FROM ANCIEN REGIME FALL-GUY TO REVOLUTIONARY HERO: CHANGING INTERPRETATIONS OF

JANOT AND DORVIGNY’S LES B A T T U S PAIENT L’AMENDE IN LATER EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE

The autumn and winter of I 779-1 780 in Paris saw one of the eighteenth century’s longest running theatrical successes. Les Buttus puient I’anzende, proverbe-com- Pdie-parade, ou ce que I’on vouclrlrcr, better known by the name of its principal character, Janot, a hapless shop assistant who stumbles through the plot vainly seeking retribution for having had the contents of a chamber pot poured over him, but ending up, as the title implies, by himself having to pay a fine ~ an injustice which, as it was comically played out on the boulevard theatre stage, was deemed hilarious rather than scandalous. Written by Louis Francois Arch- ambault under the pseudonym of Dorvigny, and performed at the Varietes Amusantes, one of the most successful Parisian boulevard theatres, the play retained its celebrity down to the twentieth century, and has been remarked upon by various historians. Lough, Isherwood, Root Bernstein and Schama have contextualized the play’s success within the cultural politics of the uncien rPgimr Parisian theatre.‘ Less well-known is the new lease of life that Janot took on during the Revolution as a sceptical commentator on the politics of the day by virtue of an association between his soiled woollen cap and the liberty cap.z This study reviews the play’s original success, focusing on the range of interpretations made in 1779-1780. and follows this through to consider Janot’s later revolutionary currency in relation to references to the play and the character in both textual and visual sources. I t will be suggested that the viability and versatility of Janot as a commentator on the Revolution depends on the scope that he offered for parodic inversion.3

The character of Janot is famiiiar from eighteenth-century French literature, personifying the provincial ingenzr bewildered and exploited by Parisian sophis- tication and dupery. By contrast, Dorvigny’s Janot is Parisian; indeed, as we shall see, reviews of the play identify one of the main reasons for Janot’s great success as the appreciation of a convincing theatrical representation of a recognizable Parisian type.4 Janot, a shop assistant to a second-hand clothes seller, stands beneath the window of his paramour, Suzon, holding his cap to catch the key to the front door, but instead gets dowsed by the contents of a chamber pot, wielded by Suzon’s irate father. This scatological ‘coup de thestre’ sets in motion Janot’s fruitless efforts to obtain legal redress. The plot is structured around a sequence of things turning out ever more predictably the opposite way they should, but in a farcical way that discourages the audience from engaging sympathetically with Janot’s harsh treatment. This culminates in the absurd, but inevitable result that i t is he, not Suzon’s father, who is fined by the comrnissaire de po1ice.s As a result of this humiliating turn of events, he comes to the rueful conclusion which forms the play’s proverbial punchline:

126 Richurd Wrigley

‘c’est toujours les battus qui paient l’amende’. Janot is obviously the wronged party, but it is he who in the end has to pay the fine. His garbled misuse of grammar, which formed one of his most characteristic features, parallels his bungled protests and actions. Indeed, as contemporary commentators were to argue, there was a link between Janot’s inept command of language and the fact that he was not granted the protection of the law.h

The play was put on at the Varietes Amusantes, one of the boulevard theatres which offered a popular alternative to the highbrow theatrical fare of the Cgmedie Franqaise and Comedie Italienne.7 In the later eighteenth century, one of the distinctive features of these theatres was the social mix of the audience. Contemporary reviews particularly emphasize that the audience which packed the Varietes Amusantes for over two hundred performances was made up of not only ‘la ville et la cow’ but also ‘le peuple’.8 Moreover, at an early stage of the run, when the play was temporarily dropped from the repertoire, it was reported as having been ‘demande par des gens de distinction’ a number of times.9 Replying to an equivocal review, Dorvigny himself rebutted the sugges- tion that, because couched in a ‘style commun’, Les Buttus was hardly ‘fait pour les honnetes gens’. He pointed out that the audience was incontrovertibly classy: ‘Messieurs’, he countered, ‘pouvez-vous faire une pareille question, apres que tout ce qu’il y a de plus respectable dans la nation I’a honor6 de sa presence’.’O Indeed, as early as June 1779. Grimm reported royal interest: ‘Messieurs les gentilhommes de la chambre ont deja fait quelques demarches pour le faire debuter sur un theltre plus digne de sa gloire.’“

To an unsympathetic commentator in 1782, this conjunction of social elite and coarse slapstick was dismissed by claiming that it was a novel phenomenon, indicative of a decline in high society’s taste: La bonne compagnie n’auroit-elle pas rougi, il y a seulement vingt ans, d’Ctre surprise au spectacle de Nicolet? Cependant, me diriez-vous, depuis I’etablissement de ce theitre j’y ai toujours recontre des gens de marque [. . .] c’est un rendez-vous connu, on se glorifie mCme d’y avoir une loge a I’annee, comme aux grands spectacles.I2 Sampling low-life through the theatre had, in fact, been a form of Parisian high society diversion since the sixteenth century. However, in the later eighteenth century, this casual cultural cohabitation was to become a subject whose implicit socio-political dimension became brought to the fore in theatrical criticism, even if this was predominantly so as to defuse or resolve any evidence of friction.’3 A commentator such as F. M. Grimm could rationalize the apparently incongruous popularity of the boulevard theatres amongst high society by presenting it as no more than an indication of their healthy appetite for entertainment: ‘La populace a ses plaisirs qu’elle aime avec fureur; et la bonne compagnie, qui n’en a rien assez, ne dedaigne pas toujours ceux de la populace.”4 The expectation amongst the social elite in the audience was for a theatrically distanced representation, or personification, of ‘le peuple de Paris’, rather than a direct encounter. When Volange presumed to exploit his celebrity as Janot as a ticket on which to dine out in elite social circles, he was brutally snubbed; off- stage he was regarded as merely the vehicle for the character.’S

Grimm also commented on the way in which the diversity of the audience was reflected in the range of cultural artefacts produced as souvenirs and

From Ancini Rkgiiiic. Fu!l-Giiy t o Revolutionmy Hero I 27

fashionable spin-offs - from Sevres porcelain figures, high-quality prints and cheaper popular imagery to fashion plates;’(‘ Volange-Janot also appeared in Curtius’s wax portrait gallery of contemporary celebrities’7 According to Mou- fle d’Angerville writing in the A4choire.s sPuPt .s , such imagery provided further evidence that Janot’s appeal included royal enthusiasts, for the queen had reportedly set a trend for using statuettes of the figure for her 1780 new year presents.Ix However, rather than showing the most famous and endlessly quoted moment early on in the story when, having sniffed his cap to confirm that he had been soaked in stale urine, the sopping and bedraggled Janot delivers his baleful punchline ‘C’en est’. Leriche’s figure more decorously shows Janot at the immediately preceding moment, grinning as he gazes upwards awaiting the appearance of Suzon at her window (Fig. 1 ) . ’ 9 Pierre Alexandre Wille’s print also opts to depict Janot - still wearing his cap - isolated from the action of the play, in a curiously featureless, unParisian space, only closed off by a small house to the right (Fig. 2). By contrast, Touzet’s print shows the more celebrated moment of Janot’s recognition of what has befallen him, with the two-syllable punchline given as a caption (Fig. 3). A small print by Bacquoy also shows Janot as if viewed from the wings and turning towards the audience, holding up his soiled cap (Fig. 4). In a detail of the board game ‘Nouveau Jeu des Cris de Paris’, the moment chosen from Lrs B~ t t i r s is that in which the contents of the chamber pot cascade downwards onto the head of the still beaming Janot (Figs 5 and 6). Leriche, Wille and Touzet all seem primarily to be concerned to give a portrait likeness of the slightly pinched, grimacing physiognomy and gawky stance of Volange’s characterization of Janot. (Leriche gave Volange a similar stance and features in his statuette of the actor in the role of Eustache Pointu, a character who appeared i n Beauvoir’s Jkrcime Pointu ( I 781) and later sequels devoted to the Pointu family (Fig. 7).) In this, they follow the conventions of the theatrical portrait of singers. actors and actresses in character.20 As we shall discuss below, however. perhaps Janot’s most distinctive feature was his use of language. Clearly, this could not be directly conveyed in paintings, prints or sculpture. To this extent, we should probably understand the urchin-like grimace given to Janot in these representations as an index of, and equivalent to, the verbal comedy produced by his idiosyncratically idiotic utterances.

