When Napoleon arrived in Alexandria, he spoke to his troops and said:
“The peoples we will be living alongside are Muslims; their first article of faith is ‘There is no other god but God, and Mahomet is his prophet’. Do not contradict them; treat them as you treated theJews, the Italians; respect theirmuftisand theirimams, as you respected theirrabbisandbishops. Have the same tolerance for the ceremonies prescribed by the Quran, for their mosques as you had for the convents, for thesynagogues, for the religion ofMosesand that ofJesus Christ. TheRoman legionsused to protect all religions. You will here find different customs to those of Europe, you must get accustomed to them. The people among whom we are going treat women differently to us; but in every country whoever violates one is a monster. Pillaging only enriches a small number of men; it dishonours us, it destroys our resources; it makes enemies of the people who it is in our interest to have as our friends. The first city we will encounter was built byAlexander [the Great]. We shall find at every step great remains worthy of exciting French emulation.”
(See French Campaign in Egypt and Syria, Wikipedia)
When he was in Egypt, Napoleon recruited a guard made up of Mamelukes or Mamluks. Horace Vernet left us this extraordinary portrait of Roustam Raza (1783 – 7 December 1845), a Mameluke (un mamelouk) and Napoleon’s personal bodyguard from 1798 until 1814.
Roustam Raza was born to Armenian parents in Georgia. He was kidnapped and sold as a slave. He married in Dourdan, near Paris, and died in Dourdan on 7 December 1845. Raza did not follow Napoleon when he was exiled to Elba.
Raza is remembered for his memoirs of the years he had spent in the service of Napoleon.
The Napoleonic Code
As for the quotation above, it reveals a lesser-known Napoleon. Napoleon rebuilt France after the French Revolution. For instance, he restored Catholicism (see Concordat of 1801, Wikipedia) and had a civil code drawn up. He appointed a commission of four eminent jurists, including Louis-Joseph Faure who spent four years drafting the Code which went into effect in 1804. Napoleon and Jean-Jacques-Régis de Cambacérès chaired the commission. Québec’s Code Civil is based on the Napoleonic Code. Changes were made to the Napoleonic Code, but it remains France’s code civil and it has influenced legislation in a large number of countries. (See Napoleonic Code, Wikipedia.)
Sources and Resources
Les Souvenirs de Roustam Raza is a Project Gutenberg publication [EBook #33534] FR
Les Souvenirs de Roustam Raza is a BnF Gallica publication FR
I featured Suzor-Coté a few days ago. So I am using his sketch of “The Death of Montcalm.” Montcalm was defeated by James Wolfe at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. James Wolfe also died. He was 32 and Montcalm, 47.
The Conquest
Yesterday, I had a conversation with an educated French Canadian. It was an eye-opener. This gentleman is convinced that the arrival in Quebec of immigrants with multicultural backgrounds will ultimately lead to the disappearance of the French milieu in Quebec. Moreover, he is certain that Nouvelle-France was conquered, which negates the choice the French made in 1763, the year the Treaty of Paris was signed.
He emphasized that Britain had long wanted to add Nouvelle-France to its colonies, forgetting, for instance, that when Pierre-Esprit Radisson and his brother-in-law, Médard des Groseillers, known as “Radishes and Gooseberries,” discovered the Hudson Bay and returned to Canada with a flotilla of a hundred canoes filled with pelts, they were treated as coureurs de bois rather than explorers. Unlike coureurs de bois, voyageurs were hired and had a license to travel and fetch fur west of what is now Quebec.
Because the fur he had brought to Montreal was confiscated, Radisson went to England and obtained the support of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, KG, PC, FRS (17 December 1619 – 29 November 1682). Prince Rupert financed an expedition to the current Hudson Bay. In 1668-1669, the Nonsuch sailed across the Atlantic. Radisson was right. Large boats could travel to the inner part of Canada, from the North. This way fur traders would not need canoes as much as they had to previously. Yet, let it be known that canoes manned by nimble voyageurscontinued to do the better job of gathering precious pelts.
