Editing Cyrano de Bergerac (section)

== Life ==

=== Sources ===

Cyrano's short life is poorly documented. Certain significant chapters of his life are known only from the Preface to the ''Histoire Comique par Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac, Contenant les Estats & Empires de la Lune'' (''[[Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon]]'') published in 1657, nearly two years after his death.<ref name=Cyrano1657>{{Harvnb|Cyrano de Bergerac|1657|ref=Cyrano1657}}</ref> Without Henri Le Bret, who wrote the biographical information, his country childhood, his military engagement, the injuries it caused, his prowess as a swordsman, the circumstances of his death and his supposed final conversion would remain unknown.

Since 1862, when [[Auguste Jal]] revealed that the "Lord of Bergerac" was Parisian and not Gascon, research in parish registries and notarial records by a small number of researchers,<ref>{{harvnb|Brun|1893|ref=Brun1893}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Brun|1909|ref=Brun1909}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Roman|1894|pp=451–455|ref=Roman1894}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Coubertin|1898|pp=427–437|ref=Coubertin1898}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Poli|1898|pp=51–132|ref=Poli1898}}</ref><ref name=Lemoine1911>{{harvnb|Lemoine|1911|pp=[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k17519n/f277.image.langFR 273–296]|ref=Lemoine1911}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Lemoine|1913|p=1|ref=Lemoine1913}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Lachèvre|1921|loc=volume I|ref=Lachevre1921I}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Samaran|1910|p=3|ref=Samaran1910}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Prévot|1977|ref=Prevot1977}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Prévot|1978|ref=Prevot1978}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Delaplace|1994|ref=Delaplace1994}}</ref> in particular Madeleine Alcover of [[Rice University]], has allowed the public to know more about his genealogy, his family, his home in Paris and those of some of his friends, but has revealed no new documents that support or refute the essentials of Le Bret's account or fill the gaps in his narrative.<ref group="note">Consider what Madeleine Alcover has written in the ''[[#Cyrano2004|« Biographie » de Cyrano de Bergerac]]''<!-- {{harvnb|loc=« Biographie » de Cyrano de Bergerac|ref=Cyrano2004}} -->: "It was necessary to renounce a kind of writing where the author presents to the readers as 'facts' purely subjective assertions; that kind of writing, known in [[Narratology]] as characteristic of the infallible and omniscient narrator, is totally misplaced in a biography. The readers must always be able to distinguish the content of a document from the interpretation that is made of it; the lack of documentation from a hypothesis (more or less well founded…)"</ref>

=== Family ===
Savinien II de Cyrano was the son of Abel I de Cyrano, lord of Mauvières (156?-1648), counsel (''avocat'') of the [[Parlement|Parliament of Paris]],{{refn|« En 1587, il était étudiant à Bourges. Ayant fréquenté une jeune fille, Jehanne Palleau, son père le tirera d'une fâcheuse affaire en faisant signer devant notaire une attestation par laquelle celle-ci ''ne demande pas à Abel de la reconnaître''… »<ref>{{harvnb|Delaplace|1994|p=1367|ref=Delaplace1994}}</ref>|group=note}} and of Espérance Bellanger (1586-164?), "daughter of deceased nobleman Estienne Bellanger, Counsellor of the King and Treasurer of his Finances".

==== Ancestors ====
[[File:Nicolas Delamare-Traité de la police, 1729, lII.jpg|alt= Savinien I de Cirano, fish merchant|upright=.7|thumb|Savinien I de Cirano, fish merchant]]
His paternal grandfather, Savinien I de Cyrano (15??-1590), was probably born into a notable family from [[Sens]]<ref group="note" name=StSavinian>Saint Savinian is the name of the first archbishop of Sens.<!-- Here is what Cyrano might have read about the life of Saint Savinian: "It should be clearly marked in the annals of France in letters of fine gold and diamonds, the fortunate day of the arrival in France of this new Sun. Because bringing with it the first rays of the dawn of paradise and the eastern Sun of faith, it can be said, and it is true, that St. Savinian was the first to bring the light that drove out the shadows from that idolatrous hell, to make France a paradise of delights and happiness. Thus it was near the year 46 of Jesus Christ that he arrived in France with Saint Potentian." ''L'Idée des bons prélats et la vie de saint Savinian, primat et premier archevêque de Sens et de ses saints compagnons'' (1629). R.P. Étienne Binet, de la Compagnie de Jésus --></ref> in [[Burgundy]]. Documents describe him in turn as a "merchant and burgher of Paris" (''« marchand et bourgeois de Paris »'' 20 May 1555), "(sea-)fish merchant to the King" (''« vendeur de poisson de mer pour le Roy »'') in several other documents in following years,<ref name="Alcover2012">{{harvnb|Alcover|2012|ref=Alcover2012}}</ref> and finally "Royal counsellor" (''« conseiller du Roi, maison et couronne de France »'' 7 April 1573). In Paris, on 9{{nbsp}}April 1551, he married Anne Le Maire, daughter of Estienne Le Maire and Perrette Cardon, who died in 1616. They are known to have had four children: Abel (the writer's father), Samuel (15??-1646), Pierre (15??-1626) and Anne (15??-1652).