In 1779-1 780, the remarkable success of ‘Janotomanie’ was variously analyzed and explained. Observations focus on two main characteristics: the truthfulness of the principal player, Volange’s acting, and the fidelity of Dorvigny’s script as voiced by Janot to a distinctively garbled Parisian popular idiom. As perfor- med by Volange, Janot was enjoyed as a plausible, indeed quintessential, staged version of the lowest straLum of Parisian society, remarkable for his closeness to the real thing, but rendered an object for laughter by virtue of being on the stage. In the words of the Journcil tie Poris’s reviewer: Janot? C’est un personnage merveilleux. divin. inimitable. Avez-vous vu de ces nigauds de la populace qui bouleversent tous les rnenibres de Ieurs phrases, et viennent B bout d’en faire ainsi le plus singulier galimatias‘? [ . . . I Janot a une qualite excellente et qui devient tous les jours plus rares: Janot est naturel, du naturel le plus bas, si vous voulez, mais enfn il est naturel au supreme degre [ . . . I . ” Early on in the run, Moufle d’Angeville reported the play’s exceptional success

128 Richard Wrigley

but puzzled over its cause: ‘Rien n’est plus extraordinaire que la maniere dont certains ouvrages font ici fortune, sans qu’on puisse en assigner le merite.’22 Similarly, the reviewer for the Af$ches, annonces et avis divers was perplexed by Janot’s extraordinary success, almost reluctant to admit that it was justified: Mais qu’a donc de si merveilleux cette piece, pour faire affoler tout Paris? Est-elle interessante par elle-mime’? Non. Peut-on soutenir la lecture? Non. Mais, c’est un acteur [. . .] Ah! quel Acteur! I1 a, dit-on, dans son air, d a m sa costume, dans son ton, dans son langage, dans sa physionomie, dans son jeu, un naturel et une verite qui passent tout ce qu’on pourroit imaginer. En un mot, c’est Janot, garcon de boutique d’un frippier.’3

Grimm also highlighted the actor’s performance as the prime reason why the play was so compelling: ‘On ne peut avoir un masque plus mobile et plus vrai, des inflexions de voix plus variees et plus justes, un jeu plus simple et plus naturel, une gaite plus farouche et plus na i~e . ’~4 Indeed, it was precisely the fact that Volange’s acting managed to remain ‘naturel’ and ‘simple’, while still being on the verge of excessive ‘gaite [ . . . I farouche’ that rendered the spectacle so riveting. Mercier’s response was on similar lines, but he more polemically played up the truthfulness of the script and acting in its evocation of a specific, and usually theatrically invisible, sector of Parisian society: L’idiome de la derniere classe du peuple s’y trouvent exprime au naturel; et le jeu naif de I’acteur, son accent sfir, formoient un tableau qui, dans sa bassesse, avoit une verite extrimement rare sur la scene francaise: la parfaite verite.’S

That Janot’s fans included a genuinely popular component in addition to the elite fraction of the audience is illustrated by a sequel to the play’s original success. When, following a disagreement over pay with his employers at the Varietes, Volange was recruited by the Comedie Italienne in order to boost their flagging attendance, a large number of his regular admirers appeared in the parterre on the night of his debut and created a startlingly heterogeneous spectacle. Moufle d’ Angeville described this as the most remarkable aspect of the occasion: Le debut du sieur Volange la Comedie italienne a eu lieu aujourd’hui et certes ce sera l’kpoque la plus singuliere des annales dramatiques. On a vu sans doute des acteurs p r h e s exciter l’enthousiasme nationale, et attirer la cour et la ville; mais celui-ci trainoit encore a sa suite toute la canaille des boulevards et de la foire. Ces bandits, furieux de se voir enlever leur idole, sembloient vouloir r’avoir leur Jeannot, et le ramener au traiteaux. 11s obsedoient les portes et les guichets; ils remplissoient la rue.26

Although Moufle turns them into the subject of irony, he nonetheless seems to believe that Janot provided a form of self-identification for ‘la canaille’ ~

the dregs of society ~ who in consequence took Janot passionately to heart, challenging the elite’s claims to share their hero. These comments suggest that the notion that theatre auditoria were places where social difference could, in a somewhat ritualized manner, be acknowledged but reconciled in shared enthusi- asm was wearing thin. This was giving way to a recognition that the entrenched hierarchy of the status quo required more justification than the fact that the occupants of boxes and parterre occasionally applauded in unison. Even in their enthusiasm, canaille and respectable people were, in fact, inhabitants of wholly separate social Moufle’s remarks are also a manifestation of the assumption that the cultural hierarchy of theatre (tragedy, drame, vaudeville,

From Ancien Rt;girnt’ Full-Guy to Revolutionury Hero I 29

etc.) corresponded to the entrenched social hierarchy. Thus the true constituency for plays such as Les Battus was the cunuille who followed him to the Comedie Italienne. We can find similar attitudes in art criticism of the same date. In his pamphlet on the 1785 Salon exhibition of the Academie royale de peinture et de sculpture, Antoine Gorsas expressed his dislike for Demarne’s country scenes because of their caricatural representation of peasants. He explained, mockingly, that this seemed to have been the result of Demarne’s painting for the low-brow audience of the faubourg St Medard: On pourroit lui reprocher de trop charger I’air niais qu’il donne a ses paysans; la bZtise peut amuser quelquefois, mais elle finit par deplaire lorsqu’elle est trop repetee. I1 ne faut pas juger de tout par le Jrunno/o-Fi~cirorisr?ze, et tous les amateurs ne sont pas de la paroisse sz MPdurd.’*

Remark’s such as Moufle’s on the social diversity of the audience for Les Buttus (allowing for the physical divisions effected between boxes and parterre), suggest that boulevard theatre was coming to be acknowledged as a place where the political implications of the mixing of cultural genres and the convergence of hitherto stratified audiences could be drawn out.

However we interpret the underlying political dynamics of boulevard theatre, no-one took the opportunity, as far as I have been able to establish, either at the time of the original performances or in relation to its sequels, to launch any direct attacks on the status quo by means of a literal reading of the p l a ~ . ~ 9 Indeed, the mixed audience could be seen as much as evidence of social reconciliation as of conflict. In the play itself, Janot provides a rider to the fatalistic proverb which is the play‘s conclusion: C’est toujours les battus qui paient I’amende. - (Au Public). Encore, si du moins, Messieurs, c’t’amende-la pouvoit tourner au profit de vos plaisirs, je me croirois bien heureux de la paier tous les jours!

