The Pyramids of Yaruqui

The Pyramid at Caraburo today
https://media.sciencephoto.com/image/t8350543/800wm

Rising incongruously from the flat plain, the so-called "Pyramids of Yaruqui" - at Caraburo and Oyambaro -  stand as a curious memorial to the French geodesic expedition in Ecuador. In theory their purpose was to mark the two ends of the baseline for future surveys -  perhaps a triangulation to the North or perpendicular to the Meridian. In reality, they were  intended chiefly as a monument to French scientific pretensions:

French scientists at the Equator, 1735

Voyages of Discovery:  the Figure of the Earth (BBC,2006)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074t5l

Last week BBC4 repeated a documentary on the French geodesic mission of 1735, one of the Voyages of Discovery series introduced by explorer and broadcaster Paul Rose.  It was originally broadcast in 2006.   Having missed it the first time round, I was pleased to catch the repeat.  The production was  marred by some truly dreadful dramatic reconstructions which made La Condamine and his colleagues look like caricatures out of Horrible Histories.  However, the filming on location in Peru was stunning. The historical consultant for the programme was the American naval historian Larrie Ferreiro, who has since written a well-regarded full-scale study of the expedition.(Measure of the Earth, published 2011)

I found it difficult in places to piece together events from the information given, so here is a summary of the main points of the narrative, plus a few supplementary "viewing notes".

Hidden treasures of the Musée Lambinet

Here are a few 18th-century highlights from the exhibition, "Hidden treasures of the Musée Lambinet", currently on show in the "Espace Richaud" in Versailles. The venue is the chapel of the former hôpital royal, which has been completely renovated and was opened as an exhibition space in 2015.  As the Lambinet's director Emilie Maisonneuve explains, the idea of the exhibition is to showcase fifty or so carefully selected objects from the collections. The grandiose setting, with its magnificent cupola, gives an opportunity to display decorative pieces which are easy to overlook in the confines of the museum.  Also included are a number of items of particular historical interest, some of which are too fragile to be on permanent view. There doesn't seem to be any online listing, but many of the exhibits can be identified in the photos and videos.


Centrepiece - A Harp

Harp, constructed between 1787 and 1799, by Jean-Henri Naderman (Fribourg 1735-Paris 1799). Sculpted and gilded wood.  Inv. 1076 - Legs Couderc.

Chosen for the central focal point of the exhibition, this sculpted harp made by Jean-Henri Naderman, gilded and decorated with vernis Martin and featuring the head of a ram. Naderman settled in Paris in 1762 or 1763 and in 1778 became official instrument maker to Marie-Antoinette.   He built instruments for Madame Victoire and the comte de Polignac.  A few other similar harps survive - in the   Louvre and at Versailles - but this is one of the finest examples. 

Here is the harp on display in the Salon doré of the museum:

Furniture

Two chairs from a set comprising six chairs, a chimney screen and an ottomon, bearing the stamp of Jean-Baptiste Sené (1748-1803).  Sené was the principal supplier to the Garde-Meuble from 1785, but he also worked for private clients. Gift of Paul-Louis Weiller in 1978.

Above: Writing desk of about 1770, made by Pierre Roussel (1723-1782). Inv. 90.6.1. 

Below: Commode of about 1764  with top of Languedoc marble, bearing the mark of François Reizell, master in 1764. Inv. 90.6.2.  Both items gifts of Monsieur Vaccaro, 1990. 

Commode by Mathieu Criaerd (1689-1776)  This piece was delivered to the Palace of Versailles in 1752 for the apartments of Madame Infante, duchess of Parma (the eldest daughter of Louis XV). Inv. 90.7.1 - Gift of baron Edmond de Rothschild  in 1988.

More pictures and details are posted on ConnaissancesdeVersailles: 
http://www.connaissancesdeversailles.org/t8861-exposition-tresors-caches-du-musee-lambinet

The items of furniture have been chosen to illustrate the museum's continuing importance  as a "maison de collectionneurs" in receipt of items from significant donations from private collections.

