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Jacques Delille

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Jacques Delille ( French: [dəlil] ; 22 June 1738 at Aigueperse in Auvergne – 1 May 1813, in Paris ) was a French poet who came to national prominence with his translation of Virgil’s Georgics and made an international reputation with his didactic poem on gardening. He barely survived the slaughter of the French Revolution and lived for some years outside France, including three years in England. The poems on abstract themes that he published after his return were less well received.

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121-545: Delille was an illegitimate child, descended on his mother's side from Michel de l'Hôpital . He was educated at the College of Lisieux in Paris and became an elementary school teacher. He had gradually acquired a reputation as a poet by the publication of some minor works by the time his translation of the Georgics of Virgil in 1769 made him famous. When Voltaire recommended Delille for

242-462: A eulogy of Trajan considered fulsome by some scholars. Towards the end of the 3rd and during the 4th century, as a result of the orientalizing of the Imperial court by Diocletian , it became customary to celebrate as a matter of course the superhuman virtues and achievements of the reigning emperor , in a formally staged literary event. In 336, Eusebius of Caesarea gave a panegyric of Constantine

363-650: A bit red in the face At the mere thought that in his verse’s urbanity Cabbage and turnip should ever merit a place. Delille's work was an early and influential call for rejection of the symmetry and regularity of the formal French style of gardening in favour of the irregular and "natural" English garden. For the next half century, his poem was to become the major reference on the subject. Notable gardeners in France and beyond profited from his advice, described their own creative landscaping to him or invited Delille to see their work for himself. Profiting from this, he had added over

484-456: A chair of jurisprudence for François Hotman , a virulent Protestant polemicist. In gratitude to the chancellor, Hotman dedicated his work Anti-Tribonian to L'Hôpital. In 1553 he entered the service of the Cardinal of Lorraine, serving them as a voracious polemicist and was rewarded by the family with the post of maître des requêtes for the hôtel du roi . He denounced those who characterised

605-525: A compound of Ancient Greek : παν - 'all' (the form taken by the word πᾶν, neuter of πᾶς 'all', when that is used as a prefix) and the word Ancient Greek : ἄγυρις , romanized :  ágyris 'assembly' (an Aeolic dialect form, corresponding to the Attic or Ionic form Ancient Greek : ἀγορά , romanized :  agorá ). Compounded, these gave Ancient Greek : πανήγυρις , romanized :  panḗgyris 'general or national assembly, especially

726-524: A councillor, he took responsibility for drawing up the charges against the chief defenders of Boulogne ( the seigneur de Vervins ), who had surrendered the important port town to the English in 1544. Vervins was condemned to death. Marshal de Biez was likewise condemned but would not be killed, with others sent into exile or imprisoned. In 1547 he was made French ambassador to the Council of Trent . In 1548 he

847-473: A critical (and political) target. The ambitious natural history lessons in Les Trois Règnes de la Nature (1808) also left English reviewers sceptical. The Monthly Review found it lacking in organisation, invention, and sometimes even sense. The Edinburgh Review dismissed the poet as "a hackneyed mechanist of verses" and found in his 'Three Kingdoms of Nature' only "a curious medley of plagiarisms" in

968-445: A festival in honour of a god' and the derived adjective Ancient Greek : πανηγυρικός , romanized :  panēgyrikós 'of or for a public assembly or festival'. In Hellenistic Greek the noun came also to mean 'a festal oration, laudatory speech', and the adjective 'of or relating to a eulogy, flattering'. The noun Ancient Greek : πανήγυρις , romanized :  panḗgyris had been borrowed into Classical Latin by around

1089-415: A great ignorance of the line of distinction between prose and poetry." Michel de l%27H%C3%B4pital Michel de l'Hôpital (or l'Hospital ) (1506 – 13 March 1573) was a French lawyer, diplomat and chancellor during the latter Italian Wars and the early French Wars of Religion . The son of a doctor in the service of Constable Bourbon he spent his early life exiled from France at Bourbon's and then

1210-573: A last attempt to oppose the crown's acceptance of alienated church lands in return for a war on heresy offered by the Pope. Failing in this he was relieved of his seals of office, and though he remained chancellor until his death, he would no longer exercise its authority. Threatened during the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew he and his daughter survived under Catherine and the duke of Guise's protection, he died in March

1331-783: A laurel wreath in the Collège de France , where he was drawn by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson . He was granted an impressive funeral procession and entombed in Père-Lachaise Cemetery , where the Bonapartist politician, Count Regnaud de Saint-Jean d'Angély , spoke his eulogy. In 1814 a monument was erected in memory of "Virgil Delille" in the Arlesheim Hermitage, the English landscape garden in Switzerland inspired by his work. In 1817 his collected works began to be published as

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1452-495: A new order. He emphasised that both Catholic and Protestant must wait until such time as a church council could be convened, to restore unity to the Christian church. In the meanwhile he stressed that it was important for all parties, to be peaceful and law abiding. The Council of Trent had recently been declared reconvened by the Pope, as such L'Hôpital hoped that the delegates would avoid matters of religious debate, leaving those to

1573-500: A panegyric; he became court poet to Stilicho . Cassiodorus , magister officiorum of Theodoric the Great , left a book of panegyrics, the Laudes . One of his biographers, James O'Donnell, has described the genre thus: "It was to be expected that the praise contained in the speech would be excessive; the intellectual point of the exercise (and very likely an important criterion in judging it)

1694-684: A petition raised by the Dijon Parlement against him. During the civil war he negotiated with the Prince of Condé who was besieging Paris, and urged concessions to the rebels, for which he received a cold reception. After the Peace of Longjumeau in March 1568, he retired from court in May, increasingly aware that his opinions were no longer received well by Catherine or the court. Returning to court in September he made

