Friedrich Melchior, Baron von Grimm (26 September 1723[1] – 19 December 1807[2]) was a German-born French-language journalist,art critic, diplomat and contributor to theEncyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.[3] In 1765 Grimm wrotePoème lyrique, an influential article for the Encyclopédie onlyric and operalibrettos.[4][5][6][7][8] LikeChristoph Willibald Gluck andRanieri de' Calzabigi, Grimm became interested inopera reform. According toMartin Fontius [de], a German literary theorist, "sooner or later a book entitledThe Aesthetic Ideas of Grimm will have to be written."[9]
Grimm was born atRegensburg, the son of Johann Melchior Grimm (1682–1749), a pastor, and Sibylle Margarete Grimm, (née Koch) (1684–1774). He studied at theUniversity of Leipzig, where he came under the influence ofJohann Christoph Gottsched and ofJohann August Ernesti, to whom he was largely indebted for his critical appreciation of classical literature. When nineteen, he produced a tragedy,Banise, which met with some success. After two years of studying literature and philosophy, he returned to his hometown, where he was attached to the household ofCount Schönborn. In 1749, he accompanied his pupil, the young Schönborn, to Paris. There,Count August Heinrich von Friesen [de] appointed him as his secretary.Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in hisConfessions that Grimm played acembalo and acted also as reader to the eldest son ofFrederick III, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, the young hereditary prince ofSaxe-Gotha.[2]
His acquaintance with Rousseau soon ripened into warm friendship, through a mutual sympathy in regard to music and theater, and led to a close association with theEncyclopaedists Diderot,Baron d'Holbach,d'Alembert,Marmontel,Morellet andHelvétius, who were meeting at the salon ofMarie-Charlotte Hippolyte de Campet de Saujon. He rapidly obtained a thorough knowledge of the French language and acquired so perfectly the tone and sentiments of the society in which he moved that all marks of his foreign origin and training seemed effaced.[2] In 1750, he started to write for theMercure de France on German literature and the ideas of Gottsched. In 1752, at the beginning of theQuerelle des Bouffons, he wroteLettre de M. Grimm surOmphale.[10] Grimm complained that the text of the libretto had no connection with the music.[11] Grimm and Rousseau became the enemy ofÉlie Catherine Fréron. In 1753, he wrote a witty pamphlet entitledLe petit prophète de Boehmischbroda, "aparable about a Bohemian boy being sent to Paris to see the lamentable state into which theFrench opera has descended".[12] This defence ofItalian opera established his literary reputation. It is possible that the origin of the pamphlet is partly to be accounted for by his vehement passion forMarie Fel, theprima donna of theParis Opéra,[2][13] who was one of the few French singers capable of performing Italian arias.[14] When she refused him (and stayed in relation withLouis de Cahusac), Grimm fell intolethargy.[15] Rousseau and abbé Raynal took care of him.
In 1753, following the example of theabbé Raynal, and with the latter's encouragement, Grimm began a literarynewsletter with various German sovereigns.[a] The first number of theCorrespondance littéraire, philosophique et critique was dated 15 May 1753.[16] With the aid of friends, especially ofDiderot[b] andMme. d'Épinay, who reviewed many plays, always anonymously, during his temporary absences from France, Grimm himself carried on theCorrespondance littéraire, which consisted of two letters a month[2] that were painstakingly copied in manuscript by amanuenses safely apart from the French censor inZweibrücken, just over the border in thePalatinate.
