LEFRANC, marquis de POMPIGNAN Jean-Jacques (1709-1784) magis - Lot 134

Lot 134
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LEFRANC, marquis de POMPIGNAN Jean-Jacques (1709-1784) magis - Lot 134
LEFRANC, marquis de POMPIGNAN Jean-Jacques (1709-1784) magistrate in Montauban and Toulouse, poet, opponent of the Philosophers, harshly mocked by Voltaire. L.A.S. "Pompignan", Paris November 27, 1760; 4 pages in4. Beautiful and long letter about the campaign led against him by VOLTAIRE, and about his decision to resign from the Académie Française. [During his reception speech at the Académie Française (March 10, 1760), Lefranc de Pompignan pronounced a violent diatribe against the Philosophers which was at first relatively well received and of which he transmitted the text to Louis XV. But Voltaire soon replied with a pamphlet entitled Les Quand, notes utiles sur un discours prononcé devant l'Académie française; then other pamphlets and verses circulated which mocked the smugness and vanity of Pompignan who appealed to the King to do him justice (he aspired to the position of governor of the Children of France). "This dignified letter shows a great height of tone and an obvious nobility of feeling, but one also guesses a wounded soul. (Jean M. Goulemot)] Lefranc de Pompignan thanks his correspondent for the interest he takes in his cause; he has decided to leave the Académie Française, a decision he explains in a secret memorandum given to the Duke of LA VAUGUYON. "I had first taken the liberty of asking Monseigneur le dauphin for his approval, which he granted me, albeit with regret, but with kindness. [...] I added particular testimonies of consideration for the respectable prelate attached to the education of my lords the children of France. I went to see the former bishop of Limoges [COËTLOSQUET], and I begged him to find it good that I would not attend the assembly where he is to be proposed to fill one of the two vacant places"... This resignation is not a proof of weakness but "an effect of my prudence, and of a just sensitivity", even if he recognizes that it is a great success for the enemies of religion... "I saw myself immolated to the fury of the impious in a multitude of writings distributed publicly, and quoted in sheets authorized by the magistrate. [...] One wishes that I go to the French Academy. If I had been on the 25th of last August, I would have been a witness of the insults made to his royal majesty, to religion, to common sense in the homages paid with affectation to a writer who does not cease to blaspheme the holiest things, and who is at present in the disgrace of the king "... He proposes a remedy to the evil: "one could make me write by a minister of his majesty, or by another person in place, that one is angry of the excesses to which s. de Voltaire carried out against me, that he deserves to be punished severely, but that being removed from Paris by order of the king, he will never be within reach of repartee to the French academy". If he is not granted this, he will withdraw forever from the Academy: "I am not violating any law in this, I am not offending any duty. I formed this resolution in the interior of my conscience; I brought it to the court of God, I execute it without mood, but with the firmness and the publicity which are appropriate to my state, and to the importance of the object"... He decided to leave Paris and to take back to his province "the memory of so many horrors, the pain of having been so little protected in such a just cause"... An autograph manuscript, Les Travaux et les Jours (The Works and the Days) is attached; sewn notebook of 19 pages in-4. Working manuscript of a translation of Hesiod in verse, extensively crossed out and corrected, of his Preface and of the poem Les Travaux et les Jours, "Poem translated or imitated from the Greek of HESIODE. Book one". In the Preface (4 pages), he explains his project: "I had hardly begun the translation of Virgil's Georgics in 1758 when I conceived the idea of translating Hesiod's poem as well"; he makes a parallel between VIRGILE and Hesiod... Analyzing the work of the Greek poet, Lefranc de Pompignan specifies: "The first part is the only one that I translated or imitated" The poem counts 422 verses, and presents numerous erasures and corrections. Incipit : " Daughters of the powerful God who governs the universe, / Muses, let his greatness be the soul of our verses "...
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