1815-582: A potential package of financial and religious measures. Only through financial, judicial and religious reform could the kingdom be saved, in L'Hôpital's estimation. L'Hôpital opened the Assembly with a speech to the assembled grandees. In it he characterised the kingdom as a sick man, with the package of reforms to represent a cure to the ailments that destabilised and weakened the country. The assembly soon found itself threatened with derailment by an altercation between Admiral Coligny and Cardinal Lorraine after

1936-461: A resumption of war on heresy, L'Hôpital returned to the court in September to oppose it. The Pope saw L'Hôpital as one of his chief opponents on the court. L'Hôpital for his part made it clear he would refuse to affix his seals to the alienation of church lands which would require war on heresy. In a fiery session of council L'Hôpital clashed with Lorraine on 19 September, arguing that this course of action would plunge France into civil war and overrun

2057-630: A set and in 1821 Louis-Michel Petit designed a portrait head of the poet for the Great Frenchmen series of bronze medals. Delille began his poetic career over the years 1761–74 with a series of thoughtful verse epistles full of up-to-date allusions (later gathered together in his Poésies fugitives ). Among these, his Épître sur les Voyages (1765) gained the verse prize of the Académie de Marseille . Once his work became known in England, its ultimate parentage

2178-446: A sort of didactic pendant in 1801. It was followed by further Georgiques francaises in twelve cantos by the agronomist fr:Jean-Baptiste Rougier de La Bergerie (1804), recommending agriculture to the troops returning from the wars. There were also two further translations of Delille's poem: Willem Bilderdijk 's into Dutch ( Het Buitenleven , 1803); and Fr J-B.P. Dubois' into Latin as Ruricolae seu Ad Gallos Georgicon (1808). During

2299-565: A special jurisdiction in Paris for lawsuits between merchants. Expanding this to other towns while the court resided at Moulins in 1566. While staying at Moulins, an edict was also issued outlining the special circumstances by which the royal domain could be temporarily alienated, through the supervision of the Parlement and chambre des comptes . In September 1560 L'Hôpital spoke before the Paris Parlement , he informed them that daily new word

2420-414: A systematic comparison of both works to set the record straight. At the very end of that appeared a satirical verse dialogue between cabbage and turnip ( Le Chou et le Navet ), anonymous there but known to have been written by Antoine de Rivarol . There the humble products of the vegetable garden protest their displacement by Delille's aristocratic taste for the ornamental and exotic: The elegant Abbé turns

2541-407: A thousand lines more to the poem by the time of his 1801 edition, increasing its length by a third. And there were many translations of the poem: into Polish (1783); three into Italian (1792, 1794, 1808); into German (1796); into Portuguese (1800); and three into Russian (1804, 1814, 1816). In England there were four translations of the successive French editions. The first was an anonymous version of

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2662-617: A work reminiscent of nothing so much as the popularised science in Erasmus Darwin ’s The Loves of the Plants . For the reviewer there, everything that Delille had published since 1800 was unsatisfactory. After the change of taste for his kind of writing soon after his death, English criticism was increasingly dismissive of Delille. In dedicating a section to the poet in his Imaginary Conversations (1824), Walter Savage Landor presented him as "the happiest of creatures, when he could weep over

2783-742: The Aeneid . In 1794 Delille emigrated first to Basel and then to Glairesse in Switzerland . Here he finished his Homme des champs , and his poem on the Trois règnes de la nature . His next place of refuge was in Germany , where he composed his La Pitié ; and finally he passed some time in London (1799–1802), chiefly employed in translating Paradise Lost . There he was under the patronage of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire , whose descriptive poem The Passage of

2904-412: The Council of Trent in 1547. The following year he assisted Anne d'Este in the details of her inheritance to ensure she could marry Francis, Duke of Guise . In 1553 he entered Lorraine's service, providing support to the family in return for receiving offices from them. That year they secured for him the position of maître des requêtes for the hôtel du roi , an important post. The following year he

3025-543: The Italian Wars to a close, L'Hôpital praised the treaty, writing a 'carmen de pax' in support of it. While an opponent of the war he had found it necessary to balance this with support for his patrons the Guise, as demonstrated in the poem he composed celebrating the duke of Guise's expedition into Italy in 1557. He wrote further poems in celebration of Guise's capture of Calais in 1558. With Cardinal Lorraine taking charge of

3146-494: The Monthly Review reported that 30,000 copies had been sold in the first fortnight. It also noted the presence in the first canto of "sixty verses borrowed from different English poets; but more in imitation than in close translation." The article quoted copious extracts from the poem, both in the original French and in the reviewer's own translation, rendering Delille's L'Homme des Champs as "The Country Gentleman". But then in

3267-552: The Parlement to push through the Ordinance of Orléans that resulted from the sessions. Upon the death of François II, L'Hôpital did not fall from the centre of royal politics with his patrons. Instead supporting Catherine in her religious policy which increasingly put him at odds with Lorraine. He helped formulate and championed the Edict of 19 April , July and Saint-Germain . The former two which moderated persecution of Protestantism and

3388-407: The Parlement , conscious that allowing them to substitute themselves symbolically for the chancellor would be to acknowledge them as a legislative body. During marriage negotiations between the king's brother Alençon and Elizabeth I for a marriage that same year, L'Hôpital's advice was sought, and he suggested replacing Alençon, with the king's other brother Anjou . This concurred with the answer

3509-468: The Parlements to ensure the passing of the Edict of Romorantin . Later that year, conscious of the scale of the financial and religious problems that were affecting the kingdom, he was among those advocating for an Assembly of Notables . The Assembly in turn called for a Estates General , which L'Hôpital opened and sought to direct towards widescale reforms. Unable to achieve quite what he sought, he fought

