MOLIÈRE THE LEARNED LADIES (LES FEMMES SAVANTES) A FAMOUS ACTOR’S COPY : THE ONE OF JEAN MAUDUIT CALLED LARIVE NEW YORK ANTIQUARIAN BOOK FAIR March, 9-12th 2017 Park Avenue Armory Booth C9 MOLIÈRE THE LEARNED LADIES (LES FEMMES SAVANTES) A FAMOUS ACTOR’S COPY : THE ONE OF JEAN MAUDUIT CALLED LARIVE cahier n° 10 NEW YORK ANTIQUARIAN BOOK FAIR March, 9-12th 2017 Park Avenue Armory Booth C9 21, rue Fresnel. 75116 Paris M. + 33 (0)6 80 15 34 45 - T. +33 (0)1 47 23 41 18 - F. + 33 (0)1 47 23 58 65 Molière by Charles Antoine Coypel, [email protected] 1730, Library of la Comédie Française. [email protected] Conditions de vente conformes aux usages du Syndicat de la Librairie Ancienne et Moderne et aux règlements de la Ligue Internationale de la Librairie Ancienne N° de TVA.: FR21 478 71 326 Les Femmes savantes was created at the Palais Royal on 11 March 1672 and Hence the troupe of the Palais-Royal became independent. Molière now owned published in December of the same year. Two months later in February 1673, a theater that no longer needed royal commissions to ensure its maintenance Molière died after the 4th performance of the Malade imaginaire. Les Femmes and that of his troupe, the biggest part of the profits coming directly from savantes is therefore the last play published during his lifetime. His work ends Parisian audiences. On 17 September 1672, between two performances in where it started, with a play centered on women. Fifteen years separate Les town, Molière had to perform Les Femmes savantes in front of the King. He Précieuses ridicules and Les Femmes savantes. would thus give in Versailles “a most agreeable comedy entitled Les Femmes savantes, and which was admired by everyone” reported La Gazette de France. For Donneau de Visé, a chronicler at the Mercure galant, and contemporary of It was undoubtedly the last time that Molière would perform at Court, for the Molière, Les Femmes savantes is the direct heir of the Précieuses from 1659. The King, in front of the King. comedy revolves around the same ridiculous ambitions of women in relation to knowledge and love. It is no longer a matter of laughing at women but of In the 18th century, his work continued to know an immense success and was defending their cause while making the audience laugh: constantly performed. It is interesting to see how one era was able to read it, that is to say, use it: “Molière goes much further in Les Femmes savantes than in his Précieuses ridicules. For the first time he addresses the fundamental question of physical love other than It is equally interesting to see how an era could play him. This is what this little through traditional jokes … To this enlightened combat Molière has mixed in another set of books tries to illustrate: subject of debate: feminine knowledge. The three women who want to be only spirit show it by refusing their bodies to love” (R. Duchêne). 1. The first book is the first edition of Femmes savantes (1672). Of Molière’s plays, we know the extreme scarcity of contemporary bound copies. This one The last complete theatrical season of Molière in 1671-1672, was not without possesses an other charm, it is an actor’s copy which had belonged to one worry, mainly because of the privilege of the opera that the King granted upon of the greatest members of the Comédie Française at the dawn of the French Lully. An ordinance furthermore prohibited actors from using more than two Revolution, Jean Mauduit known as Larive. singers and six violins. Opera singers were thus put above actors. Although Molière was afraid of not being able to fill the theaters with spoken plays, he 2. The second book that of Antoine-Vincent Arnault, is a charming collection nevertheless decided to go back to putting on comedies without the ornaments, making up the history of great French actors of the 18th century, through rather than playing comedy-ballets without music. Les Femmes savantes was thus text and engravings. Jean Mauduit known as Larive features there in good staged when Lulli got his privilege. position. The play was a success. Molière performed it twenty six times the year before 3. The third book presented is not a book but a suite of engravings whose his death (in comparison, Les Précieuses ridicules was performed seventy times in drawings were sketched from life in 1726 by Charles Antoine Coypel, when he thirteen years of performances). The profits accrued for the 1671-1672 season was watching performances of Molière’s plays in the hall of the same Théâtre amounted to 52,912 livres despite the considerable amounts (5,353 livres) that Français. Coypel is known to have been one of the best artists of the Regency. had to be taken from the earnings to pay the double layout of the hall. Each It’s a unique testimony of how Molière was played. actor’s share was 4,233 livres. 