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| Vattemare biography from the BPL site |
I got to wondering about how a successful French ventriloquist ended up founding the Boston Public Library. Why did he even care about a library in America? It’s another delicious library story.
In the late 1700s divorce by mutual consent in France was legal and Alexandre Vattemare’s parents took full advantage of the situation to marry three times - each. If you got confused by the Brady Bunch, imagine blending six families. It is not surprising that Alexandre’s childhood in Lisieux, France was unsettled and unhappy.
According to Suzanne Nash’s article Alexandre Vattemare: A 19th Century Story, when Alex was quite young he discovered he had a special gift that made him the center of attention and he used it, annoyingly, at every opportunity. His gift was making his voice come from outside sources or, ventriloquism. He sure knew how to have fun with it. Later in life he recalled some of his best tricks:
“cries of a drowning man being swept away by the current that brought crowds of Lisieux’s inhabitants with barges to drag the bottom of the river; cries of a voice in the chimney and cupboards and haystacks of neighbouring farms that the superstitious rustics believed to be the Devil or souls trapped in Purgatory; cries of a dead relative out of the embers of a fire that inspired the local curate to sprinkle the hearth with holy water.”
And he especially enjoyed tormenting his father by imitating the voice of the mailman when his father was expecting important letters.
His six parents, not surprisingly, sent him off to the seminary to straighten out. He was promptly kicked out.
Next stop was medical school where he excelled and was made a medical assistant at 16. But after making the cadavers “talk” one time too many he was refused a diploma there as well. Thanks to a shortage of doctors, Vattemare did work as a doctor and was sent to Germany with Prussian prisoners.
By 1815, Napoleon was defeated and Vattemare’s father was dead. Alexandre needed money and made a career change. He decided to turn his boyhood talent into a road show and headed out across Europe.
Nash writes that he became “M. Alexandre, Ventriloque et Gentilhomme” an “itinerant actor, playwright, self-styled aristocrat, and citizen of the world...he brought surprise, hilarity, and healing self-awareness to over 550 cities of Europe with satirical shows in which he single-handedly impersonated as many as ten separate characters in one play.” His entertainment career lasted for 20 years, during which time he performed at all the Courts, including Queen Victoria’s and Nicholas I.
Just like rock bands shout out to the locals, Vattemare loved adding a local twist to his nightly shows. When he got into a new town he headed to the library or museum to do a little research. That’s when he began to notice “doubles” of books and artifacts in some towns and large gaps in others. He began keeping a list of what he saw and then, thanks to his great fortune, began a grand collection of his own.
In 1830 Vattemare acted on his idea of sharing materials for the greater public good and started travelling back to the courts he visited as a performer to spread his vision for cultural exchange. His motto was, “Recevoir de ceux qui ont, pour remettre à ceux qui n’ont pas” which is loosely translated as “receive from those who have and give to those who don’t”. Which brings us back to where we started with yesterday’s entry.
And that is how a neglected and rambunctious French kid turned into a world famous ventriloquist who became the Robin Hood of libraries and a founder of the Boston Public Library.
In the late 1700s divorce by mutual consent in France was legal and Alexandre Vattemare’s parents took full advantage of the situation to marry three times - each. If you got confused by the Brady Bunch, imagine blending six families. It is not surprising that Alexandre’s childhood in Lisieux, France was unsettled and unhappy.
According to Suzanne Nash’s article Alexandre Vattemare: A 19th Century Story, when Alex was quite young he discovered he had a special gift that made him the center of attention and he used it, annoyingly, at every opportunity. His gift was making his voice come from outside sources or, ventriloquism. He sure knew how to have fun with it. Later in life he recalled some of his best tricks:
“cries of a drowning man being swept away by the current that brought crowds of Lisieux’s inhabitants with barges to drag the bottom of the river; cries of a voice in the chimney and cupboards and haystacks of neighbouring farms that the superstitious rustics believed to be the Devil or souls trapped in Purgatory; cries of a dead relative out of the embers of a fire that inspired the local curate to sprinkle the hearth with holy water.”
And he especially enjoyed tormenting his father by imitating the voice of the mailman when his father was expecting important letters.
His six parents, not surprisingly, sent him off to the seminary to straighten out. He was promptly kicked out.
Next stop was medical school where he excelled and was made a medical assistant at 16. But after making the cadavers “talk” one time too many he was refused a diploma there as well. Thanks to a shortage of doctors, Vattemare did work as a doctor and was sent to Germany with Prussian prisoners.
By 1815, Napoleon was defeated and Vattemare’s father was dead. Alexandre needed money and made a career change. He decided to turn his boyhood talent into a road show and headed out across Europe.
Nash writes that he became “M. Alexandre, Ventriloque et Gentilhomme” an “itinerant actor, playwright, self-styled aristocrat, and citizen of the world...he brought surprise, hilarity, and healing self-awareness to over 550 cities of Europe with satirical shows in which he single-handedly impersonated as many as ten separate characters in one play.” His entertainment career lasted for 20 years, during which time he performed at all the Courts, including Queen Victoria’s and Nicholas I.
Just like rock bands shout out to the locals, Vattemare loved adding a local twist to his nightly shows. When he got into a new town he headed to the library or museum to do a little research. That’s when he began to notice “doubles” of books and artifacts in some towns and large gaps in others. He began keeping a list of what he saw and then, thanks to his great fortune, began a grand collection of his own.
In 1830 Vattemare acted on his idea of sharing materials for the greater public good and started travelling back to the courts he visited as a performer to spread his vision for cultural exchange. His motto was, “Recevoir de ceux qui ont, pour remettre à ceux qui n’ont pas” which is loosely translated as “receive from those who have and give to those who don’t”. Which brings us back to where we started with yesterday’s entry.
And that is how a neglected and rambunctious French kid turned into a world famous ventriloquist who became the Robin Hood of libraries and a founder of the Boston Public Library.
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