Bellay

Bellay, Joachim du, French poet, was born about 1525. With Ronsard and a group of other writers he formed the "Pleiad," whose object it was to make the French tongue the vehicle of culture as the classical languages of antiquity had been. In the Defence et Illustration de la Langue Francaise he expounds the aims of the Pleiad. His poems comprise a collection of love sonnets, Les Regrets, Les Jeux Rustiques, Les Antiquites de Rome, etc. For a time he was secretary to Cardinal du Bellay, a relative. In 1555 he was made canon of Notre Dame, and a little before his death, which occurred in 1560, Archbishop of Bordeaux.