My Reading of the Evidence for 1672

Choose the evidence for another year, 1670-1680

Note: this Musing was written in the mid-1990s

During the final weeks of 1671 and the early weeks of 1672, Marc-Antoine Charpentier was busy meeting the demands of several patrons, some of whom can be identified with a modicum of certainty while others remain anonymous. The final weeks of 1671 saw him busy on a Messe à 8 voix (H. 3) for a large ensemble that seems to be singers hired by the Jesuits of the professed house of Saint-Louis. For, can be a mere coincidence that the three notebooks that contain this mass are all made of Jesuit paper? (True, the paper seems to date from the 1690s, when Charpentier recopied/reworked these pieces for his employers, the Jesuits; but he put the fresh copies back into their old chronological place.) Several festive masses with music were in fact held at Saint-Louis circa January 1672, among them two pontifical masses said during the octave of January 17-24, which celebrated the canonization of Saint Francis de Borgia:

[Le 17 janvier] les Jesüistes firent l'Ouverture de la Feste de la Canonisation de Saint François de Borgia, Général de leur Compagnie, en leur Eglise de la rue Saint Antoine, laquelle estoit magnifiquement ornée. Nostre Archévesque [Harlay de Chanvallon] célébra pontificalement la Messe: le premier Panegyrique fut prononcé avec beaucoup de succez, par l'Évesque d'Evreux: et à l'issue du Salut, chantée par une excellent Musique, le dedans et le dehors de l'Église parut tout en feu, ainsi que le grand Autel, par un grand nombre de lumières. Le lendemain, et les autres jours, cette Solennité fut continüée, avec la mesme pompe, l'Office ayant esté fait par divers Prélats, et l'Éloge prononcé par les Évesques de Bayeux, de Lombez, de Tulles, d'Autun [Roquette], et d'Amiens, le Coadjuteur de Vances, et l'Abbé de Fromentiéres: qui tous triomphérent à l'envy, sur un si beau sujet. Le 23 Monsieur et Madame assistèrent au Salut, où l'Évesque du Mans, premier Aumônier de Son Altesse Royale, officia, aussi, en ses habits Pontificaux. Le 24, dernier jour de l'Octave, l'Archévesque de Reims [Le Tellier] y celebra la grand'Messe, et l'archévesque de Paris officia, encor, au Salut, et termina par la Benediction du Saint Sacrement, cette Cérémonie, qui fut, ainsi, des plus augustes, et des plus éclatantes.¹

We already are acquainted with one of the fathers who was planning these festivities during the better part of 1671. Pierre de Verthamon, the former assistant to the general of the order, had been residing at Saint-Louis since early 1671. Though he assumed his responsibilities as rector of the Collège de Clermont circa October 1671 — that is, approximately when the Jesuits were commissioning music for the octave — he left his nephew, Louis Voisin (Daniel's brother) behind him at the professed house. Indeed, dare one assume that, from start to finish, Louis Voisin was involved in planning for this octave?

The names of the two prelates who celebrated the pontifical masses are also familiar: François de Harlay de Chanvallon, the Lorraine de Guise's "cousin," and Charles-Maurice Le Tellier, who while in Rome had trusted "Carpentier" to supervise the preparation of his livery. They were joined by Gabriel de Roquette, Mlle de Guise's Tartuffe, who gave one of the eulogies in honor of the saint. Although the Gazette does not so state, it can be assumed that, like the salut of January 17, the pontifical masses and the other services held during the octave were "chantés par une excellente Musique." Music was in integral part of Jesuit services, just as it had been during a mass in which Bishop Roquette (Mlle de Guise's "Tartuffe") would participate a few months later: "M. l'Evêque d'Autun ayant fait le panégyrique de M^xxxaux Jésuites, qui avoient toute la musique de l'Opéra, on dit à Paris que les Jésuites avoient donné deux comédies en un jour, l'Opéra et Tartuffe."²

This comment about the opera singers raises the possibility that the ensemble that had been singing at Saint-Louis in December 1671 and January 1672 included Pierre Beaupuis (whose name appears in the recopied version beside that of Jean Dun), and that some of the works in Charpentier's cahier IX were Jesuit commissions. That is to say, the singers performing in January 1672 worked with Perrin, whose debts had just been paid by Mme de Guise. "Toute la musique de l'Opéra y fait rage," wrote Mme de Sévigné about the canonization ceremonies. "Il y a des lumières jusque dans la rue Saint-Antoine; on s'y tue."³ The singers doubtlessly were joined by the instrumentalists of Perrin's Academy — and by an organist.

One of the organists — or the only organist? — hired by the reverend fathers was Robert Cambert himself. "Les révérends Pères luy en estant venus prier jusques dans l'Opéra mesme," Cambert agreed to "faire une musique aux Jésuites de la rue Saint Antoine, au mois de janvier soixante et douze."⁴ It so happens that Charpentier's mass was written with an organ in mind: "Icy l'orgue joüe un couplet [du Kyrie] si l'on veut," he noted on the seventh sheet of cahier VI; and on the reverse side of the same sheet he commented: "Icy l'orgue joue un couplet sur les petits jeux." (Not until much later, and using an ink that is considerably lighter than the orginal, did Charpentier add the comments about the organ being optional.⁵ In sum, the organ was an integral part of the original version of this mass.)

The participation of so many friends of the House of Guise — and of the Charpentier family — in the services for this octave suggests that the Jesuits not only "came to beg Cambert to make music" for them, but that they also came to see Charpentier. This is just the sort of "extraordinary" event in which outside composers could participate without offending the master of music in ordinary. Two pontifical masses, six "offices" and two musical saluts: what master in ordinary would insist on composing that much new music, to the exclusion of the protégés of the various reverend fathers. Ten prelates: each prelate doubtlessly had his own protégé and was eager to place him in the limelight in order to enhance his own glory. The organizers of these festivities surely had to step in and calm a certain number of "démêlés" among the composers and the musicians, just as they had to resolve the one that pitted two of the officiants, Harlay de Chanvallon and Le Tellier, against each other "pour une cérémonie," that is, over a question of protocol. "Paris veut que Reims demande permission d'officier," observed Mme de Sévigné about the fête. "Reims jure qu'il n'en fera rien. On dit que ces deux hommes ne s'accorderont jamais bien qu'ils ne soient à trentes lieues l'un de l'autre." And so, for each service, the prelate of the day may have made sure that a musicien or a compositeur he knew was commissioned to write the music. Was the Messe à 8 voix sung at Saint-Louis on January 20, when Roquette eulogized the saint? Were the Offerte (H. 514) and the Magnificat, (H. 73) that directly follow the mass in Charpentier's notebooks but are not identified as being part of it, composed for other services during the octave? This is a distinct possibility, because the composer used the same ink for these two works and for the mass.⁶