Although it was Janot’s words ‘C’en est’ which became the play’s most repeated catchline, it nevertheless carried a similar fatalistic resonance ~ it was his lot not only to be dowsed in urine and excrement, but also to find that his attempt to seek legal redress resulted in him being criminalized. In terms of immediate contemporary analysis, perhaps the nearest one comes to an extrapolation from the plot to a politically subversive conclusion is Moufle’s observation that the piece was ‘une caricature sur un ton de veritt qui fait illusion, et qui, sous son enveloppe grossiere et basse, contient une morale juste et tres philo~ophique’.3~ But this hardly goes further than replicating the fatalistic adage contained in the play’s title in more ponderous language. In this sense, one might see Janot’s inclusion in the 1783 print ‘TEtes A changer’ (Fig. 8, far right) as a similar way of recruiting him to a caricatural but none the less far-reaching critique of the cynical dissimulation which underpinned the decadence of contemporary morals.

The success of Les Battus was also interpreted in the context of the changing standards and varieties of French theatre. In the mid-eighteenth century, the drume had established a naturalistic alternative to tragedy. But the extraordinary vogue for Les Battus was problematic because, by any conventional standards, boulevard vaudeville was at the very bottom of the theatrical hierarchy. Ambiv-

alence for Janot hinged on attitudes to the ‘naturalness’ of the play and the performance of Volange in the principal role. For detractors. this was deemed to be merely realistic and hence disgusting. Enthusiasts championed Les Buttus as marvellous and salutary because i t was charged with the raw comic energy of Parisian popular culture.

On the one hand, Janot’s success could also be celebrated as a vindication of the versatility of French taste. In the print Lr Trioiwplir de Jcmot. Janot, amidst a cheering crowd, is pulled on a reversed chariot, guided by Momus. In front of a faCade labelled ‘Varietks Ennuyantes’, figures from tragedy and Moliere recoil dismayed and dazzled as Janot. beneath a banner emblazoned with the infamous chamber pot and Janot’s motto T e n est’. holds up his lantern (Fig. 9).3’ The verse below the image states: ‘il a tout pour nous plaire‘, and claims paradoxically: ‘Si le bon gotit n’existoit pas en France / Janot n’eut pas ete tant applaudi‘.

On the other hand, the widespread and enduring popularity of the play generated complaints about the neglect of the more elevated beauties of tra- ditional French drama in favour of coarse slapstick. In the words of the critic for Annonces, qffichrs c’t trvis divers: ‘Voici ce qui amuse meme la bonne compagnie de Paris. 0 divin Moliere! et quand on joue tes pieces, la salle est presque entierement dCserte.’i2 Moreover, anxieties about this challenge to the established pre-eminence of the classics of seventeenth-century French theatre were given extra intensity in so far as questioning the authority of cultural hierarchies was understood as being equivalent to casting doubts on the stability of the social and political status quo.33 The theatre had long been a focus for this kind of displacement of political polemic into the vocabulary and arenas of cultural criticism.34

However, i t does not seem to be until the later 1780s that Les Buttus becomes interpreted in a more explicitly political way. In a chapter of the Tableu de Paris Mercier pairs Janot with Voltaire (‘Triomphe de Voltaire. - Jeannot’), but this was not so as to assert some kind of polemical equivalence between the recently deceasedphilosoplze and the downtrodden shop assistant. In fact, Janot’s combination with Voltaire was merely in the role of palliative. Publication of details of Voltaire’s death had been banned, and the Academie franCaise had been refused permission to have a mass said for their recently admitted member’s soul. Although he was, in general. enthusiastic about Les Buttus as theatre, Mercier registered dismay at the way its success had contributed to the defusing of the controversy surrounding Voltaire’s demise: ‘Pourquoi n’a-t-on pas ren- terre Voltaire? Cette question a ete bien vite etouffe. par ces mots plus fameux encore: c’en est, c’en est pas.’35 I n like manner, Linguet also associated Janot with other legitimately controversial subjects, but as the odd one out; the play’s immense success provided depressing evidence of the French public’s fickle attention span when it came to mobilizing opinion for the purpose of

We have to wait until 1788 to find a polemical political motive taken as having been behind Dorvigny’s creation of his ‘hero’, Janot. In the post-script to the anonymous La Nuit de Junot, one of the numerous spin-offs to Les Buttus, the author writes:

From Ancirn RPgiine I-irll-Guy to Revolutionary Hero I 3 I

sans avoir consulte le createur de Janot. je suis certain que son but principal en formant son heros a ete de placer sous les yeux du public les scenes et les injustices journalieres qu’on exerce envers ce que nous appellons le vulgaire, et que M. Dorvigny a designe sous le nom de Ja11ot .~~

Two contrasting views of Janot’s symbolic significance are contained in the I 847 edition of the memoirs of the actor Abraham Joseph Fleury ( I 754- I 822). According to Fleury, the audience understood Janot - ‘faible et rosse’ - as an implicit personification of ‘les malheureux taillables et toujours dupes’.;8 But his editor, J. B. P. Lafitte, writing a generation later, with the benefit of post- revolutionary hindsight, turned Janot into an explicit symbol of unczen regime social injustice: Le veritable motif du succes des Bultiis pcrienr I’umende fut dans l’allusion continuelle ii I’etat du peuple en France. Jeannot opprime et payant qui I’opprime, etait une allkgorie transparente de la situation d’alors. Le mouvement populaire s’essayait depuis assez long-temps au thektre. et le public, cherchant oh se prendre. applaudit vivement cette piece aristophanienne. [. . .] Ce qu’on ne peut concevoir, c’est I’aveuglement du pouvoir, qui ne comprenait pas I’opinion.39

Junot during the Revolution

During the Revolution both the character, Janot, and the play Lrs Buttus provided a usefully adaptable vehicle for commenting in a variety of ways on the progress of revolutionary politics. More specifically, in the spring of I 792, ingenious polemical links were made between his soiled woollen cap and the rise of the bonnet rouge as a powerful revolutionary emblem.

An early revolutionary print employs Janot to signal the independence of the Third Estate from its two antagonistic partners in the Estates General (Fig. 1 0 ) . 4 O

He offers the reassuring advice to the Third Estate, whose place he occupies in the three-part iconography of the Estates, that ‘Ca n’durra pas toujours’. The figure of Janot might seem to be itself the object of satire, given his contorted stance, bent beneath a huge basket of plants and vegetables, and the way that he is represented as pursued by animals. But he has a knowing grimace. directed at the spectator; standing beneath a Doric arcade surrounding an altar, a bishop holds an empty purse and points towards the departing Janot; a noble gazes blankly in the same direction. Janot’s puppet-like figure recalls an anonymous print made at the time of the original I 779 production of Les Brittus (Fig. I I ) . in that both make him seem to be dancing awkwardly. In the figure of Janot, the Third Estate escapes from its subordinate position, taking with it the agricultural riches which it had produced but hitherto not benefited from. Like his 1779-1780 antecedent, the Janot of this print voices a cliche which would ordinarily be taken as reassuring. In the context of this image, however, the quip has a serious sub-text, in that i t looks towards the downfall of the crumbling ancien rkgime.

