Tag Archives: Le Bourgeois gentilhomme

Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, part two

17 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by in Comédie-Ballet, Comedy, Molière

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Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Edmond Geffroy (Wiki2.org)

Our dramatis personæ is:

Monsieur Jourdain, bourgeois.
Madame Jourdain, his wife.
Lucile, their daughter.
Nicole, maid.
Cléonte, suitor of Lucile.
Covielle, Cléonte’s valet.
Dorante, Count, suitor of Dorimène.
Dorimène, Marchioness.
Music Master.
Pupil of the Music Master.
Dancing Master.
Fencing Master.
Master of Philosophy.
Tailor.
Tailor’s apprentice.
Two lackeys.
Many male and female musicians, instrumentalists, dancers, cooks,
tailor’s apprentices, and others necessary for the interludes.

The Plot

  • l’ingénue (the young woman)
  • le jeune premier (the young man)
  • valets, maids, etc. (helpers)

We know the plot of the Would-be Gentleman. Monsieur Jourdain, who is attempting to elevate himself from bourgeoisie to gentilhommerie, wants his daughter to marry an aristocrat. Therefore, Monsieur Jourdain is a threat to Lucile and Cléonte, his daughter and the young man she wishes to marry, a bourgeois.

Helping Lucile, l’ingénue, is Nicole, a saucy servant. Helping Cléonte, the jeune premier, is Covielle, a valet. In some comedies, the young lovers are helpless and would never marry, were it not for the stratagems or their valets and servants. In the commedia dell’arte, zanni are very clever. They are tricksters. Covielle may not be a Brighella, but he devises the turquerie that fools our would-be gentleman, Monsieur Jourdain. Cléonte plays along.

The Maîtres

  • music
  • dance
  • fencing
  • philosophy

Monsieur Jourdain believes one can learn gentilhommerie and hires a group of maîtres. The music and dance masters are the first to arrive at the bourgeois‘ house and mention that Monsieur Jourdain’ wish to be an aristocrat, provides them with a good income. The music master says:

This is a nice source of income for us — this Monsieur Jourdain, with the visions of nobility and gallantry that he has gotten into his head. You and I should hope that everyone resembled him. (I. 1)
[Il est vrai. Nous avons trouvé ici un homme comme il nous le faut à tous deux. Ce nous est une douce rente que ce Monsieur Jourdain, avec les visions de noblesse et de galanterie qu’il est allé se mettre en tête. Et votre danse, et ma musique, auraient à souhaiter que tout le monde lui ressemblât.]  (I. i, p. 2)

However, the music master says that applause and praise do not necessarily bring money and that Monsieur Jourdain is in fact quite clever.

J’en demeure d’accord, et je les goûte comme vous. Il n’y a rien assurément qui chatouille [tickles] davantage que les applaudissements que vous dites; mais cet encens ne fait pas vivre. (I. i, p. 2)
[ I agree, and I enjoy them as you do. There is surely nothing more agreeable than the applause you speak of; but that incense does not provide a living.] (I. 1)
Il a du discernement dans sa bourse. (I. i, p. 2)
[He has discernment in his purse. His praises are in cash, and this ignorant bourgeois is worth more to us, as you see, than the educated nobleman who introduced us here.] (I. 1)

In scene two, a musician sings a new song:

I languish night and day, my suffering is extreme Since to your control your lovely eyes subjected me; If you thus treat, fair Iris, those you love, Alas, how would you treat an enemy? (I. 2)

Monsieur Jourdain finds the song a “little mournful” (lugubre) He proposes a song that has a sheep in it: “Il y a du mouton dedans.” 

I thought my Jeanneton As beautiful as sweet; I thought my Janneton Far sweeter than a sheep. Alas! Alas! She is a hundred times, A thousand times, more cruel Than tigers in the woods! (Monsieur Jourdain sings, I. 2) (I. ii, p. 4 FR)

His masters praise him, so he says that he knew “sans avoir appris la musique” (I. ii, p. 4) (“It’s without having learned music.” I. 2). It is always without his having learned, or because he does not want the lesson.

Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme by Charles Robert Leslie (R.A.), c. 1841 (Victoria and Albert Museum)

 

The next master is the fencing master (le maître d’armes). The fencing master is delighted with Monsieur Jourdain’s progress: You did marvelously! (II. 2); Vous faites des merveilles! (II. ii, p. 10).

As I have told you, the entire secret of fencing lies in two things: to give and not to receive; and as I demonstrated to you the other day, it is impossible for you to receive, if you know how to turn your opponent’s sword from the line of your body. This depends solely on a slight movement of the wrist, either inward or outward.
(Fencing Master to Monsieur Jourdain, II. 2)

In this way then, a man, without courage, is sure to kill his man and not be killed himself?
(Monsieur Jourdain to Fencing Master, II. 2)

I believe the image featured above shows a degree incompetence on the part of Monsieur Jourdain. One of his legs should be behind him, so he can pull himself away, and one ahead, so he can attack. That is how he will “kill his man and not be killed.”

Philosophy Master

  • morale
  • prose/verse
  • the marchioness: “Marquise, vos beaux yeux… ”

His philosophy master wants to know whether Monsieur Jourdain wishes to learn morale, among other subjects. Monsieur Jourdain enquires: “Qu’est-ce qu’elle dit cette morale?” (What does this morale say?) When the philosophy master tells him that it “teaches men to moderate their passions,” he stops the master: “No, let’s leave that. I’m as choleric as all the devils and there’s no morality that sticks, I want to be as full of anger as I want whenever I like.” (“Non, laissons cela. Je suis bilieux comme tous les diables; et il n’y a morale qui tienne, je me veux mettre en colère tout mon soûl, quand il m’en prend envie.” (II. iv, p. 14 FR ; II. 4 EN)

First, Monsieur Jourdain’s philosophy master teaches Monsieur Jourdain the difference between prose and verse. He learns that he has spoken prose his entire life and was never told. But he knew prose. He knew it without instruction.

Par ma foi, il y a plus de quarante ans que je dis de la prose, sans que j’en susse rien; et je  vous suis le plus obligé du monde, de m’avoir appris cela.
(Monsieur Jourdain au maître de philosophie, II. iv, p. 16)

[By my faith! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing anything about it, and I am much obliged to you for having taught me that.]
(Monsieur Jourdain to his philosopher master, II. 4)

Monsieur Jourdain has been mentioning a Marchioness. So he asks his maître de philosophie to teach him how to phrase: “Beautiful marchioness, your lovely eyes make me die of love.” (“Marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d’amour.”) Monsieur Jourdain’s philosophy master moves the words around: 

“Of love to die make me, beautiful marchioness, your beautiful eyes.”
“Your lovely eyes, of love make me, beautiful marchioness, die.”
“Die, your lovely eyes, beautiful marchioness, of love make me.”
Or else: “Me make your lovely eyes die, beautiful marchioness, of love.”
(The philosophy master, II. 4 EN; II. iv, p. 16 FR)

When asked by Monsieur Jourdain which of the above is the best tournure, phrase, the maître de philosophie replies that it would be: “Beautiful marchioness, your lovely eyes make me die of love.” (“Marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d’amour.”) Monsieur Jourdain is delighted to learn that he had said it correctly without instruction. In fact, he does things without instruction and refuses instruction if the topic does not suit him: morale. However, he has learned that he phrase a compliment, without instruction.

Madame Jourdain, Lucile, Nicole (maid), and Covielle (valet)

Before the arrival of the fencing master, the maîtres quarrel. All believe that their skill is the superior skill. A tailor has also visited. Monsieur Jourdain is “decked out.” He says, however, that his shoes hurt him but he is told, peremptorily, that they don’t.

