The Chevalier, born in Guadeloupe in 1745, was the illegitimate son of a slave and a wealthy aristocrat. His training and education in Paris prepared him for a stellar career on the Parisian scene. Despite his multi-faceted talents and brilliant achievements in sport and music, problems of identity and status excluded Saint-George from eminent positions. The fad for exoticism disguised racial prejudices, which perverted even enlightened minds like those of Condorcet and Voltaire, for whom black people represented lower specimens of mankind. Saint-George remained an oddity on display in salons. I will make the case that the ostracism he experienced together with probable feelings of alienation may have paradoxically given purpose to his life, providing an incentive for him to exploit all of his artistic potentiality.
The Revolution, involving a choice of allegiances, gave a sharper edge to his problems of hybrid identity. A brilliant general, suspected of duplicity, he was imprisoned but escaped the guillotine—a tragic doom foreshadowing his ultimate downfall. Confronted with sickness and solitude, Saint-George died in 1799. Posterity either ignored him or falsified his record. Some biographers only retained his sporting feats while others invented countless amorous adventures.
The paper gives an exceptional musician his due, reconstructing his complex personality and exploding the myth of the so-called “Black Mozart”.