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MARGUERITE DE VALOIS, REINE DE NAVARRE (1553–1615): PATRONESS AND PERFORMER

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2015

Margaret M. McGowan
Margaret M. McGowan*
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
*
Email: mcgowanm00@gmail.com
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Abstract

This essay studies the role played by Marguerite de Valois in the cultural life of the French court from early childhood until her death in 1615. Trained to perform in public, Marguerite acquired languages and diplomatic skills, and cultivated music and dancing in particular. Her passion for dancing and the energy and mastery she displayed in performance is traced through the testimony of contemporary records (French, Italian and English), through her own recollections, and through a discussion of her patronage of musicians, poets and dancers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 34 , October 2015 , pp. 191 - 206
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 de Bourdeille, Pierre, de Brantôme, seigneur, Oeuvres complètes, 8 vols. (Paris, 1822), vii, pp. 29Google Scholar and 36. For an assessment of Brantôme’s judgements on dancing, consult my Dance in the Renaissance: European Fashion, French Obsession (New Haven and London, 2008).

2 ‘The king was installed on his magnificent royal seat just below the dais, the Queen and Queen Marguerite sat beside his Majesty.’ Le Grand bal de la royne Marguerite faict devant le Roy, la Royne et Madame (Paris, 1612).

3 Ballet de Monseigneur le duc de Vendosme, Dancé le douziesme [janvier] en la ville de Paris (Paris, 1610); reprinted in Canova-Green, Marie-Claude, Ballets pour Louis XIII: Danse et politique à la cour de France (1610–1643), 2 vols. (Littératures classiques; Toulouse, 2010), i, pp. 1–25Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 5.

5 An assessment of all the festivities put on in Paris to celebrate the future union between France and Spain can be found in M. McGowan, Margaret (ed.), Dynastic Marriages 1612/1615: A Celebration of the Habsburg and Bourbon Unions (Farnham, 2012)Google Scholar. Detailed information on the newly constructed Place Royale is given in ch. 6, Chatenet, Monique, ‘The Carrousel on the Place Royale: Production, Costumes and Décor’, pp. 95–114Google Scholar.

6 Ferrière, Artaud de La, Le XVI e siècle et les Valois d’après les documents inédits du British Museum et du Record Office (Paris, 1879)Google Scholar; record reproduced p. 180.

7 All the detailed accounts of the journey to Bayonne and of the festivals held there may be found in the Appendices (XIII–XXI, pp. 284–380) of Graham, Victor E. and Johnson, W. McAllister, The Royal Tour of France by Charles IX and Catherine de’ Medici: Festivals and Entries, 1564–6 (Toronto, 1979)Google Scholar.

8 de Valois, Marguerite, Mémoires, ed. Joseph François Michaud and Jean Joseph François Poujoulat (Mémoires pour server à l’Histoire de France, 1st ser. 10 (Paris, 1938), p. 403Google Scholar.

9 For a contemporary account of this ballet, see Dorat, Jean, Magnificentissimi spectaculi in Henrici Regis Poloniae gratulationem descriptio (Paris, 1573)Google Scholar; a more detailed evocation of the ballet can be found in his Poemata (Paris, 1586), pp. 122–3. For a discussion of the possible confusion in Marguerite’s reporting, consult McGowan, , Dance in the Renaissance, pp. 164–165Google Scholar, 187.

10 For a discussion of the music and dancing at Bayonne, see McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, pp. 161–5; Laurent Guillo has studied the accounts relating to the king’s journey and to the fêtes at Bayonne, , ‘Un violon sous le bras et les pieds dans la poussière: Les violins italiens du roi durant le voyage de Charles IX (1564–1566)’, in François Lesure and Henri Vanhulst (eds.), La Musique de tous les passetemps le plus beau: Hommage à Jean-Michel Vaccaro (Paris, 1998), pp. 207–233Google Scholar.

11 de Valois, Marguerite, Mémoires, p. 403Google Scholar.

12 For a discussion of the temporary octagonal hall erected at great expense on this occasion by Catherine de Médicis, see McGowan, ‘Space for Dancing, accommodating Performer and Spectator in Renaissance France’, in Architectures for Festival (in press).

13 For the specific payments to the musicians who performed at Bayonne, see Handy, Isabelle, Musiciens au temps des derniers Valois, 1547–89 (Paris, 2008), Doc. 2, ‘Extraits concernant la participation des musiciens’, from Archives nationales, KK 130, Rencontre de Bayonne, pp. 576–585Google Scholar.

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15 An opinion recorded in Sorbin, A., Histoire contenant un abrégé de la vie, moeurs et vertus du Roy très chrestien et débonnaire Charles IX (Paris, 1574)Google Scholar, fol. 32: ‘qu’il [Charles IX] chérissoit uniquement et constituoit iuge de tout ce que se présentoit de bon en musique’.

16 Isabelle Handy, Musiciens, has studied the role of musicians in the Fichier Laborde at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and in the Archives nationales. Her erudite findings have traced the activities of many; for Chevalier, see p. 81.

