Muerte y selva

With distrust of the actor as interlocutor adding extra piquancy to anxieties about the trustworthiness of the victims of comedies about post-revolutionary social life,

the corpus of physiognomic theory inspired by Johann Caspar Lavater’s L ’art de

connaître les hommes par la physionomie, describing a direct correspondence between a man’s inner character and his outward appearance, enjoyed a renewed popularity in the first decade of the nineteenth century.^^ At the same

time as Médiocre et Rampant was first produced, physiognomical portraits of

Robespierre and Marat appeared as "proof" their "sanguinary disposition".^® This politicisation of physiognomy was further developed in a treatise on physiognomy by J.M. Plane, which not only saw the science not only as a useful means to judge "the great number of villains, which the Revolution has revealed to us" but also a means of judging a woman who spurned him (to his satisfaction, finding

her wanting).^® When Médiocre et Rampant was enjoying its second run in the

Théâtre Français, physiognomic science was becoming increasingly popular a

of romantic distress were enacted using ideal oppositions and transparent self­ representation (pp. 222-225).

"Observations sur les physionomies imitées et sur les rapports de la

physiognomonie avec l’art du comédien", in Lavater, L'art de connaître les

hommes p arla physionomie, vol. VII, pp. 227-262.

Ewa Layer-Burcharth, Necklines: the art of Jacques-Louls David after the

Terror (New Haven & London: Yale U.P., 1999), p. 41.

^ J.M. Plane, Physiologie ou l'Art de Connaître les Hommes, sur leur

Physiognomie. Ouvrage extrait de Lavater et de plusieurs autres excellens auteurs, avec des observations sur les traits de quelques personnages, qui ont figuré dans la révolution Française (Meudon: P.S.C. Demailly, 1797), pp. 5, 8-15.

means to try and understand outsiders and others in a new urban miiieu.^^

Inspired by Cabanis’ Mémoires sur les rapports du physique et du moral de

l'h o m m ^ , the Parisian doctor, Moreau de la Sarthe, argued that physiognomy

was a product of sensual experience, encompassing the entire body.^ He

argued that man’s faculties were not separate, but developed in tandem with one another over time.^° Therefore, a man’s virtue could be judged, not only from the shape of his skull, but also from his attitudes and gestures, his tone of voice and his accent, his clothes and fashionable accessories, his penmanship and handwriting.®^

Examples of "popular" physiognomies include Le Lavater portatif, ou Précis de

l’art de reconnaître les homrnes par les traits du visage, 2"^ edition (Paris: veuve

Hocquart, 1808); Hocquart, Édouard, Le Lavater des dames ou l’Art de connaître

les femmes sur leur physionomie, edition (Paris: Santin, 1812). Profiting from the popularity of physiognomy in the period, Dominique Vivant Denon held an

exhibition of physiognomic drawings in the caicographie of the Musée Napoléon

in 1806: Denon, Dissertation sur un traité de Charles Lebrun, concernant le

rapport de la physionomie avec celle des animaux (Paris: Caicographie du Musée Napoléon, 1806).

J.L. Moreau de la Sarthe, "Prospectus" for L ’art de connaître les hommes par la physionomie (Paris: Hardy, 1806), pp. 65-66. Moreau notes in his introduction that physiognomy is a means to link moral science and physical science, or (quoting Destutt de Tracy) a "philosophical physiology".

A new edition of Gaspard Lavater’s physiognomy appeared in Paris in the early

1800s, edited by Moreau de la Sarthe: Gaspard Lavater, L'art de connaître les

hommes par la physionomie, (ed. Moreau de la Sarthe, trans. Antoine-Bernard Gaillard & Marie-Elisabeth Bouée LaFite), new edition, 10 vols., (Paris: L. Prudhomme, 1806-1807). Antoine-Bernard Gaillard, one of the translators, was Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives and will feature later in this chapter as head of a Commission of Inquiry. Subscribers to the volume included

two Division Chiefs in the Ministry of Interior and several other fonctionnaires,

particularly in the Ministry of W ar and the Prefecture of Paris. Most of the others also belonged to the "professions" - doctors, lawyers, notaries and booksellers:

see Lavater, L’art de connaître les hommes p a rla physionomie, vol. IX, pp. i-xii.