The fact remains, however, that when the Hudson’s Bay Company was founded, in 1670, Britain acquired Rupert’s Land. It was a vast chunk of North America which the French had an opportunity of acquiring, except that Louis XIV was building a castle at Versailles, which French peasants would have to pay for.
Rupert’s Land
At the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War, France’s financial circumstances were strained. In October 1776, Louis XVI appointed Swiss-born Jacques Necker director-general of the finances, but despite a degree of success, Necker could not prevent the French Revolution. In other words, in 1673, not only had France lost battles, but it was poor. Nouvelle-France being a financial burden, France chose to keep sugar rich Martinique and Guadeloupe.
Of course, Britain wanted to appropriate Nouvelle-France, i.e. Canada and Acadie, but France itself could not fight back. It seems that, in the end, the more prosperous nation won. At one point, France owned nearly two-thirds of North-America. It lost New France in 1763 and, in 1803, it sold Louisiana. Napoleon (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) needed money.
Battles do play an important role in history but, occasionally, there is a “bottom line.” New France fell to Britain, but in this particular demise, only a richer France could have kept New France. The puzzling element in the Treaty of Paris is Britain’s willingness not to take away from its new French-speaking subjects their farms, their seigneuriesand their religion. Moreover, at the time of the French Revolution, Britain made it possible for émigrés priests to move to Quebec where they would not be idle and that many became educators.
I will conclude by expressing doubts as to the possibility of teaching their true history to those Québécois who have chosen to think that New France was conquered, that there were no ‘patriots’ killed in Toronto (see Upper Canada Rebellion), and that Canada is not an officially bilingual country promoting the use of French.
I would also like to stress that if French-speaking Quebecers want to keep their language, they should make it their personal duty to do so. Speaking French as well as possible begins at home. As for the Quebec Government, it would be my opinion that, with respect to the survival and growth of French, it ought to make it its main mission to encourage Québécois to speak and write their language more correctly. It would give itself a positive and attainable goal. Québécois should feel motivated to perfect their French.
At any rate, there was no “conquest” of New France. France had lost battles, but the truth remains that it chose to part with New France because it was not bringing in a profit.
Un Épisode de l’affaire de Quibéron, 1795 by Paul-Émile Boutigny (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On 21 March 1804, aged 31, His Serene Highness, the Duke of Enghien, born on 2 August 1772, was executed by single firearm. He was an émigré, but dragoons captured him and brought him to Strasbourg on 15 March 1804. He was the grand-son of Louis XIV, by Madame de Montespan, and the son of Louise Marie Thérèse Bathilde d’Orléans, the Duke of Orléans’ sister. Philippe duc d’Orléans, or Philippe Égalité, the duc d’Enghien’s uncle, voted in favour of his brother’s, Louis XVI, execution, by guillotine.
The Duc d’Enghien was a prince of the blood (Prince du Sang) and, therefore, a possible heir to the throne of France. He was accused of participating in a Royalist plot (Cadoudal-Pichegru) to defeat the Consulate (18 Brumaire [9 November] 1799 –1804), part of the Napoleonic era (c. 1795 – 1815 [Congress of Vienna]). He was tried for the sake of appearances, Napoleon having decided he had to be eliminated. D’Enghien had been the commander of a corps of émigrés during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802), but he had not played a role in the above-mentioned 1804 conspiracy. By the time the duke was captured, he had married Charlotte de Rohan (25 October 1767 – 1 May 1841), privately and in near secrecy, and the couple lived in Ettenheim, in Baden, on the Rhine. (See Duc d’Enghien, Wikipedia.)
Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, duc d’Enghien(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There were of course many Royalists among the French during the French Revolution (1789-1794). Particularly noteworthy is a failed invasion of France called l’affaire Quibéron portrayed above by artist Paul-Émile Boutigny (1853 -1929). On 23 June 1795, émigrés landed at Quibéron to lend support to the Vendéens, who had long fought Revolutionary forces, and the chouannerie, royalist uprisings. The émigrés hoped they could raise support in western France, end the French Revolution and re-establish the monarchy. By 21 July 1795, they had been routed.
