons, for which
he composed the airs. Remy Belleau and the poet's of the Pleiade furnished
him material for several musical compositions. While still quite young, he
went to Paris where he became allied with Ronsard and other celebrated men
of letters. It is said that his friendship with Ronsard was cooled by the rivalry
in love mentioned above in the text. He was a conseiller in the parlement at
Toulouse from 1558, and died in that city in 1569. He won the Violet in 1550.
Jean de Figon was a student from Monteillimar in Dauphine. Guillaume
Colletet devoted to him one of his Vies des Pottes franfois. He won the
Eglantine in 1558.
Gabriel de Terlon (Trellon), who won the Marigold (Souci) in 1566,
and the Eglantine in 1569, was the son of Claude de Terlon who had won the
Mangold in 1540, brother of Claude de Terlon, an intense partisan of the Ligue,
and a poet of considerable fame; a sketch of whom was included by Colletet
in his lives. Claude de Terlon, the father, was a distinguished lawyer, and
according to Lafaille, the most distinguished ofator of his time. He was
elected capitoul of Toulouse in 1555, and in 1559 was chosen as a deputy to
accompany Guy de Pibrac to the States General at Orleans. Gabriel de Terlon
became a mainteneur of the Floral Games in 1591. He was the author of
several literary compositions, notably of a longer poem in six cantos: Chants
dcs Vertus, mentioned by Dumege in his Biographic toulousaine.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 83
in the oriental languages the etymology of names of French cities,
villages, hamlets, and even of the houses of his native Anjou. In
the year in which he won his prize, he published at Toulouse a
volume of verses, some of which had no doubt been read before the
judges of the Floral Games. The title of this volume, which ap-
peared from the press of Colomies, was: L'Idylle sur le soir et
autres vers par Pierre Le Layer, Seigneur de la Brosse, Angeirin* 00
He also published at Paris poetic works 101 containing the Amours
de Flore, Sonnets, Folasteries et bats de jeunesse, pigrammes,
and Bocage de I'art d'aimer, imitated from Ovid, from which the
following stanzas are taken:
PREMIER BOCAGE DE I/ART D'xiMER. 102
Stances.
Quiconque soit des Franc.ais qui ignore
Quel est d'aimer et I'art et le savoir,
Lise mes vers et fasse son devoir
D'effectuer ce qu'il va lire encore.
Par art, la nef parmi les flots se glisse,
Et d'avirons la barque on fait tourner ;
Par art on doit les charrettes mener,
Par art il faut que 1'amour se regisse.
Or, ce bel art, bien qu'il soit difficile,
Apre et facheux en ses premiers progres,
S'il est suivi, Ton s'apergoit apres
Qu'il est plus doux, plus joyeux et facile.
L'amour commence au choix qu'on fait des belles,
Apres le choix survient le deviser,
Puis la priere et le simple baiser,
Et la merci que Ton desire d'elles.
100 Cf. Goujet: Bibliothtque frangcuse, and Joseph Dedieu: L'Art poltique
franfais, Toulouse, 1909.
101 Maurice Allem (Anthol. poftique du xvi e sitcle) says that this volume
was published in 1570 during his stay at Paris. Since he was at Toulouse at
that time, the volume either appeared after 1572 or prior to his winning a prize
at Toulouse.
loa This poem is taken from Maurice Allem, mentioned above.
Toulouse in the Renaissance
Et pour choisir les belles a ta guise,
II faut hanter la cour ou elles sont,
Et les festins et les bals qui se font,
Et les beaux lieux, et la plus grande eglise.
Sois bien vetu, et surtout prends-toi garde
D'etre bien net, bien propre et bien gentil :
Plus qu'un esprit admirable et subtil,
Ce qui se voit, une femme regarde.
Ce grand Socrate, ornement de la Grece,
Fut-il jatnais des femmes estime?
Et toutefois il tenait enferme
Dans son esprit le tresor de sagesse.
Et, si tu peux, apprends la poesie
Et le beau ton de mille chants divers :
Ne vois-tu pas la musique et les vers
Gagner les sens, Tame et la f antaisie ?
Etre a cheval et lui donner carriere,
Virevolter en maint estourbillon,
Darder la barre et pousser le ballon,
Cela sert bien d'une amource premiere.
Mele souvent du sel en tes paroles ;
N'hesite point, parle sans trop parler;
Ne sois point long, cela ne peut aller
Qu'a ces pedants qui tonnent aux ecoles.
Va entre deux et ne sois point farouche,
Ni trop joyeux, si tu veux parler bien;
Car la vertu consiste en son moyen :
Au trop et peu toujours le vice touche.
Vers les amours, quand le desir t'appelle,
Ne songe pas a fonder ton appui
Dessus la veuve et la femme d'autrui,
Aussi plutot sur la tendre pucelle.
L'oeillet vermeil est au sein de la fille :
Quand il fletrit on le jette au f umier ;
La rose est plus prisee en son verger,
Que quand la main et 1'arrache et la pille.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 85
Dedans le bal va t'asseoir aupres d'elle,
L'entretenir, 1'appuyer de tes bras ;
Et si tu vois qu'elle est sise bien bas,
Fais-lui servir tes genoux d'escabelle.
Dessus sa robe ote-lui la poussiere,
Ou f ais semblant de 1'oter pour le moins ;
Danse avec elle et lui serre les mains,
Montrant 1'effort de sa grace meurtriere.
Si trop longtemps la danse te retarde
Pour la conduire ou elle veut aller,
Tends-lui la main et d'un humble parler
En t'inclinant prie que Dieu la garde.
