Jean Alphonse de Blois de Penthievre

## Jean Alphonse, Comte de Guingamp

(Adopted)

Jean Frederic, Duc de Berry

Louis Gabriel, Comte d‘Eu

Marie Isabelle, Mademoiselle d'Amboise (deceased)

**Jean Alphonse de Blois de Penthievre** (16th June 1737 - Present) is a Grandelumierian nobleman, writer, and philosopher, famous for being a paragon of the Philosophes, advocacy of natural rights, secular society, criticisms of the Church, and despotism.

Although being of very high birth, he is known to be very modest; never indulging on the common excess of court. He is arguably most noted at court for his physical appearance, suffering from a plethora of infirmities, including a hunched back, a clubbed arm, and a crossed eye, rendering him a grotesque in the eyes of many.

## Youth

### **Birth**

Jean Alphonse was born the youngest of six on June 16th, 1737 to Madame la Princesse and her husband, Monsieur le Prince. His birth was considered to be a rather awful tale, with accounts claiming that he came out a cripple, intertwined with his stillborn twin. Nevertheless, being a child of his station, he was granted the courtesy *Comte de Guingamp* after birth. He was kept at court for over a month at the behest of his mother, Madame la Princesse, for she insisted on not losing the sickly boy, trusting only the court physicians to handle him.

### **Early Childhood**

After Jean Alphonse was sent away to his family's primary provincial home at Bizy, he was thenceforth cared for by the Baronne de Châtelaudren. His parents, being of high status and influence at court, remained at Argenteuil primarily, only occasionally vacationing to Bizy. Thus, Jean Alphonse saw his parents far less frequently then his other siblings had in their upbringings.

From the age of six, he was educated by the Abbe de Saint-Jacut, studying the natural world as well as Latin and Greek. He also excelled at subjects such as mathematics, writing, physics and a number of other sciences. But above all, he relished history. From a very early age, he reveled in classical histories, devoting long hours to reading great epics like the Odyssey, Aeneid, and histories of the Romans and medieval matters. Alphonse excelled at little else that was beyond his own mind, for his physical form constrained him from any strenuous physical merriment and made him a pariah amongst other people, something that would haunt him for his entire life.

### **Adolescence**

As a result of his physical appearance, Jean Alphonse developed a terrible anxiety in his adolescence, preferring the solitude of his own apartments, reading and writing his days away until he was sixteen when he was sent to study at the University of Paris.

Upon arrival in Paris in 1753, Jean Alphonse fell in love with the city immediately, despite it being a crowded, filthy metropolis. He wrote in his memoirs, *"There is no luxury on this Earth that is worthy to match the feast of the mind that Paris serves."* In Paris, he studied philosophy, law, history and other humanities, but still struggled with oratory. It was not until he read Plutarch's history on Demosthenes that he was inspired to follow suit, practicing with pebbles in his mouth, reading aloud newspapers and pamphlets in the coffeehouses. It was in his orations at these coffeehouses that he was drawn into the vibrant Enlightenment culture. He suddenly found himself debating politics, philosophy, and law with the brightest minds in Europe in its intellectual nucleus.

It was at this time that Jean Alphonse first attended court, an experience which he documented in his memoirs, *"Despite a gloss, it is a brittle thing, hard and of little worth."*. Jean Alphonse visited court a handful of times in his adolescent years, rather he insisted on the Parisian lifestyle, mingling with the lower nobility and bourgeoisie.

## Adulthood

### **Early Adulthood**

Jean Alphonse left the University of Paris in 1755 and took up residence in London for a year, where he wrote his first work, *Principes de la Nature*, a discourse on natural rights and social inequality. He published the work in French and English, and it was well-acclaimed amongst intellectual societies.

After his tenure in London, Jean Alphonse traveled to Rome, where, along with some minor poetry, he wrote and published his second work, *L'Indien*, a satire about a Native American man abducted into western society, presenting a commentary on the inequalities of Grandelumiere, and its enduring Catholic dogma and aristocratic privileges.