Eventually, Grimm counted among his 16 (or 25) subscribers:Princess Luise Dorothea of Saxe-Meiningen,Princess Caroline Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt,Louisa Ulrika of Prussia,Henry of Prussia,Catherine II of Russia,Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor,Gustav III of Sweden, and many princes of the smaller German states, asCharles Frederick, Grand Duke of Baden,Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach,Charles Alexander, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach,William Henry, Prince of Nassau-Saarbrücken, andFrederick Michael, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken. Between 1763 and 1766, Grimm attempted to recruitFrederick the Great as a subscriber.Mme Geoffrin, whoseParis salon Grimm frequented, enrolledStanislas Poniatowski as a subscriber, writing him: "Here is your first number, together with Grimm's accompanying letter. Your Majesty will see that it is important that no copies be made. The German courts are very loyal to Grimm in this particular. I may even say to Your Majesty that negligence on this point could have serious consequences for me, the matter having passed through my hands."[17]
The correspondence of Grimm was strictly confidential and was not divulged during his lifetime. It embraces nearly the whole period from 1750 to 1790, but the later volumes, 1773 to 1790, were chiefly the work of his secretary, the SwissJakob Heinrich Meister [de], with whom he made acquaintance in the salon ofSuzanne Curchod, the wife of Jacques Necker. At first he contented himself with enumerating the chief current views in literature and art and indicating very slightly the contents of the principal new books, but gradually his criticisms became more extended and trenchant, and he touched on nearly every subject — political, literary, artistic, social and religious — that interested the Parisian society of the time. His notices of contemporaries are somewhat severe, and he exhibits the foibles and selfishness of the society in which he moved; but he was unbiased in his literary judgments, and time has only served to confirm his criticisms. In style and manner of expression, he is thoroughly French. He is generally somewhat cold in his appreciation, but his literary taste is delicate and subtle, and it was the opinion ofSainte-Beuve that the quality of his thought in his best moments will compare not unfavourably even with that ofVoltaire. His religious and philosophical opinions were entirely sceptical.[2]
For several years, Grimm reported on the painters and paintings in theSalon de Paris, and was successfully succeeded by Diderot;[18] he appreciated the architectsJacques-Germain Soufflot, andClaude-Nicolas Ledoux,[19] the naturalist and mathematicianBuffon, the mathematicianLeonhard Euler, and the political scientistCondorcet. Grimm asked Diderot to reviewVoyage autour du monde ("A Voyage Round the World") byLouis Antoine de Bougainville.[20] Grimm had paid attention to the caseJean Calas,[21] the problems between Rousseau andDavid Hume,[22] theMontgolfier brothers, andMadame de Staël when she published herLetters on the works and character of J.J. Rousseau.[23] TheCorrespondance became one of the influential media to spread malicious and false information on Rousseau.[24]
Grimm did not appreciate Mondonville'sDaphnis et Alcimadure, though he approved the use of theOccitan language, as being closer to Italian; according to Grimm "InZoroastre it is day and night alternately but as the poet ... cannot count up to five he has got so muddled in his reckoning that he has been compelled to make it be day and night two or three times in each act so that it might be day at the end of the play". He wrote aboutCaffarelli; aboutPierre Beaumarchais.[25] Grimm didn't think much ofAntoine de Léris: "The author claims that the public received his work with indulgence. If perfect oblivion may so be called, the author is right to be grateful";[26] The diminishedCorrespondance continued without Grimm until the revolutionary year 1790.[citation needed]
In 1755, after the death of Count von Friesen (1727–1755), who was a nephew ofMarshal Maurice de Saxe and an officer in the French army, Grimm secured asinecure worth 2000livres a year assecrétaire des commandements toMarshal d'Estrées on the Westphalia campaign of 1756–57 during theSeven Years' War. In 1759, he was named envoy of the town ofFrankfurt am Main to the French court, but was deprived of his office for criticizing thecomte de Broglie in a dispatch intercepted byLouis XV'ssecret service.[2]
In 1751, Grimm was introduced by Rousseau toMadame d'Épinay, with whom he began a 30-year liaison two years later,[27] which led after four years to an irreconcilable rupture between him, Diderot and Rousseau.[2][28]
Grimm and d'Holbach supported financially the mother ofThérèse Levasseur. Instead of Rousseau, Grimm accompanied Mme. d'Épinay toGeneva to visit doctorThéodore Tronchin.[29] Rousseau believed Grimm had made her pregnant.[30]
Grimm criticized Rousseau'sJulie, or the New Heloise[31] andEmile, or On Education. Rousseau was induced by his resentment to give in hisConfessions a malicious portrait of Grimm's character.[2] Grimm's betrayals of his closest friend, Diderot, finally led Diderot to bitter denunciations of him too in hisLettre apologétique de l'abbé Raynal à M. Grimm in 1781.
