Pierre Patrix

Who was Pierre Patrix?

Pierre Patrix, seigneur de Sainte-Marie, Norman gentleman, was a French poet.

Patrix was born in 1583 at Caen from Claude Patrix, councilor to the bailiwick of the city and Margaret Bourgueville. His grandfather was a native of Beaucaire, who, having been in Caen in 1521, when the Parliament of Rouen sent some of its members to reform the University, was chosen by them, although he only was a Bachelor of Laws at the time, to be appointed as a professor of civil law. Some time later, he became Counselor in Parliament and University regent.

Patrix's father had envisioned a career in law for his son. However, after defending his thesis before the Law School at Caen, on 19 August 1608, Patrix soon found out this line of duty to be utterly unattractive to him. To Patrix's lively, playful and independent frame of mind, the pleasures of his native Caen, then a haven of sociability and jollity, were far more attractive than practicing law, so he vowed to retain his independence. He contentedly kept this lifestyle until the age of forty, when, seeing himself left with very little in way of income, he sought to improve his prosperity for joining Gaston, Duke of Orléans, the brother of Louis XIV, as first marshal-master.