On September 16, 2024, La Poste issues a stamp bearing the image of Pierre de Ronsard on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of his birth.
Pierre de Ronsard was born on September 2, 1524 at the family manor of La Possonnière, in Couture-sur-Loir. He grew up there, a stone's throw from his beloved Gâtines forest and the Loir, which he would never cease to celebrate in his verses. A young page at the court of France, he became familiar with an environment that became his own for decades. Devoting himself to the Muses, he quickly established himself as one of the most brilliant poetic pens in the kingdom. Adored by King Charles IX, his lyrical works, the Odes, the Amours, placed him in the first rank of the French Parnassus; he sang wonderfully of Cassandra, Marie, Hélène, and other beauties. After having led the Brigade, a group of poets defending the French language, he brought together the most talented in the Pléiade, which included Joachim du Bellay, Jean-Antoine de Baïf, Étienne Jodelle, Rémy Belleau. With them, he worked on a renovation of French poetry, enriching its language with many words borrowed from regional or professional dialects.
Ronsard was also a poet affected by the great anger of his time. He took sides from the beginning of the Wars of Religion, determinedly defending his Catholic faith, perhaps by force of arms, above all with his "iron pen", as in the Discourse on the Misfortunes of this Time; then, after Saint Bartholomew's Day, he calmed down to deplore above all the harm done by the war on the peasants around him, in Vendômois or in Touraine. Because it is above all nature that he wants to celebrate, both the wild forest despite its dangers of all kinds, and the nourishing land controlled by farmers. A distant precursor of ecology, he protests against the excessive deforestation of the Gâtines forest, showing concern for a harmonious balance between men and natural spaces.
