Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano de Bergerac
Bergerac illustrated by Zacharie Heince, c. 1654
Native name	Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac
Born	Savinien de Cyrano c. (1619-03-06)6 March 1619[note 1] Paris,[1] France
Died	28 July 1655(1655-07-28) (aged 36) Sannois, France
Occupation	Novelist, playwright, duelist
Language	French
Nationality	French
Period	1653–1662
Literature portal

Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac (/ˌsɪrənoʊ də ˈbɜːrʒəræk, - ˈbɛər-/ SIRR-ə-noh də BUR-zhə-rak, – BAIR-, French: [savinjɛ̃ d(ə) siʁano d(ə) bɛʁʒəʁak]; 6^{[note 1]} March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist.

A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th century. Today, he is best known as the inspiration for Edmond Rostand's most noted drama, Cyrano de Bergerac (1897), which, although it includes elements of his life, also contains invention and myth.

Since the 1970s, there has been a resurgence in the study of Cyrano, demonstrated in the abundance of theses, essays, articles and biographies published in France and elsewhere.

Cyrano's short life is poorly documented. Certain significant chapters of his life are known only from the Preface to the Histoire Comique par Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac, Contenant les Estats & Empires de la Lune (Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon) published in 1657, nearly two years after his death.^[2] Without Henri Le Bret, who wrote the biographical information, his country childhood, his military engagement, the injuries it caused, his prowess as a swordsman, the circumstances of his death and his supposed final conversion would remain unknown.

Since 1862, when Auguste Jal revealed that the "Lord of Bergerac" was Parisian and not Gascon, research in parish registries and notarial records by a small number of researchers,^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]} in particular Madeleine Alcover of Rice University, has allowed the public to know more about his genealogy, his family, his home in Paris and those of some of his friends, but has revealed no new documents that support or refute the essentials of Le Bret's account or fill the gaps in his narrative.^{[note 2]}

Savinien II de Cyrano was the son of Abel I de Cyrano, lord of Mauvières, (156?-1648), counsel (avocat) of the Parliament of Paris,^{[note 3]} and of Espérance Bellanger (1586-164?), "daughter of deceased nobleman Estienne Bellanger, Counsellor of the King and Treasurer of his Finances".

His paternal grandfather, Savinien I de Cyrano (15??-1590), was probably born into a notable family from Sens^{[note 4]} in Burgundy. Documents describe him in turn as a "merchant and burgher of Paris" (« marchand et bourgeois de Paris » 20 May 1555), "(sea-)fish merchant to the King" (« vendeur de poisson de mer pour le Roy ») in several other documents in following years,^[16] and finally "Royal counsellor" (« conseiller du Roi, maison et couronne de France » 7 April 1573). In Paris, on 9 April 1551, he married Anne Le Maire, daughter of Estienne Le Maire and Perrette Cardon, who died in 1616. They are known to have had four children: Abel (the writer's father), Samuel (15??-1646), Pierre (15??-1626) and Anne (15??-1652).

Of his maternal grandfather, Estienne Bellanger, "Financial Controller of the Parisian general revenue" (« contrôleur des finances en la recette générale de Paris »), and of his background, we know almost nothing. We know more about his wife, Catherine Millet, whose father, Guillaume II Millet, Lord of Caves, was secretary of the King's finances, and whose grandfather, Guillaume I Millet (149?-1563), qualified in medicine in 1518, was doctor to three kings in succession (Francis I, Henry II and Francis II). He married Catherine Valeton, daughter of a property tax collector from Nantes, Audebert Valeton, who, accused of involvement in the Affair of the Placards, was "burned alive on wood taken from his house"^{[note 5]} on 21 January 1535 at the crossroads of la Croix du Trahoir (the intersection of the Rue de l'Arbre-Sec and the Rue Saint-Honoré), in front of the Pavillon des singes, where Molière lived almost a century later.^[17]

Espérance Bellanger and Abel I de Cyrano were married on 3 September 1612 at the church of St-Gervais-et-St-Protais. She was at least twenty-six years old;^{[note 6]} he was about forty-five.^{[note 7]} Their marriage contract,^{[note 8]} signed the previous 12 July at the office of Master Denis Feydeau, counsellor, secretary and king's notary, second cousin of the bride, was only published in the year 2000 by Madeleine Alcover,^[18] who minutely traced the fate of the witnesses (and more particularly their links with pious milieus) and noted that many of them "had entered the worlds of high finance, the noblesse de robe, of the aristocracy (including the Court) and even the noblesse d'épée".

In 1911 Jean Lemoine made known the inventory of Abel de Cyrano's worldly goods.^[19] His library, relatively poorly stocked (126 volumes), testifies to his schooling as a jurist and to an open curiosity: a taste for languages and ancient literature, the great humanists of the Renaissance (Erasmus, Rabelais, Juan Luis Vives), knowledge of Italian, interest in the sciences. On the religious side, one notices the presence of two Bibles, of an Italian New Testament and the Prayers of St. Basil in Greek, but no pious works. There is no object of that kind (engraving, painting, statue, crucifix) amongst the other inventoried items, but in contrast "twelve small paintings of portraits of gods and goddesses" and "four wax figures: one of Venus and Cupid, another of a woman pulling a thorn, one of a flageolet player and one of an ashamed nude woman".^{[note 9]} Finally, one notes the presence of several books by well-known Protestants: the Discours politiques et militaires ("Political and Military Discourse") of François de la Noue, two volumes of George Buchanan, the Dialectique of Pierre de La Ramée, the Alphabet de plusieurs sortes de lettres ("Alphabet of different kinds of letters") by master calligrapher Pierre Hamon and La Vérité de la religion chrétienne ("The Truth of the Christian Religion") by Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, whose presence confirms that Abel spent his younger years in Huguenot surroundings.^[21]

Espérance and Abel I had at least six children:

