The
Ranums'
Panat Times
Volume 1, redone Dec. 2014
My Reading of the Evidence for 1676
Choose the evidence for another year, 1670-1680
Note: this Musing was written in the mid-1990s
The disappearance of three Roman notebooks — cahiers XX, XXI and XXII, which clearly contained works written between the early summer of 1675 and the summer of 1677 — rules out even the most general of hypotheses about any "extraordinary" commissions other than theatrical music that Marc-Antoine Charpentier received during those two years. The French notebooks for those years have however survived, and once again they are the mirror of Guise activities and preoccupations.
They do not, however, reflect every musical event involving one of the Guises, for the Guise musicians were not restricted to a diet of Charpentier and nothing but Charpentier. Over the years M. Du Bois amassed 56 volumes of music, including Lully's, Dumont's and Lambert's "motets" and the works of "other" composers.1 The musician Loulié not only could compose, he also was skilled at turning Lully's music into trios for two treble instruments and a bass. Another musician, Baussen, later laid claims to having been Mlle de Guise's composer.
The Guises' taste also included Italian songs, both devotional and courtly. Thus, in January 1676, when Mme de Toscane came to lunch at the Hôtel de Guise for the first time, to celebrate Carnival, music was an integral part of the entertainment. Mmes de Guise, d'Elbeuf, d'Armagnac and de Lillebonne — all of them Lorraines, and all of them appearing on Resident Gondi's list of approved friends for Mme de Toscane — the Duchesses of Epinoy and Furstemburg, and the Bishop of Strasbourg, were invited to join their hostess and the Grand Duchess at table that day. After lunch, the "three brothers," Armagnac, Massan and the abbé d'Harcourt (more Lorraines), came to pay their respects and to participate in the drawing of a "lottery" that Mme de Guise had organized. After each guest had received one of these precious trinkets, they were treated to "il divertisimento della musica."2 On another occasion, after the meal Mme de Toscane enjoyed an impromptu "ballo," during which she danced with the Count of Armagnac and the other princes of his house.3
These lunches with Mlle de Guise became a weekly event. Indeed, they would seem to have been connected to Toscane's harpsichord lessons. In November 1676, the Grand Duchess horrified everyone by engaging Monsieur des Airs, the Dauphin's dancing master, and convincing him that no one would mind if he instructed her in the latest dances in a room that, although technically outside the abbey, was very close to the nun's parlor. Mlle de Guise calmed the tempest, and the Grand Duchess continued her dancing lessons.4 A year later, Toscane suddenly began spending several mornings a week in the "salle" of her private pavillion, "to perfect her performance on the harpsichord," yet the Florentine resident makes no mention of a music teacher.5 Under the watchful eye and trusted supervision of Mlle de Guise, was she taking lessons from Etienne Loulié — or from young Anne Jacquet, a newcomer to the household?
The Florentine resident's comments about these weekly visits to Mlle de Guise — which continue from late-January 1676 to the final months of 1679 — gradually become so perfunctory that music is no longer mentioned, especially since all allusions to his estranged wife's love of music clearly irritated the Grand Duke. And so, although Monsieur and his family were honored at one of these lunches (to which all the Lorraines, as usual, had been invited), Resident Gondi refers solely to the "magnificent food" that was served at the two tables and gives the impression that no music, no dancing, no "musical conversations" were involved.6 The same is true for Mme de Toscane's frequent visits to see her sister at the Luxembourg. Is it conceivable that the assembled ladies, who are described as playing games and drawing lotteries, conducted these activities without that background music accompanied such activities in courtly households?
The most effective and pleasing entertainment anyone could offer Mme de Toscane was music. And it was with music that she usually entertained her guests at Montmartre. During his first two years as reporter of the Grand Duchess's latest foibles, Gondi informed his master about the most conspicuous of these events, for fear news about them reach Florence from some other source. For 1675, 1676 and early 1677, the letters the resident dispatched to Florence therefore include a certain number of revealing statements about music at the residences of the Guise princesses and at Montmartre. By the fall of 1677 he ceases, however, to allude to the Grand Duchess's passion for things musical and turns instead to subjects that interested her distant husband, chiefly Her Royal Highness's devotion (or lack of it) and her increasingly frequent stays at the court of her cousin the King. What the resident writes about the first three years of Mme de Toscane's sojourn at Montmartre doubtlessly applies to the entire twelve years during which she was a part of the circle for which Charpentier composed.