It cannot of course be ruled out that Charpentier intended the works cahiers VI to VIII for quite a different event, for example, the consecration of Paul-Philippe de Chaumont, a relative of President Louis de Bailleul. Bailleul jotted down: "Le 1 mars 1672, Mr l'evesque d'Acqs de la maison de Chaumont, mon cousin germain, a esté sacré au Noviciat des Jésuites, faubourg Saint Germain, par Mr l'Archevesque de Paris [Harlay de Chanvallon], qui avoit pour assistans Mrs les Evesques de Tarbe [Malier], mon nepveu, et de Langres."⁷ This hypothesis is, however, weakened by the fact that the composer generally specified "pour le sacre d'un évesque" whenever he wrote for that sort of ceremony. Or, if one agrees that this mass was probably commissioned by a Jesuit but hesitates to place Marc-Antoine Charpentier at Saint-Louis and working closely with Robert Cambert, an article in the Gazette suggests another slightly less prestigious event. On March 25, 1672, the Feast of the Annunciation, "le Roy Casimir de Pologne, assista en l'église du Noviciat des Jésüites, à la Solennité qui si fait, tous les ans, dans la chapelle de la Congrégation."⁸ There is, however, no allusion to "music."

Though no concrete evidence proves that the Messe à 8 voix was commissioned for the octave that honored Saint Francis Borgia, throughout his career the composer scrupulously reserved works for the person or institution that had originally commissioned them. The Jesuit watermarks of these recopied notebooks shows that — at the very moment in his tenure with the Jesuits when he was copying out other works that almost certainly had been commissioned by the Jesuits back in 1672 — Charpentier recopied this work too. He inadvertently wove an important bit of evidence into some of these notebooks. When he made the recopied cahiers VII and III, he mixed two different batches of paper. On most of the sheets in cahiers VI to XI, the ink of the staves has turned brown over the centuries. However, cahiers VI and VIII contain a few sheets of paper — three in all — where the ink used for the staves has remained very black. These three sheets appear to have remained from a supply that Charpentier had used for the partbooks of the revised/recopied mass and that he tucked into his own notebooks. In itself these three sheets of paper prove nothing; but another sheet of the same paper appears in the middle of cahier 5, which contains a Prose des morts (H 12). This isolated sheet with black staves clearly was a remnant left lying about on the composer's desk. Judging from the chronology of the French series, this prose for the dead was composed during the mourning for Louis-Joseph de Lorraine — that is, between August 1671 and July 1672. Charpentier seems to have finished copying out this work circa April 1672 for, as we shall see, this Prose was appropriate for the late duke's "Bout de l'an," planned for July 30, 1672. In other words, the watermarks suggest that the Messe à 8 voix is the exact contemporary of the pontifical masses being sung at Saint-Louis in January 1672. When did he recopy these copies that had been shabby over the years, having been used for repeated Guise funerals and memorial services? Perhaps in March 1688, for the funeral of Mlle de Guise; and if not, for Mme de Guise's funeral in 1696.

By the early months of 1672, the two Guise princesses were thinking less about the quarrels over the late Duke's estate than about the new way of life that God had seen fit to send their way. Marie de Lorraine turned her back on the court: for example, she sold the house at Saint-Germain-en-Laye that she had acquired for her nephew and his bride six years earlier.⁹ And, as if to reinforce the threat to make the existence of her children public, she reached an agreement with Montrésor's brother that would give her undisputed ownership of the seigneurie if the 163,553 livres she demanded were not paid within four years.¹⁰ (François de Bourdeilles failed to make the payment, and Marie de Lorraine became the undisputed countess of Montrésor.) Isabelle d'Orléans was also eager for closure. Her advisors began preparing a renunciation of all her claims to Guise property, "se tenant à la reprise de sa dot, douaire, habitation, preciput et autres conventions matrimonialles et droitz à elle accordez par le contract de son mariage avec ledit feu seigneur duc de Guise."¹¹

Mlle de Guise and Mme de Guise had scarcely patched up their quarrel about the Duke of Alençon's guardianship than they shared a new concern: the dowager duchess of Orléans was failing rapidly. In 1669, Madame had suffered the first of a series of small strokes.¹² Then she became ill again in mid-February of 1672. Resident Gondi promptly visited the invalid and her daughter, who was at her side. The conversation turned to things Italian. Sensing perhaps that Madame's time was running out, returned Gondi to his apartment and begged his colleagues in Florence to send the "description of the fête performed in Pisa" during Carnival, for that Mme de Guise and her mother were eager to hear about it. Early in March he was looking forward to giving them the description, "which is almost translated into French."¹³ After a month of worrisome dozing and vomiting, Marguerite de Lorraine suffered a major stroke on April 3 and in the middle of the night her "soul flew to heaven," while Mme de Guise, in a nearby room, struggled to don a dressing gown.¹⁴ President de Bailleul inscribed the event in his daybook:

Madame Douairiere duchesse d'Orleans, tante du roy, est morte en son Palais d'Orleans en cette ville d'une espece d'apoplexie et defaillance de vie et chaleur naturelle, agée de 57 ou 58 ans, la nuict du samedi au dimanche 3 avril 1672 sur les deux heures du matin en caresme, 1 dimanche de la passion.¹⁵

Lying in state in her apartment of the Luxembourg Palace, the dead woman was "veüe de tout le monde, dans son Lit de Trespas, environnée de Chandeliers d'argent, garnis de Cierges." Her almoners and six Cordeliers from the Great Convent psalmodized around the corpse. Mme de Guise apparently took part in the night-long vigil at the Luxembourg and remained in Paris in order to accompany her mother's heart to Montmartre and her body to Saint-Denis on April 5. Mlle de Guise had already withdrawn to Montmartre, where Louis XIV dispatched one of his écuyers to express his condolences to the two princesses and to the abbess.

