Le Gendre, [Antoine?], abb^, "Cur^ d'H^nonville" 
La mani^re de cultiver les arbres fruitiers. Paris, 
1652. 
The authorship of this book has been much de¬ 
bated* One theory that has found many support¬ 
ers is that Le Gendre was a pseudonym of Robert 
Arnauld d’Andilly ( 1588 -I 674 ). Cat* Bib, Nat, 
Paris, 4071* enters the majority of its copies 
under this author, and the Brit* Mus* enters un¬ 
der Le Gendre as a pseud, of Amauld, Liron d* 
" Airoles, in Rev, Hort, (Barral) 1:220-222 (186?) 
unreservedly accepts the authorship of Arnauld, 
Antoine Le Maistre, supposed author, in Prit- 
zel, 1st ed,, cannot possibly have had any con¬ 
nection with the work. Another attribution, to 
the Abb^ de Pont-Chfiteau de camboust de Coaslins, 
director of the garden of the Abbey of port Roy¬ 
al, vdiich is given by Scguier, p,364* and others, 
is also untenable. It is based on a tract, "Ob¬ 
servations sur le livre du Cur^ d’H^nonville, ou 
de I’Abb^ de Pont-Chfiteau de Cambout de Coislin", 
appended to the work of "Aristote, Jardinier de 
Puteaux" (Paris, l677)i ^ut as Gibault observes, 
the Abb^ de Pont-Chdteau would have been only 18 
years of age at the time the book of Le Gendre, 
said to embody the fruit of 50 years experience, 
was published. The most searching investigation 
of the authorship of the book was made by Messa- 
ger, "Le livre de Le Gendre", in Rev, Hort, 51j 
215-218 ( 1879 ), who concludes that the claim of 
Bailliet that it was the work of Guillaume de La- 
moignon and Lefbvre d'Ormesson is most plausible, 
and thinks the wwight of evidence is particularly 
in favor of the former, 
Gibault, Jour, Soc. Nat, Hort, France (1905)* 
p, 726 - 727 * summarizes the leading theories that 
have been advanced, without definitely adopting 
any of them. He points out that there actually 
was a Le Gendre who was Cur4 of H^nonville and 
a friend of Corneille, who dedicated a poem to 
him, and implies that he at any rate furnished 
the notes on which this treatise was based* Gi¬ 
bault seems inclined to favor retaining the name 
Le Gendre, by which the book is so widely known, 
and in view of the diversity of theories and un¬ 
certainty of the conclusions, one can hardly do 
otherwise. The Cat* Bib, Nat, Paris, 93i26, in 
an entry under Le Gendre, supplies the forename 
"Antoine", not found elsewhere, and possibly ob¬ 
tained thru more recent investigations. 
An article by Carribre, in Rev, Hort, 52:140 
( 1880 ), does not discuss the authorship, but the 
contents of the book of Le Gendre, (MFW) 