Moreau argued against Gall’s theory that the shape and size of the cranial cavity determined one’s ideas, in favour of a theory of development that encompassed the entire body: see J.L. Moreau (de la Sarthe), "Exposition et Critique du système du docteur GALL, sur la cause et l'expression des principales différences de l'esprit et des passions, lue à l'Athénee de Paris", La Décade Philosophique, Littéraire et Politique, an X II - 2m e trimestre, 12 (30 Nivôse Year XII), pp. 129-137; 13 (10 Pluviôse Year XII), pp. 192-202; 14 (20 Pluviôse Year XII), pp. 257-265.

Plane, Physiologie ou l'Art de Connaître les Hommes, pp. 218-252 (posture),

263-266 (voice), 267-278 (clothes); Moreau, "Prospectus" for L'art de connaître

les hommes par la physionomie, pp. 57-58 (treats posture, voice and handwriting).

Moreau de la Sarthe’s work brought physiognomy into the "real world" of the social statistician. He looked to make It a "useful" science, extending it to an analysis of the professions, arguing that the workplace was an environment

which shaped man's moral development. In the French edition of Lavater’s

observations in 1806, Moreau remarked that each profession engendered a particular set of physical and moral habits, that their members had an "air of family". Moreau’s intention was to draw up codes against which members of professions could be judged - to divine their aptitude, zeal and probity.^^ It was a short step from that to judging the adaptation of the individual administrator to his task, to drawing a firm correspondence between ability, profession and status, on a physiognomic hierarchy. For, as a way of judging administrators' virtue in the Ministry, the value of physiognomy was plain: stealing furtive glances across the office, evaluating a correspondent's handwriting, or calmly analysing each twitch of a superior's mouth as he read an important report, the science of judging

physical appearance might salve day-to-day administrative uncertainty.

However, if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs bureau chief, Antoine-Bernard Gaillard, the translator of Lavater for Moreau, best epitomises the importance of physiognomy for administrators, it was one of his subordinates, Louis-Jean-

Alexandre Bonnet, condemned in Year VIII as médiocre et rampant Tor stealing

seventy-seven gold and vermilion boxes, who best demonstrates its ephemerality as a means to negotiate the difficulties of surviving in Revolutionary administration.^

Bonnet’s departed from the offices in Year VIII, suspected by his superiors and betrayed by his colleagues, who ganged up against a colleague they detested to force him into a confession of his guilt. It is therefore surprising to find that, under the Old Regime, Bonnet had attached himself to both his office and his

superior with enthusiasm, helping to raise his premier commis' infant son.

Moreau, "Sur les Signes Physionomiques des Professions", in Lavater, Uart de

connaître les hommes parla physionomie, vol. VI, pp. 222-246.

^ Gaillard owned several books on physiognomy, including ones by Lavater and

Pierre Gamper: Gaillard, Catalogue des Livres du Cabinet de M. A.B. Cailiard

(Paris, 1805), p. 85. Moreau de la Sarthe does not, however, appear among the authors in his library.

Edmond Charles Genet, who would, in turn, become his superior.^ Bonnet seemingly saw no contradiction between his devotion to Genet and his "Revolutionary" activities, as patron of the iocal poor house, notable, and member of the General Council of the Commune of Versailles in 1791.^® Even during the Terror, Bonnet protected the Genet family fortune, property and

papers against seizure, seeing no inconsistency between his protection of émigré

possessions and his reputation as a fervent Republican. Hidden in Versailles out

of sight of his Ministers, Bonnet in 1792 was a typical commis, dabbling in politics

outside the office but maintaining the duties of his Old-Regime position in the

Archives. It was only in a letter dated March 1792 to Bonne-Carrère, the

Director-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that Bonnet began to portray himself boldly as a committed Revoiutionary, to push himself forward at the

expense of his colleagues. He responded to the threat of widespread

administrative reform promised by the new Minister, Dumouhez with a

proclamation of his own "virtue".^® He vehemently denied any intention of

sycophantic praise, while simultaneously using hackneyed catch-phrases and siogans to demonstrate his loyalty to the Revolution (flattering Bonne-Carrère as a man who couid recognise flattery). He declared

'Virtue and Truth', such is my motto. To my superior, I therefore open the frank and ready soul of a faithful servant to Foreign

^ Bonnet had served Edme-Jacques Genet in the bureau des intérprêts from its

creation untii 1781, when the premier commis died. Although Edmond Charles

Genet succeeded his father, his decision to leave Versailles to become the French ambassador in the court of St. Petersburg meant that the bureau (which

depended utteriy on its premier commis) was disbanded in 1787. Bonnet was

given a transfer to the Dépôt, the Ministry's collection of treaties,

correspondences, memoirs and maps: Samoyault, Les Bureaux du Secrétariat

D'Etat des Affaires Etrangères sous Louis XV, pp. 131-140. See A.A.E. Personnel: Volumes Réliés, Origine - 1830, vol. XI, [Bonnet, L.J.A.], 3 recto verso, 61 verso, for Bonnet’s request to maintain his piace in the ministry he had served faithfully for twenty-seven years.