Garbed in the habit of the Third Order of Saint Francis, the body was carried with great pomp to the royal necropolis at Saint-Denis on April 5 and was placed in a chapel to await the state funeral in May. The cortege continued to Montmartre, where Bishop Malier presented the nuns with Madame's heart, "enfermé dans un Coeur d'argent, sur un Carreau de velous noir, sur lequel estoit une Couronne vermeil doré, couverte d'un Crespe."¹⁶ The bishop, "environné de cent cinquante Flambeaux, de cire blanche, portez par des Pages à cheval, et grand nombre de Valetz de pied," stopped before the entrance to the abbey:

[L'évêque] feut reçeu à la Porte du Cloistre, par toutes les Religieuses, tenans des Cierges, et ayans en teste l'Abbesse, qui après un petit discours [fait par Malier], à qui elle répondit, accompagna ce Depost au Coeur du dedans, où se firent les Prières et les Encensemens accoutumez.¹⁷

No musical service seems to have taken place that day. On Wednesday, April 13, the day of the first tenebrae service, the King was announced. He wished to pay his condolences:

[He was] receu à la Porte du Couvent, par l'Abbesse, et par Mademoiselle de Guise, qui le condüiserent au Choeur des Religieuses, au Priez-Dieu qu'on lui avoit préparé: et sa Majesté y ayant entendu la messe, visita Madame de Guyze, qui estoit dans son Lit, et luy témoigna la part qu'elle prenoit en la perte de Madame [...]. Ensuite, sadite Majesté passa par la Chambre de Mademoiselle de Guyze, et par celle de l'Abbesse: qui le recondüiserent à l'endroit où Elles l'avoyent receüe.¹⁸

It would seem that the "mass" said for the King immediately preceded the tenebrae service for Maundy Thursday (which was, of course, sung on Wednesday afternoon), but it is not clear whether he remained for the tenebrae services that followed it. Had Louis XIV delayed his visit by one day, he doubtlessly would have heard l'Autre Jérusalem (H. 234) that Charpentier had written to replace the Jérusalem (H. 93) of 1670 and that he copied onto the final sheet of cahier 2 circa April 1672. (This suggests that the other lessons that Charpentier had composed in 1670 were reused in 1672. If so, Louis XIV may have heard Charpentier's music after the mass of April 13.) Owing to Madame's death only a week earlier, the tenebrae services sung at Montmartre in 1672 were more lugubrious than usual, for the dead princess's heart lay on a platform in the black-draped choir of the Dames.²⁰

[[Please note: I wrote this "chapter" in the early 1990s and kept bringing details up to date. Then, in early 2001, I wrote the Musing about Guise funerals, available on this site. To do so, I rethought the evidence, and it's just possible that my conclusions there do not mesh perfectly with the the points I make here about Charpentier's funeral music for 1671-1672. Then the issue of treble clefs and recopying/reworking surfaced; and although, to my mind, it does not affect the dating of the firstS version of a given work, it does raise the possibility of recopying and reworking during the late 1680s and the 1690s. Since these Musings are based upon my personal interpretations of the evidence, I suggest that researchers interested in these funeral pieces assemble the pieces of the puzzle on their own, ideally with the original manuscripts and a stack of contemporary breviaries before them, .... and see whether the conclusions they draw match mine or diverge from them.]]

Having at last filled cahier 2 (which he had made two years earlier, shortly before the death of the Duke of Guise), Charpentier made a new notebook, the future cahier 4, into which he transcribed a Motet pour les Trépassés: Plainte des âmes du purgatoire (H. 311) and a De Profundis and Requiem æternam (H. 156). The liturgical texts pieced together to form the words of the motet leave no doubt that this work was intended for the matins service that was known as the "Vigiles des morts." The words are borrowed from each of the three nocturnes of that office. According to the usage of the diocese of Paris, one did not normally recite all three of these nocturnes and their lessons (which are chiefly psalms and excerpts from the book of Job). The three nocturnes were only recited on the day of the Feast of the Dead in early November, and during the vigil that preceded either a burial or the ceremony of the "Bout de l'An" (that is, the memorial mass that marked the first anniversary of a death and the official end of mourning.)²¹ In short, it would seem that, in March 1672, Charpentier was preparing the music for the Bout de l'An of the late Duke of Guise. Then Marguerite de Lorraine's death, in April 1672, forced Mme de Guise to schedule a number of memorial and funeral services for the month of May. Since the text of the "lament" was appropriate for some of these services, the Guise composer doubtlessly was urged to complete the Prose des morts (H. 12) as quickly as possible. Together, the Plainte (H. 311) and the Prose gave de Guise a little corpus of works that could be incorporated into the services she was organizing in honor of her late mother.

The De Profundis (H. 156) in the same notebook does not, by contrast, fit into these vigils for the dead. The Roman breviaries of the day specify that this psalm, and the Requiem æternam that ends it, was not chanted or recited during the vigils for the dead, nor during vespers nor even for the Feast of the Dead in November.²² The usage of the diocese of Paris was virtually identical: the De Profundis was not part of vespers or of laudes. True, it was recited during the officium defunctorum, but without the words Requiem æternam that Charpentier specificies should come at the end of the De Profundis, sung to the same notes that were used for the first verse of the psalm. In other words, the musicians were to sing the entire verse: "Requiem æternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpétua luceat eis."²³ This evidence means that Charpentier's De Profundis was inappropriate for the routine "office des morts" that was sung on the first day of each month and even for the great Feast of the Dead in November. Indeed, that it was written for an actual funeral — and, judging from the Rituale parisiense, for the funeral of an adult. That is to say, a De Profundis and "Requiem, unico verso" were to be sung when burying an adult. Standing at the feet of the deceased and sprinkling the body with holy water, the "récitant" and a "choir" alternated the half-verses of the psalm.²⁴ This is virtually what Charpentier does in his De Profundis. A choir of hauts dessus, haute-contres, tailles and basses begins the psalm, and a smaller and ever-changing group sings the next verse. This alternation of recitants and choir continues to the very end of the psalm. Charpentier clearly wrote this De Profundis for the burial of an adult. Who could that adult have been, if not Marguerite de Lorraine? (That the De Profundis does not "match" the other funeral music in concept and style should not surprise: Charpentier had set out to capture, in music, the way this text traditionally had been chanted by priests during burials of the royal family at Saint-Denis.)