Clocks

Late 18th-century cartel clock, with movement by Jean-Noël Bigand (d. 1741); vernis Martin and gilded bronze [Inv. 311]  and(right) a fine Meisen clock.  I couldn't find details for the gilded monster in all the videos.  The notice beside it, gives the maker as André Hessen and the date as "after 1775".

Sculpture

There are a trio of portrait busts on display.  The central one is the Lambinet's copy of Pajou's Louis XVI; I am not sure about the other two.


Paintings

Jacques de Lajoue (1686-1761) Architectural fantasy showing a terrace or marble pavilion at the end of a canal, c.1736. Inv. 85.7.1.  
Notice on Joconde:
https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/04000001235

Nicolas Bertin (1668-1736) Moses and the daughters of Jethro, 1704. Inv. 83.9.1 . 
Notice on Joconde
https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/04000000042










Other pieces of historical interest

Fan, painted paper on ivory frame, showing a view of the Palace of Versailles.c. 1750. Inv. 95.15.1.

Original sketch of Charlotte Corday by Jean-Jacques Hauer (1751-1829).  Part of the Collection Charles Vatel.  Hauer was authorised to make Corday's portrait during the trial, and was invited to complete it in her prison cell.  The work is very fragile and not normally on display.
Here is Stéphane Bern on Corday at the Lambinet:
https://youtu.be/eFATFnbMahg

Painting on a plate by Hubert Robert, during his imprisonment in saint-Lazare, showing a gaoler inscribing the names of prisoners entering the prison. Inv. 754
On Joconde: 
https://www.pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/04000001851

Miniature on ivory of Alexandrine Jeanne Le Normant d'Etiolles, the daughter of Madame de Pompadour who died aged nine. After a painting of 1749 by Boucher, recently acquired by the Palace of Versailles.
See Société des Amis de Versailles
https://www.amisdeversailles.com/objet_detail.php?id_objet=370&fbclid=IwAR23HlYgwPId8B7MkagtBWxnQSX0NrMo7fiwsN2vWsHf7HFhZ7NvIDx7dtA

References

Press notice for the exhibition:
.https://www.versailles.fr/fileadmin/user_upload/Versailles-fr/Culture/Etablissements_culturels/Mus%C3%A9e_Lambinet/Expositions/CP-Tresors_caches_ML.pdf

TV78 - La chaîne des Yvelines:  Interview with the director of the Lambinet Emilie Maisonneuve.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FGqVp3AvtM

"Exposition Trésors cachés du Musée Lambinet",  Perfumeuse.canalblog post of 22.10.2019
http://parfumeuse.canalblog.com/archives/2019/10/22/37731908.html

See also: Musée Lambinet, Suivez-nous au XVIIIe siècle [Museum guide]
https://docplayer.fr/10884827-Suivez-nous-au-xviiie-siecle-bonne-visite.html


Note, February 2020
https://webmuseo.com/ws/musee-lambinet/app/collection/expo/7
This month the Lambinet launched its new "virtual" collections webpages.  The initial 63 items were all  included in the "Hidden Treasures" exhibition, and there is also now a link to the full Journal de l'Exposition.  Having struggled to research this post, I can't be bothered to add in all the information that I've missed. However, if anyone is interested in checking details for particular exhibits, selected online entries and the fill pdf catalogue are now available at the above link!

1750: The last homosexuals executed in France

On 18th October 2014, the Socialist Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo ceremonially unveiled a memorial plaque to Bruno Lenoir and Jean Diot, the last men to be executed in France for homosexuality.  The plaque is embedded into the pavement at the corner of rue Montorgueil and rue Bauchaumont, on the exact spot where the two were arrested over two hundred and fifty years ago, in January 1750.

Hommage à MM. LENOIR & DIOT from ALSG on Vimeo.

The commemoration is something of a political hot potato.  The memorial was the initiative of  the Communist and Left Party of the Conseil de Paris (groupe PCF-PG) and is seen as a piece of anti-clerical propaganda (see the articles by Olivier Marchal).  It has already been subject to two acts of vandalism in 2018 - a wreath  burned in May,  the plaque smeared in soot and covered with homophobic tracts in July.