In another print from the early revolutionary period, ‘Le doyen des fermiers generaux portes par quatre commis aux barrieres, conduit par les troupes de son corps faisant route vers le neant’(Fig. I 2), Janot also plays the role of leader in a derisive carnivalesque procession. A fat, bewigged,fcrmier genGrul is carried on a shield by four porters, preceded by a bandy-legged drummer who inarches

132 Richard Wrigley

unsteadily behind Janot. The image celebrates the end of a tax system which had enabled the enrichment of fermiers giniraux. However, the use of Janot is clearly more than a simple reprise of the uncien rigime theatrical character. Although he is equipped with his distinctive cap and lantern, Janot has been given spectacles, attribute of the madman, feathers, and a grotesque face.4’ Like the figure in ‘Ca n’durra pas toujours’, he has a bent, gawky gait. From his mouth emerge the words ‘J’ai trouve l’homme’, alluding to the sceptical Diogenes - an Antique alter-ego for Janot which is further discussed below. Above his head floats the phrase ‘Vanite des vanites aristrocratiques’. He carries a pole on top of which is a miniature windmill, and a banner with the motto ‘plus de bruit, que de besogne’.

By contrast, the pamphlet Junot cousin de Poiichinel, U U X bons Parisiens (Anon., [Paris?, I 789- I 790?]) features Janot as a sceptical commentator on the achievements of the Revolution without any reference to the ~ l a y . 4 ~ While there is a specific polemical thrust against Bailly and Lafayette regarding the administration of food supplies, as a whole the pamphlet takes a pessimistic view of the Revolution, concluding each paragraph with a parodic echo of Voltaire’s Candide, ‘Tout est pour le mieux [. . .]’.

A more aggressive note is struck in Junot, ou les buttus puyent l’umende (Anon., [ I 790?]), which, as well as borrowing the play’s title, also recalled that ‘Janot’ had been used as euphemistic shorthand in the language of courtly sarcasm at the time of the original production: ‘On disoit bien autrefois, chez les grands Seigneurs, tout bas, que le Roi etoit un Junot et la Reine une perronnelle, mais a present tout le peuple, tout haut fait chorus, et chacun dit ce qui veut.’43 ‘Janot’ goes on to highlight the unrealized hopes of those at the bottom of the social hierarchy still by-passed by political events to date: car les putriotes, malgre l’egalite pretendue, distinguent encore la canaille, et ils ne I’admettent pas m2me dans la garde nationale. [...I VoilB I’effet de ce grand bouleverse- ment qu’on appelle liberr&, et tu vois que nos seigneurs se sont trompes, et que les vrais battus sont les pauvres, et que ce sont eux qui payent I’amende.44

However, i t is also pointed out that, in the course of the revolutionary ‘boulever- sement’, aristocrats, too, have become ‘les battus’.

Janot becomes particularly topical in early 1792 when connections are made between his woollen cap and the wearing of liberty caps, specifically in relation to the bonnet rouge. References to Janot manifest both sides of the increasingly contestatory polarization of political attitudes which was evident in the spring of 1792. The transformation of the common man’s woollen cap into a form of liberty cap corresponded to the consolidation within the language of revolution- ary politics of a popular constituency.45 The spate of references to Janot at this period were not, however, solely based on reminiscence, for a revival of Les Buttus was being performed at the Theatre de la rue de Richelieu (previously the Comedie franCaise) in the spring of I 792 ~ one of several revivals of the play during the Rev0lution.4~ Such revivals themselves may simply be evidence of the continued popularity of the play; what the Revolution created was a different interpretative climate in which a supplementary political reading of the character and his treatment was made more likely, but not necessarily to the exclusion of comedy.

From Ancien R&itnc FdI-Guy fo Revolutionary Hero I 33

The article ‘Sur le bonnet rouge’, regarding the events of March 1792 (though not published until later that summer), which appeared in the RPvolutions de Paris, plays with great irony on the contrast between pre-revolutionary reactions to the humble Janot and the increasingly potent political significance of the bonnet de laine that he wore: il n’y a pas encore si long-temps, personne n’eGt OSC se couvrir la tCte d’un bonnet, que le r81e de Jeannot avoit rendu, sur les treteaux du boulevard, si completement ridicule. N’auroit-on pas alors pris pour un fou celui qui eiit dit aux gens du be1 air, a nos elegans de cour, a nos papillons de ruelles, assidus aux cent cinquante representations de Jeannot clzez le D&raisseur? M. le marquis. M. le comte. madame la duchesse, vous voyez bien ce bonnet rouge de laine qui vous paroit si plaisant, et auquel vous applaudissez de si bon cceur, eh bien! dans quelques anntes d’ici, ce m&me bonnet deviendra pour vous un objet de terreur, qui vous fera pilir de colere; sous peu de temps, vous deviendrez les veritables Jeannots du peuple que vous meprisez si fort aujourd’hui; vous serez, i votre tour, les battus qui paient l’amende; ce bonnet rouge de laine sera porte des ministres et aurai ses grandes entrees chez le roi; Marie-Antoinette, votre digne maitresse, se verra elle-mEme obligee de respecter ce bonnet rouge. auquel la nation entiere rendra hommage plus qu’a la couronne.47

In this vision of the extraordinary transformations that were taking place in French society, Janot and the aristocrats were going to change places, not in the manner of a temporary carnivalesque inversion, but for good.

Another, almost exactly contemporary commentator writing in the Journal de Paris, who made this identification between Janot’s woollen cap and the revolutionary liberty cap, uses the similarity to compound the disdain he felt for both Janot and his latter-day successors: Des citoyens, peu eclaires sans doute, qui mettent principalement les demonstrations de leur patriotisme dans leur coeffure et leur habillement, avoient imagine de porter des bonnets rouges, au lieu de chapeau, et ils se sont montres ainsi dans les spectacles et dans les autres lieux publics. Cette nouvelle coeffure qui avoit un air peu imposant et qui rappelloit d‘ailleurs celle du fameux Jeannot des Battus, n’a pas fait fortune.@

Appropriately, the cap is noted as being worn in the theatre audience for maximum visibility and effect. During the Revolution, the high profile space of the stage and auditorium lost none of its powerful potential for displays of protest and confrontation.

A further reminiscence of Janot’s cap is found in a pamphlet entitled Le Bonnet rebutt!, anecdote, which in view of its reference to Jacobins was probably published around this period. Consistent with the ironic and anecdotal tone of the piece, the ignominious connotation of Janot’s cap is used to mock the Jacobins: Plein du feu sacre que I’on puise dans cette societe, que je n’oserai jamais appeller humaine, je me suis dit; pourquoi toujours parler au peuple de ce bonnet de la liberte, et ne jamais le lui montrer? il est prefkrable au diademe; quelle griice ne doit-il pas avoir sur la tCte d’un citoyen!

Aussi prompt que la pensee, je vende mon chapeau et me fais faire le plus joli petit bonnet de la liberte que I’on puisse imaginer. [. . .] Enfin, monsieur, apres l’avoir arrange avec toute la coquetterie que comporte la dignite d’un citoyen, je me presente devant ma maitresse, roide comme un baton. Savez-vous ce qu’elle m’a dit, cette coquine d’aristoc- rate? Fi! que c’est laid; Ca resemble a u bonnet de Jeannot! qu’appellez-vous Jeannot.