As for the duke, nothing could be done to save him. If Joséphine de Beauharnais,[i]Napoléon I‘s first wife, could not dissuade her husband, born Napoleone Buonaparte, no one could. Joseph Fouché, 1st Duc d’Otrante(known as the Duke of Otranto), Napoleon’s chief of police, said of the execution that “it was worse than a crime, it was a mistake:” “C’est pire qu’un crime, c’est une faute.“The crime, for it was a crime, was imputed, probably wrongly, to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, one of history’s foremost survivors. However, if the murder of the young duc d’Enghien is remembered to this day, it is as an obvious injustice, one that lingered in the mind of great writers.
The “Chouans” and the Duke in literature: Balzac, Dumas and Leo Tolstoy
In Les Chouans, a 1829 novel, French writer Honoré de Balzac (20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) immortalized the royalistchouannerie, uprisings in western France and, by the same token, the royalist Vendéan insurrection. For his part, the duc d’Enghien was bestowed life eternal by Leo Tolstoy (9 September 1828 – 20 November 1910), Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy. In the first book of War and Peace, Tolstoy has the vicomte de Mortemart, a French émigré, say that:
“‘[a]fter the murder of the duc, even the most partial ceased to regard [Buonaparte] as a hero. If to some people he ever was a hero, after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one hero less on earth.’ The vicomte said that the duc d’Enghien had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular reasons for Buonaparte’s hatred of him.”
There is an anecdote according to which, during one of his fainting spells,[ii]Napoléon was at the mercy of the duke of Enghien who spared him. The execusion of the duc d’Enghien who spared him. The execusion of the duc d’Enghien might well have been Napolèons’ brief put personal French Revolution. He needed to kill an aristocrat. Alexandre Dumas, père (24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870) featured the duc d’Enghien in his The Last Cavalier (Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine), unfinished at the time of Dumas’ death, but now published and translated into English:
“[T]he dominant sentiment in Bonaparte’s mind at that moment was neither fear nor vengeance, but rather the desire for all of France to realise that Bourbon blood, so sacred to Royalist partisans, was no more sacred to him than the blood of any other citizen in the Republic.
‘Well, then’, asked Cambacérès,[iii] ‘what have you decided?’
‘It’s simple’, said Napoleon, ‘We shall kidnap the Duc d’Enghien and be done with it.'”[iv]
Let these words be the conclusion of this post. The duc d’Enghien was a scapegoat.
[i] Napoleon divorced Joséphine in 1810 so he could marry Marie Louise d’Autriche, the future Duchess of Parma, who gave him a son. Napoléon wanted un ventre, a fertile woman.
[ii] Napoleon had epileptic seizures. One of Talleyrand’s duties was to remove Napoléon from public sight when seizures occurred.
Books of Hours are a secular and abridged version of the Liber Usualis, a compendium of Gregorian chants sung during the eight Canonical Hours. The Liber Usualis is rooted in Medieval monasticism, but it had to be restored after the French Revolution (1789-1794) and the Directoire (2 November 1795 until 10 November 1799).
Therefore the Liber Usualis Benedictine monks use today is a restored compendium of Gregorian chants. It was first edited in 1896 by Solesmes abbot Dom André Mocquereau (1849–1930) FR. (See “Liber Usualis,” Wikipedia.) Moreover, the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, which introduced the use of the vernacular in Catholic liturgy, “mandated that Gregorian Chant should retain ‘pride of place’ in the liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 116.)” (See “Liber Usualis,” Wikipedia.)
Books of Hours
Although used by lay Christians, all Books of Hours, Medieval books, are religious in spirit and reflect a motivation to participate in the liturgy of the hours observed by monks. Yet, Books of Hours differ from the Liber Usualis. They are not decorated.
