a French poet and novelist. He was born at Paris, and at fourteen he produced a volume of poetry. At twenty he wrote a Discours sur l'histoire and at twenty-two a pastoral, La Charité, which is really a novel. The characters, though disguised as shepherds and shepherdesses, represent real people for whose identification the author himself provides a key. This was followed by a more ambitious work, Polexandre (5 vols. 1632–1637). Cythérée (4 vols.) appeared in 1630–1642, and in 1651 the Jeune Alcidiane, intended to undo any harm the earlier novels may have done.