3630-508: The famous speech of Pericles in Thucydides , also partook of the nature of panegyrics. The Romans generally confined the panegyric to the living—with the deceased receiving funeral orations instead. The most celebrated example of a Latin panegyric, however, is that delivered by the younger Pliny (AD 100) in the Senate on the occasion of his assumption of the consulship , which contained

3751-537: The 'triumvirate' was agreed in April 1561 to oppose the religious policy being pursued by L'Hôpital and Catherine de' Medici. He was also in April attempting to drive the Ordinance of Orléans through the Parlement , issuing lettres de jussion to command them to do so without further protestation. Facing remonstrances he tried to court the senior judges, inviting them to council with the prospect of involvement in high affairs of

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3872-663: The Assembly of Notables, along with his brother the only prince to do so. He was conscious that he was implicated in both the Conspiracy of Amboise and the later disorders in Lyon . The court was not however to be denied his presence and he was summoned to bring himself to the Estates General that was shortly to convene in December. Arriving at court he was promptly arrested, and a trial began on 13 November. Though he repeatedly attempted to derail

3993-613: The Byzantine Empire. Persian language panegyric poems from the Middle Ages contain details on the life of court poets and their patrons, and shed light on contemporary attitudes and matters of political and military interest such as Farrukhi Sistani 's qasida on Ghaznavid ruler Mahmud of Ghazni 's incursion against the Somnath temple . Poems were composed for festivals like Eid al-Fitr , Nowruz and Mihragan . Some poems depicted

4114-533: The Constable's death in 1527. After this the family moved to the court of Lorraine, where his father finished out his life in service to the duchess of Lorraine . Michel having studied law in Italy now studied also in France to further his education. During the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew , L'Hôpital's only daughter Magdelaine was caught up in the capital. Due to both her Protestantism and her father's religious policy in

4235-618: The French word, but no doubt with cognisance of its Latin and Greek origins. In Athens such speeches were delivered at national festivals or games , with the object of rousing the citizens to emulate the glorious deeds of their ancestors . The most famous are the Olympiacus of Gorgias , the Olympiacus of Lysias , and the Panegyricus and Panathenaicus (neither of them, however, actually delivered) of Isocrates . Funeral orations, such as

4356-418: The Great on the 30th year of his reign, in which he broke from tradition by celebrating the piety of the emperor, rather than his secular achievements. A well-delivered, elegant and witty panegyric became a vehicle for an educated but inexperienced young man to attract desirable attention in a competitive sphere. The poet Claudian came to Rome from Alexandria before about 395 and made his first reputation with

4477-400: The Guise family had done for him in the past decades. He further shouted that he was no longer sure what religion L'Hôpital followed. L'Hôpital retorted that the office of maître des requêtes that they had afforded him was a minor privilege and while he remained forever grateful for what they had afforded him, the debts that he owed their family could not be weighed against his service towards

4598-697: The Mountain of Saint Gothard was published in Delille’s translation in 1802, the year he returned to France. Once he was settled in Paris again, Delille resumed his professorship and his chair at the Académie française, but lived largely in retirement since he was nearly blind by now. In the years that remained, he published the poems and translations on which he had been working during his exile, as well as some later works, but none of them were so admired as his earlier poems. Following his death, Delille lay in state crowned with

4719-496: The Paris Parlement was summoned to meet with L'Hôpital in May, and despite his best efforts to appease the chancellor was compelled to withdraw the courts policy that all its members complete a profession of faith. In August 1563, Charles IX was declared an adult in a session of the Parlement of Rouen . His majority was combined with a formal proclamation of the Edict of Amboise. It was hoped by L'Hôpital and Catherine that by packaging

4840-400: The Paris edition that soon followed his return, however, Delille found it necessary to rewrite some passages, with the result that, in the view of a later critic, the two different editions published in 1802 were "like the statue with two faces…quite a different thing, according to the side of the channel on which it was contemplated". But for all its author's circumspection, the poem soon became

4961-510: The ambassador M. de Choiseul-Gouffier. He had become professor of Latin poetry at the Collège de France , and was given the secular title of Abbé de Saint-Sévrin, when the outbreak of the French Revolution reduced him to poverty. He purchased his personal safety by professing his adherence to revolutionary doctrine, but eventually quit Paris and retired to his wife’s birthplace at Saint-Dié-des-Vosges , where he worked on his translation of

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5082-446: The bishops and religiously learned. He provided the assembled delegates an appraisal on the kingdoms finances, informing them all pensions were at least two years in arrears. He further informed the estates that the crown was in 43 million livres worth of debt, and that the only solution was to raise taxes, the deputies baulked at this notion, so the crown turned to the alienation of church land to remain afloat. In financial matters,

5203-425: The body resisted its registration, and he was forced to push it through, regardless it would remain unimplemented, and he later afforded the body a backtrack as regards their authority over illegal assemblies. With the regime floundering in the aftershocks of Amboise, and with continued discord rocking the kingdom in the south, L'Hôpital was among those who pushed for the calling of an Assembly of Notables , to examine

5324-409: The chamber. Lorraine was uninterested in his efforts and turned to Catherine, informing her that L'Hôpital was the chief cause of the kingdoms ills, and that if he was in the hands of the Parlement of Paris, he would be executed within 24 hours. L'Hôpital for his part explained that in fact Lorraine was the cause of the kingdoms ills, but it was apparent to him that he no longer had the power to change

