Hotel du Petit-Bourbon

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View of the river side of the Petit-Bourbon (with the Louvre on the left), Stefano della Bella , 1646

The Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon was a city palace of the Bourbons in Paris . It stood on the Rive Droite , the northern bank of the Seine on the (now defunct) rue d'Autriche between the (then still much smaller) old part of the Palais du Louvre in the west, the Hôtel d'Alençon in the north and the Church Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois in the east. It was built in the 14th century, not long after the Capetian kings of France expanded the Louvre fortress to use it as a royal residence. On two city maps from around 1550 (Truschet & Hoyau and Saint-Victor) it is simply referred to as the Hôtel de Bourbon , on the map by Jacques Gomboust from 1652 as Petit-Bourbon (see below); on the latter, the street that runs perpendicular to the Louvre past the hotel is called rue du Petit-Bourbon : the Bourbons, who had inherited the French throne with Henri IV in 1589 , also took over the Louvre.

The Hôtel de Bourbon we are talking about should not be confused with the one of the same name on the other side of the river, near the Saint-Sulpice church , the Catherine de Lorraine, the widow of Louis III. de Bourbon, duc de Montpensier and that was also on a street called rue du Petit-Bourbon .

The hotel's ballroom, the Grande Salle du Petit-Bourbon , was larger than any room in the Louvre and was the first theater in which Molière's drama troupe performed after arriving in Paris in 1658. In 1660, however, he was forced to evacuate and the hotel itself was demolished shortly afterwards to make way for the construction of the colonnades designed by architect Claude Perrault , which now form the eastern end of the Louvre.

history

General Estates from 1614 in the Salle du Petit-Bourbon

When the French kings began using the Louvre as their main residence in Paris in the 14th century, courtiers also had to settle in the city to pay their respects to the king and secure his favor. They built magnificent city palaces ( Hôtel particuliers ) in the vicinity of the Louvre, of which only a few are still preserved today.

According to the historian Henri Sauval (1623–1676), the Bourbons bought houses of more than 300 people between 1303 and 1404 in order to get the land on which they wanted to build their hotel; The builder was Louis de Clermont , a grandson of King Louis IX. Which in 1310 by his mother Beatrix of Burgundy , the rule of Bourbon inherited and 1327 Duke of Bourbon was appointed.

The hotel was renovated at the end of the 14th century and confiscated by the Duke of Bedford when he ruled northern France, but was later returned to the Bourbons.

Over the years they expanded and designed it to become one of the most magnificent in the kingdom. Sauval describes the great hall and chapel (both of which still existed during his lifetime) as the largest and most elaborate of their kind in Paris.

In 1523 Charles III came to an agreement. de Bourbon-Montpensier , who was Connétable at the time , with Emperor Charles V on a partition of France; When the plan was revealed, he fled to Italy, whereupon his property was confiscated and the Hôtel de Bourbon was partially destroyed. “Salt was strewn on the ground on which it stood; the crests of the perpetrators were erased, and the remaining windows and doors were painted with yellow ocher by the executioner. "

The Grande Salle

Floor plan of the Petit Bourbon
The Ballet comique de la reine in the Petit-Bourbon, 1581

The great hall (French: Grande Salle ) was used for numerous courtly purposes. Caterina de 'Medici had the "politically charged" Paradis d'amour , a dramatic ballet de cour , performed here on August 20, 1572, at the time of the wedding of her Catholic daughter Marguerite de Valois to the Protestant Henri de Navarre .

The Ballet comique de la reine , the first great court ballet, was held in the Petit-Bourbon on October 15, 1581 during the festivities on the occasion of the wedding of the Duc de Joyeuse with the queen's sister, Marguerite de Vaudémont.

The first great carousel (a medieval tournament performed as ballet) was performed in the Grande Salle in February 1605. The Estates General of 1614 and 1615 as well as parts of the festivities for the wedding of Louis XIII. 1615 took place here.