• Denis, baptised at the church of Saint-Eustache on 31 March 1614 by Anne Le Maire, his grandmother, and Denis Feydeau, financier. He studied Theology at the Sorbonne and died in the 1640s;
• Antoine, baptized at Saint-Eustache on 11 February 1616 by his paternal aunt, Anne Cyrano, and a godfather who is not named in the baptismal register discovered by Auguste Jal, but who might have been the financier Antoine Feydeau (1573–1628), younger brother of Denis. Died at a young age;
• Honoré, baptized at Saint-Eustache on 3 July 1617 by Honoré Barentin, trésorier des parties casuelles, and an unnamed godmother. Died at a young age;
• Savinien II (1619–1655),
• Abel II, born around 1624,^{[note 10]} who took the title "Lord of Mauvières" after the death of his father in 1648;
• Catherine, whose date of birth is not known and who died in the early years of the following century, having become a nun at the convent of the Filles de la Croix (de Paris) ("Daughters of the Cross (Paris)") in the Rue de Charonne in 1641, under the name Sister Catherine de Sainte-Hyacinthe.^[22]

The historian Auguste Jal discovered the baptism of the (then) supposed Gascon in the 1860s:

Finally, after long exertion, I knew that Abel Cyrano had left the neighbourhood of Saint-Eustache for that of Saint-Sauveur, and that Espérance Bellanger had given birth in this new dwelling to a boy whose baptismal record is as follows: "The sixth of March one thousand six hundred and nineteen, Savinien, son of Abel de Cyrano, squire, Lord of Mauvières, and of the lady Espérance Bellenger (sic), the godfather, nobleman Antoine Fanny, King's Counsellor and Auditor in his Court of Finances, of this parish, the godmother the lady Marie Fédeau (sic), wife of nobleman Master Louis Perrot, Counsellor and Secretary to the King, Household and Crown of France, of the parish of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois". This son of Abel de Cyrano who was not given the name of his godfather, Antoine, because he had a brother of that name, born in 1616, but was named Savinien in memory of his grandfather, who could doubt that this was the Savinien Cyrano who was born, according to the biographers, at the chateau of Bergerac in or around 1620?^[23]

Thus Espérance Bellanger was thirty-three years old, Abel de Cyrano around fifty-two.

The surname Fanny appears nowhere in the very complete study of La Chambre des comptes de Paris ("Court of Finances of Paris") published by Count H. Coustant d'Yanville in 1875 (or for that matter in any other French document of the 17th century). In 1898, Viscount Oscar de Poli suggested that it must have been a transcription error and proposed reading it as Lamy.^[24] An Antoine Lamy had actually been accepted as an auditor of finances on 2 September 1602, a year before Pierre de Maupeou, Espérance Bellanger's cousin and son-in-law of Denis Feydeau who was a witness to the marriage of Savinien's parents in 1612.^[25] His wife, Catherine Vigor, associate of Vincent de Paul, would become President of the Confrérie de la Charité de Gentilly ("Charitable Fellowship of Gentilly") where the couple set up a mission in 1634.^[26] She could well be the godmother of Catherine de Cyrano.

Marie Feydeau, cosponsor with Antoine Lamy, was the sister of Denis and Antoine Feydeau and the wife of Louis (or Loys) Perrot (15??-1625), who, apart from his titles of "King's Counsellor and Secretary", also had that of "King's Interpreter of Foreign Languages".^[27]

In 1622, Abel de Cyrano left Paris with his family and went to settle on his lands at Mauvières and Bergerac in the Vallée de Chevreuse, which had come to him in part after the death of his mother in 1616.

His possessions, situated on the banks of the Yvette River in the parish of Saint-Forget, had been purchased by Savinien I de Cyrano forty years earlier from Thomas de Fortboys, who had bought them himself in 1576 from Lord Dauphin de Bergerac (or Bergerat), whose ancestors had possessed them for more than a century.^{[note 11]}

When Savinien I de Cyrano acquired it, the domain of Mauvières consisted of "a habitable mansion…with a lower room, a cellar beneath, kitchen, pantry, an upper chamber, granaries, stables, barn, portal, all roofed with tiles, with courtyard, walled dovecote; mill, enclosed plot, garden and fishpond, the right of middle and low justice…".

The estate of Bergerac, which adjoined Mauvières, "comprised a house with portal, courtyard, barn, hovel and garden, being an acre or thereabouts, plus forty-six and a half acres, of which thirty-six and a half were farmland and ten woodland, with the rights of middle and low justice".^[29]

It was in this rustic setting that the child grew up and in the neighbouring parish he learnt to read and write. His friend Le Bret recalls:

The education that we had together with a good country priest who took in boarders, made us friends from our most tender youth, and I remember the aversion he had from that time for one who seemed to him a shadow of Sidias,^{[note 12]} because, in the thoughts which that man could somewhat grasp, he believed him incapable of teaching him anything; so that he paid so little attention to his lessons and his corrections that his father, who was a fine old gentleman, fairly unconcerned for his children's education and overly credulous of this one's complaints, removed him [from the school] a little too suddenly and, without considering if his son would be better off elsewhere, he sent him to that city [Paris] where he left him, until the age of nineteen years, to his own devices.^{[note 13][32]}

It is unknown at what age Savinien arrived in Paris.^{[note 14]} He may have been accommodated by his uncle Samuel de Cyrano in a large family residence in the Rue des Prouvaires, where his parents had lived up until 1618. In this theory, it was there that he was introduced to his cousin Pierre,^{[note 15]} with whom, according to Le Bret, he would build a lasting friendship.^{[note 16]}

He continued his secondary studies at an academy which remains unknown. It has long been maintained that he attended the Collège de Beauvais where the action of the comedy Le pédant joué takes place^{[note 17]} and whose principal, Jean Grangier would inspire the character of Granger, the pedant of Le pédant joué, but his presence in June 1641 as a student of rhetoric at the Collège de Lisieux^{[note 18]} (see below), has encouraged more recent historians to revise that opinion.^{[note 19]}

In 1636, his father sold Mauvières and Bergerac to Antoine Balestrier, Lord of Arbalestre, and returned to Paris to live with his family in "a modest dwelling at the top of the great Rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques close to the Crossing"^[36] (parish of Saint-Jacques and Saint-Philippe), a short distance from the Collège de Lisieux. But there is no certainty that Savinien went to live with them.

