View source for Jean Bertaut

{{short description|French poet}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2018}}
{{distinguish|Jean Bertaud}}
{{multiple issues|
{{one source|date=February 2012}}
{{more footnotes|date=February 2012}}
}}

[[Image:Jean Bertaut.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Jean Bertaut.]]
{{French literature sidebar}}
'''Jean Bertaut''' (1552 &ndash; 8 June 1611), French poet, was born at [[Caen]].

==Life==
He figures with [[Philippe Desportes]] in the disdainful couplet of [[Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux|Boileau]] on [[Pierre de Ronsard|Ronsard]]:
<blockquote>
"''Ce poëte orgueilleux, trébuché de si haut,''<br />
''Rendit plus retenus Desportes et Bertaut.''"
</blockquote>
He wrote light verse to celebrate the incidents of court life in the manner of Desportes, but his verse is more fantastic and fuller of conceits than his master's. He early entered the church, and had a share in the [[Religious conversion|conversion]] of [[Henry IV of France|Henry IV]], a circumstance which assured his career. He was successively councillor of the ''[[parlement]]'' of [[Grenoble]], secretary to the king, [[almoner]] to [[Marie de' Medici]], [[abbot]] of the {{Interlanguage link multi|Abbey of Our Lady of Aunay|fr|3=Abbaye Notre-Dame d'Aunay|lt=Abbey}} of [[Aunay-sur-Odon]] and finally, in 1606, [[bishop of Sées]]. {{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

After his elevation to the bishopric he ceased to produce the light verse in which he excelled, though his scruples did not prevent him from preparing a new edition of his ''Recueil de quelques vers amoureux'' (1602) in 1606. The serious poems in which he celebrated the public events of his later years are dull and lifeless. Bertaut died at Sées on 8 June 1611. His works were edited by [[Adolphe Chenevière]] in 1891.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

French composer [[Augustine Renaud d`Allen]] used Bertaut’s text in her composition ''Six Ancient French Airs''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Augustine Renaud d'Allen |url=https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_settings.html?ComposerId=41159 |access-date=2025-08-15 |website=www.lieder.net}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Sources==
* Fisquet, Honoré (1864). [https://www.google.com/books/edition/La_France_pontificale_histoire_chronolog/h1tncadXMvcC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1 ''La France pontificale. Métropole de Rouen. Séez.''] {{in lang|fr}}. Volume 14. Paris: E.Repos 1864. [https://www.google.com/books/edition/La%20France%20pontificale%20histoire%20chronolog/h1tncadXMvcC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA56 Pp. 56-59].
:;Attribution
::*{{EB1911|wstitle=Bertaut, Jean|volume=3}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bertaut, Jean}}
[[Category:1552 births]]
[[Category:1611 deaths]]
[[Category:Clergy from Caen]]
[[Category:16th-century French poets]]
[[Category:17th-century French Roman Catholic bishops]]
[[Category:Bishops of Sées]]
[[Category:French male poets]]
[[Category:Writers from Caen]]


{{France-poet-stub}}
{{france-RC-bishop-stub}}