SOURCE: Cropper, Corry L. “Playing at Monarchy: le jeu de paume in Literature of Nineteenth-Century France.” French Review 75, no. 4 (March 2002): 720-29.

[In the following essay, Cropper determines the symbolic significance of the French game le jeu de paume in “The Venus d'Ille.”]

For centuries le jeu de paume, a precursor to our modern day tennis, was the exclusive cultural and social property of France's nobility. In the fourteenth century, Charles V, by royal decree, forbade anyone not of noble birth to play the game. From then until the fall of the monarchy, bourgeois and commoners indulging in the noble privilege of playing the jeu de paume were to receive stiff penalties, or what historian Jacques Fournier refers to as “sévérités” (11). While the interdiction against playing le jeu de paume proved impossible to enforce (like so many of the noble privileges), the King's message, at least on a symbolic level, was clear: le jeu de paume is a noble game.

To a certain extent, the nature of the game itself created barriers which prevented the lower classes from playing: the sport required space, money, time, and, with its many intricate rules, a good memory. At least three walls enclosed the 110 feet long court, with the initial serve required to strike an awning on the side wall. In addition, each player or team was required to bring a valet to spot where balls landed during “les chasses.” In the Encyclopédie, under the heading “paume, le jeu de,” Jaucourt writes that “Ceux qui jouent à la paume ont ordinairement deux marqueurs. Ce sont proprement des valets de jeux de paume qui marquent les chasses.” Even if merchants or laborers had the money to pay these valets, they would undoubtedly have difficulty finding enough time to devote to a sport whose three separate “movements” often lasted until dark. As Jaucourt records: “On joue, pour l'ordinaire, partie, revanche et le tout, et l'on ne peut laisser cette dernière partie que pour bonne raison, comme à cause de la nuit, ou autre semblable.”

While one can only muse at what “autre semblable” could possibly refer to, it is clear that the nobility who practiced this sport took its rules very seriously. In fact, the intricate rules of the noble jeu de paume are as complex as the cultural and political rules of monarchy itself. For example, the receiver has the option of directing the ball into one of the galleries on the service side of the court. If successful, he may then proceed to “lay down a chase,” that is, he will try to strike a ball so that its second bounce strikes closer to the opposing back wall than his opponent's ball and thereby win “un quinze.” The server, in turn, after hitting his serve off the awning or “toit,” can earn “quinze” by hitting a ball directly into what is known as “the winning gallery.” Regarding the scoring by increments of fifteen, Jaucourt posits:

Ce jeu se compte par quainzaines en augmentant toujours ainsi le nombre, en disant, par exemple, trente, quarante-cinq, pui un jeu qui vaut soixante. On ne sait point positivement la raison de cela. Il y en a qui l'attribuent à quelques astronomes, qui sachant bien qu'un signe physique, qui est la sixième partie d'un cercle, se divise en soixante degrees, ont cru à cette imitation devoir compter ainsi les coups du jeu de paume.

(L'Encyclopédie, “paume, le jeu de”)

And then in the understatement of the Encyclopédie entry, Jaucourt concludes: “Mais comme cette raison souffre quelques difficultés, on ne s'y arrêtera point comme à une chose certaine.” (It is widely accepted that scoring by increments of fifteen provided yet another barrier to the lower classes who would be mystified by the unusual system.)

In the nineteenth century, Sainte-Beuve, struck by the rigidity of the rules of the sport, used the jeu de paume metaphorically in Port-Royal. A priest criticizes the authors of an etymological treatise for ignoring the influence of Latin and breaking the rules of serious scholarship: “c'est comme si, en jouant à la paume, on ne touchait la balle que du second bond, et non du premier” (405). The preeminent importance of the game's rules, even into the nineteenth century, suggests a tight link between the sport and the ancien régime with its web of noble customs and social rules.

During the First Republic and the Empire, not surprisingly, the noble sport of le jeu de paume virtually disappeared. As Squires points out, “The execution of Louis XVI and the rise of French revolutionaries brought the banishment of everything tainted by or associated with aristocracy, and court tennis [le jeu de paume] was at the top of the list!” (14). In fact, from 1800 courts in France at the end of the sixteenth-century, the numbers dwindled to only 50 courts by the beginning of the nineteenth century. These numbers clearly demonstrate that in the French collective psyche, in the realm of the symbolic, le jeu de paume was more than an innocent game—it had become a sign of noble power, wealth and excess.