As of Act Three, the maîtres have left. The rest of the play is devoted to the lovers[1] and a possible second couple. Madame Jourdain has heard that her husband might be planning to court a marchioness: Dorimène. In fact, Dorante is courting Dorimène at Monsieur Jourdain’s expense. Dorimène has a beautiful diamond ring. He has borrowed money from Monsieur Jourdain, promising to pay his debts. Dorante takes Dorimène to Monsieur Jourdain’s house where they dine sumptuously: music and all… (at Monsieur Jourdain’s expense).

Nicole, the maid, and Madame Jourdain, our bourgeois’ “sensible” wife, make fun of Monsieur Jourdain’s craze for aristocracy… Madame Jourdain wants a faithful husband, Nicole will not have these people mess up the house. Finally, Cléonte is angry at Lucile because she ignored him when he bumped into her. Cléonte is resentful, and will not let Covielle talk him out of dépit amoureux (III. ix, p. 31 ; III. 9), until Covielle starts mentioning imperfections in Lucile. Cléonte disagrees. He loves Lucile and would die for her. A lover is as The Misanthrope‘s Éliante says in her tirade. He loves “even the faults of her whom he admires.” (II. iv, 711-730, pp. 30-31; II. 5)

Madame Jourdain wants Lucile to marry a bourgeois, Cléonte, not Dorante. Bourgeois have money, but Dorante is borrowing money…  Under Louis XIV, aristocrats had to be seen. So they maintained homes, carriages, etc. in Paris. They sought the privilege of seeing Louis rise and Louis go to bed: le grand lever, le petit lever, le grand coucher, le petit coucher. (See Levée [ceremony], Wiki2. org.) Few could sit on a bench, usually an ottoman, the only seats available. Moreover, Madame Jourdain will not be humiliated. George Dandin is humiliated. When she learns Lucile is marrying the Grand Turc‘s son, Madame Jourdain is alarmed, but Covielle reassures her.

All’s well that ends well. Lucile and Cléonte marry and so do Dorimène and Dorante. Monsieur Jourdain is perfectly happy as a mamamouchi. I doubt that Dorante will pay his debt. He needed money to court the Marchioness, and Monsieur Jourdain loaned him the money he required. Dorante did not intend to marry Lucile.

Conclusion

No one can change Monsieur Jourdain, so a mere disguise allows the young lovers, Lucile and Cléonte to marry, with Madame Jourdain’s blessing. Besides, although his masters are at times ridiculous, the questions are asked by Monsieur Jourdain and Monsieur Jourdain is the person who answers. The philosophy master is not ridiculed. In fact, Monsieur Jourdain has been generous with his masters and it appears that as a veuve, a widow, Dorimène is quite capable of looking after Dorante, who seems an impoverished gentleman.

Attending a good performance of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme will delight an audience, but one can also read Molière. There is a sense in which Molière is in the words and in the dialogues. For instance, the masters quarrel, but it is among themselves, which is revealing. Monsieur Jourdain does not participate in the quarrel. He says little more than: Doucement (softly), Tout beau (all’s well), De grâce (for pity’s sake) and Je vous en prie (I beg you), but the maître de philosophie arrives “just in time” to relieve Monsieur Jourdain :

Holà, Monsieur le philosophe, vous arrivez tout à propos avec votre philosophie. Venez un peu mettre la paix entre ces personnes-ci.
[Aha! Monsieur Philosopher, you come just in time with your philosophy. Come, make a little peace among these people.]
(Monsieur Jourdain, II. iii, p. 11; II. 3)

It’s been a long day. We now make dinner.

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[1] People who are in love. In 17th century French, the word lover had no sexual connotation.