Of his maternal grandfather, Estienne Bellanger, "Financial Controller of the Parisian general revenue" (''« contrôleur des finances en la recette générale de Paris »''), and of his background, we know almost nothing. We know more about his wife, Catherine Millet, whose father, Guillaume II Millet, Lord of Caves, was secretary of the King's finances, and whose grandfather, Guillaume I Millet (149?-1563), qualified in medicine in 1518, was doctor to three kings in succession ([[Francis I of France|Francis I]], [[Henry II of France|Henry II]] and [[Francis II of France|Francis II]]). He married Catherine Valeton, daughter of a [[Hearth tax#France|property tax]] collector from [[Nantes]], Audebert Valeton, who, accused of involvement in the [[Affair of the Placards]], was "burned alive on wood taken from his house"{{refn| <!-- « Nicolas [''sic'', pour Audebert] Valeton, receveur de Nantes en Bretagne, commençant de venir à la connaissance de l'Évangile par le moyens d'aucuns bons personnages qu'il hantait et par la lecture du Nouveau Testament en français, voyant la grande poursuite qu'on fait, et que Morin [lieutenant criminel de Paris], avec lequel il avait eu différend, approchait de sa maison, commanda à sa femme de faire ôter de sa chambre le bahut où étaient les livres, et cependant alla au devant du danger. Elle, effrayée de son côté, jeta soudainement tous lesdits livres dedans les privés, ensemble d'autres papiers qui y étaient, en sorte que le bahut demeura vide. Morin, étant entré, envoya Valeton en prison et commanda qu'il fût étroitement gardé; puis, ayant fouillé partout et n'ayant rien trouvé, aperçut ce bahut vide; toutefois, il ne s'y arrêta pour l'heure, tant il avait envie d'interroger son prisonnier. Ce qu'ayant fait et ne se trouvant aucune charge et informations contre lui, pensa qu'il y fallait procéder plus finement et qu'autrement le receveur serait homme pour lui garder et donner de la peine, parce qu'il était homme d'esprit et de crédit. L'ayant donc interrogé derechef sur le fait du bahut et rien profité, il alla soudainement vers sa femme, à laquelle il fit tant de demandes et si cauteleuses et subtiles (joint qu'il assurait que son mari avait confessé le coffre être celui où il mettait ses livres et papiers secrets) que cette jeune femme peu avisée, se fiant en la promesse et serment dudit Morin, que son mari n'aurait aucun déplaisir (moyennant argent par elle offert et promis), lui découvrit la vérité du fait. Les livres étant retirés promptement hors des retraits [latrines], encore qu'ils ne fussent défendus, Morin le fit trouver si mauvais au roi qu'il commanda qu'on le fît mourir, d'autant qu'ayant ainsi fait jeter ses livres, il était suspect d'hérésie. À quoi la cour de parlement obtempéra très volontiers, et fut ce personnage mené à la Croix du Tiroir [Trahoir], et là brûlé vif du bois pris en sa maison. Il montra une grande constance et fermeté, ce qui fut trouvé admirable des gens de bien, d'autant qu'il avait encore bien peu d'instruction. Ce même jour, par tous les autres carrefours de Paris accoutumés à faire exécutions, furent aussi brûlés pour la même querelle plusieurs saints personnages, ainsi que le roi passait en procession générale, pour ce ordonnée en grande solennité, où assistaient les enfants du roi avec toute la noblesse pour apaiser (ce disaient-ils) l'ire de Dieu, ou plutôt et à la vérité pour lui dédier et consacrer ces bonnes âmes en sacrifice de bonne odeur.-->{{harvnb|Crespin|1570|ref=Crespin1570}}|group=note}} on 21 January 1535 at the crossroads of ''la Croix du Trahoir'' (the intersection of the Rue de l'Arbre-Sec and the [[Rue Saint-Honoré]]), in front of the ''Pavillon des singes'', where Molière lived almost a century later.<ref>{{harvnb|Rey|2010|ref=Rey2010}}</ref>