What does the resident tell us about Mme de Toscane and music? First of all, she immediately formed a bond with Mlle de Guise's domestics and they "spent the time at the grill in the abbey parlor, in concerti musicale." She soon charmed the Abbess, who would sit in the parlor "a sentir la musica." She entertained her guests by offering them a planned and rehearsed trattenimento di musica." For example, one Saturday in in February 1676, Monsieur and Madame went to Montmartre for one of these trattenimenti. The Abbess soon agreed that her charge could receive an approved list of ladies in her apartment — Mmes de Lillebonne, d'Armagnac (two Lorraines) and Mmes de Soubise, d'Epinoy, et du Plessis-Guénégaud — to talk about approved subjects; and that these ladies would also "assistendo alla musica." Mme de Toscane doubtlessly was the motivating force behind the Sunday afternoon part-singing in the abbey parlor, where Charron de Ménars, Colbert's brother-in-law, "condussi due voici a cantare" in the presence of the Abbess, who had agreed to accept a little girl he had proposed as a boarding pupil. In this instance, the "divertimento" lasted "several hours." Ménars announced his intention to repeat the experience frequently. After she had been bitten by the dancing craze, the Grand Duchess tried in vain to win approval for the creation of a "sala di ballo" where she could present her musical diversions and above all where she could "play her lute, her guitar and her viol for her teacher." Though the "ballroom" apparently was refused her, during the early summer of 1677 the princess began preparing what the Florentine resident calls "conversatione di musica," an expression he had earlier applied to the opera and/or pastoral performed at Saint-Cloud after the baptism of Monsieur's children. Thus, on August 1, 1677, Mme de Toscane "treated" the guests in her apartment to a "conversation in music" composed by Baron Ronsuer, a "German who is staying at the residence of the Bishop of Strasbourg. (Her Royal Highness saw the Bishop frequently at the Hôtel de Guise) The lyrics were by Count de la Vauguion, who had represented Louis XIV at Brandenburg and who was a member of the royal bodyguards. (Furstemberg's musically and poetically talented protégés of course call to mind the Charpentier-Du Bois collaboration at the Hôtel de Guise and raise the possibility that one or more of Charpentier's lost Italian operas were performed in Mme de Toscane's apartment at Montmartre.)7 But we have jumped ahead chronologically. Let us return to the first months of 1676.
When peace negotiations with Holland began in early 1676, the clergy began to implore God to aid the negotiators. One of the two Guises appears to have offered "her" composer to one of the religious establishments of Paris — one that could call upon a large group of performers and instrumentalists — for Charpentier copied into the latter half of his cahier 11 a work entitled Canticum pro pace (H. 392), which the Mémoire of 1726 calls a "Grand motet avec grande symphonie," and an associated Elevation pour la paix (H. 237). In the motet, the "noise of war" is silenced by an angel, while Peace and Justice extol the virtues of the peace-loving king of France. The elevation asks Jesus to watch over his servant Louis. Since no allusion to prayers for peace appears in the Gazette for the first three months of 1676, it is impossible to suggest the church for which these works were intended. The Jesuit Church of Saint-Louis is, however, a likely candidate, for rather than imploring God, the Holy Spirit or the Virgin to watch over Louis XIV the imagery of the elevation pairs Louis and Jesus, whose name the Society of Jesus bears.
Though Mme de Guise was at court off and on that spring, she spent a certain amount of time in Paris, for these were the heady days when she was trying to sell her half of the Luxembourg and purchase the Hôtel de Condé and settle down there with Mlle de Guise. She also was in the habit of visiting her sister at Montmartre and even managed to convince the King to allow Mme de Toscane to accompany her to some of the Parisian convents. Mlle de Guise meanwhile was making major renovations in the abbey complex, specifically for the "construction d'un portail de l'église, logemens au-dessus qui sont parloirs, cabinets et du pavillon joignant la porte de l'entrée de la cour de ladite abbaye."8 Not only would the new doorway add to the grandeur of that portion of the abbey that was accessible to laymen and women, it would provide additional rooms where Their Highnesses could gather with friends.
With the Lenten season came the Bout de l'An of François-Joseph de Lorraine, who had died on March 16, 1675. The Gazette is silent about any ceremony that may have taken place at Montmartre that week; but Charpentier's notebook for that year contains a Pie Jesu (H. 427), a text that was recited during the service known as the Bout de l'An.9 Into the middle of this particular Pie Jesu was inserted an extraneous text that alludes to "souls languishing in the flames," to "consolation for the afflicted" and to "having mercy on sinners," additions that suggest that this work may have been intended for a memorial service held in mid-March 1676
The Pie Jesu may have been performed more or less in tandem with the setting of Psalm 8 (H. 163), which precedes it in cahier 8. Although this psalm was not part of the service for the dead, it was recited at matins. A Bout de l'An was often preceded by the so-called "vigils" of the dead, that is, prayers recited on the previous evening; but it is conceivable that routine matins would have been said in these more intimate circumstances and, with them, Psalm 8. This psalm would not be totally inappropriate to a two-day memorial event in honor of the late Duke of Alençon, for one of its verses begins: "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has thou ordained strength ...."
