Thus Carlyle, with his characteristic double entente, philosophising on these events: ‘Beautiful invention; mounting heavenward, so beautifully,—so unguidably! Emblem of much, and of our Age of Hope itself; which shall mount, specifically-light, majestically in this same manner; and hover,—tumbling whither Fate will. Well if it do not, Pilâtre-like, explode; and demount all the more tragically!—So, riding on windbags, will men scale the Empyrean.’
The comments of the Parisian wits were of a different order to the caustic satire of Carlyle: in the engraving by Sargent, which appeared in all the glory of printed colour, a learned but absent-minded physicist, instead of inflating his silken globes, inflates himself with the result that he disappeared through the window. ‘Mon pauvre oncle,’ exclaims a young man who exhibits the extreme of grief and despair. A fan leaf ‘à l’oncle’ appears in the Bibliothèque Nationale, having been removed from a mount. Wright, Caricature History of the Georges, note, p. 545, says: ‘The ascents in France during the year 1784 were very numerous, and excited interest even in England.’
Horace Walpole, writing from London on May 7 of the following year, says: ‘Of conversation, the chief topic is air-balloons; a French girl, daughter of a dancer, has made a voyage into the clouds, and was in danger of falling to earth, and being ship wrecked. Three more balloons sail to-day; in short, we shall have a prodigious navy in the air, and then what signifies having lost the empire of the ocean?’
Beaumarchais’ comedy, Le Mariage de Figaro, upon its production in Paris in 1784, immediately became the rage, and enjoyed its successful run of a ‘hundred nights.’ Its story supplied the ‘book’ for Mozart’s opera, which had been ‘commanded’ by the Emperor (Joseph II.) of Germany. This work, first produced in Vienna at the time when Italian opposition to German opera as represented by Gluck and Mozart waxed fiercest, failed, being so indifferently performed under the direction of Salieri, the head of the opposing faction. At Prague, however, where it was subsequently given, and which was outside the influence of Salieri, it was completely successful, a circumstance which afforded Mozart so much satisfaction that he declared that he would write an opera for the good people of Prague, and thereupon produced Don Giovanni!
While the Italian opposition to Mozart’s music was so pronounced, the feeling of antagonism was by no means reciprocated by the great Salzburg composer, who wrote a number of variations to airs by Sarti, Paisiello, and Salieri. The beautiful series of variations on the air ‘Mio Caro Adone’ from Salieri’s opera, La fiera ai Venezia, was composed in 1773, the opera appearing in Vienna a year previously.
Two Figaro fans appear in the Schreiber collection, British Museum, the one with a single medallion in the centre, with scene from the play, and four stanzas of verse commencing ‘Jadis on voioit Thalie,’ etc.; the other with a centre medallion and two smaller ones, and thirteen stanzas of verse commencing ‘Cœurs sensibles, cœurs fidelles,’ etc., with music. Inscribed at the top—‘Vaudeville du Mariage de Figaro.’ Beaumarchais collaborated with Salieri in the opera of Tarare, first produced in Paris in 1787. He claimed to have led the way to the Revolution by this piece, which formed the subject of several fans.
Three scenes from Grétry’s opera of Richard, Cœur de Lion, first produced in 1784, and performed the following year before the king and queen at Fontainebleau, appear on a fan, the costumes being of the period of the production of the opera, the ladies wearing the hooped petticoat, with long streamers from their heads. On the reverse, two songs commencing ‘Que le Sultan Saladin,’ and ‘La Danse n’est pas ce que j’aime.’ The song ‘O Richard, O mon Roi, l’univers t’abandonne,’ which, however, does not appear on the fan, became of historic importance at Versailles, October 1, 1789.
Other operatic fans commemorate ‘Nina ou la Folle par Amour’ and ‘Raoul de Créqui’ by Dalayrac, produced in 1786 and 1789 respectively. The first named has a single scene with four figures in the centre of the fan, and verses headed ‘Romance de Nina, Chantée par Mme. Dugazon.’ The second much more elaborate, with one large and two smaller panels, verses and music from the opera on the back of the fan.
Three scenes from Dezède’s Alcidor, produced 1787, commemorate an opera of which both composer and music are now forgotten. The decorations are etched and rudely coloured by hand; the sticks walnut, inlaid with ivory.
Three hand-screens appeared with a scene from the first, second, and third acts respectively of Fanchon La Vielleuse, a French version of Himmel and Kotzebue’s operetta, Fanchon, das Leyermädchen, produced at Berlin in 1805. These testify to the transient popularity of a now almost forgotten composer. The screens are of cardboard, coloured grey-brown, shield-shaped, having an oval medallion engraved in line and coloured by hand. On the reverse, extracts from the libretto.