ABSTRACT
In contrast to the more theoretical and literary views of pantomime as a genre inherited from the ancients, performances in dumbshow to the accompaniment of music had been a feature of entertainment at the fairs from early in the century. When these entertainments moved to the boulevard du Temple, the pantomime and the skills that had been developed came with them. By the 1770s the Ambigu-Comique had built up a reputation for its
pantomimes with their carefully choreographed and spectacularly presented fights. In Arnould-Mussot’s Les Quatre Fils Aymon (1779), drawn from the legends of Charlemagne, there are scenes which anticipate the equestrian drama of the Franconis’ Cirque Olympique. In Act II, Roland and Regnaut engage in single combat on horseback, with lances, and then dismount to fight with sword and dagger. The third act depicts the attack on the castle, involving mass movements of extras and exciting pyrotechnic effects.3 Such effects continued to be found in many a historical melodrama, from Pixérécourt’s Charles le téméraire (1814) to the grand circus production of La Prise de Pékin of 1862. The boulevard satisfied the demand for excitement relating to physical action, where audiences wished to see that action, and not only hear about it. A prefatory note to Les Quatre Fils Aymon gives a humorous picture of what the pantomime audiences wanted:
Some pantomimes are as sublime as eternity. They have neither a beginning nor an end, and their main action consists of a score of blasts on a whistle which make as many machines move in front of our eyes. [He is referring to the stage-manager’s whistle, used to cue the stage-hands.] The beauty and number of the scenes, the brilliance of the costumes, the countless number of incidents heaped one upon another, noisy and characterless music, an infinite number of frequently unintelligible gestures, which often express nothing, a collection of ballets more or less well introduced, it does not really matter, and that’s what people call delicious, marvellous etc.