These two works were written for the vocal trio that first appeared in cahier 8 (which dates from the summer of 1674) and that was to remain the Guise trademark until the early 1680s. This trio was composed of a haut dessus, a dessus and a bass, plus continuo (shown in the chronological charts as: hd, d, b accompanied, on occasion, by two treble instruments. The presence of a bass voice virtually rules out the possibility that this ensemble was composed of religious. The two women doubtlessly were chambermaids, and the man was Pierre Beaupuis, the opera singer who had entered Guise service shortly after the instrumentalist Etienne Loulié was chosen as one of Mlle de Guise's musicians circa November 1673. (In 1688, Loulié's name appeared at the head of the list of male musicians, indicating that he was the senior member of the group. Beaupuis' name immediately followed his.) It would therefore seem that Charpentier composed these works for the private chapel of the Guises — or, to be exact, for one of the several private chapels frequented by these devout mourners.
For the next half-dozen years, this ensemble predominates in the French notebooks, although a small number of works for haute-contre, tenor and bass also seem to have been composed for Guise domestics. By observing closely the activities of this distinctive group, we can spy upon the devotional activities of the two Guise women and we can see that, during these years, the music for the princesses' chapel/chapels not only began to revolve around the high feasts of the Virgin and the Infant Jesus but that it also included a series of "dramatic motets" or "oratorios."
Having completed the Pie Jesu, Charpentier transcribed nothing into his French notebooks for eight whole months! Yet the Gazette informs us that, on Friday, April 3, 1676, Madame and Monsieur once again broke with their customary worship pattern and together made their way up to Montmartre for tenebrae services. If music was woven into the plainsong of this service, it was either one of the lessons that Charpentier had composed several years earlier, or else Loulié, the newcomer to the Guise ensemble, had been permitted to write for this service.
Was Charpentier so busy with outside commissions during these six months — commissions that were lost along with cahiers XX to XXII — that he lacked the time to compose for his protectresses? Does this explain why there are, for example, no new lessons for tenebrae in cahier 12? This despite the fact that, early in March, Mme de Montmartre had informed Louis XIV, through Roquette d'Autun, that during Holy Week or on Easter Sunday she hoped Their Majesties would come to her church, to hear the "music" performed by the nuns.10 (Note that the Abbess did not say "plainchant," she said "musique.") The King decided to come on Good Friday, April 3, but apparently concealed the fact from his court. Monsieur and Madame and the "large assembly of people who met, as agreed, at Montmartre" were, however, kept informed and were waiting when Louis XIV "out of the blue decided to go from Saint-Germain-en-Laye to the abbey that day."11 It surely is no accident that this service was held on the fourth anniversary of the death of Marguerite de Lorraine. Did the nuns sing the Misereri (H. 157) and the Recordare (H. 95) that Charpentier had penned for Margot and Magdelon three years earlier? Or the lessons he had copied out into cahier 1 in 1670? If this were indeed the case, it suggests that Mme de Guise enjoyed hearing over and over a work with affective connotations, and that Charpentier's various works for Holy Week had become part of the abbey's annual repertory.
When Mme de Montmartre extended her blanket invitation to Louis XIV, Charpentier doubtlessly was busy with other projects. For example, he had been asked to write music for Le Triomphe des dames, which the Guenegaud troop was preparing for August. (This music must have been copied into one of the three lost cahiers.) The subject book for Le Triomphe des dames mentions several songs. One of them, "Si Claudine ma Voisine" (H. 499b), has survived — and was reused for the revival of the Inconnu in 1679.12 Another, which was sung by the King and Queen of Clubs and began "Quoyque depuis longtemps, O mon cher Alexandre," was part of a divertissement in which the Kings, Queens and Jacks of each suit "font leur figure deux à deux, tout le rouge d'un costé, & le noir de l'autre; puis ils se meslent tous douze ensemble." Alexander was, of course, one of the kings in a pack of cards. Two other songs performed by a herald just as the battle was about to begin also seem to have disappeared: "Han due beglie Occhi," and "Si quand mille feux." Beyond the allusions to trumpets being blown from time to time, no clear picture of the remainder of Charpentier's compositions emerges from the subject book for this spectacle.
In preparing this production, the troop, asserts Janet Clark, "first confronted the scrupulous application of the ordonnance of March 1675." The play proper presented a "Combat à la Barrière" that took place inside a castle — a courtly entertainment for which the dukes of Savoy and of Bavaria were renowned. Indeed, the troop emphasizes its concern for authenticity. Thomas Corneille, the playwright, states that the mottos of the various combatants were inspired by the Traité des Tournois of the renowned French Jesuit, Father Menestrier. If the troop was using "machines," he continues, it was because machines were "always" part of such tournaments: "c'est pour cela que j'en ay mis icy, en faisant paroistre la Fidelité dans son Char." Then, to justify his hopes of employing a large number of musicians, he adds: "Je scay qu'on y faisoit entrer la Musique & souhaiterois fort n'avoir pas esté obligé de pecher contre cette Règle."
