Virginie Kenebel - Revision history

Djando at 20:39, 1 February 2026

2026-02-01T20:39:12Z

Djando: /* The Tribulations of Victor and Virginie */

2025-10-17T19:24:04Z

‎The Tribulations of Victor and Virginie

Djando: /* The Tribulations of Victor and Virginie */

2025-10-17T19:13:02Z

‎The Tribulations of Victor and Virginie

Djando: /* Epilogue: Madame Victor Franconi */

2025-09-23T18:47:38Z

‎Epilogue: Madame Victor Franconi

Djando: /* Virginie Kenebel in Paris */

2025-09-23T18:39:37Z

‎Virginie Kenebel in Paris

Djando: /* Virginie Kenebel in Paris */

2025-09-23T18:38:41Z

‎Virginie Kenebel in Paris

Djando: /* Virginie Kenebel in Paris */

2025-09-23T18:37:04Z

‎Virginie Kenebel in Paris

Djando: /* Virginie Kenebel in Paris */

2025-09-23T18:34:45Z

‎Virginie Kenebel in Paris

Djando: /* Image Gallery */

2025-09-02T19:53:41Z

‎Image Gallery

Djando: /* Epilogue: Madame Victor Franconi */

2025-09-02T19:30:56Z

‎Epilogue: Madame Victor Franconi

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:39, 1 February 2026
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	==Equestrienne==		==Equestrienne==

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 The ''Journal des Débats'' reported that Maître Delangle, the Franconis' lawyer, reminded Louis Kenebel in court that his daughter was eighteen, and therefore not a minor anymore, and that she had been legally employed by the Franconis with a rightful contract. The Franconis were swiftly acquitted and left the tribunal under the applause of the circus's performers, who had come to support them (and Virginie); as for the Kenebels, they left Paris and went on with their career without the bonus of their talented elder daughter. Victor Franconi quickly made Virginie part of the Franconi clan.
-Later, in June 1844, Virginie performed at last in the brand-new Cirque des Champs-Élysées, an elegant building designed for Dejean by Jacques Ignace Hittorff (1792-1867), the architect who had redesigned the Place de la Concorde. Hittorf had been asked to remodel the Jardin des Champs-Élysées, incorporating in it the Cirque des Champs-Élysées near the Rond-Point on the north side of the avenue, and its counterpart on the south side, the Panorama (today the ''Théâtre du Rond-Point''), which was basically its architectural replica (and gives us a good idea of how the circus, which was demolished in 1900, looked).
+Later, in June 1844, Virginie performed at last in the brand-new Cirque des Champs-Élysées, an elegant building designed for Dejean by Jacques Ignace Hittorff (1792-1867), the architect who had redesigned the Place de la Concorde. Hittorff had been asked to remodel the Jardin des Champs-Élysées, incorporating in it the Cirque des Champs-Élysées near the Rond-Point on the north side of the avenue, and its counterpart on the south side, the Panorama (today the ''Théâtre du Rond-Point''), which was basically its architectural replica (and gives us a good idea of how the circus, which was demolished in 1900, looked).
 Yet, there had been some seismic changes in the circus's organization: Louis Dejean had just left his two circuses to a new operator, Jules Gallois, a fellow real-estate owner from Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, with theatrical ambitions. Gallois created a new company, the ''Société Gallois et Cie'', to manage the Cirque Olympique and the Cirque des Champs Élysées. Unfortunately, he lacked the abilities needed to make a good showman, and he didn't have a strong business acumen either! Nonetheless, like Dejean, Gallois kept the Franconis and Laloue to take care of the artistic side of his operation.

