Record Number: 21874

---

Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'I read […] Olivier Basselin […] "On dit qu’il nuit aux yeux; mais seront-ils les maistres? Le vin est guarison De mes maux; J’aime mieux perdre les deux fenestres Que toute la maison" (That’s O. Basselin; [italics]c’est assez choite, n’est-ce pas?[end italics].'

Century:

1850-1899

Date:

Until: Nov 1875

Country:

Scotland

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Edinburgh
county: Lothian

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

---

Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Robert Louis Stevenson

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

13 Nov 1850

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Writer

Religion:

Uncommitted

Country of Origin:

Scotland

Country of Experience:

Scotland

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

---

Text Being Read:

Author:

Olivier Basselin

Title:

A Son Nez

Genre:

Poetry

Form of Text:

Print: Unknown

Publication Details

Printed in France in early seventeenth century.

Provenance

unknown

---

Source Information:

Record ID:

21874

Source:

Print

Author:

Robert Louis Stevenson

Editor:

Bradford A. Booth

Title:

The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879

Place of Publication:

New Haven and London

Date of Publication:

1994

Vol:

2

Page:

166

Additional Comments:

Letter 424, To Sidney Colvin, [November 1875], [17 Heriot Row]. Co-editor Ernest Mehew. The material in square brackets has been added by the editors.

Citation:

Robert Louis Stevenson, Bradford A. Booth (ed.), The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, April 1874-July 1879, (New Haven and London, 1994), 2, p. 166, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=21874, accessed: 18 April 2024

---

Additional Comments:

On p. 166, the Editors’ Note 4 to Letter 424 reads: “Fifteenth-century author of drinking-songs known as "Vaux-de-Vire". RLS’s quotation comes from "A Son Nez", edition not specified. Olivier Basselin (c.1400-c.1450) was a fuller (or miller) of Vire in Normandy, the reputed author of drinking-songs current in the Vau (valley) of the river Vire. He may have died in the wars against the English. According to Wikipedia, at the beginning of the 17th century a collection of songs was published by a Norman lawyer, Jean Le Houx, purporting to be the work of Olivier Basselin. There seems to be very little doubt that Le Houx was himself the author of the songs attributed to Basselin, as well as of those he acknowledged as his own. The form and the sense of the origin of RLS’s quotation (the last 4 lines of Basselin’s poem, of which the first 8 lines are more usually cited in anthologies) becomes clearer with a longer citation arranged correctly in the intended metre of alternating 12- and 6-syllable lines:: Combien de riches gens N'ont pas si riche nez! Pour te peindre en la sorte, Il faut beaucoup de temps. Le verre est le pinceau, duquel on t'enlumine; Le vin est la couleur Dont on t'a peint ainsi plus rouge qu'une guisgne En beuvant du meilleur. On dit qu'il nuit aux yeux; mais seront-ils les maistres Le vin est guarison De mes maux: j'aime mieux perdre les deux fenestres, Que toute la maison This strongly resembles: MIEUX VAUT LE VIN QUE LA VUE, 1546, by the more famous Clément MAROT: Le vin qui trop cher m'est vendu, M'a la force des yeux ravie, Pour autant qu'il m'est defendu, Dont tous les jours m'en croit l'envie. Mais puisque lui seul est ma vie, Malgré les fortunes senestres, Les yeux ne seront point les maistres Sur tout le corps, car, par raison, J'aime mieux perdre les fenestres Que perdre toute la maison. Does RLS mean “chouette”? which the Grand Robert gives, in popular use from 1830 as adjective and interjection, meaning: “nice”, “good”, “great”, “grand”.