5445-629: The charms of innocence and the country in some crowded and fashionable circle at Paris". During the course of the unequal dialogue that follows, Delille's part is reduced to defending artificiality and redundancy in French verse over the best practice in other literatures. Later, the article on him in the Encyclopædia Britannica concluded that Delille had attempted more than he could accomplish after his promising beginning; and that, "with all his beauty of versification and occasional felicity of expression, he yet shows, in his later works especially,

5566-460: The conference, however it would be an ignominious failure, breaking down over the first topic of the agenda 'images', shortly after which it was dissolved. L'Hôpital defended the necessity of the edict in front of the Parlement , arguing the only alternative was the expulsion or execution of the Protestants, neither of which was a realistic course of action. In the wake of the Massacre of Wassy ,

5687-606: The confraternity system, which operated alongside the guilds and strengthened them. He ordered that their capital be distributed to local schools in the baillages. This attempt to divest the guilds of their capital, would not go unanswered however, the guilds in retaliation, reinvented the confraternity as a religious organisation, and found strong support among the Catholic ultra party. This allowed them to weather his attacks until they faded in 1567 with his loss of influence. An informal reconciliation between Guise and Montmorency, known as

5808-833: The continent's numerous ethnic groups, and are usually also tied to tribal spirituality . Examples include Oriki amongst the Yoruba people , Isibongo amongst the Zulu people , and Iziduko amongst the Xhosa people . The custom of panegyrics addressed to monarchs was revived in the Baroque period , though there do exist Renaissance examples such as Bruni's Laudatio florentinae urbis to Florence of 1403, and Erasmus 's Panegyricus , first published in 1504. Thus, in 1660 , several panegyrics were published by English poets in honour of Charles II of England coming to power. Another significant work includes

5929-426: The council. In March 1563 the first war of religion was brought to a close in the Edict of Amboise , which granted limited toleration to Protestantism. L'Hôpital opined that the experience of civil war, would induce French citizens to be more forgiving of their neighbours, and less quick to cause disorder. Much of Catholic France was horrified at the terms, and attempted to resist the edicts implementation. De Thou of

6050-399: The countryside brings in French georgics of his own, L'Homme des champs, ou les Géorgiques françaises (1800). Though there had been earlier translations of Virgil's poem in both verse and prose, what Delille brought to it was the finished quality of his alexandrines wedded to a search for equivalence of effect in the source language that sometimes sacrificed literal accuracy to it. Whereas

6171-465: The court in May 1560 before receiving confirmation as chancellor the month after on 30 June 1560 with the support of the Guise , Lorraine recommending him personally to the king for the post. In May 1560, L'Hôpital oversaw the passing of the first religious edict that moderated persecution, the Edict of Romorantin . This edict had been formulated before his return to court. Upon presenting it to Parlement

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6292-475: The court should flee to the safety of Paris. Catherine chose to follow the latter course and the court conducted a fighting retreat to the capital. The failure of the surprise led to the resumption of civil war. Besieged in the capital by Condé's forces, Catherine dispatched L'Hôpital, Morvillier and Marshal Vielleville to negotiate with the prince. Condé was feeling confident in his position, and negotiated aggressively. He demanded that all taxes implemented since

6413-486: The court was still residing in Moulins, Lorraine arrived with a petition from the Parlement of Dijon . The Parlement was frustrated that a new interpretative declaration had been made concerning the edict of Amboise, by which Protestant ministers would be allowed to visit the dying and instruct the young. Lorraine argued in front of the assembled grandees that this was a method of proselytizing. This bombshell petition aroused

6534-430: The crown wished to hear, however the negotiations did not achieve any more success. In 1572 during the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew , Catherine dispatched an escort to his residence to ensure no harm befell him. This was just as well, as his death was desired by some of the participants. He died on his estates in March 1573. Throughout his life L'Hôpital had not accumulated significant wealth, making him atypical for

6655-519: The daughter of the lieutenant-criminel of the Châtelet, Marie Morin, receiving as part of the dowry his entrance to the Paris Parlement Now serving as a councillor in the Parlement , he was afforded valuable experience for his dealings with the body as chancellor. The Parlement would feel betrayed by his later attempts to curtail their power, due to him having once been one of their own. As

6776-487: The death of their current holder, a key component of the Ordinance of Moulins was cancelled. Venality was indeed expanded in January 1568, allowing officials to pay a portion of the cost of their posts for the right to have their venal office be inherited. Though the war was formally brought to a close at Longjumeau , it quickly became apparent the peace was ephemeral in the following months, with sporadic fighting continuing in

6897-419: The debates in the pourparler that formulated the edict, L'Hôpital had been keen to go further, arguing that the ban on Protestantism was no longer workable, however the council voted against legalisation. In September 1561, a council, along the lines of the one L'Hôpital had envisioned at the Estates General, convened at Colloquy of Poissy , with leading Catholics and Protestants in attendance. L'Hôpital opened

7018-495: The direction of the crowns policy, and he left again shortly thereafter to his estates at Vignay near Étampes . A week later on 28 September L'Hôpital was obliged to yield the seals of his office, and he left for retirement. The crown meanwhile revoked the past toleration edicts, and issued the Edict of Saint-Maur , which outlawed Protestantism, steps L'Hôpital could not have taken. On 7 October Jean de Morvillier received his seals. His dismissal as garde des sceaux elicited

7139-422: The edict of Amboise. The area in which Protestantism was prohibited from being practiced was expanded from the city of Paris, to the wider region of the Île de France . Concurrently Protestants were to be barred from public office in the governorship. While these policies appear out of step with his wider program, L'Hôpital was keen to quiet the disorder in Paris, which had been growing more severe and threatening in

7260-423: The edict. The power of the governor was also attacked, with the office no longer to afford the possibility of providing pardons, raising taxes and establishing fairs. Communal judges had much of their authority stripped, reduced to overseeing petty crimes and 1500 offices were abolished or suppressed. Confraternities and leagues were banned. The edict of Amboise was upheld. This edict posed a serious threat to many of