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 The ''Journal des Débats'' reported that Maître Delangle, the Franconis' lawyer, reminded Louis Kenebel in court that his daughter was eighteen, and therefore not a minor anymore, and that she had been legally employed by the Franconis with a rightful contract. The Franconis were swiftly acquitted and left the tribunal under the applause of the circus's performers, who had come to support them (and Virginie); as for the Kenebels, they left Paris and went on with their career without the bonus of their talented elder daughter. Victor Franconi quickly made Virginie part of the Franconi clan.
-Later, in June 1844, Virginie performed at last in the brand-new Cirque des Champs-Élysées, an elegant building designed for Dejean by Jacques Ignace Hittorf (1792-1867), the architect who had planned the Place de la Concorde. Hittorf had been asked to remodel the Jardin des Champs-Élysées, incorporating in it the Cirque des Champs-Élysées near the Rond-Point on the north side of the avenue, and its counterpart on the south side, the Panorama (today the ''Théâtre du Rond-Point''), which was basically its architectural replica (and gives us a good idea of how the circus, which was demolished in 1900, looked).
+Later, in June 1844, Virginie performed at last in the brand-new Cirque des Champs-Élysées, an elegant building designed for Dejean by Jacques Ignace Hittorff (1792-1867), the architect who had redesigned the Place de la Concorde. Hittorf had been asked to remodel the Jardin des Champs-Élysées, incorporating in it the Cirque des Champs-Élysées near the Rond-Point on the north side of the avenue, and its counterpart on the south side, the Panorama (today the ''Théâtre du Rond-Point''), which was basically its architectural replica (and gives us a good idea of how the circus, which was demolished in 1900, looked).
 Yet, there had been some seismic changes in the circus's organization: Louis Dejean had just left his two circuses to a new operator, Jules Gallois, a fellow real-estate owner from Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, with theatrical ambitions. Gallois created a new company, the ''Société Gallois et Cie'', to manage the Cirque Olympique and the Cirque des Champs Élysées. Unfortunately, he lacked the abilities needed to make a good showman, and he didn't have a strong business acumen either! Nonetheless, like Dejean, Gallois kept the Franconis and Laloue to take care of the artistic side of his operation.

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 Meanwhile, Virginie Kenebel and Victor Franconi had had a son, Marie Luigi Charles Franconi, known as Charles (1844-1910), who was born on July on July 3, 1844, in Turin, in Italy. Then, on February 18, 1846, Vrginie gave birth to their second child, Marie Antoinette Angelina, born February 18,1846, in Passy, where they lived. (Passy was then an elegant commune on the Seine; it was annexed to Paris in 1860). Virginie Kenebel and Victor Franconi finally tied the knot in Paris, on June 3, 1846. They would have another daughter, Marie Louise Laurence Victorine, born on September 17, 1856, in Brucourt, in the Calvados region of France (known for… its calvados liquor).
-Henceforth, Virginie would be known as "Madame Victor Franconi." She had ended her exceptional career before giving birth to her son Charles. She was only twenty-five then, but she had already been performing for nearly two decades&mdash;with an astonishing success that had never demented, from the very beginning to the end. Victor Franconi would continue to work for Dejean until 1873, the year when he took over his two circuses (the Cirque des Champs Élysées and the [[Cirque d'Hiver]], which had replaced the old Cirque Olympique): The Franconi dynasty had finally regained its original position as Paris's first circus family. His and Virginie's son Charles would succeed him&mdash;officially in 1897, but starting sooner than that.
+Henceforth, Virginie would be known as "Madame Victor Franconi." She had ended her exceptional career before giving birth to her son Charles. She was only twenty-five then, but she had already been performing for nearly two decades&mdash;with an astonishing success that had never demented, from the very beginning to the end. Victor Franconi would continue to work for Dejean until 1873, the year when he took over his two circuses (the Cirque des Champs Élysées and the [[Cirque d'Hiver]], which had replaced the old Cirque Olympique): The Franconi dynasty had finally regained its original position as Paris's first circus family. His and Virginie's son, Charles, would succeed him&mdash;officially in 1897, but starting sooner than that.
 Virginie Kenebel passed away on August 31, 1884, in the family's residence, 22 rue de la Faisanderie in Passy, which was now part of the posh sixteenth arrondissement of Paris. She was sixty-five. Except for old circus afficionados and horsemanship enthusiasts, few remembered that she had once been Virginie Kenebel, the "Taglioni of the Circus." Victor Franconi passed away thirteen years later, on June 21, 1897, at age eighty-six.

