Tarantism

Tarantella 1850, signed T.M.R.

Gill has commented on the posting Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin and suggested that the Mme or Mlle Degville is identified as Sophie d'Egville, daughter of Pierre d'Agueville and Sophia Anselme. I hadn't eliminated Sophie from being identified as this woman; it is rather that Sophie or Sophia has left a confusing trail.

In 1797 Sophia was dancing at Drury Lane with George and Fanny where all were payed at the same rate of £2. One source gives the year of 1793 for Sophia's birth and while children younger than five years old appeared on stage it is likely that she would have been identified as 'infant d'Egville' rather than appearing on the roll and payed in her own right.

I have always assumed this woman is Madame Michau who died in 1859. Her age is given as seventy six in a death notice which would push her birth date back to 1783. A Sophie d'Egville was performing at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin from at least as early as November 1803 which is more plausible if she and Madame Michau are the same person.

One source states that Louis Francois Bonaventure Michau was born about 1801 in France but this is far too late. The Life and Adventures George Augustus Sala Written By Himself (1895) provides a brief sketch of Madame Michau,

Her first husband had been a M. Bizet, originally one of the private secretaries of Napoleon the Great; and at his death she married a French gentleman named Michau, who was especially distinguished for his highly cultivated gastronomic taste and his skilled culinary capacity. Indeed, in addition to his connection with the Terpsichorean art, he was a cook of the first water.

In the 1841 Census an Augustus Michau born circa 1811 is a resident of Brighton. We know that Sophie Degville is in Paris at this time and Augustus' father could be either of her two husbands.
This supports an explanation of why Sophie Degville remains settled in France during the Napoleonic Wars. I do not yet know when she returned to England but by 1820 Madame Michau was a practicing dance teacher in London and was promoting herself to the Court.

Sophie went on to publish a book on deportment and is still remembered for her form of the Tarantella,

Dance masters and manuals gave instruction as to how to perform these dances in the correct way, removing them from the streets and popular festivals into the indoor arena of palaces and ballrooms. One example of the notation of the tarantella in this way was by the dance teacher Madame Michau, born as Sophie D'Egville into a dynasty of dance instructors. Her version of the tarantella was seen in London in 1844 and published in 1860, and became the established form of the dance.

Ritual, Rapture and Remorse: A study of tarantism and pizzica in Salento

by Jerri Dabo 2010 

The Tarantella when danced solo was a supposed therapy for a spider bite and could last for hours or even days. It has even been suggested that the origins of the dance lie in Bacchanalian rites. This seems to resonate more with Sophia's voluptuous dance of great energy of expression in 1805 and her life which at that time seems distant from being mistress of ceremonies at the court.

Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin



Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin



The yearbook Mémorial Drâmatique ou Almanach Théatral pour l'an 1808 has an entry for the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin.

Ce Théâtre, supprimé par le décret impérial du 8 Août 1807, avait fait son ouverture le 27 Septembre 1802. On y jouait le Mélodrame, la Comédie et la Pantomime mêlée de danse.

The building from this period was destroyed in the flames of the Paris Commune but in 1871 the theatre was rebuilt and over the years has seen many premieres that we regard as synonymous with the French theatre (Cyrano de Bergerac etc).

Napoleon's decree of 1807 had reduced the number of theatres in Paris to seven and ended a period of expansion. I'm uncertain what impact this had on the employment opportunities for dancers but 1808 is unlikely to have been a boom year.

So in 1808 a M. and Mme. Degville were fortunate not to be resting and they are listed among the principal dancers. But this spartan entry raises many questions.

The spelling is that adopted by Jame's Harvey d'Egville's generation but obviously lacks the apostrophe. The absence of forenames makes it almost impossible to identify precisely whom these dancers are.

The name d'Egville and the family's contribution to the theatre was well known on the French side of the Channel. The press published dispatches of English productions and the usual gossip that dominates the news of today so it is not impossible that these names were adopted as a homage. Though it is unlikely because the ballet master was Eugène Hus.

Eugène Hus was the psuedonym of Pierre-Louis Stapleton (1758-1823) who was the stepson of Jean-Baptiste Hus. In 1762 Jean-Baptiste became ballet master in Brussels where Pierre d'Aigueville's Ballet Turc would be performed in 1767.

James and George Harvey d'Egville are unlikely candidates for M. Degville as they appear to have been employed in England at this time. Louis Harvey d'Egville was settled in Worcester with a growing family.

These Degvilles may have been living in Paris for some time by 1808. Théâtre choisi de G. De Pixerécourt 1841 gives us some detailed descriptions and notices for a production of Robinson Crusoé [in London, Robinson Crusoe seems to have been part of the standard repertoire by 1805]:

Journal de Paris. 3 Octobre 1805

Parmi les danses qui couronnent le dénoftmeot, on voudra revoir souvent celle du Chiea, danse voluptueuse , s'il en fût, et que Robillon et Mlle Degville exécutent avec une grande énergie d'expression.

Courrier des Spectacles 4 Octobre 1805

On a remarqué les beaux développements de Itérante, la légèreté de Morand et la danse grotesque de Robillon et de madame Degville dans un pas de nègres.

If these were Degvilles who had settled in the United Kingdom then through what circumstances did they find themselves in Paris just weeks before the Battle of Trafalgar? And is Mlle Degville a misprint or is there a small family living there? We know that a Jean-Pierre Degville died in Paris in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

In the Annuaire Dramatique for the year 1813 under the entry of the Théâtre de la Gaîté, Boulevard du Temple  the name Sophie Degville appears and her address is given as the 'rue des Martyrs'. If she were Pierre d'Aigueville's wife she would be almost eighty years old and one wonders what sort of roles would have been open to her. I doubt whether she would have been capable of a voluptuous dance of great energy of expression less than a decade earlier but if she had I would like to have seen it.