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The Exiled Court of James II and James III: A Centre of Italian Music in France, 1689–1712

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Edward T. Corp
Edward T. Corp*
Affiliation:
Université de Paris VII
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Extract

Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688–9, James II and the Stuart royal family lived in exile as the guests of Louis XIV at the Château de St-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris. James II died in 1701 and was succeeded as king-in-exile by his son, James III. The court of these two kings remained at St-Germain-en-Laye for well over 20 years, until James III was expelled from France at the demand of the British government.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 120 , Issue 2 , 1995 , pp. 216 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 Royal Musical Association

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References

An earlier version of this article was delivered at the British Library on 21 April 1994 as a Stefan Zweig lecture, at the kind invitation of Michael Oliver I should also like to record my gratitude to Jane Clark, who gave me invaluable help on a number of points concerning Fede and Couperin Above all, I am deeply indebted to Jean Lionnet, who shared with me the discovery of Fede's music at the Bibhothèque Nationale, analysed the manuscript scores and generously contributed his unrivalled knowledge of music and musicians at Rome in the late seventeenth centuryGoogle Scholar

1 The son of James II has frequently been referred to as the (Old) Pretender, and often still is As this article concerns the royal court of St-Germain-en-Laye, where he was always known as James III, he will be referred to here by that title, following the practice observed in recent publications on JacobitismGoogle Scholar

2 In 1992 the present author organized an exhibition on the Stuart court in exile at St-Germain-en-Laye It was put on in the Château de St-Germain, now the Musée des Antiquités Nationales, from 13 February to 27 April, with an illustrated catalogue published by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux La cour des Stuarts à Saint-Germatn-en-Laye au temps de Louis XIV, ed Edward T. Corp and Jacqueline Sanson (Paris, 1992) See also L'autre exil Les Jacobites en France au début du X VIIIe siècle, ed. Edward T Corp (Montpellier, 1993), and The Stuart Court in Exile and the Jacobites, ed Edward T Corp and Eveline Cruickshanks (London, 1995)Google Scholar

3 Benoit, Marcelle, Versailles et les musiciens du roi, 1661–1733 (Paris, 1971), 275Google Scholar

4 Windsor Castle, Royal Archives, Stuart Papers (hereafter SP) Misc vol XVIII, Book of Entries and Warrants, 1689–1701, published in Historical Manuscripts Commission, Stuart Papers at Windsor Castle (hereafter HMC Stuart), i (London, 1902), and Marquis de Ruvigny et Raineval, The Jacobite Peerage (Edinburgh, 1904)Google Scholar

5 The registers are preserved in the Hôtel de Ville at St-Germain-en-Laye The relevant entries were published in Charles E Lart, Jacobite Extracts of Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1689–1720, 2 vols (London, 1910–12)Google Scholar

6 British Library, Add MSS 31476 (Laudate, puert, dominum), 31480 (Exsurgat deus) and 31502 (Vient, ò caro)Google Scholar

7 Bibliothèque Nationale, Département de Musique, H 659Google Scholar

8 Versailles, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS mus. 161Google Scholar

9 See Lionnet, Jean, ‘Innocenzo Fede et la musique à la cour des Jacobites à Saint-Germain-en-Laye’, La cour des Stuarts, ed Corp and Sanson, 102–3 A longer article by Lionnet with the same title was published in Revue de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 46 (winter 1992, a special number devoted to ‘Les Jacobites‘), 14–18 See also Jane Clark, François Couperin, Pièces de clavecin The Background, Bate Collection Handbook (Oxford, 1992), esp pp 2, 6–7, 11Google Scholar

10 Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, MS 14266, Journal of David Nairne, 1655–1708 References to this journal will cite ‘Nairne’ and the dateGoogle Scholar

11 Details of the king's musical establishment in England are given by Andrew Ashbee in Records of English Court Music, ii, 1685–1714 (Snodland, 1987) I am grateful to Dr Ashbee for his generous help during my researchGoogle Scholar

