PIERRE BOAISTUAU - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

has seventy-two nouvelles, the Amans fortunez numbered sixty-seven. 414 There is no
clear mention as to why Boaistuau chose certain nouvelles over others; he simply
wrote that he had made a selection for the purposes of his edition, and reserved the
rest of the stories for ‘en autre saison plus opportune’ and in order to perfect them. 415
At the time, it was not uncommon for editors to also play the role of compilers, a role
often assigned to them by publishers. As Boaistuau noted, he was requested to
withdraw around twenty notable stories (to which, of course, he added many more),
and was repeatedly advised to pursue his enterprise: ‘ie fus soulement requis de retirer
et mettre au net dixhuict ou vingt histoires des plus notables… ie fus solicité auec tres
instantes requestes de poursuiure ma pointe’. 416 It is reasonable to believe that these
requests came from Vincent Sertenas, who ‘a recouuré vn liure non encores imprimé,
intitulé les histoires des amans fortunez, lesquelles… il feroit volontiers imprimer et
exposer en vente’. 417
However, the exclusion of five stories was only one of Boaistuau’s editorial changes.
In terms of structure, the work originally had a lengthy prologue and was divided into
days. Each day had a prologue and contained ten nouvelles. At the end of each
nouvelle, a dialogue between storytellers led smoothly into the next story. However,
this division was omitted by Boaistuau, stripping the book of its homogenous
appearance. His Amans fortunez retained the general prologue but did not divide the
nouvelles into days. Similarly, the daily prologues were omitted, leaving only the
dialogues at the end of each nouvelle, whose function was to draw out moral lessons.
414 The number of Heptameron’s stories (as well as their order and contents) varies, as there are
seventeen existing manuscripts and printed editions with considerable differences. The edition used for
this study is De Navarre, M. (ed. P. A. Chilton), The Heptameron (London, repr. 2004).
415 Boaistuau, P., Histoires des amans fortunez (Paris, G. Gilles, 1558), Au Lecteur.
416 Ibid.
417 Ibid, Privilege dv Roy.
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