The symbolic value of le jeu de paume would be enhanced when, in June of 1789, deputies of the tiers état declared that no proposals, even those submitted by the king, would be passed into law without their approval. The King, in an effort to circumvent their revolutionary efforts, had the deputies locked out of the Estates General assembly room. Finding the doors locked to them, the deputies made their way to Versailles's jeu de paume where they promised to stay until they had written a constitution. David's painting of the Serment du jeu de paume served to strengthen the symbolic value of the court. The artist unites all the tensions of the revolution in one physical space: the winds of change suggested by the billowing curtains, the bourgoisie empowered in a noble realm, the euphoria of victory, and the immense remnant of the Ancien Régime (the court) which would certainly not fall easily. This court becomes a vector for political and cultural tension, a symbolic playing field for the political games which will be fought out throughout the entire century. The idealism represented in David's painting ends, of course, in 1815 when Louis XVIII ushers in the Restoration. Nevertheless, following this event, le jeu de paume can no longer be represented innocently. In literature of the nineteenth century, while the sport and its court continue to represent the nobility with which they had been associated by royal decree for centuries, for the first time, they additionally represent a physical space connected with failed attempts at social and political ascension.

In post-revolutionary literature, then, authors depict two groups of people who continue to practice the sport: first, those connected to the Ancien Régime who wish to remain so; second, those who aspire to be considered elite, but who in reality are not. Members of the first group benefit by playing the game, members of the second group are ultimately destroyed for engaging in a game they are not qualified to play—in other words, their attempts at social ascension fail. To better situate a discussion of the second group, I will begin with a brief analysis of the first, that is, characters connected with the Ancien Régime who wish to maintain their ties to it, who live in the “good old days” of the monarchy even though the monarchy is dead.

Edmond About, in his 1862 novel Le Nez d'un notaire, depicts one old noble belonging to this first group, who continues to practice le jeu de paume, despite the collapse of the monarchy:

M. de Villemaurin était un de ces gentilshommes qui semblent avoir été oubliés par la mort pour rappeler les âges historiques à notre temps dégénéré. … Par les habitudes de l'esprit et du corps, il appartenait au XVI^e siècle. … Royaliste convaincu, catholique austère … il avait accompagné Charles X en Ecosse après les journées de juillet; mais il quitta Holy-Rood au bout de quinze jours de résidence, scandalisé de voir que la cour de France ne prenait pas le malheur au sérieux. … C'était un petit homme trapu, vigoureux, fidèle à tous les exercices de sa jeunesse; il comptait sur le jeu de paume bien plus que sur le médecin pour entretenir sa verte santé.

(53-56)

Like the sport he regularly practices, M. de Villemaurin belongs in every respect to the Ancien Régime. He remains situated in the sixteenth century and the corporal practices of that era lay claim upon his noble body. More noble than the king, he survives literally by remaining faithful to routines of the old nobility—that is, he owes his excellent health not to the intervention of some bourgeois doctor, but to playing the noble jeu de paume. To him, playing le jeu de paume is not unlike a return to Eden, a way to find relief in the ideals of past glory during the “temps dégénéré” of the nineteenth century.¹

Aside old-school nobles like M. de Villemaurin, the only other French represented as practicing le jeu de paume without serious negative consequences are themselves relics of the Ancien Régime, whose bodies, like Villemaurin's, belong to another era: the clergy. Sainte-Beuve, in his novel Volupté, depicts the clergy as knowing only three pleasures in life: spiritual pleasure, long walks, and le jeu de paume. The novel's protagonist admits “de n'avoir connu jamais pour extrêmes plaisirs, après l'allégresse divine de l'autel, que la partie de paume deux fois le jour et les longues promenades du mercredi” (51). Des Esseintes, in Huysmans's late nineteenth-century text A rebours, has childhood memories of priests “jouant à la paume, la soutane retroussée, serrée entre les genoux” (170). And Zola joins him, in La Faute de l'abbé Mouret, when he mentions le jeu de paume as a sport regularly enjoyed by the clergy during their recreation (58).

