Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant

Antoine Girard, sieur de Saint-Amant (September 30, 1594 – December 29, 1661) was a French poet.

His father was a merchant who had, according to his son's account, been a sailor and had commanded for 22 years "une escadre de la reine Elizabeth" – a vague statement that lacks confirmation.

The son obtained a patent of nobility, and attached himself to different great noblemen – the duc de Retz and the comte d'Harcourt among others.

He saw military service and sojourned at different times in Italy, in England – a sojourn which provoked from him a violent poetical attack on the country, Albion (1643) – in Poland, where he held a court appointment for two years, and elsewhere.

His other work consists of Bacchanalian songs, his Débauche being one of the most remarkable convivial poems of its kind.