Parody of Mignon's romance and the acrostic EMILE (1874)

Overview

Two small pieces of light verse that Marie wrote at Nice in the week before Christmas 1874. One is an acrostic on the name EMILE (23 December 1874); the other is a rewriting of Mignon's romance "Connais-tu le pays" so that it describes England and the Duke of Hamilton's household (25 December 1874). They are grouped here because the inventory counted them as one item and both are tied to the winter of 1874-75.

The acrostic EMILE

On 23 December 1874 (027.0364), at her desk, she says: "J'écris, Dina entre et je lui fais cet acrostiche". Each line begins with a letter of the name, in the diary laid out letter by letter (027.0365-0369): E ngourdie dans sa graisse / M âchonnant Dumas / I mperturbable dans sa paresse / L a belle dormait et n'aimait pas / E mile paraît, et le rêve cesse ! The wording is feminine ("Engourdie", "La belle dormait"), so the person being teased appears to be the listener, Dina: a stout, idle girl chewing on Dumas, sleeping until "Emile" appears. Which Émile is meant is not stated; in the days around it Marie's mind is on Émile d'Audiffret (027.0370), which is the likely reference but an inference. The novelist chewed over is Dumas.

The Mignon parody

Mignon is Ambroise Thomas's opéra-comique (libretto by Michel Carré and Jules Barbier, after Goethe's Wilhelm Meister), composed in 1866 for the Opéra-Comique; its best-known number is Mignon's romance "Connais-tu le pays où fleurit l'oranger" (per French Wikipedia, "Mignon (opéra)"). The Mignon glossary entry is still a stub. On Christmas night 1874 (028.0020), at an evening of singing, Florence sings the romance, and Marie writes: "Florence qui chanta 'Connais-tu le pays', romance que je viens de refaire à ma façon:".

Her version (028.0021-0026) keeps Mignon's question form but turns the land of oranges into England: "Connais-tu le pays trop froid pour l'oranger, le pays des cheveux d'or et des faces vermeilles / Où les pluies sont fréquentes, le cheval si léger ... Un essaim d'hommes charmants aux yeux gris ou bleus ?" Then the song becomes personal: "Hélas ! que ne puis-je le suivre, vers ce pays lointain d'où le diable m'exila"; "Connais-tu le palais où il demeure là-bas, / Les salles aux lambris d'or et les vastes écuries ... ?"; "Dans ce rivage heureux d'où le sort m'exila / C'est là que je voudrais vivre, aimer et mourir." The "il" is the Duke of Hamilton (the English setting, the hair and eyes and the stables fit him, and the source paragraphs are tagged to him). The parody swaps Mignon's longing for Italy for her own longing for a man.

References in Diary

Related Entries

Sources