Other than the obligatory content, Books of Hours could include heraldic emblems, coats of arms, information necessary to its owner, genealogical information, etc.
Second, they are works of art: Illuminations and Calligraphy
Because they are shorter than the Liber usualis, Books of Hours leave room for enluminures (illuminations) and fine calligraphy, the main artistic elements of Jean de France’s “Très Riches Heures” and other luxury Books of Hours. Enluminures were miniature paintings designed to reproduce the luminosity of stained glass.
So not only did Books of Hours include liturgical, devotional and personal contents, but they are also works of art. It is mainly as works of art that they have come down to us. Illuminated pages of Books of Hours were genuine miniature paintings and were not bound, at least not originally. They were independent folios bound at a later date.
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Book of Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux (Arrest of Jesus and Annunciation) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Illuminations
Illuminations could be extremely costly, depending on their sophistication, the time required to illuminate the text, the pigments and other materials used to make the colours, the “paper” on which the artist(s) created his or her illuminations and, of great importance, the skills of the scribe. Let us look at the paint and the paper artists used.
The Paint
The paint used by artists to decorate Books of Hours was a very durable form of gouache. The colour was made from various pigments, including expensive lapis lazuli, mixed or crushed in a binder (un liant). However, when artists used gold or silver, they usually applied it in flat sheets or a “leaf.”
The Paper: Parchment
Moreover, Books of Hours are associated to the history of paper. Now the history of paper finds its origins at an earlier date. Egyptian papyrus was manufactured in the 3rd millennium BC. In the case of Medieval Books of Hours, however, one used parchment(parchemin), a writing membrane made from the skin of sheep, goats, or calves. The finest paper was vellum (from the old French vélin, “calfskin”).
Calligraphy
Where calligraphy is concerned, Books of Hours are an important step in the history of printing, as are illuminations, our illustrations. In calligraphy, we find the ancestors to our fonts. Accomplished scribes wrote so beautifully that the calligraphy of Books of Hours was a work of art in itself. Excellent scribes seldom made mistakes and, for the fifty or so years that followed the invention of printing, printers left room for illuminations to be inserted and, in particular, for initials to be rubricated (red) rather than “historiated.” These books are called incunables.
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Charles d’Orléans reçoit l’hommage d’un vassal. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The historiated “D,” to your left, shows Charles d’Orléans (24 November 1394, Paris – 5 January 1465, Amboise) receiving homage from a subject. Painting historiated letters must have been a true challenge to miniaturists as the letters were a miniature within a miniature. Some miniaturists used a lens. Books of Hours were a collaborative project.
Ordinary and Luxury “Books of Hours”
The above-mentioned Hours of Catherine of Cleves (c. 1440), offered to her as a wedding present, is an example of a luxury book of hours. Catherine’s horæ, the Latin word for “hours,” are decorated with 158 colorful and gilded illuminations. (“Hours of Catherine of Cleves,” Wikipedia.) Miniaturists therefore spent several years preparing her wedding present. They also spent years producing the Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux, Queen of France, c. 1324–28, by Jean Pucelle (French, active in Paris, 1319–1334). Catherine’s hours are housed in the Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, N. Y. It contains twenty-five full-page miniatures and approximately seven hundred smaller enluminures and was first bought by Jean de France, Duc de Berry.
However, less affluent and, at times, poor Christians, including servants, also owned a Book of Hours. Tens of thousands Books of Hours were made. Thousands are still available. These may have had a few illuminated pages and may have been manuscripts, but the humbler Books of Hours were seldom the products of great artists. Moreover, some were printed, but occasionally the printer left spaces that could be hand coloured. These were the incunables.
“Pagan” Roots: Horæ and a Farmer’s Almanac
In my post on the Très Riches Heures, I mentioned that Books of Hours combined Christian elements, elements predating Christianity and personal information. So Books of Hours are not entirely Christian works and a secular form of the Benedictine Liber Usualis. For instance,Medieval Books of Hours use Psalms from the Old Testament. “The book of hours has its ultimate origin in the Psalter.” (See “Book of Hours,” Wikipedia.)
