The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music

Volume 26 (2020) No. 1

Music at the Maison Royale de Saint-Louis at Saint-Cyr. By Deborah Kauffman. London and New York: Routledge, 2019. [xviii, 340 pp. ISBN 978-1-4094-5053-5.]

Reviewed by John Hajdu Heyer*

1. Introduction

2. Survey of Contents

3. Conclusion

References

1. Introduction

1.1 Perhaps the greatest impediment to a fuller understanding of seventeenth-century French sacred music lies in the dearth of surviving music that resulted from the dechristianization movement of the French Revolution. When the churches of France were abruptly converted to Temples of Reason in 1792, most of the music libraries of the cathedrals, collegiate churches, convents, and monasteries were removed, along with other church valuables, and lacking buyers, many manuscript and printed music collections were summarily destroyed or lost in the subsequent turbulence.^[1] As a result, there were composers of importance for whom no works survive. Consider Jacques Cabasolle, who served as maître de musique at cathedrals of no less importance than Notre Dame in Paris, Chartres, and Aix-en-Provence.^[2] The Mercure described him as having “a marvelous talent, and a very fine taste for composition.”^[3] Not a note of his music survives. Remarkably however, despite the extensive losses that took place in 1792, certain collections of sacred music survived the Revolution, most notably the Bibliothèque Royale, which has provided most of what has been studied so far. But a few other important music library collections survived as well and at last are receiving attention, among them the important library of the Maison Royale de Saint-Louis at Saint-Cyr.

1.2 One does not generally think of the absolute monarch Louis XIV as one to take actions to advance women’s interests, but in the later part of his reign, after the death of Queen Marie-Thérèse and Louis’s son and heir, and probably contemplating his own mortality, Louis fell under the influence of his second wife, Françoise d’Aubigné, the pious Madame de Maintenon, who encouraged him to establish the Maison Royale de Saint-Louis in the commune of Saint-Cyr, just west of Versailles. The Maison Royale was developed as a boarding school for poor girls and young women of noble blood. It enrolled 250 students (Demoiselles) and had a staff of 36 women (Dames), many of whom participated in musical instruction and activity. In Music at the Maison Royale de Saint-Louis at Saint-Cyr Deborah Kauffman presents an extensive and penetrating study exploring the history and rich musical world of the convent school at Saint-Cyr.

2. Survey of Contents

2.1 Of the eight chapters in the book, the first three focus on the history of the institution, the fourth introduces the composers, and the remaining four chapters are devoted to a study of the music. Fortunately a wealth of primary sources survive relating to the Maison Royale at Saint-Cyr, including an important two-volume manuscript titled “Mémoires de ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable depuis l’Etablissement de la Maison de Saint Cyr” (F-V Ms. F. 629–30), a source of great value that reveals much of the history of the institution, and one to which Deborah Kauffman obviously has given careful reading.

2.2 Kauffman’s opening chapter provides a concise biography of Madame de Maintenon, née Françoise d’Aubigné, from her birth and childhood until the founding of the institution in 1686; her last years are covered at the end of the chapter. The institutional history unfolds in a series of essays dealing with the establishment of the institution, its foundational years, the dramatic works performed by the wards of Saint-Cyr (the “Demoiselles”), its regularization to convent status in 1692, the role of Quietism at the school, the time after the deaths of Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon, and the institution’s final years, just before the Revolution.

2.3 Among those essays, one titled “The Crisis of Esther” draws particular interest. While the bulk of the music that survives from Saint-Cyr comes from the sacred repertoire at the Maison Royale, theater music played a role as well, with two of Jean Racine’s last works, Esther and Athalie, appearing prominently, both with music by Jean-Baptiste Moreau.^[4] The Demoiselles of Saint-Cyr performed Racine’s Esther repeatedly in 1689 and 1690 for Louis XIV and members of the royal court, evidently to great applause. It is well known that Louis XIV, once he came under the influence of Maintenon (and especially after the death of Lully), took less interest in court entertainments and opera. His keen attention to the biblical dramas presented at Saint-Cyr offers some insight into his continued interest in stage performances. The success of the productions, however, presented complications for the Demoiselles’ pious mentor, as Madame de Maintenon and others in the institution became alarmed that the young women actors were developing traits deemed unwelcome in the context of the goals of the institution: according to the Maison’s “Mémoires,” the Demoiselles in the leading roles “congratulated themselves on their success, were puffed up by vanity, and took on such an air of indocility and self-importance, that their superiors and peers were equally displeased.” This essay reveals and examines the tensions that existed between the secular and sacred spheres that Louis contemplated late in his reign, as well as his efforts to transcend them.