Louis XIII himself chose the theme for the ballet de cour La délivrance de Renaud , which was based on the story of Rinaldo in Torquato Tasso's popular epic poem La Gerusalemme liberate . The first performance was on January 29, 1617 with the king himself in the role of the fire demon. It was not difficult to find parallels between Tassos Tankred and his knights in the fight against the monsters in the enchanted forest on the one hand and Louis XIII. and his favorite Charles d'Albert , the future Duc de Luynes, as they save France from its enemies. Following the livret published by Robert Ballard in 1617, the grand concert de musique was initially performed by "64 singers, 28 violas and 14 lutes under the direction of le sieur Mauduit ".

The dimensions of the hall were lush, even by Parisian standards: 15 meters wide, 35 meters long, and at one end a 13.5 meters deep apse . During the General Estates of 1614 the king and his courtiers sat in this apse (decorated with fleur-de-lis ), Lawrenson suspects that sometimes, for example at the Ballet Comique de la Reine , a kind of stage was set up in the apse. The general public was housed on two floors of balconies on the walls. La finta pazza , an Italian piece by Giulio Strozzi (1583-1652) and an opera by Francesco Sacrati (1605-1650) were performed in December 1645 under the patronage of Cardinal Mazarin . The staging required a carefully worked out stage design and special effects, which the theater machinery constructed by Giacomo Torelli had to provide.

In February 1650, during the Fronde , when everything Italian was suspect, Pierre Corneille's French play Andromède premiered with another spectacular performance by Torelli. The accompanying music by Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy (1605–1677) was intended to drown out the noise of the mechanism

Mazarin's triumph over the Fronde and his return from exile was celebrated on February 23, 1653 with the Ballet de la nuit and the technique of Torellis. The young Louis XIV appeared in six different roles. The Italian opera Le nozze di Peleo e di Teti by Carlo Caproli was performed on April 14, 1654, again with Torelli's technique as the main attraction, and again with Louis XIV in six roles

In October 1658, after 13 years of traveling , Molière and his theater troupe returned to Paris at the invitation of Philippe I de Bourbon, duc d'Orléans , the younger brother of Louis XIV. He performed Pierre Corneille's tragedy Nicomède and his own farce Le médecin amoureux (The Doctor in Love) - the latter pleased the young king so much that he allowed the troupe to play in the hall of the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon. The Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays there already belonged to an Italian troupe around the comedian Tiberio Fiorilli (1608–1694), who was famous for his parade role as Scaramouche .

Molière achieved his breakthrough here in November 1659 with his prose comedy Les précieuses ridicules (The ridiculous fine ladies), his first play designed for a predominantly Parisian audience. The success of the piece brought him envious, the subject even enemies, including the head of the administration of the royal castles ( surintendant général des bâtiments du roi ) Antoine de Ratabon (1617-1670), who at the beginning of the 1660/61 season the demolition of the Petit -Bourbon decreed without informing the actors. Molière then remained without a venue for three months until he was assigned the hall of the Palais Royal by the king . The hall was demolished on October 11, 1660.

A part of the building that was spared from demolition served as the queen's horse stable from 1664. These buildings were also demolished a century later.

The petit bourbon on old Parisian city maps

  • approx. 1550 (Truschet & Hoyau)

  • around 1550 (Saint Victor)

  • 1609 (Quesnel)

  • 1615 (Merian)

  • 1652 (Gomboust)