 

Love to everyone 💕 

Lully‘s Overture to Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme

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A Collaboration, Molière and Pierre Corneille by Jean-Léon Gérôme (Getty Images)

© Micheline Walker
17 March 2019
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The Bourgeois

16 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in Comédie-Ballet, Molière, the bourgeois

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Molière’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme by Edmond Geoffroy, 1670 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Molière‘s (15 January 1722 – February 1773) Bourgeois gentilhomme, a five-act comedy, premièred on 14 October 1670, at the Château de Chambord, before the court and Louis XIV himself. Although it is a play, i.e. fiction, the Bourgeois gentilhomme may constitute our best portrayal of a rich bourgeois in 17th-century France. By the Grand Siècle, the second half of the 17th century, several levels of bourgeoisie were emerging: “petite,” “moyenne,” “haute,” and “grande bourgeoisie.” Monsieur Jourdain had obviously climbed to the upper half of that ladder. He is sufficiently rich to hire various “masters:” dancing, music, philosophy, all of whom make futile attempts to teach him “aristocracy.”

Edmond Geoffroy

Moreover, as is usually the case in comedies, Monsieur Jourdain is opposing the marriage of his daughter Lucile to the man she loves, Cléonte, a bourgeois. Monsieur Jourdain will not be able to force Lucile into an unhappy marriage because the conventions governing comedy favour the marriage of the young couple. Cléonte will fool Monsieur Jourdain into believing he has been turned into a mamamouchi, a Turkish aristocrat, and he will marry Lucile disguised as the son of the grand Turc.

The “Alazôn” vs the “Eirôn”

In comedies, the young couple, their loyal servants and, at times, avuncular figures always overcome the alazôn of the theater of ancient Greece, the blocking character. Monsieur Jourdain, will be opposed by a collective eirôn. The same stock characters exist in the Commedia dell’arte.

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme is a comédie-ballet. The music was composed by Italian-born Lully (Giovanni Battista Lulli; 28 November 1632 – 22 March 1687) and the choreography was the work of Pierre Beauchamp (30 October 1631 – February 1705). Monsieur Jourdain meets his demise—he is fooled—during the ballet, entitled Ballets des Nations.

“Jacqueries” & “Croquants”

According to popular lore, the mob who stormed the Bastille on 14 July 1789 consisted, to a larger or lesser extent, of famished peasants. It is altogether possible, and  probable, that famished peasants were among the ruffians who stormed the Bastille. For instance, there had been peasant uprisings:

“Croquants” (crushing) was the name given to members of the First and Second Estates who levied taxes from the Third Estate: peasants and bourgeois. The worst of these taxes was “la Taille” a temporary direct land tax that had become a permanent tax in 1439, the 15th century.

However, in all likelihood, the citizens who stormed the Bastille were a diverse group but mostly bourgeois. In the 17th century, there was a “drift to the city.” W. H. Lewis writes that “the least-favoured faubourg [suburb] of the most oppressive town offered a better way of life to the ambitious commoner than did the countryside[.]”[i]

Among the citizens of a town, there were thugs and other malfaisants. As for the word “jacquerie,” Jacques was the name given peasants, hence Jacquou le Croquant[ii], the title of a 2007 film on a young rebel. The film’s monarchy, however, is that of the Bourbon restoration (1815-1830), not the monarchy of l’ancien régime.

The “Sans-Culottes” (without Knee Breeches)

It would appear that the people who stormed the Bastille on 14 July 1789 were a motley group who became a mob.  Among the people who helped radicalize the Revolution, there may have been peasants, but allow me to repeat that France’s Third Estate did not consist solely of peasants and “petit bourgeois.” It was a more varied group that probably included the frequently idealized sans-culottes (without knee breeches).

Idealized sans-culotte by Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761–1845).
Idealized sans-culottes by Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761–1845) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The story has been told otherwise. The popular view is that starving peasants stormed the Bastille. As stated above, starving peasants may have been involved in the storming of the Bastille, but the more likely account is that an angry mob led the charge. (See History Bastille Day) Peasants often inhabited distant “provinces,” too far from Paris. Most lived under the authority of a seigneur who may have been a good person, but not necessarily. We have yet to discuss Mozart‘s Marriage of Figaro (K 492), an opera buffa, on an Italian libretto (the text) by Lorenzo da Ponte, of the second of three plays by Pierre Beaumarchais called the Figaro trilogy.[iii]

 

 

The Syndics of the Drapers' Guild by Rembrandt, 1662.

