SARASIN, or

See also:

• SARRAZIN, JACQUES (1588—166o)

SARRAZIN,

See also:

• JEAN

JEAN

See also:

• FRANCOIS (1558-1614)

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, with whom he exchanged verses, with Menage, 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, 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 with Mazarin's niece he helped to negotiate .

He died of

fever at Pezenas, in 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 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 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) .