I am very intrigued to see this morning in the papers and elsewhere reviews of a new film called ‘Chevalier’. It is about the French musician and sword fighter who came from a slave background in Guadeloupe and appears to focus on how he became a sensation in eighteenth century France as a musician. I haven’t seen the film - it doesn’t seem to be on any of the platforms which I have access to, so I don’t know if it just sticks to his life in France or if it mentions his visits to England. I didn’t know even know his real name was Joseph Bologne and I had always known him as ‘St George’. However he certainly came to England - and the reason I’m writing this is because he visited Woolwich at least once and I thought it might be worth describing the visit.
I think that in England he was better known as a virtuoso swordsman than a musician. He is probably best known here for his exhibition sword fights against the Chevalier D’Eon front of the Prince of Wales, the future George IV. There are a number of illustrations about this event – but it may be best not to go into all that because I wanted to write about his visit to Woolwich.
So, let’s set the scene. It must have been at some point in the 1790s that St George visited Professor Isaac Landman at the old Royal Military Academy in Woolwich. Isaac Landmann is somebody that I would like to know more about. He spent most of his career in Woolwich as Professor of Fortification and Artillery in the days when the Royal Military Academy was becoming an intellectual hothouse. He left behind a canon of important books on his specialist subjects - and yet we know very little about who he was and where he came from. He seems to have been head hunted by the British Government to this post. He had been teaching at the Ecole Militaire in Paris, and Sir Thomas Page was sent to Paris, under Royal Command, with inducements to bring Landmann to England. We know from a chance remark by George III that may have come from Mecklenburg-Strelitz and had 'field experience ' with the French military as Aide de Campe to (Marshall de Broglie who is said to have had ideas of a division of armed forces based on skills - cavalry, artillery and, maybe, also engineers. Landmann was appointed to the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich to teach both artillery and fortification - the two strengths of Woolwich which were separated become Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers.
Landmann also seems to have had close-social relationships with a number of French aristocrats and indeed some English ones including members of the Royal family
In 18th century Woolwich and all those clever military people who were working in what we now call the Arsenal had certain glamour to them. Many of them were very clever and had very distinguished careers in the military. They were setting a high standard for future military activity and they knew it.
As a scientific institution the Arsenal and the Royal Military Academy were employing men who were early members of the Royal Society. For instance, in 1773 Charles Hutton was appointed Professor of Mathematics. Hutton was an extremely important mathematician from a humble background in Newcastle, who, along with a distinguished publishing record performed the calculations necessary to work out the mass and density of the earth. Paul Sandby (THE artist) had been appointed Drawing Master in 1768, and founded the Royal Society of Arts. Isaac Landman not only knew with these people in Woolwich but was also was friends with the Astronomer Royal and others.
The Royal Military Academy
had been planned over many years but was formally opened in Woolwich 1741 were.
The curriculum focused on mathematics and scientific principles of gunnery and
fortification - though Landman as the ‘First Master. While an artillery officer
attended each class to keep order, teaches in the academy were civilians: Also
taught were arithmetic and classics
The account I have of St. George’s visit here comes from the autobiography of Isaac Landmann’s son, George. He was a distinguished Royal Engineer who had worked under Wellington in the various battles in Spain – then retired from the army and built the Greenwich Railway. His entertaining account of his childhood in Woolwich is well worth reading.
So, St George came to Woolwich to visit Isaac Landmann and his family. I
assume this was while they were living in a flat in the Royal Military Academy
-later the family was to move to Crooms Hill in Greenwich. This is the building
by Hawksmoor still very much on site although I’m extremely unclear what is now
called or used for. It appears to be in the performing arts area providing an educational
base run by Greenwich Leisure leisure Ltd.
After dinner it was agreed
to go into the garden to ‘gratify the company with carte-and-tierce - a
demonstration of fencing skills. A ‘select party’ of ‘artillery officers had
also come along, by invitation, to watch.
St George was to ‘fight’
with James Molard, the fencing master at the Royal Military Academy. George
Landmann desceibes James Molard as a ‘coarse vulgar fellow, said to have
received the whole of his education as a private soldier among the gendarmerie
of Paris’.
At first ‘these heroes of
the foil’ undertake the ‘carte-and-tierce’ then Molard proposed a ‘little trial
of skill….’ the howlings now sent out by the belligerents strongly resembled
the bellowing of wild beasts at feeding time’ but it was understood that his
‘was the ordinary practice with French fencers’.
It soon became clear that
St George’s abilities were vastly superior to Molard’s who kept denying that
the ‘button’ on St George’s foil had touched him. St George called for a piece
of chalk and chalked the button of his foil. ‘Now M Molard, you shall not have
a chance of escaping’... and they began
to fight again ‘neither of them in the pleasantest temper’.
Molard lunged at St
George, who parried it and then instantly spun completely round on his left
heel and ‘pinked’ Molard on the breast before he was able to recover his
guard. This ‘wonderful feat drew forth
loud and reiterated applauds from all the company’. The chalked button had left most equable
proof of St George’s superiority.
Thus the fencing master
was being beaten regularly in the presence of several of his pupils and he
became exceedingly angry and violent loudly proclaiming ‘it was an accident’. He then snapped off the button form his foil,
calling on his opponent to the same. Saying ‘the show of blood shall decide who
is the best swordsman if you refuse you are ‘un f** …poltron’. St George accepted the challenge and was
clearly unable to suppress his irritation
That points the
proceedings were stopped……with great resistance from the disputants’
So this was St George’s visit
to Woolwich and a demonstration of his virtuoso sword fighting skills to
artillery officers - who no doubt were all admirers,
.
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