7381-446: The emperors court. When his father entered the service of the House of Lorraine , he entered the patronage network of Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine . Through his marriage to Marie Morin, he acquired a seat in the Paris Parlement . In this capacity he drew up the charges for the king, concerning the defenders of Boulogne who surrendered the city in 1544, before taking a role as a diplomat to

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7502-405: The estates would recommend certain reforms to the system of the guilds. L'Hôpital however desired to go much further than the estates, and in the ordinance of Orléans he outlined an attack on the guild system. His aims were to reduce the burdens of the apprenticeship system, and release the hold that the guilds had over the labour market. He saw the engine to achieving this as being through attacks on

7623-404: The first canto, published in 1783, the year following the French poem's appearance. Titled simply On Gardening , it was briefly noticed in the Monthly Review , where the French original was described as "a didactic poem of great merit [that] may be regarded as a formidable rival to Mr Mason 's English Garden ", the complete edition of which had only recently appeared. An anonymous translation of

7744-402: The following year, John Maunde published a complete translation of the work under the title The Rural Philosopher, or French Georgics , which also received flattering reviews. Delille's work inspired various other poetical responses too. fr:Joseph Berchoux published the four cantos of his light-hearted and popular Gastronomie ou l’homme des champs à table (The Country Gentleman at Table) as

7865-547: The following year, his daughter inheriting his lands under the administration of his wife. Michel de l'Hôpital was born in 1506 in the town of Aigueperse , the son of the duchess of Lorraine's physician. His father also provided medical assistance to the Constable de Bourbon , whose treason in 1525 forced L'Hôpital and his family into an Italian exile. While in Italy, L'Hôpital received his doctorate in law. The family travelled with Bourbon to Spain and Italy in his travels before

7986-416: The former brought forth a petition for Protestants to have temples in which to worship much to the latter's consternation. L'Hôpital took charge of the situation, bringing the conversation away back to financial matters. In July 1560 L'Hôpital promulgated a law reforming how inheritance worked for the children of second marriages. He issued several sumptuary laws in April 1561 and January 1563. He established

8107-465: The hardship induced by attempts to raise the funds was recalled by those in the province. Peasants fled their villages to avoid having to pay. The size of the army was slashed, but many soldiers were left in arrears over pay, and entered opposition to the regime. During the discord that convulsed the kingdom with the Conspiracy of Amboise in early 1560, L'Hôpital was absent from the kingdom, returning to

8228-594: The heat of the sun./I have laid the foundations of a high palace of poetry which will not be damaged by wind and rain." This is similar to the grandiose claims of the Roman poet Horace who says, in an address to the Emperor Augustus , that his poetry was more lasting than bronze and grander than the pyramids . African oral tradition includes panegyric customs such as praise names and praise poetry. Often these customs serve mnemonic and genealogical functions within

8349-512: The high robe nobility of his era. In his last will, he bequeathed his property to his only daughter, and assigned his wife as the administrator of his lands. Panegyric A panegyric ( US : / ˌ p æ n ɪ ˈ dʒ ɪ r ɪ k / or UK : / ˌ p æ n ɪ ˈ dʒ aɪ r ɪ k / ) is a formal public speech or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing . The original panegyrics were speeches delivered at public events in ancient Athens. The word originated as

8470-492: The house of Lorraine as 'foreigners', arguing that France rightfully extended to the Rhine. He called his benefactor, Lorraine, the 'hope of the French race'. He further praised the valour of the duke of Guise . The following year, Cheverny , future chancellor of France, purchased his councillor seat on the Paris Parlement . He took up the position of president of the chambres des comptes in 1554, this granted him experience with

8591-433: The interest of the council, as it became clear L'Hôpital had not consulted any member of the council before issuing it. L'Hôpital acidly remarked to Lorraine that he had 'returned to court to trouble them', causing Lorraine to fire back that L'Hôpital, who owed his position as chancellor to him, dare say that he arrived as a trouble. From here the council descended into chaos, only salvaged when Catherine intervened. She ordered

8712-463: The interpretative declaration burned and that going forth, L'Hôpital be forbidden from sealing edicts without the councils consent. Lorraine, arrogant in victory declared L'Hôpital always sought to be 'cock of the dunghill' and opined that he would refuse to attend council meetings in the man's presence going forward. L'Hôpital offered his support in July 1567 to several interpretative declarations concerning

8833-406: The king. As a parting shot he remarked that it was the duke of Guise who had brought the kingdom into discord with the Massacre of Wassy in 1562. This spat concluded, the council voted on the adoption of the councils findings, and refused to validate them all, much to Lorraine's disgust. Conscious of the crisis of legitimacy that faced the regime, Catherine decided to embark upon a grand tour of

8954-515: The king. His speeches, like those of the king that proceeded them, were met with silence by the Parlements . While the court was staying at Crémieux , L'Hôpital modified the terms of the Edict of Amboise, prohibiting the Protestant church from holding provincial synods. In February 1566 the court arrived at Moulins where an Assembly of Notables was convened with most of the kingdoms grandees in attendance. L'Hôpital presented to them his thesis that

9075-405: The kingdom , to ensure the implementation of the edict, and further to instil the young king's authority on the magnates of the kingdom. The court set off in grand fashion that month, with 2000 persons accompanying them on the journey, including many of the leading nobles of the kingdom such as Constable Montmorency and Cardinal Bourbon . Each of the kingdom's Parlements was to be visited during

