Hijivry 
and 
of Caricature 
Grotefgue 
Paris on the 10th of February, I503. The grand object of this meeting 
was to exclude Henri IV. from the throne; and the Spanilh party pro- 
pofcd to abolifh the Salic law, and proclaim the infanta of Spain queen 
of France. The French ligueurs propofed plans hardly lefs unpatriotic, 
and the duke of Mayenne, indignant at the fmall account made of his 
own perfonal pretenfions, prorogued the meeting, and perfuaded the two 
parties to hold what proved a fruitlefs conference at Surefne. It was the 
meeting of the Eiiates in Paris which gave rife to that celebrated Satyre 
Me'nipp6e, of which it was faid, that it ferved the caufe of Henri IV. as 
much as the battle of Ivry itfelf. 
This fatire originated among a party of friends, of men diltinguifhed 
by learning, wit, and talent, though molt of their names are obfcure, who 
ufed to meet in an evening in the hofpitable houfe of one of them, 
Jacques Gillot, on the Quai des Orfevres in Paris, and there talk 
fatirically over the violence and infolence of the ligueurs. They all 
belonged either to the bar or to the univerfity, or to the church. Gillot 
himfelf, a Burgundian, born about the year I560, had been a dean in the 
church of Langres, and afterwards canon of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, 
and was at this time confeiller-clerc to the parliament of Paris. In 1589 
he was committed to the Baftille, but was foon afterwards liberated. 
Nicolas Rapin, one of his friends, was born in 1535, and was faid to have 
been the fon of a prietl, and therefore illegitimate. He was a lawyer, a 
poet, and a foldier, for he fought bravely in the ranks of Henri IV. at Ivry, 
and his devotion to that prince was f0 well known, that he was banifhed 
from Paris by the ligueurs, but had returned thither before the meeting 
of the Ettates in 1593. Jean Pafferat, born in 1534., was alfo a poet, and 
a profeffor in the College Royal. Florent Chrttien, born at Orleans in 
1540, had been the tutor of Henri IV., and was well known as a man of 
found learning. The moft learned of the party was Pierre Pithou, born 
at Troyes in 1539, who had abjured Calvinifm to return to Romanifm, 
and who held a diliinguilhed pofition at the French bar. The laft of 
this little party of men of letters was a canon of Rouen named Pierre le 
Roy, a patriotic ecclefiaftic, who held the office of almoner t.o the cardinal 
de Bourbon. lt was Le Roy who drew up the firlt tketch of the 
" Satyre