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 The Cirque des Champs-Élysées had been immediately established as the true "temple" of great horsemanship&mdash;but the circus of 1837 was not yet the elegant building that was to replace it, closer to the Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées, in 1843: It was a rather uncomfortable wooden ''construction'' where the audience sat on rough bleachers under which the stables were located. Yet, due to its fashionable emplacement, its clientele was, from the very beginning, the Parisian high society, where horsemanship connoisseurs&mdash;and amateurs of pretty equestriennes&mdash;were aplenty. Virginie Kenebel, who was just eighteen, had been offered a contract of 1,500 francs per year (about US$ 30,000 today), which was quite a good salary at the time, and, like the rest of the company, she was to appear in the winter season at Dejean's Cirque Olympique.
-Virginie was in excellent company: the beautiful [[Antoinette Lejars]], née Cuzent, a circus star of first magnitude, was a ballerina on horseback who also presented her horses in haute-école, as did the greatest horseman of the time, [[François Baucher]], who was also the circus's equestrian director; the extremely talented clown, equestrian, and acrobat, [[Jean-Baptiste Auriol]], whom Virginie had known at the Cirque Loisset (where he had debuted), was already a fixture of Dejean's company and on his way to unrivalled stardom; and there were the young bareback riders François and Baptiste Loisset, the sons of [[Baptiste Loisset]]. Also in Dejean's company were Antoinette Lejars's brother, the intrepid [[Paul Cuzent]], creator of the spectacular "Roman Games" and a multitalented equestrian, and his equally talented sisters, Armantine and [[Pauline Cuzent|Pauline]] (who, under the tutelage of François Baucher, would eventually rival the celebrated [[Caroline Loyo]])&mdash;all of whom were key components of Dejean's company. To this prestigious roster one must add [[Jean Lejars]], Antoinette's husband, who was another horseman of considerable talent.
+Virginie was in excellent company: the beautiful [[Antoinette Lejars]], née Cuzent, a circus star of first magnitude, was a ballerina on horseback who also presented horses in haute-école, as did the greatest horseman of the time, [[François Baucher]], who was also the circus's equestrian director; the extremely talented clown, equestrian, and acrobat, [[Jean-Baptiste Auriol]], whom Virginie had known at the Cirque Loisset (where he had debuted), was already a fixture of Dejean's company and on his way to unrivalled stardom; and there were the young bareback riders François and Baptiste Loisset, the sons of [[Baptiste Loisset]]. Also in Dejean's company were Antoinette Lejars's brother, the intrepid [[Paul Cuzent]], creator of the spectacular "Roman Games" and a multitalented equestrian, and his equally talented sisters, Armantine and [[Pauline Cuzent|Pauline]] (who, under the tutelage of François Baucher, would eventually rival the celebrated [[Caroline Loyo]])&mdash;all of whom were key components of Dejean's company. To this prestigious roster one must add [[Jean Lejars]], Antoinette's husband, who was another horseman of considerable talent.
 ===The Tribulations of Victor and Virginie===

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 She was apparently engaged by Laurent Franconi, since the Cirque des Champs-Élysées operated under a "privilège" (license) that required the venue to present only equestrian performances (Laurent's domain), in contrast to the Cirque Olympique, which featured a traditional ring and a large stage, following the custom of the period, and was famous for staging elaborate ''pantomimes'' (or "hippodramas")&mdash;popular theatrical spectacles combining horsemanship, music, and dramatic staging. These pantomimes often had military themes that celebrated Napoléon and French patriotism. The legitimate theaters of the Boulevard (they were many) had complained that the Cirque Olympique, which had Paris's largest house, created unfair competition. The new limited ''privilège'' for the Champs-Élysées ensured that this would not happen again.
-The Cirque des Champs-Élysées had been immediately established as the true "temple" of great horsemanship&mdash;but the circus of 1837 was not yet the elegant building that was to replace it, closer to the Rond Point, in 1843: It was a rather uncomfortable wooden ''construction'' where the audience sat on rough bleachers under which the stables were located. Yet, due to its fashionable emplacement, its clientele was, from the very beginning, the Parisian high society, where horsemanship connoisseurs&mdash;and amateurs of pretty equestriennes&mdash;were aplenty. Virginie Kenebel, who was just eighteen, had been offered a contract of 1,500 francs per year (about US$ 30,000 today), which was quite a good salary at the time, and, like the rest of the company, she was to appear in the winter season at Dejean's Cirque Olympique.
+The Cirque des Champs-Élysées had been immediately established as the true "temple" of great horsemanship&mdash;but the circus of 1837 was not yet the elegant building that was to replace it, closer to the Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées, in 1843: It was a rather uncomfortable wooden ''construction'' where the audience sat on rough bleachers under which the stables were located. Yet, due to its fashionable emplacement, its clientele was, from the very beginning, the Parisian high society, where horsemanship connoisseurs&mdash;and amateurs of pretty equestriennes&mdash;were aplenty. Virginie Kenebel, who was just eighteen, had been offered a contract of 1,500 francs per year (about US$ 30,000 today), which was quite a good salary at the time, and, like the rest of the company, she was to appear in the winter season at Dejean's Cirque Olympique.
 Virginie was in excellent company: the beautiful [[Antoinette Lejars]], née Cuzent, a circus star of first magnitude, presented her horses in haute-école, as did the greatest horseman of the time, [[François Baucher]], who was also the circus's equestrian director; the extremely talented clown, equestrian, and acrobat, [[Jean-Baptiste Auriol]], whom Virginie had known at the Cirque Loisset (where he had debuted), was already a fixture of Dejean's company and on his way to unrivalled stardom; and there were the young bareback riders François and Baptiste Loisset, the sons of [[Baptiste Loisset]]. Also in Dejean's company were Antoinette Lejars's brother, the intrepid [[Paul Cuzent]], creator of the spectacular "Roman Games" and a multitalented equestrian, and his equally talented sisters, Armantine and [[Pauline Cuzent|Pauline]] (who, under the tutelage of François Baucher, would eventually rival the celebrated [[Caroline Loyo]])&mdash;all of whom were key components of Dejean's company. To this prestigious roster one must add [[Jean Lejars]], Antoinette's husband, who was another horseman of considerable talent.