While the subject book was in press, the troop was energetically seeking temporary relaxation of Lully's restrictions: it wanted to hire two professional singers for this extravaganza that evoked the fêtes given by Louis XIV's cousins of Savoy and by the electoral family with whom the King was negotiating the marriage of the Dauphin. They even dispatched their representatives to Compiègne — but in vain. Allusions to the mediocre quality of the singing were eventually woven into the script. "Thus," observes Scott, "in the Triomphe des dames we find two devices used to make up for any lack of skill on the part of the singers: firstly the integration of musical episodes into the plot in such a way that a less than perfect rendition is acceptable or even desirable; and, secondly, the use of music for comic effect. The contrast with the formal dialogues of pastoral inspiration which had been a feature of earlier machine plays [...] could not be more marked."13
The records of the theater allude to the authorized six violinists but name no hired singers. This sources does, on the other hand, refer to payments made to ten "marcheurs" and to twenty- eight additional "marcheurs ou assistans." That these "marchers" were actually dancers is suggested by another entry in the registers of the troop: it was "danseurs," not "marcheurs" who rehearsed with the violinists.14 Charpentier was paid 143 livres for the music but does not seem to have participated in the performances. By contrast, Desbrosses, the choreographer, received 275 livres for the "composition des Entrées" — twice as much as the composer.15
Not only were Louis XIV and his entourage apparently being pressured not to relax any of the restrictions against musicians, they also seem to have deemed it best to ignore the very existence of the play. Delegates from the troop made two trips to Versailles to "solliciter de jouer le Triomphe des Dames à la cour et presenter le Livret au Roy, à la Reyne, à Monseigneur le Dauphin," but to no avail, for the royal family expressed its firm desire to see D. Corsar d'Avalos, which the troop was not prepared to perform.16 Any exhilaration that Charpentier might have felt about his contribution to this play were therefore tempered by the fact that the work was still-born as far as the court was concerned.
Was it yet another death, rather than too many outside commissions, that explains Charpentier's inactivity? In other words, were the musicians of the rue du Chaume silenced during the summer and the early fall of 1676 by the death of Mme Goibault des Bois in May 1676? Was it for her service, rather than for the Bout de l'An of the little Duke, that Charpentier wrote the Pie Jesu (H. 427) of cahier 12? Did Du Bois add the Latin passage about sinners and souls that languish in flames that is not a part of the Mass for the Dead? Does Charpentier's six-month silence reflect Du Bois' mourning?
During the weeks and months that followed, Goibault was besieged by his late wife's relatives, who were laying excessive claims to her estate. Françoise Blacvod descended from a Scotch physician who had entered the Guise orbit in the sixteenth century, when Mary Stuart, the daughter of a Guise woman, took them under her protective wing. Since their arrival in France, the Blacvods had married into very good families, among them the La Mothe le Vayer. Indeed, Mme Goibaut had been especially proud to be the first cousin of the "aimable Abbé le Vayer, fils du philosophe et si cher à Molière et à Boileau" — and preceptor of Louis XIV.17 Sources imply that Françoise Blacvod not only ugly but pushy, and her relatives clearly were no less assertive than she had been. In their dispute with Du Bois, they made a variety of assertions that they hoped would win them not only a share in Françoise's estate but eventually a portion of childless Du Bois' own possessions. Among these sniping accusations was this tidbit about Du Bois' protection by the Guises:
Après son mariage, [Françoise Blacvod] fit venir le sieur Dubois à Paris pour faire valoir les talens de son esprit qui languissoient dans la Province, et le faire profiter du crédit qu'elle s'estoit acquise dans la Maison de Guise; ce fut elle qui luy procura l'honneur d'estre Gouverneur de Monsieur le Duc de Guise dernier du nom, et qui le fit retenir auprés de feue Mademoiselle de Guise avec de grosses pensions, qui luy ont donné le moyen d'augmenter sa fortune, ayant laissé plus de cent mil livres de bien.18
Standing up to such denigrating remarks and drafting forceful replies must have robbed M. Du Bois of both the the time and the energy he usually devoted to music. Then too, participating in musical events, even for devotional purposes, was unseemly for a mourning widower of his social standing. And so, rather than turn the direction of the ensemble over to Charpentier, M. Du Bois apparently preferred to let the music fall silent for six months. It is, however, entirely possible that some of Charpentier's earlier compositions were reused during this period of mourning. For example, it is difficult to imagine that Mme de Guise, Mme de Toscane and "all the princesses of the House of Lorraine" (including, of course, Mlle de Guise) did not offer their musicians to the Lorraines of Elbeuf, whose daughter took the veil in May 1676. Or that Father Verthamon did not call upon his family's protégé in July, when he played a key role in the commemoration of the consecration of the church of Saint-Louis. Or that the taking of the veil by a Lorraine d'Harcourt at Montmartre a few weeks later was not accompanied by music offered by Mlle de Guise.