17 Cited in Ingrid De Smet, A. R., ‘Philosophy for Princes: Aristotle’s Politics and its Readers during the French Wars of Religion’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 76 (2013), pp. 23–47Google Scholar, at p. 38.

18 An inventory of the Library of Marguerite de Valois was made after her death (27 Mar. 1615); it is published with a commentary by Baudouin-Matuszek, Marie-Noëlle, ‘La Bibliothèque de Marguerite de Valois’, in Isabelle de Conihout, Jean-François Maillard and Guy Poirier (eds.), Henri III mécène des arts, des sciences et des lettres (Paris, 2006), pp. 273–292Google Scholar.

19 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Urb. Lat. 1697, title page, fols. 2r–3r, Rellatione del viaggio fatto dal’Ill.mo. et R.mo card. Allesandrino legato apostolico alli ser.mi Re di Francia, Spagna e Portogallo, con le annotationi delle cose più principali delle città, terre et luochi descritto da M. Gio. Venturino da Fabiano.

20 The legate and his entourage returned to Bologna, arriving on 23 Mar. 1572.

21 Venturino’s account of his sojourn in France is almost exclusively concerned with life at Court and the entertainments enjoyed there. His comments are on fols. 291v–334v of MS Urb. Lat. 1697.

22 Ibid., fol. 301v.

23 Ibid., fol. 303r.

24 Ibid., fol. 306r.

25 The most complete, but somewhat prejudiced, account of these marriage celebrations can be found in Goulart, Simon, Mémoires de l’Estat de France sous Charles IX, 3 vols. (Middelbourg, 1578)Google Scholar; see also de Thou, Jacques Auguste, Histoire universelle, 11 vols. (London, 1734)Google Scholar, book 52 (1572). For an analysis of the festival, McGowan, , Dance in the Renaissance, pp. 87–90Google Scholar.

26 McGowan, , ‘Fêtes: Religious and Political Conflict Dramatized. The Role of Charles IX’, in Elizabeth Vinestock and David Foster (eds.), Writers in Conflict in Sixteenth-Century France (Durham, 2008), pp. 215–238Google Scholar.

27 For the efforts of the Académie to reproduce the effects thought to have been created by the music of the Greeks, see Yates, Frances A., The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century (London, 1947)Google Scholar, and Bonniffet, Pierre, Un Ballet démasqué (Geneva, 1988)Google Scholar, together with his ‘Esquisses du ballet humaniste (1572–1581)’, Cahiers de L’IRHMES, 1 (Geneva, 1992), pp. 15–49.

28 As reported by de Thou, Histoire, book 52 (1572), p. 379.

29 The ability to match music and dance is reported by Henri Sauval (Histoire et recherches de la ville de Paris (Paris, 1724)) in his discussion of the music of Jacques Mauduit; the details are cited in Dobbins, Frank, ‘The Concordance of Music and Poetry in the French Renaissance’, in Philip Ford and Gillian Jondorf (eds.), Poetry and Music in the French Renaissance (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 1–15Google Scholar.

30 McGowan, , Dance in the Renaissance, p. 88Google Scholar.

31 See Handy, , Musiciens, p. 82Google Scholar.

32 For a history of French ballet de cour, see McGowan, , L’Art du Ballet de cour en France, 1581–1643 (Paris, 1964)Google Scholar.

33 Brantôme, , Oeuvres complètes, v, pp. 183–184Google Scholar.

34 Ehrmann, Jean, Antoine Caron, Peintre des Fêtes et des Massacres (Paris, 1986), p. 212Google Scholar, fig. 210.

35 For a recent appraisal of the context of this festival, Kociszewska, Ewa, ‘War and Seduction in Cybele’s Garden: Contextualizing the Ballet des Polonais’, Renaissance Quarterly, 65 (2012), pp. 809–863CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Philippe Desportes, Stances aux dames parées, contribution to the so-called Album de Retz, a collection of works dedicated to Claude-Catherine de Clermont, maréchale de Retz. On this Album, see Buron, Emmanuel, ‘Le Salon de Mme de Retz’, in Conihout, Maillard and Poirier (eds.), Henri III, mécène, pp. 305–315Google Scholar.

37 Brantôme, , Oeuvres complètes, viii, p. 73Google Scholar.

38 For information on Marguerite’s sojourn in Navarre, see Lauzun, Philippe, who studied her accounts 1578–86, Itinéraire raisonné de Marguerite de Valois en Gascoigne, d’après ses livres de comptes (Paris, 1902)Google Scholar.

39 The duc de Sully’s recollections have been collected by Lauzun, Itinéraire, pp. 55, 62–3, 105, 115 and 117, who also illustrates the king’s love of dancing, for which see also De Thou, Histoire, book 33 (1562), p. 434. As far as Sully was concerned, his mania for dancing can be glimpsed from his own Mémoires, where his account of the festivities at his Paris home, l’Arsenal, details the building of a new theatre to make the experience of dancing more agreeable to the king and his court; see Nouvelle collection des mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France, ed. Michaud and Poujoulat, 2nd ser. 3 (Paris, 1881), pp. 222–3.

40 The cornet player Nicolas Delinet, for example, was paid 100 écus by Henri de Navarre, who had asked (20 Mar. 1579) that he be sent from Paris to participate in the fêtes; Handy, Musiciens, p. 105.