The Syndics of the Drapers’ Guild by Rembrandt, 1662 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Guilds or Corporations

Bourgeois were persons who started to live in a bourg (as in neighbour, a town) in the 12th century. They were commerçants, tradesmen, doctors, lawyers, etc. According to W. H. Lewis, “to the French noble, [the town] was a portion of his seigneurie which had enfranchised itself from his yoke, obtained many financial privileges, and was growing steadily richer while he [noble] grew poorer and more insignificant.”[iv] Beginning in the Middle Ages, guilds were formed to protect tradesmen who, however, often had to pay costly dues to the guild. Our trade unions date back to these medieval guilds and the people they protected were bourgeois who, by the seventeenth century, were numerous as well as rich and often living in Paris.

Some aristocrats were Mayors, but most stayed away from towns. However, although Monsieur Jourdain does not succeed in marrying his daughter to a nobleman, many aristocrats and their sons married bourgeoises, the ingénue of comedy, because of the dowry they brought. Daughters had to be endowed, which was difficult for aristocrats who spent a fortune living away from the family castle to be near Louis XIV’s court and be noticed by him.

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme is a comedy, a formulaic and Shakespearian “[a]ll’s well that ends well.” However, many bourgeoises were forced to marry a decrepit old man. Molière’s Miser (L’Avare; 1668) is not poor, on the contrary. Yet, given that Anselme is willing to marry Élise without a dowry: “sans dot,” Harpagon, the miser, wants her to marry Anselme. But Anselme turns out to be Valère’s rich father and, therefore, the father of the man who wants to marry Élise, the Miser’s daughter. He is also the father of the young woman, Mariane, who wants to marry the Miser’s son (Cléante).

An Élite Bourgeoisie

By 1789, some bourgeois had risen in status. In fact, they had already done so in the seventeenth century and the town they inhabited could be Paris. Colbert (29 August 1619 – 6 September 1683) a bourgeois, was Louis XIV’ Minister of Finance from 1765 to 1783. We also know Charles Perrault (12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) who created the fairy tale as we know it, the Contes de ma mère l’Oye [The Tales of Mother Goose] (mid 1690s). His sources were Italian, but as told by Italians, fairy tales were at times too bawdy for children. Perrault was a salonnier (salonist) and his brother Claude Perrault, a medical doctor and architect. Claude Perrault designed the colonnade du Louvre, the east façade, the columns of the Louvre.

The East Façade by Claude Perrault

The East Façade of the Louvre, by Claude Perrault

Painting by Auguste Couder showing the opening of the Estates-General

Painting by Auguste Couder showing the opening (5 May 1789) of the Estates-General (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Estates-General

Consequently, when Louis XVI convened the Estates-General in 1789, the Third Estate was not necessarily the lesser estate. Jean-Sylvain Bailly (15 September 1736 – 12 November 1793; by guillotine), who presided over the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), was a bourgeois, a freemason and the Mayor of Paris. I doubt that he participated in the storming of the Bastille, on 14 July 1789, but sans-culottes may have been participants as well famished peasants. The Revolutions behind the Revolution were, to a large extent, the advent of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution.    

“As the feudal society was transformed into the early capitalist society of Europe, the bourgeoisie were the spearhead of progress in industry and science and of social change.

By the 17th century, this middle class was supporting principles of natural rights and constitutional government against the theories of divine right and privilege of the sovereign and the nobility. Thus, members of the bourgeoisie led the English revolution of the 17th century and the American and French revolutions of the late 18th century. These revolutions helped to establish political rights and personal liberty for all free men.” Armstrong Economics.com

Marat, Danton, Robespierre, Saint-Just

Maximilien de Robespierre and Louis-Antoine-Léon de Saint-Just were not peasants. Robespierre was a lawyer, and Saint-Just’s father, a knight of the Order of Saint-Louis, had been a Calvary Officer who had married the daughter of a notary. Jean-Paul Marat was a medical doctor and Georges Danton, a lawyer.