Isabelle d'Orléans was absent from Paris for most of the first half of 1676, and probably spent the summer at Alençon, where she established three Filles de la Charité to care for the impoverished sick.19 During these slow summer months Her Royal Highness apparently asked Charpentier to prepare something special for Christmas. Her reasons can be deduced: the Academy of the Infant Jesus was scheduled to open in the fall and was eagerly looking forward to its first Advent vigils and its first Christmas service. Was it for this audience of young nobles, who were industriously learning Latin, the lingua franca of the diplomatic and church circles for which they were being trained, that Marc-Antoine Charpentier wrote the Canticum in nativitatem Domini (H. 393) for the Guise trio? This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that the Latin text incorporates numerous images cherished by devotees of the Infant Jesus: the "frigid night," the "darkness over all the world" that prefigures the Crucifixion, the "misery" that the Child assumed by "assimilating to us" and to "man's vileness." In addition, the canticum ends with a veritable litany — though not the so-called Litany of the Infant Jesus that the schoolboys recited during their vigils on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth day of each month.
This "Motet pour la Nativité," as the Mémoire of 1726 calls it, is followed by an Elevation (H. 238) that evokes the birth of Jesus, and by a Domine Salvum fac Regem (H. 286). The three works clearly were destined for a single event, and Charpentier copied them out as a single unit. And, although he saw no need to identify the performers, he clearly had the Guise musicians in mind: this Christmas music was written for two singing chambermaids, for Pierre Beaupuis (who sang the solo elevation) and for two treble instruments (one of them doubtlessly played by Loulié) and continuo. In short, on Christmas eve of the year 1676, the musicians of the rue du Chaume apparently climbed into one of the Guise coaches , to be transported to the academy on the rue de Sèvres. Concealed in the "tribune" of the chapel, they lent brilliance to the first Christmas service conducted in the chapel of Saint-Sulpice's newest devotional and pedagogical jewel.
Considering the hours that her musicians spent composing, copying and rehearsing this Christmas music, it is likely that the princesses ordered their performance in one or more of their chapels. For example, was Mme de Guise one of the patronnesses who contributed to the "Couches de la Vierge" at the Theatines during Advent of 1676? This is a distinct possibility, because on the afternoon of December 24 (the novena for the "Couches" began in mid- afternoon20), Philippe d'Orléans and his wife attended a "salut en musique" there to mark the end of the Novena of the "Attente."21 In other words, the singers could easily have performed one or more of these three works for the salut at the Theatins and the midnight service at the Hôtel de l'Enfant Jésus — with, perhaps, in a performance at the Mercy sandwiched in during the early evening.
Charpentier wrote another work for Isabelle d'Orléans that fall, the only setting of a French text to be found in the French series prior to circa October 1682. Philippe d'Orléans and his second wife, the German princess popularly known as "Liselotte," were by now parents of two children, "Mlle de Chartres" and "Monsieur le duc de Chartres." (The little boy grew up to be the musician-prince who studied composition with Marc-Antoine Charpentier.) The princely couple's household officers therefore began arranging a festive double baptism at their chateau of Saint-Cloud when Monsieur returned from the summer military campaign. Philippe d'Orléans asked his first cousins, Mme de Guise and Mme de Toscane, to be the godmothers:
Le 5 de ce mois [October], Monsieur le duc de Chartres & Mademoiselle de Chartres furent batisez à S. Clou, dans la Chapelle du Chasteau, en presence de Leurs Majestez, de Monseigneur le Dauphin, & et de Monsieur & de Madame, accompagnez de toute la Cour. Monsieur le Duc de Chartres fut tenu sur les Fonts, par le Prince de Condé, & et par la Grande Duchesse de Toscane, qui le nommérent Philippes, qui est le nom de Monsieur. Mademoiselle de Chartres, tenüe par le duc d'Enguyen, & par Madame de Guise, qui le nommérent Elisabeth Charlotte, qui est le nom de Madame. La Maréchale de Clerambaut, Gouvernante des Enfans de Leurs Altesses Royales, présenta le Prince et la Princesse au Baréme: et l'Evesque du Mans, premier Aumônier de Monsieur, fit la Ceremonie, assisté de tous les Aumôniers & de tous les Chapelains et Monsieur & de Madame. Leurs Majestez, avec Monseigneur le Dauphin, estant montées ensuite, au Salon, elles y trouvérent une collation tres splendide: où le Prince de Condé, la Grande Duchesse de Toscane, le Duc d'Enghien, & Mme de Guise furent placez à la mesme table. Il y en avoit une autre dans l'Antichambre de M. le Duc de Chartres, pour les Princes de Conti & de la Roche sur Yon: où se mirent plusieurs Seigneurs de la première qualité. Leurs Majestez eurent ensuitte le divertissement de l'Opera, dans le mesme Salon, qui avoit esté preparé avec toute la magnificence possible.22
The "opera" was probably written by Sablières and Guichard, Philippe's household composer and impresario, and it is virtually certain that the improvised stage was prepared by the latter of these gentlemen. Yet Marc-Antoine Charpentier clearly contributed to the event, politeness having forced Monsieur's impresarios to welcome his participation in the event. Charpentier's cahier 13 contains a Petite Pastorale, Eglogue de Bergers (H. 479), called the "Jugement de Pan" in the Mémoire of 1726. Was this "little pastoral" merely the prologue to an opera by Sablières? Or was it the "opera" itself? If so, the Guise composer supplanted Philippe d'Orléans' own protégés that day.
