Editing Pierre de Ronsard (section)

==Studies==
[[File:Guay--Les bourreaux des bois--1909--Mairie de Bourges.png|thumb|300px|Apparitions in the smoke: [[Gabriel Guay]]'s ''Les bourreaux des bois'' (1909), inspired by Elégies, XXIV, "Contre les bûcherons de la forêt de Gastine."]]
His apparently promising diplomatic career was cut short by an attack of deafness following a 1540 visit, as part of legation to Alsace, that no physician could cure; he would subsequently determine to devote himself to study. The institution he chose for the purpose among the numerous schools and colleges of Paris was the Collège Coqueret, the principal of which was [[Jean Daurat]] — afterwards the "dark star" (as he has been called from his silence in French) of the Pléiade, and already an acquaintance of Ronsard's from having held the office of tutor in the Baïf household. [[Jean-Antoine de Baïf|Antoine de Baïf]], Daurat's pupil, accompanied Ronsard; [[Remy Belleau]] shortly followed; [[Joachim du Bellay]], the second of the seven, joined not much later. [[Muretus]] (Marc Antoine de Muret), a great scholar and by means of his [[Latin]] plays a great influence in the creation of French tragedy, was also a student here.

Ronsard's period of study occupied seven years, and the first manifesto of the new literary movement, which was to apply to the [[vernacular]] the principles of criticism and scholarship learnt from the classics, came not from him but from Du Bellay. The ''Défense et illustration de la langue française'' of the latter appeared in 1549, and the Pléiade (or Brigade, as it was first called) may be said to have been then launched. It consisted, as its name implies, of seven writers whose names are sometimes differently enumerated, though the orthodox canon is beyond doubt composed of Ronsard, Du Bellay, Baïf, Belleau, [[Pontus de Tyard]] (a man of rank and position who had exemplified the principles of the friends earlier), [[Étienne Jodelle|Jodelle]] the dramatist, and Daurat. Ronsard's own work came a little later, and a rather idle story is told of a trick of Du Bellay's which at last determined him to publish. Some single and minor pieces, an [[epithalamium]] on Antoine de Bourbon and [[Jeanne d'Albret|Jeanne de Navarre]] (1550), a "''Hymne de la France''" (1549), an "''Ode a la Paix''," preceded the publication in 1550 of the four first books ("first" is characteristic and noteworthy) of the ''Odes of Pierre de Ronsard''.

This was followed in 1552 by the publication of his ''Amours de Cassandre'' with the fifth book of Odes, dedicated to the 15-year-old Cassandre Salviati, whom he had met at [[Blois]] and followed to her father's [[Château de Talcy]]. These books excited a violent literary quarrel. [[Clément Marot|Marot]] was dead, but he left numerous followers, some of whom saw in the stricter literary critique of the Pléiade, in its outspoken contempt of merely vernacular and medieval forms, in its strenuous advice to French poetry to "follow the ancients," and so forth, an insult to the author of the ''Adolescence Clémentine'' and his school.<ref>The French court, and indeed all French society, was just then much interested in literary questions, and a curious story is told of the rivalry that ensued. [[Mellin de Saint-Gelais]], it is said, the chief of the "''École Marotique''" and a poet of no small merit, took up Ronsard's book and read part of it in a more or less designedly burlesque fashion before the king. It may be observed that if he did so it was a distinctly rash and uncourtier-like act, inasmuch as, from Ronsard's father's position in the royal household, the poet was personally known and liked both by Henry and by his family." At any rate, [[Margaret of France, Duchess of Berry|Marguerite de Valois]], the king's sister, afterwards duchess of Savoy, is said to have snatched the book from Saint-Gelais and insisted on reading it herself, with the result of general applause. Henceforward, if not before, his acceptance as a poet was not doubtful, and indeed the tradition of his having to fight his way against cabals is almost entirely unsupported.</ref>