SATIRE MÉNIPPÉE, - A French political libel in the form of a satire, whose title was taken from the work of the same name by Varro. It was published for the first time at Tours in 1594.
The S. M. was not the work of a single author, but of a group of Parisian bourgeois, headed by an ecclesiastical counsellor in the Parlement, J. Gillot. The members of the group all belonged to the party of the moderates, and were therefore opponents of the League, which they regarded as an instrument of foreign intrusion into the affairs of France. The political aim of the libel was national reconciliation under the authority of Henry IV. The satirical starting point had been drawn from the Estates General of 1593, where the Spanish and Lorrain intrigue had come to light, as well as the internal dissensions that were undermining the party of the League. The essential part of the work, which is a lively mixture of verse and prose, consists of the harangues of the orators at the said Estates General. Of these orators, those of the 1st and 2nd Estate are sketched almost comically, within a harshly satirical frame of the political and social customs of the age. In the harangue of the representative of the 3rd Estate, M. d'Aubray, the thesis of the libel is resolved, through the words of an intelligent and kind-hearted man, who outlines a deeply felt picture of the miseries of Paris and issues a warm appeal for national concord.
This satire surpassed in success every other French political-literary production of the 16th century, though not without arousing harsh criticism of a political and moral character.