René Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt
Encyclopedia
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
s such as The Dog of Montarges
The Dog of Montarges
The Dog of Montargis, or Murder in the Wood was a 19th century melodrama, based on the tale of Robert Macaire and his trial-by-combat with a dog...
, the performance of which at Weimar roused the indignation of Goethe.
Life
He was born at Nancy into a Lorraine family of rural nobles. His parents, after the sale of the Pixerécourt estate, bought another in the VosgesVosges
Vosges is a French department, named after the local mountain range. It contains the hometown of Joan of Arc, Domrémy.-History:The Vosges department is one of the original 83 departments of France, created on February 9, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was made of territories that had been...
, Saint-Vallier
Saint-Vallier, Vosges
Saint-Vallier is a commune in the Vosges department in Lorraine in northeastern France.- References :*...
, in the hope of recovering their feudal and manorial rights, and possibly in time acquiring a marquisate. The château was in poor condition, the kind which "could make you a marquis and a mendicant in the same instant" in the words of Jules Janin
Jules Janin
Jules Gabriel Janin was a French writer and critic.-Biography:Born in Saint-Étienne , Janin's father was a lawyer, and he was educated first at St. Étienne, and then at the lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris...
. The family's hopes were ruined by the Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. At the age of twenty, in 1793, Pixerécourt abandoned his studies of law and left Nancy "on the day of the King's death" to meet his father at Koblenz
Koblenz
Koblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck and its monument are situated.As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the...
and enter the Breton regiment as an officer in the army of Condé
Army of Condé
The Army of Condé was a French field army during the French Revolutionary Wars. One of several émigré field armies, it was the only one to survive the War of the First Coalition; others had been formed by the Comte d'Artois and Mirabeau-Tonneau...
. At the end of the year he returned to France to make his fortune, entering via Nancy and arriving in Paris on 27 February 1794 at the height of the Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
. After the denunciations of the Committee of Public Safety
Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety , created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793, formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror , a stage of the French Revolution...
, Pixerécourt owed his life to the protection of Lazare Carnot
Lazare Carnot
Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, Comte Carnot , the Organizer of Victory in the French Revolutionary Wars, was a French politician, engineer, and mathematician.-Education and early life:...
who, for nearly two years, employed him as a secretary in the Ministry of War. He then obtained two posts, one in the Administration of Domains and another in that of Registrations, both of which he was to retain for thirty years and which allowed him, particularly at the beginning, the pursuit of a career in the theatre. He would eventually become director of the Théâtre royal de l’Opéra-Comique (from 1824 to 1827) and of the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique
Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique
The theatre was rebuilt to plans by the architects Jacques Ignace Hittorff and Jean-François-Joseph Lecointe on the boulevard Saint-Martin, at the corner of rue de Bondy...
.
The general mistrust of ex-émigrés prompted him to take the pseudonym of "Charles" for his first works. He had taken only one book with him into exile: the Nouvelles of Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian
Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian
Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian was a French poet and romance writer.-Life:...
, which gave him the subject of his first two plays: Sélico ou les Nègres généreux ("Sélico, or The Magnanimous Slaves"), purchased by the Théâtre-Français, and Claudine ou l’Anglais vertueux ("Claudine, or the Virtuous Englishman"), taken up by Salle Favart. His first great success came in 1800 with Cœlina ou l’Enfant du mystère ("Coelina, or The Child of Mystery"). The following year, in April, Le Pèlerin blanc ou les Enfants du hameau ("The White Pilgrim, or the Children of the Village") ran for 386 performances at L’Ambigu. This was nearly beaten by L'Homme à trois visages ("The Man With Three Faces") which ran for 378 nights at the same theatre. In September 1802, La Femme à deux maris ("The Wife With Two Husbands") continued his good fortune. In 1803, Tékéli, performed by Tantin and Mme Bourgeois, broke his previous record with a run of 430 nights. In 1805, La Forteresse du Danube and Robinson Crusoé ran for a whole year at the Porte-Saint-Martin.
In 1809, he began writing for the Théâtre de la Gaîté, his first play there being La Citerne; on 30 October 1810, his first hit was Les Ruines de Babylone. From then until 1814, his success continued, with a major triumph in the June of that year with Le Chien de Montargis (400 performances). In 1815, after the total failure of Christophe Colomb, he regained success with Le Monastère abandonné ou la Malédiction paternelle ("The Abandoned Monastery, or the Paternal Curse") which lasted 267 performances. And in 1818, still at La Gaîté, Le Belvédère ou la Vallée de l’Etna ("The Belvedere, or the Valley of Etna") owed its success not just to the playwright but also to the magnificent art direction of Louis Daguerre
Louis Daguerre
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was a French artist and physicist, recognized for his invention of the daguerreotype process of photography.- Biography :...
who contributed the volcanic backdrop. In 1819, he returned to L’Ambigu with La Fille de l’Exilé ou Huit mois en deux heures ("The Exile's Daughter, or Eight Months and Two Hours").
