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Collot d’Herbois timeline

A timeline over Collot d’Herbois whole theater career and early years in revolutionary politics, based primarily on the first two parts of the biography Collot d’Herbois — légendes noires et Révolution (1995) by Michel Biard andLa Société des Jacobins: recueil de documents pour l'histoire du club des Jacobins de Paris (volume 1-3) by Alphonse Aulard.

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12 July 1746 — the marriage contract between Jacques-Gabriel Collot and Jeanne-Agnès Hannen is passed. Both husband and wife come from relatively well-to-do families, in the latter’s case they can even be called very well-to-do. Jacques Gabriel is a goldsmith companion who obtains his master’s degree a year after his marriage. The couple at first settles on Rue Saint-Denis in Paris, but in the 1750s they move from there to Rue Saint-Louis.

19 June 1749 — birth of Jean-Marie Collot, the couple’s first child (D’Herbois was a pseudonym, and the first recorded appearance of it is in a letter dated September 27 1770). They later have three more children — Elisabeth Charlotte (1750), Jeanne Louise (1751) and Jacques Louis (1754).

5 November 1757 — Collot’s parents get a divorce. It is unknown what happened to their children after this and what kind of education they got. Nothing is known about Jean-Marie’s life between this moment and 1767.

1767 — Collot becomes an actor, for the time a rather unpopular profession. For six months he’s part of a group that, under the leadership of one Bellements, sets up plays in Bretagne. He doesn’t particulary like his time there, five years later he writes to his friend Desroziers and tells him that ”had not these unfortunate times given me your friendship, I would have liked to forget them forever.” Collot keeps up correspondence with Desroziers during the rest of his acting career as well.

1768-1769 — Collot works as an actor in Avignon.

1769-1770 — Collot works as an actor in Toulouse.

1770-1771 — Collot works as an actor in Aquitaine. Around this time he gets his first meaningful role.

1772-1773 — Collot works as an actor in Bordeaux. People there appriciate him and consider him good at his job. It’s here that Collot starts getting lead roles and writes his very first play — Lucie, ou les Parents imprudents, which is played for the first time on 14 March 1772. The five act long play attacks societal norms, above all arranged marriages. It enjoys success and is soon being played on many provincial theaters and even abroad. The philosopher Élie Fréron praises the play the very same summer, though Collot doesn’t let himself become convinced by him. He tells Desroziers that he wants to go to Paris, but is forced to lower his ambitions.

1773-1774 — Collot works as an actor in Nantes. People there like him. In 1773 Collot writes a new play —Clémence et Monjair, a variation of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. Neither the play nor reviews of it have been conserved. The same thing goes for Collot’s third play Rodrigue et Séraphine, a comedy in four acts.

1774-1776 — Collot works as an actor in Angers.

1776-1777 — Collot works as an actor in Nancy.

1777-1779 — Collot works as an actor in Avignon and/or Marseilles. On 25 November 1778 is printed a new play of his, Il y a bonne justice, ou le Paysan magistrat, drame en cinq actes et en prose, in its turnbased on the play The Mayor of Zalamea, Or, The Best Garrotting Ever Done by Spanish dramatist Pedro Calderón (1600-1681). In the play, Collot attacks the nobility and the army while portraying the king as a benevolent father figure watching over his subjects. No reviews from the time the play was first released have been conserved, but we do know it was appriciated when it was played in 1789 and 1790. In 1778 also appears L' Amant loup-garou ou M. Rodomont: pièce comique en quatre actes et en prose imitée de l'anglais, a comedy in four acts based on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. When the play is set up in Marseilles without mentioning who the author is, Collot sends the theater an angry letter.