In 1783, Grimm lost Mme. Épinay, his most intimate friend, and the following year Diderot.
Not long after, he showedPrince Henry of Prussia, on a diplomatic trip, in Paris.
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Leopold Mozart decided to take his two child prodigies, the seven-year-old boy,Wolfgang (born 27 January 1756), and the 12-year-old girl,Nannerl (Maria Anna, born 30 July 1751), on their "Grand Tour" in June 1763.[c] Mozart's first visit to Paris lasted from 18 November 1763 to 10 April 1764, when the family departed for London. All the many letters of recommendation carried by Leopold proved ineffectual, except the one to Melchior Grimm, which led to an effective connection. Grimm was a German who had moved to Paris at age 25 and was an advanced amateur of music and opera, which he covered as a Paris-based journalist for the aristocracy of Europe. He was persuaded "to take the German prodigies under his wing."[32] Grimm published a highly supportive article on the Mozart children in hisCorrespondance littéraire of December 1763, to facilitate Leopold's entrée into Parisian high society and musical circles.[33][34][35]
Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, the son of Grimm's employer, helped the Mozarts perform in Versailles, where they stayed for two weeks over Christmas and New Year.[36]Hermann Abert explains that "only when they had performed at Versailles were they admitted to, and admired by, aristocratic circles." Grimm recounted with pride the impressive improvisations produced by young Mozart in private and public concerts. Leopold had four of his sonatas for keyboard and violin engraved and dedicated to King Louis XV's daughter,Madame Victoire, and theDauphine's lady-in-waiting, by "THEOPH:W:MOZART Compositeur, et Maitre de Musique, agé de 7 ans". In 1766,Carmontelle produced a group portrait of the family performing, engraved at Grimm's instigation. In 1777,Michel-Barthélémy Ollivier painted Wolfgang playing the pianoforte in the Prince of Conti's salon at theTemple, a painting now in the Louvre Museum.[37]
After their long stay in London (15 months) and Holland (8 months),[d] the Mozarts closed their "Grand Tour", which lasted three years and a half, by stopping over in Paris from 10 May to 9 July 1766, for Mozart's second visit to the French capital. Again, they were helped, guided, and mentored by Grimm. The children were by then 10 and 15 and had lost some of their public appeal as young prodigies on the now somewhatblasés Parisians. Grimm wrote a very flattering letter about the Mozart children dated 15 July 1766 in hisCorrespondance littéraire. Commenting on Mozart's remarkable progress in all areas of music-making, Grimm predicted the future operatic success of the young composer: "He has even written several Italian arias, and I have little doubt that before he has reached the age of twelve, he will already have had an opera performed at some Italian theatre."[38][e]
However, Abert warns that the reason why Grimm's Journal "nonetheless needs to be treated with caution is due to the personality of its principal contributor, for Grimm was not sufficiently well trained as a musician to do justice to the art that he was describing, nor was he the man to let slip the opportunity for a flash of wit or eloquent turn of phrase, even if it meant violating the truth in the process."[32] Grimm's second prediction at the end of the same letter didn't turn out as prescient as the first one: "If these children live, they will not remain at Salzburg. Before long monarchs will vie for their possession." In fact, Mozart was unable to obtain employment as an opera composer from a European court and remained a free-lance opera writer all his life.
