Heureuse, si, dans mon ennui,
De Phaon emportant l’image,
Je peux aux morts parler de lui.
The author evidently was fond of Sappho and would compare with her Louise Labbé, la belle Cordière (1526-1566), a woman of tender heart and with a taste for passion, who wrote verses on love in Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish. At this time Sappho was held in high esteem and it was a compliment to call a writer “a modern Sappho.” So for example in the preface to L’Abbé Le Roy, Le Paradis perdu, poëme traduit de l’Anglais de Milton en vers françois (Rouen, 1775) we read: “Aussi a-t-on fait le plus favorable et le plus juste accueil à la charmante esquisse du Paradis Terrestre, que daigna nous donner une femme célébre, dont le nom seul fait l’éloge, Mme du Boccage, cette Sappho moderne, qui fait d’honneur a la France.”
In 1777[173] Sauvigny published his Poésies de Sapho, composed of eighteen odes, four scolies morales, four epigrams, the epitaphs of Timas and Pelagon, some fragments, a letter of Sappho to Phaon, and a hymn to Venus. There are many pretty uses of Sappho, though in no sense can the poems be said to be those of Sappho. The third ode is an echo of the fragment on the Evening Star:
Belle étoile du soir, digne ornement des cieux,
...
Tu fais rentrer le paisible troupeau,
Qui du loup ravisseur craint la dent meurtrière;
La fille qui, joyeuse, a quitté le hameau,