“In the 18th century, before the French Revolution (1789–99), in the French feudal order, the masculine and feminine terms bourgeois and bourgeoisie identified the rich men and women who were members of the urban and rural Third Estate — the common people of the French realm, who violently deposed the absolute monarchy of the Bourbon King Louis XVI (r. 1774–91), his clergy, and his aristocrats.” (See Bourgeoisie,Wikipedia.)

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[i]  W. H. Lewis, The Splendid Century: Life in the France of Louis XIV (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1957 [1953]), p. 161.

[ii] “Croquant” is derived from “croquer:” to bite as in to crush. “Croquant” uprisings were often called “jacqueries.” The 2007 film adaptation of a novel by Eugène Le Roy (1836-1907) is entitled Jacquou [Jacques] le Croquant.

[iii] You may remember that Pierre Beaumarchais recruited soldiers who would serve in the American War of Independence, one of whom was Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, the architect and civil engineer who designed the National Mall in Washington. The Figaro trilogy consists of The Barber of Seville (Le Barbier de Séville) 1775 (1773), The Mariage of Figaro (Le Mariage de Figaro), 1778, and The Guilty Mother (La Mère coupable), 1792 (1791). The Barber of Seville is an opera by Rossini and The Guilty Mother (La Mère coupable), an opera by Darius Milhaud.

[vi] W. H. Lewis, p. 160.

Molière by Nicolas Mignard

Molière by Nicolas Mignard

“bourgeoisie”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 14 Jun. 2014
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked /topic/75834/bourgeoisie>.

“Jacquerie”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 16 Jun. 2014
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/299166/Jacquerie>.

“sansculotte”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 16 Jun. 2014
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/522646/sansculotte>.

“Alexis de Tocqueville”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 14 Jun. 2014
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/597857/Alexis-de-Tocqueville>.

Versailles The Sun King

Versailles
The Sun King

20100507-143212-pic-471032503_t607
© Micheline Walker
16 June 2014
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(Photo credit: Google images)

 

Les Indes galantes & Le Bourgeois gentilhomme: “turqueries”

30 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by in History, Literature, Music

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Louis XIV invites Molière to share his supper – an unfounded Romantic anecdote, illustrated in an 1863 painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

Rameau’s Les Indes galantes

There are a few points I should discuss before we leave behind Jean-Philippe Rameau‘s  Les Indes galantes.

Les Nations

As you know, Jean-Philippe Rameau was inspired to write Les Indes galantes after watching Amerindians dance.  However, after the Prologue, Rameau’s Indes galantes features

  • a gracious Turk, “un Turc généreux”
  • Incas from Peru, and
  • Persians ((Flowers – Persian Feast), “Les Fleurs – Fête persane”

In fact, only the final of the four acts is linked directly to Amerindians.  Moreover, that fourth entrée was composed later than the first three acts.  It is called

  • New Act – Les Sauvages (written [Louis Fuzelier] and composed [Rameau] a little later)

Needless to say, this piqued my curiosity.  I also noticed the frequent use of the word “nations” in the music literature of the time, beginning with the reign of Louis XIV or as of Jean-Baptiste Lully.  The final ballet constituting the Bourgeois gentilhomme is named “Ballets des Nations.”  Rameau was Lully’s successor.

For instance, Marin Marais wrote a Suitte [sic] d’un goût [taste] étranger [foreign] in 1717, performed by Jorgi Savall who has been restoring music of the 17th and 18th century.  Jorgi Savall provided the music for the film Tous les matins du monde (Every morning in the world).  Why say du monde (of the world)?

Savall’s ensemble, called the Concert des nations, has also recorded music by Rameau.   It could be that the word had a slightly different connotation, that it simply meant “d’un goût étranger” as in Marin Marais‘s Suitte d’un goût étranger. For six months Marin Marais was a student of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe whose story is told in Tous les matins du monde.