The pastoral was written for three male voices, two recorders and a continuo. The identity of some of the performers for whom this was written can be deduced: Charpentier, a haute-contre, must have played the role of Lysandre and Beaupuis, the bass, played Pan, while Loulié performed on one of the recorders. The role of Alcidon, which was written for a tenor, was probably performed by a newcomer to the group, Henri De Baussen. (Should the fact that none of the chambermaids took part in the performance be taken as evidence that the Guise women were unwilling to have these girls compromise their reputations by appearing on stage?) The text — a singing competition that Pan is asked to judge — harkens back to the "splendid" prelude of Le Malade imaginaire. Indeed, Charpentier incorporated into this pastoral a number of songs he had written for the ill-fated prologue to that play: "Quittez, quittez, bergers" (H. 496[2]) and "Ah, cruelle bergere," a serenade by Polichinelle that has since disappeared. He wove two other songs into the pastoral: "Au bord d'une fontaine," and "Brillantes fleurs, naissez" (H. 449). The former has apparently been lost, but the latter, with lyrics by Jean de La Fontaine, was eventually published in 1689. It may be that the composer was working against time and took the easy way out by borrowing from himself. Or was he making sure that Louis XIV would finally hear some of original prologue for Le Malade imaginaire?
The lyrics of this pastoral are unequivocal: Louis XIV was present at the performance. "Ne songeons qu'à ses plaisirs," the three men sing, as they express their desire to please the King by singing for him — and, even better, by singing of his recent victories. In short, this allusion to Louis XIV's presence proves that the pastoral was written for the baptismal party. In reality, it was Philippe d'Orléans who had been the dominant figure in one of the battles of the summer campaign. The allusions to Louis' "fine deeds" must therefore be read as veiled compliments about Monsieur's prowess on the battlefield. Indeed, the plot of the pastorale parallels the summer campaign from which Louis and Philippe had just returned: the singers are exhorted not to "flee the combat" in which they are engaged. They must show "courage" as they praise the monarch. Charpentier threw another concealed flower in the direction of the House of Orléans and its various protégés: by selecting a song with lyrics by La Fontaine, he was at once complimenting Mme de Guise's late mother, who had been La Fontaine's first protectress, and Mme de Sablières, the poet's current patronness and, surely not coincidentally, the wife of the intendant of Monsieur's music.
The marginalia to Charpentier's "little pastoral" provides a few clues about his music library, some six years after his return from Italy. First of all, although most of his compositions were in "cahyers," the music for Le Malade imaginaire was in a "livre," an expression that implies that the original version, in all its "splendor," had already been removed from the growing pile of unbound notebooks and had been bound into a book. We also learn that this was not the only "book" in his possession, for his setting of La Fontaine's lyrics already existed and was to be found in "le livre g, page 182" — apparently a rather thick manuscript volume that must have been the seventh volume in a collection that includes books a, b, c and so forth.
Although the Gazette did not go into detail about the festivities surrounding the baptism, a letter from Sainte-Mesmes suggests the excitement it stirred: "Nous voilà de retour pour aller demain à Saint Clou, au babtesme des enfens de Monsieur où il y de grands préparatifs de festes. Les dames y seront fort parées."23 The magnificence of the setting in which Charpentier's pastoral was performed can be deduced from a description of a similiar event that Guichard had organized for his master four years earlier. The first surprise came as the guests entered the vestibule of the chateau and saw a "quantité de cuvettes & de pots de Fleurs, dont il estoit orné, ainsi que la Balustrade de l'Escalier, tout au pourtour, depuis le bas jusques en haut." In the Grand Salon, candles emphasized the "Or & les Peintures, dont il est enrichi, & des Cyrstaux, des Porcelaines, des Girandoles, & des Vases de Fleurs, entremeslez en symetrie, avec des Gueridons d'Or, & de Lapis, au devant de quelques Paravants de la Chine, rehaussez d'or." In reality, all these splendid objects formed a stage, "dont la beauté ajoûtit de nouveaux agrémens, à ceux du Salon." On that makeshift stage — which Guichard had prepared with only a day's notice — the late Molière's troop performed Les Femmes savantes.24 The stage setting was doubtlessly just as lavish in October 1676 when Charpentier and his companions sang their hearts out to please the King. Mme de Toscane, who had brought her entire household with her (enough people to fill two coaches), was also charmed, "not so much because of the lavishness of the entertaining and the conversazione di musica" — by this expression the Florentine resident clearly was referring to the "opera" and/or the "petite pastorale" — as because "she spent many hours dancing in private with Monsieur, with little Mademoiselle, and with other ladies of the court."25 Her enthusiam led to the dancing-master crisis of November 1676.