Leopold sent Mozart, then aged 22, to Paris for his third and last visit, from 23 March to 26 September 1778. But this time Mozart went only with his mother,Anna Maria Mozart, while Leopold remained in Salzburg, in order to save his employment. Grimm helped, guided, and advised Mozart and his mother again, acting as a proud manager.[39] But Mozart mostly encountered a series of disappointments, while tragedy struck when Anna Maria fell ill withtyphoid fever[40] and died on 3 July 1778.[41] After the death of his mother, Mozart moved in with Grimm who was living with Mme d'Épinay, at 5,rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin.[42][43] For the first time in his life, Mozart was on his own. Mozart stayed more than two months in pretty little room for invalids with a very agreeable prospect, which belonged toLouise d'Épinay; he sometimes dined with them but most of the time he was out.[44]
Grimm, a man with strong opinions, nicknamed"Tyran le Blanc",[45] and Mozart did not get along very well. Mozart found himself disappointed in Paris. The city was "indescribably dirty"; Grimm complained he was "not running around enough" to get pupils, as he found that calling on his introductions was tiring, too expensive, and unproductive: "People pay their respects, and that's it. They arrange for me to come on such and such a day; I then play for them, and they sayOh, c'est un prodige, c'est inconcevable, c'est étonnant. And, with that,adieu."[46] He never got paid for hisConcerto for flute and harp in C, K. 299, written for the Duke of Guines and his daughter, nor for his balletLes petits riens K. 299b.[47]
Mozart was recruited by the director of the "Concert Spirituel", Joseph Legros, to write some choruses, K. 297a, which were played without giving credit to Mozart. Then Mozart wrote aSinfonia concertante in E flat major K. 297b, for a group of four wind players from Mannheim, which he sold to Legros without keeping a copy. Legros never had it copied for performance, and the work became considered "lost".[f] Mozart at last enjoyed one great success at theConcert Spirituel as a composer with hisSymphony No. 31 in D, K. 297 (Paris Symphony), performed on 18 June 1778 "to unanimous acclaim".[48]Mozart kept finding Paris "totally at odds" with his "genius, inclinations, knowledge, and sympathies".[49] He kept expressing his deep dislike of the French, their character, their rudeness, their being "frightfully arrogant", and he was "appalled by their general immorality". Like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mozart found the French language inherently unmusical and "so damned impossible where music is concerned",[50] ironizing that "the devil himself must have invented the language of these people".[51] He felt that French music was worthless: "They understand nothing about music",[52] echoing what Leopold had declared during their first visit to Paris: "The whole of French music is not worth a sou".[53] He judged their singers inept. "I'm surrounded by nothing but beasts and animals. But how can it be otherwise, for they're just the same in all their actions, emotions, and passions."[54]
Suspicious by nature, Mozart ended up distrusting Grimm, while "Grimm himself was bound to find Mozart increasingly baffling as a person — with his curious mixture of self-confidence and dreaminess". Mozart found himself obliged to borrow "as much as fifteen louis d'or" from Grimm. Voltaire's death on 30 May 1778 made clear "the full extent of the yawning void between them".[55] Grimm warned Leopold that the need for continual and intense networking in Paris was too demanding for Wolfgang, "for it is a very tiring thing to run to the four corners of Paris and exhaust oneself in explanations. And then this profession will not please him, because it will keep him from writing, which is what he likes above all things."[56] Their dealings "ended on a note of the deepest disharmony."[57] Leopold agreed that Mozart should leave Paris: "You don't like Paris, and on the whole I don't blame you ... My next letter will tell you that you are to leave Paris."[58] Grimm organized for Mozart's trip to Strasbourg,[59] promising a diligence to cover the trip in five days, but forced Mozart to travel by stagecoach, a journey that took twelve days. Mozart "himself left the city on 26 September, as ill-tempered and disgruntled as when he had arrived there." Mozart broke the journey in Nancy on 3 October, finally arriving in Strasbourg on 14 October 1778.[60]
In the course of his three visits, Mozart spent a total of 13 months in Paris, all of them under the guidance and assistance of Grimm.
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Grimm's introduction toCatherine II of Russia took place atSaint Petersburg in 1773, when he was in the suite ofWilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt on the occasion of her marriage to theTsarevitch Paul.[2][g] A few weeks later Diderot arrived. On 1 November they both became members of theRussian Academy of Sciences. Because of hisatheism, Diderot had little success in the imperial capital, and when he criticized Catharine's style of governing, Grimm moved away from him.[61] According toJonathan Israel, Grimm was a representative of theEnlightened Absolutism.[62] Grimm introducedFerdinando Galiani andCesare Beccaria, and promotedJean Huber andJohann Friedrich Reiffenstein in theRussian Empire. He became minister of Saxe-Gotha at the French court in 1776. In 1777, he again visited Saint Petersburg, where he remained for nearly a year.[2]
Grimm loved to play chess and cards with the empress. According to Simon Dixon, he influenced Catherine with his ideas on Rousseau.[63] He acted as Paris agent for the empress in the purchase of works of art, and executed many confidential commissions for her.[2] With his help, the libraries of Diderot (in 1766) andVoltaire (in 1778) were bought and sent to the Russian capital. In 1779, he introducedGiacomo Quarenghi as an architect andClodion as a sculptor, whenÉtienne Maurice Falconet came back to Paris. In 1787, Catherine asked Grimm to burn her letters to him, "or else put them in safekeeping, so that no one can unearth them for a century."[64]
LikeChristoph Willibald Gluck andRanieri de' Calzabigi, Grimm was occupied withoperatic reform. Grimm loved theatre, criticized theComédie-Française and praised the private theatre ofMadame de Montesson, the wife of his employer.
