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The Thought of Louis Le Roy according to his Early Pamphlets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2019

Bodo L. O. Richter
Bodo L. O. Richter*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

Among the authors of pamphlets in the sixteenth century there are many who achieved their reputation through works of larger dimensions but who nevertheless reveal interesting facets of their thought in their less ambitious writings. In most instances these tracts were the medium for news or for partisan comment upon die issues of the day. On other occasions these little books contained a rough draft of ideas which subsequently were given a modified or fuller expression. In either case the writer was likely to be spontaneous and rather casual about the manner of presentation, thus affording us an opportunity to witness the germination of his ideas.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in the Renaissance , Volume 8 , 1961 , pp. 173 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1961

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References

1 Quoted by A. Henri Becker, from Le Roy's Exhortation aux François . .. (1570), on p. 212 of Un Humaniste au XVle siècle: Loys Le Roy (Ludovicus Regius) de Coutances (Paris, 1896). This thèse is the only comprehensive study on Le Roy.

2 The Newberry Library has about 2700 pamphlets of the period 1560-1650. I have surveyed certain areas of this collection in ‘French Renaissance Pamphlets in the Newberry Library, 1: The Debate between Philippe du Plessis-Mornay and Louis Dorléans’, Studi Francesi IV (1960), 220-240, to be followed this year by Part II: ‘History and Portents in Three Tracts by François de Belleforest’. The resources of this library are such that I could conduct this study entirely on the basis of the primary and secondary material available there, with one exception which I shall indicate in the proper place.

3 This was the title of the first two editions, printed by Fédéric Morel in 1562 and 1563; in 1567 the initial words were reversed, Des Troubles et differens (without the d), and this title was maintained in the printings of 1568, 1569, 1572, and 1573. The copy in the Newberry Library is the one recorded by Lelong-Fontette, Bibliothèque historique de la France (Paris, 1768), II, no. 18023: Lyon, Benoist Rigaud, 1568. A. Cioranesco's new, fundamental inventory, Bibliographic de la littérature française du seizième siècle (Paris, 1959) lists the 1563 imprint; R. Barraux in the Dictionnaire des lettres françaises: Le seizième siècle, ed. G. Grente (Paris, 1951) mentions the last (1573) printing. Barraux’ bibliography is quite complete but his note on Le Roy is inadequate.

4 Cf. Léon Feugère, Essai sur la vie et les ouvrages de Henri Estienne (Paris, 1853), p. 330: ‘Le Roy, traducteur habile et auteur original, l'un de ceux qui apprirent par la pratique assidue de l'antiquité classique à donner du nombre et de l'harmonie à notre prose.’

5 Cf. Geoffroy Atkinson, Les Nouveaux horizons de la Renaissance française (Paris, 1935), in the section ‘La Religion comparée’, p. 411, where Atkinson precedes a quotation from Des Troubles by saying: ‘Citons d'abord Loys Le Roy, qui semble avoir fait, en toute bonne foi, une séparation complète entre les “curiosités religieuses” apportees de l'étranger et la vérité chrétienne.'

6 Le Roy no doubt would have been in sympathy with what Erasmus wrote to Luther from Louvain: ‘Ego me, quoad licet, integrum seruo, quo magis prosim bonis Uteris reflorescentibus. Et mihi videtur plus profici ciuili modestia quam impetu… . Vbique cauendum ne quid arroganter aut factiose loquamur.faciamusue’ (letter of 30 May 1519, Opus epistolarum Des. ErasmiRoterodami, ed. P. S. Allen, Oxford, 1913, III, 605-607).

7 First ed. 1567. Also 1568, 1571, 1579, 1588, all by Morel.

8 The only complete bibliographical description is in Joseph Dumoulin, Vie et oeuure de Fédéric Morel (Paris, 1901), p. 188, no. 129. Cat. B.N. is somewhat briefer, omitting the dedication to Claude de l'Aubespine, and data concerning the privilège.

9 Cf. the later Deux oraisons françoises de Loys Le Roy prononcées par luy à Paris avant la lecture de Démosthène,…au mois de février 1575 … , F. Morel, 1576. Le Roy had received his post as ‘lecteur royal pour la langue grecque’ in 1572, but unfortunately he reached this haven of security only five years before his death.

