PREFACE

BY THE

TRANSLATOR.

Decorative initial O featuring a floral and landscape motif.TO give the Reader an idea of the Work, which now appears in a different form than before, we shall first provide a somewhat more detailed account of the Authors who composed it, and the occasion by which it came into the world.

* Court of Aids.

The Cour des Aides was a high court in pre-revolutionary France that dealt with matters of taxation and customs.
The first Initiator of this Work was Jacques Favereau, Royal Councilor in the Court of Valuations or Subsidies in Paris, and Michel de Marolles, Abbot of Villeloin, and Bourgerais, both from distinguished houses in France. The former [Favereau] personally devised these SCENES FROM THE TEMPLE OF THE MUSES and had them engraved in copper by the most skilled Masters of his time, intending to write several discourses upon them, according to the ideas he had formed for himself—unless death or the care of other matters had prevented him from executing that work, as De Marolles indicates in his Report for the French Edition of the year 1655. This man [De Marolles] had seen two of those discourses in the possession of the son of the aforementioned Favereau; from whom he also obtained the copper plates found in the deceased’s Cabinet; which subsequently gave him the opportunity to compose this beautiful Work.

Upon its publication, De Marolles added a Eulogy for Favereau, whose memory would have been entirely buried in oblivion, had the former not taken the trouble to preserve it by publishing the TEMPLE OF THE MUSES: because among the principal writers of the History of Letters, one finds not the slightest, or at least very little mention made of the man, except by Mornacius, a renowned Jurist, who speaks of him with praise, on Law 39 of the Digest regarding Injuries, original: "ad Leg. 39. Digest. de Injuriis" — This refers to a specific section of the Digest, a massive collection of Roman legal writings compiled under Emperor Justinian. De Injuriis deals with legal wrongs and insults. regarding a passage from antiquity which he [Favereau] had shared with him for the clarification of the Law. We judge, therefore, that it will be no disservice to the Reader if we share the principal details of the man's life. This Favereau was a son of Pierre Favereau, Master of the Horse...