CONCLUSION.
Efforts have been made from time to time to establish the ex-
istence of a Pleiade at Toulouse. While there may have been no
school there with conscious and definite reforms in mind concerning
the language and poetry in general, there was a group actively en-
gaged in working out the new ideas of the Renaissance, either men
who were followers of the Pleiade of the north or who worked
independently of them. The ideas of the Pleiade were immediately
taken up by Bernard de Poey. Robert Gamier received his poetic
inspiration at Toulouse, and it was there that he published his first
volume of verse. Du Bartas and Pibrac stand out as genuine con-
tributors to the literature of the Renaissance, and are complements
of the Pleiade. Pierre de Brach was a very successful follower of
the Pleiade, and made a definite contribution to the poetic ideas of
the time by using a series of sonnets as a vehicle for satire. 103
Pierre Le Loyer was a graceful and rather prolific poet. A sem-
blance of a school is seen in the close friendship of Du Bartas,
Brach and Pierre de Dampmartin. Thus, we find contemporary
with the Pleiade of the north, at least seven poets at Toulouse
working at new ideas, either making direct contributions or spread-
ing the ideas of the Pleiade. In addition to this, the Floral Games
103 In must be admitted, however, that in the expression of satire in the
sonnet, Brach was foreshadowed by Du Bellay.
86
Toulouse in the Renaissance
exercised a stimulating influence on the students of the university,
and many of these after leaving Toulouse spread throughout
France an interest in and love for poetry. In considering the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries in France, it is impossible to arrive
at a complete understanding of the history of poetry without taking
into consideration the influence of the Floral Games of Toulouse.
The poetry of the south has long been neglected and affords a fine
field of research.
In conclusion, it may be well to sum up the growth of poetry in
both the north and south of France. There is a striking parallel in
its growth in the two parts of the country. The following outline
in parallel columns may be of use in comparing the two sections:
CENTURY
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
Before
After
J550.
NORTH FRANCE.
Crude civilization. Heroic
poetry.
Trouveres and Jongleurs.
Decline of Heroic Poetry.
Rise of the middle class.
Poetry becomes Rhetoric ;
the poets Rhetoricians,
guided by books of rules,
or Arts of Rhetoric.
Decline of Rhetoric at the
end of century.
Spread of Rhetoric in the
decadence ; multiplication
of Rhetoricians.
Rise of the Pteiade. Suc-
cessful imitation of the
masterpieces of antiquity.
After
1665.
XVII
First half
Formation of the classical
ideal
SOUTH FRANCE.
Advanced civilization. Lyric
poetry.
Troubadours and Joglars.
Decline of Lyric Poetry. Rise of
the middle class.
Poetry becomes Amor, or Gay
Science ; the poets Fins Am-
ottts, guided by the rules of
the Leys d' Amors.
Decline of Gay Science at the end
of the century.
Adoption of Rhetoricians as
models, together with their
books as guides. Gay Sci-
ence becomes College of the
Art and Science of Rhetoric
Leys d' Amors succeeded by
Art et Science de Rhetorique.
Immediate influence of the Plei-
ade. Attraction of general
philosophical and scientific
ideas of the Renaissance.
The Rhetorician form and
spirit modified by these two
forces.
Direct contributions to the new
literature by Du Bartas, Pi-
brac, and Brach.
Profound influence of the Pleiade
upon the content and language
of the chant royal.
The Floral Games of Toulouse 87
Second Perfecting of the classical Reorganization of the College of
half ideal. Rhetoric into the Academy of
the Floral Games by Louis
XIV in 1694. Adoption of
the classical ideal. Chant
royal displaced by odes, ele-
gies, sonnets, etc.
VITA
The writer was born at Huntsville, Alabama, August 10, 1876.
His earlier life was spent at Falmouth, Kentucky. He entered
Georgetown College, Kentucky, in 1897, where he pursued the
course of studies known as the "modern language group." He
graduated in 1901 with the A.B. degree. After graduation, he be-
came principal of the Scottsboro, Ala., Institute, resigning in the
spring of 1903 for the purpose of going abroad for study. After
spending the spring and summer in Paris and Berlin, he returned
to Howard College, Birmingham, Ala., as professor of modern
languages. He pursued courses in modern languages in the follow-
ing summer schools: Summer School of the South, Knoxville,
Tenn., 1902; Cornell University, 1904; University of Chicago,
1905; Germany, 1907; University of Caen, Normandy, 1909; Co-
lumbia University, 1913, 1918, 1920. He was the "American Dean"
at the University of Toulouse, France, 1919. In 1910 he received
the A.M. degree from Howard College for work in English and
History. In 1918 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from
Howard College. In the spring of 1917 he became Dean of
Howard College and was Acting President from September, 1917,
to January, 1919. He was president of the Alabama Association of
Colleges in 1918; is a member of the Modern Language Associa-
tion of America and an individual member of the Southern Associa-
tion of Colleges and Secondary Schools; he is a member of the
Commission on Accredited Secondary Schools of the Southern
Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. In 1919 he was
presented with the silver medal of the Academic des Jeux Floraux
de Toulouse. He is editor of Picard's La Petite Ville, Ginn & Co.,
Boston. He has been instructor in French in the summer schools
of the University of Alabama and of Columbia University, and
instructor in French in the Department of University Extension of
Columbia University during the session of 1920-21. He has spent
the regular session of 1920-21 as graduate student in Romance
languages in Columbia University.
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