That is, I propose that this De Profundis was performed at the funeral pomp for Marguerite de Lorraine held at Saint-Denis, on May 11, 1672. In the black-draped basilica, the coffin containing Madame's body lay in state under a dias of black velvet and surrounded by an "infinité de chandeliers d'argent." The coffin had been covered by a "poisle de la couronne sur lequel estoit une Couronne de Vermeil doré et un manteau ducal de satin bleu à trois rangs de fleurs de lys d'or et bordé d'hermine blanche moucheté." Accompanied by His Majesty's heralds and by twenty jurés-crieurs wearing black robes, Sainctot, the royal master of ceremonies, had gone to the Palais on the Cité the previous morning to notify the Parlement that they were requested to attend Madame's funeral. He also informed them that, that very day, May 10, at "3 heures aprèsmidy, se diront vêpres et vigiles des morts," and that the next day, May 11, at eight in the morning, the solemn service would be held at Saint-Denis. These allusions to "vigils," combined with the presence in cahier 5 of a "lament" (H. 311) using texts recited during these vigils, suggests that the Motet pour les Trépassés: Plaintes des âmes du purgatoire was performed for the first time during the vigils held at Saint-Denis on the afternoon of May 10, 1672, and that the work was reused on several occasions between mid-May and late July of that year.

The sources do not identify the person who composed the "messe qui fut chantée en musique par la chapelle du Roy qu'on avoit placé au jubé."²⁵ That no royal composer was mentioned adds further evidence in favor of the argument that the composer belonged either to the Lorraines or to the Orléans. Although the King was paying the bill, Mme de Guise — who entered the basilica with her "veil lowered" and who wore a "mante dont la queue estoit de cinq aulnes de long" — may have participated in the preparation of this service. At any rate, she played an active role in planning all the other services held in her mother's memory and "supplied the money for the burial, funeral services" — which, with the doctor bills, came to just over 19,000 livres.²⁶ As one of Charpentier's patronnesses, Isabelle d'Orléans would have been sure to incorporate the works of her protégé into the funeral, so it is plausible that the Messe pour les trépassez (H. 2) that Charpentier had written for Louis-Joseph de Lorraine a scant nine months earlier was performed a second time at Saint-Denis. Indeed, the participation of Bishop Malier of Tarbes, the late princess's almoner, and of Bishop Roquette of Autun, Mlle de Guise's friend, reveals the extent to which the funeral was planned by people at the Luxembourg and the Hôtel de Guise. Mme de Guise had clearly made it known to Sainctot and his assistants that she wanted to be surrounded that day by people who were devoted to the Lorraines. Did she also express her wishes that her mother be laid to rest to the the music that had accompanied her late husband's funeral mass? If so, this would explain the presence of this isolated De Profundis in cahier 4. The pontifical mass sung at Saint-Jean-en-Grève in August 1671 would not have included a De Profundis and Requiem, for Louis-Joseph de Lorraine was not being buried that day. The Guise composer would therefore have been obliged to write a De Profundis for what I believe was a reuse of the Messe des trépassez.

Various sources permit the historian to sketch the setting in which this presumed reuse of the mass occurred. Wearing his pontifical vestments, Bishop Malier presided over the mass. Mme de Guise, who "led" the mourners because she was the dead woman's daughter, was accompanied by her half-sister and by Mlle d'Orléans, her cousin. The three princesses participated in the offrande, their long trains borne by royal heralds and by gentlemen serving their houses. With the elevation, six monks from the abbey appeared, bearing torches. After the absoute, or prayers of intercession for the dead woman, and after the four officiating prelates had wafted incense over the coffin, the "musique commença le De Profundis" and the sound of their chant wafted down from the roodscreen. Standing at the feet of the coffin, Malier sprinkled holy water over it, then signaled that it should be carried in procession to the burial vault. Making an an extremely generous gesture on behalf of his grieving cousin, Isabelle d'Orléans, Louis XIV paid all the funeral expenses, "contre la coustume, estant du devoir des heritiers de la faire."²⁷

Mme de Guise had planned a number of other services to honor her late mother, among them a "service solemnel en l'abbaye de Montmartre où est le cœur de Madame," held on May 14 and organized at her expense.²⁸ The Plainte, which is addressed to the "friends" of a mourner, was perfectly suited for vigils commemorating the loss of a mother. Were the Messe des trépassez or the Plainte performed at Montmartre on Saturday, May 14, 1672, or during the pontifical mass sung on the following Tuesday at the convent of Charonne, where Mme de Guise had spent most of her childhood years? Although Charpentier's name is not mentioned, this would seem to be the case. On May 21, 1672, the nuns at Charonne showed their gratitude toward their foundress, Marguerite de Lorraine, by celebrating "en leur Eglise un service avec un beau Mausolée, et toute la pompe deüe à la memoire d'une si grande Princesse." This mass, which was "chantée par la Musique [du roi]" — and which may have been preceded, the previous day, by the vigils sung on the eve of a burial — involved a burial of sorts, that is, the deposition of the late princess's entrails. Once again Bishop Malier of Tarbes officiated, in the presence of Mme de Guise and a "grand nombre de Princesses", and of Gondi, the Florentine.²⁹ That the royal musicians participated in this mass would seem to support the hypothesis that the mass, and perhaps the Plainte, were reused at Charonne. In other words, the musicians who had performed at Saint-Denis on May 10 and May 11 went out Charonne on May 21 (and perhaps to Montmartre on May 14). That none of these sources mentions a court composer such as Lully adds credence to the hypothesis that the music at these services had been written by the house composer of the Lorraines of Guise.