A.A.E. Personnel: Volumes Réliés, vol. XI [Bonnet]. Although Edmond Charles

Genet, by 1795 in Long Island, derided Bonnet’s use of the revolutionary calendar, he also saw little problem in accepting the administrator’s assistance.

Ibid., 4 recto, verso. That Dumouhez was going to purge the ministry was

common knowledge, as he had outlined this step in his Mémoire sur le ministère

des Affaires Etrangères in 1791. This memoir counselled that ministry employees should have absolute integrity: diplomacy should be based on honesty, not on mystery and deceit. It brought Dumouhez into favour with the Jacobin club, and, in particular, with the deputies of the Gironde.

Affairs, born with the passion of work, a sincere friend to the Constitution, and free of any sort of prejudice.^^

It was after the Terror that Bonnet began to combine political rhetoric with

physiognomic narrative. Having moved with the archives to Paris, he now

worked closely with the Minister, Charles Delacroix. In Year IV, Bonnet was described as "a good patriot, a good commis, an honest man... a good father, a good husband, and a good friend": his opinion was valued; his efforts were noticed, and rewarded with special privileges.^® Moreover, a key to the locked store, where important treaties were kept, and the right to side step his immediate superiors and deal with Delacroix directly, distinguished Bonnet from his colleagues. Made head clerk of the bureau. Bonnet stayed late at night,

scouring the archives for the papers the Minister needed the next day. In

Brumaire, he wrote to the minister, once more under the threat of a

administrative reorganisation: "I was born laborious. The vigour of my

complexion disposes me to unflagging and forced occupation." Politics and proof of hard work merged with the history of his "complexion":

If this advantage, joined to some learning, the study of languages and the knowledge of history, caused you to appoint me to draw up political memoirs - for which I dare to believe I have a certain aptitude - I pray of you. Citizen Minister, to take stock of my activity and my constant perseverance....®®

Bonnet's decision to combine political rhetoric with physiognomy came at the same time as his move to Paris, where his "vigour" could be proven not only on paper but also by his extra-curricular activities. Communicating both in prose and in prosopography (in its "archaic" meaning as the science of the face). Bonnet shone forth as a vital element in the ministry firmament, a colleague to emulate and - perhaps - a colleague to envy. He succeeded not only in keeping his job, but in gaining fringe benefits. In a letter dated Messidor Year VI, he bemoaned how he had been impoverished by his child's education, additions to his library, and aid to the poor house. Noting that he worked late and on his days

Ibid., 4 recto. ®® Ibid., 22 recto. 39

off, he turned these proofs of merit into material benefit with a request for temporary accommodation in the ministry.^

There was also another aspect to Bonnet's command of the physiognomic and political languages. A "historical memoir" in Frimaire Year IV, a companion piece to the solicitation above, by lavishing both praise and condemnation on his colleagues, used both as a means to cast his own judgements.^^ Some of his co-workers were mediocre subjects; others were good citizens, praised for their education, their attention to their civic duty, and their patriotism. For example, Bonnet criticised an old colleague. Baud, for his royalism, but still allowed that he was "endowed with useful knowledge".^^ The most unequivocal denunciations were of Fournier, an "ex-noble, a mediocre subject, one of the orators of the section, a persecutor of Patriots".^ He had earned these sobriquets. Bonnet alleged, by submitting a list of royalist employees to be retained (and, by implication, revolutionaries to be dismissed) to Bigot de Saint-Croix in August 1792.^ If in Fournier’s case, the denouncer had become the denounced, this

might have been a warning to Bonnet himself. Fournier’s familiarity with the

aristocratic Saint-Croix had tainted him forever in the eyes of his colleagues. Similarly, Bonnet’s familiarity with Delacroix would later be punished by the other

members of the bureau des archives.

If politics - not appearance - formed the basis of the accusations against Baud and Fournier, physiognomy formed the basis of his denunciation of Tessier, the most piquant bee in Bonnet's bonnet. Tessier, according to Bonnet, was an "adroit chameleon", able to adapt his physiognomy to circumstance, aspiring to become the chief of the Depot.^ Tessier hid "under a hypocritical mask an

^ Ibid., 28 recto. Bonnet was a trustee of the poorhouse in Versailles.

