Un poème énigmatique : L’Adonis de la Cour, par Claude Favier

Abstract

Of Claude Favier, a poet nearly unknown to biographers and bibliographers alike, only two works remain of which we have any knowledge: L’Adonis de la Cour, divisé par douze nymphes (1624) and Le Triomphe de l’amour, pour le mariage de Mgr le duc d’Orléans (1626). To compose L’Adonis, Favier simply put into verse a prose narration written by a certain de Mandelot – perhaps François de Mandelot, the governor of the province of Lyonnais under Charles IX. Favier, in turn, sings the battle between Venus and Diana, in other words between Love and Chastity. His intention, clearly formulated in the introductory texts of L’Adonis, is to praise the young prince, Gaston, i.e. Adonis. Although we take a stronger position than that of Paul Lacroix, for whom this poem is “possibly allegorical,” we remain in agreement with Jacob the bibliophile when we say that there exists in these numerous, effortless verses a share of enthusiasm “that cannot be explained.” We do not know whether the young brother of Louis XIII received this work written by a man who, most likely, was already far from his youth in the early 1620s. What we do know, however, is that Gaston’s reconstituted library does not contain any book by this mysterious and prolific versifier.

Keywords

• Orléans (Gaston d’)
• Ornano (Jean-Baptiste d’)
• Favier (Claude)
• poetry
• mythology
• Adonis