Commedía dell'Arte (Comedy of Artists)

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Commedía dell'Arte (Comedy of Artists) was Italian street theatre of the 16th and 17th centuries, and — like Cirque Soleil today (which began on the streets of Montreal) — came to be a significant art form, influencing, among others, Shakespeare in England and Molière in France.

At a time when Italian theater was deadly serious, Commedía dell'Arte provided bawdy, improvised farces. The stock characters had distinctive masks, costumes, manners.The plots were familiar, but not without unexpected comments on politics and happenings of the day.

The troupes would travel from town to town, and often the language — the village patois — would not be understandable, but everyone could enjoy their universal humor. Laughter united. The characters signified human characteristics everyone could recognize: Capitano was a puffed up braggart, Pantelone was greedy and avaricious, ignorant Dottore pretended to know everything.

The universal favorite was Arlecchino, or Harlequin, the amorous acrobat and wit who carried a stick that made a loud noise when he engaged in combat: thus the origin of the term "slapstick" and the beginnings of our modern clown.



(This post was originally published by me on Hoydens & Firebrands.)

The King bathes with his mother

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I've been swamped with writing and research, making notes, learning a lot -- so much I hardly know where to begin posting here.

I'll begin with my research into the role of the First Valet du Chambre du Roi. One of my characters in The Next Novel has this position; hence my research.

One book, Moi, Marie du Bois, Gentilhomme Vendômois Valet de Chambre de Louis XIV, is a journal kept by a First Valet from 1647 to 1671. It's fascinating to get an inside view.

The first thing that struck me was an account of how requests for favors were made — in this case while the Queen was still in bed, with another valet arguing against it, in competition for the same favor (a post for a family member). The Royals must have been barraged by such requests, and apparently they didn't mind. It was part of the job.

Here is a charming (and surprising) snippet that gives a glimpse into the daily family life of the Royals:

L'après-dîner, il faisait chaud. La reine se baignait, et le roi, qui avait grande envie de se baigner avec elle, me commanda d'aller trouver M. Vautier, premier médecin, et de le prier instamment d'approuver que Sa Majesté se mit dans le bain avec la reine. [page 53]

My translation (corrections welcome!):

It was hot in the evening. The Queen (i.e. Queen-mother) bathed, and the King, who very much wanted to bathe with her, commanded me to go find M. Vautier, the Head Doctor, and beg him to instantly approve for him to go in the bath with the Queen.

The doctor was persuaded to approve the King's wish to bathe with his mother. This was August 7 of 1648, and the King would turn 10 the month following.

I'll have more from this diary to come...

A beautiful movie on Versailles

A day or two ago, novelist Catherine Delors announced on her wonderful blog, Versailles and More, the video Versailles: The Dream of a King, a BBC production.

Although the English version can only be viewed in the U.K., we are fortunate to have access to the original French version, which, according to Catherine, has more to do with Versailles.

Here is Catherine's post on the original French film, Versailles, le reve d'un roi, which can be seen for free on DailyMotion: here.

Even if you can't understand the French, the costuming and settings are well worth it.

Enjoy!

Let's talk Foucquet

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I usually become huffy when people condemn Louis XIV for acting so strongly against his Minister of Finance, Nicholas Foucquet (often spelled Fouquet), arresting and ultimately imprisoning him for life. My understanding was that the evidence against him had been building for some time:

that he had been dipping liberally into France's funds for his personal use;

that he was running a spy operation with paid informants;

that he was building up an armed force;

that he aspired to wear the crown.

All this justified, in my view, Louis's strong actions. Now, after reading The Man Who Outshone the Sun King; ; Ambition, Triumph and Treachery in the Reign of Louis XIV by Charles Drazin, I'm not so sure.

This is an excellent book, focusing very much on Foucquet's side of the story. I found it so absorbing I stayed up too late many a night reading it.

Foucquet's life story is fascinating. First, there's his family: his ethical and highly-religious father and mother. His mother, especially, who was a tireless healer, who created herbal remedies, and went into the putrid corridors of the hospitals to help cure.

(As Nicholas Foucquet was being tried for embezzlement and treason, his eldest daughter gave one of her grandmother's remedies to the Queen-mother to pass on to the young Queen, who was feared to be dying after a difficult childbirth. The curative effect was immediate and the Queen-mother declared Madame Foucquet a saint. The poignancy of these stories! Everyone was related, everyone a friend, everyone an enemy.)

And then there are Foucquet's brothers: fearless Basile who ran countless risks, running the Court's messages through enemy lines; young, art-obsessed Louis, who Nicholas sent to Rome to buy paintings for him. Hesitant at first, Louis became so confident and enthusiastic about his task that Nicholas had to cry "Stop!" as cartload after cartload of antique treasures arrived.

And then there are the men Nicholas discovered, the men he hired, men I would have respected and admired: his talented, academic secretary Pellison (who discovered La Fontaine for him); his team at Vaux-le-Vicomte — Charles Le Brun, André Le Nôtre, Le Vau (all of whom would be hired by the King to create Versailles).

And let us not forget Nicholas's second wife, Marie-Madeleine, a model of courage, evading the spies and police as she secretly moved from one underground printing press to another, printing tracts defending her husband, and ultimately moving into the prison with him for a period of time.

And then, of course, there is Nicholas himself, a very bright spark, an exceptionally decisive and hard-working man (driven, in fact), a sensitive negotiator and diplomat, an intellectual with a restless, inquiring imagination, and (this is key) an essentially ethical and honest man.

And so: what happened?