==== Parents ====

Espérance Bellanger and Abel I de Cyrano were married on 3{{nbsp}}September 1612 at the church of [[St-Gervais-et-St-Protais]]. She was at least twenty-six years old;<ref group=note>She was baptised on 11{{nbsp}}June 1586 at the church of [[St-Gervais-et-St-Protais]].</ref> he was about forty-five.<ref group=note>The testamentary executors accounts show that, several days before his death in January 1648, Abel de Cyrano said he was "older than eighty years". Therefore he was born before 1568.</ref> Their marriage contract,{{refn|Discovered by Jean Lemoine.<ref name=Lemoine1911 />|group=note}} signed the previous 12{{nbsp}}July at the office of Master Denis Feydeau, counsellor, secretary and king's notary, second cousin of the bride, was only published in the year 2000 by Madeleine Alcover,<ref>{{harvnb|Alcover|2001|loc=volume I, p. 461-463|ref=Cyrano2001I}}</ref> who minutely traced the fate of the witnesses (and more particularly their links with pious milieus) and noted that many of them "had entered the worlds of high finance, the ''[[Nobles of the Robe|noblesse de robe]]'', of the aristocracy (including the Court) and even the ''[[Nobles of the Sword|noblesse d'épée]]''".

==== His father's library ====
<!-- Translator's note: the inventory note below seems to contradict the text? -->
In 1911 Jean Lemoine made known the inventory of Abel de Cyrano's worldly goods.<ref>{{harvnb|Lemoine|1911|pp=[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k17519n/f279.image.langFR 275–277]|ref=Lemoine1911}}<br />Reprinted in {{Harvnb|Lachèvre|1921|loc=volume I, p. [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6206781d/f37.image.r=.langFR xxiii-xxv]|ref=Lachevre1921I}}</ref> His library, relatively poorly stocked (126 volumes), testifies to his schooling as a jurist and to an open curiosity: a taste for languages and ancient literature, the great humanists of the Renaissance ([[Erasmus]], [[Rabelais]], [[Juan Luis Vives]]), knowledge of Italian, interest in the sciences. On the religious side, one notices the presence of two Bibles, of an Italian [[New Testament]] and the Prayers of [[Basil of Caesarea|St. Basil]] in [[Ancient Greek|Greek]], but no pious works. There is no object of that kind (engraving, painting, statue, crucifix) amongst the other inventoried items, but in contrast "twelve small paintings of portraits of gods and goddesses" and "four wax figures: one of Venus and Cupid, another of a woman pulling a thorn, one of a [[flageolet]] player and one of an ashamed nude woman".{{refn|L'inventaire des biens d'Abel I de Cyrano dressé après son décès, en 1648, révélera une nette évolution sur le plan de la religiosité, puisqu'on trouvera, dans son logement, « un tableau peint sur bois, garni de sa bordure, où est représentée la Nativité de Notre-Seigneur, un autre tableau carré peint sur toile, où est représentée la Charité […] un tableau peint sur bois où est représenté un Baptême de Notre-Seigneur, et un autre tableau, aussi peint sur bois, où est représenté (''sic'') Notre-Seigneur et Saint Jean en leur enfance, et la Vierge les tenant […] deux tableaux représentant le sacrifice d'Abraham, un autre rond sur bois, où est représenté le Jugement de Sainte Suzanne […], deux petits tableaux de broderie représentant deux Saint-Esprit en cœur, et un tableau sur bois où est représenté Saint François […], trois petites écuelles de faïence avec deux autres petits tableaux où sont représentés Notre-Seigneur et la Vierge ».<ref>{{harvnb|Lachèvre|1921|loc=volume I, p. [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6206781d/f73.image.r=.langFR LIX]|ref=Lachevre1921I}}</ref>|group=note}} Finally, one notes the presence of several books by well-known Protestants: the ''Discours politiques et militaires'' ("Political and Military Discourse") of [[François de la Noue]], two volumes of [[George Buchanan]], the ''Dialectique'' of [[Pierre de La Ramée]], the ''Alphabet de plusieurs sortes de lettres'' ("Alphabet of different kinds of letters") by master calligrapher Pierre Hamon and ''La Vérité de la religion chrétienne'' ("The Truth of the Christian Religion") by [[Philippe Duplessis-Mornay]], whose presence confirms that Abel spent his younger years in [[Huguenot]] surroundings.<ref>{{harvnb|Alcover|2010|ref=Alcover2010}}</ref>

