Antoine de Nervèze

Antoine de Nervèze (c. 1570 – after 1622) was a French nobleman and writer of novels, translations, letters and moral works at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries.

He was most likely born in Gascony; he became the secretary of Henri II de Bourbon, prince de Condé (until c.1606), and then passed into the service of king Henry IV of France as "secrétaire de la chambre du roi". Nervèze had close ties to fellow writers Philippe Desportes, Jean Bertaut and Scévole de Saint-Marthe; he was called the king of orators ("le roy des orateurs") by François Maynard and, in a satirical poem, was called (with Nicolas des Escuteaux) the "mignon des dames". Nervèze was one of the most prolific writers of his generation and became for many an arbiter of linguistic style and taste.

Nervèze is representative of a younger generation following on the literary developments of French novelists Nicolas de Montreux and Béroalde de Verville, and he is often associated – along with authors Nicolas des Escuteaux and François du Souhait – with the sentimental novels (or "amours") published during the reign of Henry IV. Nervèze wrote ten novels, of which one is a reworking of a story taken from Ariosto's Orlando furioso and one is a reworking of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. Nervèze dedicated his novels to high-ranking members of the nobility around the king: Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully; Queen Marie de Médicis; the marquis de Rosny; the vicomte d'Aubeterre.

...
Wikipedia