134 Richard Wrigley

mademoiselle? savez-vous que c’est le bonnet de la liberte! - Liberte ou Jeannot, peu m’importe; mais ce bonnet-li ne sera mon favori.49 In this satirical vision of revolutionary politics, we see a refusal to acknowledge that something so banal as a woollen cap could have become elevated to the role of a positive political symbol. Moreover, disdainful reluctance to accept Janot’s cap as equivalent to a liberty cap in all likelihood envisaged Janot in his sodden and stinking state, after he had been anointed by the chamber pot. Lesueur’s gouache ‘Le bonet rouge’ (Fig. I 3 ) could almost be an illustration for the pamphlet Le bonnet rebute, except that it is a woman of the people, not a snobbish and reactionary mistress, who laughs at the smart would-be revolution- ary awkwardly trying on his brand new bonnet rouge de luine. Both image and pamphlet point to unease at the increasingly prevalent willingness to move between political positions, and the difficulty of knowing whether this was mere opportunism or progressive thinking. Lesueur’s gouache implicitly endorses the political respectability of popular dress by satirizing its contrived appropriation by an opportunist: the prime political meaning of the woollen cap depends on its identification as a sign of genuinely popular identity.

Two other prints from the same period are manifestations of a mixture of pro-royalist and anti-Jacobin sentiment, and use Janot to mock the pretensions of new radical politicians. In ‘Banque de Vauvineux. Le Grain de niais’ (Fig. 14), Condorcet is cast in the role of Janot and Brissot in that of Pierrot, turning the ‘actors’ of Parisian politics into a risible sideshow.5” In ‘Le Degel de la Nation’ (Fig. I 5 ) , it is Camille Desmoulins who is labelled as a Janot figure, sprawling to the left of the image, entangled with a ludicrously huge version of Janot’s lantern. 5’

In addition to Janot’s cap, we also find his other distinguishing attribute, a lantern, being used as a means to give him a new political role, as in ‘Le Degel de la Nation’. We have already noted the pairing of Janot and Diogenes in the print ‘Le doyen des fermiers generaux’. Janot’s lantern offered an irrestistible linkage with Diogenes - a figure who was frequently called on in the later eighteenth century to voice unpalatable truths.s2 We find Greek sage and Parisian shop assistant paired in the pamphlet Jeannot et Dioghze (probably 1792). Here, Janot explains to Diogenes that woollen caps have become ‘em- blime[s] de la liberte’, but also restating their apparently exclusive connection with Jacobins.53 The symbolic potential of the poor man’s woollen cap as a symbol of liberty was extended to suggest a complete inversion of the socio- political hierarchy. Janot takes Diogenes to the Jacobin club and ingenuously but censoriously explains: ‘Mais les demagogues dont je vous parle, sont des enrages qui veulent changer sa [the king’s] couronne en bonnet de laine, et notre bonnet de laine en couronne.’54

Janot’s new revolutionary lease of life depends on a strategy of inversion. The more unjust his victimization and the more contemptuous the abuse that he had been subjected to on the uncien regime stage, the better this figure served to highlight the changed political landscape. Yet, political readings of Janot were not inevitable. A pamphlet by Babeuf of 1794 incorporates the title of the play, Les Buttus puient I’cimende, ou Ies Jucobins Jeunnots, but his fulminations make no attempt to bring in Janot, and only in passing equate the (fallen)

Jacobins with ‘les battus’ who must now (rightly) pay a fine. As Babeuf explains at the outset, he only borrowed the title of the play because its celebrity would catch readers’ attention.55 Even in I 794. and even in a pamphlet by Babeuf, it was possible to recall Les Battus primarily to catch the attention of the huge audience that had seen the play in I 779 and after. That Babeuf opted for this disingenuous strategy, and chose to insert Les Buitus before his dig at the Jacobins, might either be seen as evidence of his astute sense of publicity, or else as a measure of his desperate desire to generate poleniic.

C’onc~lirsion

Janot is hardly unique in being an tmcirn rkgime theatrical figure who was subsequently reinterpreted in the light of revolutionary events.’h However, Janot’s revolutionary career is particularly interesting in that not only was the script rewritten, so to speak, so as to make him into a hero rntrlgri h i , rather than a comic fall guy, but his key attributes of cap and, to a lesser extent. his lantern, which played important but nevertheless incidental roles in the original story, took on powerful new emblematic significance.

The question of prime importance to theatrical criticism in I 779- I 780 had been whether the character was played with a compelling degree of truthfulness to his generic plebeian model. During the Kevolution, however, the character’s utility as a vehicle for the assertion o f a variety of political points did not depend on the judgement of nuances of theatrical verisimilitude. or an imbalance in the popularity of different dramatic genres. Indeed, although the original play was revived during the Revolution, i t was rather the memorj: of the character from 1779 and the early 1780s that came to be worked on and transformed in the light of changes in the status quo. Janot’s primary characteristic as a revolution- ary figure is as an ingenuous bur plain-speaking satirical voice, representative of the newly enfranchised constituency of common people who had been all but invisible in the ancien rkginw, and who rcmained deprived of access to the new political rights acquired by noble and bourgeois during the early revolutionary phase.

Revolutionary representations of Janot should be seen as forming part of the eclectic and varied range of pictorial and rhetorical strategies which contributed to the formation of a coherent and politically effective image of common people during the early I 790s. Forging new, prescriptive stereotypes was more difficult and more liable to manipulative parody than adapting figures which had been well established in the cultural inragincrirc of the cincien i-Pgime.

Janot’s recuperation can be compared q iiite closely to the conversion of ‘scins- culotte’ into a positive political label.57 Originally a term of abuse, by 1791 the suns-culotte image was beginning to be embraced as a prescriptive symbol within the provocatively reductive rhetoric of militant populist politics. Poverty, coarseness and ignorance were redefined as patriotic simplicity and virtue, bringing with them a vision of a kind of class loyalty amongst the peuplr who had become the primary represenlatives of le Peuplr jirunptise. That i t was possible to champion Janot’s abused rights and celebrate him as a downtrodden hero, is itself evidence of the changing political climate within which the

136 Richard Wrigley

commonplace woollen cap had become transformed into the proud revolution- ary emblem of the liberty cap. Although Janot’s revolutionary currency is predominantly made up of parodic and satirical images and references, these draw their charge to a significant extent from the fact that the political status of Janot’s real-life confreres had radically altered; not only had they entered the political arena ~ as subjects of discourse and as participants ~ but, in the early I ~ ~ O S , they were moving centre-stage in the sense of being actively involved in organised politics, rather than merely putting in appearances during sporadic journkes.

Once the sans-culotte achieved this political prominence, the fraught con- ditions of social life and political culture discouraged references to Janot, a figure who could all too easily be exploited as a satire on the sans-culottes. Indeed, the consolidation of a kind of sans-culotte uniform was accompanied by an awareness that it had an inherently artificial status, and this provided more than enough scope for apprehension over its misuse for subversive reasons. The rhetoric of the Terror required transparent virtue at all costs, which left no space for parody. After Thermidor, however, the sans-culotte was so over- familiar and so provocative a stereotype that no recourse to ancien rkgirrze precedents seems to have been necessary to assist in the fabrication of satirical denunciations.

