MENARD Louis Les Å’uvres. Dédiées à Monseigneur le marquis d’Ancre.

Cioranescu, 46906; Soleinne, 955 (Pastorale only).

Extremely rare edition. 

Although Lachèvre mentions this author, he did not own this edition. Two homonymous authors from the same period are known – François Maynard and François Ménard. Grente and Lachèvre note for François Ménard: “Avocat au parlement de Toulouse, auteur d’une pièce intitulée ‘Pastorale'”. Grente adds that “Lachèvre gives [Ménard] as the author of the Philandre poem which was thought to be by the poet Maynard”.

The collection consists of 6 main chapters, including sonnets, stanzas, odes, elegies, a pastorale and spiritual verses. The Pastorale, the most important individual piece in this collection, occupies pages 169 to 237: “This piece [the Pastorale], taken from the extremely rare volume Oeuvres de François Ménard, is dedicated to the maréchal d’Ancre” (see Soleinne).

A very fine copy, well preserved in its first binding.