Le Bret continues his story:

That age when nature is most easily corrupted, and that great liberty he had to only do that which seemed good to him, brought him to a dangerous weakness (penchant), which I dare say I stopped…

Historians and biographers do not agree on this penchant which threatened to corrupt Cyrano's nature. As an example of the romantic imagination of some biographers, Frédéric Lachèvre wrote:

Against an embittered and discontented father, Cyrano promptly forgot the way to his father's house. Soon he was counted among the gluttons and hearty drinkers of the best inns, with them he gave himself up to jokes of questionable taste, usually following prolonged libations…He also picked up the deplorable habit of gambling. This kind of life could not continue indefinitely, especially since Abel de Cyrano had become completely deaf to his son's repeated requests for funds.^[37]

Forty years later, two editors added to the realism and local colour:

Since nothing binds Cyrano to the humble lodgings of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques to which the uncertainties of fate condemned his family, he gives himself over entirely to Paris, to its streets and, according to the words of one of his close friends, "to its excrescences" (à ses verrues).^{[note 20]} He drinks, diligently frequents the Rue Glatigny, called Val d'amour, because of the women who sell pleasure there,^{[note 21]} gambles, roams the sleeping city to frighten the bourgeois or forge signs, provokes the watch, gets into debt and links himself with that literary Bohemia which centered around Tristan L'Hermite and Saint-Amant and cultivated the memory of Théophile and his impious lyricism.^[39]

He was the son of Abel de Cyrano, lord of Mauvières and Bergerac, and Espérance Bellanger. He received his first education from a country priest and had for a fellow pupil his friend and future biographer Henri Lebret. He then proceeded to Paris and the heart of the Latin Quarter, to the college de Dormans-Beauvais,^[1] where he had as master Jean Grangier, whom he afterwards ridiculed in his comedy Le Pédant joué (The Pedant Tricked) of 1654. At the age of nineteen, he entered a corps of the guards, serving in the campaigns of 1639 and 1640.^[40] As a minor nobleman and officer he was notorious for his dueling and boasting. His unique past allowed him to make unique contributions to French art.^[41]

One author, Ishbel Addyman, varies from other biographers and claims that he was not a Gascon aristocrat, but a descendant of a Sardinian fishmonger, and that the appellation Bergerac stemmed from a small estate near Paris where he was born, not in Gascony, and that he may have suffered tertiary syphilis. She also claims that he may have been homosexual and around 1640 became the lover of Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy,^[42] a writer and musician, until around 1653, when they became engaged in a bitter rivalry. This led to Bergerac sending d'Assoucy death threats that compelled him to leave Paris. The quarrel extended to a series of satirical texts by both men.^[42] Bergerac wrote Contre Soucidas (an anagram of his enemy's name) and Contre un ingrat (Against an ingrate), while D'Assoucy counterattacked with Le Combat de Cyrano de Bergerac avec le singe de Brioché, au bout du Pont-Neuf (The battle of Cyrano de Bergerac with the monkey of Brioché, at the end of the Pont-Neuf). He also associated with Théophile de Viau, the French poet and libertine.

He is said to have left the military and returned to Paris to pursue literature, producing tragedies cast in the orthodox classical mode.^[40]

The model for the character Roxane in Rostand's play Cyrano de Bergerac was Bergerac's cousin, who lived with his sister, Catherine de Bergerac, at the Convent of the Daughter of the Cross. As in the play, Bergerac did fight at the Siege of Arras in 1640, a battle of the Thirty Years' War between French and Spanish forces in France (though this was not the Battle of Arras, fought fourteen years later). During the siege he suffered a neck wound from a sword during a sortie by the Spanish defenders, a day before the surrender of the Spanish troops and the end of the siege.^[43] One of his confrères in the battle was the Baron Christian of Neuvillette, who married Cyrano's cousin. However, the plotline of Rostand's play involving Roxane and Christian is entirely fictional.

Cyrano was a pupil of the French polymath Pierre Gassendi, a canon of the Catholic Church who tried to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity.

Cyrano de Bergerac's works L'Autre Monde: ou les États et Empires de la Lune ("Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon", published posthumously, 1657) and Les États et Empires du Soleil (The States and Empires of the Sun, 1662) are classics of early modern science fiction. In the former, Cyrano travels to the Moon using rockets powered by firecrackers (it may be the earliest description of a space flight by use of a vessel that has rockets attached) and meets the inhabitants. The Moon-men have four legs, firearms that shoot game and cook it, and talking earrings used to educate children.

His mixture of science and romance in the last two works furnished a model for many subsequent writers, among them Jonathan Swift, Edgar Allan Poe and probably Voltaire. Corneille and Molière freely borrowed ideas from Le Pédant joué.^[40]

Accused of plagirizing Le Pédant joué, Molière supposedly replied, "Il m'est permis de reprendre mon bien où je le trouve" ("I am allowed to take back my property where I find it.").^[44]

The play suggests that he was injured by a falling wooden beam in 1654 while entering the house of his patron, the Duc D'Arpajon. However the academic and editor of Cyrano's works Madeleine Alcover uncovered a contemporary text which suggests an attack on the Duke's carriage in which a member of his household was injured. It is as yet inconclusive whether or not Cyrano's death was a result of the injury, or an unspecified disease.^[45] He died over a year later on July 28, 1655, aged 36, at the house of his cousin, Pierre De Cyrano, in Sannois. He was buried in a church in Sannois. However, there is strong evidence to support the theory that his death was a result of a botched assassination attempt as well as further damage to his health caused by a period of confinement in a private asylum, orchestrated by his enemies, who succeeded in enlisting the help of his own brother Abel de Cyrano.