41 D’Aubigné’s remarks can be found in Fernand Desonay’s edition of Le Printemps, Stances et Odes (Textes Littéraires Français; Geneva, 1952), p. xxxviii.

42 Archives nationales, KK 130, comptes de Marguerite de Valois.

43 For an account of her sojourn in the Low Countries, see Marguerite de Valois, Mémoires, pp. 427–38.

44 The details of all these expenses and payments to poets and violinists are recorded in Archives nationales, KK 130.

45 These programmes are very valuable for the historian of ballet as, after their use during the performance, they were printed along with extra verses composed by poets for the occasion, using the publication as a means of advertising their talent.

46 For works composed by Guillaume de Baïf, see Iain Fenlon, ‘Competition and Emulation: Music and Dance for the Celebrations in Paris, 1612–1615’, in McGowan (ed.), Dynastic Marriages, pp. 136–53, notably pp. 140–1. It should be noted that Guillaume also composed the texts for the 1612 horse ballet.

47 Edward, , Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Autobiography and History of England under Henry VIII (London, 1870), p. 45Google Scholar.

48 Ibid., pp. 25 and 34.

49 The manuscript, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum (MS Mu 689), contains 242 pieces of solo lute music principally by English and French composers; it is described and set in context by Iain Fenlon (ed.), Cambridge Music Manuscripts, 900–1700 (Cambridge, 1982), no. 49, pp. 155–9. The manuscript was probably collated at the same time from a variety of sources, especially from French musicians like Julien Perrichon (court lutenist to Henri IV), Jacques Gaultier (lutenist who later sojourned in England) or the royal publisher Robert Ballard. It contains many dances – courantes, pavanes and galliards – some composed by the violinist Jacques de Belleville, who was responsible for a large number of tunes danced at Louis XIII’s court. I would like to thank Dr Elisabeth Giselbrecht for having provided me with an analysis of the manuscript.

50 For a discussion of Michel Henry’s manuscript (Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 24357, fols. 310–17), Table de Ballets à 3, 4 et 5 parties qui se trouvent dans un recueil fait en 1600 [sic] par Michel Henry l’un des 24 violons, copié sur l’original dudit Michel Henry, see McGowan, , L’Art du Ballet, p. 50Google Scholar; for a modern copy of Henry’s list, Lesure, François, ‘Le Recueil de Ballets de Michel Henry (vers 1620)’, in Jean Jacquot (ed.), Les Fêtes de la Renaissance, i (Paris, 1956), pp. 205–220Google Scholar.

51 For a discussion of this work, see McGowan, , L’Art du Ballet, pp. 63–67Google Scholar.

52 Bataille, Gabriel, Airs de différents autheurs mis en tablature du luth (Paris, 1609)Google Scholar, fols. 5v, 6v and 7v; published again in 1614, pp. 6, 7 and 8.

53 Henry, in MS fr. 24357, no. 116, notes ‘Les parties de M. Chevalier’, an oboe player and a violinist in the king’s service. Chevalier (according to Henry’s record) started to contribute to court ballets in 1599 and he participated regularly until, at least, 1617. He contributed to thirty-three ballets in all; see Buch, David J., Dance Music from the Ballet de Cour 1575–1651: Historical Commentary, Source Study, and Transcriptions from the Philidor Manuscripts (New York, 1994)Google Scholar.

54 Archives nationales, KK 180, fols. 15–24v.

55 The various contemporary reports on these incidents were collected together by Ratel, Simone, ‘La Cour de la reine Marguerite’, Revue du XVI esiècle, 11–12Google Scholar (1924–5).

56 On Bordier’s ballet, see McGowan, L’Art du Ballet, ch. 8, ‘Le Ballet Burlesque’, pp. 133–53; the text has been republished by Marie-Claude Canova-Green and Claudine Nédelec, Ballets Burlesques pour Louis XIII: Danse et jeux de transgression (1622–1638) (Société de littératures classiques; Toulouse, 2012), pp. 103–15.

57 Tallemant, Gédéon, Réaux, sieur des, Historiettes, ed. Georges Mongrédien, 8 vols. (Paris, n.d.), iii, p. 9Google Scholar.

58 Sonnets pour Hélène, II: 30, discussed as a dance of elevation in McGowan, , Ideal Forms in the Age of Ronsard (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1985), pp. 223–226Google Scholar; as a mode of transformation, McGowan, Dance in the Renaissance, pp. 211–212Google Scholar; and as an example of Ronsard’s concern with processes of change, Quainton, Malcolm, ‘Creative Choreography: Intertextual Dancing in Ronsard’s Sonnets pour Hélène: II: 30’, in John O’Brien and Malcolm Quainton (eds.), Distant Voices still Heard: Contemporary Readings of French Renaissance Literature (Liverpool, 2000), pp. 155–170CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 Analysis of this poem in McGowan, , Dance in the Renaissance, pp. 222–228Google Scholar.

60 Quotations from La Charite are taken from Ronsard’s Les Amours, ed. H. and C. Weber (Paris, 1963), pp. 363–8.