10 Histoire de la Querelle des anciens et des modemes (Paris, 1856).

11 An Italian translation by Hercole Cato (Venice: Aldo, 1585) was followed in 1594 by an English tr., Of the Interchangeable Course, or Variety of Things … (London: Ch. Yetsweirt). Cato shows in his dedication that he has understood the basic import of the work, but the English translator, Robert Ashley, who had already started off with a distortion of the title, considers it merely an epitome of history, very convenient for those ‘who haue no time to fetch euery thing from die Fountaine’.

12 ‘Le Traité De la Vicissitude ou variété des choses de Louis Le Roy et sa véritable date’, Mélanges Lanson (Paris, 1922), pp. 118, 119,120. The basis of this article was rather tenuous, as it hinges on the fact that Becker had not seen the editio princeps of 1575, and thought the work had first appeared two years later (which would have placed it one year after Bodin's La République). Yet Becker had said himself on p. 399: ‘L'exemplaire de la B.N. porte 1575.’

13 ‘Ideas of History During the Renaissance’ ,JHI VI (1945), 415-435. The above quotation on p. 418. See also Weisinger's ‘Renaissance Accounts of the Revival of Learning', SPXLV (1948), 105-118: ‘It is evident that Le Roy has … worked out a comprehensive theory of the Renaissance. He makes the revival of learning part of a larger process which has taken place in all the civilized countries of the world and in many different disciplines’ (p. 117).

14 ‘The Querelle of the Ancients and the Moderns as a Problem of Renaissance Scholarship’, JHI XX (1959), 3-22.

15 Not counting Louis (1549-1550), who is generally omitted.

16 Said by Becker apropos of the labyrinthic title of the Consolatio in morte Henrici (1560), addressed to Catherine de’ Medici. The full title runs to some fifteen Unes. I have not been able to see this plaquette in the original.

17 Du Bellay, Regrets, Sonnet LXIX, where the poet reacted rather violently to a rumored médisanceby Le Roy. In September 1588 everything between the two friends was serene again, but by that time Du Bellay had only a few months to live.

18 Charles IX: La France et le contrôle de I'Espagne (Paris, [1949]), I, 28, 29.

19 However, Le Roy did not have an exaggerated view of the translator's merits: ‘Toutefois ie ne sçaurois nyer qu'il ne soit plus laborieux que louable: ou la diligence assistee du iugement est plus requise que l'eminent scavoir … De sorte qu'il ny a moyen de conduire une langue a perfection par traduction, & n'y eut iamais translateur pour suffisant qu'il fust, qui meritast mesme louange que son autheur’ (De la Vicissitude, 1575, 23r, in the second book: ‘De la vicissitude et varieti des langues’).

20 The section Le Roy picked can be found in the Loeb Classics ed. of the Cyropaedia (tr. by Walter Miller) in vol. 1, bk. I, part v. 2 through vi. 46 (pp. 77-129 of the bilingual text; what Le Roy translated amounts to about 26 pp. of this small format). It is difficult to see why Becker did not deal with this translation, especially in view of the fact that this vade mecum for monarchs drew the attention of Renaissance readers not only in France (two translations), but also in Italy (Poggio Bracciolini, the earliest version in the vernacular, c. 1447), and in Spain (Diego Gracián, 1552). There are several reasons why Le Roy might have felt drawn towards this text, aside from the purely didactic considerations of the moment: the quahty of the original ('In point of literary merit, it stands first among the writings of Xenophon': W. Miller); the prevalence of the dialogue form which links this work with Le Timée (1551), Le Phédon (1553), and Le Sympose (1559), all of these being earlier translations by Le Roy. Finally, the eulogy of the Persian constitution which, while it was given a largely fictitious presentation by Xenophon, nevertheless was in Une with Le Roy's interest in oriental forms of government.

21 Enseignements or enseignemens—both spellings occur.

22 G. Budaei viri Clariss. Vita (Paris: J. Roigny, 1540). Becker quotes from the second (1543) ed., unaware of the difference in title and contents. The editio princeps is more valuable because it gives in addition not only letters by Bude but also a section Doctorum hotninum epigrammata in laudem Budaei (pp. 49-53 [faulty pagination]).

23 This passage tempts one to indulge in some hasty sociology and anachronistic references to Montesquieu, Madame de Stael, and Buckle.