Richard Wrigley Oxford Brookes University

I . J . Lough, Paris Theatre Audiences in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London, 1957), p.235: R. M. Isherwood, Farce and Fantasy: Popular Entertainnient in Eighteenth-Century Paris (New York, 1986). pp.195-97; Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (Harmondsworth. I 989), p. I 34; Michele Root Bernstein, Boulevard Theater and Revolution in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Michigan, 1981), pp.67, 92, 95, 169-70. H. Lavedan’s Volange, comedien do lu,foire (Paris, 1932) draws on a wide range of sources. and illustrates several prints but is extremely anecdotal. This was probably first noted by Louis Cornbes in his brilliant essay, ‘L’Archeologie du bonnet rouge’, in Episodes et curiositls rPvolutionnarres (Paris, n.d.), pp. I I 7-45. For general study of this kind of cultural manipulation. see Peter Stallabrass and Allon White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (London, 1986). Three early versions by Voltaire, Florian and Favart, as well as that by Dorvigny, are discussed in C. Doutrepont, Les Tvpes populaires duns la litterarure,franCuise, 2 vols (Brussels, 1927). 11, 87-104. See also Charles Mazouer, Le Persontiage dir n a y clans Ie thi.citre comique du moyen cige u Marivaux (Paris, 1979). pp.68-69. On the origins of real fines, see Intermediaire des chercheurs e/ des curieus, 25 April 1869, col. 238. On the ideological and institutional constraints within which ‘popular’ voices were monitored and enclosed, see Arlette Farge. Dire ct nial dire. L’Opinion publique au XVIIfe .si&cle (Paris, 1992). J. Lough, Paris Theutrc Audiences, p.235. The fad itself became the subject of a play by J . B. T. Caron de Chauset, La Janotomanie, performed at the Ambigu Comique on 16 November 1779 (Bibl. Nat. Paris: MS. F F f.9256). cit. C. D. Brenner. A Bibliogruphicul List of Pluys in

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I . Josse FranCois Joseph Leriche: ‘The Actor Volange as Jeannot’, Sevres porcelain, 1 7 8 1 . Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Stuart Davis Bequest.

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2 . Pierre Alexandre Wille: 'Jeannot dans les Battus payent l'amande, Varietes [sic] Amusantes' ( I 779-1 780), engraved by Carl Wilhelm Weisbrod. Cabinet des Estampes, BibliothGque Nationale, Paris.

3. Jean Touzet: ‘Ah! c’en est!’ (1780), 20. I x 30.3 cm., engraved by Louise Brinclaire. Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothique Nationale, Paris.

4. Jean-Charles Bacquoy: ‘Jeannot’ (1779-1780), engraving 7 . 2 x 13.7 cm. Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.

6. Anonymous: ‘Nouveau Jeu des Cris de Paris’ (1779-1780). Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Right-hand corner vignette: ‘Les Battus paie I’amande’ [sic].

7. Josse Francois Joseph Leriche: ‘Volange in the role of Eustache Pointu’, porcelain ( I 780s). Comedie FranGaise, Paris.

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I I . Anonymous: ‘Jannot’. Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.

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I 5. Anonymous: ‘Le degel de la nation’ ( I 792), aquatint, 32.3 x 26.7 cm. Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothirque Nationale, Paris.

17. Anonymous: ‘Le Nouveau Jeu des Varietes Amusantes’ (1779-1 780), detail: bottom right-hand corner: ‘Son triomphe embaumoit de Paris jusqu’a Rome’. Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.

From Ancien RPgitnP Full-Guy to Revolutionury Hero I 37

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the French Languagr 1700-178y (Berkeley, Ca., 1947) p.46. which also lists the dozen or so spin-offs and sequels. According to Root Bernstein. there were at least 22 plays based on Janot produced between 1779 and 1807 (Bou le iwd Theurer, p.95). ’Un nouveau spectacle etabli I’annee derniere ii la foire Saint Laurent vient d’attirer depuis plus de deux mois et la ville et la cour’ (Grimm. Corre.spondunce IirtPririrr, philosophitpe et rritiyue, 16 vols (Paris. 1877-1882) (henceforth C L , 1 0 June 1779. 191): ‘Tout Paris a ete voir les battus paient l’amende’ (Correspondimci~ .sec,rGte. politiyue el litthraire, ou memoires pour servir a I’histoire des cours. drs socie/c‘.s (’1 rli, littirature en Frmnce. clepuis la niort de L0ui.s X V , 18 vols. London. 1787-1790, IX. ‘Paris le I decembre 1779’. 86). J . G. Noverre, Letrres .Fur Ies arts, 2 vols ( I 807), 11. 308-309. Journal de Paris. 26 June 1779, no.170. p.724, This phenomenon was reported again in nos I 86 and I 89. La Harpe confirms the practice: ‘On fait mime venir Jeannot dans les maisons particulieres pour de I’argent’ (Corrrspon~loncr litti.raire, 6 vols, Paris, I 801-1 807. 11, 41 2 . cit. J . Lough, Paris Theatre Audiences. p.235). Journal de Paris. 3 September 1779. no.244. pp.994-95. The original review appeared on 27 August I 779, no.237, pp.973-74, ‘Belles Lettres’. Grimm. CL, 10, June 1779, 191. Le Chroniqurur d@srPuvri., ou 1’E.spiorr chi Boiilcruril tfii Temple (2nd edn. London. I 782). pp.9- 10. On the visit of the Comte d‘Artois and his glittering entourage to see a rope dancer at Nicolet’s, see Memoires .secrets pour servir d I’hisroire de la r6puhliyue des lertres en Frunce. depuis 1762 jusyu’a nos,jourJ (henceforth M S ) . 36 vols (London, 1779-1789), X I I I , 30 March 1779. 327-28. See J. Lough. Paris Theatre Audiences, pp.206-26. On the Colisee, see A. Gruber. ‘Les “Wauxhalls” parisiens au XVIII‘ siecle’, Bullt~rin ile la socikre de I’histoire de I’arr ,franpis. 1970-1g71, pp. 125-43. and John Goodman, “‘Altar against Altar”: The Colisee. Vauxhall Utopianism and Symbolic Politics in Paris (1769-77)’, Art Hisrory, 15, no.4. December 1992, 434-69. This issue is discussed in relation to venues outside the academic Salon in R. Wrigley, The Origins qf French Arr Criricism. From rhil Ancien Regime to /he Resrorarion (Oxford. 1993). ch.1, ‘The Salon in Context’. and ch.3, ‘In Search of an Art Public’. Grimm, C L , 10, September 1780, 335, when reviewing another of Dorvigny’s plays. Some two years earlier, this phenomenon had been remarked upon at the time of a production of Scarron’s Don Japhet d’Artn4nie. which also included as one of its coups de thtutre the dousing of a character by a chamber pot. On this episode and a general analysis of the popularity of such scatalogical plays. see J. Lough, Paris Thratrr Audiences, pp.234-36, When Volange presented himself for dinner chez the Marquis de Brancas, he was turned away since only ‘Janot’ was required ( M S . I 5. 1 4 March 1780, 86-88). On Maurice FranGois Robert, ‘dit’ Volange (1756-1809). see Max Fuchs, Le.\-iyui~ des troupes de comidiens uu XVIIIe siecle (Paris, 1944), pp.207-8; Henry Lyonnet, Dictionnaire des comediens franqais (Geneva. I 902- 1908), 11, 710-1 I .