November 4 1777 — Collot’s very first play Lucie, ou les Parents imprudents is set up in Montpellier, with Collot in the lead role. After the show is over, Collot gets into an argument with the Treasurer of France in the Generality of Montpellier and an advisor to the Court of Aid. One of them asks Collot why he seems to be staring at him to which Collot replies: ”the truth is that I find you very pleasant to look at.” The other man then intervenes and tells him: ”Monsieur, you are an author and actor, go back, Monsieur, to your estate,” to which Collot loudly replies: ”Yes I am an author and actor, I find glory in it, I honor these states and those who speak to me dishonor theirs.” For this, the two men have Collot sent before major commanding the place, and, after he refuses to back down before him as well, to the prison and court of the citadel. Now he is finally forced to puts his guns down, pledging to "be more circumspect and restrained in his words and writings in the future.”

1779-1780 — Collot works as an actor in Anvers.

1780-1781 — Collot works as an actor in Rouen. When the dauphin is born on 22 October 1781, he writes La Fête dauphine, ou le Monument français, praising the royal family. After this he puts down his pencraft, and doesn’t pick it up again until 1789. Collot also gets married to Anne Catherine Joséphine Catoir (born 23 December 1759) in either late 1780 or early 1781.

1782-1784 — Collot works as an actor in Lyon. The people of the city have only positive things to say about him.

1784-1787 — Collot becomes a director, perhaps inspired by his friend Desroziers already having walked the same road. On May 1 1784 he rents a house in Geneva where the lease covers two full years, suggesting he and his partner Desplace had been given authority of the theater of the town for at least two seasons. Collot personally travels to Paris to recruit actors for his troup, which makes its debut on May 9 1784, playing Voltaire’s L'Orphelin de la Chine. He uses his position as director to sometimes put up some of his own plays, such as L'Amant loup-garou and Le Paysan magistrat, and also sometimes works as an actor in the plays he sets up, often playing the lead role. Collot works together with famous people such as Francesco Righetti and, perhaps, Mademoiselle Saint-Val. Things do however start going badly for him in Geneva. Already at the troup’s debut they’re received badly by the local critic Ami Dunant who notes that the actors ”were dressed badly and played badly.” Two years later he still hasn’t changed his mind, calling Collot’s troup mediocre at best. The theater quickly loses its audience, already in the spring of 1785 it has lost two thirds of it, and Dunant describes theater nights with barely 100 people in a room with the maximal capacity of 1100. More trouble is caused by Geneva’s strict religious policy, which demands the theater dedicates a show to charity about every second month. In December 1784 Collot and Desplace decide to arrange four balls in the hopes of earning some extra money. The experiment is successful, but when they try it again the two following years the results are much more discouraging. In June 1784 an envoy charged with transporting belongings of three of Collot’s actresses accidentally dumps it all in Lake Geneva and the three actresses demand compensation from Collot, but a trial is needed to get him to pay the indemnity of 5000 livres. One of the actresses, Madame Duchateau, gets fired by Collot the following year after having asked for a huge raise, but as the theater starts losing its audience because of it he is forced to take her back a month later. Finally, when Collot one year after that is preparing to head to Paris to hire new actors, seals are placed on the prop storage of the theater, since he hasn’t payed the rent in time. Collot does however manage to scrape together enough money to pay what he owes.

1787-1789 — Collot works as a director in Lyon. The first play he contributes to is set up on April 16 1787, very shortly after he has left Geneva. The staff, with around 160 people, is about three times bigger here compared to the former town. Collot’s material situation is also much better, with a fixed salary of 6000 livres per year and a lodging at the theater itself. This time he does no acting, focusing solely on directing, nor does he choose to set up any of his own plays. The theater opens its doors almost every day, with 321 shows between April 16 1787 and March 15 1788. Most plays that are set up are comedies, with a love for Voltaire, while drama and tragedy are the least common. The biggest obstacle is the amount of actors who become unavailable due to health reasons, already in May 1787 Collot complains about having to spend much time visiting the sick and making sure they’re doing OK. In December the same year, when going to comfort an actress in her dressing room, Collot is literally tossed out of there, though afterwards he still asks that the actress not be punished for it. Collot still enjoys success in Lyon, and he gets the oppurtunity to expand the amount of seats in the theater and raise the prices. Witnesses also report full houses. His wallet is likely far from empty once his career in Lyon comes to an end somewhere in April 1789 (the myth that Collot went hard on Lyon in 1793 as vengeance for the citizens not having appriciated him during his theater career does in other words appear to be just that, a myth).

