Untitled - Monoskop

PERSONAL APPROACHES
of the book with Jean Kerver) dedicated to Nicolas de Beze, archdeacon of
Etampes, one of the conseillers clercs in the Parlement of Paris, and incidentally
uncle of Theodore de Beze the future Reformer (PA 152 1 , 3). A conseiller who
had thus accepted the dedication of a book could no doubt be counted on to
for it in the court.
expedite the grant of a privilege
An applicant who had no connections of his own with the world of the
chancery might be able to call upon the help of a friend or patron who had
such connections. Such a motive might for instance underlie the dedication of
a translation by Jean Lode, an Orleans schoolmaster, to Pierre Berruyer, who
occupied the position at Orleans of King's Advocate (CH 1513, 2). Any
connection with the royal court might be pressed into service. Thus the author
Jean Bouchet was to ask Madame de Monstereuil-Bonnyn (Anne Gouffier),
who was gouvernante to the king's daughters, to put in a good word for him with
the royal secretary Villandry, to whom he had sent an application for a
for Le jugement poetic de I'honneurfemenin, which appeared in 1538.
Personal records by beneficiaries of the granting of privileges to them are
privilege, 1
inevitably very rare. Jean Lemaire de Beiges wrote to Barangier on 15 July
1509 from Bourg-en-Bresse: 'Au surplus je m'en voy bien bref a Lyon, tant
pour faire imprimer les Singularitez de Madame, dont monsieur le Chancelier
me bailie privilege.' 2 The Letters Patent being dated Lyon, 30 July, it appears
that Lemaire had received a personal assurance from the chancellor, presumably
by letter, that the privilege would be granted. An expression of
thanks to the conseillers who had granted him his privilege (PA 1522, 7), by the
Toulouse publisher Mathieu de Monde, took the form of a rondeau printed at
the end of the book, addressed personally to them by name, in which, if the
verse is deplorably flabby, the sentiment is heartfelt:
1
2
Graces a messeigneurs les conseillers H. Reynier & S. Raynier pour le privilleige par eulx octroye
S'il est ainsi, que les Athenians,
Medes persans, grecs, macedoniens
Ayent establi loix decrets et edicts
Allencontre de ces ingrats mauldits,
Raison le veult et les droits anciens:
Tels meschans sont plus inhumains que chiens
Et indignes d'estre appelles chrestiens,
De toutes gens reprouves et hais,
S'il est ainsi.
Pourtant esse que le corps et les biens
Sont tout a vous, et des cy je me tiens
Vostre humble serf, priant qu'en paradis
Vous soit rendu, faisant fin a mes diets:
Ingratitude ne vallut oncques riens,
S'il est ainsi.
Bouchet, Epistres morales etfamilieres (1545), fol. Epist. 96, f. 75.
Jacques Abelard, Les illustrations de Gaule et singularitez de Troye: Etude des editions. Genese de I'oeuvre
(Geneva, 1976), p. 223.
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