Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas (, ; 1544, in Monfort – July 1590, in Mauvezin) was a Gascon Huguenot courtier and poet. Trained as a doctor of law, he served in the court of Henri of Navarre for most of his career. Du Bartas was celebrated across sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe for his divine poetry, particularly L'Uranie (1574), Judit (1574), La Sepmaine; ou, Creation du monde (1578), and La Seconde Semaine (1584-1603).
Life Relatively little is known about du Bartas' life. Guillaume Sallustre was born in 1544 to a family of wealthy merchants in Montfort (in the Armagnac region). His family name later became 'Salluste' rather than 'Sallustre', perhaps to invite comparison with the Roman historian Sallust. He was possibly a student at College de Guyenne in Bordeaux (Michel de Montaigne’s school), and studied law in Toulouse under Jacques Cujas; he became a doctor of law in 1567 and a judge in Montfort in 1571. He gained the lordship of nearby Bartas (becoming Seigneur du Bartas) on his father's death in 1566. In 1570 he married Catherine de Manas, a local noblewoman, and they had four daughters together: Anne, Jeanne, Marie and Isabeau.
He entered the service of Henry of Navarre in 1576, who would become Henry IV of France in 1589. He was sent on various diplomatic missions, including to Montmorency in 1580, and Scotland and England in 1587. Henry of Navarre gave him 1,000 Écu as expenses.P. Raymond, "Notes Extraites des Comptes de Jeanne D'Albret", Revue d'Aquitaine et des Pyrénées, 12 (1868), pp. 423, 569.
Du Bartas came to Falkland Palace in July 1587 to discuss plans for James VI of Scotland to marry Henry's sister Catherine of Bourbon.Steven Veerapen, The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I (Birlinn, 2023), p. 111: Lily Bess Campbell, Divine Poetry and Drama in Sixteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1959), pp. 81–82.Susan Doran, From Tudor to Stuart: The regime change from Elizabeth I to James I (Oxford University Press, 2024), p. 42. He spent his time at Falkland with King James hunting deer and hare.Clare Jackson, The Mirror of Great Britain: A Life of James VI and I (Allen Lane, 2025), p. 84: Samuel F. Will, "An Unpublished Letter of Du Bartas", Modern Language Notes, 49:3 (March 1934), pp. 150–152. They visited the University of St Andrews where Andrew Melville gave a lecture criticising James's management of the kirk.Ashley Brown, "Diplomacy as Performative Politics in Early Modern Courts: Caught in the Middle: A Clash of Masculinities in 1587 Scotland", Royal Studies Journal, 12:2 (2025), pp. 29–39.
The poet left Scotland from Dumbarton Castle for La Rochelle laden with presents. King James hired one of the best ships in the kingdom for him, knighted him, and gave him a gold chain and 2000 gold crowns, "with a tablett of gold, having in itt his Majesties pourtraict", besides several hackney horses and other presents from the nobility and courtiers.Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 2 (London, 1791), p. 352 no. 215.
He died in 1590, just weeks after composing a poem that celebrated Henry's victory at the Battle of Ivry, though it is not thought that he fought in the battle.
Château Du Bartas, at Saint Georges, was du Bartas' residence in the later part of his life. A statue of du Bartas stands in a square named after him in Auch, the historic capital of Gascony.
Poetry
La muse chrestienne Du Bartas began writing poetry in the 1560s after being invited to do so by Jeanne d'Albret of Navarre. His first collection, La muse chrestienne (1574) contains ‘L’Uranie’, a verse prosopographia (vivid description of someone's face or character) in which the Christian muse urges the poet to commit himself to composing serious poetry on scriptural themes. The other two items in the volume, the biblical epic Judit and 'Le Triomphe de la Foi', were examples of this new religious verse.
The Semaines Du Bartas' masterpiece is his Semaines ('Weeks'), two epic poems which freely expand on the account in the Book of Genesis of the creation of the world and the first eras of world history. Each Semaine consists of individual jours (days) which can be read separately.
La Semaine ou creation du Monde La Semaine ou creation du Monde ('The Week, or creation of the World'), subsequently also known as La Premiere Sepmaine, was first printed in Paris in 1578, and was immediately popular. La Sepmaine is a hexameral poem consisting of seven jours, each containing around 700 lines, devoted to the aspect of the world created on that day in the first week. Because the poem's structure follows Genesis 1:1-8 closely, it is easy to navigate to particular sections; for example, readers wanting to find what du Bartas writes about cuttlefish or mullet could know to turn to 'Le Cinquiesme Jour' (The Fifth Day) and in most editions would have had marginal annotations to help them locate the description of each creature.
'Le Premier Jour' (The First Day) describes the creation of the world out of chaos (du Bartas advocates the theory of creation ex nihilo - 'Nothing, but Nothing had the Lord Almighty, | Whereof, wherewith, whereby, to build this City' (Sylvester, I.i.228-29), forecasts the Day of Judgement and concludes with a discussion of angels. 'Le Second Jour' (The Second Day) concerns the creation of the four elements - water, air, earth and fire - and their meteorological effects. Land, seas and vegetation are created in 'Le Troisiesme Jour' (The Third Day). The earth is populated with particular species of natural life during the next three days: the sun, stars and seasons in 'Le Quatriesme Jour' (The Fourth Day); fish and birds in 'Le Cinquiesme Jour' (The Fifth Day); and land animals and human beings in 'Le Sixiesme Jour' (The Sixth Day). In 'Le Septiesme Jour' (The Seventh Day) God surveys the world he has created, and the poet meditates on the created world.