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 Antonio Franconi (1737-1836), the founder of the dynasty, and his sons, Laurent (1776-1849) and Henri (1779-1849), had been the pioneers of the French circus, especially in Paris, and the Cirque Olympique on the Boulevard du Temple (the third of that name) had been operated by Henri's son Adolphe (1802-1855), along with the dramatists Ferdinand Laloue (1794-1850) and Amable Vilain de Saint-Hilaire (1799-c.1865), until it went bankrupt in 1830&mdash;three years only after its opening! Louis Dejean, on whose land the circus had been built, helped the triumvirate out by buying the building and leasing it to its former owners.
-Not yet a circus man, [[Louis Dejean]] (1797-1879) was already a shrewd businessman. A former butcher, he had made a considerable fortune providing meat for the foreign troops (from Britain, Prussia, Austria, the German states, and even Switzerland and Sardegna) that occupied France in 1814 after the fall of Napoléon. He had then invested most of his wealth in the acquisition of real estate in the French capital, notably around the Boulevard du Temple, then Paris's theater and amusement epicenter.
+Not yet a circus man, [[Louis Dejean]] (1797-1879) was already a shrewd businessman. A former butcher, he had made a considerable fortune providing meat for the foreign troops (from Britain, Prussia, Austria, the German states, and even Switzerland and Sardegna) that occupied France in 1814 after the fall of Napoléon. Dejean had then invested most of his wealth in the acquisition of real estate in the French capital, notably around the Boulevard du Temple, then Paris's theater and amusement epicenter.
 [[File:Cirque_des_Champs-Élysées_stars.jpg|400px|thumb|left|Virginie Kenebel and the Cirque des Champs-Élysées stars (1837)]]When the Cirque Olympique went bankrupt again in 1833, Dejean took over what was now his property, but he was smart enough to keep Adolphe Franconi and Ferdinand Laloue, who were experienced professionals, in charge of the artistic side of the operation. Adolphe's package came replete with the other Franconis, notably Laurent, one of the greatest master equestrians of his generation, and his son Victor (1811-1897), himself a remarkable equestrian (who will publish a treatese of dressage, ''Le Cavalier et l'Écuyer'', in 1891). Virginie Kenebel made her debut in Dejean's company at the Cirque des Champs-Élysées in the spring of 1837.

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 File:Virginie_Kenebel_Portrait.png|Virginie Kenebel (c.1840)
 File:Victor_Franconi_-_Vaux.png|Victor Franconi (c.1840)
 File:Louis_Dejean_Portrait.jpg|Louis Dejean (c.1850)
 File:Cirque_des_Champs-Élysées.png|Cirque des Champs-Élysées (c.1855)