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M. de Montplaisir and his emblems

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METROBATE est un homme de qualité qui fait fort bien des vers: le Songe qu'il a fait, et dedié à Galerius, en est une illustre marque pour luy, et je croy qu'il est peu de louange plus considerable que celle de dire qu'il en est consideré, puisque l'estime de Galerius peut passer pour celle d'un des hommes le plus accomply de la cour. Ces galariteries n'en sont pas moins les justes marques que ses grands emplois; et l'estime generale que tout le monde en fait, accompagnée de cette joye qu'il porte dans tous les lieux où il va, nous fait assez connoistre qu'il faut que Metrobate soit fort accomply, puis qu'il en est consideré.

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Notes

  1. A. de Sommaize,Le Dictionnaire des prétieuses, ed. C.-L. Livet (Paris, 1856), I, 169. On Montplaisir, see le Baron de Wismes, “Notice historique et littéraire sur René de Bruc, Marquis de Montplaisir, poète breton du XVIIe siècle,”Revue des Provinces de l'Ouest, I (1853–1854), 14– 30, 201–216;Dictionnaire des lettres françaises. Le Dix-septième siècle, ed. G. Grente (Paris, 1954); and C.-P. Goujet,Bibliothèque françoise (1741–1756); rpt. Geneva: Slatkine, 1966), III, 553–555. For additional, but less reliable information, see theBiographie universelle, New ed., vol. XXIX (Paris and Leipzig, 1854).

  2. Poésies de Lalanne et du marquis de Montplaisir (Amsterdam and Paris, 1759).

  3. Goujet reports (loc. cit., III, 554) that Bouhours included in hisRecueil de vers choisis (Paris, 1693) one of Montplaisir'ssizains on the device composed of a pyramid of flaming hearts with the mottoAssi sepultada, no es muerta, from thetombeau d'Anne d'Autriche.

  4. Reported by Goujet,loc. cit.

  5. The role of emblematics in the differentprécieux societies of the seventeenth century is complex and poorly understood. Early in the century, Laugier de Porchères was famous as a master of the composition of devices; half a century later, Mme. de Sévigné was still admiring the rocket device he had invented for Bassompierre. Each member of Mme. de Rambouillet's circle had a personal device (for examples of such devices, see the beautifully painted collection in Arsenal ms. 5217; Julie d'Angennes' device is reproduced in Anne Denieul-Cormier,Paris à l'aube du grand siècle [Paris, 1971], p. 305). Later in the century, Bussy-Rabutin decorated his château with many devices (see Maurice Dumoulin,Le Château de Bussy-Rabutin [Paris, 1933], passim); and as Kurt Weinberg has recently shown (“The Lady and the Unicorn, or M. de Nemours à Coulommiers: Enigma, Device, Blazon and Emblem in La Princesse de Clèves,”Euphorion, 71 [1977], 306–335), Mme. de Lafayette used courtly emblematics in the structuring of her famous novel.

  6. Cf. for example, Jean Baudoin,Recueil d'emblèmes divers, 2 vols. (Paris, 1638–1639); Le Roy de Gomberville,La Doctrine des moeurs (Paris, 1646); and le P. F. Berthod,Emblemes sacrez tirez de l'Escriture . . ., 2 vols. (Paris, 1657–1665).

  7. Close study of these prose commentaries would certainly repay the effort in an increased understanding of the way moral teachings were presented outside the Church and Jesuit pedagogy in France at the time. Such a study is, however, beyond the scope of this article.

  8. On emblems, see Peter M. Daly,Literature in the Light of the Emblem (Toronto, 1979); W. S. Hecksher and K. A. Wirth, “Emblem, Emblembuch,”Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte, V (Stuttgart, 1959), cols. 85– 228; Arthur Henkel and Albrecht Schöne, eds.,Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1967; bibliographical supplement, Munich, 1976); and Mario Praz,Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery, 2nd ed. (Rome, 1964).

  9. See Daly, pp. 133, 176.

  10. Dolivar was active in Paris in the atelier of Jean Berain mainly during the decade of the 1680's. For information on his carreer and a catalogue of his other work, see R. A. Weigert,Jean (I) Berain, 2 vols. (Paris, 1937).

  11. Dr. Dick Hoefnagel has published a careful description of this volume in “A Seventeenth-Century Emblem Book, ”Dartmouth College Library Bulletin, XI (NS), No. 1 (Nov., 1970), 26–39.