In 1897, the French poet Edmond Rostand published a play, Cyrano de Bergerac, telling of the life of a fictionalized Cyrano with an abnormally large nose. This play, which became Rostand's most successful work, revolves around Cyrano's love for the beautiful Roxane, whom he is obliged to woo on behalf of a more conventionally handsome but less articulate friend, Christian de Neuvillette.

The play has been made into operas and adapted for cinema several times and reworked in other literary forms and as a ballet.

The Adventures of Cyrano De Bergerac, by Louis Gallet, was published in English by Jarrolds Publishers (London) in 1900. It bears no resemblance to Rostand's play apart from the characteristics of the de Bergerac character.^{[citation needed]}

Cyrano de Bergerac served as an inspiration for the creation of Saint-Savin, one of the main characters of Umberto Eco's novel The Island of the Day Before.

In A. L. Kennedy's novel So I Am Glad, the narrator finds de Bergerac has appeared in her modern-day house share.^[46]

In Robert A. Heinlein's novel Glory Road, Oscar Gordon fights a character who is not named, but is obviously Cyrano.^[47]

John Shirley published a story about Cyrano called "Cyrano and the Two Plumes" in a French anthology; it was reprinted at The Freezine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.^[48]

The novel by Adam Browne, Pyrotechnicon: Being a TRUE ACCOUNT of Cyrano de Bergerac's FURTHER ADVENTURES among the STATES and EMPIRES of the STARS, by HIMSELF (Dec'd), was a sequel to Cyrano's science fiction, published by Coeur de Leon in 2012.^[49]

The Lost Sonnets of Cyrano de Bergerac: A Poetic Fiction by James L. Carcioppolo. Published in English by Lost Sonnet Publishing (Benicia, California) in 1998. Fiction poetry with the premise that Cyrano wrote a sequence of 57 sonnets during the last year of his life. Heavily annotated.

Cyrano de Bergerac is the leading male character in Charles Lecocq's 1896 opéra comique Ninette.^[50]

Most recently, his likeness was the center of a musical romantic drama, Cyrano, adapted as a screenplay by Erica Schmidt who had previously written the script as a stage musical of the same name.^[51] Schmidt's husband, Peter Dinklage, starred as a reimagined Cyrano who is short-statured rather than having a large nose due to Dinklage's dwarfism. The film was widely received with positive reviews and went on to be nominated for awards at the 79th Golden Globe Awards (including Best Actor for Dinklage), four nominations at the 75th British Academy Film Awards and a Best Costume Design nod at the 94th Academy Awards.

There is also a popular French film, Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Gérard Depardieu, which earned him a Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards. Additionally, Cyrano de Bergerac is the subject of a 1925 film and a 1950 film; the latter of which earned José Ferrer both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Actor. He also won a Tony Award for the same role on Broadway, a few years prior to making the film.

Roxanne (film), a 1987 film by Fred Schepisi and starring Steve Martin (with a prosthetic nose), is a modern retelling of the story. Another rendition is a gender-flipped romantic comedy interpretation, The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996), starring Janeane Garofalo as a veterinarian/radio talk show host (and the Cyrano in question), and Uma Thurman as her model friend/facsimile.

• Cyrano de Bergerac (1654). La Mort d'Agrippine, tragédie, par Mr de Cyrano Bergerac [The Death of Agrippina, tragedy, by Mr de Cyrano Bergerac] (in French). Paris: Charles de Sercy. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1654). Les Œuvres diverses de Mr de Cyrano Bergerac [The various works of Mr de Cyrano Bergerac] (in French). Paris: Charles de Sercy. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1657). Histoire comique par Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac contenant les Estats & Empires de la Lune [Comical History by Mr de Cyrano Bergerac including The States & Empires of the Moon] (in French). Paris: Charles de Sercy. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1662). Les Nouvelles œuvres de Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac. Contenant l'Histoire comique des Estats et Empires du Soleil, plusieurs lettres et autres pièces divertissantes [The New Works of Mr de Cyrano Bergerac. Including The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Sun, several letters and other diverting pieces] (in French). Paris: Charles de Sercy. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1649). Le Ministre d'Estat flambé en vers burlesques [The Minister of State roasted in farcical verse] (in French). Paris: [s.n.] Retrieved 4 April 2015.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1709). Les œuvres diverses de M. Cyrano de Bergerac [The varied works of Mr. Cyrano de Bergerac] (in French). Vol. 1. Amsterdam: J. Desbordes. Retrieved 4 April 2015.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1709). Les œuvres diverses de M. Cyrano de Bergerac [The varied works of Mr. Cyrano de Bergerac] (in French). Vol. 2. Amsterdam: J. Desbordes. Retrieved 4 April 2015.

