Le corps guerrier, le corps dansant et l’esprit galant

• Main Author: Pierre Gatulle
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles 2013-08-01
• Series: Bulletin du Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles
• Subjects: Saint-Aignan; ballet; carousel; royal entertainment; chivalry; aristocratic military honour
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/crcv/12191

François de Beauvillier, Count then Duke of Saint-Aignan (1610-1687), led a career in the military before obtaining the position of First Gentleman of the King’s Chamber (premier gentilhomme de la Chambre du roi) in 1649. This made him one of the court officials in charge of entertainment. He chose themes emphasising prowess in armed horsemanship, danced a number of roles himself in ballets and royal entertainments, and accompagnied and guided the King during the latter’s training as a dancer, before becoming vice-protecteur of the Académie de danse in 1661. At a time when duels, though formally outlawed by the King, were still fought, showing the persistence of the ethos of chivalry, the representation of single combat was given a prominent place in stage performances. Saint-Aignan gradually built up an image of himself as a courtier and galant homme, drawing both on his own experience of the physical violence of warfare and the mastery he attained in the fields of dance and horsemanship in order to represent combat on stage; these were aristocratic forms of bodily culture into which his own children were initiated. When he was raised to the high dignity of duc et pair in 1663, this was the ultimate recognition not only of the success and personal prestige he had won, but also of the aristocratic ideal he had brought into being, the archetype of the courtier as galant gentilhomme, in the service of the King.