Lavedan illustrates two contemporary fashion plates: ‘Bonnet a la Jeannot’. and ‘Jeune Demoiselle vetd d’une robe a I’anglaise dr taffetas uni. garni d’une bande en platitudes, coeffe d’un bonet[sic] a la Janot’. desinne par Desrais, Basset Gr, a Paris ches Basset, rue St Jacques au coin de celle des Mathurins, l’image Ste Genevieve, avec priv. du Roy‘ ( Volunge. pp.112- 13). CL, March 1780. p.268. On Curtius and his waxworks, see Jean Adhemar, ‘Les musees de cire en France, Curtius, le ‘“banquet royal”. les t&tes coupees’, Gcmrte des beaux-arrs. December 1978, pp.203-14. M S , 14, 30 Dec. 1779, 331. Lavedan owned: ‘une etonnante paire de boquetiers [...I En terre de Lorraine blanche, decoree de filets et de rubans bleus, elles portent sur leur demi-lune trois medaillons emportees; a droite celui de Louis X V I , i gauche celui de Marie Antoinette, et entre eux. au milieu, en place d‘honneur. Janot-Volange’ ( Volange, p.57). The continued popularity of Janot is suggested by the fact that versions of Leriche’s statuette were still being produced in the early twentieth century. An example is in the Musee National de Ceramique at Sevres (Inv. MNC I 5278). See. for example, Lucas de Montigny’s plaster bust of PrGville duns le rdle lie Figaro ( I 782), and La Saint-Huberq duns le r d e tie Didon ( I 784). illustrated and discussed in Les Arrs du

I 38 Richurd Wriglry

21.

22.

2 3 .

24. 2 5 .

26.

27.

28.

29.

30. 31.

32.

33.

34.

iiiiuire r k Wciriiwu u Frugonurd (Bordeaux. 1980). pp. 192-93. Such images were common in print form; see J. C. Le Vacher de Charnois. Costumes et nnnules ties grunn‘c.s thi.6tre.r cle Purrs. 4 vols (Paris. I 786- I 789). Journul tle Puris. 27 August 1779. no.237, pp.973-74. MS. 14. pp.138-39. Moufle also pointed out that the rumour that Maurepas has written it may have contributed to people’s curiosity. A.ffiches, onnon~~cs et t r v i s diiws. 6 October I 779. 110.40, pp. I 59-60, ’Spectacles‘. CL, 10, 10 June 1779. 192-93. L. S. Mercier. Tohleau de Paris (Amsterdam. I 783). 8, ch.607, ‘Triomphe de Voltaire. Jeannot’. p.22. According to Cubieres-Palmezeaux, one of the reasons for Janot’s popularity was the fact that ‘Janot fait Line critique tres naive de l‘idiome d u peuple de Paris. qui n’est point du tout le langage francais’ (Epitrr a u s rntine.\ cle Dorvigny, oii I’upolugiqtrr di,s buveurs. Paris. 1813, p.20. 11.16). MS. 15. 22 Feb. 1780. p.59. For Grimm’s satisfaction at the failed infringement of theatrical propriety and territory, see CL. 10. May 1780,268-69. For a detailed account oftheconstitution o f the audience and the cabals at work, see MS. 15. 22 Feb. 1780, 59-62. Another disgusted commentator on the Varietes Amusantes’ plebeian audience was Linguet; see his Annu1e.s politiques, civiles ei liiteruires di dix-liuitieme siecle, 19 vols (London, Brussels, Paris, I 777- 1792), 7. Jan. 1780. 515-16. Volange had been approached earlier by the Comedie Italienne but turned them down ( M S . 14. Dec. 1779, 33). For theeventual transfer. see hid.. 15, 17 Feb.

For one of the most well-documented analyses of this problem, see Jeffrey S. Ravel, ‘Seating the Public: Spheres and Loathing in the Paris Theatre 1777-1788’. French Historicul Studies. 18. no.1, Spring 1993. 173-210. [A. J . Gorsas], Promenuda ilc Critt‘s uu Sullon de I’urinle r71Yj (London. 1785), ‘Troisieme promenade’. p.41. On the polemical uses of ‘popular’ voices and late eighteenth century adaptations of poissurde conventions, see Bernadette Fort, ‘Voice of the Public: The Carni- valisation of Salon Art in Pre-revolutionary pamphlets‘, Eigliteuntlf-Cetitury Studies, 22, no.3. Spring 1989, 368-94. Although Dorvigny. like so many playwrights of the later eighteenth century, went on to pen patriotic pieces during the Revolution this is hardly a reliable indicator of his disposition in I 779. For example, he updated his character ’Jocrisse’, Jocrisse c,hongi de condition, romidic folie en cieu.\- actes et er7 prose (Paris. an VII [ 17971). See Alexandre Cioranescu. Bibliogruphie de la /irrPrulurc~jratii.urse iiu X V I I f e si@clr, 3 vols (Paris, 1969) for a list of his publications. MS, 14. 16 September 1779, pp.181-82. ‘Le Triomphe de Janot’: ’Gloire Janot! il a tout pour nous plaire I C’est le pedant des plus jolis magots I Momus I’a fait de I‘un des ses grelots / Pour nos plaisirs i l ne pouvoit rnieux hire .

Si le bon gout n’existoit plus en France / Janot n’eut pas ete tant applaudi I En le voyant on dit c’en est, c’est lui I Voila le goiit. le godt par excellence.’ I have been unable to trace this print in the collections of the Bibliotheque de I’Arsenal.

Janot is also represented as being pulled in triumph in a detail of the board game ‘Le Nouveau Jeu des Varittes Amusantes’, whose squares are predominantly made up of characters from plays at the theatre (Figs 16 and 17). That Janot holds his cap on a pole might encourage the idea that an allegorical allusion to Liberty is intended. But this would seem rather to be simply an aspect of the motif of a processional triumph. Affiches, onnonccs et uvis divers, 6 Oct. I 799. no.40. pp, I 59-60. See also Grimm. CL, vol. 1 0 . June 1779. 191-93. Mercure, 4 March 17x0. 38-40. Robert Darnton discusses this phenomenon in relation to Fabre d’Eglantine’s reworking of Moliere’s Le Mi.wnt/irope in his Le Pliilinte de Moliere. ou la suite du Misunrhrope ( J 790). inspired by Rousseau‘s Lettre b dAlemhert siir les spec~tucles (‘The Facts of Literary Life in Eighteenth-Century France’, in The French Revolution untl the Creation of Modem Political Culture, ed. by K. M. Baker, I , The Poliiicul Culture of‘tlie Old Regime. 1987, 261-92). See Michele Root Bernstein, Boulevurrl T/?eciter, and Nina Rattner Gelbart, Feminine und Opposiiion Journoli.rm in Old Regime Froncr: Le Journcil des Dunirs (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London. 1987).

1780. 55.

From Ancien RPgirnc Fdl-Gi4y to Rrvolurionary Hero I 39

Tableau de Paris. 12 vols (Amsterdam. 1782-1788), VIII, ch.607, p.22.