Of primary interest in this article, however, are instances where le jeu de paume appears in unnatural, nonnoble circumstances. In two works written around the time of the monarchy's ultimate fall, that is around the time of the July Monarchy—Balzac's La Maison du chat-qui-pelote (1829) and Prosper Mérimée's “La Vénus d'Ille” (1837)—le jeu de paume figures prominently to depict members of the bourgeoisie with noble aspirations. In the unstable political climate of nineteenth-century France le jeu de paume serves a literary economy concerned with the rising bourgeoisie; it circulates most unexpectedly as a symbol of Ancien Régime values which the arriviste bourgeoisie tries to mimic but, with the bourgeois emphasis placed on winning, cannot.

“La Vénus d'Ille,” in many anthologies, is the example par excellence of French fantastic literature. The narrator, closely resembling Mérimée himself, travels to the southern village of Ille to document the region's archeological and artistic treasures. Upon his arrival, two unexpected reports greet him. First, his guide informs him that his host's son, Alphonse de Peyrehorade, is to be wed at the end of the week. Second, he learns that his host has discovered a Roman statue of Venus in his own back yard. Significantly, the Venus is located at the edge of the Peyrehorade's garden and overlooks the family's jeu de paume.² The morning of his wedding, Alphonse, tired of waiting for his mother to dress, is lulled into a game of paume.

It is important to note here that Alphonse, although referred to as a noble (“de Peyrehorade”), is in reality an exemplary member of the new July Monarchy which cast out blue-blooded legitimists and primarily served the interests of the growing bourgeoisie. The narrator underlines Alphonse's provincial bourgeois background, remarking that he dresses “exactement d'après la gravure du dernier numéro du Journal des modes,” sees beauty in a ring not because of its beauty but because of its monetary value, and is marrying a lovely young woman neither for love nor political reasons but because she will inherit from an aunt who is “fort riche.” In addition, Alphonse speaks Latin poorly and has “des mains d'un laboureur sortant des manches d'un dandy” (27). With a noble façade hiding a bourgeois center, Alphonse perfectly represents Louis-Philippe's paradoxical “liberal monarchy.” In the next few paragraphs, I will demonstrate how Alphonse's participation in an ancient, noble game betrays his modern, nonnoble roots and ultimately leads to his demise.

In his essay “Sport and Social Class,” Pierre Bourdieu notes that, for the aristocracy, sport represents “activity for no purpose” (824). Sporting events, then, separate the upper class from the working class whose work does serve a purpose, albeit a vulgar one. Members of the upper class, according to Bourdieu, “pride themselves on disinterestedness and define themselves by an elective distance—manifested in art and sport—from material interests” (824). The Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympics, understood this principle and therefore sought to make the modern Olympic games an event for the elite by instituting an amateur-only policy—amateurs, by definition, are disinterested participants, who participate in sport for sport's sake, not for money (“activity for no purpose”). Even today, the participants of “elitist” sports, such as golf, must dress as if they were not really working: professional golfers in the first half of this century were obligated to wear ties and are still required to wear long pants, regardless of the temperature.

To return now to “La Vénus d'Ille:” when Alphonse decides to abandon wedding preparations and play a match of paume, he discloses his nonnoble background by becoming too involved in the game. “Il ôta son habit … et défia les Espagnols. … Sa toilette, qui l'occupait si fort tout à l'heure, n'était plus rien pour lui” (52). He removes his shoes, his jacket, his tie, and eventually, even the ring destined for his bride. Moreover, instead of the aloofness one would expect from a member of the nobility, after missing the first ball, “Il jeta sa raquette à terre avec fureur” (53).

