d later by the Pleiade is to be found in outline.

It was probably in 1547 that du Bellay met Ronsard in an inn on the way
to Poitiers, an event which may justly be regarded as the starting-point
of the French school of Renaissance poetry. The two had much in common,
and immediately became fast friends. Du Bellay returned with Ronsard to
Paris to join the circle of students of the humanities attached to Jean
Daurat (q.v.) at the College de Coqueret. While Ronsard and Antoine de
Baif were most influenced by Greek models, du Bellay was more especially
a Latinist, and perhaps his preference for a language so nearly
connected with his own had some part in determining the more national
and familiar note of his poetry. In 1548 appeared the _Art poetique_ of
Thomas Sibilet, who enunciated many of the ideas that Ronsard and his
followers had at heart, though with essential differences in the point
of view, since he held up as models Clement Marot and his disciples.
Ronsard and his friends dissented violently from Sibilet on this and
other points, and they doubtless felt a natural resentment at finding
their ideas forestalled and, moreover, inadequately presented. The
famous manifesto of the Pleiade, the _Deffence et illustration de la
langue francoyse_ (1549), was at once a complement and a refutation of
Sibilet's treatise. This book was the expression of the literary
principles of the Pleiade as a whole, but although Ronsard was the
chosen leader, its redaction was entrusted to du Bellay. To obtain a
clear view of the reforms aimed at by the Pleiade, the _Deffence_ should
be further considered in connexion with Ronsard's _Abrege d'art
poetique_ and his preface to the _Franciade_. Du Bellay maintained that
the French language as it was then constituted was too poor to serve as
a medium for the higher forms of poetry, but he contended that by proper
cultivation it might be brought on a level with the classical tongues.
He condemned those who despaired of their mother tongue, and used Latin
for their more serious and ambitious work. For translations from the
ancients he would substitute imitations. Not only were the forms of
classical poetry to be imitated, but a separate poetic language and
style, distinct from those employed in prose, were to be used. The
French language was to be enriched by a development of its internal
resources and by discreet borrowing from the Latin and Greek. Both du
Bellay and Ronsard laid stress on the