I'm not sure it was power Nicholas Foucquet was seeking. His weakness, if anything, seems to have been for artistic beauty, for the rare and exquisite. I suspect his chateaux, Vaux-le-Vicomte, became an obsession for him, his artistic creation ... and certainly a money-drain. He did show an occasional flash of anger, of entitlement, and given how much he did in fact sacrifice for France, one could see how he felt owed.

But embezzlement is one thing, and treason quite another. On this Drazin leaves me a little unfulfilled. I'm not convinced he has turned over all the rocks.

The turning point in Foucquet's life, I suspect, was in 1658, when he got dangerously ill with a fever. Thereafter, he had spells of serious sickness. Certainly, he would have felt, then, that his days were numbered. He became, it seems, unbalanced, paranoid, writing what seems to me a feverishly detailed fantasy-plan of what each member of his family were to do if he were arrested. (I would have liked Drazin to have addressed the subject of Foucquet's health a bit more; I think it may have been key.)

Overall, this is an excellent book. It opened my eyes, yet even so, it failed to completely convince me of Foucquet's ultimate innocence. I can't help but feel that the author is suppressing — or at the least not addressing — the negatives. Was Foucquet a womanizer? How extensive was his spy operation? What was its purpose? How was it that his mother and his brother Basile came to condemn him so harshly?

What I do come away with is the feeling that Louis XIV was far too harsh. Was Foucquet so dangerous that he couldn't be simply exiled? What was his crime? I also look at Colbert a little more skeptically now (and I've been a Colbert fan).

At the end of any account of Nicholas Foucquet, there is the mystery of the "Man in the Iron Mask" — a man who was jailed in the same prison — a man who knew something so threatening to the King that he was to be threatened with death if he talked of anything but his most basic daily needs, a man to be kept in the strictest isolation, a man who was allowed, eventually, to speak to one man, and one man only in the prison: to Nicholas Foucquet, in the capacity of his valet. Drazin concludes, then, that Foucquet must have already known this man's secret.

If only we could know what that secret was!

Molière's wife Armande

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I'm doing a great deal of research right now into the theater world of 17th century France. My focus is on Claude de Vin des Oeillets, the daughter of actors, but along the way I've been encountering many wonderful characters. So many stories!

One, in particular, is that of the actress Armande Béjart, Molière's wife. He was 40 when they married, she only 17. She had known him all her life, and must have regarded him as something of a father and teacher. Indeed, he had taken charge of her education as a child. (It was suspected, at the time, that he was her father, although it's more probable that she was the daughter of his partner.)

They were a miserable couple. It is said that Armande was heartless and vain. She was considered a frivolous, giddy flirt, and was quite likely unfaithful (possibly to Lauzun, and possibly to the comte de Guiche); certainly Molière was consumed by jealousy. After the birth of a son, and then a daughter, they lived apart — yet they continued to work together closely on the stage. Molière could simply not stop doting on her . . . and neither could the public. She was a brilliant actress, and Molière was inspired to write many roles specifically for her.

A mutual friend eventually persuaded Armande to reconcile with her increasingly-consumptive and love-sick husband. She did, putting him on a strict meat diet, yet he continued to decline. On the day of the 4th performance of "The Imaginary Invalid," in which he starred, Armande begged him not to play. He refused, knowing how many depended on the performance for their livelihood.

At the end of play, Molière (ironically playing the part of a hypochondriac) had a convulsion, which he tried to disguise with a harsh laugh. The curtain was hastily lowered and he was carried to his house. Always a comedian, he said on his deathbed: "I have set a detestable example. From now on, no playwright will be content until he has killed an actor."

After her husband's death, Armande proved to be anything but giddy and frivolous, fighting passionately for her husband's right to be respectfully buried by the church (a fight she sadly lost), and then running Molière's theatrical company with astonishing confidence and aplomb, making a number of difficult decisions that proved to be very successful. He would have been pleased.

I love her saucy attitude, but most of all I love how talented she was, and how capable she proved to be as a widow.

[Note: This post was originally published on Hoydens and Firebrands, a website of women who write about the 17th century.]

Historic food preparation

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I'm adding a tasty site on historic food preparation to the sidebar (click here or on the image to see it). The Baroque period isn't specifically mentioned, but many of the techniques would likely have been similar, especially the ornate decoration.

English as She is Spoke

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One of the many delightful windows into the past are travel guides. One I love is English as She is Spoke; The New Guide of the Conversation in Portugues and English, in Two Parts. (The publishers have added: Being a comprehensive phrasebook of the English language written by men to whom English was entirely unknown.) It was originally published in 1855.

Such books give us a rare glimpse into what was considered essential vocabulary at the time. On page 3, we have the "Ages" for example: "the infancy," the puerility, the youth...

We'll fly over adolescence, virility , maturity to get to: the decay, the oldness, the age decrepit and the decayedness. (I wonder where I fit?)

Under familiar phrases, we find:

Approach near the fire.

Let us go to respire the air.

Warm my bed.

The spy-glass is good for nothing.

That wood not burn.

This room is filled of bugs.

I should kill you to the blows with a stick.

I am catched cold in the brain.

In The Discovry of France (a book I love), Grahm Robb quotes from Madame de Genlis' guide book, which lists, as well, a number of essential phrases every traveler will be apt to need in Germany:

This horse is worthless. It is restive. It is skittish. I am decidedly loath to take it.

Can one place a harp in its carrying case on the luggage rack?

Gently remove the postilion from beneath the horse.

One must avoid passing through forests at dusk or at night.

Postilion, stop, the brakes must be attached.

I Googled for the essential phrases I need for travel today:

May I have the bill, please?

Where can we change some money?

Help!

Is there a police station nearby?

What does this say about our culture?