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.

Mrs Samuel Dies At Her Newphew's Great Marlborough Street Home

The Gentleman's Magazine, April 1817

Insinuation

Mr. James Harvey D'egville is the eldest son of Mr. PeTer D'egville. The family root is French, but this branch of it pullulated first in England. He owes his education, which, if at all philosophical, was peripatetic, that is, relating to the foot, principally to his father and Mr. Dauberval of Paris. He married Miss Berry of the Opera-House. In 1796 he was engaged at Drury-Lane theatre, when he got up a pantomima called Alexander the Great, and he did the same favour to the pantomimicry of Pizarro, Caractacus, &c. He is now ballet-master at the Opera-House, where he gives considerable satisfaction, although he is with some taste and invention, far from abounding in knowledge and judgment. We must remember, however, that his business is almost exclusively with the legs, to "teach lavoltat high and swift corantos," and it is not a question that he has produced several very good ballet-dancers. But as we like the treason, though we hate the traitor; so we delight in the dancing of his pupils, while we detest the original cause of it—the avarice and depravity of the parents. See some just remarks on this subject, signed H. R. in the Examiner, Feb. 26. "In addition to these shadows, Mr. D'Egville has," says this writer, " a numerous troop of infants, that are brought forward in the ballet, for no purpose that I can imagine, unless it is to shew that children can be kept awake till twelve or one o'clock, and that rouge will artificially supply the colour, of which want of rest has deprived them."

It is said that he was, when in Paris, a furious democrat, but if we have little to do with the learning of a ballet-master, we have certainly still less to do with his politics. On this, however, and many other points, we might have afforded the reader more lights, had Mr. D'Egville, as he promised, furnished as with his lanthorn. We are now indeed more than half persuaded that he meditated a sort of suicide— he would have deprived himself of this Life, which our philanthropy has preserved.

The Monthly Mirror, March 1809.

Scurrilous Gossip

La Journée mémorable de Versailles, le lundi 5 Octobre 1789

THE
SCOURGE;
OR
MONTHLY EXPOSITOR,
OF
IMPOSTURE AND FOLLY

Mr. D'Egville has resumed his situation at the Opera-house: this gentleman is, we believe, particularly intimate with the man who bore in triumphant exhibition through the streets of Paris, the heart of the Princess de Lamballes.

The Scourge, 1 February 1811

Marie Louise de Lambelle
attributed to Henri Pierre Danloux (c 1791)

Mr. D'EGVILLE.

Sir,

 In your second number you have asserted that Mr. D'Egville is intimately acquainted with the man who carried on a pike the heart of the Princess de Lamballes through the streets of Paris. Such assertions as these had been frequently made long before the appearance of the Scourge: Mr. D'Egville, however, conscious that they could not injure him with those who knew him, and unwilling to obtrude in his private character on the attention of the public, suffered them to die away uncontradicted ; and it was not till in the dispute with Mr. Goold they were brought forward to prejudice the court itself against him, that he thought it necessary to give them a serious refutation. For this purpose he obtained in 1802 a certificate from those who had the best opportunities of knowing him at the time of the revolution, declarative of his peaceful and gentlemanly conduct during the whole of that unhappy period, and expressive of their knowledge that any aspersions of the kind alluded to must be unjust. This document I have seen, and it is now in Mr. D'Egville's possession. It is signed by the elder Vestris, Laborie, and most of the respectable performers attached to the Opera at Paris. From the liberality by which even your severest productions are distinguished, I trust that as an act of justice to a much injured individual you will insert this letter.

I remain, Sir, with respect,

your obedient servant,

ACHITES

London,

March 27th, 1811.

The Scourge, 1 April 1811

Le massacre de la princesse de Lamballe

Wild and Crazy Moments

Gill, aged 7 months.

From an early age I was always into ballet. Dad used to listen to Opera and Friday Night's Music Night and have a few beers.

He used to say to us girls, go dance like Little Fairies. So on went the plastic sandals. Posh word for them now (Jellie Beans).

And did we dance!! But when dad used to go spend a penny we all used to have a drink of his beer and then resume dancing as if nothing had happened. Dad used to shout, "Who's been drinking my beer?"

All in unison we used to say, "It's not us!!!"

We used to put plays on too. And we always had to have a Circus, all our friends' pets were the animals.

Everyone had a starring role. Mine was the Clown. I always had to be the Clown.

We had a very large garden so we used to have a Circus ring on the bottom lawn. On would come the acts and strut their stuff.

My prop for the Clown was a pair of step ladders, face painted and dressed. On I went...

Whilst climbing the step ladders they broke. It got laughs. How I did not kill my self I do not know!!

Yes, even back then the Degvilles were in our blood.

When Gran told me about the Degvilles being Fencing Masters, in my Wild and Crazy moments I fenced my way a round the house with anything that could pass for a sword.

Gill

The Huguenot Society

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries French protestants were persecuted for their faith. These protestants appear to have become known as Huguenots from an old German word for an oath but the word became an epiphet used by their enemies. The conflict became open civil warfare during the French Wars of Religion (1562-98).

The protestant Henri IV effectively ended the war by converting to Catholicism and established rights for protestants by the Edict of Nantes. Unfortunately, the peace was not secure and civil war broke out again in the 1620s. Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and in the succeeding years it is estimated that 400,000 protestants left France.

In the United Kingdom they settled in London, but also in many provincial cities such as Norwich, Canterbury, Bristol and Plymouth. The Huguenot Socity of London was founded in the nineteenth century to publicize information about these emigrees and to "create a bond of fellowship".

Their website has excellent resources for those researching their family history among Huguenot communities and some information that anyone reading French registers will find helpful.

A Kind Granny

Emma Jane Grew nee Degville

A few years ago, following the death of my husband's aunt we visited her husband. As we walked down the garden path we smelt the smoke from a bonfire behind the house.

Her son and his wife were incinerating his mother's belongings, personal things collected over a lifetime. Precious to her, rubbish to them... What affected me profoundly, was the sight of photos being tossed into the flames, curling with the heat, blackening and rising as ash with the smoke.

"Why are you burning  photos, " I asked.
"We don't know who half of them are," came the reply.

Like most people I've 'inherited' photos from deceased parents or grandparents.They're stored in boxes at the bottom of the cupboard, occasionally looked at. Some I can identify, others I think I maybe know, but many are 'before my time' and unfortunately there's no longer an older generation to ask.

But even these nameless ones are part of my past and have a connection to the present through me. So, usually on long winter nights out they come and I name who I know or add something such as "my mum's cousin" and give a choice who it might be.

Why bother you might think, who will care? Very recently, my cousin Gill and I were looking through a file of paperwork.

"Who's this?" She asked. There she was, Emma Jane Grew nee Degville, our great grandmother, George Degville's granddaughter. Our direct link to George. The person from whom had come the stories.

So he wasn't the dashing fencing master fleeing the revolutionaries, but nor was he the pauper in the workhouse, but it was those stories that incited the urge to discover our ancestry.

I don't remember from whom the photo came or when I got it, but fortunately I'd named her and we were looking at her heavy lidded eyes and wavy hair, and recognising her familiarity. In my dad's words, "My kind granny."

Maybe a future generation will look at an old photo from a box passed down, see a vaguely familiar face, turn it over and discover their past.

Marilyn