Bourdieu continues: “It is known that among the working classes [remember Alphonse's ‘mains de laboureur’], the abandonment of sport, an activity whose play-like character seems to make it particularly appropriate to adolescence, often coincides with marriage and entry into the serious responsibilities of adulthood” (823). Alphonse enters this game on the very day of his wedding. Nobles, of course, would continue to practice the sport after marriage, but a member of the “working class” would certainly seek, as Alphonse does, to get in that one last game before beginning his serious life as husband. Seeing Alphonse's desire to enter the game, Mérimée's narrator remarks: “Et sa fiancée? … Ma foi, si cela eût été nécessaire, il aurait, je crois, fait ajourner le mariage” (52). Indeed, in this context, it is logical that Alphonse would remove or “put off” the ring upon entering the athletic playing field, for the ring symbolizes those “serious responsibilities” which would prevent him from successfully engaging in sport. Unfortunately for him, he places the ring on the Venus's finger, and unwittingly concludes an alliance with her that eventually costs him his life.

Alphonse initially enters the game because his hometown team is losing. He is unable to maintain his distance, unable simply to appreciate the inherent beauty of the game as an end in itself. As Bourdieu remarks, “The more superficial the perception, the less it finds its pleasure in the spectacle contemplated in itself and for itself, and the more it is drawn to the search for … victory at all costs” (829). Instead of nobly accepting defeat, maintaining his noble distance, or simply enjoying the inherent beauty of a good match, Alphonse becomes serious and resolves to win: “Il était pâle … calme et résolu” (53). He is so determined to win that, as noted earlier, he removes every article of clothing and jewelry which could identify him as more than a commoner. And although he is hailed as a champion, he is a champion of commoners, heralded by “polissons”³ who cannot distinguish art from propaganda, nobility from bourgeoisie. Real nobles are noble win or lose; Alphonse is noble and heroic only when victorious.

And while Alphonse has not gone so far as to turn sport into work (a money-making venture), he nevertheless, through his lack of composure and restraint, vulgarizes the noble sport of jeu de paume. Played under the Ancien Régime, the sport's primary purpose was to enable the accumulation of what Bourdieu calls “social capital.” That is, the sporting activity represented a “mere pretext for select encounters … a technique of sociability” (839). An excellent example of this exchange of social capital takes place in Madame de Lafayette's 1678 novel La Princesse de Clèves.

Peu de jours avant l'arrivée du duc d'Albe, le roi fit une partie de jeu de paume avec M. de Nemours, le chevalier de Guise et le vidame de Chartres. Les reines les allèrent voir jouer, suivies de toutes les dames. … Après que la partie fut finie, comme l'on sortait du jeu de paume, Châtelart s'approcha de la reine Dauphine et lui dit que le hasard lui venait de mettre entre les mains une lettre de galanterie qui était tombée de la poche de M. de Nemours.

(44)

Note that the outcome of the match is not even an issue for the spectators—in fact, we never do find out which team wins. Who attends and the exchange of information (in this case the discovery of a letter) is of far greater importance than winning or losing. For Alphonse, on the contrary, winning, not “social capital” interests him. The only real encounter he makes is with his adversary, a mule driver from Spain, whom he insults after the match: “Nous ferons d'autres parties, mon brave, dit-il à l'Aragonais d'un ton de supériorité; mais je vous rendrai des points” (54). Instead of keeping with the tradition of noble disinterest, Alphonse lords his victory over a simple merchant.

Unlike the noble M. de Villemaurin of About's Le Nez d'un notaire who prolongs his life by engaging in regular matches of paume, Alphonse has his life cut short because he plays. The two cases differ dramatically, however, in that M. de Villemaurin plays a disinterested brand of paume, where the sport is an end unto itself, an esthetic, circular practice which benefits only the body of the practitioner. Alphonse, on the contrary, already in good health, plays to win, and this involvement betrays him as a noble fraud, as a bourgeois gentilhomme. For Alphonse, victory covers up a fundamental lack—his lack of legitimate nobility. Placed in a historical context, this win-at-all-costs mentality is not surprising. As seen in David's painting, victory and its subsequent euphoria is of primary importance for the bourgeoisie. In fact, throughout the entire century the bourgeoisie seeks to recapture the euphoria of the revolution by wrestling power away from both the nobility and the lower classes.

While Alphonse does indeed overcome an initial mistake to win, to put it in financial or bourgeois terms, the cost of his victory is high. His victory comes under the eyes of the Venus, a model of ancient perfection, even a symbol of the Ancien Régime itself. The text does allow such a comparison. The narrator's guide, during their initial descent into Ille describes the Venus in these terms: “Oh! monsieur, il ne lui manque rien. C'est encore plus beau et mieux fini que le buste de Louis-Philippe qui est à la mairie, en plâtre peint” (24). The Venus is the perfect solid model after which the bust of the Citizen-King, Louis-Philippe is merely a cheap plaster imitation. The modern bust, symbolic of the liberal July Monarchy, cannot rival with its ancient predecessor—it is a false copy of the legitimate nobility of France.

The Venus, representative of real art and, more importantly for our discussion, of real nobility, positioned at the edge of the jeu de paume, witnesses Alphonse's fraud: that is, Alphonse presents himself as a noble, but demonstrates, while playing the game of kings, that he is not. His nobility is as superficial as the paint on the bust of Louis-Philippe. Once his wedding clothes are removed, the “mains d'un laboureur” are exposed. The Venus, protector of beauty, nobility and of sport,⁴ rises from the past, recognizes Alphonse as an unworthy, nonnoble spouse and sportsman and consequently eliminates him, purging and purifying legitimate nobility and its sport. The inspector relates the testimony of Mlle de Puygarrig: “Elle tourna la tête alors … et vit, dit-elle, son mari à genoux auprès du lit, la tête à la hauteur de l'oreiller, entre les bras … [de] la Vénus de bronze, la statue de M. de Peyrehorade” (68).

While Mérimée is generally laudatory of the July Monarchy, this reading suggests that his political collusion in the 1830s has perhaps been overstated. While he appreciated the compromise between new and old regimes afforded by Louis-Philippe's government, he maintained a mistrust and even disdain for the growing bourgeoisie and feared popular elections, referring to them as “des saletés” (Correspondance générale 4: 513). Elsewhere Mérimée writes: “Voilà comment les affaires marchent sous le gouvernement constitutionnel. C'est une magnifique anarchie de quatre cent cinquante neuf épiciers [the elected députés] qui prétendent gouverner chacun de leur côté, et pour leurs intérêts particulers” (CG 5: 94). For Mérimée, these deputies are strikingly similar to Alphonse with his “mains d'un laboureur sortant des manches d'un dandy.” The arrivistes deputies have “des mains d'un épicier sortant des manches d'un député.”

Le jeu de paume appears in other works of the nineteenth century and while its importance may not be as prominent as in “La Vénus d'Ille,” its symbolic value remains constant. One example from Balzac's La Maison du chat-qui-pelote: as the work's title makes clear, le jeu de paume occupies a central position. On the front of Monsieur Guillaume's shop

se trouvait un antique tableau représentant un chat qui pelotait. … Il faut dire que le plus spirituel des peintres modernes n'inventerait pas de charge si comique. L'animal tenait dans une de ses pattes de devant une raquette aussi grande que lui, et se dressait sur ses pattes de derrière pour mirer une énorme balle qui lui renvoyait un gentilhomme en habit brodé.

(40)

Le jeu de paume is placed as the primary symbol of M. Guillaume's shop, of this narrative, and is the opening symbol of Balzac's entire Comédie humaine. The introduction of le jeu de paume implies from the beginning that Balzac will deal with issues of social class and social ascension. Muriel Amar, in an analysis of the shop's sign, suggests that the cat, a nonnoble, has illegally entered into a royal game (150). Augustine, the shopkeeper's daughter, ascends the social ladder when she leaves her bourgeois world and marries someone from the “old” nobility, Théodore de Sommervieux. Like the cat on the sign, Augustine breaks from cultural norms by marrying into the noble world.

Like Alphonse of “La Vénus d'Ille,” Augustine's breach of Ancien Régime cultural behavior leads to her death—Augustine's tale becomes a Chat botté à rebours.⁵ La duchesse de Carigliano tries to teach Augustine the rules of the game she will need to survive. But, too virtuous, Augustine cannot play at adultery and consequently cannot successfully play at nobility. Unlike Alphonse, who, as a member of a modern bourgeois monarchy, transgresses by moving backwards and defiling a sport reserved for legitimate nobility, Augustine transgresses by leaving her father's home, a bastion of Ancien Régime values, and moving forward into a relationship characteristic of a soon-to-be-established liberal regime. In other words, while le jeu de paume represents a return of the past in “La Vénus d'Ille,” it suggests a leap into the future in La Maison du chat-qui-pelote.