Books of Hours also have “pagan” roots. They were Horæ in Latin Antiquity, a word still used in the Middle Ages, and were inspired by the cycle of nature, the degree of light and darkness,[ii] and the appropriate Labours of the Months. As I mentioned in a recent post, Candlemas: its Stories & its Songs, Greek Poet Hesiod, who is believe to have been active between 750 and 650 BCE, wrote a Works and Days that Wikipedia describes as a farmer’s almanach.
In this respect, Jean de France’s Très Riches Heures de Jean de France, Duc de Berry resembles Hesiod’s Works and Days. The Très Riches Heures feature a monthly page consisting of a full-page painting and a page featuring an image, above which there is a semicircle that shows the twelve signs of the Zodiac as well as the ecclesiastical lunar calendar, full moon and new moon, yet another manner in which Books of Hours predate Christianity. As calendars, Books of Hours span civilizations, but may not contain illuminations and fine calligraphy.
Conclusion
In short, Medieval Books of Hours are a very rich legacy rooted in the Liber Usualis and in seasons forever new.However, this does not preclude a resemblance with Latin horæ and borrowings, some from a more distant past. Pictures predate Christianity as do calendars, almanacs, labours of the months: seasons. In this regard, Books of Hours can be linked to earlier works. They also constitute a step in the history of printing and a history of books.
—ooo—
I must close here, but our next step is a glance at illuminated manuscripts that are not Books of Hours. Under “Sources” below, I have mentioned Psalters. But, among illuminated books, there were Gospel Books, Responsorials, Antiphonaires, Missals, Apocalyptic books, Breviaries, hagiographic books (lives of saints) and other illuminated manuscripts.
In an earlier post, I wrote about the Fitzwilliam Book of Hours. This post is one of the related articles listed at the end of the current post. It shoud be updated. For instance, it requires embedded videos. This post is one of the related articles listed at the end of the current post. It should be updated. For instance, it requires embedded videos.
N.B. Some of the illuminations painted for Berry’s Book of Hours inspired some of the backdrops to sets used by Laurence Olivier (22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) in his film of Shakespeare’s play Henry V which he made in 1944 on the eve of the Normandy invasion. (Online Library of Liberty.)
composer: unknown (c. 1750)
performers: Le Poème harmonique
director: Vincent Dumestre
Le Roi a fait battre tambour
1. Le roi a fait battre tambour Pour voir toutes ses dames(To see all his ladies)
Et la première qu’il a vue (the first one)
Lui a ravi son âme
The king had drummers beat their drums / So he could see all the ladies of his kingdom / And the first one he saw / Stole his soul
2. Marquis dis-moi la connais-tu
Qui est cette jolie dame ?
Le marquis lui a répondu
Sire roi, c’est ma femme(she is my wife)
Marquis do tell if you know her / Who is that pretty lady / The Marquis answered / Your Majesty, she is my wife
3. Marquis, tu es plus heureux que moi
D’avoir femme si belle Si tu voulais me la donner (If you wanted)
Je me chargerais d’elle
Marquis, you are happier than I / To have so beautiful a wife / If you gave her to me / I would look after her
4. Sire, si vous n’étiez le roi (if you were not)
J’en tirerais vengeance
Mais puisque vous êtes le roi (since your are)
À votre obéissance(obedience)
Your Majesty / Were you not the King / I would seek revenge / But since you are the King / I must obey
5. Marquis ne te fâche donc pas
T’auras ta récompense
Je te ferai dans mes armées
Beau maréchal de France
Marquis, do not get angry / You will be rewarded / In my armies you will be / A handsome maréchal (marshall) of France
6. Adieu, ma mie, adieu, mon cœur ! (Farewell)
Adieu mon espérance(my hope)
Puisqu’il nous faut servir le roi Séparons-nous d’ensemble (Let us separate)
Farewell, my dearest, farewell my heart / Farewell my hopes / Since we must the King serve / Let us part
7. La reine a fait faire un bouquet
De belles fleurs de lys
Et la senteur de ce bouquet
A fait mourir marquise
The Queen had a bouquet made / Of beautiful lillies / And the scent of this bouquet / Caused the Marquise to die
The Story behind the song
We know that Le Roi a fait battre tambour was written in 1750. However, it is difficult to determine whose story the song tells. Opinions differ. But, in all likelihood, the song tells of events that took place at the end of the sixteenth century, during the reign of Henri IV (13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), King of France and King of Navarre.
