The Coachman's Bare Rump: An Eighteenth-Century French Cover-Up

• Published in: Eighteenth-century studies Vol. 40; no. 2; pp. 279 - 308
• Main Author: Ravel, Jeffrey S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.12.2007
• Subjects: Buttocks; Civil disobedience; Comic theater; Curtains; Domestic workers; European history; French language; Humor; Intervention; Language history; Legal depositions; Massacres; Native peoples; Police; Police reports; Politics; Race relations; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Spectacle; Swiss literature; Theater; Togo

On 21 January 1763, a wealthy nobleman staged a performance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Devin de village at his Parisian townhouse. The soir裠was attended by military and financial elites. After the curtain fell, several of the master's servants were joking with each other backstage. When th...