The Sorcerers of Lyon

The affair of the "sorcerers of Lyon" was a further, far more extensive, trial involving magic quests for treasure.  Proceedings took place over a three-year period, from 1742 to 1745, and involved the arraignment of no less than twenty-nine individuals.

This episode is fascinating, not only for the insights into legal practices and attitudes to witchcraft but also for the details of the lives and hopes of  ordinary people that it revealed.

The trial is unusually well-documented: the library of the Château Grosbois-en-Montagne in Bourgogne preserves a comprehensive manuscript dossier, including full transcripts of the many interrogation.  This  compilation was the work of the commissioning magistrate for the case Jean-Claude Perreney de Vellemont (1718-1810), conseiller, and later  Procureur-général  in the Parlement of Dijon.  According to family tradition Perreney was an austere and conscientious man, who got up at four in the morning to attend early mass and habitually spent his days in study. This is borne out by the manuscript, which amounts to 400 folio pages, laboriously transcribed in small neat handwriting.

The fortified manor house of Grosbois en Montagne, much embellished by the Perreney family in the 18th century.
http://www.chateau-fort-manoir-chateau.eu/chateaux-cote-or-chateau-a-grobois-chateau-de-grobois.html

A full account of the case, based on the dossier, was published by Henri Beaune  in 1868.  More recently, in 2001, the evidence has been revisited in an article by Mathias Dupas Didier.  

Some treasure-seekers

Magical treasure-seeking featured prominently in 18th-century grimoires, and seems to have become a particular preoccupation of the time.  Perhaps it can be viewed as one more aspect of the quest for riches and upward mobility so prominent in all walks of life during this period. From time to time the antics of the treasure-hunters surface in detail in the judicial or police record.  As Professor McManners observed, these cases reveal "something of the popular superstition and the judicial ferocities underlying the crystaline wit and sophisticated adventures of thought of the Enlightenment" (p.237). 

The Extravagant Imaginings of Monsieur Oufle

Nothing is so easy as to persuade the Credulous into a belief of whatever one pleases; especially when what is propos'd to them falls in with their Prejudices.
(Bordelon, A History of ..M. Oufle, p.195)

By the opening decades of the eighteenth century, belief in magic and the supernatural was already becoming an object of ridicule. The landmark text is the splendid Histoire des Imaginations Extravagantes de Monsieur Oufle, a comic novel by the abbé Laurent Bordelon published in 1710.

Some books of magic

According to the historian of the grimoire, Owen Davies, books of magic spells and incantations circulated widely in 18th-century France.  Police reports from the opening years of the century reveal a lively trade in manuscripts and clandestine texts among enterprising Parisians, most of them humble members of society: priests, prostitutes, abortionists, chemists, labourers and tradesmen.(Davies p.96)  

France rapidly became the European centre for the production of popular books of magic.  In the course of the late 18th and 19th centuries, tens of thousands of illegal cheap editions, part of the so-called Bibliothèque bleue, were distributed throughout the country by colporteurs.  The centres of production were in Troyes, Rouen and Paris, places of high literacy where standard French was spoken. (Davies, p.98)  The earliest title, the Grand Albert was mainly a compendium of "natural magic",  but true grimoires, which included methods for the invocation of demons and spirits, became increasingly available - no doubt  in response to a growing demand. 

As Owen Davies notes, exact bibliographic details are not easy to trace.  It is often not clear in the police reports, which works are being described, or whether they are manuscripts or printed texts.  The books in question were in any case usually destroyed. Paradoxically, the  cheap ephemeral editions of the Bibliothèque bleue are now quite rare.  Even when  they do survive, origins remain uncertain, since publishers commonly gave false dates and hid behind fanciful imprints -  such as Beringos Fratres of Lyon, whose premises were located "at the sign of Agrippa".  

Le Grand Albert 

The Grand Albert, the oldest magical staple of the bibliothèque bleue,  was a heterogeneous compilation of herbalism, household hints and popular superstition.  Principally, it  gave instructions for the esoteric use of natural materials - to change the properties of inert or living things;  or for divination.  The contents covered such subjects as  gynaecology, physiognomy, alchemy, medicine, and from 1703 it included an almanac of propitious days.