Henri II (31 March 1519 – 10 July 1559) was King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559. He was wounded during a jousting tournament and died. Henri II had three sons and all three were potential heirs to the throne of France or dauphins. It therefore seemed that the Valois Kings of France would continue to reign for a long time.However, Henri II died prematurely. Consequently, when his sons ascended the throne, they were too young and the person who reigned was their mother, Catherine de’ Medici (13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589).
The Fate of Henri II’s sons AND THAT OF mARGUERITE
Charles IX (27 June 1550 – 30 May 1574) ascended the throne at the age of 10 (1560 or 1561) and died at the age of 24. He did not survive the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre which his mother had forced him to order and which began on the 23rd of August 1572.
The Massacre took place a few days after Marguerite de Valois was forced (by Catherine de’ Medici) to marry Henri IV, King of Navarre. She protected her new husband but, afterwards, the couple seldom shared the same roof.
Henry III (19 September 1551 – 2 August 1589) became king in 1574, at the age of twenty-three and fell ill and died at the age of 38.
Marguerite de valois and the Salic Law
The Salic law prevented Marguerite de Valois to succeed her brothers. Women could not ascend the throne. So, ironically, Henri IV, the Huguenot (French Calvinist Protestant ) King she had been forced to marry, was suddenly the new heir to the throne of France.
Henri IV, the King of Navarre, became King of France and Navarre in 1589 and was crowned when his official mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées, suggested he convert to Catholicism, which he did. He is reported to have said: Paris vaut bien une messe (Paris [being King of France] is well worth a mass).
Marguerite de Valois as murderess
When Henri IV was having his marriage to Marguerite de Valois (la reine Margot) annulled, Gabrielle d’Estrées (1573– 10 April 1599), his official mistress, died of eclampsia during a pregnancy. She was bearing their fourth child. Rumours started circulating that she had been poisoned by the Queen (Marguerite de Valois). Therefore, the lady killed by the scent of a bouquet of lilies was Gabrielle d’Estrées, an extremely beautiful woman.
Henri IV married Marie de’ Medici (26 April 1575 – 4 July 1642) in October 1600, but the Marguerite de Valois’s title remain that of Queen.
More on the Song
The song is performed in the French of the Ancien Régime, i.e.before the French Revolution (1789-1794). Roi is pronounced Roé, as it is still pronounced by many French Canadians. Moreover, the lyrics I have provided are not identical to the words I have found. I will have to transcribe this older version of the song.
There are several recordings of “Le Roi a fait battre tambour.” The words given above are the words used by Nana Mouskouri.[i]
Conclusion
So now we know the probable origin of the our featured song, a famous song. But more importantly, we have seen how dangerous jousting tournaments can be, if one is married to a Medici. Catherine de’ Medici was manipulative and bloodthirsty and ruined her children’s life. Henri II had three sons, yet the Valois line died in 1589, the year Henri III and Catherine de’ Medici died.
With respect to the biographical video accounts of Bologne’s life and Wikipedia’s entry, I would situate myself between the two. However, I have to state that it is amazing that the black Mozart should have influenced Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is equally amazing that as the Director of the Concert de la Loge Olympique, he should have commissioned Symphonies from Franz Joseph Haydn (31 March 1732 – 31 May 1809), the famous “Paris Symphonies” (1785-1786), and premièred them.