==== Siblings ====

Espérance and Abel I had at least six children:
* Denis, baptised at the church of [[Saint-Eustache, Paris|Saint-Eustache]] on 31 March 1614 by Anne Le Maire, his grandmother, and Denis Feydeau, financier. He studied Theology at the Sorbonne and died in the 1640s;
* Antoine, baptized at Saint-Eustache on 11 February 1616 by his paternal aunt, Anne Cyrano, and a godfather who is not named in the baptismal register discovered by [[Auguste Jal]], but who might have been the financier Antoine Feydeau (1573–1628), younger brother of Denis. Died at a young age;
* Honoré, baptized at Saint-Eustache on 3{{nbsp}}July 1617 by Honoré Barentin, ''trésorier des parties casuelles'', and an unnamed godmother. Died at a young age;
* Savinien II (1619–1655),
* Abel II, born around 1624,<ref group="note">In two documents from January and February 1649 concerning the succession of Abel I de Cyrano, Abel II is said to be "of the age of emancipation, progressing under the authority of the said Savinien de Cyrano, his brother and guardian" (« émancipé d'âge, procédant sous l'autorité de Savinien dudit Cyrano, son frère et curateur »).</ref> who took the title "Lord of Mauvières" after the death of his father in 1648;
* Catherine, whose date of birth is not known and who died in the early years of the following century, having become a nun at the convent of the ''Filles de la Croix (de Paris)'' ("Daughters of the Cross (Paris)") in the Rue de Charonne in 1641, under the name Sister Catherine de Sainte-Hyacinthe.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lambeau|1908|p=[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5819121h/f97.image.langFR 65 et suivantes]|ref=Lambeau1908}}</ref><!-- NB: NOT the 19th century Daughters of the Cross (Liege) who have a wiki article -->

=== Childhood and adolescence ===

==== Baptism and godparents ====

The historian Auguste Jal discovered the baptism of the (then) supposed Gascon in the 1860s:

<blockquote>Finally, after long exertion, I knew that Abel Cyrano had left the neighbourhood of Saint-Eustache for that of Saint-Sauveur, and that Espérance Bellanger had given birth in this new dwelling to a boy whose baptismal record is as follows: "The sixth of March one thousand six hundred and nineteen, Savinien, son of Abel de Cyrano, squire, Lord of Mauvières, and of the lady Espérance Bellenger (''sic''), the godfather, nobleman Antoine Fanny, King's Counsellor and Auditor in his [[Court of Finances]], of this parish, the godmother the lady Marie Fédeau (''sic''), wife of nobleman Master Louis Perrot, Counsellor and Secretary to the King, Household and Crown of France, of the parish of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois". This son of Abel de Cyrano who was not given the name of his godfather, Antoine, because he had a brother of that name, born in 1616, but was named Savinien in memory of his grandfather, who could doubt that this was the Savinien Cyrano who was born, according to the biographers, at the chateau of Bergerac in or around 1620?{{sfn|Jal|1872|p=[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k47543/f471.image.r=.langFR 463]}}
</blockquote>

Thus Espérance Bellanger was thirty-three years old, Abel de Cyrano around fifty-two.

The surname ''Fanny'' appears nowhere in the very complete study of ''La Chambre des comptes de Paris'' ("Court of Finances of Paris") published by Count H. Coustant d'Yanville in 1875 (or for that matter in any other French document of the 17th century). In 1898, Viscount Oscar de Poli suggested that it must have been a transcription error and proposed reading it as ''Lamy''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Poli|1898|p=79|ref=Poli1898}}</ref> An Antoine Lamy had actually been accepted as an auditor of finances on 2{{nbsp}}September 1602, a year before Pierre de Maupeou, Espérance Bellanger's cousin and son-in-law of Denis Feydeau who was a witness to the marriage of Savinien's parents in 1612.<ref>{{Harvnb|Coustant d'Yanville|1866–1875|p=[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k57243060/f908.image.r=.langFR 882]|ref=Yanville1866}}</ref> His wife, Catherine Vigor, associate of [[Vincent de Paul]], would become President of the ''Confrérie de la Charité de Gentilly'' ("Charitable Fellowship of Gentilly") where the couple set up a mission in 1634.<ref>{{Harvnb|Paul|1920|p=[https://archive.org/stream/correspondanceen01vinc#page/30/mode/2up 30]|ref=Paul1920}}</ref> She could well be the godmother of Catherine de Cyrano.