  12. Arsenal ms. 675, Recueil Le Camus, t. V, fols. 599–607.

  13. Cf. the liminary emblem “A Monsieur de Montplaisir sur son Livre d'Emblemes & de Devises.” The picture shows a château bathed in sunlight; the motto readsIpse sui pictor, or “Il est le Peintre de luy mesme.” Quand le Pere du Jour veut faire a la Nature, De ses brillans appas la naive peinture, Il est luy mesme son Crayon: Pour vous representer de la mesme maniere, Vostre Esprit est Vostre lumiere, Et Vostre plume son rayon.

  14. Les Bourgeois Gentilhommes. An essay on the Definition of Elites in Renaissance France (Chicago, 1977), p. 60, note 2, andpassim.

  15. See Jean Babelon's article on Renaissance medals in theEncyclopédie de la Pléïade. Histoire de l'art (Paris 1965), III, 130–138.

  16. Devises heroïques (1557; rpt. Menston: Scolar Press, 1971), pp. 3–4.

  17. Devises panegyriques pour Anne d'Autriche . . . (Bordeaux: Jacques Mongiron Millanges, . . . 1667); B. N. Lb37. 3546.

  18. Distinctions between the two forms were elaborated in the theoretical discussion of the courtly device. This discussion was carried on mainly in the following works: François d'Amboise,Discours ou traicté des devises (Paris, 1620); Henry Estienne,L'Art de faire des devises (Paris, 1645); M. de Boissiere,Les Devises . . . ((Paris, 1654); Pierre Le Moyne,De l'art des devises (Paris, 1666); Dominique Bouhours,Les Entretiens d'Ariste et d'Eugene (Paris, 1671); C.-F. Menestrier,La Devise du Roy justifiée (Paris, 1679) andLa Science et l'art des devises (Paris, 1686). There is a particularly good summary of the debate at the beginning of Menestrier'sLa Philosophie des images (Paris, 1682).

  19. All the illustrations are taken, with permission, fromEmblemes et devises chrestiënnes et morales in the Dartmouth College Library. My numbering for these compositions follows the order of the Dolivar volume. The numbering is slightly different in the de Bruc manuscript because it does not contain Dolivar's composition 14, while Dolivar does not contain the composition formed by a pyramid with the mottoGrandeze sin sobras. Unless otherwise indicated, quotations too are from the Dolivar manuscript at Dartmouth. I have taken the useful terminology for motto(inscriptio), illustration(pictura), and verse text(subscriptio) from the introduction to Henkel and Schöne'sEmblemata.

  20. Hoefnagel, p. 27.

  21. See for example, Bouhours,Les Entretiens d'Artiste et d'Eugene (Paris, 1734), pp. 345–346.

  22. Op. cit., pp. 121–122.

  23. Devices 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 15, 19, 21, 23, 24, and 29. There is a certain overlapping between the two categories; hence, it is possible to situate composition 7, “De l'Obeissance qu'on doit aux Roys, et des Revoltes,” as I have done, in both categories, as it contains both ablason of the rebel and an exhortation to be obedient to one's king. For the most part, as in this device, virtues are presented in the form of an exhortation while vices are shown inblasons. Theblason-devices are 2, 6, 7, 18, 22, 25, 26, 28, and 30. Along with composition 25, “De la Reconnoissance,” composition 22, “De l'Amitié,” is an exception in that it provides an example of a positiveblason, using the traditional image of palm trees intertwined across a river to figure perfect friends.

  24. Le Imprese heroiche et morali ritrovate . . . (Lyons, 1559); translated into French the same year asLes Devises ou emblemes heroiques et morales, and published by the same printer, Guillaume Rouille.

  25. Le Moyne (op. cit., p. 127) argues this way: devices are similes, and a simile is based on exaggeration. More specifically, in a device where someone is being praised for a particular quality, there pertains a rule of amplification which requires that “pour representer ces qualitez avec plus de relief & plus de montre, on les represente sous la figure des choses où elles ont leur derniere perfection.” He goes on to explain that Nature, having given man a superiority in the domain of Reason, “l'a traité en inferieur & en cadet au partage de ses autres Biens; & luy en a esté moins liberale qu'à tout le reste des Animaux. C'est donc hors de chez nous que la derniere perfection de ces qualitez doit estre cherchée, & par consequent, c'est hors de chez nous qu'il en faut chercher les Figures & les Symboles, quand on les veut representer avantageusement, & selon toute leur estenduë, & toute leur force.”

  26. Naturally, plants and animals were used extensively in emblems by other writers, making it even more difficult to distinguish between the two forms.

  27. René Bray,La Préciosité et les précieux 2nd ed. (Paris, 1968), p. 136.

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    Daniel Russell

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Russell, D. M. de Montplaisir and his emblems. Neophilologus 67, 503–516 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02352409

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