Charpentier had been working on funeral music ever the early August 1671; and we have seen that he apparently was busy on yet another composition in honor of the dead, the above- mentioned Prose des morts (H. 12) of cahier 5, when Marguerite de Lorraine died in April 1672. Let us return to this sequence and the probable reason why Charpentier was writing it that winter. This sequence is not part of the officium defunctorum in the breviaries published in France during these years. Indeed, it belongs to the Missa in commemoratione omnium fidelium Defunctorum,³⁰ called the "Requiem" mass because it began with the introit "Requiem æternam dona eis Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis." In other words, this work that Charpentier copied into the first pages of cahier 5 should be seen as a "commemorative" gesture: that is, it is appropriate for the Feast of the Dead on November 1 and 2, but it also could be used on the anniversary of death.³¹ Put another way, the Prose is appropriate for the ceremony that was called the "Bout de l'An" and that marked the end of mourning. Was this elaborate work written for the Bout de l'An of Louis-Joseph de Lorraine, which was held at Montmartre on July 30, 1672? And was it reemployed for the Bout de l'An of Madame — or even for the annual services that Mme de Guise organized in her parents' memory at Charonne?³²

On celebra le bout de l'An du Duc de Guyse en l'Eglise de l'Abbaye de Montmartre, avec toutte la pompe possible, l'Evesque d'Authun [Roquette] y ayant officié pontificalement, en présence des Princes et Princesses de sa Maison [de Lorraine], de plusieurs Evesques, et d'autres Personnes de la première Qualité. Madame de Guyse se rendit de Saint Germain en Laye, dès la Veille, en ladite Abbaye, pour assister à ses funèbres Devoirs; et y voulut demeurer jusques au 1 de ce mois [d'août], pour répendre, en secret, et avec quelque sorte de consolation, les larmes qu'elle donne si tendrement, à la Memoire de son Epous.³³

The phrase "with all the possible pomp" suggests that music formed an integral part of this pontifical mass. Mme de Guise had gone to the abbey the "previous day." Why? Doubtlessly to attend the "Vigile des morts" that was held "in primo Anniversario"³⁴ of a death. Does this mean that on the afternoon of July 29, Charpentier's Plainte des âmes du Purgatoire (H. 311) was once again performed? And, the next day, a requiem mass similar to the one that Molinier had written for the Bout de l'an of his dead brother in 1656?

Son frère [...] pour le bout de l'an, luy prépare un beau Service muzical, qui, certes, n'eût jamais d'égal, et qui, par pluzieurs voix célébres, vaudra trente oraizons funébres. [...] De ce grand Concert de Muzique, [...] plus de vingts Chantres excellens firent-là valoir leurs talens, outre quatre voix féminines, que l'on trouva presque divines.³⁵

The Bout de l'an for Louis-Joseph de Lorraine was but the first in a succession of commemorative services: every March, and every April 2, memorial services were held at Charonne in memory of Mme de Guise's parents; and, although the sources do not mention them, Mlle de Guise doubtlessly held similar services for the her relatives at Montmartre.³⁶

Even before her mother's death, Mme de Guise had begun to spend an increasing amount of time at court. For example, on June 1672 she was among the noblewomen who joined the Corpus Christi procession, which was done:

avec l'éclat, et la pompe accoutumez, les endroits où [la procession] passa estans parez des plus riches tapisseries de la Couronne, et Monseigneur le Dauphin, accompagné du Duc de Montausier, y assista avec une Dévotion tout à fait exemplaire, ainsi que Madame [la Palatine, qui venait d'épouser le duc d'Orléans] et Madame de Guyze, avec grand nombre de Dames.³⁷

Why did the Gazette single out Mme de Guise? Is the attention paid to her by the press related to the presence of some Symphonies pour un reposoir (H. 515) in Charpentier's cahier XI, which dates from the late spring of 1672? Did one of Mme de Guise's royal cousins — specifically one of those mentioned by the Gazette, that is, either the Dauphin and his parents or the Duke and Duchess of Orléans — commission this music from Charpentier? If so, these symphonies would be the first work (other than funeral music) that the Guise protégé wrote for a court event.

The existence of these symphonies at the end of cahier XI permits us to date Charpentier's earliest Te Deum: Te Deum à 8 voix (H. 145) and the Exaudiat (H. 62) that completes it clearly were copied into his notebook between approximately April and June of 1672, as a response to royal military victories. For whom might he have written this music? Judging from the paper, it was for the Jesuits; and this highly circumstantial evidence is shored up with a somewhat more solid bit of evidence. Charpentier reused this Te Deum during the 1690s, when he was music master for the reverend fathers. That is, he added Dun's name and the curved brackets and allusions to a "premier choeur" and a "second choeur," using an ink that today is considerably lighter and browner than the ink of the early 1670s. The same brownish ink appears in the works for women's voices that were subsequently turned into works for men's voices. Adapting a work written for one patron and using it without that party's authorization was viewed as tantamount to treason, for the original patron had counted that his commission would remain exclusive. (Sébastien de Brossard was dismissed from the Foucault household in 1684 for having offered someone a manuscript that he had transcribed for his employer.) A close scrutiny of the works that Charpentier adapted this way in the early 1690s reveals that all these modified works were written for two patrons: either the Jesuits themselves, or Marie de Lorraine, who was by then dead. Nothing prevented the composer from adapting to the requirements of the 1690s a work that he had written for the fathers in the early 1670s. And, upon his protectress's death in 1688, Charpentier inherited, so to speak, the music he had composed for her and could therefore adapt and reuse it.³⁸

The spring of 1672 brought Charpentier another commission, a mass — a Roman-style Messe à quatre choeurs (H. 4). Musicologists wonder whether the mass was ever performed in Paris or whether is was a mere wishful-thinking or an exercise in italianism. The mass fills three notebooks, cahiers XII to XIV, and for the notebooks Charpentier used the ream of paper that he had been using for the French notebooks and that he would continue to use until approximately July 1676. It may be significant that Charpentier did not recopy this mass at a later point (the treble clefs are the type he used throughout the 1670s). Should this be taken as conclusive evidence that the italianate mass could not have been for the Jesuits? Such a conclusion would of course be hasty. Although the presence of Jesuit paper suggests a recopied version of an earlier commission from the fathers at Saint-Louis, the absence of that paper proves nothing. In mid-mass there is, however, one piece of paper with a crowned L, and all of cahier XIV is written on this paper. Is the use of this paper to be seen as Charpentier's way of weaving royal participation in this event into the very fibers of the paper?

