HEROET, ANTOINE, surnamed LA MAISON-NEUVE (d. 1568), French poet, bishop of Digne, was born in Paris of a family connected with the chancellor Olivier. His poetry belongs to his early years, for after he had taken orders he ceased to write profane poetry. His chief work is La Parfaicte Amye (Lyons, 1542) in which he developed the idea of a purely spiritual love, based chiefly on the reading of the Italian Neo-Platonists. The book aroused great controversy. La Borderie replied in L'Amye de cour with a description of a very much more human woman, and Charles Fontaine contributed a Contr' amye de cour to the dispute. Heroet, in addition to some translations from the classics, wrote the Complainte d'une dame nouvellement surprise d'amour, an Epistre a Francois Icr, and some pieces included in the now very rare Opuscules d'amour par Heroet, La Borderie et autres divins poetes (Lyons, . Heroet belongs to the Lyonnese school of which Maurice Sceve may be regarded as the leader.
See H. F. Cary, The Early French Poets (1846) .