In 1776, theAcadémie royale de musique (theParis Opéra) was once again in dire straits. A "consortium of capitalists", to quote the critic Baron Grimm,[65] proposedChevalier de Saint-Georges as the next director of the opera. He helped Saint-Georges, living in the adjacent mansion with Madame de Montesson. Mozart spent over two months next to Saint-Georges.[66] The two mansions had a communal garden, a chapel and a theater.[67][68]
FromErinnerungen einer Urgrossmutter, it becomes clear that, in 1792, he leftRue du Mont-Blanc (in 1792, during the French Revolution,rue de la Chaussée d'Antin was renamedrue du Mont-Blanc, after thedepartment of that name. It regained its original name in 1815), and settled inGotha, living in the ducal palaceFriedenstein Palace. His poverty was relieved by Catherine, who shortly before her death appointed him minister of Russia atHamburg.[2] Although not very thrilled, he travelled with Émilie de Belsunce, Mme. d'Épinay's granddaughter, later Comtesse de Bueil. When he suddenly became blind on 17 January 1797, he gave up his new post. (Grimm had problems with his eyesight since 1762.) He and the young Émilie stayed a few weeks inAltona. They travelled toBraunschweig, where they stayed from the summer of 1797 until June 1800, and where Émilie was tutored byWillem Bilderdijk. Grimm was then invited again byErnest II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. He died at Gotha on 19 December 1807.
The main-belt asteroid6912 Grimm was named after him.
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Grimm'sCorrespondance littéraire, philosophique et critique ..., depuis 1753 jusqu'en 1769, was edited, with many excisions, byJean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard and published at Paris in 1812, in 6 vols. 8vo;deuxième partie, de 1771 a 1782, in 1812 in 5 vols. 8vo; andtroisième partie, pendant une partie des années 1775 et 1776, et pendant les années 1782 a 1790 inclusivement, in 1813 in 5 vols. 8vo. A supplementary volume appeared in 1814; the whole correspondence was collected and published byJules-Antoine Taschereau [fr], with the assistance of A. Chaudé, in aNouvelle Édition, revue et mise dans un meilleur ordre, avec des notes et des éclaircissements, et oil se trouvent rétablies pour la première fois les phrases supprimées par la censure impériale (Paris, 1829, 15 vols. 8vo); and theCorrespondance inédite, et recueil de lettres, poésies, morceaux, et fragments retranchés par la censure impériale en 1812 et 1813 was published in 1829. The standard edition was that ofMaurice Tourneux (16 vols., 1877–1882).[2] It is now being replaced by the new edition published by Ulla Kölving at theCentre international d'étude du XVIIIe siècle, Ferney-Voltaire.
Grimm'sMémoire Historique sur l'origine et les suites de mon attachement pour l'impératrice Catherine II jusqu'au décès de sa majesté impériale, andCatherine's correspondence with Grimm (1774–1796) were published byYakov Grot in 1880, in the collection of the Russian Imperial Historical Society. She treats him very familiarly and calls him Heraclite, Georges Dandin, etc. At the time of the Revolution, she begged him to destroy her letters, but he refused, and after his death, they were returned to Saint Petersburg. Grimm's side of the correspondence, however, is only partially preserved. He signs himself "Pleureur". Some of Grimm's letters, besides the official correspondence, are included in the edition of Tourneux; others are contained in theErinnerungen einer Urgrossmutter of Katharina von Bechtolsheim, edited (Berlin, 1902) by Count C. Oberndorff.[2]
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