The Chevalier de Saint-George was an esteemed composer and conductor as well as a virtuoso violinist. Moreover, he was an accomplished swordsman and equestrian. He was admired by George IV of England, the Prince of Wales, which is not a trivial detail. Would that Saint-George had fled to England rather than join the French army when the French Revolution started to spin out of control.
In Wikipedia’s entry on Joseph Bologne, mention is made of “a famous portrait of him [Saint-George] crossing swords in an exhibition match with the French transvestite spy-in-exile, the Chevalier d’Éon, in the presence of the Prince of Wales, Britain’s future king George IV.” The famous portrait is the above “satire.”
Photo credit: Wikipedia
Allow me to begin this post by speaking of the two Mozarts: the white Mozart or Amadeus, and the black Mozart, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George.
When Mozart, the white Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791), was in Paris, in 1777-1778, he was influenced by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George. One would expect the white Mozart to have influenced the black Mozart, but that was not the case. However, the two differ in that the career of the black Mozart (December 25, 1745 – June 10, 1799) was affected by his ethnicity and the French Revolution. Three divas opposed his appointment as director of the Royal Opera because he was a mulatto.
However, by then, Joseph had commissioned and premièred Haydn six “Paris Symphonies” and he had met the white Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus during his 1777-1778 visit to Paris. It is during his stay in Paris that the former Wolfgang Theophilus, the white Mozart, lost his mother. She had accompanied him on this tour, but was taken ill and died on 3 July 1778. Wolfgang was 22 at that time and Joseph, 33.
However the French Revolution all but destroyed Joseph whose patrons were Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. As we know, he was Marie-Antoinette’s music teacher. Marie-Antoinette composed “C’est mon ami,” a lovely pastoral song.
Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges: L’amant anonyme (1780),
Ballet Nº 1
I have not finished reading my colleagues’ posts, so I apologize. Preparing my posts of Saint-George was time-consuming. However, I have now seen YouTube’s biographical videos. There are several videos and they tell, in English, Saint-George’s entire story.
The Biographical Videos
Yesterday evening, I watched the biographical videos. They provide excellent information, but that period in French history is a little difficult for me to follow. During the French Revolution, the Jacobin calendar replaced to the Gregorian Calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII (7 January 1502 – 10 April 1585) and still in use. As Napoleon rose to power, the Jacobin calendar remained the calendar used by the French and it is a calendar that tends to confuse me. However, there is help on the internet. To convert a Gregorian calendar date to a Jacobin date, click on Jacobin. I suppose the reverse is also possible.
The Military
But, let us return to our Chevalier’s years in the military. He was at first a gendarme and later a soldier. At the age of 19, when he graduated, George was made a Gendarme de la Garde du Roi, created in 1609 by Henri IV. The Garde duRoi‘smission was to protect the dauphin, the name given the heir to the throne of France.
Therefore, as a member of the Garde du Roi, Joseph’s duties had little to do with his future military assignments. As I pointed out in the blog I posted yesterday (September 12, 2012), the Chevalier de Saint-George “served in the army of the Revolution against France’s foreign enemies.” (Chevalier de Saint-George, Wikipedia), but there is more to say. At one point, Joseph took command of a regiment of a thousand free people of color, which brought on his demise.
Discrepancies
According to the YouTube biographical videos, upon his dismissal from the military, on September 25, 1793, Saint-George was condemned to death. This information differs from the information provided in Saint-George’s Wikipedia entry. Joseph was an aristocrat and, as an aristocrat, he could have been guillotined. However, according to Wikipedia, he was accused of using public funds for private gain. Wikipedia does not chronicle a death sentence.
* * *
Given that I would like to send this post as soon as possible, I will close now. There will be a third and final post on the Chevalier de Saint-George.
