Theodore Pavie's ccLes babouches

du Brahmane" and the Story of

Delibes's Lakme

C H A R L E S P. D . C R O N I N &
B E T J E B L A C K K L I E R

T HE mysterious provenance of Lakme— the only opera by Delibes that

has enjoyed some measure of continuous popularity since its debut at
the Opera-Comique a little more than a hundred years ago — has led to a long-
standing but dubious attribution to Pierre Lori's quasi-autobiographical novel
Rarahu, ou Le manage de Loti.1 The purpose of this article is to demonstrate
that the inspiration for Lakme was, in fact, the writings of Theodore Pavie, an
unjustly overlooked French linguist and orientalist who has come to light, curi-
ously enough, through research into Louisiana and Texas history. Before dis-
cussing Pavie and how his work fell into the hands of Delibes's librettists, let
us first consider Pierre Loti andLakme"s current attribution.
Pierre Loti — the pseudonym of Julien Viaud, a dyspeptic French sailor and
writer—lived between 1850 and 1923.2 His Rarahu, appearing first in four
installments in La Nouvelle Rente (1880) under the title Le manage de Loti, was
an immediate success that established an enduring enthusiasm for Lori's con-
siderable oeuvre of stories of faraway places. Rarahu is a young Maori woman
with whom Loti shares a short-term, nontraditional marriage while he is sta-
tioned in Tahiti. At the end of this extraordinarily static novel— really a series
of impressions of Tahitian life and landscape —Loti returns to his native Eng-
land, where memories of the South Seas and the sweetheart he left behind haunt
him occasionally.
Like Lori's Rarahu, Delibes's Lakme tells a tale of the ill-fated love affair
between a Western man and an Eastern woman, played out against an exotic
backdrop. However, because cross-cultural romances and exotic settings are
recurrent themes in nineteenth-century opera, it requires an overactive imagi-
nation to divine similarities between the stories of Lakme and Rarahu that
extend beyond these generic traits. Given these limited concordances, it is
unlikely that Rarahu was the principal inspiration for Lakme's librettists,

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Philippe Gille and Edmond Gondinet. In fact, their libretto is full of Indian
names and lore that, while having nothing to do with Rarahu, do indicate an
aufait understanding of India and the Orient in general that neither librettist
possessed.3 Theodore Pavie, who wrote the story that inspired their drama, had
such an understanding.
Theodore Pavie (1811-1896) was born in Angers, a city in the Loire valley,
where his family owned a small bookshop and publishing house. Pavie's mother
died when he was two and his brother Victorfive.It fell to his father, therefore,
to supervise their education and to teach them horticulture, music, and the
visual arts. The boys' grandmother—assisted by two family servants, Manette
and Renee — also helped care for them. All three women were relics of the
ancien regime who had spent part of the Revolution in prison. At bedtime the
servants would entertain Theodore and Victor with heroic stories of the Rev-
olution or didactic peasant tales that occasionally included supernatural ele-
ments. Their stories were typical of peasant lore with their rich descriptions,
shallow character development, and abundant action. Despite his sophistica-
tion as an adult, Pavie wrote in a narrative style that betrays the influence of
these tales from childhood.
Born into a positivist age, Pavie contributed to the emerging sciences by
recording empirical observations of exotic places, in the tradition of Captain
James Cook and Alexander Humbolt. But whereas those two men traveled with
retinues of artists and scholars, Pavie worked alone, relying on his skill with
pencil and pen.4 Throughout his life he drew from his sketches and travel notes
to produce a literary oeuvre that displays a cultural sensitivity exceptional for
its time.
Indeed, unlike those orientalists excoriated by Edward Said, who were lin-
guistically unprepared for foreign travel and who saw the East through a West-
ern veil, Pavie prepared for his Far-Eastern journey with the thoroughness of
his grandmother's friend and compatriot, Volney.5 Pavie learned several Ori-
ental languages before his departure. With this training he made observations
and collected notes and stories with the proficiency of a cultural anthropolo-
gist; he has been called one of the most erudite, yet least pedantic, of the ori-
entalists.6 A by-product of Pavie's travels was his collection of stories, full of
richly described locales and exotically named characters that transported France's
armchair travelers to faraway places.
Between 1835 and 1839, pursuing his love of languages, Pavie studied Sanskrit
under Eugene Bournouf in Paris. In 1839 he had an opportunity to apply his
knowledge of the language when he accompanied Great Britain's Chief Engi-
neer for India on an inspection tour of Calcutta. Pavie spent two years in India
drawing, taking notes, and collecting stories. Years later, in 1853, he published
several of these Indian tales in a collection of short stories, appropriately titled
Scenes et recits despays d'outre-mer.7 This collection carries the reader from Peru
to Louisiana, down the Mississippi and the Nile, and along the coast of India.
In tales of love or vengeance the reader meets Toby the lumberer, Haddji the

