The Freemasons

On Tuesday, July 9, 1754, Les Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour, an opera-ballet by Cahusac and Rameau, was revived at the Académie royale de Musique. As was customary at the time for works that had "succeeded," parodies flourished to mock the work.

And so it was done: on August 28, 1754, at the Saint-Laurent fair, Antoine-Alexandre-Henri Poinsinet

offered the Parisian public a parody taken from the act of the “Amazons” of the Feasts of Hymen and Love: The Fra-Maçonnes.
If the history of Parisian fairs is no longer to be written, because it has been studied and well documented by numerous scientific works, let us nevertheless quickly point out the exemplary place occupied by the Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent fairs in the evolution of shows. In a France of the Ancien Régime, faced with the recriminations and rebuffs of the licensed theaters, which vigorously demanded strict respect for their privileges, the fairground actors had to invent a number of subterfuges in order to be able to exercise their art. From these numerous and painful battles
to gain the "right to the stage", the comic opera was born. The place des Fra-Maçonnes de Poinsinet is therefore part of a place heavily charged with passions and theatrical stories...
It is also irrelevant to want to detail, here, the life and work of Poinsinet. Nevertheless, for a proper understanding of the piece that we will present shortly, it seemed useful to us to note some striking traits of his personality...

First of all, the great credulity of our author:

"Although he did not lack a certain wit, Poinsinet had a singular ignorance of the most common things, a self-esteem, an extreme credulity and a naivety such that his name had become proverbial: people said: "Stupid as Poinsinet". As his ignorance was mixed
of much vanity, he was persuaded of everything that was wanted. His presumption, his ignorance and his credulity made him for a long time the plaything of the salons.
Fortunately, Poinsinet's mind is not limited to this unflattering character trait. Gifted with a real talent as a versifier and "putter into words" for musicians, our author enjoyed many successes including "Les Fra-Maçonnes". We have been able to observe, through the study of
his work and, in particular, of the specific piece that we present, the happy adequacy between prosody and music achieved by our author. This quality, rare among many writers of the time, often ignorant of the judicious choice of an air carrying affects, of its scope and of its complementarity with textual expressiveness, undoubtedly confers on our author a special place in the pantheon of amateur vaudeville writers...
Although it is currently possible to consult this little ditty by Poinsinet, either on the "Théâtre classique" website, in a modernized presentation, or on the Gallica website of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, in its original digitized edition, it must be noted, in both cases, that the piece is deprived of its fundamental ornament: music.
Built on a foundation of well-known melodies, vaudevilles, the piece loses its supposed sentimentality by being sung and no longer read or simply declaimed.

Alain-René Lesage, in his introduction to the edition of the Théâtre de la Foire, did he not tell us...
"But, gentlemen readers, who condemn books whenever you please,
despite the reasons that they want to lull you with in the Prefaces, let it be our duty
less permitted in finishing, to use it with you as a Party of which one is going
judge the trial, uses it with its Judges. If it has any essential observation
to do so, she does not rely on the obligation they have to examine everything
before they decide. We warn you that you must sing and not simply read our Verses.
Look at them like the verses of the Opera Divertissements, Both
are made on canvas. The song will inspire you with indulgent cheerfulness. Finally,
by singing them, you put your own into it, and we will have a better deal
you: Instead, if you only read them, you will take care of everything.