Vincent Voiture

Writer, born in Amiens, N France. He studied law at Orléans, then frequented the salons of the marquise de Rambouillet in 1625. Having attached himself to Gaston de France, duc d'Orléans, he followed him into exile to Spain in 1632, returning in 1634 when he was elected to the Académie Française. He became reconciled to Richelieu with the flattering Lettre sur la Prise de Corbie (1636). His verses, La Belle Matineuse and Uranie, shine with the precious subtlety found in his Lettres (1649). His lasting contribution was that he taught French writers how to combine sentiment and wit, passion, and irony in the manner known as la belle galanterie, and succeeded in freeing French poetry from the influence of Petrarch. His entire works were published after his death by his nephew Etienne Martine de Pinchesne, himself a prolific poet.

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Vincent Voiture (February 24, 1597 - May 26, 1648), French poet, was the son of a rich merchant of Amiens.

He published nothing in book form, but his verses and his prose letters were the delight of the coteries, and were copied, handed about and admired more perhaps than the work of any contemporary.

When at the desire of the duc de Montausier nineteen poets contributed to the Guirlande de Julie, which was to decide the much-fêted Julie in favour of his suit, Voiture refused to take part.

Another famous piece of his of the same kind, La Belle Matineuse, is less exquisite, but still admirable, and Voiture stands in the highest rank of writers of vers de société.