Revue de Nice (1875)

Overview

Revue de Nice is a satirical verse sketch of the young men of the Nice promenade, written by Marie Bashkirtseff in August 1875 at Schlangenbad and copied into the diary on 21 August 1875 (039.0165-0185). It takes its title from the revue de fin d'année, the topical, mocking stage review of the period, and goes through the men of her Nice circle one after another in short rhyming stanzas, each with a physical caricature: the plump, red-faced, slightly lame patron of beginners who makes the round of the boxes showing his "main d'albâtre" (#Andriot_Saetone); the thin Arthur Danis with spotless collars (#Danis); the powdered "faquin" Maurice Gros (#Maurice_Gros); the count d'Aspremont, tall "comme un mât de cocagne", with a mountain range for a nose (#Aspremont); the badly dressed M. Gautier (#Albert_Gautier); the future notary Galula-Déchiar, the royalist count de Laurenti, Maurice Godard-Décrais who "brait comme un âne", and last the "châtelain illustre", whose "doux nom est Emile" (#Emile_d_Audiffret). One line of the manuscript is struck out ("Une ligne cancellée"). The piece is signed with the mock-classical pen name "phil. Tryphodore" (039.0185).

Marie and this work

The verses are the only place in the diary where Marie writes down a whole satire of her Nice acquaintances, and they belong with the caricature drawings and paintings she made of the same circle that autumn (see #Grande_caricature_1875). On 21 September 1875 (043.0366) she copies out new couplets about a ladies' man and notes: "Ceci est destiné à remplacer ce qu'il y a dans la revue de Nice, fait à Schlangenbad": the new lines were meant to replace part of the existing text, so the Revue was a piece she kept revising. A Complainte about a lost château follows at once (043.0368; see #Complainte_de_Girofla). The inventory note "re-made 043.0366" refers to this replacement.

Whether the Revue was ever circulated, sung or read aloud in Nice is not stated in these paragraphs. It has not been published separately; the only text is in the diary.

References in Diary

Related Entries

Sources