2 October 1789 — first proof of Collot’s activities in Paris. We don’t know if he was there even earlier and present for the storming of the Bastille. In his defence from 1795, Collot claims he moved to the capital in order to ”live in solitude and philosophy,” with his wife after more than twenty years spent on the scene, in other words not to participate in the revolution or get inspiration for new plays. He settles in Chaillot.

17 November 1789 — the play L’Inconnu, ou le Préjugé à vaincre is set up at Théâtre du Palais-Royal, marking Collot’s comeback as playwright. The play is almost entirely based on Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s The Jews from 1749, and preaches religious tolerance and open-mindedness. In particular, it condemns the costoms in which the family of a criminal becomes guilty by association. It also criticises the military and the royal court, but the king is once again spared and portrayed as a defender of liberty. It gets played at least fifteen times between November 1789 and August 1790, of which nine within the first two months. It also gets set up at several theaters outside of Paris, such as in Bordeaux, Rouen and Douai. Opinions on the play are divided, but the press overall shows itself sympathetic to it. The harchest criticism comes from the journal L'Année littéraire which writes that the play seems to both be ”wrong in substance and uninteresting in detail” but also ”riddled with bad jokes.” It does however also confess the successes of the play and admits it’s got a certain spirit.

7 December 1789 – premier for Collot’s old play Le Paysan magistrat at Théâtre du Palais-Royal, that is then played again on the 10th, 13th, 16th and 19th. It is on the suggestion of Comédie-Française that a hesitant Collot has agreed to set it up (the play largely revolves around a group of soldiers preparing to massacre a village, something which may not be very well received in a time where disorder within the country has created a split between the nation and a part of its army), along with other plays that before the revolution have been viewed as ”too dangerous” for the established order to be played in the capital. In a letter published in Chronique de Paris the same day as the premiere Collot nevertheless makes sure to underline that the play is based on the work of Caldéron and not current events. The play gets support from some papers and critique from other. It ends up being more or less a flop, something which Collot himself admits in a letter.

14 January 1790 — Premiere for Collot’s new play La Journée de Louis XII, meant as an antipode of Joseph Chénier’s newly released Charles IX, ou, L’école des rois: tragédie. The play is a celebration of Louis XVI and ends with him being declared ”the father of the people.” In the first of the play’s three acts the king is surrounded by his family, showing his qualities as a father and husband. He gives his wife the advice ”to make herself more beloved by the French people than she’s been up until that point,” an obvious allusion to Marie-Antoinette. In the same act, a person preparing a feast for the king, transparently enough named La Fayette, is also praised. The play enjoys huge success — after its premiere on January 14 it gets played again the following day, during which the public openly demands it to be played at the 16th as well. In total, it is set up 21 times between January 14 and March 21 1790, 17 of which during the first two months. The papers write that the play draws enormous crowds, and even in March there are people complaining about not yet having found empty seats. Critics are also united in their praise of Collot’s work. The play itself was however never printed.

19 April 1790 — premiere for Adrienne, ou le Secret de famille, a rewrite of Collot’s old play Lucie, ou les Parents imprudent. The original five acts have been reduced to three, but aside from that the changes are minimum, with only a few here and there in connection to the upheavals that have taken place since the play eighteen years earlier was penned down. Phrases like ”the French people are brothers, long live God, the king is their father” are however left untouched. The play does however become somewhat of a failiure, and a few journals write about it with much negativity. It is only played eight times between April to August. The play is the last Collot sets up in colloboration with Théâtre du Palais-Royal.

16 July 1790 — premiere for Collot’s new play La Famille Patriote, two days after the feast of the federation. It is a celebration of the revolution, the king and the unified nation, and the only storm clouds it brings up is that there still exists misled Frenchmen who don’t yet follow the revolutionary path. The play is once again a success, and gets played twenty times in Paris and also set up in several other cities, including Bordeaux, Lyon, Rouen and Brest. All the reviews have only positive things to say. This marks the start of Collot’s colloboration with Théâtre de Monsieur, a theater which opened 1789 and declared itself symphathetic to the revolution right from the beginning.

