Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff

La Tour de Nesle (Dumas and Gaillardet)

Also known as: La Tour de Nesle, Tour de Nesle, tour de Nesle

Culture · Theatre FR

Overview

La Tour de Nesle is a melodrama in five acts and nine tableaux, first performed at the Théâtre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, Paris, on 29 May 1832. Set in the early fourteenth century, it presents Marguerite de Bourgogne, wife of Louis X, who with her sisters-in-law lures young men to the Tour de Nesle for a night of pleasure and has them thrown into the Seine; the plot turns on the revelation that her accomplice Buridan is the father of the man she is about to have killed. It was one of the great popular successes of the Romantic stage and stayed in the repertoire for decades (Wikipedia, "La Tour de Nesle").

Authorship was disputed: the piece was begun by the young Frédéric Gaillardet (1808-1882), then reworked by Alexandre Dumas, and the first edition credited "MM. Gaillardet et ", leaving Dumas unnamed; a public quarrel and a lawsuit followed (Wikipedia, "La Tour de Nesle"; catalogue record of the 1832 edition).

Marie and this work

  • 24-26 October 1875, Nice. Marie says the play was forbidden to her, along with Le Procès Veauradieux, and she regrets it (048.0034, 048.0085, 048.0086).
  • 12 November 1875, Nice. Proposing to write a novel with Olga, she says it will be "l'histoire de Dumas avec La Tour de Nesle", with her supplying the ideas and, like Dumas, not asserting her rights (049.0359): a joking reference to the Dumas-Gaillardet dispute.
  • 28 September 1877, Paris. She finally sees it: "Quelquefois j'adore les mélodrames et j'aime tout ce qui porte le cachet incomparable d'Alexandre Dumas. N'en déplaise à M. Gaillardet!" (075.0056), then eats crayfish.
  • 6 November 1877. Struck-out lines mention a "capitaine Tour de Nesle" (076.0056): probably an actor or a nickname, not the play itself; not interpreted here.

Sources