12 Caryll was replaced at Rome by Lord Castlemaine in 1686 Castlemaine lived at St-Germain until about 1694–5Google Scholar

13 Ashbee, Records of English Court Music, ii, p xiGoogle Scholar

14 For all details concerning Fede's career in Italy, see the articles by Jean Lionnet cited above in note 9, which supersede Robert Lamar Weaver's article ‘Fede, Innocenzo’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, 1980), vi, 446Google Scholar

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16 Publich Occurrences, 26 June 1688, describing a concert given on 18 June Quoted in Edmund Sebastian van der Straeten, The Romance of the Fiddle (London, 1911), 124Google Scholar

17 London, Public Record Office, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic fames II, iii, fune 1687-February 1689 (London, 1972), 406Google Scholar

18 London, Public Record Office, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic William III, i, February 1689-April 1690 (London, 1895), 7–8Google Scholar

19 Windsor Castle. Royal Archives. SP 1/79, salaries for the 3 last months of the year 1693Google Scholar

20 Household lists have survived for 1693, 1696, 1701, 1703, 1709, 1715 and 1716 They are all cued in Corp, ‘La maison du roi à Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1689–1718’, L'autre exil, 55–78 (pp 73–6)Google Scholar

21 This was his full name, but he was more familiarly known as ‘Mr Baptiste’ He was also appointed Page of the Bedchamber to the queen, and died at St-Germain in May 1706, aged 52.Google Scholar

22 Dictionary of National Biography, ed Sir Sidney Lee, 22 vols (London, 1885–1900), xv, 82 Paisible and his wife were given passes to return to England on 31 January 1698 (House of Lords, Manuscripts of the House of Lords, new ser, v (London, 1910), 206, I am grateful to Eveline Cruickshanks for this reference) There is music by Paisible in the first two volumes of H 659 at the Bibliothèque NationaleGoogle Scholar

23 Windsor Castle. Royal Archives, SP 42/71, certificate by Fede, 2 March 1719Google Scholar

24 Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, MS 10533, Waldegrave to Bromfield, 22 April 1695, Manuscripts of the House of Lords, new ser, v, 207 After leaving St-Germain, Abel travelled to Hanover and even visited William III at Het Loo The music he published in London after his return was strongly anti Jacobite See the note by Mr Cresset (Resident at Hanover) attached to the British Library's copy of Abel's A Collection of Songs in Several Languages (London, 1701) I am grateful to Michael Oliver for this information Abel's colourful career is well described in Ian Spink, ‘Abell, John (i)‘. The New Grove Dictionary, i, 15–16 which however makes no reference to his having been at St-GermainGoogle Scholar

25 Thomas Heywood and Gianbattista Cazale were both appointed Page of the Bedchamber to the queen, which suggests that she listened to music for tenor and harpsichord in her bedchamber. Heywood remained at St-Germain until 1715, when he joined James III in Lorraine He returned in 1716 after the king moved on to Avignon He was still at St-Germain in 1717 but, since he was an Anglican, the date of his death is unrecorded (See the Household lists referred to above in note 20, and HMC Stuart, iv (London, 1910), 479, Dicconson to Mary of Modena, 29 July 1717)Google Scholar

26 Bernardi travelled to France with Fede in February 1689 (see above, note 18) There is music by Finger in both H 659 at the Bibliothèque Nationale and the volume at the Bibliothèque Municipale, Versailles (see above, note 8)Google Scholar

27 HMC Stuart, i, 82, Mary of Modena to Cardinal Howard, 14 and 30 November 1693Google Scholar

28 Ashbee, Records of English Court Music, ii, 23–5Google Scholar

29 British Library, Add MS 12592 I am grateful to Nathalie Genet-Rouffiac for this referenceGoogle Scholar

30 Lart, Jacobite Extracts of Births, Marriages and Deaths, i, 126Google Scholar

31 Pepys 12 April 1664, Evelyn 19 November 1674, 28 February 1684, 27 January 1685 (various editions of both diaries)Google Scholar