Charpentier had no sooner finished writing these works than another project for Mme de Guise was proposed. He was to write something for the conversion of a Protestant, scheduled for late November? A public renunciation of this sort was no innovation: in 1661 a young Huguenot from Montpellier, at the urging of a Sully, had abjured her religion at the Mercy, "où se fit la cérémonie en bonne en grande compagnie, après plénière instruction qui cauza sa conversion."26 Isabelle d'Orléans was deeply involved in converting the Protestants of her duchy, where a certain Mlle de Farcy, an in-law of the Corneilles, had sought her advice about how best to convert the protestant women of Alençon. Responding to Farcy's appeal for help, Mme de Guise acquired a building at Alençon during the summer of 1676 and christened it the "House of the Exaltation of the Cross." Here recently-converted women could learn Catholic ritual and devotional practice. The institution became an official entity on November 15.27 Then, only a few days later, during the week of November 21, Mlle Gouvernet de Paulin converted publicly at the Jesuit Noviciate, in the presence of Mme de Guise "qui lui avoit donné retrait, par ordre du Roy, dans son Palais d'Orléans [Luxembourg]: où elle a été instruite durant plusieurs jours."28
In short, during the summer and early fall of 1676, Mme de Guise was preoccupied with converting protestant women. When she returned to Paris at the end of the summer, she doubtlessly had already been informed that November would bring official status to the institution she had helped found at Alençon. Then Mlle Gouvernet appeared on the scene, ostensibly "a few days" before November 20 but surely several weeks prior to that date, for this lady resided long enough at the Luxembourg to yield to the pressure being exerted by the King and the princess.
There was nothing especially innovative about organizing a sung mass in honor of St. Cecila: exactly a decade earlier, the Augustins had been praised for similar vespers "qui divinement s'y chantoient harmoniquement à six beaux Chœurs &, bref, tout comme on en oit d'ordinaires à Rome, quoy que l'Autheur, assez expert, soit un François, nommé [Robert] Cambert."29 On the other hand, the Guises innovated in presenting the saint as a patronness of religious conversion. Best known as the patron saint of musicians, Cecilia was often fêted musically on November 22. Yet neither these compositions nor paintings and engravings of the saint praise Cecilia for her role as a zealous converter of heretics.30 This aspect of Cecilia's story must, however, have gone straight to the heart of Isabelle d'Orléans who had already basked in the pleasure of being paralleled with the pious widow Judith. The St. Cecilia whose praises Charpentier set to music during the early fall of 1676 is therefore preoccupied with "baptismal waters" and with converting her bridegroom and his brother by gentle persuasion: "The waters of baptism will dissipate the fogs in your mind," asserts the saint. "Oh Tibertus, believe, ... here is the truth,... the remission of Christ. We believe in Christ, born of the Virgin, who died for our sins." The "sweet melodies" and "celestial harmonies" with which the saint is usually associated are not mentioned until the end of the work — a structure that over the years appears in Charpentier's works honoring saints that have nothing whatever to do with music.
It is therefore highly probable that Charpentier's In honorem Caeciliae, Valeriani et Tiburti Canticum (H. 394) was commissioned for the conversion held at the Noviciate shortly before November 21. (That this service was held several days prior to November 22 in no way invalidates this hypothesis: if the circumstances surrounding a conversion so dictated, a service might be held a few days late or early.31) The work clearly was written for the usual ensemble composed of two chambermaids, Beaupuis and two treble instruments and continuo. Now, it so happens that the central sheet of cahier 13 — which contains this cancticum in honor of St. Cecilia — is Jesuit paper. The fact that the treble clefs on this sheet do not match the others shows that Charpentier subsequently felt free to revise this Guise work for the Jesuits, perhaps for another conversion ceremony. In short, there was a certain ambiguity about the ownership of this "gift" to the Jesuits by Mme de Guise. (Or does the central sheet post-date Mme de Guise's death in 1696?)