Although the Grand Albert did not contain spells, curses or  incantations, its proliferation still generated concern;  in 1709 it was listed by censors as a book to be condemned and confiscated,  along with a whole range of religious and pseudo-religious works printed in Rouen. (See Davies, p.98)

The text  may date in part to the 13th centuries.  Almost sixty manuscript copies survive from the 14th to 16th centuries. The work subsequently diffused widely in print, in the original Latin, then in Italian, German, French and English translations. It was was not officially proscribed until 1604 when the first part, Les secrets des Femmes, was placed on the Index;  this section was then reproduced only in Latin editions. By the later 17th century cheap French editions were being published regularly in Troyes by Jacques Oudot.


The "classic" French version, which includes Les secrets des Femmes,  appeared for the first time at the beginning of the 18th century under the title Les Admirables Secrets d’Albert Le Grand.  The first edition, of which Bibliothèque nationale possesses a copy, dates from 1703 and is a high quality publication, with five fine engravings.  Almost certainly it originated outside France.  

There were many subsequent editions, following this same basic format.  The earliest examples have the imprint "Cologne chez le dispensateur de secrets" and the later ones "Lyon Beringos Fratres".   As time passed, the quality tended to decline - for instance the use of contrasting red type was dropped.

Magic in the early 18th century

Edict of 1682

Édit... pour la punition de différents crimes [magie, sortilèges, empoisonnement]. Registré en Parlement le 31 aoust 1682
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8607061d/f1.image

In the late 17th and early 18th centuries longstanding laws on witchcraft were repealed the throughout Europe.   In France a new framework was provided by the Edict of 1682, which redefined crimes relating to magic in the wake of the "Affair of the Poisons" and a series of high-profile miscarriages of justice by the provincial parlements. The Edict in effect placed the supernatural outside the jurisdictionof the secular law courts.  Witchcraft and magic practices were no longer punishable directly, but only in so far as they involved imposture or criminal activity.  Severe penalties were retained for blasphemy and poisoning.

The Edict identified three different sorts of offences:

1. Divination 
All persons who practice divination or claim to be diviners were to be  summarily banished from the Kingdom as soon as the Edict was published, on pain of corporal punishment.

2. "Superstitious practices" 
These were defined as abuse of the the words of Holy Scripture or the prayers of the Church; , also recourse to deeds and words "which have no relation to natural causes". Punishment was left to the discretion of the judge but must be "exemplary".

3.  "Impiety and sacrilege" 
Those who added "impiety and sacrilege" to superstition in the practice of "supposed magic" were liable to the death penalty. This included attempts to invoke or make pacts with demons, and the misuse of Catholic ceremonial, sacred vessels and sacraments.

All those involved in poisoning or trading in poisons also faced execution.

Derues and the ritual of execution

The execution of Derues was accompanied by an unprecedented outpouring of images.  According to Grimm, portraits of Derues and scenes from his crime and trial, "of marvellous exactitude", were produced everywhere and purveyors of engravings sold nothing else for a fortnight.  The following are mostly from a series of thirty-nine prints offered by the engravers Esnauts et Rapilly, to accompanied the extremely popular Vie privée et criminelle d'Antoine-François Derues by the bookseller Cailleau.  Among them are some of the most striking images of the final years of "the age of spectacular execution".  Cailleau's  work sought to portray Derues as a monster of hypocrisy and crime; but paradoxically, the illustrations seem (and probably seemed at the time) more an indictment of the cruelties of 18th-century capital punishment.  They stand as  testimony to the suffering and resilience of the little man, whose protestations of innocence so disconcerted contemporary observers.

Derues is subjected to extraordinary torture before his execution
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8410035j/f32.item

On 6th May, at six in the morning, Derues had his condemnation formally read to him.  He was then led into the torture chamber where the various high officials,including the lieutenant criminal Bachois de Villefort, were foregathered, with the executioner and his assistants in attendance.