18 Clare Davison

Monsieur, j’ai r q u la lettre que vous m’avez fait I’honneur de m’Ccrire avec plus de joie que je n’en espkrais jamais avoir ici. Et moi, A qui il reste tant d’autres choses h disirer . . . j’ai CtC en repos de tout quand j’ai vu que vous aviez soin de moi.

In 1633 again he writes to Mlle. Pau1et:lo

La faveur que me font trois si excellentes personnes me soulage de toutes mes peines, et m’en donne quand et quand une nouvelle, de ne pouvoir jamais m’en rendre digne, ni tkmoigner, mmme je voudrais, le ressentiment que j’en ai.

And again to Mlle. Paulet:”

. . . ne refusez pas, s’il vous plait, mademoiselle, de me donner secours; et vous qui 6tes si charitable pour ceux qui sont en affliction t6moignez de I’Gtre pour une personne qui en a de tant de sortes.

I quote these passages together, for the impression of a similar tone in many letters of Perez and Voiture depends rather on a cumulative effect than any one particular passage. Consider now these extracts from Perez’s letters to the great - first to the Condestable de Francia:lZ

V. Exc. que as; me favorece con sus cartas (medicina de mi alma y la respiracibn desta persona en absencia suya) la vida me desea.

And to ‘un seiior grande’, unnarned:ls

Cierto seiior que son palabras de vida las del papel de V. y que le debe a1 Cielo muchos favores, pues tiene por buena fortuna el favorecer a 10s desconsolados.

In the Segundas Cartas he writes to Myladi Riche:14 Cuando tratan de matarme, en Inglaterra acude V.S. con sus favores, como 10s de su carta. Bastante uno dellos, como antidoto fuerte, contra todos 10s venenos y violencia humana . . .

Voiture’s tone is somewhat calmer (he was not in fear of his life as was PCrez) but the motive of the letter as a remedy for all ills is expressed in basically the same way. Many of PCrez’s letters are composed on the occasion of some triumph in battle of one of his protectors. He generally begins by complimenting the person concerned and then stresses the need

Voiture, Spain and Seventeenth-Century France 17

would have experienced no difficulty in reading PCrez in the original Spanish or in obtaining his works, which were published in Paris in 1603.6 Antonio Pkrez was the Secretary of State of Philip I1 of Spain and a man of some power within Philip’s government. Having become involved in an intrigue to murder one Escovedo, a spy for Don Juan of Austria, PCrez found himself made scapegoat and fled to France in 1591. The story is told in detail by PCrez in his Relaciones.7 The next seven years of his life were filled with political manoeuvre, travelling and the attempt to gain Philip’s pardon. But by 1604 he was a pauper, Philip’s death having rendered him useless as a political pawn, and he died in 1611. The letters were not well-known before Vion d’Alibray’s translation (if then) and Voiture never mention:; them in his letters; but certain aspects of PCrez’s life lead one to believe Voiture must have taken an interest in him. There had been few letter writers of note in France before the early seventeenth century, so that only Latin models could provide him with inspiration, and a new source would certainly have been welcome; they were written in a language of which I‘oiture was very fond; and most important of all, they were concerned with the flattery of aristocratic protectors, an art in which PCrez, like Voiture, excelled. The positions of Voiture and PCrez were alike in one vital respect: both were striving to maintain a position in the world to which they did not really belong, PCrez for reasons of politics and Voiture for reasons of birth. (One of the most remarkable facts of Voiture’s life was his rise from son of a wine merchant to favounte of the salon:). Lathuillbre has expressed the opinions that no seventeenth-century prkcieux would have imitated PCrez because his images and metaphors would have been found in poor taste. A study of PCrez’s non-political letters, however, reveals little of the complexity and pomposity of which Lathuillkre accuses him: indeed, their style is generally clarity itself. The only sign of pomposity is a love of hyperbole, which is also a characteristic of the pricieux style. What indications, then, are there that Voiture was influenced by Perez?

One of Voiture’s most common devices to provide an opening to a letter is to stress that he has gained life and encouragement from an epistle sent by his correspondent. The most interesting letters from this point of view are those written from Spain, when Voiture was particularly con- cerned with preserving the favour of his powerful friends in France. Thus he addresses M. de Puylaurens from Madrid in 1633:s

18 Clare Davison

Monsieur, j’ai rwu la lettre que vous m’avez fait I’honnew de m’tcrire avec plus de joie que je n’en esp6rais jamais avoir ici. Et moi, B qui il reste tant d‘autres choses h dtsirer . . . j’ai t t t en repm de tout quand j’ai vu que vow aviez win de moi.

