Maurice Mac-Nab

Maurice Mac-Nab

Maurice Mac-Nab (born January 4, 1856 in Vierzon , † December 1889 in Paris ) was a French poet and singer ( chansonnier ). He performed his "advertising chansons" in the famous Parisian cabaret " Le Chat Noir " and was the original creator of this genre .

Life

Maurice Mac-Nab came from a family of Scottish origin. His great-grandfather Édouard Mac Nab (1740-1814) had settled in France as the bodyguard of Louis XV . Later the marriage brought him to Sancerre . During the French Revolution , the great-grandfather barely escaped the guillotine . In the Empire he was Conseiller Général des Départements Cher . Mac-Nab's grandfather Alexandre (1781-1852) was Sous-préfet des Empire and in 1810 married Marie-Rose de Francières from Vierzon . Her family owned the Château de Fay there in the west of the city. Mac-Nab's father was the mayor of Vierzon-Villages.

Mac-Nab began his education at the so-called Minor Seminary of La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin , which was under the direction of Félix Dupanloup , the Bishop of Orléans . Initially, Mac-Nab was a postal worker and developed his artistic inclinations with the group Les Hydropathes . He was also a spiritualist . As a stutterer , he did not allow himself to be dissuaded from performing his songs in public himself.

In the Latin Quarter in Paris he presented his songs to the audience of the Café de l'Avenir for the first time. Then the cabaret Le Chat Noir offered him the opportunity to perform at Montmartre . There he began to perform his “chansons-réclames”. His chansons were musically accompanied by melodies by Camille Baron. His satirical song L'Expulsion made him famous. In it a pretender to the French throne is mocked, whose application for entry and settlement was rejected by promulgation on June 26, 1886 . Mac-Nab imitated the offensive language attributed to the anarchists . In 1887 Mac-Nab made his breakthrough to fame with the song Le Grand métingue du Métropolitain . In it a drunken revolutionary worker has his say, who, after an exchange of words with a police spy during a conspiratorial meeting, finds himself at the guard post. The Métropolitain was a well-known meeting place in Lille .

Maurice Mac-Nab was still able to complete a dissertation on alcohol intoxication , but afterwards the artist, who was always in a bad state of health, fell ill and died in the Hôpital Lariboisière in Paris. The theater in his hometown now bears his name. His grave is on the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise , at the side of his uncle Achille Penfentenyo de Cheffontaines (49th Division).

Works

• Poèmes mobiles , 1885
• Poèmes incongrus , 1887
• Chansons du Chat noir , "Songs from the Black Cat", published in 1890 post mortem.