1831 Dated France Bronze Caque NGC MS65BN Marie-Joseph De Chenier

The younger brother of André Chénier, Joseph Chénier was born at Constantinople, but brought up at Carcassonne. He was educated in Paris at the Collège de Navarre. Entering the army at seventeen, he left it two years afterwards; and at nineteen he produced Azémire, a two-act drama (acted in 1786), and Edgar, ou le page supposé, a comedy (acted in 1785), which both failed. His Charles IX was kept back for nearly two years by the censor. 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 4 November 1789 it was an immense success, due in part to its political suggestion, and in part to François Joseph Talma's magnificent portrayal of King Charles IX of France.

Camille Desmoulins said that the piece had done more for the French Revolution than the days of October, and a contemporary memoir-writer, the marquis de Ferrire, says that the audience came away ivre de vengeance et du tourment d'un soir de sang ("drunk with the vengeance and torment of an evening of blood"). The performance was the occasion of a split among the actors of the Comédie-Française, and the new theatre in the Palais Royal, established by the dissidents, was inaugurated with Henri VIII (1791), generally recognized as Chénier's masterpiece; Jean Calas, ou l'école des juges ("Jean Calas, or the judges' school") followed in the same year.

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