24 We should not be startled by Le Roy's acceptance of the Galenic pathology of ‘humors’: even such a daring thinker as Servetus, born one year after Le Roy, calls Galen the traditional authority. Cf. O'Malley, Charles D., Michael Servetus (Philadelphia, 1953), p. 56 Google ScholarPubMed: ‘Even the seasoned practitioner was unwilling to oppose any conflicting experience to the word of the all-powerful Greek.’ See also Singer, Charles, A Short History of Medicine (Oxford, [1944]), p. 35 Google Scholar: ‘Until it began to be undermined by Robert Boyle (1627- 91) and others in the seventeenth century, the doctrine of the four elements persisted in its entirety.’

25 Another contemporary of Le Roy's was Nostradamus (1503-1566), and Catherine was completely convinced of the latter's prophetic powers. Cf. Defrance, Eugène, Catherine de Médicis: ses astrologues et ses magkiens-envoûteurs (Paris, 1909)Google Scholar, especially ch. VIII, ‘Autres formes de la superstition de Catherine et l'innuence de l'occultisme sur l'esprit de ses fils’. Le Roy's weakness for presages, despite a meek attempt at their rejection, was pointed out by Becker on the basis of the Consolatio ad Catherinam (1560), where the omens for the death of Henry n are enumerated with admiration rather than irony. Twenty years later Bodin's La Démonomanie des sorciers appeared. ‘Que Bodin, malgré ses lumières, ait cru à la sorcellerie, comme beaucoup de ses contemporains, même éminents, il ne faudrait done pas trop s'en étonner… . Mais ce qui donne à ce livre de la Démonomanie un caractère particulièrement fâcheux, c'est que l'auteur emploietout un long volume à en démontrer la réalité’ (Henri Baudrillart, Jean Bodin et son temps, Paris, 1853, p. 184). Astrology is of course not synonymous with occultism: Pico rejected the former-while he accepted magic and the occult. However, astronomy and astrology were often Cathconfused during the sixteenth century (as, for instance, by Servetus).

26 Other passages would have to be adduced in order to prove conclusively that Le Roy's deepest sympathies do in fact tend in diis direction. On his adaptation of the Greek belief in immortality to the Christian view, see Busson, Henri, Le Rationalisme dans la littérature française de la Renaissance (1533-1601), nouv. éd. (Paris, 1957), pp. 284–285 Google Scholar.

27 ‘Livre VII: Comparison des Romains avec les Egyptiens, Assyriens, Perses… . De L'Empire Romain avec l'Assyrien, Medien, Persien, Macedonien, Partique, etc’ References to the cyclic view of history, which crop up also in this letter, are dispersed throughout the Vicissitude.

28 For a plain account of the abortive conspiracy of the ‘politiques’ that brought about his arrest, see Ralph Roeder, Catherine de’ Medici and the Lost Revolution (N. Y., 1937), pp. 508-509.

29 Baudrier, Bibliographic lyonnaise, III, 175, 176, has this to say about Rigaud's activities: ‘Rigaud fut pendant quelques années l'imprimeur du gouvernement du Lyonnais et créa ou plutôt developpa, à Lyon, le commerce des livres à bori marché. Malheureusement l'impression et le papier de ses publications se ressentent beaucoup trop des effets de cette innovation… . Rigaud remettait l'impression de ses publications à de nombreux imprimeurs généralement plus soucieux du bénéfice que de Péiégance.’

30 In the 1570 F. Morel imprint (without the letters), which I am following for the Consideration.

31 The title of Le Roy's Exhortation aux François pour vivre en concorde et jouir du bien de la paix (F. Morel, 1570) suggests a more forceful participation on the author's part, but even here a strange apathy prevails. In this instance, it is not necessary to temper Becker's criticism: ‘A vrai dire, Regius donne au lecteur une médiocre satisfaction. De la lutte religieuse et de la crise politique liées ensemble, ni les origines sont expliquées avec justesse, ni les solutions apercues avec satisfaisante clairvoyance’ (Loys Le Roy, p. 232).

32 ‘Corrected’ by Rigaudinto ‘Quellesorte … ‘!

33 3v and 4r. On the latter page we find a reference to ‘la religion mahumetique’ where in die Newberry copy a contemporary dissident crossed out die words la religion and wrote above loppinion!

