so apparently a wigmaker in 17th century Paris wrote a tragedy that was so bad it actually became a best-seller cause nobles would buy his book just to laugh at it??? and they were all like “this is the best tragedy i’ve ever read!” and writing him ironic compliment letters like…………… at least he sold so much of these he actually became rich
his name was Charles André btw. Source: Anecdotes Dramatiques, by Clément and abbé de Laporte, found on archive.org
another story i found in this book: a carpenter was recruited in a theater company and played Achilles in (yet another) tragedy. He was so proud of that role he asked an artist to paint him as Achilles, but was insufferable and paid less than the artist asked, so the painter plotted revenge. He painted two pictures with different techniques and then told the man to use a sponge soaked in vinegar on the picture “to make the colors more vivid” but when his client did it, Achilles disappeared and was replaced instead by a painting of a very ugly carpenter. so petty i love it
there was also a man who went to see a play and was frantically applausing while yelling “THIS PLAY IS SO BAD IT’S THE WORST I HAVE EVER SEEN” and when ppl asked him why he was doing that he answered that he had been paid to applause but “since he was an honest man, couldn’t hide his impression that the play was awful” this is peak french people we’re still like that
ok but where can we READ that 17th century equivalent of My Immortal
i was wondering too! so, i researched it and apparently the true story is even better…
According to other and certainly more reliable sources (Voltairomania: l’avocat Jean-Henri Marchant face à Voltaire, by Jean-Henri Marchand edited by les Presses Universitaires de St-Etienne), Charles André the wigmaker was actually a strawman? I quote and roughly translate that book: (emphasis is mine)
“Charles André, born in Langres in 1722, was in the middle of the century a wigmaker in Paris, rue de la Vannerie. In 1755 was published under his name a tragedy, The Lisbon Earthquake [Le Tremblement de terre de Lisbonne], and it worked so well he started to believe he had actually wrote it. We still don’t know if André was victim or complicit with that fraud, but it seems like the lawyer Jean-Henri Marchand was the actual author or André’s texts.”
The joke apparently worked so well that Marchand wrote yet another book under the pseudonym of “Beaumont, hairdresser of the Quinze-Vingt” in which the so-called hairdresser praised the wigmaker.
And so the first story i told you was true. The tragedy certainly looked like what educated people thought an ineducated wigmaker could write if he wanted to compose a tragedy; which was, also, a way to mock the fact that nearly everybody in this time was writing some kind of book; plus tragedy was the very essence of “noble writing” so i guess the idea that a working man could write a tragedy was pretty funny at the time. So, they jokingly, in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, went to visit the “famous author” in his wig shop, because that man was basically 1750 Paris meme. Like, he became a notorious character the same way we have @setheverman for example. People would see a very bad play and say to each other “oh, i bet this is Charles André’s latest work!” the same way we have the “is that setheverman” joke when seeing a tall white bald man.
It gets better. According to the same source, Charles André (the true wigmaker) “finally thought he had actually written the play and started writing poetry”. The author i’m quoting quotes another book, “Parfait Ouvrage, ou Essai sur la coiffure”, a fantaisist book supposedly written in Persian (”persian books” were an easy way to invent authors) and translated by André’s “nephew”. So obviously it’s a fake, but still – there was a fucking Charles André lore, with a whole family and backstory.
Tl;Dr: some French wigmaker from the 17th century became Paris’ latest meme and a whole lore was created, including fanfic, about this man.
im begging yall please reblog the whole post with additional info! like i see so much of u reblogging without the bigass explanation and i feel concerned. you don’t have the full story please don’t learn something that’s so far from the truth. i am worried
Published
medusa-avenging-squad 