Recueil des Œuvres poétiques
“Bertaut has forged a particular path between Ronsard and Desportes. He has more clarity than the former, more strength than the latter, and more wit and elegance than both of them together” (Mlle de Scudéry).
Precious and fine copy preserved in its contemporary vellum.
Octavo, (4) leaves, the first blank, 112 leaves, ivory vellum, smooth spine, old restoration at the bottom of the upper cover, gilt edges. Binding of the period.
166 x 103 mm.
Bertaut, Jean (1552-1611). Collection of the Poetic Works of Jean Bertaut, Abbot of Aunay and First Almoner to the Queen.
Paris, Mamert Patisson, Printer to the King, 1601.
Very rare first edition of theCollection of the Poetic Works of Jean Bertaut.Renouard, Breyer, no.76; Renouard, Estienne, 192; J. P. Barbier, IV, 1, no.29.
Ronsard inspired his poetic calling: I was not yet sixteen when the first flame / With which your muse enraptured me was kindled in my soul. He soon also admired Desportes: Alone I esteemed you as the ornament of mankind. / At every hour, in every place, I felt your image / Wandering before my eyes stirring my courage. Ronsard deigned to promise him “some fruit of his first flowers”; but Bertaut quickly noticed that the modesty of his talent limited his ambitions, and that his “copper verses” would never equal the “golden verses” of Ronsard.
His tutorship in the Matignon family introduced him at court, where his innate honesty and shyness would not allow him to obtain either Desportes’ pensions or the cardinal’s hat of Davy Du Perron. There, he first distinguished himself as a librettist for court ballets and rhythmic allegories whose elegant stanzas amazed even the nuncios and kings. No one sang so pleasantly of the starry nymphs / Recently come down here / From the heavenly palace of the gods / To see a great king whose glory / On the wings of many a victory: / Has flown to the highest heavens.
He excelled at melancholic elegies, knew how to condense his thoughts into forceful phrases, translate pain with emotion, and make his verses sigh in softened harmonies: Do you not yet know that for desolate souls / To command songs is to counsel tears. His religious poetry to some extent paved the way for the Harmonies and the Meditations. The stanzas of his Psalms surpass those of Marot and Desportes, of whom Malherbe said with impertinence: “Your soup is better than your Psalms.” Of his paraphrase of Psalm CXLVIII, in which the prophet invites creation to glorify God, E. Faguet wrote: “It is entirely a Harmony of Lamartine. The form is perfect, and as the inspiration is very deep, and the power of development, though still abundant, is limited to just limits, we have here a truly admirable classic piece.” Malherbe, reviewing Ronsard, Desportes, Régnier, d’Aubigné, said that he “esteemed Bertaut above all the rest.” A quip, no doubt, but perhaps also a tribute to the firmness or melancholy of the form and the movement that had served him well. The court sang it; the Solitaires of Port-Royal “consecrated it by quoting it”; M. de Sacy included it in his Commentary on Job; Madame Guyon made an unexpected application to the love of God, and Sainte-Beuve observed: “Our mothers still know them.” But Boileau did more to ensure Bertaut’s name lived on, by mentioning him in his Art poétique, after a blow to Ronsard, whom he disliked: This proud poet, toppled from such heights, / Made Desportes and Bertaut more restrained. He did him further justice with this remark in his “Treatise on the Sublime”: “Bertaut caught, in the serious genre, the true genius of the French language.” The Académie shared his opinion. For, “wishing,” said Pelisson, “to make our language capable of the highest eloquence and to choose from among all dead authors those who had written the purest, it enrolled among the most celebrated prose authors: Amyot, Montaigne, Bertaut, Du Perron and François de Sales.”
“Bertaut was viewed by the classical authors as a true precursor, mastering a language ahead of his time. Boileau, though so fierce toward authors of previous centuries, said that Bertaut had ‘caught in the serious genre the true genius of the French language.’” (N. Ducimetière).
The Poetic Works were reprinted in 1605, 1620 and 1623. The 1601 first edition is very rare; we found evidence of a 1605 edition copy, bound of the period, sold for €10,000 on June 15, 2002.
Precious and beautiful copy with very wide margins preserved in its first ivory vellum binding of the time.
From the library of A. J. Guibert.