34 Cf. Atkinson, Nouveaux horizons, section ‘L'Idée du progrès’, p. 405: ‘II est remarquable que Le Roy ait énoncé le principe historique que les affaires du monde, liées ensemble, ne peuvent être bien entendues, ni comprises dans une histoire parfaite, les unes sans les autres, en parlant des quatre continents, en 1567. Il est tout aussi intéressant qu'il ait nié le malthusianisme des historiens du XVIe siècle, en alléguant la Iongue durée du monde civilisé’ (his italics, referring to the Considération).

35 About fifty years before Le Roy we already find in Giovio a similar broadening of the horizon. Cf. Federico Chabod, Paolo Giovio (estratto dal vol. XXXVIII del Periodico della Soc. Storica Comense, Como, 1954): ‘La vera e maggiore novità della Storia di Paolo Giovio sta nell'aver ampliato l'orizzonte del quadro, nell'aver fatto assurgere in primo piano popoli ed eventi sino a lui trascurati…’ (p. 19). ‘Primo fra tutti, Paolo Giovio dà agli eventi del vicino oriente importanza fondamentale anche per gli eventi propriamente europei’ (p. 20). ‘Ma proprio perchè il pericolo e sentito con tanta—e giustificata— urgenza … il Giovio della Storia porta in primo piano … l'impero turco’ (ibid.). ‘Qualcosa di nuovo s'awerte, entro queste pagine: qui stiamo andando fuori dei classici schemi della civiltà umanistica, rinascimentale; qui s'awerte un soffio diverso che giunge da lidi lontani e sinora rimasti sostanzialmente estranei alle preoccupazioni dei nostri scrittori. Siamo, di già, sulla via che nella seconda metà del secolo sfocerà nella fitta serie di volumi di viaggi e discrizioni geografiche’ (p. 22). It is patent that practically all of these observations could be applied to Le Roy. For Montaigne's not insignificant debt to Giovio, whenever he introduces orientalia, see the Strowski-Gebehn-Villey ed., IV, ‘Les Sources des Essais’, Table des ouvrages possédés par Montaigne, p. xxxvi, where the 1553 (Vascosan) imprint of the Historiarum sui temporis tomus is mentioned. Le Roy might easily have known the same edition, but the Essais do not reveal any direct contact with his works.

36 Cf. the summary of Book x of De la Vicissitude: ‘Comment en cest aage ont esté restituees les langues & disciplines, apres qu'elles avoient este delaissees environ douze cent ans, ayans receu de nouveau grande lumiere & addition, où sont considerees les merveilles du siecle present par 1'Europe, Asie, Affrique, terres neuves, en Orient, Occident, Septentrion, Midy.’

37 Cf. Giovio, Delle cose delta Moscouia… (seen in Giov. Battista Ramusio, Delle navigation et viaggi…, Venice, 1606-1613, II, f. 131-137).

38 Baron, after having summarized Le Roy's defense of the moderns, points out that this is only one important aspect of the De la Vicissitude: ‘These passages have often been praised as having been inspired by the new inventions—as harbingers of the modern ideas of progress and perfectibility. But they are found in the concluding pages of a work whose preceding eleven books present a most comprehensive view of the ‘cyclical’ view of history’ (art. cit., p. 8). In fact Le Roy's historical testament is teeming with examples of this continuous cycle of birth, growth, perfection, decay, death, rebirth, e.g. ‘Par mesme ordre & vicissitude pareille les disciplines estans petites au commencement augmentent peu à peu & montent à leur perfection: où apres que sont parvenues deschoient tantost, & finablement perissent… . Puis quand elles ont esté quelque temps delaissees, se remettent sus autrefois, & successivement recouvrent leur valeur precedente.’ Similarly, of languages (recalling Du Bellay 's analogy with the life of plants, in the Deffence): ‘Elles ont commencement, duree, perfection, corruption, alteration. Aucunes sont entierement perdues, les autres naissent des precedentes corrompues & meslees. Les autres aprez avoir est6 longuement aneanties sont restituees’ (both passages in Vicissitude, 15v). For a striking modern parallel, see the opening paragraph of vol. v of Toynbee's A Study of History (‘The Disintegration of Civilizations’).