November 1790 — premiere for Le Procès de Socrate, ou le Régime des vieilles temps, Collot’s fourth and last play of the year. It is more or less a copy of Voltaire’s play Socrates, and just like with Adrienne, ou le Secret de famille, the result is more or less a failure. It is played nine times in November, three or four in December, none in January and two in February. The play is controversial and gets met by both praise, reluctance and open hostility. According to Collot, this has more to do with the political opinions of the reviewers and not the quality of the play itself.

3 December 1790 — Collot’s first recorded speaking at the Jacobins. He is listed as secretary several times throughout March and April 1791.

February 1791 — premiere for Les porte-feuilles: comédie en deux actes et en prose, a new play of Collot’s where the political allusions are much weaker compared to previously. The play enjoys huge success — Théâtre de Monsieur sets it up at least 55 times between February 1791 to July 1792, almost three times more than it did La Journée de Louis XII. It gets played nine times in February, seven in March, and is after that set up three to five times per month for over a whole year, something that is actually quite rare for the time. Even papers who ordinarily are hostile towards Collot praise the play, listing its long length as the only minor flaw. The play is the only one of those Collot wrote during the revolutionary period to have given birth to several editions, and is undeniably Collot’s most successful projet from that era.

17 March 1791 — Collot signs a contract with Théâtre de Monsieur, which underlines several generous compensations for each show played. It will however be almost a year before the theater sets up a new play of Collot’s.

30 March 1791 — At the Jacobin Club, Collot gets scolded by Danton for having inserted praise of Bonnecarrère in one of the club’s minutes while serving as secretary. Bonnecarrère is a member of the jacobins who has just been elected minister in Liège. According to Danton, someone part of the executive power can no longer be a friend of liberty, and praising someone like that is therefore something only suitible for slaves. This is the second time Collot is recorded to have spoken at the club and the first of his recorded apperances outside of the theatrical realm that catches some attention, as several journals, including those of Brissot and Hébert, mention the fiery debate. The journal Sabbats jacobites even inserts a poem about it:

Air: Quel dèsespoir

Monsieur Danton Quittez enfin cet air farouche; Monsieur Danton On vous prendrait pour un démon; Collot d'Herbois me touche, Baissez un peu le ton; Dans un cas bien plus touche Il me donna raison. Monsieur Danton, Quittez un peu cet air farouche; Ou tort ou non, . Collot d'Herbois aura raison.

6 June 1791 — Collot reads his very first report at the Jacobin club. It regards the affair of six soldiers from Bourgogne who have been sentenced to death by a court martial. Collot strongly attacks both the officers and the Minister of War and demands that the convicts be released.

26 June 1791 — Collot reads a new report at the Jacobins, this time regarding the Nancy affair. Collot of course picks the side of the soldiers who took part in the mutiny and condemns the marquis François Claude de Bouillé who sent his troops to crush them (Bouillé interestingly enough fled France for his role in the the royal family’s recently failed escape attempt just a day before the report was presented at the club). The jacobins orders it to be printed and copies of it sent out to the clubs in the provinces.

6 July 1791 — Collot reads a follow-up report on the Nancy affair. This time it’s about thirty gunners who have also fallen victim to Bouillé. Collot strongly expresses support for giving the soldiers, who he argues have too often been exposed to the hate of their leaders, proof of their protection.

15 July 1791 — Collot’s play La Famille Patriote is set up once more in Paris in celebration of the anniversary of the feast of the federation.

20 September 1791 — Collot’s play Les Portefeuilles, along with two other plays, is played with free entrance to celebrate the Constitution. It’s once again a huge hit and the papers report how both seats and corridors get overcrowded.

