PIerre Baillot: Life

This biographical sketched is based on Baillot’s memoirs and letters, other contemporary sources, and François-Sappey’s landmark monograph.

1. Childhood in Passy and Paris (1771–83)

Among Baillot’s ancestors were middle-class merchants and public officials from the Dijon and Lyon regions, 200–300 km southeast of Paris.

His mother, the daughter of a postal official in Lyon, was married at age 17 to Baillot’s father, who worked as a tax collector in Lyon. Born in Dijon, he had been wounded in the Batte of Lauffeldt at age 16 and subsequently worked as a tutor to a young aristocratic student. The couple moved to Paris where Baillot’s father pursued a law career. He worked for fifteen months as a government lawyer in Corsica until he was imprisoned for reasons not yet known. The couple returned to the French mainland where Baillot’s father tried to be rehabilitated. Yet when he was not able reenter public service he set up a private boarding school in Passy, a small town west of Paris.  After their first five children were stillborn or died in infancy, Pierre, born on 1 October 1771, survived and showed promising intellectual and musical gifts. Father and son seem to have formed a special bond, and Pierre received a thorough education in his father’s boarding school. His father saw to it that he had proper violin lessons, though not much is known about his first two teachers: a Florentine violinist by the name of Polidori who taught him in Passy until September 1779, and a violinist by the name of Sainte-Marie, who became his teacher after the couple moved to Paris, where Baillot’s father set up another boarding school.

 

2. Corsica (1783–84)

In August of 1783 the whole family—including twelve-year-old Pierre, his two-year-old sister, and one of his mother’s sisters—left Paris for Bastia on Corsica, where his father had been appointed Deputy Attorney General to the Superior Council. But one month after their arrival Baillot’s father died at age 52, possibly by suicide, as Jardin (2015, 8) concluded from the wording of the obituary note. This stroke of fate deeply traumatized Pierre and shaped his life. He had lost not only his father: he had lost his “best friend,” to use his own words—the person who had devoted himself to his education. Further, left without income, the family was destitute. This placed a tremendous responsibiliy on Pierre: for the next decades, he, as the only male family member, would be financially responsible for his mother, his sister, and his aunt. He began to see life as a permanent struggle with adversities.

 Fortunately, though, in this desparate situation Pierre received the help that would : his father superior and friend, Bertrand de Boucheporn, became his benefactor and, de factor, adoptive father and role model.

 

3. Rome (1785–86)

Half a year after the death of Baillot’s father, on 18 May 1784, his mother, sister, and aunt returned to Paris, and one month later Pierre left for Rome, together with two of de Boucheporn and their tutor. The one-year sojourn was to broaden and deepen the three boys’ education and expose them to a cosmopolitan culture. Most important, in Rome Baillot was able to familiarize himself with the Italian style of violin playing that provided the basis for Viotti’s French violin school. He studied with a student of Nardini, Francesco Polani (1730–1803).

 In Rome Baillot met prominent music lovers, who apparently included him in their private concerts, notably Cardinal François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis, Comte de Lyonnais (1715–94), and Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée (1724–1805), director of the Académie de France.

 

4. South of France (1785–90)

But Baillot’s stay in this stimulating environment soon came to an end. In April 1785 de Boucheporn was promoted to the position of intendant of two districts in Southern France, and in June he sent for his sons and Baillot so that they could follow him to his new place of residence. De Boucheporn laid out a career plan for the fourteen-year-old boy that would guarantee a solid income for him and for the female members of his family who depended on him: Baillot joined his benefactor’s staff as a secretary, while obtaining a law degree (possibly from the University of Bayonne). He accompanied the intendant to his work residences in Bayonne, Pau, and—from Sep. 1787—Auch, as well as on travels through his districts. In his memoirs Baillot described his extended journeys, which even led him into the Pyrenees mountains on both the French and Spanish side.

 His administrative work and law studies left him ample time for reading and practicing. Though he participated in private concerts and received some musical inspiration from the Florentine pianist and composer Angelo Magnelli (Magnelly) who lived in Bayonne, he spent much time in solitude practicing without any guidance.

 

5. Paris (1791–Oct. 1793)

During these years Baillot must have acquired great instrumental proficiency: when the positions of intendants were eliminated during the Revolution and nineteen-year-old Baillot had to leave the South of France for Paris in he impressed Viotti with his audition. In the beginning of 1791 the latter hired Baillot for the orchestra of the theater he managed, placing him in the second-violin section next to his favorite student, Pierre Rode. But unable to support his family on the meagre salary, Baillot resigned in September and joined the Ministry of Finance. From then on he juggled an enormous work load, dividing his time between his administrative work, teaching children from well-to-do families and rich amateurs, practicing, and performing. But even though he worked day and night, he continued to struggle with financial problems for most of his life.

 

6. Military Service in Northern France (Nov. 1793–May 1795)

The economic situation of Baillot’s family deteriorated further when he was drafted into the Revolutionary army in Oct. 1793, and their income was reduced to his low soldier’s pay. Though he apparently was not exposed to combat, he witnessed the horrors of the civil war and broke his arm (though without any long-term impact on his playing). Fortunately, he was promoted to an administrative position and found opportunities to hone his logistical skills. Further, his military service may have been a blessing in disguise, for it removed him from the terror that reigned in the French capital, with daily executions reaching numbers of 150 and more. The thought of this danger may have played a role when Baillot turned down an offer for dismissal in September of 1794. Eventually he accepted a discharge in May of 1795.

 Apparently his army service left him enough time for musical activities. (He even found a treasure trove of 18th-century violin music  in Cherbourg.) Through intense practicing he brought his playing to a new level that allowed him to impress the Parisian audiences and the audition committee that awarded him in December 1795 a temporary position at the newly founded Conservatory as a temporary replacement for Rode, who was on tour.

 But in the months prior to this prestigious appointment his life hit another low point. When a famine spread in France in the Spring of 1795 he was forced to take up work in a leather factory under the most dire circumstances.

 

(To be continued.).

© Martin Wulfhorst 2021 /R 2022

Pierre Baillot (1771–1842)

LINKS

This website, initiated on occasion of the 250th anniversary of Baillot's birth in October 2021, is intended as guide to research, materials, and information. A more comprehensive publication on Baillot is in preparation.