Différentes Oeuvres de Monsieur Gacon qui ne sont pas compris dans le Recueil de ses pièces imprimées.Done in Paris on January 27, 1727.
Paris, 27 janvier 1727 [copié le 10 novembre 1743].
Large in-8 (220 x 170 mm), 282 pp, marbled calf, ornate spine, red edges; minor wetness to first endpapers and portrait, some rubbing to binding, old restoration at foot of spine (Period binding).
Curious manuscript containing 140 "unpublished" pieces by Lyon poet François Gacon (1667-1725), known as "le Poète sans fard".
The frontispiece features a portrait of the author after Desrochers (executed circa 1726).
A table at the end of the volume sorts the pieces into ballads, calottes (de l'abbé d'auvergne, d'aymon, de M de fréjus,...), tales (le poète aveugle, la fusée, la fente bouchée, l'occasion perdue,. ), songs, epistles (au roy, a Mr Le marquis d'etampes, au frere de l'autheur, a Madame Meaupeau,...), epigrams (contre La motte, contre crébillon, sur la prison de l'autheur,... ), epithalame, fables (La chienne La chat et Le singe, l'homme et le Lyon, Le gascon,...), fragments, imitations, odes (à Mr Le marquis de Rivarolle, a SAR les princes de Lorraine,... ), rondeaux (contre La motte, sur l'estime des anciens, sur l'espérance de la vie du roy,...), satires (sur la sottise des hommes, contre La Motte), sonnet, translation and parodies (parodic retellings of La vertu Le talent et la réputation and Le Chameau by La Motte).
"Le dit Livre a été copié d'un manuscrit appartenant a Mr Radix par Morel Le cadet et fini le 10 novembre 1743." announces a final handwritten note.
This manuscript is therefore a copy of an earlier manuscript copied in Paris in 1727, two years after Gacon's death.
The latter had assembled "an important collection of 'discarded and fugitive' items, both manuscript and printed, mainly concerning law, jurisprudence and history. He organized them into four series: Matières ecclésiastiques (161 volumes), Matières historiques (90 volumes), Belles-lettres (10 volumes), Droit public et civil (385 volumes).
These 646 volumes, which according to Thoisy would have included almost 60,000 items, were transferred to the Bibliothèque royale in 1725 in exchange for a pension. The collection was partially dismembered and the Belles-lettres series entirely dispersed. Some pieces were extracted and placed in other letters, but 510 volumes remained intact. Today, they are kept in the Réserve des livres rares as Rés. Z. Thoisy. "
It is plausible that Morel continued to collect and copy manuscripts after the sale of his collection to the Royal Library, characterizing the incurable dimension of his bibliophilia.
Although it is difficult to state with certainty that each of these 140 items is unpublished, it would appear that they were not published. Indeed, we have found no trace of publication for any of them. The announced provenance of the volume, from the library of a lover of manuscript collections of the genre, seems to affirm that these are "discarded and fugitive" pieces, unpublished.
Some excerpts:
Sur ce qu'on avoit retranche Le quint d'un prest qu'avoit fait l'autheur
"Retrancher le quint ou le quart
du bien du poete sans fard
tant sur le fond que sur la rente
se seroit chose fort criante"
Sur ce que tout est fardé parmy les hommes :
"[...]
aux feux brillants quelle rejette
La muse moderne est sujette
elle en compose ses atours
et nos rimeurs vont au rebours
du chemin que tient le poète
sans fard"
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