23 October 1791 — At the Jacobins, the winner for a competition launched on September 20, with the goal of finding the work best suited to showcase the virtues of the new constitution, is announced. Out of the 42 entries that have been submitted, it is Collot’s Almanach du Père Gérard that ends up receiving the first prize. This work, which may or may not have been inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s Almanach du bonhomme Richard, is devided into twelve interviews, all between the title character Père Gérard, a Breton deputy in the constituent assembly, and peasants. Each interview is about a certain topic, and they all give Collot the opportunity to explain the foundations for the new regime while also critisizing some of its limits. While he’s still for a constitutional monarchy, he also speaks in favor of more radical elements — such as a rejection of the active/passive citizenship, the veto right, slavery and refractory priests. The almanach also contains two specific allusions to the current political climate — one that concerns refractory priests which Père Gérard declares must be avoided or even rejected for not having realized that ”the God of justice and goodness, who protects all people and loves and defends liberty, is ours,” while still urging reason rather than violence to get them or their side, and one that concerns the idea of using the army to defend and spread the revolutionary ideals abroad. Here Père Gérard responds that, although protecting liberty is highly commendable, ”warrior virtue isn’t everything, for then, the military spirit would become dangerous. There exists virtues where the exertion is more lenient but no less important for the happiness of life and the tranquility of the citizens.” When Collot is declared the winner at the Jacobins, he gets received by applauds and embraced by the president. After having read his work aloud, Collot announces that his intention is to give the prize money of 25 louis to the Swiss of Château-Vieux and a jacobin charitable fund. The almanach gets read aloud at the club the following day as well, during which it again often gets interrupted by applauds. It also enjoys publication success, being released in both Annonah, Auxerre, Lille, Carpentras, Reims, Nîmes, Rennes, Bourg-en-Bresse, Chalon-sur-Saône and Nancy, and translated into both Provencal, Dutch, English and German. Patriotic journals praise it, while it receives criticism only in certain counterrevolutionary circles. It also becomes the subject for several imitations with the goal to disprove it, such as Almanach de l'abbé Maury or Les Entretiens de la Mère Gérard.New editions of Almanach du Père Gérard were released during the 1870’s, 1889 and 1905, despite Collot’s by then infamous reputation.

31 October 1791 — At the Jacobins, Collot reports on the state of the Château Vieux soldiers.

1 November 1791 — At the Jacobins, Collot speaks about the Nancy affair, proposing that the Swiss nation should not be granted the right to judge offences concerning only France, and again asking for support of ”the poor soldiers of Château-Vieux.”

18 November 1791 — At the Jacobins, Collot speaks in favor of sending commissioners to Avignon to probe their minds on the political situation they’re currently in.

20 November 1791 — Collot acts as vice-president at the Jacobins, and, in the absence of the president Couthon, reads aloud a list of persons wishing to appear before the club.

27 November 1791 — at the Jacobins, Jean Dusaulx reveals that an artist is working on an edition of Père Gérard with engravings and asks the club to support it financially. Collot stands up to offer some reflections on the preferred cost, as well as to express his satisfaction over ”the eagerness with which this work is desired.”

28 November 1791 — When Robespierre enters the Jacobin club for the first time after a two month long absence from Paris, Collot, who is still occupying the role as vice-president, asks that ”this man, justly nicknamed the Incorruptible, presides over the Society,” a proposal which gets passed. Collot then engages Robespierre to step up into the president’s chair, which he does, expressing his gratitude to the society. This is the first recorded meeting between the two.

29 November 1791 — At the Jacobins, Collot speaks about what should be done about the émigrés, and shows himself sympathetic to the decree passed by the Legislative Assembly on October 31 1791 demanding all to return to France by the end of the year under threat of being declared tratitors. He says that these resolutions ”are those that the entire nation, if it could assemble, would have adopted.” The same session, Collot, alongside Pétion, Robespierre, Lanthenas, Rœderer and Bourdon, is chosen for ”the honorable function to instruct children and teach them the catechism of the constitution.”