In 1633 again he writes to Mlle. Pau1et:lo

La faveur que me font trois si excellentes personnes me soulage de toutes mes peines, et m’en donne quand et quand une nouvelle, de ne pouvoir jamais m’en rendre digne, ni tbmoigner, comme je voudrais, le ressentiment que j’en ai.

And again to Mlle. Paulet:”

. . . ne refusez pas, s’il vous plait, mademoiselle, de me donner secours; et vous qui 6tes si charitable pour ceux qui sont en affliction ttmoignez de I’etre pour une personne qui en a de tant de sortes.

I quote these passages together, for the impression of a similar tone in many letters of Perez and Voiture depends rather on a cumulative effect than any one particular passage. Consider now these extracts from Perez’s letters to the great - first to the Condestable de Francia:’Z

V. Exc. que asi me favorece con sus cartas (medicina de mi alma y la respiracibn desta persona en absencia suya) la vida me desea.

And to ‘un seiior grande’, unnamed:ls

Cierto sefior que son palabras de vida las del papel de V. y que le debe al Cielo muchos favores, pues tiene por buena fortuna el favorecer a 10s desconsolados.

In the Segundus Cartus he writes to Myladi Riche? Cuando tratan de matarme, en Inglaterra acude V.S. con sus favores, como 10s de su carta. Bastante uno dellos, como antidoto fuerte, contra todos 10s venenos y violencia humana . . .

Voiture’s tone is somewhat calmer (he was not in fear of his life as was Ptrez) but the motive of the letter as a remedy for all ills is expressed in basically the same way. Many of Perez’s letters are composed on the occasion of some triumph in battle of one of his protectors. He generally begins by complimenting the person concerned and then stresses the need

Voiture, Spain and Seventeenth-Century France 19

for him to take care of his person:lE ‘Suplico a V. Excelencia que entre estas y estas atiende, a conservar su salud por el bien pGblico y partic- ular . . .’ Similarly, Voiture compliments the Cardinal de la Valette on his warlike deeds, but remarks16

Pour moi, tout que je puis faire 8 cette heure, c’est de vous supplier trks- humblement, monsieur, de mtnager mieux la plus illustre personne de notre sikcle . . . et que vous conserviez avec plus de soin une vie ou tous les honnstes gens ont inter& . . .

Another device used to flatter while avoiding servility is that of situation reversal, where the onus of gratitude is cleverly passed from one person to the other: this is typical of Voiture’s writing and is also practised by PCrez. Voiture remarks to the Cardinal de la Valette in 1634:”

. . . j’avoue qu’il n’y a point d’homme A qui vous ayez tant d’obligation qu’8 moi, et que je merite tous les remerciements que vous me faites, puisque je vous ai donne plus de moyens que personne d’exercer votre gCnerosit6 et de faire des actions de bontk . . .

PCrez writes to the Duque de Nevers:l*

Seiior, tales fortunas como la mia son las ocasiones en que se muestran 10s knimos como el de V.Exc. Que s610 esto le puedo presentar por mCrito mio . . .

The formal and yet simple and dignified style which Voiture adopts in these and other letters may well owe something to Antonio PCrez.

Another, and very different Spanish writer sometimes thought to have influenced prkcieux circles, is the cultist poet G6ngora.19 It is certain, from quotations in Voiture’s letters and unmistakable reminiscences in his poetry, that he was well acquainted with the Spanish poet. He was probably the first French writer to admire Gbngora, whose works were not published till 1627, and certainly one of the few capable of understanding this diffi- cult exponent of cuZterunisrno.20 In a letter to Costar dated 1642*l Voiture remarks:

Sans mentir, vous &tes de merveilleux ouvriers; vous assaisonnez les choses de sorte, qu’il n’y a rien que l’on ne mangdt quand vous l’avez apprste, et que vous ne fissiez avaler avec plaisir. Vous savez donner ‘cuerpo a 10s vientos y a las piedras alma’. C’est un vers de Louis de G6ngora que vous ne connais- sez pas.

20 Clare Davison

The line in question appears in the sonnet Tras la bermeja aurora22 dated 1582 in the Chac6n manuscript. Voiture recalls it again in a poem written just after his stay in Spain, Stances pour Mme. d’Aiguillon:2s

Tout ckde h des channes si chers Et ses yeux qui nous Btent 1’Lme D’un seul regard la donne aux rochers.