9196-481: The kingdom rapidly descended towards civil war, as Protestants began to take arms and seize towns. In the chaotic atmosphere, the Spanish ambassador hoped to gain advantage for his king, and moved that the influence of L'Hôpital was destructive on the crown due to his 'evil reputation', and thus hoping for his removal, however the crown did not oblige. During the period 1563–1566, L'Hôpital and his faction were ascendant on

9317-607: The kingdom. L'Hôpital positioned himself in opposition to Lorraine, arguing that the Tridentine decrees would violate the Gallican privileges of France. He further argued that Lorraine was attempting through the presenting of these suggestions, to achieve through council what he had failed to achieve on the battlefield in 1562, i.e. the domination of France by ultra-Catholicism. Lorraine reacted with outrage to these suggestions, characterising L'Hôpital as an ingrate who failed to appreciate what

9438-418: The kingdoms finances on the death of Henri II, L'Hôpital served as his chief financial adviser. To salvage the kingdoms credit, he recommended to the Cardinal a radical program in which loans would be rescheduled, taxes raised and spending drastically cut. These policies were met with strong resistance in the provinces. In Normandie, a forced loan of 800,000 livres on the province went unpaid, even decades later

9559-492: The kingdoms financial administration, and also a place in the conseil privé . In 1558 in his capacity at the chambres des comptes he offered a panegyric at the wedding of the dauphin François II to Mary, Queen of Scots in which he boasted that the marriage would subdue England without the need for a war or violence. While much of the French military aristocracy was disgusted by the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis , which brought

9680-495: The kingdoms grandees, who utilised their positions as governors for the purpose of graft. Though the edict had demanded immediate registration in its second clause, the Parlement ignored this, and L'Hôpital was forced to accept many modifications to the Ordinace in July. During 1566, L'Hôpital created a new fiscal office of Surintendant des Finances , appointing the religiously moderate Marshal Cossé as its first incumbent. While

9801-420: The land with reiters . He refused to affix his seal to any agreement that authorised this policy. Lorraine jabbed at L'Hôpital that he was a hypocrite and that his wife and daughter were both Protestants. L'Hôpital in turn shot back a sarcastic joke about Guisard corruption, enraging Lorraine who attempted to seize L'Hôpital's beard, before François de Montmorency stepped between the two men and attempted to calm

9922-560: The latter of which legalised Protestant worship in France. Throughout this he found himself in opposition to Parlement , which resisted both the intrusions on their authority and any legalisation of Protestantism. After the first civil war in the French Wars of Religion, L'Hôpital entered his period of ascendency. He championed the king's decision to declare his majority at Rouen , to punish the Paris Parlement for its failure to register

10043-408: The next vacant place in the Académie française , he was at once elected a member, but he was not admitted until 1774 owing to the opposition of the king, who alleged that he was too young. In his work on gardens and their landscaping, Jardins, ou l'art d'embellir les paysages (1782), he made good his pretensions as an original poet. In 1786 Delille made a journey to Constantinople in the train of

10164-407: The number of jurisdictions and overlapping law codes, and limit the power of governors and certain judges to interpret and execute justice that rightfully flowed from the king. By now his influence was waning and he was forced to abandon much of the edict due to the crown's monetary needs during the second civil war. Lorraine had by now returned to court, and he succeeded in besting L'Hôpital concerning

10285-602: The patron as a hero in a battle between Islam and infidels . Wars against Muslims required additional explanations and some poems by Farrukhi and Mu'izzi advocated in favor of Mahmud's capture of Rayy and Ahmad Sanjar 's attacks against the Ghaznavid ruler Arslan-Shah in 1117. These poems are important sources for the Great Seljuq period from which few records survive. In a panegyric poem address to Mahmud of Ghazna, Firdausi said: "Noble buildings are ruined by rain and by

10406-491: The peace treaty. He successfully opposed Lorraine's attempt to implement the Tridentine decrees upon his return from Trent. The next year he accompanied the court on its grand tour , with L'Hôpital berating each Parlement in turn for their impudence and failure to follow the king's will. When the court stopped at Moulins he promulgated a wide reaching set of legal reforms, which sought to combat Venal office , severely curtail

10527-445: The permanence of the peace, complaining about the linking of the two. The king reprimanded those representatives that came to visit him, telling them that the role of the Parlement was to administer justice, not to be his mentors, or custodians of the kingdom. In February 1564, the Council of Trent at last concluded, and with this Lorraine returned to the kingdom, hoping to ensure that the councils recommendations would be adopted by

10648-453: The poem in 1801 with an augmented version of her own in 1805. In 1800 Delille published yet another Virgilian improvisation in his French Georgics, L'Homme des champs, ou les Géorgiques françaises . Descriptive rather than didactic, the poem is a celebration of nature that recommends development of the estate by the introduction of foreign and exotic species and living in the country as the route to self-improvement. In welcoming its appearance,

10769-472: The present necessity of religious toleration for Protestantism, as the only alternative to the kingdom descending into civil war. That same month he aided in the engineering of the Edict of Saint-Germain , which provided formal toleration to Protestantism, pending the reconciliation of the church in a religious council, during the meeting at Saint-Germain, he admitted that the Edict of July had never been quietly repealed, with no window of its implementation. He

10890-450: The previous years. The Surprise of Meaux , in which elements of the Protestant nobility attempted a coup to seize the king and kill Lorraine , fatally discredited L'Hôpital's project in the eyes of Catherine. L'Hôpital was with the court when word came that a Protestant force of cavalry was assembling nearby to attack them. He and the Constable advocated for holding firm at Monceaux . The Guise and Duke of Nemours argued by contrast that

11011-454: The proceeding decade she was at great risk of being killed. The Duke of Guise took her under his protection. She would marry Robert de Hurault, a robe noble. In 1555 the Cardinal of Lorraine became godfather to his recently born grandson. L'Hôpital was one of several leading French figures who was interested in the philosophy of stoicism. To this end and beyond, L'Hôpital was a great advocate of learning Greek. L'Hôpital opined that there

