Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George(s) (; French: [ʒozɛf bɔlɔɲ]; 25 December 1745 – 9 June 1799) was a French violinist, conductor, composer, and soldier of African descent. Moreover, he demonstrated excellence as a fencer, an athlete, and a dancer. His historical significance lies partly in his distinctive background as a biracial free man of colour. Bologne was the first classical composer of African descent to attain widespread acclaim in Western music. He composed an array of violin concertos, string quartets, sinfonia concertantes, violin duets, sonatas, two symphonies, and an assortment of stage works, notably opéra comique.
Born in the French colony of Guadeloupe, his father, Georges Bologne de Saint-Georges, was a wealthy, white plantation owner, while his mother was one of the Senegalese people Georges kept enslaved. At the age of seven, he was taken to France where he began his formal education. As a young man he won a fencing contest leading to his appointment as a “gendarme de la garde du roi" by king Louis XVI. Having received music and musical composition lessons, he joined the orchestra Le Concert des Amateurs, culminating in his appointment as its conductor in 1773.
In 1776, Saint-Georges began conducting the Paris Opera. However, this prospect was thwarted by opposition from certain performers who resisted the idea of an individual of colour directing them. Around this time, he shifted his focus to composing operas. In 1781, he joined a new orchestra, Le Concert de la Loge Olympique. By 1785, he had stopped composing instrumental works altogether.
Following the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Saint-Georges left for England. Upon his return to France, he joined the National Guard in Lille and then served as a colonel in the Légion St.-Georges, which comprised "citizens of colour". His social and professional ties to prominent figures such as Marie Antoinette and the Duke of Orléans made him a target of the Reign of Terror, culminating in a period of imprisonment spanning at least eleven months.
Saint-Georges, a contemporary of Mozart, has at times been called the "Black Mozart." Some have criticized this appellation as racist and a reductive description of his own musical ability, but others have used it to champion Saint-Georges. The violinist Randall Goosby said, “I prefer to think of Mozart as the white Chevalier."
Chevalier de Saint-Georges, also known as Joseph Bologne or Joseph Boulogne, was born on 25 December 1745 in Baillif, Basse-Terre, the illegitimate son of a settler and planter and slaveholder Georges Bologne de Saint-Georges and Nanon, a 17-year-old enslaved African who served within the family household. Bologne was legally married to Elisabeth Mérican (1722–1801), but acknowledged his son by Nanon and gave him his surname.
In 1747, Georges Bologne was accused of murder and fled to France. The next year he was visited by his wife, Nanon, and his son, Joseph. After two years Georges was granted a royal pardon and returned to Guadeloupe. In August 1753, Joseph aged seven, was taken to France for his education, and installed in a Jesuit boarding school in Angoulême so his uncle Pierre could keep an eye on him. The Bologne couple accompanied by his mother, Nanon, returned to Guadeloupe. Two years later, on 26 August 1755, listed as passengers on the ship L'Aimable Rose, Bologne de Saint-Georges and only Nanon landed in Bordeaux. Reunited with their son Joseph, they moved into a spacious apartment in the 6th Arrondissement (Rive Gauche).
At the age of 13, Joseph was enrolled in a private fencing academy run by Texier de La Boëssière in Rue Saint-Honoré across from the Oratoire du Louvre, practising horse riding in the Salle du Manège. According to Antoine la Boëssière, son of the Master, "At 15 his progress was so rapid, that he was already beating the best swordsmen, and at 17 he developed the greatest speed imaginable." Bologne was still a student when he defeated Alexandre Picard, a fencing master in Rouen, who had been mocking him in public as "Boëssière's upstart mulatto". That match, bet on heavily by a public divided into partisans and opponents of slavery, was an important episode for Bologne. His father rewarded Joseph with a horse and buggy.
His father, called "de Saint-Georges" after one of his plantations in Guadeloupe, was a commoner until 1757, when he acquired the title of Gentilhomme ordinaire de la chambre du roi (Gentleman of the King's Chamber). On 5 April 1762, King Louis XV decreed that "Nègres et gens de couleur", who were considered free once they set foot on French soil, must register with the clerk of the Admiralty within two months. This was likely because at the end of the Seven Years' War, blacks and free mulattos were seen as helpful as France was losing the war. Many leading French Enlightenment thinkers argued that Africans and their descendants were inferior to White Europeans, as exemplified by Voltaire's views on race and slavery.
After defeating Picard in 1761 or on graduation from the academy in 1766, Bologne was made a Gendarme du roi (officer of the king's bodyguard) in Versailles and a chevalier. He then adopted the suffix of his father's plantation and was known as the "Chevalier de Saint-Georges".
In 1764, his father returned to Guadeloupe, which had been occupied by the British during the Seven Years' War, to look after his sugar plantations. The following year, Georges made a last will and testament, in which he left Joseph an annuity of 8,000 francs and an adequate pension to Nanon, who remained with their son in Paris. When Georges Bologne died in 1774 in Guadeloupe, he awarded his annuity and two plantations (fr:Habitation-Sucrerie Clairefontaine) to his legitimate daughter, Elisabeth Benedictine. The younger Saint-Georges was ineligible under French law for titles of nobility due to his illegitimate status. Long before her death, Saint-George's mother, Nanon, recorded a testamentary deed dated 17 June 1778, in which she bequeathed all her belongings to her son as her universal legatee. She signed the document "Anne Danneveau" and her son signed as "Mr De Bolongna St-George".
He continued to fence daily in the fencing venues of Paris. There he met the fencing masters Domenico Angelo and his son Henry, the Chevalier d'Éon, and the teenage Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, all of whom would play a role in his future.
On 17 May 1779, John Adams made an entry in his diary recounting St. George's larger-than-life reputation (and mistakenly calling him the son of a governor rather than a tax collector): "Lee gave Us an Account of St. George at Paris, a Molatto Man, Son of a former Governor of Guadaloupe, by a Negro Woman...He is the most accomplished Man in Europe in Riding, Running, Shooting, Fencing, Dancing, Musick. He will hit the Button, any Button on the Coat or Waistcoat of the greatest Masters. He will hit a Crown Piece in the Air with a Pistoll Ball."
Little is known about the early musical training of Saint-Georges. He was sent to Paris to begin his musical studies at the age of seven. Given his prodigious technique as an adult, Saint-Georges must have practiced the violin seriously as a child. A biographer of Saint-Georges, Banat, discounted a claim by François-Joseph Fétis that Saint-Georges studied violin with Jean-Marie Leclair. Some of his technique was said to reveal the influence of Pierre Gaviniès.
In 1764, when violinist Antonio Lolli arrived in Paris, the Italian composed two concertos, Op. 2, for the chevalier. Lolli's dedication was to Joseph's father: "To M. de Bologne de Saint-Georges, who gave the arts a priceless gift in the person of his son." In 1766, François-Joseph Gossec dedicated a set of six string trios, Op. 9, to Saint-Georges. Lolli may have worked with Bologne on his violin technique and Gossec on compositions.
In 1769, the Parisian public was amazed to see Saint-Georges, well known for his fencing prowess, playing as a violinist in Gossec's new orchestra, Le Concert des Amateurs in the Hôtel de Soubise.