ABSTRACT
Even at the outset of his reign, Henry was the butt of satirical criticism. Pierre de l'Estoile records the new king's apparent love of debauchery and easy living: The king, Henry III, likes debauchery and indulgence. The whole Court is given over to pleasure and dissoluteness.'3 The early attacks drew on events alleged to have occurred during the voyage back from Cracow, especially on the sojourn in Venice. Guy Poirier has pointed out how Amadis Jamyn compared Henry (playing on the king's baptismal name of 'Alexandre'), in his Oeuvres poétiques of 1575, to the Greek hero of the same name: 'This Alexander, going to conquer Asia, met but people of indulgent ways, women, as it were, disguized as men ...' and concludes, 'the future representation of the king in the collective imagination is set right from the first years of his reign'.4
