page_title: Charles Deburau
section_title: Louis Rouffe
hierarchical_section_title: Charles Deburau / The "school" / Louis Rouffe
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of mime Louis Rouffe in book by Séverin: L'Homme Blanc, Paris 1929. This non-U.S. work was published 1923 or later, but is in the public domain in the United States because it was simultaneously published (within 30 days) in the U.S. and in its source country and is in the public domain in the U.S. as a U.S. work (no copyright registered, or not renewed). For background information, see the explanations on Non-U.S. copyrights.
context_page_description: Jean-Charles Deburau was an important French mime, the son and successor of the legendary Jean-Gaspard Deburau, who was immortalized as Baptiste the Pierrot in Marcel Carné's film Children of Paradise. After his father's death in 1846, Charles kept alive his pantomimic legacy, first in Paris, at the Théâtre des Funambules, and then, beginning in the late 1850s, at theaters in Bordeaux and Marseille. He is routinely credited with founding a southern "school" of pantomime; indeed, he served as tutor to the Marseille mime Louis Rouffe, who, in turn, gave instruction to Séverin Cafferra, known simply as "Séverin". But their art was nourished by the work of other mimes, particularly of Charles's rival, Paul Legrand, and by earlier developments in nineteenth-century pantomime that were alien to the Deburaux' traditions.
context_section_description: How Charles shaped the career of Louis Rouffe (1849–85) is still a matter of speculation.  A mime who never played in Paris—at thirty-six, he died even younger than Charles, and all hopes of performing in the capital were defeated—Rouffe is a shadowy figure in the history of French pantomime, having enjoyed little of the publicity of his Parisian predecessors.  Unlike Charles Deburau, he left none of his work in print, and, unlike his student Séverin, he did not live long enough to write his memoirs.  But the little that is known of him suggests an independent spirit, closer to Legrand than to Deburau fils.  According to Hugounet, Rouffe was determined that "his art should not remain imprisoned in the bands of tradition.  He set himself the task of enlarging it and making it enter the current of modern thought, thereby realizing the program traced by Champfleury in his book on the Funambules."  Hugounet goes on to remark that Rouffe's work was an "eloquent albeit mute response to Francisque Sarcey, who reproached Paul Legrand for his wish to express in pantomime that which lay outside its domain—ideas."  Like Legrand, Rouffe often performed in character costume, setting aside Pierrot's white blouse and trousers, thereby earning him the epithet "l'Homme Blanc".  All of this suggests that, although Rouffe undertook formal study with Charles, he had been more impressed, in various ways, by the Legrand who had played at the Alcazar in Bordeaux from 1864 to 1870.  And the career of Rouffe's student Séverin Cafferra (or simply "Séverin", as he preferred) represents a betrayal of Charles's pantomimic traditions in still other important respects.
caption: Louis Rouffe as Pierrot, c. 1880, in Séverin, L'Homme Blanc (Paris, 1929).
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