La Seconde Semaine Following the success of his First Week, du Bartas embarked upon a sequel that would survey world history from Adam to the apocalypse, following the plan in Augustine's City of God. He only completed four jours, each divided into four parts, that covered the eras of Adam, Noah, Abraham and David (the final three were to cover Zedekiah, the Messiah and the Eternal Sabbath).
The first two jours of La Seconde Semaine were first printed in 1584. 'Le Premier Jour' (the era of Adam) contains 'Eden' (II.i.1) describing the Garden of Paradise; 'L'Imposture' ('The Imposture' in Sylvester's translation, II.i.2) which relates the Fall of Man; 'Les Furies' ('The Furies', II.i.3) which describes the diseases, conflicts and vices that plague mankind; and 'Les Artifices' ('The Handy Crafts', II.i.4) which is about the various crafts that humankind learnt, and Cain and Abel. 'Le Second Jour' (Noah) consists of 'L'Arche' ('The Arke', II.ii.1) retelling the Great Flood; 'Babylone' ('Babylon', II.ii.2) about the Tower of Babel and European literary cultures; 'Les Colonies' ('The Colonies', Ii.ii.3) which describes the spread of different tribes across the world; and 'Les Colomnes' ('The Columnes', II.ii.4) in which the tale (originally found in Josephus) of Seth writing scientific and astronomical knowledge on two pillars to safeguard it against fire and flood is a point of departure for a review of learning in those areas.
Les Suites de la Second Semaine, containing the third and fourth jours, were printed in parts between 1591 and 1603. James VI of Scotland received a manuscript copy containing six of the eight sections of the Suites (including a version of 'Les Peres' with 830 lines not found in the printed texts) in the late 1580s. 'Le Troisieme Jour' continues the narrative into the age of Abraham: La Vocation ('The Vocation', II.iii.1) and 'Les Peres' ('The Fathers', II.iii.2) cover the end of the Book of Genesis in relating the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the sacrifice of Isaac respectively, while 'La Loy' ('The Law', II.iii.3) moves into the Exodus narrative and 'Les Captaines' ('The Captains', II.iii.4) to Joshua and Samuel. 'Le Quatrieme Jour' is devoted to David: 'Les Trophees' ('The Trophies', II.iv.1), 'La Magnificence' ('The Magnificence', II.iv.2) is about Solomon, and the final two completed sections, 'Le Schisme' ('The Schism', II.iv.3) and finally 'La Decadence' ('The Decay', II.iv.4), reviews the monarchs of the Books of Kings and Book of Chronicles.
Miscellaneous Poems
Besides Le muse chrestienne and the two Semaines, du Bartas wrote a number of occasional poems and lyrics. Among these are two of some length, about battles that occurred in the author's lifetime: 'Cantique d'Yvry' ('Song of Ivry'), on the Battle of Ivry (1590), not long before the poet's death, and 'La Lepanthe' ('Lepanto'), a translation of James VI's poem on the Battle of Lepanto (1571). King James' original poem was published in His Majesties Poeticall Exercises, ed. Robert Waldegrave (Edinburgh, 1591). See Holmes (1940), Works of Du Bartas, III:506.
Reputation
France La Sepmaine was instantly successful in France: there were 42 editions between 1578 and 1632, often printed with Simon Goulart's marginal annotations and commentary. Du Bartas was the most highly esteemed French poet in France at the turn of the seventeenth century, even more so than Ronsard, and in 1620 was still regarded as the apogee of French 'grand poesie'. However, there were no further French editions of the Semaines after 1630. What were once regarded as the stylistic merits of du Bartas' were later deemed to be weaknesses: his use of compound epithets, duplication of initial syllables, frequent inclusion of metaphors and similes and a highly compressed and accumulative style all contributed to a sense that his poetry was over-wrought and over-elaborate.
Nonetheless there were over thirty poems influenced by du Bartas printed in France between 1601 and 1697, including direct continuations or parodies such as Christophe de Gamon's La Sepmaine (1609) and A. D’Argent's Sepmaine (1629), and printed references praising Du Bartas in works written throughout this period. As late as 1684 Madeleine de Scudéry recalled the often-cited anecdote that Ronsard had once remarked that du Bartas had achieved more in a week than he had in his entire life. Du Bartas was, however, an object of criticism: he was, for example, cited for examples of mistakes to avoid in a Brève instruction (1667). Du Bartas' reputation remained low in subsequent centuries: in 1842 Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve wrote that du Bartas ‘a pu s’égarer et céder au mauvais goût de son temps dans le gros de ces oeuvres’ (‘was led astray and gave into the poor taste of his times in most of his work’).
Though du Bartas is still not widely known in France today, critical re-appraisals in the twentieth century, led by James Dauphiné, Yvonne Bellenger and other, have shown how du Bartas' encyclopedic writing was representative of its time and is still worthy of attention.
Scotland James VI of Scotland's enthusiasm for du Bartas made the Frenchman's poetry uniquely popular in sixteenth-century Scotland. James possessed a copy of La Sepmaine given to him by his nurse, and a year later wrote in the preface to his Essayes of a Prentise (Edinburgh, 1584) that
Hauing oft reuolued, and red ouer (fauorable Reader) the booke and Poems of the deuine and Illuster Poete, Salust du Bartas, I was moved by the oft reading & perusing of them, with a restles and lofty desire, to preas to attaine to the like vertue. (Essayes, C3r)
The volume contained James's Scots translation of L'Uranie. Du Bartas' synthesis of sacred and secular verse matched the King's own aesthetic preferences, and also his political imperative to consolidate his divine and political authority. The King shared Urania's sense that more poets should write about the highest matters:
O ye that wolde your browes with Laurel bind, What larger feild I pray you can you find,