• Cyrano de Bergerac (1658). Satyrical Characters, and handsome Descriptions in letters, written to severall Persons of Quality, by Monsieur De Cyrano Bergerac. Translated from the French by a Person of Honour. London: Henry Herringman.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1659). ΣΕΛΗΝΑΡΧΙΑ, or, The government of the world in the moon: a comical history / written by that famous wit and caveleer of France, Monsieur Cyrano Bergerac; and done into English by Tho. St Serf, Gent. Translated by Thomas St. Serf. London: printed by J. Cottrel, and are to be sold by Hum. Robinson.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1687). The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Worlds of the Sun and Moon. Written in French by Cyrano Bergerac. And newly Englished by A. Lowell, A.M. Translated by Archibald Lovell. London: Henry Rhodes.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1889). Curtis Hidden Page (ed.). A Voyage to the Moon. Translated by Archibald Lovell. New York: Doubleday and McClure Co. Retrieved 5 April 2015. At Project Gutenberg.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1753). A voyage to the moon: with some account of the solar world. A comical romance. Done from the French of M. Cyrano de Bergerac. By Mr. Derrick. Translated by Samuel Derrick. London: Printed for P. Vaillant, R. Griffiths, and G. Woodfall.
• Cyrano de Bergerac; Friendly, Jonathon (1756). The agreement. A satyrical and facetious dream. To which is annexed, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, &c. London: [s.n.]       (The dream is a translation of D'un songe, first published in Lettres diverses.)
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1923). Voyages to the moon and the sun. Translated by Richard Aldington. London/New York: Routledge & Sons Ltd/E.P. Dutton & Co. At Project Gutenberg

• Cyrano de Bergerac (1858). Paul Lacroix Jacob (ed.). Histoire comique des États et empires de la Lune et du Soleil [Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon and the Sun] (in French). Paris: Adolphe Delahays. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1858). Paul Lacroix Jacob (ed.). Œuvres comiques, galantes et littéraires [Comical, gallant and literary works] (in French). Paris: Adolphe Delahays. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
• Lachèvre, Frédéric (1921). Les Œuvres libertines de Cyrano de Bergerac, Parisien (1619–1655), précédées d'une notice biographique. Tome premier [The Libertine Works of Cyrano de Bergerac, Parisian (1619–1655), preceded by a biographical notice. Volume one] (in French). Paris: Librairie ancienne Honoré Champion. Retrieved 5 April 2015.

L'Autre monde: I. Les Estats et Empires de la Lune (texte intégral, publié pour la première fois, d'après les manuscrits de Paris et de Munich, avec les variantes de l'imprimé de 1657). — II. Les Estats et Empires du Soleil (d'après l'édition originale de 1662)

The Other World: I. The States and Empires of the Moon (full text published for the first time following the Paris and Munich manuscripts including variations from the 1657 edition). — II. The States and Empires of the Sun (following the original edition of 1662)

• Lachèvre, Frédéric (1921). Les Œuvres libertines de Cyrano de Bergerac, Parisien (1619–1655), précédées d'une notice biographique. Tome second [The Libertine Works of Cyrano de Bergerac, Parisian (1619–1655), preceded by a biographical notice. Volume two] (in French). Paris: Librairie ancienne Honoré Champion. Retrieved 5 April 2015.

Le Pédant joué, comédie, texte du Ms. de la Bibl. nat., avec les variantes de l'imprimé de 1654. — La Mort d'Agrippine, tragédie. — Les Lettres, texte du Ms. de la Bibl. nat. avec les var. de 1654. — Les Mazarinades: Le Ministre d'Etat flambé; Le Gazettier des-interessé, etc. — Les Entretiens pointus. — Appendice: Le Sermon du curé de Colignac, etc...

The Pedant tricked, comedy, text from Mss. in the National Library with variations from the edition of 1654. — The Death of Agrippina, tragedy. — The Letters, text from Mss. in the National Library with variations from 1654 edition. — The Mazarinades: The Minister of State roasted; The disinterested Gazetteer, etc. — The sharp interviews. — Appendix: The sermon of the curate of Colignac, etc...

• Cyrano de Bergerac (1962). Claude Mettra; Jean Suyeux (eds.). Histoire comique des État et empire de la Lune et du Soleil [Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon and the Sun] (in French). Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert et Club des Libraires de France.

Includes an afterword, a dictionary of characters, chronological tables and notes. Illustrated with engravings taken from scientific works of the time.

• Cyrano de Bergerac (1977). Madeleine Alcover (ed.). L'Autre Monde ou les Estats et Empires de la lune [The Other World or the States and Empires of the Moon]. Société des textes français modernes (in French). Paris: Honoré Champion.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1982). La Mort d'Agrippine [The Death of Agrippina]. Textes Littéraires (in French). Vol. 44. Exeter: University of Exeter. ISBN 0-85989-182-8.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1998). Jacques Prévot (ed.). L'Autre monde: Les États et empires de la Lune. Les États et empires du Soleil [The Other World: The States and Empires of the Moon. The States and Empires of the Sun.]. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade: Libertins du XVIIe siècle (in French). Vol. I. Paris: Gallimard.

Includes an introduction, chronology and bibliography

• Cyrano de Bergerac (1999). Jean-Charles Darmon; Alain Mothu (eds.). Lettres satiriques et amoureuses, précédées de Lettres diverses (in French). Paris: Desjonquères.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (2001). Madeleine Alcover (ed.). Œuvres complètes: L'Autre Monde ou les États et Empires de la lune. Les États et empires du soleil. Fragment de physique [Complete Works: The Other World or the States and Empires of the Moon. The States and Empires of the Sun. Fragment of Physics] (in French). Vol. I. Paris: Honoré Champion. ISBN 978-2-7453-1452-9.

Republished as:

• Cyrano de Bergerac (2004). Madeleine Alcover (ed.). Les États et Empires de la Lune et du Soleil (avec le Fragment de physique) [The States and Empires of the Moon and the Sun (with the Fragment of Physics)]. Champion Classiques: Littératures (in French). Paris: Honoré Champion.

• Cyrano de Bergerac (2001). Luciano Erba; Hubert Carrier (eds.). Œuvres complètes: Lettres. Entretiens pointus. Mazarinades. Les États et empires de la lune. Les États et empires du soleil. Fragment de physique (in French). Vol. II. Paris: Honoré Champion. ISBN 978-2-7453-0429-2.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (2001). André Blanc (ed.). Œuvres complètes: Théâtre [Complete Works: Theatre] (in French). Vol. III. Paris: Honoré Champion. ISBN 978-2-7453-0419-3.
• Cyrano de Bergerac (2003). Bérengère Parmentier (ed.). Les États et Empires du Soleil [The States and Empires of the Sun]. GF (in French). Paris: Flammarion.