This inversion, however, comes as no surprise when one considers the historical context in which the narratives appeared. Published in October of 1829, La Maison du chat-qui-pelote precedes the end of the Restoration and the beginning of the July Monarchy. A political marriage of bourgeoisie and nobility with its accompanying uncertainty loomed on the horizon. Certainly, those too attached to the values of the Ancien Régime (like Augustine) would be unable to survive the reign of a citizen-king. Moreover, such a union was not entirely legitimized until after 1830. Balzac demonstrates that the harmonious marriage of bourgeoisie and nobility depicted on the sign in front of M. Guillaume's shop is fraudulent: such a marriage cannot withstand the ultimate test of reality. What may succeed in art, fails in practice. “La Vénus d'Ille,” on the other hand, published after the creation of the new “liberal monarchy,” depicts the dangers of looking back to an irrecoverable past. By engaging in a match of paume, Alphonse unwittingly invokes spirits of a past with which he is incompatible and which he cannot control—the past resurrects to purify the present.

Le jeu de paume, in each of these instances, stands as a symbol of the Ancien Régime and of failed attempts at social ascension. Nonnoble characters who engage in the sport (Alphonse) or who are represented in connection with the sport (Augustine), while they may be momentarily successful at achieving noble status, ultimately fail. In a discussion of sport and culture, Roger Caillois explains that games

are historically the residues of culture. Misunderstood survivals of a past era or culture traits borrowed from a strange culture and deprived of their original meaning seem to function when removed from the society where they were originally established. They are now merely tolerated, whereas in the earlier society they were an integral part of its basic institutions, secular or sacred. … The transfer or degradation they underwent stripped them of their political and religious significance.

(58, 59)

In the case of the jeu de paume, however, too imbued with the monarchy's culture, the post revolution bourgeoisie cannot strip it of its political significance. As they struggle the entire century to realize the ideals proposed on Versailles's jeu de paume (to wrest power and capital away from the monarchy), in literature the sport serves to allegorize the bourgeoisie's failure. In the nineteenth century the image of le jeu de paume becomes a sort of Pandora's box: its evocation causes the rules of the past to be applied to the present. Bridging the gap between bourgeoisie and nobility, while it may superficially appear possible, remains symbolically impossible as nonnoble characters depicted in association with the jeu de paume are punished for transgressing social codes of the Ancien Régime and for defiling the sport of kings.

Notes

1. It merits noting that authors from the noble classes, like Montaigne, were laudatory toward the sport, whereas Rousseau, although he appreciated the physical benefits of regular exercise, regarded le jeu de paume as a dead sport, no longer in practice, belonging to what he calls “l'ancienne gymnastique” (137).

2. While some have noted the opposition between the garden and the jeu de paume as an opposition of Ancien Régime values and modernity, I will demonstrate that the jeu de paume is in reality another manifestation of the Ancien Régime. If there is opposition, it is between a religious past (the garden and its olive trees) and a cultural/political one.

3. Mérimée uses this word to describe two superstitious vandals from Ille who, during the narrator's first evening in the village, attempt to deface the statue.

4. The narrator mentions that the statue looks as if she is playing a game: “la main droite, levée à la hauteur du sein, était tournée, la paume en dedans, le pouce et les deux premiers doigts étendus, le deux autres légèrement ployés. … L'attitude de cette statue rappelait celle du Joueur de mourre” (36, my emphasis). The statue is quite literally playing a jeu de paume.

5. Perrault's fairy tale, too, is one of social ascension, where cat and master successfully rise from obscurity to the highest order of nobility. The tale ends happily when the miller's son Carabas weds the King's daughter and becomes heir to the throne. Balzac, however, instead of setting his tale in a distant “once upon a time,” roots it in the spatio-temporal reality of Paris under the Restoration. Unfortunately for Augustine, the narratives differ further in that Balzac does not conclude Augustine's story at her wedding. Once married, she finds herself unable to adapt to a different, noble way of life, and consequently dies.

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