In late 1756, he returned to Paris, where he began holding regular salons in his family's Hôtel Penthievre, which he established as his own residence, importing over two thousand books to create a vast personal library. His residence in Paris quickly became an intellectual niche, a common place for men of all walks of life to mingle with artists, philosophers, scientists, writers, and other intellectuals. The Marquis de La Trousse wrote, *"Any man wishing to become a considerable expert of any science within an afternoon ought to have a cup of coffee at Guingamp's."*

In a bid to preserve any hopes for a fruitful match for the deformed man, Alphonse's brother, the Monsieur le Prince, Louis Chretien, arranged a match for his brother and the young Mademoiselle d'Orlande in the sunset days of 1756. The marriage itself was a small one, besides a few choice nobles, the attendance was dominated by Guingamp's bourgeois admirers and fellow philosophes. The couple themselves did not even meet until they stood before the altar; the mademoiselle was visibly stunned before all, the Demoiselle d'Estampes remarked, *"Noone was more drawn to the booming fart that echoed from the crowd than to the mademoiselle's shock at the sad little thing that Guingamp is."* The union was rumored to remain unconsummated on the couple's first night for reasons seemingly obvious to most. The Demoiselle d'Estampes would later relay to members of the court that, *"Guingamp was so embarrassed as to be nearly tongue-tied*, *in more places than one."*

After the death of his parents in 1757, Jean Alphonse was left with a considerable inheritance of 600,000 livres. With it, he purchased the Hôtel Bellanton on the *quai d'Anjou* from a particular Jean-Pierre Bellanton, a Parisian banker grown exceedingly wealthy from an abuse of arbitrage. The young Guingamp then established his court of *philosophes* at his new domicile, adding a significant number of history books he inherited from his mother, and numerous paintings he commissioned from artists such as Augustin Buillion, who was a dear friend and advocate of Alphonse's events.

In late 1757, Alphonse, in ensemble with the composer Jean-Xavier Broutin, and the ballet master Jaume Donzeaux, wrote *Les Princes Nains,* a three-act *comédie-ballet* about a band of Prussian soldiers who are dispatched to kidnap the children of an unnamed prince (presumed to be the Dauphin Auguste). In the play, they mistakingly abduct the band of dwarves that serve the Queen (an allusion to Catherine of Spain), and run away with them, but are pursued by a heavily exaggerated court hunt. They are finally discovered when they host their pursuers in a captured château, posing as aristocrats. In the final scene, they are tied at the stake to be burned as heretics but are saved by a sudden torrential storm.

The piece satirized the aristocracy as a snobbish and vain institution and poked fun at the Grandelumierian church's cruel removal of Protestantism under the Cardinal Mortemart. Guingamp mocked Germans, peasants, and even the *Mortemarettes* were present in the form of a band of screeching sopranos. Alphonse himself was not spared from his own wit; parading himself across the stage in numerous acts. Due to its political nature, he and his fellow authors struggled to have the play performed, as royal patronage had a strict monopoly on the theater, something which they sought to avoid entirely.

*Les Princes Nains* opened on December 16th, 1757 at *Le Théâtre du Guillart*, to whom Alphonse had to lavish with significant amounts to have it performed. The immediate reaction was almost entirely favorable and in agreement with the words of the Mademoiselle de Chantoine: *"I couldn't be more surprised if Guingamp had performed the Nativity. This indelicate humor is truly the triumph of our day, in all its ironic glory."* This acclaim was severely contrasted by the reaction it received in the more conservative schools. One Parisian newspaper wrote, *"The malformed pharisee who wags his theatrical nonsense around like the scripture itself mocks our society so indecently that we should do naught but give disapprobation."*

### **Incarceration & Censorship**

In late January 1758, after the success of his audacious play, which had closed after fifteen profitable nights, published a pamphlet titled, '*Le Roi Dépense l'Air Mince.'* (French: The King Spends Thin Air). In it, he promulgated news of the alarming expenditures of the Crown, denouncing the heavy expense of the Emperor's Household and intentions to renovate the residence at Versailles, especially in the wake of the financially brutal Ten Years War. Most remarkably was his inclusion of a particularly vulgar cartoon, in which the Emperor was displayed publicly urinating on a stage for courtiers to drink.

