Background
Marie-Joseph Blaise de Chénier was the younger brother of André Chénier. Joseph Chénier was born at Constantinople on the 11th of February 1764.
Marie-Joseph Blaise de Chénier was the younger brother of André Chénier. Joseph Chénier was born at Constantinople on the 11th of February 1764.
Marie-Joseph Blaise de Chénier was brought up at Carcassonne, and educated in Paris at the College de Navarre.
Marie-Joseph Blaise de Chénier attacked the censorship in three pamphlets, and the commotion aroused by the controversy raised keen interest in the piece. When it was at last produced on the 4th of November 1789, it achieved an immense success, due in part to its political suggestion, and in part to Talma's magnificent impersonation of Charles IX. Camille Desmoulins said that the piece had done more for the Revolution than the days of October, and a contemporary memoir-writer, the marquis de Ferriere, says that the audience came away " ivre de vengeance et tourmente d'une soif de sang. " The performance was the occasion of a split among the actors of the Comedie Franfaise, and the new theatre in the Palais Royal, established by the dissidents, was inaugurated with Henri VIII (1791), generally recognized as Chenier's masterpiece; Jean Calas, ou I'ecole des juges followed in the same year.
In 1792 he produced his Caius Gracchus, which was even more revolutionary in tone than its predecessors. It was nevertheless proscribed in the next year at the instance of the Montagnard deputy Albitte, for an anti-anarchical hemistich (Des lois et non du sang!) -, Finelon (1793) was suspended after a few representations; and in 1794 his Timolton, set to Etienne Mehul's music, was also proscribed. This piece was played after the fall of the Terror, but the fratricide of Timoleon became the text for insinuations to the effect that by his silence Joseph de Chenier had connived at the judicial murder of Andre, whom Joseph's enemies alluded to as A bel. There is absolutely nothing to support the calumny, which has often been repeated since. In fact, after some fruitless attempts to save his brother, variously related by his biographers, Joseph became aware that Andre's only chance of safety lay in being forgotten by the authorities, and that ill-advised intervention would only hasten the end.