This disproves Lathuillhre’s theory24 that Voiture knew only the very earliest of G6ngora’s works, the letrillas : this sonnet, while an early work, contrasts with the direct simplicity of G6ngora’s first poems. Voiture seems to have recalled it once again in his well-known poem on the Belle Ma- tineuse theme, which begins:

Des portes du matin l’Amante de C6phale Ses roses 6pandait dans le milieu des airs, Et jettant sur les Cieux nouvdlement ouverts Ces traits d’or et d’azur qu’en naissant elk &tale . . .

G6ngora begins:

Tras la bermeja Aurora el sol d a d o Por las puertas salia del Oriente; Ella de flores la rosada frente 151 de encendidos rayos coronado . . .

Certainly these images are commonplace, but the close resemblances may well indicate a reminiscence on Voiture’s part. The French poet also com- posed a piece in Spanish, Romance espagn0le,~5 which, while basically in the Spanish ballad tradition, owes much to G6ngora. Compare Voiture’s description of Julia with G6ngora’s shepherdess:

Tan bien no parece el Alva Cuando entre doradas nubes Vertiendo flores y perlas Viene a despertar el dia.

Poca grana y mucha nieve Van compitiendo en su cara Y entre lirios y jazmines Admanse algunas rosas.

Voiture, Spain and Seventeenth-Century France 21

Gdngora writes in another sonnet dated 1582*6

Cud parece a1 romper de la mafiana Alj6far blanco sobre frescas rosas 0 cual, por manos hecha, artificiosas Bordadura de perlas sobre grana . . .

To describe a complexion as ‘poca grana y mucha nieve’ is particularly characteristic of G6ngora (in sonnet 22027 we find the line ‘Amor retrata/ De su rostro la nieve y escarlata’), and it recurs in Voiture’s Sur sa m aitresse:es

Mille fleurs fraichement 6closes Les lys, les oeillets et les roses Couvraient la neige de son teint; . . .

There are certain similarities, then, to G6ngora in some of Voiture’s poems. But what are the more general characteristics of G6ngora’s culteranismo, and are they to be found in Voiture? One of the most important aspects, freely admitted to by Ghgora, is obscurity, largely achieved by a distorted syntax. (A relatively simple example occurs in the poem quoted above, ‘0 cual, por manos hecha, artificiosas . . .’). Such a distortion is nowhere found in Voiture. Obscure classical allusion abounds in Gdngora’s verse together with learned vocabulary. Classical allusion in Voiture, on the other hand, while common, is always self-explanatory:*Q

Cette CircC, dont les dCmons Aplanissent I’orgueil des morts A dans ses livres moins de charmes Que vous n’en avez dans vos yeux.

It is interesting to note here that while the language of this piece is not obscure and has nothing in common with culteranismo, the idea it ex- presses is fairly complex and may be more justly connected with con- ceptismo,SO which, however, is not to be found to any unusual degree in Voiture’s work. One aspect of culteranismo which has affected the poems discussed above is the powerful use of colour and image to obtain a condensed and vivid style. However, one of the reasons why an influence by a more colourful writer is quite evident in Voiture is that the main body of his work is colourless and noticeably lacking in imagery. Compare

22 Clare Davison

any of the passages above bearing G6ngora’s influence with, for example, this description of BC1ise:sl

L’amour n’a rien de beau, d‘attrayant ni de doux Point de traits, ni de feux, qu’il n’emprunte de vous. Vos charmes dompteraient l’time la plus farouche: Les graces et les r i s parlent par votre bouche, Et quoi que vous fassiez, les jeux et les appas Marchent B votre suite et naissent sous vos pas.

It is these lines which are typical of Voiture, although later the desire to be amusing made him choose lighter forms such as the rondeau.

The letters to Costar show Voiture advising on language at a time when usage still varied even within the same circles. The epistle dated 1641 replies to questions on usage concerning some twenty words.s* Many are rejected on the grounds that a slightly different form is now de rigueur:

Quelques-uns disent encore, ‘chaire’ sans que l’on se moque d’eux; mais il vaut mieux dire, ‘chaise’ . . .

RClation comme ripparation; difformitk: dCformitQ est mort depuis dix ou deuze ans.

Costar writes from the provinces on behalf of the educated circles around him, who evidently looked to Mme de Rambouillet’s salon for a lead in such matters. Voiture’s comments on literature are illuminating when con- sidered in conjunction with his own manner of writing. When discussing a Latin passage sent to him by Costar he remarks:Js

Le mot #Achilles Tatius, que ‘la queue de paon est une prairie de plumes’, est joli, mais peut-bre un peu trop hardi; et il me semble que Tertulien a mieux rencontrC, qui dit, aprks avoir dit beaucoup de choses sur la robe du paon: ‘Numquam ipsa, semper alia, etsi semper ipsa, quando alia; toties denique mutanda, quoties movenda’.

