Triboulet

Triboulet (1479–1536),[1] also known as Le Févrial or under his family name Ferrial,[note 1] was a jester for king Francis I.[2][3][4]

For the jester and playwright of René of Anjou, see Triboulet (playwright).
Portrait, c.1550
The Triboulet of Hugo's Le Roi s'amuse (The Fool and Death by Sarah Bernhardt)
A triboulet at the Monthey carnival

Biography

Little biographical information is available about Triboulet. It is known that in France, there have been at least three jesters referred to as "Triboulet", with the first one serving René of Anjou and being also a playwright.[2] The second Triboulet served Louis XII; he died during his reign, and the third Francis I (and possibly also Louis XII), and those two became later confused as one person.[2]

According to Jean Marot, historiographer of Louis XII, this king's Triboulet had a physical deformity and was "as wise at thirty as the day he was born". When he died during the reign of Louis XII, Marot wrote a lengthy epitaph, describing the fool's talents as an entertainer, mime, dancer, and (a bad) musician, and above all, "a man of words".[2] Quickly after his death, Triboulet became a popular fictionalized character to whom numerous anecdotes and witticisms have been attributed, some copied from Italian sources like Ludovico Ariosto.[5]

Ferrial was born in France in 1479. In unknown circumstances, Ferrial found purpose in life as the court jester for King Francis I (and perhaps also earlier for Louix XII), who kept him on the court, together with François Bourcier, "governor of Triboulet" and his brother, Nicolas Le Feurial.[2] He was likely the Triboulet who accompanied Francis I to his Italy campaign of 1515. Poet Jean Visagier published two epitaphs of this Triboulet in 1538.[2]

Legacy

Triboulet appears as a character in the Victor Hugo play Le Roi s'amuse, and in the Verdi opera inspired by the play, Rigoletto.[6][7][8]

Triboulet appears as a character in Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel.[9]

The King and the Jester (François Ier et Triboulet) is a surviving 1907 short film by Georges Méliès.

Triboulet is the subject of French writer Michel Zevaco's novel Triboulet.

Explanatory notes
  1. Some modern sources claim that Triboulet was called Nicolas Ferrial, however the accounts of the court of Francis I mention "Nicolas Le Feurial, brother of Triboullet" besides the jester himself.

References
  1. McLean, Malcolm D. (1962). "The Historical Accuracy of Hugo's "Hernani"". The South Central Bulletin. 22 (4): 29. doi:10.2307/3188449. ISSN 0038-321X. JSTOR 3188449. Retrieved 15 September 2023.
  2. Berthon, Guillaume (2012-12-01). "« Triboulet a frères et sœurs » – Fou de cour et littérature au tournant des XVe et XVIe siècles". Babel. Littératures plurielles (in French) (25): 97–120. doi:10.4000/babel.2009. ISSN 1277-7897.
  3. Dorian, John (1858). The History of Court Fools. London: Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street.
  4. "Fools". Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable. 1896.
  5. Joly, Aristide (1867). La vraie histoire de Triboulet, et autres poésies inédites recueillies et mises en ordre (in French). N. Scheuring.
  6. Hamilton, Clayton M. (1903). "The Plays of Victor Hugo". The Sewanee Review. 11 (2): 169–186. ISSN 0037-3052. JSTOR 27530555. Retrieved 15 September 2023.
  7. Mendelsohn, Gerald A. (1979). "Verdi the Man and Verdi the Dramatist (II)". 19th-Century Music. 2 (3): 214–230. doi:10.2307/3519798. ISSN 0148-2076. JSTOR 3519798. Retrieved 15 September 2023.
  8. Moore, Olin H. (1950). "Victor Hugo as a Humorist before 1840". PMLA. 65 (2): 145. doi:10.2307/459460. ISSN 0030-8129. JSTOR 459460. S2CID 163861356. Retrieved 15 September 2023. Hugo finally selected the so-called "Triboulet" (born Feurial), who was so misshapen and so nearly an idiot that he was good only for a laughing fool.
  9. Kashuba, Irma M. (January 2010). Critical Survey of Long Fiction (Fourth ed.). Salem Press. ISBN 978-1-58765-535-7.

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