4 5 [1] MOLIÈRE Les Femmes savantes Paris, Pierre Promé, 1673 [December 10, 1672] MOLIÈRE IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT. EXCEPTIONAL ACTOR’S COPY, THAT OF JEAN MAUDUIT, KNOWN AS LARIVE, ONE OF THE GREATEST ACTORS OF THE 18th CENTURY, STUDENT OF LEKAIN AND FRIEND OF VOLTAIRE. COPY CITED BY TCHEMERZINE. “THERE WAS TALK ONLY OF LARIVE; EVERY YOUNG ACTOR TRIED TO IMITATE LARIVE. HE WAS THE FAVORITE ACTOR OF WOMEN AND YOUNG PEOPLE” (Grimod de La Reynière). MOLIÈRE’S COPIES WITH A PRE-REVOLUTIONARY THEATRICAL PROVENANCE DON’T EXIST. LES FEMMES SAVANTES WAS PERFORMED EIGHTY-FIVE TIMES AT THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE, WHEN LARIVE WAS A MEMBER FIRST EDITION. Second state “in all points similar to that of 1672” (Guibert). “Baron de Ruble owned a unique copy dated 1672” (Tchemerzine). 12mo (150 x 88mm) Fleurons, headpiece and engraved initials COLLATION: π2 A8 B4 C8 D4 E8 F4 G8 H2 : 48 leaves 18TH CENTURY BINDING. Marbled calf, gilt supra-libris stamped on the upper side, gilt dos à nerfs, red edges. Box PROVENANCE: Jean Mauduit known as “Larive”, “La Rive” or “de La Rive” (supra-libris and ex-libris) Small marginal tear on the last leaf. Cap and corners lightly rubbed 6 7 Jean Mauduit, known as Larive (1747-1827) was one of the most brilliant French actors of the Enlightenment. He began his career as a double to the famous tragedian Henri Louis Le Kain (1729-1778). At the time of his death, he had held leading roles at the Comédie Française for over ten years, with an ever- increasing success. When Jean Mauduit was a teenager with an untamable temperament, his grocer father from La Rochelle, sent him to Santo-Domingo. He escaped from the island, reached Paris and went knocking audaciously on Le Kain’s door. Alexandre Grimod de La Reynière, a gourmet and contemporary critic of Larive, relates these words exchanged between the apprentice-actor and the great tragedian: “I dared, on my return from Santo Domingo go find the famous Le Kain. Filled with everything that his talent had inspired me, I told him that I was American (not wanting to be recognized, in the case where he would not favorably judge my abilities), I dared to add that a noble emulation carried me; that I had conceived being his double at the Comédie Française; that I expected from him a sincere avowal of my physical and moral abilities: what I thought I could assure him of, was that if he found in me no marked fault, I would succeed in being his double or would die trying. Le Kain smiled maliciously, and the intention of his smile was engraved in my memory; it is perhaps this memory that has most strengthened my emulation”. Le Kain advised him to get some practice in the provinces. Jean Mauduit took the pseudonym of Larive (in memory of the locality of his paternal home “La petite rive”). In Lyon, Mademoiselle Clairon – twenty years his elder – who was performing there, undertook to make him a great tragedian. On December 3, 1770, the Sieur of Larive began at the Comédie Française with the role of Zamore in Voltaire’s Alzire. This beginning was not a happy one. The performance that had started with applause ended in whistles. Larive left for Brussels and remained there for four years despite Mademoiselle Clairon’s entreaties. He did not return to Paris until 1775 where he attempted a second debut, performing in Iphigénie en Tauride. The reception he got from the public was so favorable to him that the members of the Comédie looked upon him for Le Kain’s double. Never did the surprise equal that of the Master when he found in Larive the supposed American to whom he had formerly granted an audition: 8 9 “enchanted with my happy start, added Larive, I invited him one day to dinner; masses became admirable beauties. Larive saw big, seized the whole role well, at the end of the meal, I made conv ersation on the temerity of beginners and was always noble and energetic; his developments were easy and of good effect; on their confidence; I asked him if he remembered a young American who his gestures always varied, natural and expressive. Never perhaps had one seen had consulted him and who had confessed to him his pretention of becoming such a handsome man on stage; a perfectly drawn head, beautiful teeth, bulging his double; after having thought for a moment, Le Kain said to me: Ah! I eyes, a big voice, full, round and sonorous, whose modulations were infinite, remember, I had never seen anything crazier than that young man; he had in and which, admirable in the medium, became terrible in the outbursts; all the his head all the hotness of his country; he had to, he said, either die or be my physical advantages, in one word, were the prerogative of this actor.