2.4 Chapter 2 examines the Maison Royale as an educational institution. Madame de Maintenon thought of herself as an educational innovator, and indeed, she developed and modeled educational techniques that were adopted elsewhere in France, and furthermore she advocated educational equality for women in the context of developing virtue and piety. This chapter includes essays on the educational goals of the institution, the innovative methods and approaches, and the role of music. An informative table lists the volumes of music methods and treatises owned by the Maison Royale, which included works by Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers, Pierre Dupont, Michel L’Affilard, and other seventeenth- and eighteenth-century writers. Maintenon exercised caution with regard to the development of the Demoiselles’ interest in music, imploring Madame de Pérou, the Mother Superior, to cultivate simplicity and piety over perfection, and “not to be so scrupulous about giving the girls the desire to excel in singing.” But contemporary accounts suggest that within the Demoiselles’ ranks were some well-trained singers that court audiences found both charming and beautiful. Manseau’s “Mémoires” note that the singing “astonished their Majesties with the beauty of the church melodies.”^[5] Instrumental music was also taught to some degree, and Kauffman explores the implications of surviving clues regarding the use of instruments at the Maison Royale.

2.5 The third chapter describes the daily life and musical lives of those within the Maison Royale, about which much is preserved. The highly regimented daily schedule (summarized in Table 3.1) had the Demoiselles rising at 6:00 a.m., and in structured groups attending to prayers, Mass, Offices, and classes in Bible study, catechism, French history, geography, music, arithmetic, “pious writing,” Latin, and some other subjects. An hour or so of recreation followed the midday meal, and that is when the theatrical rehearsals would take place. This schedule is not unlike what is known about the daily schedules of the boys in the choir schools of the leading cathedrals, although the extent of the detail is exceptional. The remaining sections of this chapter offer background for the music that was performed, both sacred and secular, with and without instruments, including music performed or prepared for special events.

2.6 Chapter 4 introduces the important composers who were affiliated with the Maison Royale: Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers (1632–1714), Jean-Baptiste Moreau (1656–1733), Nicolas Clérambault (1676–1749), his sons César-François-Nicolas (ca. 1708–60) and Évrard-Dominique (1710–90), and Jean-Baptiste-Louis Thomelin (1748–?). Each is presented in a concise biographical sketch that is supplemented with salient details regarding that composer’s relationship with and work at the Maison Royale. For example, we learn that Nivers, the first organist and choir master at Saint-Cyr, evidently had a strained relationship with Maintenon, but he nevertheless remained at the institution from its founding until his death in 1714, whereas Moreau was dismissed from service in 1690, probably due to complaints from local church officials who objected to the theatrical activities at the Maison Royale. Kauffman observes that the organist and music master composed almost all the music for use in the community’s church, while composers brought from outside the institution wrote the music for the theater productions. She concludes that this general separation of duties implies that “music for the church was viewed as foundational to the life of the community, while theatrical music was less a necessity and more like a treasured ornament” (p. 116).

2.7 The remaining four chapters address the rich holdings of music that have survived from the Saint-Cyr library, and how that music served the institution. An entire chapter is devoted to the genre of the cantique spirituel in its various forms, for which no fewer than 850 pieces survive from the Maison Royale, about the same number as all the motets à grand chœur that survive from all of France. The following chapter examines the theater music in detail, including Racine’s Esther and Athalie, and two other dramatic works for which music survives, on the subjects of Jephté and Jonathas. A table lists about two dozen theatrical performances known to have taken place between 1686 and 1778, including a series of at least six Idylles that were commissioned for the Maison between 1744 and 1771. The Idylles, stage works honoring special occasions in the lives of members of the royal family, most certainly helped to maintain good relations with the royal court, upon which the Maison depended for support.

