Edmond de Goncourt makes out—on what authority I cannot fathom—that Despréaux was born in 1758, and not 1748, thus making him out to be fifteen years the junior of Guimard when they married in 1789. As on other points he writes with such accuracy and copious wealth of detail one might suppose him to be correct, but seeing that Despréaux was undoubtedly entered a supernumerary-dancer in the Opera in 1764, and could hardly have been so at the age of six, one can only infer a slip of the pen, and that Goncourt really meant 1748, which would make the young male dancer’s age the likelier one of sixteen on appearing at Opera as a super, although he would, of course, have been training earlier.
The question of age, however, is comparatively small. The thing that matters for us is that Despréaux, following modestly in the footsteps of his far greater predecessor Boileau-Despréaux (not an ancestor, by the way) had cultivated a taste for poetry, and during his retirement at Montmartre, divided his time between amusing his wife and friends with cutting silhouettes—at which he was an expert—and singing songs and parodies which he wrote himself.
It seems an odd thing, does it not? that a man should be thus amusing himself and his friends—should be sufficiently undistracted to do so—while the greatest revolution then known to history should be in progress. But what could he do? He was a dancer, a singer, an artist; and could have had little weight had he meddled in the risky game of politics. As it was, perhaps, he chose the saner course, and when most were losing their heads he kept his own, and, as Richard Cœur de Lion had when in prison, wiled away the hours in song.
His poems were collected and published in two volumes under the title: “Mes Passe-Temps: Chansons, suivies de l’Art de la Danse, poème en quatre chants, calqué sur l’Art Poétique de Boileau Despréaux.” They were “adorned” with engravings after the design of Moreau Junior, and the music of the songs appears at the end of the second volume.
The work was published after the Revolution fever had subsided, in 1806, and perhaps the very strangest comment on the Revolution is implied in Despréaux’s preface, which calmly opens with the following: “In 1794 I suggested to a number of friends that we should meet once or twice a month to dine together, under the condition that politics should never be mentioned, and that each should bring a song composed upon a given word. My proposition was taken up; we decided that the words should be drawn by lot, after being submitted to the judgment of the gathering, in order to eliminate subjects which might only present needless difficulties.”
And so the year 1794, being one of the worst of all those red years of Revolution, this little centre went placidly through it, dining and wining and rhyming, as if there were nothing worse than a sham fight raging round the distant horizon. It positively makes one wonder if there was a French Revolution after all. But no, there evidently was, for our author had a nice little library, and in the following year, owing to monetary losses occasioned by the general débâcle, had to sell many of his beloved volumes. Of course he made song about it—“Ma Bibliothèque, ou Le Cauchemar”—in which he pictures the spectre of want asking him what he will do, and urging him to sell his books for food. “Que feras-tu, Despréaux?” the nightmare questions:
“Ni bois ni vin dans ta cave
De chandelle pas un bout:
Faussement on fait le brave