Marc Lescarbot
Marc Lescarbot (* 1570 in Vervins in thiérache, † 1642 in Presles- et- Boves ) was a North French lawyer, diplomat and writer. His most important work is a history of New France, the Histoire de la Nouvelle -France, which first appeared in 1609. It was launched three times, was twice translated into English and once in German. Henry P. Biggar called him the " French Hakluyt " ( after the English geographer Richard Hakluyt ). Especially important are his contemporary historical and ethnological observations and records, in particular the songs of the Indians of the North American east coast.
Life and work
Origin, lawyer career, Translations
Marc Lescarbot was born in the border area between France and the Spanish Netherlands. His family probably came from Guise in Picardy, but he says himself, his ancestors came from Saint- Pol-de -Léon in Brittany.
He first attended the Collège in Vervins, then in Laon, where he of Bishop Valentine Duglas (also Douglas ) was patronized, who held this office from 1581 to 1598. So Lescarbot could go with a scholarship to Paris. There he received a classical education, studied mainly Latin, Greek and Hebrew. There was also a wide knowledge of ancient and modern literature. Then he studied canon and civil law, a degree, which he completed in 1598 as a bachelor.
In the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Vervins between France and Spain, he took a supporting role. But he made a Latin speech, when negotiations stalled. After the peace agreement, he published poems peace and an inscription. In 1599 he was brought into the Parliament of Paris as a lawyer. In addition, he translated three Latin works into French. It emerged: Discours de l' origine of Russiens, the Discours de la véritable reunion of Cardinal Cesare Baronio églises and the Guide of the curés of Charles Borromeo. The latter, although he dedicated the new Bishop of Laon, Godefroy de Billy, but he published it only in 1613, a year after his death.
In Paris Lescarbot maintained contacts with Frédéric and Claude Morel, its first printer, as well as a poet Guillaume Colletet. He dealt with medicine and translated a pamphlet by Dr. François Citois entitled Histoire de l' merveilleuse abstinence triennale d'une fille de Confolens (1602 ). But not only in Paris but also in his native country, he had contacts.
Travel to French North America (1606-1607), his major work (1609 )
A process failure due to the bribery of a judge made him temporarily refrain from his profession. When he therefore by one of his clients, Jean de Bien Court de Poutrincourt, which was connected with the company of Sieur de Monts You Gua, the proposal was to travel to Acadia on the east coast of North America, he accepted the offer gladly. He composed a Adieu à la France and stabbed from La Rochelle on May 13, 1606 Lake. He reached Port Royal in July and spent the rest of the year there to break up in the spring of 1607 on a trip to the Saint John River and Île Sainte- Croix. But in the summer Monts permission was to establish a colony, revoke, so that the entire colony had to return to France.
Move Lescarbot wrote an epic poem called La défaite of sauvages armouchiquois. Finally, he attempted to write a comprehensive history of the French colonizing in America, the Histoire de la Nouvelle -France. The first edition was published in Paris in 1609 by Jean Millot. Of great value as sources are less general reports of the French in the New World, but rather his own comments to Monts companies in Acadia, where he had met the survivors of the short-lived settlement experiment of Sainte -Croix, as well as participants and organizers of previous trips, such as François Gravé Du Pont de Monts and Samuel de Champlain himself; also he had met intensively the region during his one-year stay.
1611-12 and 1617-18, there were two further editions of his Histoire, then La conversion of sauvages was launched (1610 ) and the relation derrière ( 1612 ). In it he described the re-establishment of the colony by Jean de Poutrincourt whose Dispute and his son Charles de Bien Court with their opponents, the Jesuits Pierre Biard (1567-1622), Énemond Massé (1575-1646) and you Thet (1575-1613), finally the demise of the colony by the Englishman Samuel Argall. In these operations, which he himself had not so experienced, he followed Poutrincourt, Bien -court, Imbert and other eyewitnesses.
Particularly important is Lescarbots last part of the Histoire, he completely devoted to indigenous people, for he is especially interested. He often visited the chiefs and warriors of Souriquois ( Mi'kmaq ), described their customs, and their views recorded, wrote down their songs. In many ways, he believes it is more civilized and more virtuous than the Europeans, but he regretted it for their ignorance in matters of wine and love.
In the colony he saw a field of activity for enterprising spirits, a trading opportunity, a social return and a way for the mother country to expand its influence. He favored monopolies, to compensate for the Kolonisierungskosten, because in his eyes led free trade to anarchy and brought forth nothing permanent.
In all conditions, the Histoire as an appendix containing a concise collection of poems under the title Les muses de la Nouvelle -France, which were also published independently. Only his Théâtre de Neptune, which forms a part of the Muses, and in which he allegorically the return Poutrincourts Port-Royal describes was talking historically significant as tritons and Indians sing in French, Gascon and in Souriquois the glory of the colony 's founder and the king. This performance was probably the first of its kind in North America.
Diplomatic services in Switzerland
As secretary of Pierre de Castille, the son in law and messengers of the Superintendent for Finance Pierre Jeannin, he went to Switzerland. He visited Switzerland and parts of Germany and designed a Tableau de la Suisse, half descriptive, semi- historical work in poetry and prose ( 1618). By the king he received 300 livres.
Marriage ( 1619), processes, last emigration plans
On September 3, 1619, he married in the church of Saint- Germain l'Auxerrois in Paris Françoise de Valpergue, a young aristocratic widow who had been ruined by scammers. He managed to regain her house in Presles in court, to an estate, but embittered permanent employment with these methods their lives.
In 1629 he was trying to get attention by descriptions of the siege of La Rochelle, Cardinal Richelieu. His relations with Charles de Bien Court and Charles de Saint- Étienne de La Tour and his relations to the New World he used so well it went. The passenger list of a supply ship for La Tour from 1633 calls a Marc Lescarbot, but acted it is believed to be his nephew of the same name. In any case, he corresponded with Isaac de Razilly; a letter from the Governor dated 16 August 1634 received. In it he shares with details of the founding of La Hève and calls on Lescarbot to settle with his wife in Acadia. But this spent the last years of his life in Presles- et- Boves, where he died without children in 1642.
Of his numerous writings, which were often published anonymously, we know a Traité de la polygamy, in addition, he was a musician, calligrapher, a technical draftsman. In addition, he was the first who recorded Indian songs.