Marie Feydeau, cosponsor with Antoine Lamy, was the sister of Denis and Antoine Feydeau and the wife of Louis (or Loys) Perrot (15??-1625), who, apart from his titles of "King's Counsellor and Secretary", also had that of "King's Interpreter of Foreign Languages".<ref>{{Harvnb|Griselle|1912|p=[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k64848c/f44.image.r=.langFR 34]|ref=Griselle1912}}</ref>

==== Mauvières and Bergerac ====

[[File:La Vallée de Chevreuse en 1701.jpg|left|thumb|The ''Vallée de Chevreuse'' in 1701. You can make out Sous-Forêt and Mauvières just to the west of Chevreuse, on the banks of the Yvette River.]]In 1622, Abel de Cyrano left Paris with his family and went to settle on his lands at Mauvières and Bergerac in the ''[[Vallée de Chevreuse]]'', which had come to him in part after the death of his mother in 1616.

His possessions, situated on the banks of the [[Yvette River]] in the parish of [[Saint-Forget]], had been purchased by Savinien I de Cyrano forty years earlier from Thomas de Fortboys, who had bought them himself in 1576 from Lord Dauphin de Bergerac (or Bergerat), whose ancestors had possessed them for more than a century.{{refn|In a much disputed study (''L'ancestralité bergeracoise de Savinien II de Cyrano de Bergerac : prouvée par la Tour Cyrano, les jurades, les chroniques bergeracoises et par Cyrano lui-même'', Lembras, 1968) an erudite citizen of Bergerac, Martial Humbert Augeard, wrote that the origin of the de Bergerac family was a certain Ramond de la Rivière de la Martigne who, having been bestowed with the estate of Mauvières in recompense for his action against the English in the retaking of Bergerac by Duke Louis I d'Anjou, brother of Charles V, in 1377, gave the name Bergerac to the meadows adjacent to Mauvières to the west, up until that time known as the ''Pré joli'' ("Pretty Meadow") or ''Pré Sous-Foretz'' ("Woodland Meadow"). In the 18th century, the estate of Bergerac returned to its old name of ''Sous-Forets''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Coubertin|1898|p=430|ref=Coubertin1898}}</ref>|group=note}}

When Savinien I de Cyrano acquired it, the domain of Mauvières consisted of "a habitable mansion…with a lower room, a cellar beneath, kitchen, pantry, an upper chamber, granaries, stables, barn, portal, all roofed with tiles, with courtyard, walled dovecote; mill, enclosed plot, garden and fishpond, the right of middle and low justice…".<!-- <ref group="note">« en un hôtel manable [C'est à dire, une demeure habitable.] … où il y a salle basse, cave dessous, cuisine, dépense, chambre haute, greniers, étables, grange, portail, le tout couvert de tuiles, avec la cour, colombiers clos de murailles; moulin, clos, jardin et vivier, le droit de moyenne et basse justices… »</ref> -->

The estate of Bergerac, which adjoined Mauvières, "comprised a house with portal, courtyard, barn, hovel and garden, being an acre or thereabouts, plus forty-six and a half acres, of which thirty-six and a half were farmland and ten woodland, with the rights of middle and low justice".<!--{{refn|« comprenait une maison avec portail, cour, grange, masure et jardin, soit un arpent ou environ, plus quarante-six arpents et demi, dont trente-six et demi de terre et dix de bois, avec droit de justice moyenne et basse… » --><ref>{{Harvnb|Lachèvre|1921|loc=volume II, p. [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6206781d/f32.image XVIII]|ref=Lachevre1921II}}</ref><!-- |group=note}} -->

==== Country schooling ====

[[File:Abraham Bosse, Le maître d'école.jpg|thumb|Abraham Bosse (1602–1676), ''Le Maître d'école.'']]
It was in this rustic setting that the child grew up and in the neighbouring parish he learnt to read and write. His friend Le Bret recalls:

