Florent Chrestien (January 26, 1541 – October 3, 1596) was a French satirist and Latin poet. Chrestien was the son of Guillaume Chrestien, an eminent French physician and writer on physiology, was born at Orléans. A pupil of Henri Estienne, the Hellenist, at an early age he was appointed tutor to Henry of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV, who made him his librarian. Brought up as a Calvinist, he became a convert to Catholicism. He died on 3 October 1596 in Vendôme. Chrestien was the author of many good translations from the Greek into Latin verse, amongst others, of versions of the ''Hero and Leander'' attributed to

Musaeus Musaeus, Musaios ( grc, Μουσαῖος) or Musäus may refer to: Greek poets * Musaeus of Athens, legendary polymath, considered by the Greeks to be one of their earliest poets (mentioned by Socrates in Plato's Apology) * Musaeus of Ephesus, liv ...

, and of many epigrams from the

Greek Anthology The ''Greek Anthology'' ( la, Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the ''Greek Anthology'' comes from two manuscripts, the ''Pa ...

. In his translations into French, among which are remarked those of George Buchanan's ''Jephtha'' (1567), and of

Oppian Oppian ( grc, Ὀππιανός, ; la, Oppianus), also known as Oppian of Anazarbus, of Corycus, or of Cilicia, was a 2nd-century Greco-Roman poet during the reign of the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, who composed the ''Halieutica'', a fi ...

's ''De Venatione'' (1575), he is not so happy, being rather to be praised for fidelity to his original than for excellence of style. His principal claim to a place among memorable satirists is as one of the authors of the ''

Satire Ménippée The ''Satire Ménippée'' () or ''La Satyre Ménippée de la vertu du Catholicon d'Espagne'' was a political and satirical work in prose and verse that mercilessly parodied the Catholic League and Spanish pretensions during the Wars of Religion in ...

'', the famous pasquinade in the interest of his old pupil, Henry IV, in which the harangue put into the mouth of cardinal de Pelve is usually attributed to him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chrestien, Florent 1541 births 1596 deaths French satirists Writers from Orléans Converts to Roman Catholicism from Calvinism French Roman Catholics French male writers