Imaginary Interview with Monsieur Triboulet – Jester to King Francis I

Imaginary Interview with Monsieur Triboulet – Jester to King Francis I

[NOTE: A version of this article originally appeared in the program book for Utah Opera’s 2012 production of RIGOLETTO.]

Research into the source material for RIGOLETTO led me on a relatively uneventful journey. It’s a straight-line road with only a single possible destination—Victor Hugo and his tragic 1832 play Le roi s’amuse. Verdi and his librettist Francesco Maria Piave created such a respectfully faithful operatic recreation of Hugo’s drama in 1851, the parallels, scene to scene and character to character, are essentially one to one and require no special insight to identify. I read through the entire Hugo text anyhow, just to be sure, and right away understood Verdi’s attraction to the antiheroic court jester at the heart of the tale. Verdi considered Triboulet a “creation worthy of Shakespeare” but judiciously renamed him Rigoletto (based on the French rigoler—to laugh) to throw off any Italian censors who might have heard troubling things about Hugo’s play.

With Le roi s’amuse still running through my mind, I listened immediately to the fantastic music of the RIGOLETTO and, as I followed along with the libretto, my mind kept going back to Triboulet. Not Hugo’s character but the actual historical figure he was based on, the true headwaters of the inspiration for both the playwright and the composer. The sad life of the flesh-and-blood Triboulet (Nicolas Ferrial was his given name) among the nobility of 15th/16th century France must have been a constant whiplash between laughter and scorn. His job, such as it was, included general entertainment, some occasional palace intrigue and, when the courtiers’ whims dictated, provisional and all-too brief membership in the privileged class. He was perfect for it, built for it in fact. His rapier wit made them howl. His finesse in the arts of foul play made him indispensable during political bouts. But his unfortunate physical deformities required them to keep him at arm’s length. He was their fool, their hilarious, spiteful, hunchbacked fool. Never more.

I had so many questions for him, this Nicolas Ferrial. What does it cost a person to suffer such disdain, to know that your actions might eventually make you worthy of it, and to do it all while attempting to keep your beloved daughter hidden? Hugo’s Triboulet, like his slightly more modern incarnation Rigoletto, was as much author as victim of his personal tragedy. But what about Nicolas, the real jester? What would he have to say about it? If only I could travel back through the centuries and ask him. It might have gone something like this…

JC:
So, when did you begin…performing for King Francis I?

Triboulet:
It started before him, with King Louis XII. His Majesty heard that his footmen were antagonizing the village idiot—me—and demanded I be presented to him. I suppose I…well, I seized the moment, didn’t I? I impressed him.

JC:
Just like that? He made you his jester on the spot?

Triboulet:
Of course. Look at me.

JC:
Yeah, we should talk about that.

Triboulet:
What’s to discuss? It is my lucky birthright to look as I do. The absurdly small size of my head is due to a condition called microcephaly. The hump is real too but, in truth, I do favor it a bit for effect. I was truly born to this life. This blessed life.

JC:
I…okay. Was it different with Francis I? Your role in the court?

Triboulet:
Role? With Louis, I was a mere buffoon, a curiosity. But Francis, he made me necessary. I was his Iago, more present in court than his chief consort.

JC:
Did you begin to feel like you were one of them? The nobility?

Triboulet:
Of course! I spread their rumors for them. I delivered their insults when they feared to. I was the all-knowing shadow during all their ridiculous jealousies. You don’t trust that sort of role to the fool. That is the function of a colleague.

JC:
You can’t truly believe that.

Triboulet:
No?

JC:
No. You were a pet to them. They mocked you openly. Come on, why else would you have worked so hard to keep your daughter a secret?

Triboulet:
You have me confused with Monsieur Hugo’s and Maestro Verdi’s versions of me. Sadly, I was childless.

JC:
Oh…I apologize… Triboulet:
But had I been a father—and of a daughter no less—rest assured that I indeed would have kept her away from the palace at all costs.

JC:
Why?

Triboulet:
It would have been no place for her. Too many vipers.

JC:
Exactly, vipers! Including, by all accounts, you by the time King Francis began to tire of you.

Triboulet:
Maybe so, maybe so. But I survived, did I not? JC:
But at what cost? They treated every aspect of your existence with such smiling disgust. Not even your daughter was out of bounds. It drove you to arrange a murder!

Triboulet:
Again, sir, you mistake me for…

JC:
Right, sorry. At least please tell me how you survived. What did you have to become to endure it for so long, through two kings and countless other noble men?

Triboulet:
Hmm. That question gives me pause.

JC:
Take your time.

Triboulet:
No, no. Time is something I want no more of. So, I will answer thusly: My tears were no less salty than their spit.

JC:
I’m not sure I…

Triboulet:
Look, you called my bluff correctly before. I was never their colleague. I was only their jester. But even a jester can make perfect use of himself, if cunning enough and willing enough to employ a certain viciousness on occasion. It is true that in their sport I was merely the ball, but it is just as true that without the ball, the game could not be played. I’ll ask you a question now, even though you have already answered it in your preamble. Who is most remembered today? Did Maestro Verdi name his opera for one of the court lackeys? The monarch himself? Or even my daughter? Or did he name it for the fool?