SARASIN, or SARRAZIN, JEAN FRANCOIS (1611?-1654)

This article appears in Volume V24, Page 205 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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SARASIN, or SARRAZIN, JEAN FRANCOIS (1611?-1654) , French author, son of Roger Sarasin, treasurer-general at Caen, was born at Hermanville near Caen. He was educated at Caen, and settled in Paris. As a writer of vers de societe he rivalled Voiture, but he was never admitted to the inner circle of the hotel de

Rambouillet

. He was on terms of intimate friendship with

Scarron

SCARRON, PAUL (1610-166o)

, with whom he exchanged verses, with

Menage

MENAGE, GILLES (1613-1692)

, and with Pellisson. In 1639 he supported Georges de Scudery in his attack on Corneille with a Discours de la tragedie. He accompanied Leon Bouthillier, comte de Chavigny, secretary of state for foreign affairs, on various diplomatic errands. He was to have been sent on an embassy to Rome, but spent the money allotted for the purpose in Paris. This weakened his position with Chavigny, from whom he parted in the winter of 1643-1644. To restore his fallen fortunes he married a

rich

widow, but the alliance was of short duration. He joined in the pamphlet war against Pierre de Montmaur, against whom he directed his

satire

SATIRE (Lat. satira, satura; see below)

, Bellum parasiticum (1644). He was accused of writing satires on Mazarin, and for a short time gave up the practice of verse. In 1648, supported by the cardinal
de Retz and Madame de Longueville, he entered the household of Armand de Bourbon, prince de Conti, whose

marriage

MARRIAGE

with Mazarin's niece he helped to negotiate. He died of fever at Pezenas, in

Languedoc

LANGUEDOC

on the 5th of December 1654. His biographers have variously stated on inadequate evidence that his death was caused by the prince de Conti in a moment of passion, or that he was poisoned by a jealous husband. The most considerable of his poems were the epic fragments of Rollon conquerant, la guerre espagnole, with Dulot vaincu and the Pompe funebre in honour of Voiture. As a poet he was overrated, but he was the author of two excellent pieces of

prose

PROSE

narration, the Histoire du siege de Dunkerque (1649) and the unfinished Conspiration de Walstein (1651). The Walstein has been compared for elegance and simplicity of style to Voltaire's Charles XII.
His CEuvres appeared in 1656, Nouvelles CEuvres (2 vols.) in 1674. His Poesies were edited in 1877 by

Octave

OCTAVE (from Lat. octavus, eighth, octo, eight)

Uzanne with an introductory note. Much of his correspondence is preserved in the library of the Arsenal, Paris. See Albert Mennung's Jean Francois Sarasins Leben and Werke (2 vols.,

Halle

, 1902-1904).

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