Introduction, chronology, notes, documentation, bibliography and lexicon by Bérengère Parmentier.

• Asteroid 3582 Cyrano, named after de Bergerac

• Lefèvre, Louis-Raymond (1927). La Vie de Cyrano de Bergerac [The Life of Cyrano de Bergerac]. Vies des hommes illustres (in French). Paris: Gallimard.
• Magy, Henriette (1927). Le Véritable Cyrano de Bergerac [The True Cyrano de Bergerac] (in French). Paris: Le Rouge et le Noir.
• Pellier, Henri (1929). Cyrano de Bergerac. Les livres roses pour la jeunesse (in French). Paris: Larousse.
• Rogers, Cameron (1929). Cyrano: Swordsman, Libertin, and Man-of-Letters. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company.
• Pujos, Charles (1951). Le Double Visage de Cyrano de Bergerac [The Two Faces of Cyrano de Bergerac] (in French). Agen: Imprimerie moderne.
• Mongrédien, Georges (1964). Cyrano de Bergerac (in French). Paris: Berger-Levrault.
• de Spens, Willy (1989). Cyrano de Bergerac: l'esprit de révolte [Cyrano de Bergerac: The Spirit of Rebellion]. Les Infréquentables (in French). Monaco: Rocher. ISBN 2-268-00845-2.
• Cardoze, Michel (1994). Cyrano de Bergerac: libertin libertaire [Cyrano de Bergerac: Libertarian Libertine] (in French). Paris: Lattès. ISBN 2-7096-1410-3.
• Germain, Anne (1996). Monsieur de Cyrano-Bergerac (in French). Paris – Lausanne-Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose – Acatos.
• Mourousy, Paul (2000). Cyrano de Bergerac: illustre mais inconnu [Cyrano de Bergerac: famous but unknown] (in French). Monaco: Rocher. ISBN 2-268-03789-4.
• Prévot, Jacques (2011). Cyrano de Bergerac. L'Écrivain de la crise (in French). Paris: Ellipses. ISBN 978-2-7298-6459-0.

• Alcover, Madeleine (1970). La Pensée philosophique et scientifique de Cyrano de Bergerac [The Philosophical and Scientific Thought of Cyrano de Bergerac] (in French). Genève: Droz.
• Alcover, Madeleine (Winter 1977). "Cyrano de Bergerac et le feu: les complexes prométhéens de la science et du phallus" [Cyrano de Bergerac and fire: Promethean complexes of science and of the phallus] (PDF). Rice University Studies (in French) (63): 13–24.
• Alcover, Madeleine (1990). Cyrano relu et corrigé: Lettres, Estats du soleil, Fragment de physique [Cyrano proofread and corrected: Lettres, Estats du soleil, Fragment de physique] (in French). Genève: Droz.
• Alcover, Madeleine (1994). "Cyrano in carcere". Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature (in French). XXI (41): 393–418.
• Alcover, Madeleine (1995). "Sisyphe au Parnasse: la réception des œuvres de Cyrano aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles" [Sisyphus on Parnassus: The reception of the work of Cyrano in the 17th and 18th centuries]. Œuvres & Critiques (in French). XX (3). Tübingen, Gunter Narr Verlag: Revue internationale d'étude de la réception critique des œuvres littéraires de langue française: 219–250.
• Alcover, Madeleine (1996). "Essai de titrologie: les récits de Cyrano de Bergerac". Libertinage et philosophie au XVIIe siècle (in French) (1): 75–94.
• Alcover, Madeleine (1997). "Le troisième manuscrit de L'Autre Monde de Cyrano de Bergerac" [The third manuscript of Cyrano de Bergerac's The Other World]. XVIIe siècle (in French). 196 (3): 597–608.
• Alcover, Madeleine (1999). "Un gay trio: Cyrano, Chapelle, Dassoucy" [A gay trio: Cyrano, Chapelle, Dassoucy]. L'Autre au XVIIe siècle. Actes du 4e colloque du Centre international de rencontres sur le XVIIe siècle. University of Miami, 23 au 25 avril 1998. Biblio 17 (in French). Tübingen, Gunter Narr Verlag: Ralph Heyndels et Barbara Woshinsky: 265–275.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2000). Cyrano et les dévots: Materia actuosa. Antiquité, Âge classique, Lumières. Mélanges en l'honneur d'Olivier Bloch recueillis par Miguel Benitez, Antony McKenna, Gianni Paganini et Jean Salem (in French). Paris: Honoré Champion. pp. 146–155.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2000). "Les paroissiens de Sannois et la profanation de 1649. Contribution à la biographie de Cyrano de Bergerac" [The parishioners of Sannois and the desecration of 1649. Contribution to the biography of Cyrano de Bergerac]. La Lettre clandestine (in French) (9): 307–313.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2001). "" Ah ! dites-moi, mère-grand ": l'ascension sociale des grands-parents paternels de Cyrano" ["Ah! tell me, grandmother": the social ascent of Cyrano's paternal grandparents]. La Lettre clandestine (in French) (10): 327–337.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2003). "À la recherche des Cyrano de Sens" [On the trail of the Cyranos of Sens]. La Lettre clandestine (in French) (11): 215–225.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2003). "Sésame, ouvre-toi ! Les trésors cachés du Minutier central". La Lettre clandestine (in French) (12): 297–309.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2004). "Statistique et critique d'attribution: l'édition posthume des États et Empires de la Lune" [Statistics and critical attribution: the posthumous edition of States and Empires of the Moon]. Littératures classiques (in French). 53 (53): 295–315. doi:10.3406/licla.2004.2084.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2004). "Statistique et critique d'attribution: Requiem pour les mazarinades défuntes de Cyrano" [Statistics and critical attribution: Requiem for Cyrano's deceased mazarinades]. La Lettre clandestine (in French) (13): 233–259.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2004). "Le grand-père de Cyrano était-il sénonais ?" [Was Cyrano's grandfather from Sens?]. La Lettre clandestine (in French) (13): 261–278.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2022). "Éphémérides ou biographie sommaire de Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac" [Ephemeris or biographical summary of Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac]. Les Dossiers du Grihl (in French) (Hors-série n°3). Grihl. doi:10.4000/dossiersgrihl.3817. S2CID 193868695. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2022). "Le Bret, Cuigy, Casteljaloux, Bignon, Royer de Prade et Regnault des Boisclairs: du nouveau sur quelques bons amis de Cyrano et sur l'édition posthume des états et empires de la lune (1657)". Les Dossiers du Grihl. Les dossiers de Jean-Pierre Cavaillé, Libertinage, athéisme, irréligion. (in French) (Hors-série n°3). Grihl. doi:10.4000/dossiersgrihl.3414. S2CID 190176249. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2022). "Sur les Lettres diverses d'Henry Le Bret, éditeur de Cyrano et prévôt de l'église de Montauban" [On the Lettres diverses of Henry Le Bret, editor of Cyrano and Provost of the Church of Montauban]. Les Dossiers du Grihl. Les dossiers de Jean-Pierre Cavaillé, Libertinage, athéisme, irréligion. (in French) (Hors-série n°3). Grihl. doi:10.4000/dossiersgrihl.3450. S2CID 191134332. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2009). "À propos d'opium, de Le Bret et de Cyrano" [Concerning opium, Le Bret and Cyrano]. Libertinism and Literature in Seventeenth-Century France, Actes du colloque de Vancouver, the University of British Columbia, 28-30 septembre 2006. Les dossiers de Jean-Pierre Cavaillé, Libertinage, athéisme, irréligion. (in French). Tübingen: Richard G. Hogdson. Gunter Narr Verlag: 301–314.
• Alcover, Madeleine (18 February 2010). "Savinien I de Cyrano et le protestantisme en appendice de " Éphémérides ou biographie sommaire de Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac "" [Savinien I de Cyrano and Protestantism as an appendix to "Ephemeris or biographical summary of Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac""]. Les Dossiers du Grihl (in French). Grihl. doi:10.4000/dossiersgrihl.3817. S2CID 193868695. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
• Alcover, Madeleine (2022). "Le Cyrano de Bergerac de Jacques Prévot" [The Cyrano de Bergerac of Jacques Prévot]. Les Dossiers du Grihl. Les dossiers de Jean-Pierre Cavaillé, Libertinage, athéisme, irréligion. Essais et bibliographie (in French) (Hors-série n°3). doi:10.4000/dossiersgrihl.5079. S2CID 187134202. Retrieved 6 April 2015.