It is revealing that Voiture dismisses the poetic image as ‘trop hardi’ in favour of an attractive but quite prosaic description. On another occasion he comments on a passage of Seneca?‘

Vous faites ‘flores’ partout. Mais ne croyez pas me contenter en m’envoyant de celles de SCnkque. I1 me semble que c’est wmme si on m’en envoyait des halles. Je les veux cueillies plus l’tcart, ‘per devia rura’ et un peu plus naturelles. Pour vous dire le vrai, je n’ai pas grand goQt pour cet auteur-18.

Voiture, Spain and Seventeenth-Century France 23

Seneca does not please him because of his abundantly poetic and artificial language; he prefers the flowers of prose ‘un peu plus naturelles’. Later he thanks Costar for sending passages more to his taste:36

Vous avez admirablement bien trouvC ces ‘devia rura’ que je demandais, et vous m’avez servi ?i mon gotit. Le vin d’Espagne est trop fort pour moi.

These two passages are the more interesting in that they refer to Seneca, born in Cbrdoba, and thought to have been one of the forefathers of Spanish cultism. Seneca certainly formed part of the important literary heritage of C6rdoba of which G6ngora could not fail to be aware. A final clue to Voiture’s attitude is provided in his condemnation of a certain word used by Pliny as recherch6:s’

Ne m’avouerez-vous pas que cela est d’un petit esprit de refuser un mot qui se prCsente et qui est le meilleur, pour en aller chercher avec soin un moins bon et plus CloignC?

To sum up these comments, Voiture admires a style which is restrained, simple and natural.

The debate over the word ‘car’ is well-known, and Voiture’s letter on the subject is very light-hearted; but the basis of his reasoning was that no long word should be used when a short one would do equally well. This common-sense attitude determined Voiture’s part in the argument con- cerning Ariosto’s Gli Suppositi. Voiture found himself in opposition to Chapelain, who, while admiring Voiture, always subordinates him to Balzac in his letters. Chapelain writes to Balzac in 1639337

I1 y a eu de grandes batailles sur cette matikre et parce qu’il (Voiture) ne pou- vait pas dire que la pBce ne fut pas rtgulibre pour defendre son jugement, il s’est trouvC rCduit ii dire que le bon sens Ctait meilleur juge de la com6die que les rkgles, comme si la bon sens n’6tait pas &re des r8gles.

The iron imposition of ‘the rules’ did not please Voiture as it did the pedants of the time, and his objection to Ariosto was probably based on the glittering style of this piece. But the most significant debate to involve Voiture occurred after his death, and shows the innovatory nature of his prose style and attitude to literature in general. This is the Costar- Girac quarrel, in which the relative merits of Balzac and Voiture were upheld, at first by their friends named above and afterwards by numerous

24 Clare Davison

other writers. Balzac, on Voiture’s death in 1648, was disturbed to find that the latter’s popularity presented a threat to his own prose style, which differs from Voiture’s in being, like that of most writers of the time, formal to the point of pomposity. Balzac asked a friend, Girac, to give an opinion of Voiture’s works and Costar to follow with a defence. The ensuing polemic, descending at times to personal insult, resulted in a win for Voiture. Segrais tells us:J8

M. de Balzac est mort du chagrin qu’il conGut de la reputation des lettres de Voiture et de la Difense de Costar.

The phrase ‘parler Balzac’ came into being with the meaning of speaking pompously, and various writers paid tribute to Voiture for having intro- duced a new, informal style. Sore1 remarks:S9

Ce style agreable et familier, est en credit maintenant pour se divertir avec ses amis, et il faut donner la gloire B M. de Voiture de l’avoir invent&, en quoi on lui a beaucoup d’obligation, de nous avoir garantis de l’importunite des anciens compliments dans nos lettres, et d’avoir introduit une plus belle eA plus facile mode d’6crire.

Bouhours also credits Voiture with introducing the new style?O

On peut dire que Voiture nous a appris cette mani4re d’6crire aisee et delicate qui r&gne prisentement. Avant lui on pensait n’avoir de l’esprit que quand on parlait Balzac tout pur, et qu’en exprimant de grandes pensCes avec de grands mots.

La Bruybre in his Des Ouvrages de I’EspriP discusses the opposition between Voiture and Balzac, concluding that Voiture’s natural style has far more to offer, and Bussy-Rabutin4* remarks of his style:

S’il n’est pas toujours juste, sa nigligence plait mieux que la justesse de la plupart des autres, et le secret est de plaire.

