Sandrine Berges
  • Home
  • Liberty in thy name!
  • The Philosophy of Domesticity
    • The Home: A Philosophical Project
  • Women Philosophers Calendars
  • Research
  • Public Philosophy
  • Events
    • Wollstonecraft at Bilkent
    • Bridging the Gender Gap Through Time
    • Wollapalooza
    • Wollapalooza II
  • Historical zombies and other fiction
  • Teaching
  • Crafts and things
  • Feminist History of Philosophy

Liberty in their Names

Get the Free Calendar
Order the book!

Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint George: Composer and Revolutionary Soldier

9/26/2018

0 Comments

 
Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint George was born in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe on Christmas day 1745. His father, George de Bologne, was a prostestant planter, married with one daughter Elizabeth, and his mother was his father’s Senegalese slave, Nanon. According to the Black Code of 1685, had Boulogne not already been married, he would have been obliged to marry Nanon. Joseph was a ‘mulatto’, or a man of colour of the first degree.

In 1759, the whole family, legitimate and unlegitimate, moved to Paris. Joseph received a first class education and distinguished himself in fencing and music. He made use of both skills during his lifetime, as a musician first, and as a soldier during the revolution. 

Picture
His musical career was both brilliant and thwarted. As a successful composer and a protege of Marie Antoinette, he was offered in 1775 the directorship of the Academie Royale, the Paris Opera. But two of its leading sopranos reportedly complain that they would not work under the leadership of a black man, so he was not appointed. 
 
The gossip columnist of the Correspondance wrote the following: 
​
No sooner were Mesdemoiselles Arnould, Guimard, Rosalie, and others informed about the news [that Saint-Georges had been proposed as music director of the Opéra], they presented a petition to the Queen, assuring her Majesty that “their honor and their delicate conscience could never allow them to submit to the orders of a mulatto.” Such an important consideration makes all the impression it is expected to make, but, after many projects and discussions regarding the matter, the question has been decided by the king, who in the end took it upon himself to have the Opéra managed on his behalf by the Intendants and Treasurers of the  Menus Plaisirs 
`You can listen to Boulogne's music here:
​

As his father had been raised to the aristocracy (taking the name Saint George) shortly before the family traveled to Paris, Joseph was welcome in high society. He was a close friend of Madame de Montesson and manager to her private theatre. There he met Olympe de Gouges, with whom he became friend. Perhaps the two collaborated in the Club des Amis des Noirs, of which they are sometimes said to have been founding members. Saint-George travelled to England in the late 1780s, and an attempt was made on his life there, perhaps because of his involvement with abolitionist movements. 
 
During the revolution he was made first captain of the national guard in Lille, then Colonel of the Black Legion, where he commanded black soldiers, amongst whom Alexander Dumas (père)’ father. His connections with the Duke d’Orleans and Dumouriez caused him to be suspende and emprisoned for 18 months, after which he traveled to Haiti to take part in the revolution there. He came back to Paris at the end of the 18thcentury and died in 1799 of bladder disease. 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    About

    This is where I live blog about my new book project, an intellectual biography of three French Revolutionary women philosophers.

    Categories

    All
    1789
    1793
    Abolitionism
    America
    Biography
    Bonheur Primitif
    Brissot
    Cabanis
    Champ De Mars Massacre
    Charity
    Charlotte Corday
    Childhood
    Conciergerie
    Condorcet
    Declaration Of The Rights Of Man
    Dumont
    Education
    England
    Eon
    Feminism
    Frances Wright
    Gender
    Germaine De Stael
    Ghostwriting
    Guillotine
    Haiti
    Hannah Mather Crocker
    Helvetius
    HIstorians
    Journalism
    La Fayette
    Les Trois Urnes
    Letters
    Letters On Sympathy
    Louise Keralio
    Macaualy
    Manon Roland
    Mary Shelley
    Memoir
    Olympe De Gouges
    Paine
    Painting
    Paris
    Pregnancy
    Prison
    Religion
    Roland
    Rousseau
    Saint-Domingue
    Salons
    September Massacres
    Sexism
    Sieyes
    Slavery
    Sophie De Grouchy
    Terror
    Theatre
    The Great Fear
    Theroigne De Mericourt
    Translation
    Trial
    Wollstonecraft

    Archives

    November 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    March 2021
    February 2021
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Liberty in thy name!
  • The Philosophy of Domesticity
    • The Home: A Philosophical Project
  • Women Philosophers Calendars
  • Research
  • Public Philosophy
  • Events
    • Wollstonecraft at Bilkent
    • Bridging the Gender Gap Through Time
    • Wollapalooza
    • Wollapalooza II
  • Historical zombies and other fiction
  • Teaching
  • Crafts and things
  • Feminist History of Philosophy