Before allowing the watermarks of cahiers XII to XIV to influence our conclusions, let us first scrutinize the Gazette de France to see whether any reference to an italianate service or to a grandiose mass in which the royal musicians participated, can be found during the final half of 1672.

Would the event we are seeking be the mass celebrated in the chapel of the Jesuit Noviciate on December 3, 1672? That day Archbishop Harlay de Chanvallon went to the Noviciate "où il célébroit la Feste de S. François Xavier, Apostre des Indes: et y ayant esté receu par ces Pères, à la porte de la Maison, il entendit le Panégyrique, qui fut prononcée par l'Abbé de Fortia, avec l'admiration de tout l'Auditoire."³⁹ This all too brief description makes no mention of any music, but an almanach of the period states that each year, on December 3, "il y a Concert de musique et d'Instruments aux Jesuites."⁴⁰

Or would the event be the canonization of Saint Gaetan of Thiene, founder of the Theatines, which began on August 13, 1672 at Sainte-Anne-la-Royale, where Mme de Guise would decorate her private chapel a few years later? For a week the Theatines "exposérent dans leur belle, & nouvelle Eglise, des magnificences, & des merveilles si singuliéres, & et que l'Art avoit si bien disposées, qu'on n'avoit point, encor, vû de Spectacle de Dévotion, si pompeux, & si bien concerté."⁴¹ In this church decorated by Vigarani, the bishop of Constance intoned a Te Deum, "qui fut continué par deux grands Chœurs de Musique, avec une excellent Symphonie." After the Te Deum, vespers and salut were "continuez par les 2 Chœurs de Musique," followed by fireworks and a "Concert de grand nombre de Hautbois, & d'autres Instrumens, de maniére que les Yeux, & les Oreilles estoyent également satisfaits de cette pieuse exultation." The next day brought a pontifical mass, vespers and a "salut chanté par la Musique, ainsi que fut tout le Service de ce jour." Since the expression "la Musique" usually denotes "la Musique du Roy," it would seem that Louis XIV lent his musicians to the Theatines, who had named their church after his late mother. Each of the remaining days of the octave brought a similar sequence of services, but the Gazette does not say whether the royal musicians performed each day. That Charpentier used sixteen string instruments, some of them violins, in this mass suggests that he was writing for the royal musicians and the vingt-quatre violons. His decision — or his commission — to write polychoral mass would also be explained by the fact that the church of the Theatines, most of whom were Italians, was the devotional center of the Italian community in Paris. (This also meant, of course, that the "2 choirs" that sang in the other services would have grouped into 4 choirs for this mass.)

On the upper left corner of the first sheet of cahier XII, Charpentier sketched an extremely schematic plan of the church, to show the location of the four choirs. Does this sketch correspond to the layout of the Noviciate church, of which nothing has survived beyond a few plans? Considering the excessive simplicity of Charpentier's sketch, any comparison is problematic. There are, however, certain similarities between the layout of the Noviciate chapel and Charpentier's sketch. When a work of this sort was performed in Rome, the choirs were generally placed in the tribunes. The church of the Noviciate had four small tribunes, one of each side of the pair of altars that created a sort of transept. These four tribunes formed a cross similar to the one in Charpentier's manuscript. At one end of this rectangle stood the apse with its altar, and at the other was a crossing that served as a narthex and that therefore did not seem to be a part of the actual church. In other words, the proportions of the central portion of this small Jesuit church correspond to Charpentier's sketch. It is clear that the composer's sketch does not represent one of the vaster churches of the capital, for example, Saint-Louis, which is at least twice as large at the Noviciate church. Indeed, the composer can scarcely have been thinking of the Jesuit church of Saint-Louis, with its long nave and its wide and deep transepts. The steps of the high altar at the Noviciate were of course not rounded, as Charpentier shows them. Nor does the curve at the back of the apse resemble the rectangle against which Charpentier placed his altar, but this inaccuracy could be explained by the illusion of a flat wall that was created by Poussin's huge painting that rose behind the altar and hid the curved area from the eyes of anyone standing in the nave or in one of the tribunes. In other words, the small scale of the Noviciate church and its overall layout provided an ideal setting for the four choirs indicated by Charpentier. By contrast, placing four choirs in similar positions in the lofty and wide nave of Saint-Louis would have been detrimental to the cohesion of the performance. Inconclusive though they are, these bits of evidence permit a hypothesis for further research: Father Verthamon, the former secretary to the Jesuit general, proposed that the fathers recreate a mass similar to the ones that he had heard sung in Rome in honor of the saints of the Society.

Or does his plan correspond to the layout of the Theatine church? No plans of the complex appear to have survived, and the church is shown as a long rectangle on Turgot's plan of Paris. Although this enormous church was supposed to be laid out as a Greek cross, in 1672 only the central crossing had been completed. The crowned L of one of the watermarks, the italianism of the polychoral mass, the use of so many violins, the number of musicians required, the position of this mass in the chronology of Charpentier's manuscripts, and the fact that Mme de Guise would soon become overtly associated with the Theatines — all this somewhat circumstantial evidence suggests that Charpentier's mass was written for these Italian fathers, rather than for the Jesuits.

The year 1672 brought a reconciliation between Marie de Lorraine and Isabelle d'Orléans:

Madame de Guise se raccommoda avec mademoiselle de Guise, après la mort de [Madame d'Orléans]; elles se voyoient souvent. Mademoiselle de Guise avoit pourtant été fàchée, à ce qu'elle témoignoit, de quoi on lui avoit ôté son petit neveu [Alençon], et que [Mme de Guise] l'avoit mené avecelle. C'étoit un enfant très-malsain, qui ne se soutenoit pas à six [lire, "quatre ans et demi"] étoit tout misérable. On avoit souvent des alarmes sur sa santé.⁴²