32 Nairne, 7 June 1697, 21 February 1702, 5 April 1702, various dates in November 1702, 16 February 1703Google Scholar

33 Finger's Sonatae XII pro diversa instrumenta, published as his op 1 in 1688, were specifically intended for use in the Catholic chapel at WhitehallGoogle Scholar

34 Bibliothèque Nationale, MS français 16633, Journal des Cérémonies, 1661–91, 13 January 1689Google Scholar

35 Nairne, 3 August 1698Google Scholar

36 British Library, Add MS 37662, f 4, Fielding to Browne, 19 October 1690Google Scholar

37 Nairne, 15 October 1696, May-August 1697, 12 February 1702, 19 February 1702, 26 September 1702, 9 July 1703, 12 July 1705, 18 September 1705, 1 September 1707Google Scholar

38 Davies, Godfrey, Papers of Devotion of James II (London, 1925)Google Scholar

39 Nairne, 11 March 1703, 22 November 1702, 14 January 1703Google Scholar

40 HMC Stuart, i, 142, Ruvigny, The Jacobite Peerage, 218Google Scholar

41 Windsor Castle, Royal Archives, SP 2/23, ‘Salaries, Pensions etc for her Majesties serv in Novem 1703’ Fede's salary in England had been £800 per annum At St-Germain in the 1690s he received 936 livres per annum The list for 1703 shows that by then he was receiving 1,224 livres (The surintendant at Versailles received 1,320 livres) Baumeister's salary increased from 200 livres to 400 livres per annum (A violinist at Versailles received 365 livres) The trumpeters at St-Germain were paid 365 livres per annum, whereas at Versailles they received only 180 livres. (Payments to the French musicians are given in Marcelle Benoit, Les musiciens du roi de France, 1661–1733, Paris, 1982, 63)Google Scholar

42 François Lesure, Bibliographie des éditions musicales publiées par Estienne Roger et Michel-Charles Le Cene, Amsterdam, 1696–1743 (Paris, 1969), 43 I am grateful to Jean Lionnet for this referenceGoogle Scholar

43 Davies, Papers of Devotion, 73, see also p 120Google Scholar

44 Madan, Falconer, Stuart Papers (London, 1989), 367, 383 and 454–5Google Scholar

45 Père François Bretonneau, Abrégé de la vie de Jacques II tiré d'un écris anglois du R P François Sanders Confesseur de S M (Paris, 1703)Google Scholar

46 See Camus, Fabienne, ‘Alexis-Simon Belle’, La cour des Stuarts, ed Corp and Sanson, 114Google Scholar

47 Benedetto Gennari, the portrait-painter, returned from St-Germain to Bologna in April 1692, and it is possible that Bernardi might have left at the same timeGoogle Scholar

48 For information concerning Lord Melfort and his celebrated collection of Italian paintings, see Edward T. Corp, “The Jacobite Duke of Melfort', History Today, 45 (forthcoming, October 1995).Google Scholar

49 Naime, 24 March 1690Google Scholar

50 Béatrix Saule, Louts XIV à Saint-Germain, 1638–1682 (St-Germain-en-Laye, 1988), 42–50Google Scholar

51 James Drummond, Earl of Perth, Letters to his Sister, the Countess of Erroll, ed William Jerdan (London, 1845), 60 (28 March 1695).Google Scholar

52 Ibid., 85–6 (2 November 1695).Google Scholar

53 Ibid., 94 (18 January 1696); HMC Stuart, i, 114–17, ‘Rules for the family of our dearest son, the Prince of Wales’, 19 July 1696.Google Scholar

54 Versailles, Archives Départementales des Yvelines, B.537 St-Germain, ‘liste des officiers de la Reine qui, par suite de son décès, demeurent sans emploi’, 1718Google Scholar

55 Waldegrave had studied medicine at Padua; Abel had been sent to Italy for two years (1679–81/2) to cultivate his voiceGoogle Scholar