The notion of pleasing one’s audience left its mark on a great writer of the classical period who combines clarity with a sense of humour, La Fontaine. This writer’s early poetry in particular shows much of the light tone of Voiture, and his contemporaries saw in him largely a successor of the salon p ~ e t . ~ J A more general indication of Voiture’s continuing popularity

Voiture, Spain and Seventeenth-Century France 25 ~~ ~~ ~

is the fact that the first edition of his work was reprinted twelve times between 1650 and 1745.

The influence thought by some critics to have been exerted by cultism via G6ngora and Voiture on French preciosity seems from the evidence to have been illusory. Certainly Voiture passed through a period of ad- miration for G6ngora’s earlier works and some of his poems bear witness to this; but the obscurity of cultism was repudiated by him, as the obscurity of later prkcieuses ridicules no doubt would also have been repudiated. Here it is interesting to note that L a Bruykre, who earlier praised Voiture for the clarity of his style, evidently dissociated him from later prkcieux. whom he criticizes at the end of the century for their folly and 0bscurity.~4 Voiture’s gift to later writers, on the contrary, probably owes something to the letters of Antonio PCrez, whose unaffected style may have helped him to perfect his own blend of dignity with humour.

1.

2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

N O T E S

From about 1629 writers had been meeting in the Rue St. Martin to hold informal discussions. The Academy was officially recognized in 1635, and Voiture became a member in 1636. Chaplain, Lettres, (id. Larroque, Paris, 1880-82), p, 357. Voiture, Oeuvres, (a. Ubicini 1885), Vol. 11, p. 141. By Lanson, ‘Etudes sur les rapports de la 1ittCrature franqaise et de la litttrature espagnole’ in Revue d’iistoire litte‘raire de la France, 1896, 1897, 1901. By Vion d’Alibray. Antonio PCrez, Cartas, (Paris, 1603), and Cartus Segundas, (Paris, 1603). A. Pbrez, Relaciones, (Paris, 1598). R. LathuillBre, La PrCciositC-Etude historique et linguistique, (Geneva, 1966). Op. cit. I, p. 95. op. cit. I, p. 109. Op. cit. I, p. 120. Cartas, p. 11. Segundas cartas, p. 16.

14. Segundas cartas, p. 64. 15. Segundas cartas, p. 11. 16. Op. cit. I, p. 323. 17. Op. cit. I, p. 207. 18. Cartas, p. 59. 19. Luis de G6ngora y Argote, 1561-1627. 20. L. P. Thomas, in Le lyrisme et la prCciositC cultistes en Espagne, (Paris, 1909),

offers this definition of cultism: (p. 1) On appelle gCnCralement ‘cultisme’ l’affec tation d’une langue obscure, chargCe de figures extravagantes, mWe de mots &rangers et en contradiction organique avec les lois de la langue.

26 Clare Davison

21. Op. cit. 11, p. 141. 22. Obras Completas, (ed. Mille y Jimtnez, Madrid, 1961), p. 442. 23. Op. cit. 11, p. 300. 24. R. Lathuillkre, op. cit. 25. Op. cit. I, p. 252. 26. Op. cit. p. 444. 27. Op. cit. p. 443. 28. Op. cit. 11, p. 292. 29. Op. cit. 11, p. 297. 30. Thomas, op. cit., defines conceptismo thus: @. 1) La recherche excessive des

pens& fines et voil6es, exprim& B l’aide de tropes compliqub, d’antithbes, nombreuses et d’tquivoques abondantes.

31. Op. cit. I, p. 277. 32. Op. cit. 11, p. 128. 33. Op. cit. 11, p. 86. 34. Op. cit. II, p. 104. 35. Op. cit. 11, p. 106. 36. Op. cit. 11, p. 123. 37. Chapelain, Opuscules critiques, (ed. Hunter, Paris, 1936), A Balzac. 38. Segrais, Segraisiana, (Paris, 1721), p. 5. 39. Sorel, Bibliothdque francaise, (Paris, 1664), p. 127. 40. Bouhours, Entretiens d’driste et d’Eugdne, (Paris, 1682). 41. La Bruykre, Des Ouvrages de I‘esprit, (Park, 1688). 42. Quoted by Gillot in La Querelle des anciens et des modernes en France, (Paris,

1914). Bussy-Rabutin’s remark was made in 1673. 43. Fukui discusses this point in Raffinement prtcieux duns la potsie franpise du

dix-septidme sidcle, (Paris, 1964). 44. La Bruy&e, Les Caractdres, (Paris, 1688), ‘Acis’.