Among the distinguished persons who exercised their talents upon this worthy occasion, Brisson was one; that Brisson of whom Henri III. said that no king but himself could boast of so learned a subject; who lent the assistance of his great name and talents towards setting up the most lawless of all tyrannies, that of an insurrectionary government; and who suffered death under that tyranny, as the reward which such men always (and righteously as concerns themselves however iniquitous the sentence) receive from the miscreants with whom they have leagued. He began his poem much as a scholar might be expected to do, by alluding to the well known pieces which had been composed upon somewhat similar subjects.
Fœlices meritò Mures Ranæque loquaces
Queis cæci vatis contigit ore cani:
Vivet et extento lepidus Passerculus ævo
Cantatus numeris, culte Catulle tuis.
Te quoque, parve Culex, nulla unquam muta silebit
Posteritas, docti suave Maronis opus.
Ausoniusque Pulex, dubius quem condidit auctor,
Canescet sæclis innumerabilibus.
Pictonici at Pulicis longè præclarior est sors,
Quem fovet in tepido casta puella sinu.
Fortunate Pulex nimium, tua si bona noris,
Alternis vatum nobilitate metris.
In the remainder of his poem Brisson takes the kind of range which, if the subject did not actually invite, it seemed at least to permit. He produced also four Latin epigrams against such persons as might censure him for such a production, and these, as well as the poem itself, were translated into French by Pasquier. This was necessary for the public, not for Madame des Roches, and her daughter, who were versed both in Latin and Greek. Among the numerous persons whom the Assizes had brought to Poictiers, whether as judges, advocates, suitors, or idlers, every one who could write a Latin or a French verse tried his skill upon this small subject. Tout le Parnasse latin et françois du royaume, says Titon du Tillet, voulut prendre part a cette rare decouverte, sur tout apres avoir reconnu que la fille, quoique tressage, entendoit raillerie. There is one Italian sonnet in the collection, one Spanish, and, according to the Abbe Goujet, there are some Greek verses, but in the republication of Pasquier's works these do not appear: they were probably omitted, as not being likely ever again to meet with readers. Some of the writers were men whose names would have been altogether forgotten if they had not been thus preserved; and others might as well have been forgotten for the value of any thing which they have left; but some were deservedly distinguished in their generation, and had won for themselves an honourable remembrance, which will not pass away. The President Harlay himself encouraged Pasquier by an eulogistic epigram, and no less a person than Joseph Scaliger figures in Catullian verse among the flea-poets.
The name of the Demoiselle des Roches afforded occasion for such allusions to the rocks of Parnassus as the dealers in common place poetry could not fail to profit by.
Nil rerum variat perennis ordo.
Et constant sibi Phæbus et sorores;
Nec Pulex modo tot simul Poetas,
Sed Parnassia fecit ipsa rupes
Rupes, aut Heliconia Hippocrene.
These verses were written by Pithou, to whose satirical talents his own age was greatly indebted for the part which he took in the Satyre Menippée; and to whose collections and serious researches his country will always remain so. Many others harped upon the same string; and Claude Binet, in one of his poems, compared the Lady to Rochelle, because all suitors had found her impregnable.
Nicolas Rapin, by way of varying the subject, wrote a poem in vituperation of the aforesaid flea, and called it La Contrepuce. He would rather, he said, write in praise of a less mentionable insect; which however he did mention; and moreover broadly explained, and in the coarsest terms, the Lady's allusion to Orion.
The flea having thus become the business, as well as the talk of Poictiers, some epigrams were sported upon the occasion.
Causidicos habuit vigilantes Curia; namque
Illis perpetuus tinnit in aure Pulex.
The name of Nicolas Rapinus is affixed to this; that of Raphael Gallodonius to the following,