Days later, when Guingamp arrived at Argenteuil for the birth of his son, he was promptly arrested at the birthing and immediately taken to the Tour de l'Temple in Paris, where he awaited trial for lèse-majesté. Publishings by Guingamp were promptly corraled and burned publicly at Argenteuil, and orders were given to attain his works across Paris, but such attempts resulted in little effect, while similar orders to cease printings of his works enjoyed better success.

### **Trial & Escape**

For over two weeks, the Comte was imprisoned in the Temple, where he enjoyed generous accommodations, including a fairly spacious apartment complete with furniture equivalent to that of a well-off Parisian household. He was granted the ability to write and receive the daily newspapers and other reading materials he desired. The governor of the prison along with some of his captains would dine with Guingamp on occasion as well. Nevertheless, Guingamp was wholeheartedly dissatisfied with his insecure position in the grasp of the wroth Emperor and plotted to escape the Temple.

Knowing time was against him, Guingamp worked tirelessly on an escape plan which entailed a ladder made from many pieces of linen and a sewer that was accessible by a manhole in the courtyard of the urban jail. Guingamp petitioned the governor for new shirts constantly, which he received in due time, and made a ladder sufficient to carry him down from the chimney of his second story cell to the courtyard. He also arranged provisions for his escape through the Seigneur des Chapelles, who was instrumental in passing essential correspondence between Guingamp and his secretary, who arranged for a disguise and money to be left at a location on the outskirts of Paris.

Eventually, Guingamp was brought to trial on the grounds of *Lèse-majesté* and blasphemy for his critical works.Guingamp was tried by the Chevalier de Monteil, a Crown Judge, who was utterly relentless and hasty in convicting him to an indefinite imprisonment at the Chateau de Vincennes, and for all his publishings to be banned and physical copies to be burned. The night following his trial, Guingamp made his escape from his temporary cell at the Temple, and without significant injury, fled Paris in disguise as a peasant.

*Sur la Pédérastie et d'Autres Travaux sur la Moralité Sexuelle* (French: On Pederasty and Other Works on Sexual Morality), was published days after the escape with the assistance of the Seigneur des Chapelles under the alias *Leonard de Logique*, though it was quickly discovered to be Guingamp's veil after its publishing. The compilation of essays provided reasoning for an argument that homosexuality was, in fact, beneficial to the whole of society, and would contribute to the sum of human happiness and thus polish common morality. Guingamp makes similar arguments for practices such as fornication and adultery but poses the conditions that such practices disseminate venereal diseases and are strictly denounced in the Bible.

In the days following Guingamp's escape, the *Maréchaussée* was in a frenzy, given unlimited warrant by the Emperor to find him, dozens of homes in Paris and the surrounding suburbs were searched in a matter of hours. Over a hundred men, some of the most dubious resemblance were also seized and briefly held while the search raged, and many of the marshals were dispatched in great numbers to the south towards Dijon and by north in the direction of Le Havre, while Guingamp himself made way towards Holland. The only lead the marshalcy had was the reported purchase of a very formidable stallion by a suspiciously incapable man, who had ridden off in the direction of Compiègne. In the town, the marshals, now hot on Guingamp's trail, had found in Compiègne that a man had sold a fine hunting horse to a horse breeder for an extremely discounted price, though no other clues revealed themselves for many days, meanwhile Guingamp paid for passage on oxcarts from town to town and detoured by walking the countryside a great deal.

The face of Guingamp travelled faster than he did, as the Emperor had etchings of his portraits spread to all th*e Compagnies de Marechaussée.* Unfortunately, the captain of the marshals in Lille had chanced upon Guingamp in one of the finer coffeehouses in the city. He was questionably underdressed with a body similar to that which had been depicted in the printed etchings that had been delivered to him that morning. Upon inquiring with him about his strange circumstances, it was immediately noted that Guingamp had practically no grasp of the Picard language, though he spoke a very Parisian French. After a futile attempt at bribery, he was seized and immediately sent back to Paris, where by order of the Emperor, was secretly confined in solitude in the innards of *Le Bastion* with a sinister and punishing iron mask secured to his face as a means of torment.

## Titles & Styles

* **June 16th, 1737 - Present** *Son Altesse, Monseigneur le Comte de Guingamp*
* ***La Brebis Galeuse*** The Black Sheep
* ***Le Bossu de Penthièvre*** The Hunchback of Penthievre