2.8 The chapter dealing with liturgical chant and music at Saint-Cyr is particularly rich in information about the religious practices at the institution and the Maison Royale’s unique position in France. Here Kauffman has drawn from a trove of primary sources, including the “Mémoires” of the Maison Royale, the correspondence of Madame de Maintenon, archival sources, and of course manuscript musical sources. Together these give a remarkably clear picture of the role of music both in daily celebrations of the Offices and Mass and at special occasions. The latter included investitures of the novitiate, the ceremony that applied when they continued to their religious profession, funeral ceremonies, but more remarkably, consecration ceremonies for bishops, for which at least six were held at Saint-Cyr between 1692 and 1751, reflecting the exceptional importance the institution maintained in France.

2.9 The last chapter is dedicated to the petit motet and its role in the liturgy at Saint-Cyr. This chapter holds the most interest for those studying the motet in France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.^[6] During the course of her continued study of the Maison Royale and its music, Deborah Kauffman published a collection of the Saint-Cyr motets, an edition that just scratched the surface of the vast collection of motets that the library held.^[7] Natalie Berton-Blivet’s catalog (see n. 6) lists no fewer than 1044 petit motets that survive in France, but those are just the ones that were published. More petits motets survived in manuscript collections, including many at Saint-Cyr; today these rest in the municipal library in Versailles (F-V). Kauffman chose a representative selection of twenty-eight motets for her edition, and while most of those came from the printed sources, some appeared only in manuscript. The chapter examines the various collections in detail and outlines the history of the development of the petit motet at the Maison. In 1733 Clérambault published a collection titled Chants et motets à l’usage de l’Eglise et Communauté des Dames de la Royale Maison de St. Louis à St. Cyr, works mostly by Nivers and Clérambault, but that collection did not include all the motets that were in the library at the time. In the later eighteenth century, a few years before the Revolution, a composer named Du Gué, probably Abbé Jean-Baptiste Guilleminot Du Gué (who flourished in the second half of the eighteenth century), but possibly Philippe Du Gué (also mid eighteenth century), was charged and paid to “reform” the motets.^[8] Only five motets from the Saint-Cyr manuscripts are actually attributed to Du Gué, but those are in proximity to a large number of anonymous motets that might also be his work. A study of those motets could reveal what was meant by that “reform” effort. In sum, this chapter reveals much information on this important collection of petits motets and paves the way for more study.

3. Conclusion

3.1 The hardback volume is well produced. It uses a font for both the main text and for the notes that is friendly to aging vision. A strength of this book is that Deborah Kauffman turns regularly to primary source materials to support the narratives, and she provides both English translations and the original French on the page of the main text, a most welcome feature. Footnotes, however, are not presented on the page, but as endnotes after each chapter. This aspect becomes much friendlier to the reader in digital formats, of which there are several (I bought a Kindle version), but readers of this Journal will be well aware of the limitations as well as the advantages of electronic versions of scholarly books—in the Kindle, for instance, the absence of original pagination. Routledge offers an e-book (ISBN 978-1-315-59674-7) that has cumbersome limitations in its search feature.

3.2 This comprehensive study’s importance lies in both historical and musical aspects: the book addresses the entire history of the school from before its founding until its termination at the time of the French Revolution, a timespan that encompasses more than a century in the reign of the Bourbon dynasty, and it reveals the depth and breadth of the musical and cultural significance of the institution, as well as its daily activities. Because so much of the religious music of France was destroyed in the ravages of the dechristianization movement, the sources that survive from Saint-Cyr, including its music library and many documents related to its history and its musical activity, are treasures that take on greater significance, one that must be viewed in context due to the exceptional nature of the Maison Royale. Deborah Kauffman’s thorough and inquiring study offers much that will be of relevance to historians with interest in women’s studies, the education of women, French history, society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the musicological understanding of the old regime.