11132-680: The proceedings a verdict was at last reached, guilt of lèse majesté. Two judges however refused to sign the conclusion, L'Hôpital, and du Mortier. Condé would be released in December after the death of François II made his imprisonment politically untenable. L'Hôpital was responsible for calling the trial to a close. L'Hôpital gave the opening address at the Estates General in 1560 . During his speech he first cautioned radical Catholics, for their violence against Protestants and general intolerance. He then turned his ire on radical Protestants, chiding them for their provocative impatience in establishing

11253-544: The proceedings with a call for the assembled Catholic clergy to listen to the Protestant speakers, in the interests of reaching a harmonious position. Despite proposals of uniting the faiths around the Confession of Augsburg , talks with break down into acrimony over the subject of the Eucharist, leaving the talks to end in failure. On 3 January 1562, L'Hôpital gave a speech in front of the Paris Parlement in which he argued for

11374-498: The rapturous excitement of radical preachers in Paris, Simon Vigor celebrated the news, denouncing L'Hôpital as the man who 'put the knife into the hands of our enemy'. Severed from access to power, L'Hôpital turned his attentions to the production of 'discours', the arguments he put forward in these differed greatly from those he presented earlier in his career. No longer were Catholics to tolerate Protestants as an act of Christian clemency. Instead he argued that liberty of conscience

11495-416: The reign of Louis IX when the laws were few and simple and such a model that foreign nations presented their disputes in it. Later that month L'Hôpital presented the Ordinance of Moulins , a judicial reform package composed of 86 articles. The ordinance severely curtailed the Parlements powers, allowing the king to put laws into effect even if the Parlement was remonstrating him, or refused to register

11616-543: The reign of Louis XII be abolished, that four surety towns (including the key border towns of Metz , Calais and Le Havre ) be granted to him to secure his position in the kingdom, and that full religious toleration be granted everywhere in France. He further demanded the prosecution of the Guise and the expulsion of Italian financiers. These demands were entirely unacceptable to the negotiators, but they had been dispatched to buy time for an army to be raised by Constable Montmorency, not to reach terms. By this time, Catherine

11737-498: The relationship was even pushed towards self-identification". So it would seem from the fact that after his translation of the Georgics in 1769, and the stout defence of the work’s relevance and usefulness in his preliminary essay, Delille went on to supplement Virgil's advice with his own practical work on gardens ( Les jardins , 1780). Two decades later he elaborated his thoughts on the moral worth and self-improvement that involvement with

11858-453: The root of evil in the kingdom was the poor administration of justice. He denounced the 'excesses' of those in positions of authority to exercise it engaging in 'tyrannical legislation, venality, avarice, superfluous office' and other ills. He then targeted his attacks towards the organs of law, the Parlements , decrying them for the presumptuousness they showed in interpreting the king's laws and their sedentary nature. He spoke nostalgically of

11979-419: The royal journey, with L'Hôpital tasked to provide a stern talking to the bodies at each stop, warning them to register the edict and respect the authority of the king. L'Hôpital offered the particularly reticent parlementaires of Aix-en-Provence sharp words during the courts visit warning them that the king was unhappy with their 'disobedience' and the parlementaires as his children should obey their father

12100-537: The second century CE, as panēgyris 'festival' (in post-Classical usage also 'general assembly'). Correspondingly, Classical Latin also included the adjective panēgyricus , which appears meaning 'laudatory', but also came to function as a noun, meaning 'public eulogy'. These words inspired similar formations in European languages in the early modern period, such as French panégyrique , attested by 1512. The English noun and adjective panegyric seems to have been borrowed from

12221-441: The south. L'Hôpital, who believed in the peace found himself increasingly at odds with the rest of the royal council, that wanted to overturn the peace and return to war. In May a royal council meeting met to discuss the problems of ensuring obedience towards the peace. L'Hôpital blamed the youth of the king as encouraging his vassals to disobey him. Morvillier, another moderate on the council disagreed, arguing that religious plurality

12342-474: The state, however the Parlementaires were uninterested and several more rounds of lettres de jussion and remonstrances followed into November of that year. In January 1563 he attempted to mollify Parlementaire opposition through a decree outlining that extraordinary courts established by the crown would be illegal without the Parlement having provided commission to the judges. That same month an edict

12463-596: The subject of the Georgics is set in the fields, Delille changed the focus of Les Jardins ou l'art d'embellir les paysages to the landscaping of enclosed grounds and care for what is grown there. The subject was not touched on by Virgil, but there was already a Virgilian model in the Latin of the French Jesuit René Rapin 's four-canto Hortorum Libri IV (1665). Indeed, Delille had mentioned Rapin with no great respect in his preface and immediately brought down on himself

12584-452: The two together it would be harder for the court to oppose the peace. Rouen was chosen as the location in which to declare the majority by the pair as a way to punish the Paris Parlement for its resistance to the policies they had been promulgating in the previous years, the Parlement was greatly wounded by this blow to its prestige as the premier Parlement . The Parlement remonstrated the king, refusing to recognise either his majority or

12705-455: The whole work followed in 1789, dismissed this time by the Monthly Review as a pretty patchwork of episodes lacking unity. But by 1799, after a new translation by Maria Henrietta Montolieu, critical opinion had veered once more and Delille’s ideas were now greeted far more favourably. In the revolutionary exile, there was recognised the friend of English taste. Sufficiently encouraged by its reception, Mrs Montholieu followed Delille's expansion of