From 1820, his successes continued, albeit with around a hundred performances for each play: Le Drapeau blanc ("The White Flag", 1821), Ali Baba ou les Quarante voleurs ("Ali Baba, or the Forty Thieves", 1822), Le Moulin des Étangs ("The Mill", 1826), and La Tête de mort ou les Ruines de Pompéi ("The Death's-Head, or the Ruins of Pompeii", 1827). Some plays were written in collaboration, like La Muette de la forêt ("The Mute Girl of the Forest", 1828). His last play before retiring as director of the Opéra-Comique in 1827 would be Latude ou Trente-cinq ans de captivité ("Latude, or 35 Years of Captivity"), written with his young disciple Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois
Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois
Auguste Anicet, later Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois was a French dramatist. He was born in Paris.The first play to bear his name is L'Ami et le mari, ou le Nouvel Amphitryon, a vaudeville in one act...
. For nearly forty years, he maintained his energetic activities as author, theatre director and government inspector. His immense success as a dramatic author led to him being dubbed the Corneille des Boulevards. Paul Lacroix recalled that Charles Nodier
Charles Nodier
Jean Charles Emmanuel Nodier , was a French author who introduced a younger generation of Romanticists to the conte fantastique, gothic literature, vampire tales, and the importance of dreams as part of literary creation, and whose career as a librarian is often underestimated by literary...
placed him in the first rank of authors of his generation. His reputation was almost as high in Russia, Germany, and England. His wealth allowed him to add many rare books to his library, the great passion of his life. A distich inscribed above the door read: Tel est le triste sort de tout livre prêté: Souvent il est perdu, toujours il est gâté. ("Such is the sad fate of every lent book: Often it is lost, always it is marred.") And inside each of his books, a slip of paper read: Un livre est un ami qui ne change jamais. ("A book is a friend who never changes.")
On 21 February 1835, the Théâtre de la Gaîté, on the Boulevard du Temple
Boulevard du Temple
The Boulevard du Temple is a thoroughfare in Paris that separates the 3rd arrondissement from the 11th. It runs from the Place de la République to the Place Pasdeloup, and its name refers to the nearby Knights Templars' Temple where they established their Paris priory.-History:The Boulevard du...
, was completely destroyed by fire. His last play there was Bijou ou l’Enfant de Paris ("Bijou, or the Child of Paris"): apparently firework effects were being tested during a dress rehearsal. The Théâtre de la Gaîté would however be reconstructed very rapidly, with metal frames, to reopen on 19 November, the reconstruction being overseen by Bernard Léon who had only just bought the venue for 500 000 francs. (Nevertheless it would merge with L’Ambigu only ten years later.) Pixerécourt won the day in court and avoided ruin. Although he was not the theatre's owner, he had lost an immense quantity of properties and scenery (estimated as worth 300 000 francs) which contributed greatly to the success of his dramatic presentations. The stress of the accident greatly damaged his health. Already a victim of kidneystones and gout, he had his first attack of apoplexy, and his eyesight began to fail.
Around 1838, he left his Parisian "headquarters" at Fontenay-sous-Bois
Fontenay-sous-Bois
Fontenay-sous-Bois is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-Name:The name Fontenay was recorded in the Middle Ages as Fontanetum, meaning "the springs", from Medieval Latin fontana .The commune was known alternatively as Fontenay-les-Bois ,...
(a house which had belonged to his friend, the composer Nicolas Dalayrac
Nicolas Dalayrac
Nicolas-Marie d'Alayrac, known as Nicolas Dalayrac , was a French composer, best known for his opéras-comiques.- Biography :...
, whose biography he had written) and retired to his birthplace, Nancy, possibly living in a house southeast of the town at Haussonville
Haussonville
Haussonville is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in north-eastern France....
, le seul bien que m’ait laissé ma famille ("the only property my family has left me"), where, greatly weakened, he set about editing his complete works. His Théâtre choisi was published at Nancy in four volumes from 1841 to 1843. He also published the catalogue of his library at Saint-Nicolas-de-Port
Saint-Nicolas-de-Port
Saint-Nicolas-de-Port is a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle département in north-eastern France.Its inhabitants are known asPortois. In the past, the Portois were known as loudmouths; their neighbours across the Meurthe at Varangéville liked to gather on the opposite river bank to bombard them...
. He had possessed more than 4000 volumes, purchased over many years for 100 000 francs, and the value of which had greatly increased when they were sold on 22 January 1839 at the Libraire Crozet, at Paris.