Nicolas des Escuteaux


Nicolas des Escuteaux was a French novelist from the early 17th century.

Life

He was born into a noble family in the region around Loudun. The Reformation was strong in Loudun, and in terms of religion, Des Escuteaux seems to have been somewhat sympathetic toward the Huguenots.

Works

He was responsible for 13 novels of love and adventure and one anthology published between 1601 and 1628.
Like his contemporaries Antoine de Nervèze and François du Souhait, Des Escuteaux is one of the authors most often associated with the so-called "sentimental novel" published during the reign of Henry IV of France. Unlike these other authors, Des Escuteaux was not a prince's secretary and he apparently only worked on novels and not on plays or works of moral philosophy. The first five novels by Des Escuteaux were dedicated to noble ladies, but it is unsure to what degree he profited from their patronage. These ladies were: Renée de Cossé, who was the daughter of Artus de Cossé, the wife of Charles of Montmorency and the cousin of Charles II de Cossé, duc de Brissac; Isabel de Rochechoüart ; Lucrèce de Boüillé ; Jeanne de la Brunetière ; and Catherine de Mars.
The publication of Nervèze's first novels preceded Des Escuteaux's by two or three years, as too Nervèze's anthology of short novels, but judging from the number of editions and places of publication, it seems that Des Escuteaux's novels had a longer period of success than Nervèze's. Many of Des Escuteaux's novels are more adventurous than sentimental, and they clearly show the influence of the Renaissance Hispano-Portuguese adventure novel and the ancient Greek novel. Occasionally however, Des Escuteaux abandons the adventurous tradition for more realistic situations, such as portraying Italian courtly marriage alliances or the impact of the unintended killing of an uncle on the family of the beloved.
Des Escuteaux's novels take place in a variety of far-flung settings and historical periods and generally feature a sublimely beautiful virgin lady and a noble knight who is trying to rescue her.
Des Escuteaux has many passages showing the first tender moments of the lovers' self-discovery and revelation of their feelings, but he also revels in having his chaste female characters fighting back the libidinous attentions of their kidnappers. In a few of his novels, Des Escuteaux abandons the idealized portrait of his female characters and portrays them as flighty, vicious or cruel.
In the first half of the 17th century, Des Escuteaux was often grouped with Nervèze by critics who decried their stylized, rhetorically ornate and metaphoric language, but he is an essential figure in the development of language and the novel in France and had a direct influence on Madeleine de Scudéry and other novelists in the 1640s.
Des Escuteaux novels: