the Hôtel de Bourgogne, to 'Jehan Sehais comédien Anglois', and on 4 June obtained judgement in the court of the Châtelet, 'tant pour raison du susdit bail que pour le droit d'un écu par jour, jouant lesdits Anglais ailleurs qu'audit Hôtel'.[1] I do not know whether I am justified in finding under the French disguise of 'Jehan Sehais' the name of one John Shaa or Shaw, conceivably related to Robert Shaw of the Admiral's men, who witnessed an advance by Henslowe to Dekker on 24 November 1599.[2] In 1604 another English company was in France, and gave a performance on 18 September in the great hall at Fontainebleau, the effect of which upon the imagination of the future Louis XIV, then a child of four, is minutely described in the singular diary of his tutor and physician, Jean Héroard.[3]
'Mené en la grande salle neuve ouïr une tragédie représentée par des
Anglois; il les écoute avec froideur, gravité et patience jusques à ce
qu'il fallut couper la tête à un des personnages.'
On 28 September, Louis was playing at being an actor,
and on 29 September, says Héroard:
'Il dit qu'il veut jouer la comédie; "Monsieur," dis-je, "comment
direz-vous?" Il repond, "Tiph, toph," en grossissant sa voix. À six
heures et demie, soupé; il va en sa chambre, se fait habiller pour
masquer, et dit: "Allons voir maman, nous sommes des comédiens."'
Finally, on 3 October:
'Il dit, "Habillons-nous en comédiens," on lui met son tablier coiffé
sur la tête; il se prend à parler, disant: "Tiph, toph, milord" et
marchant à grands pas.'
It has been suggested on rather inadequate grounds that the play seen by Louis may have been 2 Henry IV. Possibly the princely imagination had merely been smitten by some comic rough and tumble.[4] But it is also conceivable that the theme may have been the execution of John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, at the restoration of Henry VI in 1470.[5]*
- ↑ E. Soulié, Recherches sur Molière, 153; cf. Rigal, 46; Jusserand, Shakespeare in France, 51.
- ↑ Henslowe, i. 114.
- ↑ Soulié et de Barthélemy, Journal de Jean Héroard, i. 88, 91, 92.
- ↑ H. C. Coote in Intermédiaire des Chercheurs et Curieux, ii. 105; cf. 5 N. Q. ix. 42. The idea was that 'Tiph, toph' represented a reminiscence of 2 Henry IV, II. i. 205, 'This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for tap, and so part fair'. The phrase 'tiff toff' occurs in brackets in a speech of Crapula while he beats Mendacio in Lingua (Dodsley,^4 ix. 434). Collier explains it as hiccups; Fleay, ii. 261, on the authority of P. A. Daniel, as an Italian term for the thwack of stage blows.
- ↑ E. Fournier, Chansons de Gaultier Garguille, lix, and L'Espagne et ses Comédiens en France au xvii^e Siècle (Revue des Provinces, iv. 496), cites
