MAYNARD François (1582-1646) poète, membre fondateur de l'Académie française [AF 1634, 14e f].

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MAYNARD François (1582-1646) poète, membre fondateur de l'Académie française [AF 1634, 14e f].
L.S. "Mainard" (minute) with autograph MANUSCRIT, [ca. 1635, to Jean de Gaubert CAMINADE, president of the Parliament of Toulouse ( 1637)]; 5 pages and 1 autograph page in-fol. on 3 ruled leaves from a collection. Very rare letter, expressing his gratitude for having been distinguished among the illustrious of his time, followed by an autograph page of epigrams. What his correspondent did to place him among the illustrious of the time put him in a great confusion: he cannot persuade himself that he should be treated with an honor which was made only to two admired writers of the previous century, "and almost I believe that your judgment wanted to make a fault, to make me reputation. You have refined the art of obliging, and your liberalities [] are something more than those of princes: they give good, and you give glory; when my name would be as obscure as yours is illustrious, you have given it enough light to dazzle my rivals, and undoubtedly what you make me obtain from public favor, will make the most beautiful part of my funeral oration. Those who know me know that my joys are not secret and that my morals are not strong enough to resist the temptations of prosperity, it is a truth so certain that for the last six days I have done nothing else but write to my friends in the great world about the care you have taken to make me famous, it seems that the publication of such a signal grace will not be advantageous to my fortune, those from whom I expected some establishment will not want to think of making my hopes succeed, after they will have known that the present that you have made me will always be put before their gratifications, and that all powerful and all ambitious that they are they do not know how to give me anything which is not inferior to the glory" He will work to leave a durable mark of his recognition, it will be from now on all his "meditation": he wishes that "the scavantes girls" that he has followed for so long, will pay for his perseverance by inspiring him with adequate thoughts and expressions. He then speaks of Count Tosti, who "is a true poet, and the fire of our most famous authors next to his is only ice. I do not know if the muses of the new Italy are so beautiful elsewhere than in his odes, nor if Horace himself walked so boldly on the principles of Pindar. It will be in this high and magnificent poetry that I will seek the genius which is necessary to me [] to leave a piece which shows that Paris is not more the country of Apollo than Thoulouse ". On the last page, Maynard has noted in his hand some good words and epigrams: "At the court of Rome, a pigmy suddenly becomes giant. The muses have increased their stable, they had only one horse, they have today one more donkey. I do not believe that misfortune and me can ever separate us, since I am in the world it always followed me, and there is no appearance that it leaves me for the little time that I have to live " Etc. Provenance : former collection of Jean HANOTEAU ; quoted by Raoul Bonnet in the Isographie de l'Académie française : " Les lettres de Mainard sont rarissimes ".
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