Joseph Bologne was born in Guadeloupe, in 1745, and was educated both in Guadeloupe and in France. In Saint-Domingue, Joseph had studied music with the black violinist Joseph Platon. But after his family emigrated to France, in 1752, he was enrolled in a private academy and is believed to have been a pupil of Antonio Lolli, one of the finest Italian violinists of the eighteen century. As for composition, it would appear that his mentor was Francois Joseph Gossec, a fine composer remembered for writing a lovely gavotte, a piece of music often incorporated in a suite or a partita, but rooted in a French folk dance.[i]
Joseph Bologne at Versailles
As we know already, in France, his musical talent opened the best possible doors. Joseph Bologne was Marie-Antoinette’s music teacher and became the maestro of the Concert des Amateurs,[ii] “a title of extreme respect given to a master musician” (Wikipedia). He was then appointed director of the Concert de la Loge Olympique, the largest orchestra of his time (65-70 musicians).
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George
The World Première of Haydn’s Paris Symphonies, but the divas…
It is in his capacity as director of the Concert de la Loge Olympique, that he directed the world première of Haydn’s six “Paris Symphonies” which had been commissioned by the Concert de la Loge Olympique. So, as a denizen of Versailles, Joseph Bologne met Haydn and he also met the white Mozart. He is one individual whose talent helped override ethnicity, but not altogether. When Saint-George was appointed director of the Royal Opera of Louis XVI, three divas opposed Saint-George‘s appointment because he was a mulatto.
Being a mulatto had already been a threat in Joseph’s life. Before Joseph’s father emigrated to France, he had to flee Guadeloupe where he was suspected of murder. He sought refuge in France to prevent Nanon and Joseph from being sold as slaves. Moreover, on 5 April 1762, King Louis XV decreed that people of color, nègres and mulattos, had to register with the clerk of the Admiralty. Both Nanon and Joseph were registered. Nanon was registered as being 34 years old. As for Joseph, he was mistakenly registered as Joseph Boulogne by La Boëssière, his master of arms. It could be that, by then, Georges, Joseph’s father, had returned to Guadeloupe. After the Seven Years’ War, France had chosen to keep Guadeloupe rather than New France.
Joseph as Swordsman and Equestrian
His career as a musician may have suffered because of the divas’s refusal to be seen next to a mulatto, but Joseph has other talents. La Boëssière had a fine student. Joseph became one of the finest swordsmen in Europe, if not the finest, as well as an extraordinary equestrian. His talents and reputation as an athlete served him well when divas rejected him. He excelled as an athlete and it brought him recognition.
Joseph as Soldier
But Joseph de Bolo(u)gne is remembered not as an athlete but as a prolific composer of the classical era (Haydn, Mozart and early Beethoven). His compositions are listed in his Wikipedia entry. Joseph served in the army of the Revolution against France’s foreign enemies, but he is not known to have participated in the misfortune of his student, Marie-Antoinette, and her husband. On the contrary, his father having been ennobled in 1757, Joseph was an aristocrat at a time in history when aristocrats were almost systematically executed.
False Accusations
Technically speaking, Joseph de Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George survived the French Revolution, but barely. In 1793, he was accused of using “public funds for personal gain.” (Wikipedia). He was acquitted, but in the meantime he had spent 18 months in jail and upon his release, he no longer had patrons. Most had been guillotined. Joseph did direct orchestras on a few occasions, but too few. He died a poor man, in 1799 at the age of 54.
I have not paid much attention to Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George’s role in the military. Moreover I do not know why Napoléon ordered that the Chevalier’s works be destroyed. I need to read the books that are now being published on Joseph Bologne. These and CDs of his music are available from Amazon.com. Moreover, there are biographical videos on YouTube. I will insert them in a separate post.
Conclusion
In the history of music, Joseph de Bologne is considered an important figure not only because of the music he composed, but also because he was one of the earliest black musicians to compose what we call “classical music.” In fact, he composed during the “classical era” (1730-1820). But his story is nevertheless rather sad. His rise to success was extremely rapid, but he was a mulatto, the ‘black Mozart.’ Moreover, he was jailed for a crime he had not committed.