Sifting through the music of François Couperin (10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733), I noted that François Couperin[i] wrote a piece entitled Les Nations.  I doubt that in the 17th- and 18th century France, the word nation had the same meaning as it does today.  It may have encompassed a wider territory that our current nations.  Moreover, Amerindians consisted of nations.

A Woman in Turkish Dress, pastel on parchment, by Jean-Étienne Liotard  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Orientalism or “Turquerie”

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the Byzantine Empire had fallen into the hands of Ottoman Turks in the middle of the fifteenth century (1453).  As a result, Byzantine scholars (Greek culture) fled to Western Europe prompting a Renaissance, the Renaissance.  However, if, on the one hand, the fall of the Byzantine Empire had a great impact on Western Europe, the revival of Greek culture, on the other hand, citizens of the now huge Ottoman Empire travelled north creating a taste for all things oriental, but also threatening European cities.

The Orient was not new to Europeans but Orientalism reached an apex in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  Orientalism in fashion became known as “turquerie” and, in its early days, “turquerie” included Persia, which may confer a degree of unity to Les Indes galantes’ various entrées.  Matters did not change until the publication, in 1721, of Montesquieu‘s Persian Letters (Lettres persanes).

Persian Ambassadors at the Court of Louis XIV, studio of Antoine Coypel, c. 1715 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

Montesquieu‘s[i] Persian Letters were written after the visit, at the court of France, of ambassador Mohammed Reza Beg or Mehemet Riza Beg.  In 1715, the year Louis XIV died, he was visited by Persian ambassador Mohammed Riza Beg who established an embassy in Marseilles.  Montesquieu’s Lettres Persanes were written and published after the ambassador and his entourage spent several months at the court of Louis XIV.

Turqueries à la Molière and Lully

However, the word “turquerie” has two meanings.  The first, as we have seen, is orientalism.  However, in Molière’s Bourgeois gentilhomme, a “turquerie”  is a play-within-a-play that fools Monsieur Jourdain, the senex iratus of the comedy, who is rich but untitled, into thinking he has been conferred a title, that of mamamouchi.  Cléonte, the young man who wishes to marry Lucile, who loves him, then asks for her hand in marriage dressed as the son of the Sultan of Turkey.  She resists until Cléonte succeeds in letting her know that he is wearing a disguise.  (Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, Act V, Scene 5)

Louis XIV was very fond of turqueries. The music was composed by Jean Baptiste Lully (Giovanni Battista Lulli; 28 November 1632 – 22 March 1687). The ballet was choreographed by Pierre Beauchamp. But the comedy was written by Molière (1622- 1673), one of France’s foremost dramatists ever.

« Le roi veut un ballet, et qu’il y ait une turquerie plaisante ; au poète, au musicien, aux danseurs de bâtir là-dessus un divertissement qui plaise au roi… »

“The king wants a ballet, and wants it to have a pleasant turquerie;  the poet, the musician and the dancers must therefore build from this ballet and turquerie entertainment that will please the king…”[ii]

Added to the turquerie, the fifth and final act of the Bourgeois gentilhomme (The Would-be Gentleman), is the Ballets des Nations.  It features Gascons, people from Gascony, Spaniards and Italians as well as a blend of persons from different classes.  So the idea of nation surfaces again.

In short, both the Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670) and Rameau’s Indes galantes are turqueries and illustrate the two kinds of turqueries, Orientalism and a deceitful play-within-a-play.  Each may in fact combine elements of both turqueries.

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[i]  Montesquieu’s full name is Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (18 January 1689 – 10 February 1755), but he is referred to as Montesquieu.  His most influential book is The Spirit of the Laws, De l’Esprit des Lois, published in Geneva in 1748.
 
[ii] Charles Mazouer, Trois comédies de Molière (Bordeaux: Presses universitaires de Bordeaux, 2008), p. 17.
 
Portrait of Molière by Nicolas Mignard

Portrait of Molière by Nicolas Mignard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Molière & Lully: Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, 1670

© Micheline Walker
30 September 2012
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