CHAPELAIN Jean (1595-1674) poet; founding... - Lot 25 - Drouot Estimations

Lot 25
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CHAPELAIN Jean (1595-1674) poet; founding... - Lot 25 - Drouot Estimations
CHAPELAIN Jean (1595-1674) poet; founding member of the French Academy, where he played an important role, notably by drafting its statutes. 4 L.A.S. "Chapelain", 1647-1663; 3 pages in-4, addressed with small red wax seals on pink silk lakes; 3, 2 and 2 pages in-4 (engraved portrait enclosed). Paris July 17, 1647, to Mademoiselle de SCUDÉRY in Marseille. On her heroic poem La Pucelle, ou la France délivrée, which Mlle de Scudéry defended. "It was necessary not less than the great reproaches that I received in the last of your letters to Madlle Paulet, to oblige me to give you thanks by mine for the glorious fight that you have made for the honor of my Pucelle. Unless I were provoked with insults, and accused of incivility and ingratitude, I would never have resolved to write you anything about your courageous work, for fear that by thanking you for the good things you said about her or rather about me, it would seem that I was agreeing with you and receiving your praise under the guise of refusing it. You know, Mademoiselle, that there is an ambitious modesty, which is worse than uncovered vanity, and you would not want me to ever do anything that might make me rightly suspect it. This consideration is the real reason for my silence, because for my gratitude you could not be unaware of it if Monsr CONRART had fulfilled what he had promised me, which I cannot believe that he has forgotten. But, Mademoiselle, since you are ignoring this in order to mortify me, I will tell you here that the gratitude I have for this favor could not be greater, either for the interest of the Pucelle or for my own, and that I esteem to such an extent the beautiful and rare things that you have wanted to say about our subject, that I am no longer in pain about her reputation or mine, and that when what I have tried to say about her virtue and her worth should be lost before myself, I will not let myself hope to see her glory preserved in what you have written about her, and my name consecrated to immortality, because you have deigned to enshrine it there. After all, I am not responsible for the passion to which you so gallantly impute my silence, and I leave that to Miss Robineau, to whom I could equally displease, by avoiding or disavowing her. She is too perfect a person for anyone to doubt that she could not make a much more difficult conquest, and on the other hand she is too severe not to find it wrong to confess to being her slave" He thanks the brother of his correspondent (Georges de SCUDÉRY) "for his memory and for the beautiful and generous sonnet of which he judged me worthy among the small number of those he wanted to gratify in this Court". Paris March 2, 1660, [to Pierre-Daniel HUET]. Beautiful literary letter about an ode in Latin by Huet, Ad Ludovicum XIV, for the peace of the Pyrenees, quoting Ménage, Huygens and Conrat. Paris June 28 and October 18, 1663, to the astronomer Johannes HEVELIUS, mentioning his friend Gassendi and Colbert, Huygens and Bouillaud
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