Thus the two Guise ladies saw one another "often." That year was nonetheless a turning point in their relationship, for they began to draw apart and Mme de Guise began to worm her way out of Mlle de Guise's clutches. True, Isabelle d'Orléans had an apartment made for her at Montmartre, but once the year of mourning had passed, she began to work very hard at finding a slot for herself at court. Indeed, she passed the fall of 1672 there. Marie de Lorraine, on the other hand, turned her back to the "world." She sold to the King the "hôtel" that the Guises owned at Versailles. And, doubtlessly thinking of Louis-Joseph and of all her dead brothers, she may have played an active role in the creation of a confraternity for the "dying sick" and an altar to the "faithful dead" at the convent of the Mercy. For, on August 20, 1672, only thirteen months after the death of the Duke of Guise, the pope granted that church a bull "d'indulgence pour l'érection de la Confrérie pour les malades agonisans en l'Eglise de N. Dame de la Mercy, de Paris. Le mesme St. Père a accordé à ladite Eglise un autel privilegié pour 3 jours la semaine en faveur des fidelles trépassez."⁴³

Then, on December 18, 1672, a confraternity devoted to the "perpetual adoration of Jesus Christ in the very hold Eucharist" was founded at the Guise parish church, Saint-Jean-en-Grève — with the stated purpose of helping its members win the "grâce d'une bonne mort." Although the House of Guise is not mentioned in the bylaws⁴⁴ published a few months later, it is clear that Archbishop Harlay de Chanvallon (who, in March 1670, had been granted the right to create one, and only one such confraternity in Paris) selected Saint-Jean-en-Grève with Mlle de Guise in mind: for he subsequently declared that one of the principal feast days of the confraternity would be "le jour de l'Expiation de ladite Eglise, octave de la dédicace, en septembre"⁴⁵ — that is, the day of the annual expiatory procession of the Holy Sacrament that Henriette-Catherine de Joyeuse had founded several decades earlier and during which prayers were said for the House of Guise and for the royal family (discussed in the chapter on the Guise chapel.) In other words, for the surviving Guises, and for the clergy of Saint-Jean-en-Grève, the creation of this confraternity was less an innovation than an official recognition of a long-standing devotional event.

In many respects, the bylaws of this confraternity set the tone for Mlle de Guise's devotions over the next fifteen years. That is to say, the confraternity focuses upon preparing for death, helping the poor, converting heretics, and praying for the royal family. During those fifteen years, Charpentier would produce a considerable number of works devoted to the Adoration of the Holy Sacrament, and to them he would add works corresponding to the other goals of the confraternity. We shall see, when we reach the appropriate years, that his oratorios in honor of St. Cecilia are related to the two Guise princesses' activities on behalf of "la propagation de la foy & l'extirpation des hérésies." The composer's "French" notebooks contain 18 works that either implore God's protection of the royal family, thank Him for preserving the life of the King or the Dauphin, or lament the Queen's death — that is to say, that embody the confraternity's prayers "pour la prospérité du Roy, de la Reine, de la Maison Royale, & de l'Etat." ⁴⁶

Focusing their devotion upon these broad goals, the members of the confraternity conducted several daily devotional activities. Upon rising, in their thoughts they saluted the Holy Sacrament (and Jesus in it), then attended mass and, whenever possible, would go and pray in churches where the Sacrament was displayed. They would also say the Pater and the Ave five times each day, linking each recitation to a specific devotion. That is to say, the first recitation constituted a prayer to God to keep the members in his grâce; the second was a prayer that mortal sinners would repent; the third acted as a prayer for the agonisans, while the fourth was for the âmes en purgatoire; and the fifth time, the member prayed for "les mauvais Chrestiens, les hérétiques, les schismatiques, & les infidèles." Throughout the day, whenever the clock struck, the devotee was supposed to think of Jesus and of the Holy Sacrament; and, the better to prompt meditations on this holy fusion of the Christ and sacrifice, he was advised to keep an image of the host in his home.⁴⁷ During the traditional reparations procession founded by the late Dowager of Guise, and the four other feast days of the confraternity (the Thursday of the third week of Advent, the Thursday of the fourth week of Lent, the Thursday of the Octave of Pentecost, and the Thursday of the third week of September), members prayed specifically for the extirpation of heresy and for peace in the realm. In addition, they were granted indulgences for celebrating several other high holy days: Corpus Christi, Epiphany (January 6) and the feast of St Michel Archangel, destroyer of Heresy. One begins to see why, during his years of service to the Guises, Charpentier would write so many works for Corpus Christi processions and would pen a motet for Epiphany (H. 395). In like manner, the emphasis upon élévations in this little handbook (which contains a little collection of élévations in French) suggests why Charpentier set to music 11 Latin texts specifically called an "élévation." Lastly, these bylaws contain a sentence that offers the strongest evidence thus far that, like Mme de Guise, Mlle de Guise made it a practice to go out and care for the sick and the poor of her parish: there is an alusion to the "Confrères & Soeurs" who already belong to the confraternity and who "exercent journellement plusieurs oeuvres de piété & de charité."⁴⁸ In short, it seems as if already existing charitable activities of the parish of Saint-Jean-en-Grève were turned over to the new confraternity of the Holy Sacrament in 1672 — the whole in a Guise-centered context.

1. Gazette, January 1672, p. 119.

2. Sévigné, Lettres, April 24, 1672. By "M***" did Mme de Sévigné mean "Madame," who had died on April 3?

3. Sévigné, Lettres, January 20, 1672.

4. Thoinon and Nuitter, Origines de l'Opéra, p. 221.

5. The underlined words were added later: "Icy l'orgue joüe un couplet si l'on veut, ou s'il n'y a point d'orgue il faudra joüer quelques simphonie. Passez après le couplet de l'orgue au Christe (fol. 7). Icy l'orgue joue un couplet sur les petits jeux si l'on veut, après lequel les violons recommencent Le Prelude du Kyrie et les voix Reprenent ensuite le Kyrie, comme cy devant l'orgue finit, ou quelque simphonie."

6. The color of the ink changes abruptly, on the other hand, between the Magnificat (fol. 46) and the Prose pour le jour de Pasques (H. 13), fol. 47. The composer used a new bottle of ink for H. 13, H. 312 and H. 284.

7. Arsenal, 8^o S: 13746.

8. Gazette, March 1672, p. 335.

9. A.N., M.C., XCIX, 250, vendition, February 20, 1672.

10. A.N., M.C., XCIX, 249, mainlevée, November 20, 1671, where Bourdeilles, then "comte de Montrésor," was given the right to remérer within the space of four years.

