So I've always known that Napoleon and the actor Talma were friends since a period when the former was socially irrelevant, while the latter was already famous.
Does anyone know how they became friends? Any sources? I know Napoleon had always been passionate about theater, but it seems such an odd friendship nonetheless.
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“François-Joseph Talma, the prominent French actor and theatre reformer, addressed the tsar with a line from a play: ‘Friendship of a great man is a gift of the gods’. The tsar rose to his feet, politely pointing at Napoleon, and the two embraced to a thunder of applause. Talma was one of Napoleon’s favourite actors — the emperor frequently employed the thespian as a coach to teach him onstage postures, especially since contemporaries believed they much resembled each other in appearance.”
La Mode illustrée, no. 40, 5 octobre 1873, Paris. Modèles de chez Mme Bréant-Castel; rue du quatre-septembre, 19. (Les explications des figures de cette page se trouvent sur la plance de patrons.) Talma en drap olive avec ornements en ficelle. Talma double en drap avec broderie. Mantelet en drap bleu-noir. Ville de Paris / Bibliothèque Forney
Talma en drap olive avec ornements en ficelle.
Oui, vous avez bien lu: en ficelle; ces plaques, ces glands sont faits en grosse ficelle pareille à celle que l'on trouve chez les épiciers. Au milieu des petites plaques, se trouve un disque en jais noir. Le contour est orné d'une large bordure exécutée en perles de jais et d'une guipure de même teinte que le drap employé pour le talma.
Talma in olive cloth with string ornaments.
Yes, you read correctly: in string; These plates, these tassels are made of thick string similar to that found in grocers. In the middle of the small plates is a black jet disc. The outline is decorated with a wide border made of jet beads and guipure of the same color as the cloth used for the talma.
Like Talma playing Orestes, killed magnificently yet not dying, his fury ready to leap back to life the next day, or in an hour, or in a minute, a phoenix of rage, always being reborn from its own ashes! . . . And in fact there were certain chords within him that, no matter when you touched them, were taut and ready to vibrate with a power that would astonish anyone unwary enough to have struck them.
— JULES BARBEY D’AUREVILLY ⚜️ Diaboliques: Six Tales of Decadence, transl. by Raymond N. MacKenzie, (2015)
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Do not reply to me, but love me for my admiration.
Germaine de Staël (1766 - 1817), from a letter to Talma
[Geneva?) March 1809
in: “Madame de Staël. Selected correspondence”, translated by Kathleen Jameson-Cemper