Indeed, it may be more than coincidental that, whenever a piece of Jesuit paper appears in the French notebooks, a showy piece for a large ensemble usually can be found among the works in that series — as if the princesses had given the work to the Jesuits as a gift, and Charpentier had then reused and perhaps updated the composition for the Jesuits after 1688.
The Christmas music that Charpentier copied into his cahiers 12 and 13 is but a a small part of the corpus of works celebrating the principal feasts of the Infant Jesus and of his Mother that the composer wrote after the death of little Alençon in March 1675. The final month of 1676 found him preparing music for several up-coming feast days honoring the Mother and the Child, to be performed in 1677.
Notes
1. A.N., M.C., LXXV, 400, inventory, July 5, 1694.
2. Archivio di Stato, Florence, Med. del Prin., 4768, dossier 3, Jan. 31, 1676.
3. Florence, Med. del Prin., 4768, Feb. 8, 1677.
4. Florence, Med. del Prin., 4768, Nov. 17 and Dec. 11, 1676.
5. Florence, Med. del Prin., 4768, Nov. 13, 1677.
6. Florence, Med. del Prin., 4768, Feb. 19, 1677.
7. These musical events are mentioned in Florence, Med. del Prin., 4767, Aug. 23 and Nov. 8, 1675; 4768, Feb. 10, Feb. 24, June 12, June 15 and Nov. 27, 1676, and Aug. 2, 1677.
8. A.N., M.C., XCIX, 267, indemnité et donation, March 6, 1676.
9. For example, the Missale Romanum of Pius V (Bordeaux, 1607) shows the "Pie Jesu" as an integral part of the sequence, "Dies irae, dies illa," which was recited on the anniversary of a death as part of the "Missa in commemoratione omniuim fidelium Defunctorum." (This sequence was not, however, recited during the daily mass for the dead.)
10. Florence, Med. del Prin., 4768, March 9, 1676.
11. Florence, Med. del Prin. 4768, April 6, 1676; and Gazette, 1676, p. 264.
12. Hitchcock, "Comédie Française," p. 269, n. 35, suggests 1679 as a date for the composition of this song. For the subject book, see B.N., Rés. Yf 434, no. 12.
13. Clark, "Music at the Guenégaud," p. 106.
14. Archives de la Comédie Française, Register 8, fols 89-101 for "danseurs," and, for the trips to Compiègne and to Saint-Germain, fols 94v and 96v; and Clark, "Music at the Guenégaud," pp. 105-106.
15. A.C.F., Register 8, fol. 100v.
16. A.C.F., Register 8, fol. 97v.
17. On Mme Goibault, see Mesnard, Pascal et les Roannez, pp. 672-673.
18. Quoted by Mesnard, Pascal et les Roannez, pp. 172-173.
19. Arsenal, ms. 6631, shows her at Saint-Germain-en-Laye until January 14, 1676, when she returned to Paris. She was at court again between February 1 and April 3, between June 4 and June 18, and between June 22 and July 6. She may have spent part of the summer at Alençon, though she apparently saw her Parisian notary in August: A.N., M.C., LXXV, 182, fondation, August 11, 1676.
20. "La Liste veritable et generale de tous les Predicateurs," B.N., Rés. 4o LK7 6743, Advent, 1671: ".... les Meditations à 4 heures de relevée durant la neuvaine des Couches de la Sainte Vierge ...." Another source, dated 1648, says that the "représentations qu'il y a en forme de théâtre avec perspective" began at 3 o'clock, quoted by Evelyne Picard, "Liturgie et Musique à Sainte-Anne-la-Royale au XVIIe siècle, Recherches 20 (1981): 249.
21. Gazette, 1677, p. 16, about December 24, 1676.
22. Gazette, October 1676, p. 728.
23. Med. del Prin., 6265, October 4, 1676.
24. Gazette, August 11, 1672, in a special issue devoted to the "Feste de Saint Cloud"; and La Grange, Registre, p. 136.
25. Florence, Med. del Prin., 4768, Sept. 28 and Oct. 9, 1676.
26. Loret, Muze, III, pp. 355-356.
27. Abbé Rombault, "Elisabeth d'Orléans," pp. 489-91. In June 1687, Mme de Guise was still actively involved in conversions, B.N., ms. n.a. fr. 23162, fols. 118-119, an autograph letter dated June 26, 1687.
28. Gazette, 1676, p. 816.
29. Loret, Muze, November 1667.
30. For example, the Latin songs in her honor by Pierre Portes, Cantiques pour les Principales Festes de l'Année (Paris: Jean Guignard, 1685), pp. 164-169, tell only of the angels and the instruments that prise the immaculate wife and martyr. They say nothing whatsoever about conversion and baptism.
31. See Philippe Gourreau de la Proustière, Mémoires, ed. Béatrix de Buffévent (Paris, 1990), p. 530, who organized an Epiphany service in 1678 for the conversion of two Protestant girls, and held it on January 8, rather than January 6.