• Armand, Guilhem (2005). L'Autre Monde de Cyrano de Bergerac: un voyage dans l'espace du livre [The Other World of Cyrano de Bergerac: a journey into book space] (in French). Paris: Lettres modernes Minard. ISBN 2-256-90477-6.
• Armand, Guilhem (2008). Meitinger, S.; Bosquet, M.F.; Terramorsi, B. (eds.). Une figure paradoxale: le guide dans les voyages libertins de la fin du XVII^e siècle. Le cas de L'Autre Monde de Cyrano de Bergerac [A paradoxical figure: the guide in libertine journeys at the end of the 17th century. The case of Cyrano de Bergerac's Other World]. Voyage, altérité, utopie. Aux confins de l'ailleurs et Nulle part. (in French). Paris: Klincksieck. pp. 141–150.
• Armand, Guilhem (June 2005). "Idée d'une République Philosophique: l'impossible utopie solaire de Cyrano" [The Idea of a Philosophical Republic: Cyrano's impossible solar utopia]. Expressions (in French) (25): 63–80. Archived from the original on 1 April 2009. Retrieved 6 April 2015.

• Brun, Pierre-Antonin (1893). Savinien de Cyrano Bergerac, sa vie et ses œuvres d'après des documents inédits [Savinien de Cyrano Bergerac, his life and works according to previously unknown documents] (in French). Paris.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Brun, Pierre-Antonin (1909). Savinien de Cyrano Bergerac, gentilhomme parisien: l'histoire et la légende de Lebret à M. Rostand [Savinien de Cyrano Bergerac, Parisian gentleman: History and legend from Lebret to M. Rostand] (in French). Paris: Daragon. Retrieved 6 April 2015.

• Lemoine, Jean (15 May 1911). "Le patrimoine de Cyrano de Bergerac" [The legacy of Cyrano de Bergerac]. La Revue de Paris (in French): 273–296. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
• Lemoine, Jean (12 April 1913). "La Véritable sépulture de Cyrano de Bergerac". Le Figaro. Supplément littéraire du dimanche (in French) (15). Retrieved 6 April 2015.

• Prévot, Jacques (1977). Cyrano de Bergerac romancier [Cyrano de Bergerac novelist] (in French). Paris: Belin. ISBN 2-7011-0297-9.
• Prévot, Jacques (1978). Cyrano de Bergerac, poète & dramaturge [Cyrano de Bergerac, poet & playwright] (in French). Paris: Belin. ISBN 2-7011-0320-7.