6 December 1791 — At the Jacobins, Dufourny announces the results of the votes for procureur-syndic to the Commune, where Collot has stood for election. He does however end up in second place, losing hard against Danton who got 1162 votes. Collot himself got 654, Gérard de Buzy 399 and Hardy-Thouret 279.

8 December 1791 — At the Jacobins, Collot, who is currently acting as vice-president, says he’ll give up the chair for the session since it concerns not the jacobins but the public, who has come to give their judgement on the national education plan recently out forward by the Legislative Assembly. However, ”the general acclamation” assures him that no one is more worthy than him to occupy the chair and Collot therefore keeps it. Later during the session, he holds a speech praising the education plan.

9 December 1791 — at the Jacobins, Collot reads the two page long pamphlet Opinion de M. J. M. Collot d’Herbois sur notre situation actuelle, et sur la pétition présentée au roi par les membres du directoire du département de Paris. In it, he identifies both external enemies in the forms of the émigrés who have found protection abroad, and internal enemies, the most dangerous of which are refractory priests.

16 December 1791 — At the Jacobins, Collot rises to speak in favor of several women who’ve come to listen but can’t find a seat in the gallery. He says they are ”mothers of families, worthy of Ancient Rome” and asks that they be granted two or three benches. This proposal is adopted unanimously.

23 December 1791 — At the Jacobins, Collot obtains the floor to speak about ”the affair regarding the unfortunate soldiers of Château-Vieux” which is on the order of the day the next day for the Legislative Assembly. The club orders the printing of his speech and for it to be distributed to members of the Assembly as they enter it the next morning.

25 December 1791 — At the Jacobins, Collot talks about ”the success of the affair regarding the unfortunate soldiers of Château-Vieux.”

1 January 1792 — At the Jacobins, Collot reports about the two decrees the Legislative Assembly has passed the same morning regarding the Château-vieux affair — one that states the 41 soldiers of shall immediately be put under amnesty, and the other being about the accusation against the princes. The whole club is rejoiced by the news, and Collot, ”the defender of the oppressed,” gets met by applauds. Later the same session, Collot reveals that he’s donated 1500 livres of the money he’s made from Almanach du Père Gérard to the soldiers of Château-Vieux, and another 1500 to the jacobin welfare fund.

January 6 1792 — At the Jacobins, a discussion arises regarding the question of what should be done with members who have gone over to the Feuillant club. Collot points out that many defectors repent and that they therefore shouldn’t delve too deeply into facts of this nature. This suggestion is however violently opposed by Robespierre, who states any member who presents himself at the Feuillant club can’t ever be allowed back at the jacobins again. He is applauded, and Collot instead suggests an amendment according to which the club’s presentation committee gets a fixed date up until which they can present defectors, after which they must stop stop. This idea is however once again opposed by Robespierre, who asks that they stick entirely to his proposal, and after a long discussion, it’s finally adopted.

15 January 1792 — At the Jacobins, Collot communicates a letter from the soldiers of Château-Vieux, written ”on the benches of the galleys.”

16 January 1792 — Collot tells the jacobins about the steps it had entrusted him with in order to bring mayor Pétion, who supposedly is ill, the assistance he needed. He explains he had great difficulty in getting Pétion to accept it but eventually succeded, and that the latter was in a much better state when he left compared to when he came.

17 January 1792 — premiere for Collot’s new play L’Ainé et le Cadet, that in total gets played five times more that month, alongside one time in February and one time in March. This play, which once again contains very few political allusions, is to be Collot’s last, after this he leaves the theater world and occupies himself entirely with politics.

#really interesting when thinking about the timeline of actors #like iirc the frev gave them rights but their social standing just generally improved in the next decades right?#even then collot's haughtiness in that one conversation :o #also i just realized that titles then and ao3 summaries now are both using the '#'cool liner or actually relevant information' format #also i didn't know there were directors! i thought playwrights directly conversed with the actors #also: shakespeare??? already popularish in france??? hello??????#collot d’herbois #frev #he's also a lot wealthier than i expected. he can spend thousands of francs on the public???#thank you for writing up this post!!!

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