12826-463: The word 'sugar' the elaborate paraphrase le miel américain, Que du suc des roseaux exprima l'Africain (that American honey pressed by Africans from the cane’s sap), there being no suitable Virgilian formula to cover such a novelty. The passage was later singled out as a cautionary example by French critics and English alike. Virgil above all remained Delille’s poetic model throughout his career, to such an extent, according to one critic, that "sometimes

12947-433: The years of his exile, Dellile had been hard at work on most of the works issued regularly after his return from exile. The first of these was La Pitié , the text of which illustrates the political caution he now had to exercise. By way of historical illustration of his theme, he had expressed royalist sentiments and criticised the new French regime in the original version that was published after his departure from London. For

13068-412: Was a natural right. He also abandoned his discussions of the two faiths being reunited, no longer viewing such a prospect as realistic, if he ever had. The Parlement , well aware of L'Hôpital's disgrace, sought in 1571, for the seals of his office to be transferred to them, such that they could represent the king's will. While this would have been largely symbolic, Charles IX refused to provide them to

13189-461: Was arriving at court of various seditions across the country. He held responsible for this 'those who use the cloak of religion', an understanding of his, in which the pretext of religion was used to camouflage other grievances. The Parlement frustrated with him for his chastisements, retorted that the true cause of disorder in France was the presence of two Protestants among the great offices of state. The Prince of Condé had failed to show up for

13310-482: Was assisted in his efforts by Catherine, the Protestant Admiral Coligny and Theodore Beza , the Protestant cleric. The edict immediately ran into furious opposition from the Parlements and much of the Catholic nobility. A little taken aback, Catherine attempted to arrange another Colloquy, such as that which had occurred at Poissy, L'Hôpital took charge of outlining the subjects that would be debated at

13431-420: Was causing issues, as much as the king's youth. That same month, he withdrew from court, dispirited that his influence on the direction of royal policy appeared to be at an end. Soon thereafter he asked to be relieved of his office. Having been informed that negotiations were under way between the crown and the Pope, to receive the alienation of church land in return for the revocation of the Edict of Amboise and

13552-448: Was elevated to the chambre des comptes as président , granting him considerable influence in the financial administration of the kingdom. With his patron assuming overall control of the kingdoms finances in the late 1550s, he entered the conseil privé . Early into the reign of François II the old chancellor, François Olivier died. Lorraine nominated L'Hôpital as his replacement. An energetic reformer, L'Hôpital moved into conflict with

13673-518: Was in Ferrara , where he assisted Anne d'Este in her renunciation of the Este inheritance that was a precondition for her marriage to the duke of Guise . He accompanied her on her journey back to France to meet her new husband. During the 1550s, L'Hôpital served as chancellor to the duchess of Savoy, Marguerite , sister to Henri II. Marguerite was sympathetic to Protestantism, and allowed L'Hôpital to obtain

13794-436: Was increasingly weary of L'Hôpital, and when he proposed certain compromises the court could make to end the crisis, including the dispatch of a further embassy to the Protestant leaders so that they might better understand their intentions and aims, she accused him of bearing some responsibility for the current situation. To fund the mercenaries required to prosecute the civil war, L'Hôpital's list of offices to be suppressed on

13915-455: Was issued that prohibited the use of the epithets 'Papiste' and 'Huguenot', two terms that L'Hôpital had taken issue with during his address to the estates in December. The religious situation in France continued to deteriorate in 1561, in June of that year L'Hôpital warned the Paris Parlement that it would be necessary to stop Catholic children from parading through the streets with crosses, as this

14036-402: Was no provincial or town governor in France who had not in their tenure committed enough graft with the king's money to be executable if the king willed it. He was frustrated by how infrequently the estates had met in the last century, viewing them as a valuable mechanism of receiving feedback on government policies. He was overall autocratic in disposition, arguing that the purpose of the estates

14157-438: Was the elegant use of periphrasis to clothe pedestrian terms in poetical phraseology. Speaking of the use to which various metals are put, for example, Delille hides mention of axe and the plough as in his Epître à M.Laurent (1761). In the long run his use of this rhetorical device was so habitual as to become notorious. In a late panegyric to coffee – "To Virgil unfurnished, adored by Voltaire" – Delille had substituted for

14278-443: Was to provide their complaints and receive redress from the king, while the Parlement's were a vehicle through which the king delivered his justice. L'Hôpital's detractors characterised his religious policy as proof that he was a crypto-Protestant. Montaigne referred to both him and François Olivier as being "men extraordinarily sufficient, and endowed with no vulgar virtue [...] great Chancellor of France". In 1532 he married

14399-648: Was to see how excessive the praise could be made while remaining within boundaries of decorum and restraint, how much high praise could be made to seem the grudging testimony of simple honesty". In the Byzantine Empire , the basilikos logos was a formal panegyric for an emperor delivered on an important occasion. Panegyric poems were a major literary form among the Arabs. Writing in the Arabic language, Al-Mutanabbi wrote about Sayf al-Dawla 's celebrated campaign against

14520-531: Was viewed as incendiary by the Protestants, making it liable to cause a riot. That same month he shaped the legislation that would form the Edict of July , which affirmed the prohibition on Protestant worship, but at the same time formally removed the penalty of death for heresy, which had been de facto abolished in the Edict of Romorantin , and prohibited those who were not officers of the crown from investigating their neighbours houses in search of heretical worship, which effectively legalised private worship. During

14641-534: Was welcomed. "No poetry in a foreign language approaches the compositions of Mr Pope so much as that of the Abbé Delille, who has confessedly made the English bard his model," asserted the reviewer of the Monthly Review . And certainly among his verse translations were to be found Pope's Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot and Essay on Man . Another Augustan stylistic habit that appeared early in Delille’s epistles

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