<blockquote>
The education that we had together with a good country priest who took in boarders, made us friends from our most tender youth, and I remember the aversion he had from that time for one who seemed to him a shadow of Sidias,{{refn|Name of a pedant character in ''Première journée'', fragment of a comic story by Théophile de Viau.<ref>{{Harvnb|Viau|1855|p=[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k27801m/f16.image.r=.langFR 14]|ref=Viau1855}}</ref>|group=note}} because, in the thoughts which that man could somewhat grasp, he believed him incapable of teaching him anything; so that he paid so little attention to his lessons and his corrections that his father, who was a fine old gentleman, fairly unconcerned for his children's education and overly credulous of this one's complaints, removed him [from the school] a little too suddenly and, without considering if his son would be better off elsewhere, he sent him to that city [Paris] where he left him, until the age of nineteen years, to his own devices.{{refn|L'éducation que nous avions eue ensemble chez un bon prêtre de la campagne qui tenait de petits pensionnaires nous avait faits amis dès notre plus tendre jeunesse, et je me souviens de l'aversion qu'il avait dès ce temps-là pour ce qui lui paraissait l'ombre d'un Sidias [Note : Nom d'un personnage de pédant dans ''Première journée'', fragment d'histoire comique de Théophile de Viau.], parce que, dans la pensée que cet homme en tenait un peu [Note : Comprendre : qu'il était tant soit peu pédant.], il le croyait incapable de lui enseigner quelque chose; de sorte qu'il faisait si peu d'état de ses leçons et de ses corrections, que son père, qui était un bon vieux gentilhomme assez indifférent pour l'éducation de ses enfants et trop crédule aux plaintes de celui-ci, l'en retira un peu trop brusquement, et, sans s'informer si son fils serait mieux autre part, il l'envoya en cette ville [Paris], où il le laissa jusqu'à dix-neuf ans sur sa bonne foi [Note : « On dit ''Laisser un homme sur sa foi'', pour dire ''l'abandonner à sa conduite''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Furetière|1690|p=[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k50614b/f903.image 903]|ref=Furetiere1690}}</ref> »].|group=note}}<ref name="LeBret1657">{{Harvnb|Le Bret|1657|ref=LeBret1657}}</ref>
</blockquote>

==== Parisian adolescence ====

It is unknown at what age Savinien arrived in Paris.{{refn|In his introduction to ''Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrano de Sannois, Turnhout'', Hervé Bargy asserts, without offering any proof, that he was twelve years old.<ref name="Bargy">{{harvnb|Bargy|2008|ref=Bargy2008|p=12}}</ref>|group=note}} He may have been accommodated by his uncle Samuel de Cyrano in a large family residence in the Rue des Prouvaires, where his parents had lived up until 1618. In this theory, it was there that he was introduced to his cousin Pierre,<ref group="note">Pierre II de Cyrano, Lord of Cassan.</ref> with whom, according to Le Bret, he would build a lasting friendship.{{refn|"…Monsieur de Cyrano, his cousin, from whom he had received great signs of friendship, from whose knowledgeable conversation on present and past history, he took such immense pleasure…"<ref name="LeBret1657" /> »|group=note}}

[[File:Détail du plan de Gomboust, 1652.jpg|left|thumb|Jacques Gomboust, ''Plan de Paris'' 1652 (detail). Upper Rue Saint-Jacques and the ''collège de Lisieux''.]]
He continued his secondary studies at an academy which remains unknown. It has long been maintained that he attended the [[Collège de Beauvais]] where the action of the comedy ''Le pédant joué'' takes place{{refn|This was seen for the first time in the second edition of ''Menagiana'': "The poor works of Cyrano de Bergerac! He had studied at the ''collège de Beauvais'' in the time of Principal Granger. It is said that he was still studying rhetoric when he wrote his ''Pédant joué'' about the principal. There are a few passable parts in that piece, but all the rest falls flat." (« Les pauvres ouvrages que ceux de Cyrano de Bergerac ! Il avait étudié au collège de Beauvais du temps du principal Granger. On dit qu'il était encore en rhétorique quand il fit son ''Pédant joué'' sur ce principal. Il y a quelque peu d'endroits passables en cette pièce, mais tout le reste est bien plat. »)<ref>{{Harvnb|Ménage|1694|p=[https://archive.org/details/menagianaoulesb00delagoog/page/n136 101]|ref=Menage1694}}</ref>|group = note}} and whose principal, Jean Grangier would inspire the character of Granger, the pedant of ''Le pédant joué'', but his presence in June 1641 as a student of rhetoric at the ''Collège de Lisieux''<ref group="note">[[Charles Sorel, sieur de Souvigny|Charles Sorel]], who perhaps also studied there, made vitriolic portrait of it in his ''Francion''.</ref> (see below), has encouraged more recent historians to revise that opinion.{{refn|"I think that Cyrano could have been a student at Lisieux even before his entry into the Army, and that the comedy that his composed against the collège de Beauvais could be explained by the fact that Sorel had already made fun of the collège de Lisieux."<ref>{{harvnb|Alcover|2004|loc=Biographical introduction, p. xxxiii|ref=Cyrano2004}}</ref> &nbsp;(« Je pense que Cyrano aurait pu être étudiant à Lisieux avant même son départ à l'armée, et que la comédie qu'il a composée contre le collège de Beauvais pourrait s'expliquer par le fait que Sorel avait déjà ridiculisé le collège de Lisieux.»)|group=note}}