Remarks

  1. ↑ Galignani 1825, Volume 2, p. 191 (rue d'Autriche) and Félibien 1725, p. 130 (rue de l'Autruche)
  2. ↑ Galignani 1825, Volume 2, p. 190 , and Hare 1888, "rue du petit bourbon" & f = false p. 406 ; the rue du Petit-Bourbon near Saint-Sulpice is now the part of the rue Saint-Sulpice between the rue de Tournon and the rue Garancière
  3. ↑ a b Galignani 1825, Volume 2, SS 190–192 .
  4. ↑ Sauval 1724, Volume 2, p. 114 .
  5. ↑ Sauval 1724, Volume 2, SS 208-211 .
  6. ↑ Galignani 1825, Volume 2, p. 191 .
  7. ↑ Isherwood 1973, p. 60.
  8. ↑ Anthony 2001. Marguerite de Vaudémont (or Marguerite de Lorraine) was the queen's half-sister as the daughter of Nicolas de Lorraine, duc de Mercœur and his second wife Johanna von Savoyen
  9. ↑ Isherwood 1973, p. 95; Timms 2001
  10. ^ Anthony 1997, pp 46-47.
  11. ↑ Discours au vray du ballet dansé par le roy, le dimanche XXIXe jour de janvier M. VIc. XVII , p. 3; see Anthony 1997, p. 49.
  12. ↑ Bjurström 1962, p. 122.
  13. ↑ Lawrenson 1986, p. 188.
  14. ↑ Bjurström 1962, p. 123.
  15. ↑ Bjurström 1962, pp 122, 134-133; Howarth 1997, p. 204.
  16. ↑ Bjurström 1962, p. 147; Howarth 1997, p. 205.
  17. ↑ Isherwood 1973, pp 136-138.
  18. ↑ Isherwood 1973, pp 129-130; Bjurström 1962, SS 128, 160-176.
  19. ↑ Chronology: Molière et son temps ( Memento of the original dated February 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on http://www.comedie-francaise.fr  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.comedie-francaise.fr
  20. ↑ "Le lundy 11ème octobre (1660): le du théâstre Petit-Bourbon commença a estre Demoly par Monsieur de Ratabon surintendant of Bastiments du Roy sans en avertir la troupe qui se trouva continued surprise de demeurer sans theaste; on alla se plaindre au Roy à qui Monsieur de Ratabon dit que la place de la salle était nécessaire pour le bastiment du Louvre et que les dedans de la salle qui avait été faiste pour les ballets du Roy appartenant à sa Majesté il n'avait pas été cru qu'il fallait Entrer en considération de la Comédie pour avancer le dessein du Louvre. La méchante invention de Monsieur de Ratabon étoit apparente. Cependant le Roy à qui la troupe avoit eu le bonheur de plaire fut gratifiée par Sa Majesté de la salle du Palais-Royal. " ( Charles Varlet de La Grange , Registre de La Grange)

literature

  • James R. Anthony: "Ballet de cour." In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . 2nd edition. Macmillan, London 2001, ISBN 1-56159-239-0 .
  • Per Bjurström: Giacomo Torelli and Baroque Stage Design. 2nd edition. Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm 1962.
  • Michel Félibien: Histoire de la ville de Paris. Volume 4. Guillaume Desprez, Jean Desessartz, Paris 1725 ( digitized version ).
  • John Anthony Galignani, William Galignani (Eds.): The History of Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day. 3 volumes. A. and W. Galignani, Paris 1825 (digital copies: Volume 1 (2nd edition, 1832), Volume 2 and Volume 3 ).
  • Jean Guillaume: Un tournant dans l'histoire de la galerie. Les hôtels parisiens de la fin du XIVe siècle. In: Société française d'archéologie: Bulletin monumental. Vol. 166, No. 1, 2008, ISSN  2275-5039 , pp. 27-31 ( digitized version ).
  • Augustus JC Hare: Walks in Paris. George Routledge and Sons, New York 1888.
  • William D. Howarth (Ed.): French Theater in the Neo-classical Era, 1550–1789. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1997, ISBN 978-0-521-10087-8 , pp. 84-85.
  • Robert M. Isherwood: Music in the Service of the King. France in the Seventeenth Century. Cornell University Press, Ithaca 1973, ISBN 0-8014-0734-6 .
  • Thomas Edward Lawrenson: The French Stage and Playhouse in the XVIIth Century: A Study in the Advent of the Italian Order. 2nd edition. AMS Press, New York 1986, ISBN 0-404-61721-2 .
  • Henri Sauval: Histoire et recherches des antiquités de la ville de Paris. 3 volumes. Charles Moette, Jacques Chardon, Paris 1724 (digital copies: Volume 1 , Volume 2 ).
  • Colin Timms: "Tourney." In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . 2nd edition. Macmillan, London 2001, ISBN 1-56159-239-0 .

Web links

Commons : Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 48 ° 51 ′ 34.2 "  N , 2 ° 20 ′ 22.9"  E