56 Nairne, 13 August 1691. Nairne was also instructed to buy strings (‘cordes de viol‘) to be taken back from Rome to St-Germain: 24 August 1691.Google Scholar

57 Four of the sonatas are included in the collection in H.659 They were published at Rome in 1700 and at Paris in 1701. James R. Anthony, in French Baroque Music from Beaujoyeulx to Rameau (rev. edn, London, 1978), 520, assumes that they ‘surely had been circulated and heard’ in Paris before their publication, but this is questionable, unless Fede allowed them to be copied Cf. Scottish Record Office, GD 18/4536, John Patterson to John Clerk, undated (c.1696) ‘The music here [in Rome] is divine but it is impossible to get any but that which is printed I have used all the money in the world but can have nothing I heard Corelli play several times ‘I am grateful to Jane Clark for this reference.Google Scholar

58 See above, note 9Google Scholar

59 Massip, Catherine, ‘La collection musicale Toulouse-Philidor à la Bibliothèque Nationale’. Fontes artis mustcae, 30 (1983), 184–207, esp pp 186, 189. 198–201 and 206 The Toulouse-Philidor Collection was started in 1703, and was at first copied from manuscripts already in the Philidor Collection. The volumes of Italian cantatas were not started until 1705, and they begin (immediately before the St-Germain volumes) with some other manuscripts which did not enter the Philidor Collection until that same yearGoogle Scholar

60 Mercure galant, 7 October 1707, reproduced in Notes et références pour servir à une histoire de Michel-Richard Delalande, ed. Norbert Dufourcq (Paris, 1957), 163 1 follow Dufourcq here in referring to this composer and his family by the name ‘Delalande’, rather than ‘Lalande’, since this is the only form of the name used by the composer himself and by all the members of his immediate family (brothers, sisters, both wives), as well as his cousins at St-Germain-en-Laye.Google Scholar

61 Benoit, Versailles et les musiciens du roi, 276 and 317. The three musicians were all violinists Pierre Huguenet (1639–1722), Jacques Delaquièze (1644–1712) and Jean-Noel Marchand (1666–1710). The organist was a son of Pierre Jonquet (d. 1735).Google Scholar

62 The parish registers of St-Germain-en-Laye show that on 8 January 1698 Fede and his wife both became godparents to the son of Jacques Le Roi. The boy was called Innocent.Google Scholar

63 The parish registers of the various churches in Paris were destroyed in the Hôtel de Ville during the Commune in 1871 Delalande's father (Michel) was a master-tailor in Paris His mother was born Claude Dumoutiers They both died in 1684 Both families appear frequently in the parish registers of St-Germain-en-Laye throughout the seventeenth century.Google Scholar

64 The division of the gardens between various members of the family is shown in the annual État de la France, and in Comptes des bâtiments du roi sous le règne de Louis XIV, ed Jules Guiffrey, 5 vols (Paris, 1881–1901)Google Scholar

65 Louis Dumoutiers (brother of Delalande's mother) was a ‘Huissier de la Chambre’ of Louis XIV His son, also called Louis (Delalande's first cousin), married in 1685 Antoinette Soulaigre Antoinette's father, Henry Soulaigre, was concierge of the Château-Vieux de St-Germain until his death in December 1701 He was succeeded by his son (Antoinette's brother), Henry Louis.Google Scholar

66 The painting was given io Henry Louis Soulaigre. HMC Stuart, vii (London, 1923), 192, Dieconson to James III, 22 August 1718. For the painting itself, see La cour des Stuarts, ed Corp and Sanson, 109–11Google Scholar

