Garland of Julie

The Guirlande of Julie is a famous poetic manuscript French of the 17th century.

History

About the middle of the century, the living room of the Hôtel of Rambouillet was the place of appointment of many aristocrats, writers and lawyers famous. One of them, the duke of Montausier, which became taster of the Dauphin, fell, towards 1631, in love with Julie d' Angennes, known as “the incomparable Julie”, girl of the marquis and the marchioness Catherine of Rambouillet.

Deciding, to charm the young woman who was the object of her admiration and her worship, to offer to him to a work exceeding all that could be seen then more singular and of more delicate in galantery, it had the idea to ask accustomed living room of his mother, among whom men of letters and some beautiful-spirits of his/her friends Georges de Scudéry, Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, Conrart, Chapelain, Racan, Tallemant of Réaux, Robert Arnauld d' Andilly, father and wire, Arnauld de Corbeville, Arnauld de Briottes , the captain Monmor and his cousin, the abbot Habert, Colletet, Claude Malleville, Philippe Habert, the knight of Mother, Antoine Godeau, known as the dwarf of the Princess Julie , Pinchesne, perhaps Pierre Corneille and the marquis of Rambouillet, to write poetries where each flower would sing the praises of Julie. It resulted from them one from the most extraordinary manuscripts of the 17th century and one of the culminating points of the company of the Précieuse S.

It started, in 1638, to compose the madrigaux whose whole was to form a whole book with the praise of Julie. Itself composed sixteen of them, of which the blazing Tulip :

Allow me, beautiful Julie,

to mingle my sharp colors

With those with these rare flowers

Whose your head is clearing:

I bear the glorious name

Which one must give in your beautiful eyes

One especially quoted the quatrain of Desmarets on the Violet of which the conclusion:

But so on your face I then to see me the one day,

humblest of the flowers will be most superb,

was that of the majority of the madrigaux one. Thus, that of the Tulip , of Crow, finishes as follows:

For throne gives me the beautiful face of Julie;

And if this happy fate with my glory is combined,

I will be the queen of the flowers.

The text was then penmanship on Vélin, in Ronde, with an admirable perfection by the famous calligrapher Nicolas Jarry and the flower quoted in each poem painted by Nicolas Robert, then extremely famous, the same one which began the Collection of vellums of the Library of the king. The manuscript included/understood 490 folio layers. After the title, came three layers from guard, follow-ups of the half title formed by a garland of flowers in the center of which these words were written: the Garland of Julie . Three other white layers separated this Frontispice one second Miniature which represented Zéphyre holding a pink with the right hand, and the left hand a garland of twenty-nine flowers. Among the other layers, twenty-nine carried each one a flower painted in miniature; the others presented one or more madrigaux relative to each flower. The madrigaux ones were sixty two. The binding, in morocco corrodes, with the letters J. - L. intertwined, was the work of the Gascon, one of the most skilful French bookbinders.

After the death of the duke of Montausier, which survived his wife, this invaluable volume passed to the duchess of Crussol-d' Uzès, and was had later by the duke of Vallière. At the time of the sale (it library of this last, it was bought: 14500 pounds by English. It was repurchased since by the girl of the duke of Vallière. The manuscript is currently preserved at the department of the manuscripts of the National library of France.

Jarry made same manuscript, a copy into bastard being composed of 40 layers in-8°, which contains only the madrigaux ones, without paintings. It was paid in successive sales 406 FR., 622 FR. and 250 FR. a third manuscript, less remarkable, appeared in the Debure sale.

The text of the Guirlande of Julie was published for the first time in 1729, but several poems had already appeared in various collections. It was then reprinted several times (Paris, 1794, in-8°; 1818, in-18; 1824, in-18, with colored figures).

Extract

the Fleur of Grenade , by Arnauld de Briottes

Of a light beam, the star of the light

Animates my sharp colors,

And reigning on Olympe in its vast career,

It makes me reign on the flowers.

My purple is the ornament of the empire of Flora:

Autresfois I brillay on tests roys

And the shore more

Was prone to my loix.

But scorning the glare of which I am clearing,

I give up the torches of the skies,

And come, O divine JULIE,

Adorer your beautiful eyes

to live by their fires of a nobler life.

I come by a beautiful heat

To shame from the sky to complete your size:

It you devoit a crown

And me, I gives it to you!

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