Marc Perachon (1630-1709). Le faux satyrique puni, et le merite couronné, dans une lettre d’artiste, a l’un de ses amis, contenant L’Apologie de Mr. Perachon l’Avocat, contre les fausses Satyres du pretendu Poëte sans fard, & La Juste Critique des ses Satyres, & des faux Satyriques avec La Defense de Plusieurs personnes qu’il a Satyrisées: & Le Brevet du Roy (Lyon: Chez Claude Rey, [1696]). First ed., bound in 1800s chocolate calf by Koehler. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

C’est ainsi que les Dieux, pour Signaler leurs dons, Punissent les mechants, et couronnent les bon

Quoting the dealer’s note, “Uncommon first edition of this somewhat pious attack on the satirical poetry of François Gacon (1667-1725) [Poëte sans fard] and, by extension, on the man himself, by the Lyonnais lawyer Marc Perrachon (or Perachon, 1630-1709). Perrachon, a protestant convert and “auteur de poésies passablement misérables,” was one of the many targets of the Oratorian Gacon’s pen, but not the best known; Gacon also satirized the likes of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau and Boileau, whom he initially took as a model.

His attack on Perrachon . . .  in fact landed him in gaol for a few months, but this was not enough to discourage Perrachon from publishing the present work in response, and in his own defence; the caption to the engraved title (”C’est ainsi que les Dieux, pour signaler leurs dons, Punissent les mechants, et couronnent les bons”) shows on which side Perrachon considered himself to lie.

Perrachon, writing in the third person, describes the faults in Gacon’s writing, contrasting it with the true satires of the Greeks, and attacking his “mauvaises rimes, ses hemistiches d’un mesme son, ses mauvaises cesures, ses enjambemens, ses mauvaises constructions, ses transpositions, ses fausses cadences, ses mauvaises mots, ou barbarismes, ses fausses significations des termes,” and so on, giving examples of each.”

Note the use of engraved initials.

See also below: François Gacon (1667-1725), Discours satiriques en vers (Cologne, 1696). Fictitious imprint; printed in Lyons by Boudet. Rare Books (Ex) PQ1985.G2 A7 1696

and François Gacon (1667-1725), Le journal satirique intercepté, ou, Apologie de Monsieur Arrouet de Voltaire, et de Monsieur Houdart de La Motte ([S.l. : s.n.], 1719). Rare Books (Ex) 3298.368