Ibid., 26 recto. Another letter to Charles Delacroix, dated the 25 Frimaire (27 recto, verso), forms a more concerted denunciation of his co-workers, noting in particular how Huet, although an excellent man, was "devoted to excess", and that only two of the "subjects of the depot" were proven patriots.

Ibid., 22 recto. Baud had served with Bonnet under Genet, and moved, like him, to the Depot. He was dismissed, shortly after the "historical memoir", on the 21 Frimaire Year IV.

^ Ibid., 22 recto. ^ Ibid., 22 recto. ^ Ibid., 22 verso.

unmeasured ambition"'*®; under a obliging demeanour, he was "semi-learned, intriguing, as supple and sharp-edged as a J e s u i t " Y e t Bonnet had to admit that careful surveillance of the "chameleon" had yielded little, except that Tessier, a "mediocre geographer", had ousted Barbié du Bocage, pupil of the celebrated geographer, d'Anville, and author of the map supplement for Abbé Barthélemy's Voyages du jeune Anarcharsis.^ Bonnet argued that Tessier had convinced the premier commis, Sémonin, to promote him by renouncing part of his wage for working in the Ministry.^® Even if Tessier's chameleon-like physiognomy was fabricated, this accusation at least was true: Tessier had made his reduction in wages possible by striking a deal with Sémonin to tutor his grandchildren (the

children of the ex-Farmer-General Preuze®°) for an extra three thousand livres,

food and board.®*

It is significant that, even when Bonnet had proof of Tessier's political corruption (or at least, of his association with the family of a Farmer General), he chose physiognomy, not politics, to give force to his denunciation. As a strategy, it bore fruit when Charles Delacroix decided to dismiss Tessier from the Archives.®^ Tessier's reappointment to the archives a few years later, however, showed that

both political and physiognomical proofs were ephemeral. A note urging

Tessier's reappointment biamed the geographer's dismissal on the "pretexts that were current at the time". "Prejudices," the note continued, had been "suggested against nearly all the employees of the Foreign Affairs archives, whose principles and morality have always been beyond the hint of reproach, and whose former services merit a better fate".®® Tessier's own solicitation cited Antoine-Bernard

Cailiard among those supporting his reintegration. Reappointed in 1801, he

^ Ibid., 22 verso. Ibid., 27 verso.

^ Ibid., 22 verso, 27 verso.

Ibid., 26 recto. 50

Preuze had been condemned to the guillotine some years earlier. The widow Preuze was the daughter of Ciaude-Gérard de Sémonin, Director of the Archives until September 1792. Sémonin died in retirement on the 20 Messidor Year II.

®* A.A.E. Personnel: Volumes Réiiés, vol. LXVI [Nicolas-Antoine Queux-Dame,

dit Tessier], 92 recto, verso; 93 recto, verso.

®® Tessier was dismissed on the 26 Frimaire Year IV, after a second denunciation on the part of Bonnet. He did not leave government service, however, moving

remained in the archives until his death in 1825. Bonnet’s own story was less successful: in Year VIII, a year before Tessier’s return, he faced an inquiry led by Cailiard, accused of having stolen seventy-seven gold and vermilion boxes from the Depot.

That Bonnet had temporarily mastered the "means of success" is indisputable. He had managed to control his appearance, combining the language of physiognomy and political denunciation, to gain the Minister’s ear, passing

memorandums (both denunciatory and otherwise) to him directly. Despite

claiming to speak "with all the frankness of an honest man"^, the line Bonnet drew between virtue and vice was an artificial one. His actions had no fixed value: rapid changes in the sort of "historical notice" necessary to clinch politicians’ support were compounded by frequent reorganisations within the Ministry - the announcement of each Ministry budget triggered an annual

avalanche of internal mail. With so many others competing for Ministerial

attention, protesting one's virtue could have the opposite effect to that desired. If anxieties were stoked by the fear that one's virtue would not be recognised, the desire to be seen was often offset by the need to protect ones faults from the notice of one's superiors. With the end of the Directory, Talleyrand's elevation to Minister, and Caillard's appointment as Head of the Archives, Bonnet was in a

particularly perilous position. There was little difference between his

denunciation and Fournier's, between his devotion to Genet and Tessier's service to the widow Preuze, between his use of physiognomy to state his virtue and the chameleonic ambition he decried. When Bonnet himself was accused of theft by his colleagues in Year VIII, it is unclear whether they acted as "Dorival"