In a page of charming prose (Théophile's prose is better than his verse) the poet has told us his taste and his philosophy: "One must have a passion not only for men of virtue, for beautiful women, but also for all sorts of beautiful things. I love a fine day, clear fountains, the sight of mountains, the spread of a wide plain, beautiful forests; the ocean, its calms, its swells, its rocky shores; I love also all which more particularly touches the senses: music, flowers, fine clothes, hunting, blooded horses, sweet smells, good cheer; but my desires cling to all these only as a pleasure and not as a labor; when one or another of these diversions entirely occupies a soul, it passes from affection to madness and brutality; the strongest passion which I can have never holds me so strongly that I cannot quit it in a day. If I love, it is as much as I am loved, and, as neither nature nor fortune has given me much power to please, this passion with me has never continued very long either its pleasure or its pain. I cling more closely to study and to good cheer than to all the rest. Books have sometimes tired me, but they have never worn me out, and wine has often rejoiced me, but never intoxicated...." [Once more the memory of La Fontaine crosses our minds and we recall The Hymn of Passion at the end of Psyche.] Théophile is thus a perfect Epicurean by birth and by principle, an Epicurean in the diversity and the brevity of his enjoyments, an Epicurean in the prudent and wise administration of his pleasures.
Did he carry further than he admits the practice of doctrine, and freedom of manners? Did he use the free and obscene speech which has been ascribed to him? Had he still other passions of which he says nothing in this public confession?
It is only necessary to read Tallemant to be instructed as to the way of living common to libertines at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and to judge that, even if Théophile practiced all the vices which his enemies have ascribed to him, fate was nevertheless very cruel in inflicting on him a punishment which so many others might then have merited.
The poet's misfortune was to unloose against himself the ire of some Jesuits who—for reasons which have remained obscure—sought for his destruction with frenzied zeal. Imprudence in writing and speaking had already compromised him: when exiled for the first time, he had had to seek a refuge in Gascony, in Languedoc, even to take refuge in England for several months. But he had been recalled and, following an august example, and thinking that Paris was well worth a mass, he had abjured Calvinism: he could thenceforth believe himself in safety. Then burst the storm. A collection of licentious and sacrilegious poetry appeared at Paris in 1622 under the title of Parnasse Satyrique; certain pieces were attributed to Théophile, who endeavored, but in vain, to disavow the publication. A year after, he was accused before Parliament and condemned, in contumacy, to be burned alive. On the eve of his sentence, Father Garasse had published a formidable quarto entitled La Doctrine curieuse des beaux esprits de ce temps, in which were heaped up calumnies, insults and invectives against Théophile and his disciples, whom the Jesuit called "the school of young calves." While he was being executed in effigy upon the Place de Grève, and while the Jesuits aroused the court and the magistrates against him, Théophile prudently escaped to Chantilly and from there set out for the frontier of the kingdom. But he was arrested near Saint-Quentin, brought back to Paris, thrown into the prison of Ravaillac. He remained there two years waiting for a new trial. The Jesuits were in charge of the proceedings and the investigation. The poet was again found guilty. But this time the sentence was less rigorous: it was banishment. He died two years later, at the age of thirty-six.
During these trials, the Duke and Duchess de Montmorency had not ceased to interest themselves in their protégé. More than once the Duke had intervened in his favor, but without success. After the first sentence he gave him asylum at Chantilly in a "cool hall" built in the woods at the end of the pool. It was the memories of this retreat that the poet later evoked in his prison, to make them the subject of the ten little odes which he entitled, La Maison de Sylvie.
I doubt that the odes of the Maison de Sylvie are superior to the other works of Théophile. However, if any one asked me: "What must I read by Théophile?" I would reply to him: "La Maison de Sylvie, on condition that you read it at Chantilly beside the pool." The great poets have sometimes added a special grace or nobility to the landscapes which they have described. But it is also true that ancient verses, whose attractiveness seems lost today, réassumé an indescribable savor in the very places which have formerly inspired them. The poet sometimes makes us better feel the beauty of nature; but by a mysterious sorcery, nature can return a breath of life to dead poems.
To leave, before dying,
The living features of a painting
Which can never perish
Except by the loss of nature,