Du Perron, Jacques Davy, cardinal (1556-1618). French poet. The son of a Huguenot minister, but converted to Rome, he was lecteur to Henri III, becoming bishop of Évreux, archbishop of Sens, and cardinal. A man of encyclopaedic learning, formidable intellect, and persuasive speech, he was instrumental in the conversion of Henri IV. His poetry shows some parallels with that of his friend Bertaut, and works by the one have sometimes been attributed to the other, but in the best of his relatively small output he displays a brilliance and energy not to be found in Bertaut. Like the latter, in his poems for throne and altar he clearly anticipates Malherbe (whom he drew to the king's notice in 1600). The posthumous Perroniana (1669) contain some succinct remarks on poetic style with which Malherbe would have agreed—perfection is reached when not one word in the poem can be bettered for propriety, significance, or euphony; metaphor should be unobtrusive, and it should operate on the level of general terms, so as to ensure sustained nobility of tone.
[Alan Steele]