• Harry, Patricia; Mothu, Alain (2006). Sellier, Philippe (ed.). Dissidents, excentriques et marginaux de l'Âge classique: autour de Cyrano de Bergerac [Dissidents, eccentrics and the marginalised of the Classical Age: around Cyrano de Bergerac.] (in French). Paris: Honoré Champion. ISBN 2-7453-1444-0.
• Bargy, Hervé, ed. (2008). Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrano de Sannois: actes du colloque international de Sannois (3 et 17 décembre 2005) (in French). Brepols. ISBN 978-2-503-52384-2.
• Calvié, Laurent; Le Bret, H. (2004). Cyrano de Bergerac dans tous ses états [Cyrano de Bergerac in all his states] (in French). Toulouse: Anacharsis. ISBN 2-914777-16-7.
• Carré, Rose-Marie (1977). Cyrano de Bergerac: voyages imaginaires à la recherche de la vérité humaine [Cyrano de Bergerac: imaginary journeys in search of human truth] (in French). Paris: Lettres modernes. ISBN 2-256-90364-8.
• Frédy de Coubertin, Paul (1898). "La famille de Cyrano de Bergerac" [The family of Cyrano de Bergerac]. La Nouvelle Revue (in French) (mai-juin 1898): 427–437. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
• Stankey, Margaret (2000). Le matérialisme dans L'Autre Monde de Cyrano de Bergerac: Materia actuosa. Antiquité, Âge classique, Lumières. Mélanges en l'honneur d'Olivier Bloch recueillis par Miguel Benitez, Antony McKenna, Gianni Paganini et Jean Salem [Materialism in L'Autre Monde of Cyrano de Bergerac] (in French). Paris: Honoré Champion. pp. 157–179.
• Darmon, Jean-Charles (2004). Le Songe libertin: Cyrano de Bergerac d'un monde à l'autre [The Libertine Dream: Cyrano de Bergerac from one world to another] (in French). Paris: Klincksieck. ISBN 2-252-03483-1.
• Darmon, Jean-Charles (1998). Philosophie épicurienne et littérature au XVIIe siècle. Études sur Gassendi, Cyrano de Bergerac, La Fontaine, Saint-Évremond [Epicurian philosophy and literature of the 17th century. Studies on Gassendi, Cyrano de Bergerac, La Fontaine, Saint-Évremond]. Perspectives littéraires (in French). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
• Delaplace, Jacques (1994). "Cyrano de Bergerac". Stemma, revue du CÉGHIDF (in French) (62): 1367–1372.
• Delluc, Brigitte; Delluc, Gilles (2003). "Cyrano Parisien ? Oui, mais…" [Cyrano a Parisian? Yes, but…]. Bulletin de la Société historique et archéologique du Périgord (in French) (130): 603–622.
• Goldin, Jeanne (1973). Cyrano de Bergerac et l'art de la pointe (in French). Montréal: Presses de l'Université de Montréal. ISBN 978-0-8405-0215-5.
• Canseliet, Eugène (1947). Cyrano de Bergerac philosophe hermétique [Cyrano de Bergerac, hermetic philosopher]. Les Cahiers d'Hermès (in French). Vol. I. Paris: La Colombe. pp. 65–82.
• de Grimarest, Jean-Léonor Le Gallois (1705). La Vie de M. de Molière. Paris: Jacques le Febvre.
• Magne, Émile (1898). Les Erreurs de documentation de "Cyrano de Bergerac" (in French). Paris: Éditions de la Revue de France. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
• Michel, Frédéric (1977). Une Œuvre: De la terre à la lune (in French). Paris: Hatier.
• Moureau, François (1997). "Dyrcona exégète ou les réécritures de la Genèse selon Cyrano de Bergerac". Cahiers d'histoire des littératures romanes/Romanistische Zeitschrift für Literaturgeschichte (in French) (3/4): 261–268.
• Nodier, Charles (1831). "Cyrano de Bergerac". Revue de Paris (in French) (29). Paris: 38–107. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
• Onfray, Michel (2007). Contre-histoire de la philosophie: Les libertins baroques [Counter-history of Philosophy: the Baroque Libertines] (in French). Vol. 3. Grasset. pp. chapitre V, Cyrano de Bergerac et le "librement vivre".
• Parmentier, Bérengère, ed. (2004). Lectures de Cyrano de Bergerac, Les États et Empires de la Lune et du Soleil (in French). Rennes: Pressus Universitaires de Rennes.
• de Poli, Oscar (1898). "Les Cirano de Mauvières et de Bergerac" [The Ciranos of Mauvières and Bergerac]. Revue des questions héraldiques, archéologiques et historiques (in French) (juillet-août-septembre 1898): 51–132.
• Roman, Joseph (1894). "Cyrano de Bergerac et sa famille" [Cyrano de Bergerac and his family]. Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France (in French): 451–455. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
• Rosellini, Michèle; Costentin, Catherine (2004). Cyrano de Bergerac: Les États et les Empires de la Lune et du Soleil [Cyrano de Bergerac: The States and the Empires of the Moon and the Sun]. Clefs Concours (in French). Neuilly: Atlande.
• Samaran, Charles (18 December 1910). "La Mort de Cyrano" [The Death of Cyrano]. Journal des débats politiques et littéraires (in French) (350). Paris: 3. Retrieved 6 April 2015.
• Torero-Ibad, Alexandra (2009). Libertinage, science et philosophie dans le matérialisme de Cyrano de Bergerac [Libertinism, science and philosophy in the materialism of Cyrano de Bergerac] (in French). Paris: Honoré Champion.
• van Vledder, W. H. (1976). Cyrano de Bergerac, 1619–1655, philosophe ésotérique: étude de la structure et du symbolisme d'une œuvre mystique (L'autre monde) du XVII^e siècle [Cyrano de Bergerac, 1619–1655, esoteric philosopher: study of the structure and symbolism of a mystical work (L'autre monde) of the 17th century] (in French). Amsterdam: Holland Universiteits Pers. ISBN 90-302-1206-3.

• Works by Cyrano de Bergerac at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Cyrano de Bergerac at the Internet Archive
• Works by Cyrano de Bergerac at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Petri Liukkonen. "Cyrano de Bergerac". Books and Writers.
• Le Vrai Cyrano de Bergerac – Biography (in French)
• Cyrano(s) de Bergerac – Information on fictional portrayals compared to the real person (in French)
• The Other World: Society and Government of the Moon – annotated English language edition
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) film