In 1636, his father sold Mauvières and Bergerac to Antoine Balestrier, Lord of Arbalestre, and returned to Paris to live with his family in "a modest dwelling at the top of the great Rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques close to the Crossing"<ref>{{Harvnb|Lachèvre|1921|loc=volume I, p. [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6206781d/f44.image xxx]|ref=Lachevre1921I}}</ref> (parish of Saint-Jacques and Saint-Philippe), a short distance from the ''Collège de Lisieux''. But there is no certainty that Savinien went to live with them.

==== A slippery slope ====

Le Bret continues his story:

<blockquote>
That age when nature is most easily corrupted, and that great liberty he had to only do that which seemed good to him, brought him to a dangerous weakness (''penchant''), which I dare say I stopped…
</blockquote>

Historians and biographers do not agree on this ''penchant'' which threatened to corrupt Cyrano's nature. As an example of the romantic imagination of some biographers, [[Frédéric Lachèvre]] wrote:
<blockquote>
Against an embittered and discontented father, Cyrano promptly forgot the way to his father's house. Soon he was counted among the gluttons and hearty drinkers of the best inns, with them he gave himself up to jokes of questionable taste, usually following prolonged libations…He also picked up the deplorable habit of gambling. This kind of life could not continue indefinitely, especially since Abel de Cyrano had become completely deaf to his son's repeated requests for funds.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lachèvre|1921|loc=volume I, p. [http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6206781d/f45.image XXXI]|ref=Lachevre1921I}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Forty years later, two editors added to the realism and local colour:

<blockquote>
Since nothing binds Cyrano to the humble lodgings of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques to which the uncertainties of fate condemned his family, he gives himself over entirely to Paris, to its streets and, according to the words of one of his close friends, "to its excrescences" (''à ses verrues'').<ref group="note">It seems that the author here means [[Charles Sorel]], whose biographer, Émile Roy, wrote in 1891 that he knew Paris particularly well and "described it all, even the 'excrescences'". But the expression is an invention of the 19th century and appears nowhere in the works of Sorel.</ref> He drinks, diligently frequents the Rue Glatigny, called Val d'amour, because of the women who sell pleasure there,{{refn|The Rue de Glatigny was found on the site of the current forecourt of Notre-Dame. In the Middle Ages, it had been one of the streets that an ordinance of [[Louis IX of France|Saint Louis]] designated as the only ones where "women of dissolute life" had the right to "keep their brothels". But it seems, reading [[Henri Sauval]], that in Cyrano's time it had not had, for the past two centuries, that designation or reputation.<ref>{{Harvnb|Sauval|1724|p=[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1040565b/f752.image 652]|ref=Sauval1724}}</ref>|group=note}} gambles, roams the sleeping city to frighten the bourgeois or forge signs, provokes the watch, gets into debt and links himself with that literary Bohemia which centered around [[François Tristan l'Hermite|Tristan L'Hermite]] and [[Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant|Saint-Amant]] and cultivated the memory of [[Théophile de Viau|Théophile]] and his impious lyricism.<ref>{{harvnb|Cyrano de Bergerac|1962|ref=Cyrano1962|p=xv}}</ref>
</blockquote>

[[File:Da Sousy.jpg|right|thumb|D'Assoucy around 1630]]