67 Delalande owed his career at court to the patronage of the duc de Noailles None of Delalande's biographers has ever been able to explain why or how he obtained this patronage But if it is remembered that the Noailles were the only important French noble family which lived permanently at St-Germain-en-Laye, even after the departure of the French court, then an explanation becomes immediately apparent The Hôtel de Noailles had an important garden, which was created and modified over an extended period up to 1701 (Saule, Louis XIV à Saint-Germain, 170 and 180) Delalande would have been recommended to the Noailles by his St-Germain uncles In the spring of 1691 Delalande lent 5,000 livres to Louis Dumoutiers and his wife Antoinette The money had beer repaid by the end of 1692 The notarial documents providing security for the loan and recording the repayments were signed at St-Germain-en-Laye on 4 March 1691, 5 September 1692 and 11 November 1692 (They are quoted in Notes et références, ed. Dufourcq, 132. Louis Dumoutiers is described as ‘Ordinaire de la Chambre du Roy, fourier des logis de SM’.)Google Scholar

68 See Anthony, James R., ‘Lalande, Michel-Richard de’, The New Grove Dictionary, x, 381–5, and Edward Higginbottom, ‘Couperin, (4) François (ii)’, ibid, iv, 860–71 The agreement is quoted in Notes et références, ed. Dufourcq, 45–6.Google Scholar

69 Couperin's Pièces d'orgue (Paris, 1690) were dedicated to DelalandeGoogle Scholar

70 Nairne's friend was the abbé Bruzeau, whom he met in 1679 He was received into the Catholic church in Bruzeau's chapel at St-Gervais in 1680Google Scholar

71 Beaussant, Philippe, ‘François Couperin’, Musique instrumentale à la cour de France au X Ville siècle De François Coupenn à Mozart, ed. Beaussant and Vincent Berthier de Lioncourt (Versailles, 1991), 15–26 (p. 20).Google Scholar

72 Couperin's cousin, Marc-Roger Normand, was at Turin, so he pretended that the sonata had come from there But Turin was also the one important centre of music in Italy where Fede (to judge by the contents of H.659) had no contacts, and concerning which Couperin would be least likely to be unmaskedGoogle Scholar

73 The source is the preface to Michel Corrette, Le maitre de clavecin pour l'accompagnement (Paris, 1753) Corrette stated that the ‘trios of Corelli, printed in Rome, appeared for the first time’ at the concerts of the abbé Matthieu. He made no mention of Couperin, but added that ‘this new kind of music encouraged all composers to work in a more bnlliant style’. He gave no date, but added that it was at the same time as the publication of Corelli's op 5 violin sonatas, i.e. 1700–1.Google Scholar

74 Sébastien de Brossard, Élizabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre and Jean-Ferry Rebel all composed their first Italian sonatas in about 1695 Rebel was the brother-in-law of Delalande According to Anthony, ‘Lalande’, Delalande himself ‘suffered a crisis of conflicting styles’ in the 1690sGoogle Scholar

75 Couperin was primarily an organist, at St-Gervais in Paris and (from December 1693) at the Chapelle Royale at Versailles But for the rest of the 1690s he seems to have concentrated almost exclusively on the composition of small motets and elevations His earliest motet is believed to be the setting of ‘Laudate, pueri, dominum’, a text of obvious relevance at the Stuart court The earliest manuscript is dated 1697, the year in which the Prince of Wales was confirmed by the archbishop of Paris (Cardinal de Noailles) in the Chapelle Royale at St-GermainGoogle Scholar

76 Nairne, 29 and 30 August 1707. Nairne also mentions having dinner with Mile Rebel on 29 July 1706.Google Scholar

77 The house was in the rue des Ursulines, and belonged to Pierre Huguenet Benoit, Versailles et les musiciens du rot, 317Google Scholar

78 Clark, François Couperin, Pièces de clavecin, 6–7.Google Scholar

79 Couperin's Leçons de ténèbres were first performed at the convent at Longchamps, probably in 1713. It is recorded that in 1713 Mary of Modena went from Chaillot to Longchamps, specifically to hear the singing there. Madan, Stuart Papers, 469.Google Scholar

80 Fede is included in a list of the queen's servants left unemployed as a result of her death in 1718 (see above, note 54) He was still at St-Germain in March 1719, when he signed a certificate now in the Stuart Papers (see above, note 23)Google Scholar

81 Windsor Castle, Royal Archives, SP 158/41 and 167/44Google Scholar