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Joachim du Bellay (/ʒɔaʃɛ̃ dy bɛlɛ/[N 1],[N 2]), or Joachim Du Bellay[N 3], is a French poet, born around 1522 in Liré in Anjou and died on January 1, 1560 in Paris.
His meeting with Pierre de Ronsard was at the origin of the formation of the Pléiade (first called "Brigade"), a group of poets for whom du Bellay wrote a manifesto, La Défense et illustration de la langue française.
His most famous work, Les Regrets, is a collection of sonnets of elegiac then satirical and finally encomiastic inspiration, written on the occasion of his trip to Rome from 1553 to 1557.
Biography
Family and training
Around 1522[N 4], Joachim du Bellay was born in Liré, in Anjou, in the current department of Maine-et-Loire. Son of Jean du Bellay, lord of Gonnord, and Renée Chabot, originally from Liré[1], he belongs to the eldest branch of the du Bellay family. It was in the Château de la Turmelière that the poet spent the first twenty years of his short life before leaving to study. His parents died when he was less than 10 years old. In fragile health[2], he was raised by his older brother who neglected him. Around 1546, he left to study law at the University of Poitiers where he met Salmon Macrin[2]. In 1547, he met Jacques Peletier du Mans and Pierre de Ronsard. He joined the latter at the Coqueret college in Paris.
Fondation de la Pléiade and first works
Commemorative plaque located at Impasse Chartière in Paris, which recalls the situation of the Coqueret college, where Joachim du Bellay studied.
In this establishment, under the influence of Jean Dorat, a Greek teacher, the two young men decided to form a group of poets which they first called the “Brigade”. Their goal is to create masterpieces in French, as good as those of the Latins and Greeks of Antiquity. This goal fits perfectly with that of François I who wishes to give letters of nobility to French. Jacques Peletier from Le Mans approves their project and supports them in their business. In 1549, Du Bellay signed a collective manifesto, La Défense et illustration de la langue française. The Brigade is transformed into Pléiade with the arrival of four new members: Rémy Belleau, Étienne Jodelle, Pontus de Tyard and Jean-Antoine de Baïf. The following year, Joachim du Bellay published his first collection of sonnets, L'Olive[2], imitating the style of the Italian Petrarch.
Stay in Italy
In 1553, du Bellay left France to accompany Cardinal Jean du Bellay, his father's first cousin, to the papal court in Rome. He must provide for the expenses of the cardinal's household despite his limited financial means[2]. He looks forward to discovering Rome and ancient culture but is disappointed[2]. Charged with the stewardship of his parent, du Bellay is bored. Far from enjoying the freedom he desired, the intrigues of the Pope's court consumed him. He is in fact directly involved in diplomatic events between France and Italy. He then composed Les Regrets – a work in which he criticized Roman life and expressed his desire to return to his native Anjou – which was followed by Les Antiquités de Rome.
Return to France and illness
In August 1557, Joachim fell ill and suffered increasingly from deafness; Cardinal Jean du Bellay sent him back to France. Back in France, the poet stayed at the Notre-Dame cloister with his friend Claude de Bize (to whom he addresses in sonnets 64, 136 and 142 of Regrets)[2]. He must also struggle with material difficulties. In January 1558, he had his collection Les Regrets and Les Antiquités de Rome published by Fédéric Morel the Elder. The same year he wrote his poem Epitaph of a Cat, in memory of his Carthusian cat, Belaud, for whom he had the greatest affection and who kept him company when he wrote or was ill[3].
Death and burial
Joachim du Bellay.
Du Bellay died of an apoplexy on January 1, 1560 at no. 1 rue Massillon in Paris, at the age of 37[2]. He would have been buried in the Saint-Crépin chapel of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, alongside his uncle Louis du Bellay, who died twenty years earlier[ref. necessary]. But in 1758, the nephew's coffin was not found next to that of his uncle[4].
In April 2022 during excavations carried out by Inrap after the 2019 cathedral fire, a remains was discovered in a lead sarcophagus. Scientific analyzes reveal traces of bone tuberculosis and chronic meningitis on the skeleton. According to Éric Crubézy, doctor and professor of anthropology at the University of Toulouse-III-Paul-Sabatier[5],[6],[7], these clues alone "leave little doubt" about the identity of the deceased: it would be Joachim du Bellay because the poet presented the symptoms of these illnesses in the last years of his life[8].
However, studies are still underway in 2024 (in particular those which will be able to specify the age of the deceased[9]) and the formal identification of a remains can take several years. Certain elements actually contradict it, such as the isotopic analysis which indicates that the buried person lived “in the Paris region or in the Rhône-Alpes region until the age of ten”[10].
Commemorative plaque placed on the spot where the house in which the poet died was located
(corner of Massillon and Chanoinesse streets, Paris, 4th arrondissement of Paris)
On the left the current building and on the right the plaque which commemorates the death of the poet.
Main works
La Défense and illustration of the French language
First page of the first edition of La Défense and illustration of the French language (1549).
La Défense et illustration de la langue française (La Defense, et Illustration de la Langue Francoyse, in the original spelling) is a literary manifesto, written in 1549 by Joachim du Bellay, which sets out the ideas of the poets of La Pléiade[11].
The text, a plea in favor of the French language, appeared ten years after the ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, which imposed French as the language of law and administration in the kingdom of France. Du Bellay shows his gratitude to François I, “our late good King and father”, for his role in the flourishing of arts and culture. The king in fact created the College of Royal Readers. He also perpetuated a royal library supplied by legal deposit and purchases. Du Bellay wishes to transform the French language, “barbaric and vulgar”, into an elegant and dignified language. He considers that the French language is still in its infancy and that it must be strengthened by practicing it and enriching it by the invention of new words in order to make it as powerful as Greek and Latin are. With his comrades from La Pléiade (then called "Brigade") he therefore plans to enrich it in order to make it a language of reference and teaching[12].
Olive
L'Olive is a collection of poems published by Joachim du Bellay between 1549 and 1550[13]. In this work, he celebrates an imaginary mistress[N 5] drawing inspiration from Petrarch.
The book first includes fifty sonnets written in 1549, followed by an Invective and thirteen Odes. But there were one hundred and fifteen[14] when it was published in 1550 by Corrozet and L'Angelier.
Of love, grace, and high valor
The divine fires were surrounded, and the heavens
They were dressed in a precious cloak
With red stripes, of various colors.
Everything was full of beauty, of happiness
The calm sea, and the gracious wind,
When this one was born in these low places
Who has plundered all the world's honor.
Ell'prist her complexion of beautiful whitening lilies,
His head is gold, his two lips are pink,
And his eyes shine brightly in the sun.
Heaven using liberality
Mist in the spirit its enclosed seeds,
His name from the Gods took the imprint