The Life of Joseph Boulogne
The Life of Joseph Boulogne
The Life of Joseph Boulogne
Saint-Georges, Joseph Boulogne de (1745 – 1799)
Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was widely regarded as the most accomplished man of his age. Not only was he among the most important musicians in Paris during the pre-Revolutionary period but he was also a superb all-round athlete and man of arms. Among connoisseurs of the art of fencing Saint-Georges was considered the finest swordsman in Europe, possessed of extraordinary speed, flexibility and grace, qualities which he also exhibited in abundance as a violinist. The combination of artist, athlete and man of action – for he also held military commands during the Revolutionary period – is unique in the history of music and the man himself scarcely less extraordinary than the phenomenal range of his talents.
In an age when slavery was endemic and slaves regarded as ‘moveable objects’, beasts of burden to be starved, beaten, tortured and killed at will, Saint-Georges, a mulatto, was without doubt one of its most celebrated men. His origins, in many older published accounts, are incorrect in detail while remaining essentially accurate in substance. Recent research, notably that of Emil Smidak, has established that his father was one George de Bologne Saint-George, a former Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber and an important planter at Basse-Terre, Guadaloupe. George was the son of Pierre de Bologne, a wealthy colonist and major in the Lonvilliers regiment in Guadaloupe. According to a petition Pierre de Bologne, George’s elder brother, made in 1769-1770, the family traced its descent from the “noble and ancient house of Bologne, originating in Italy, and from the city of that name”. The younger Pierre de Bologne acquired a significant reputation as a poet and was admitted to the Academy of the Inestricati of Bologne in Italy. The Bologne family owned thriving sugar and coffee plantations and many of them held senior ranks in the colony’s armed forces. George de Bologne Saint-George (b.1710)married Elizabeth