11. A.N., M.C., LXXV, 161, renunciation, May 19, 1672.

12. Florence, Med. del Prin., 4668, June 29, 1669.

13. Med. del Prin., 4816, February 26 and March 4, 1672.

14. Florence, Med. del Prin., 4670, April 3, 1672.

15. Arsenal, 8^o S: 13746.

16. Gazette, April 1672, p. 359. For further information about this funeral. see B.N., ms. fr. 23322, pp. 37-43.

17. Gazette, April 1672, p. 360.

18. Gazette, April 1672, p. 370.

19. The ceremonial of the order tells of a high mass on the morning for "Jeudy Saint," after which "il leur est neantmoins permis de chanter les matines de Tenebres." Cérémonial of 1626, pp. 127-128.

20. Mazarine, ms. 2740, fols. 13v, 15v, ceremonial book of Sainctot.

21. See the breviary of Paris, 1669, and especially that published in 1682, which states that "Ah penis crucior," an excerpt from the Book of Job, was part of the second nocturne, and that "Miseremini mei" was recited during the third nocturne (and not during the first, as the modern breviaries consulted by Hitchcock show). These breviaries reveal that the three nocturnes were only recited in full on November 1 or on the day of a burial and that, for the monthly services in honor of the dead, only one nocturne was said. H. 311 was consequently written either for November 1 (and the chronological sequence of the notebooks contradicts this hypothesis) or for a burial that took place shortly after Lent.

22. Brevarium romanum (Paris: F. Coustellier, 1669), hivernalis, p. clxv. For vespers: "cujus loco ad Laudes dicitur psalmus De Profundis, qui psalmi non dicitur indie omnium fidelium Defunct."; and Breviarium romanum (Paris: Josse, 1682), concerning the same service: "A laudes on dit le psaume De Profundis, lesquels psaumes ne se disent point au jour des Trepassez."

23. The "Requiem aeternam dona eis....(etc)" was only said after the final psalm of the service, that is, the Lauda anima (Ps. 146), Rituale parisiense (Paris: Josse, 1697), p. 254.

24. Rituale parisiense, 1697, p. 309.

25. Mazarine, ms. 2740, fol. 18.

26. Florence, Med. del Prin., 4670, Sept. 23 and Dec. 2, 1672.

27. Mazarine, ms. 2740, fols. 18-20v. Mlle de Guise's accounts show that Louis-Joseph de Lorraine's funeral costs long went unpaid.

28. Mazarine, ms. 2740, fol. 20v.

29. Gazette, May 1672, p. 492; Med. del Prin., 4670, May 20, 1672.

30. See, for example, the Missale Romanum (Bordeaux, 1607) approved by Pius V, at the library of the Société des Lettres de l'Aveyron, Rodez.

31. This prose was also said on the day of a death, the day of a burial and during a requiem mass (including the masses held on the third, seventh and thirtieth day after a death, and also for the Bout de l'An).

32. This Prose was eventually given a new prelude, which was supposed to be in cahier XVII, which contains works written between March 1673 and the fall of 1674.

33. Gazette, August 1672, p. 792.

34. Rituale parisiense, 1697, p. 256.

35. Loret, Muze, II, p. 248.

36. The annual service for the anniversary of Madame's death sung at Charonne is mentioned in Med. del Prin., 4769, file 1: April 2, 1678, and the annual service for Gaston is mentioned in file 2: March 3, 1678. For another allusion to these services, see Med. del Prin., 4768, file 1: April 5, 1677: Mmes de Guise and de Toscane attended the "funerale che vi se fà ogni Anno" at Charonne.

37. Gazette, June 1672, p. 551.

38. What works that apparently belonged to the Jesuits did he reuse? The two psalms (H. 160 ad H. 161) from cahier IX, which are on similijesuit paper, and this Te Deum (H. 145), which is on the same type of paper. These three works date from the time when Father Verthamon was at the professed house.
What works composed for Mlle de Guise were reused after 1688?

H. 157	cahier 6	Miserere	for two voices
H. 244	cahiers 23-24	élévation	for three voices
H. 246	cahiers 23-24	élévation	for three voices
H. 99-110	cahiers 26-28	Nine lessons for tenebrae (sung at the Abbaye-aux-Bois, 1680)	for four voices
H. 180	cahier 33	Exaudiat "pour Versailles"	for a large ensemble
H. 190	cahier 39	Dixit Dominus	for a large ensemble
H. 333	cahier 41	pour les fêtes de la Vierge	for the Guise ensemble
H. 193	cahier 43b	Miserere "des Jésuites"	for the Guise ensemble
H. 258	cahier 49	Elevatio	for one voice

These works can be subdivided into several categories. Six of them were written either for Mlle de Guise's full ensemble of the 1680s or the small one of the 1670s. One of the works was written for the nuns of the Abbaye-aux- Bois, where the musician Loulié's sister was a nun and where one of Mlle de Guise's relatives was abbess. I therefore propose that Marie de Lorraine gave the lessons to the nuns as a gift. The two works for her full ensemble were clearly written for specific church events, as yet unidentified. The allusions "pour Versailles" and "des Jésuites" are posterior to the original performance: the former appears in the memorandum of 1726; and the latter was added by Charpentier at an undetermined date, but surely after Mlle de Guise's death.

39. Gazette, December 1672, p. 1232.

40. Almanach du Palais, bound with the journals of President de Bailleul, Arsenal, 8^o 13762.

41. The lengthy description of these festivities is found in the Gazette de France, no. 102 (published in August 1672), pp. 873-854.

42. Montpensier, Mémoires, IV, p. 370.

43. A.N., LL 1559, fol. 85.

44. Mazarine, 42809, piece 2: Règlemens avec Instructions et prieres pour l'Association de l'Adoration perpetuelle du tres-saint Sacrement de l'Autel dans la Paroisse de saint Jean en Greve ("sous l'autorité" de Harlay), pub. Paris: Fr. Muguet, 1673.

45. Règlemens, p. 56.

46. Règlemens, pp. 16-17.

47. Règlemens, pp. 22-27.

48. Règlemens, p. 51.

The Ranums'

Panat Times

Volume 1, redone Dec. 2014

Contents

Volume 1

Panat

Orest's Pages

Patricia's Musings

Marc-Antoine

Charpentier

Musical Rhetoric

Transcribed Sources

My Reading of the Evidence for 1672