The Satire Ménippée or La Satyre Ménippée de la vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne (written in 1593, published in Tours

Tours

Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...

 in 1594) was a political and satirical work (in French) in prose and verse which criticized the excesses of the Catholic League

Catholic League (French)

The Catholic League of France, sometimes referred to by contemporary Roman Catholics as the Holy League, a major player in the French Wars of Religion, was formed by Duke Henry of Guise in 1576...

 and Spanish pretensions during the Wars of Religion

French Wars of Religion

The French Wars of Religion is the name given to a period of civil infighting and military operations, primarily fought between French Catholics and Protestants . The conflict involved the factional disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, such as the House of Bourbon and House of Guise...

 in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and defended the idea of an independent but Catholic France. The title derives from the classical Roman literary genre "menippean satire

Menippean satire

The genre of Menippean satire is a form of satire, usually in prose, which has a length and structure similar to a novel and is characterized by attacking mental attitudes instead of specific individuals...

" which included a mixture of prose and verse.

The work was written during the Etats Généraux

French States-General

In France under the Old Regime, the States-General or Estates-General , was a legislative assembly of the different classes of French subjects. It had a separate assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king...

 which were convened by Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne

Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne

Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne , or Charles de Guise, was a French nobleman of the house of Guise and a military leader of the Catholic League, which he headed during the French Wars of Religion, following the assassination of his brothers at Blois in 1588...

 (leader of the Catholic League) in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 (on February 10, 1593) in the hopes of electing himself to the French throne (replacing the pretender to the throne, the future Henry IV of France

Henry IV of France

Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....

). The work was conceived by Pierre le Roy

Pierre Le Roy

Pierre Le Roy was a French clockmaker. He was the inventor of the detent escapement, the temperature-compensated balance and the isochronous balance spring. His developments are considered as the foundation of the modern chronometer...

 (canon

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....

 of Rouen

Rouen

Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...

 and chaplain

Chaplain

Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...

 to the cardinal of Bourbon) during discussions with friends ("français en politique et gallicans en religion" or "Frenchmen in politics and Gallicans in religion") in Paris at the home of Jacques Gillot (chaplain of the Sainte-Chapelle

Sainte-Chapelle

La Sainte-Chapelle is the only surviving building of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité in the heart of Paris, France. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion Relics, including the Crown of Thorns - one of the most important relics in medieval...

). The work was written by Nicolas Rapin

Nicolas Rapin

Nicolas Rapin was a French Renaissance magistrate, royal officer, translator, poet and satirist, known for being one of the authors of the Satire Ménippée and an outspoken critic of the excesses of the Holy League during the Wars of Religion.- Life :Born at Fontenay-le-Comte, Vendée into a family...

, Jean Passerat

Jean Passerat

Jean Passerat , French political satirist and poet, was born at Troyes, on 18 October 1534. He studied at the University of Paris, and is said to have had some curious adventures at one time working in a mine...

 and Florent Chrestien

Florent Chrestien

Florent Chrestien was a French satirist and Latin poet.Chrestien was the son of Guillaume Chrestien, an eminent French physician and writer on physiology, was born at Orléans. A pupil of Henri Estienne, the Hellenist, at an early age he was appointed tutor to Henry of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV,...

, and edited/revised by Pierre Pithou

Pierre Pithou

Pierre Pithou was a French lawyer and scholar. He is also known as Petrus Pithoeus.He was born at Troyes. From childhood he loved literature, and his father Pierre encouraged this interest. Young Pithou was called to the Paris bar in 1560...

.

The philosophy of the group around Pithou and Rapin and the Satire Ménippée is that of the "Politiques", moderate Catholics who privileged peace, conceived of a distinction between the State and Religion, and sought political accommodation with the Huguenot

Huguenot

The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...

s. By the end of the civil wars, the "politiques" were the favored target of attack of the Catholic League.

The work includes several remarkable passages, including a description of a procession and all the forces of the League, the public orations of the Duke of Mayenne, of the legate of the Pope, and of the cardinals Pelvé (attributed to Chrestien) and Aubray (attributed to Pithou). The writers paint the miseries of the nation and the blindness of their detractors, and they encourage an alliance of the people and the monarchy to save the nation.

Satyre Menippee de la Vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne et de la tenue des Estats de Paris, MARTIN Martial (édition critique de), Paris, H. Champion, 2007, "Textes de la Renaissance", n° 117, 944 p. ISBN : 9782745314840