The four events holding Parisian attention were reportedly the return of the Comte dEstaing ‘le vaingueur de la Grenade’; a duel between a Prince of the Blood and an officer; Voltaire’s death and the refusal of an academic mass; and Lcs Butfus (Annales polifiques, civi1e.s et IittPrairrs du dix-huitieme siPcle, 7, Jan. 1780. 426. 513-16). On the dispute between a proctor of the Parlement and a captain of the guard of the kings’ brother. the Comte de Provence. over a theatre seat. see Schama, Citizens. pp. I 37-38. La Nuir dr Junot uu le trioniphe dr nion fr i . re rcyrt~sente pour la premiere el dernikre jbis pur les Comediens du Roi, a C h r t r e s e r r Bcaune Ir dirnunche 4 niurs 1788, par Junoi le cadet. au goat du siecle, cit. Doutrepont, Le.5 7)ptj.Y ppulaires , 11, 9. Doutrepont adds: ‘Les intentions de M. Dorvigny r a t e discutable selon nous, et ce serait dangereux d’affirmer qu’il a pretendu, avant 1789. venger le vulgaire dans le personage du pauvre diable ii la veste.’ Fleury, cit. Louis Henry Lecomte, Hi.s/oirc des rhi.6tres de Paris. Les liurii.tPs umnusuntes (Paris. 19o8), p.21. MPmoires dc Fleury de lu Comedic Frcin~uise, ed. by J. B. P. Lafitte, 2 vols (Paris, 1847), I . 18s; n.1. Lavedan, in Vulunge, mistakenly quotes this as though it was Fleury’s own opinion. Michel Vovelle, La RPvulutioriJran~cri.r~~. Iniuges r t ricits. j vols (Paris, 1986). I, 21 1-12.

Vovelle, ibid., I, 2.33. Cf. J . Margohi. ‘L’histoire des lunettes nez’, L’Histoire. no.21. March 1980, pp.14-21, on spectacles as the sign of a madman. This would also connect with one strand of the cap’s connotative repertoire in that the insane also wore caps (or ‘bonnets des fous’); see J. B. Lacurne de Sainte-Palaye. Dictionriaire hisrorique (/e I’Ancien Iangage frunqois, 10 vols (Paris, 1875-1882), ‘Bonnet’ Bibl. Nat. Paris: Lb39 7864; So Z Le Senne 14334. s.l.n.d., 8 pp. [1789/1790]. Janot, ou Irs batruspayeni I’aniendcp. (Anon., [179o?]), pp.6-8. Bibl. Nat. Paris: Lb’Y 4133. Lor. cit.. See R. Wrigley, ‘Mythologies of the Liberty Cap in the French Revolution’ (forthcoming). An announcement appears in the Courrier t/es L X X X f f f Depurternents, 20 March I 792. no.20. p.3 16. See Andre Tissier, Les Spec~trrclr.~ d Paris piwdunt / ( I Revolution RPpertoire anulvtique. chronulugiqur et biograpliique. De Iu r.i.union ties Ptors gPni.reuu.i- u ki cliure tie lu rovuutk / 789- 1792 (Geneva. 1992)- pp.217, 250.

Revolutions de Paris, 141. 17-24 March I 792. p.53 j . Junot c / i c Ie dkgraisseur was a follow-up by Dorvigny to Les Battus which began in October 1779. The reference to ministers relates to Duniouriez, who caused something o f a scandal by following the practice adopted at the Jacobin Club at this period by wearing a bonnet rouge when speaking from the tribune. Juurnulde Paris. 22 March 1792, no.X2. p.353. Le Bonnet rebute. unerdotr (n.d.), pp.2-3, British Museum. French Revolution Tracts, F.R. 207 (10) . This is bound in a volume marked 1791. Described by Jean-Paul Pittion in Tuking Liberties: Sariricul Prints qf the French Rewlution. Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (Dublin, 1989). as ‘with lantern. Phrygian bonnet and rat-tail a la Jacobin’ (no. I 17, no pagination). Pittion notes that the print was announced in the Joirrnal de Pari.r, 7 April 1792. The original Janot IS shown with a pigtail in prints by Brinclaire and Touzet. Taking Liberties, no.109, where it is noted that the print was announced in the Journul de lu cour i’t c/e lu ville, 19 March 1792. The caption reads: ‘Le milieu du tableau est occup6 par un monceau d’immondices petrifiees par I’air, sur lequel les sans culottes ont eleve la statue de la Nation et de la Liberte. L’instant que nous avons saisi est celui ou I‘air se radoucissant, on voit la statue fondre insensiblement. DeJi le bonnet dit de la libertk s’enfonce dans la crdne amoli de la statue ... ses bras sont tombes, e lk n‘est m&me plus du plomb. En vain les sans culottes soufflent-t-ils pour maintenir leur ridicule ouvrage. Le Soleil Royal, par son influence rend leurs efforts inutiles: ils sont dans I’eau et dans la fange jd mi jambe. Dejjd aussi les tombereaux font leurs offices, les conducteurs jettent indistinctement avec leurs pelles et les bras de la nation qui sont a terre. feuillans. jacobins et autres clubistes pour aller avec le reste des ordures, attendre leurs confreres, ou. . . h la V . . . Sur un terrain eleve, nombre d’honnites gens reunis applaudissent a la justice celeste qui en Fait une si eclatante de toutes ces turpitude populaire.‘

I 40 Richard Wrigky

52.

53. 54. 55.

56.

57.

For example, De Four de Saint Pathias, DiogBne a Paris (1787); Charles Theveneau de Morande, DiogPne, le philosophe cynique (London, I 771). However, Diogenes could also play a counter-revolutionary role. as in the anti-Jacobian pamphlet by ‘C. G. H. G.’, La latiterne t/e DiogPne. ou Ne voids ,fiic/icz pas. i,’est la vPritP (30 ventBse an 3‘ de la Republique). See Klaus Herding, ‘Diogenes. symbolic hero of the Revolution’, L’Iniuge cle la Rrvolution, Rapports presentes lors du Congres Mondial pour le Bicentenaire de la Revolution, Sorbonne Paris (6-12 July 19x9). directed by Michel Vovelle (Pergamon. 1990). p.2677 (abstract), and ‘Diogenes als Biirgerheld’, in Im Zeichen des Aufilurung; Studien zur Motferne (Frankfurt, I 989). See also Serena ’Torjussen, ‘Arlequin-Diogene, comedie en un acte de Saint-Just’, Annales historiqiie.s de la RPwlirtion frtinyai.se, 51, 1979, 474-85. where the text is dated to post 1791. Jeunnot et DiogBne, I. p.4. Bibl. Nat, Paris: Lc2 577 [mid 1792-17931. Ibid., 11, p.2 Les Battu.s paienr I’amendr., ou les Jric,obins Jcwnnors, p.2, Bibl. Nat. Paris: Lbd’ 1456 (mfe 1541). See Judith Suther. ‘Harlequin on the Revolutionary Stage’, Wuslrington State C’nioersitv Research Studies. 43. 1975, 235-44, For example. pamphlets based on Beaumarchais’s Figaro: F i p r o au roi ([Paris‘?] I 789). Baumes r.ucellents pour qukrir de Iu rage arlstrocratiyue, 1,omposi.e par Figaro ( I 790‘)). and Beaumarchais’s own Figaro, u u . ~ Purisiens, atnutcurs clu bon golit. (les arts, des specracles dc lr IihertP (Paris. I 790). See Annie Geffroy. ‘Sans culotte(s) (novembre I 79o-juin I 792)’, in A. Geffroy, J. Guilhaumou. S. Moreno. Dictionnuire des usages sorio-politiques ( 1770- / R I j ) . fasc. I (Paris. 1985). pp. 157- 86, and Michael Sonenscher. Work arid Wages. Natirrul Lun~. Politics and the Eighteenth- Century French Trudcs (Cambridge, 1989), p.356.