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mutineer, and the beautiful Mallika, daughter of a gardener. One also meets
two women near Pondicherry, ex-concubines known as "brides of Vishnu" or
"lakshmis " and, in "Les babouches du Brahmane," a sinister Brahmin named
Nilakantha, who stalks a young Englishman who dared to set eyes on the Brah-
min's beautiful daughter and himself.8
One day in September 1884, more than thirty years after his stories were first
published, Theodore Pavie received an unexpected visitor at his home near
Angers. Pavie had been the topic of conversation the previous evening when
opera benefactor Count Louis de Romain had been entertaining Le"o Delibes,
a native of nearby La FMche, and his collaborator Philippe Gille, who had come
to fine-tune the production of Lakme that would soon open in Angers after a
successful reception in Paris. The event was recalled by writer Rene Durbal in
the 5 February 1927 issue of the Angers Petit Courrier:
Seated at the table, quite naturally they were discussing Lakmi when,
turning to Gille, Delibes asked the origin of Lakme'. He was told that
the idea came after reading "Les babouches du Brahmane," a story
taken from a book whose author was a certain Pavie. Here the Count
de Romain interrupted, talked about the Pavie family, and announced
the presence of Theodore Pavie in the vicinity— which shot fear
through our artists because no permission had been requested from
the authon9
But Louis de Romain assured them, "Go and visit him, invite him to attend
your performance, and that will settle the matter." Indeed, complimentary tick-
ets were the only royalties ever paid to Theodore Pavie, whose work had been
the inspiration for the opera. Gille and Delibes neglected to mention this fact
upon their return to Paris, the city that had forgotten the oriental scholar who
had left the capital four decades earlier.10

"Babouches," Rarabu, and Lakme

A comparison of the principal events and characters in Delibes's Lakmt, Loti's
Rarahu, and Pavie's "Les babouches du Brahmane" yields further evidence that
the story of Delibes's opera derivesfromPavie's rather than Loti's work. Though
Rarahu is a beautiful and exotic woman who falls in love with a visiting Eng-
lishman, her personality does not match Lakme's, and the two women undergo
different trials. On the other hand, the details of "Babouches" closely prefigure
those of Lakme'.
Let us begin with short synopses of the stories of these three works. Lakme'
is set in nineteenth-century British-occupied India; the first act is played in a
pagoda hidden by lush vegetation. Five English visitors come across it: British
army officers Gerald and Frederic, escorting the viceroy's daughters Ellen and
Rose, who are in turn chaperoned by their governess, Mrs. Bentson. Gerald

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 24 C R O N I N & K L I E R

Edward is dogged by a baleful beggar (Nilakantha in disguise) who brings him

bad luck. In Calcutta Edward marries Augusta, an Englishwoman, who dies
suddenly during a boat excursion, from the mephitic perfume of a flower that
Nilakantha has planted in a bouquet Edward presents to her.
Rarahu is set in late-nineteenth-century Tahiti. Harry Grant (Lori), a mid-
shipman in the British Navy stationed in the South Seas, falls in love with a
native woman called Rarahu. In a collection of diary entries and letters Loti
describes the idyllic life he shares with Rarahu. After two years he returns, alone,
to England. Rarahu becomes the mistress of a French officer and dies several
years later of consumption.11
In comparing "Babouches" with Lakme', it isfirstworth considering Gille's and
Gondinet's derivation of the name Lakme' from the Sanskrit word lakshmi,
which Pavie used in another tale of India, "Sougandhie." When the youthful
looks of the pretty lakshmis—chosen for the Brahmins' harems—begin to fade,
the women are branded on the chest and cast out to spend the rest of their lives
as beggars, relying on their brand to attract alms from those wishing to please
Vishnu. Sougandhie's mother is a cast-off lakshmi whose daughter is raised by
her Brahmin father. Delibes's Lakme" is also raised by her Brahmin father alone,
and Sougandhie (like Lakme) falls in love with a European military man. Fur-
thermore, both Sougandhie and Lakme possess trained voices put to desperate
use: like her mother before her, Sougandhie sings in order to attract alms;
Lakme sings at her father's command in order to draw the attention of her Eng-
lish lover, thereby causing him to reveal his identity.12
In Pavie's "Babouches"—the principal source of Lakme— we find another
daughter of a lakshmi mother and a Brahmin father. She is Roukminie, the
Indian maiden whose father, Nilakantha, provided Delibes with the name for
Lakme's sole parent. Roukminie, like Sougandhie, ends her life as a mendicant.
Unlike Lakme', however, she is not poisoned by a deadly flower; it is Augusta
(who marries Edward, the protagonist of "Babouches") who shares that idio-
syncratic fate.
Drawing upon three of Pavie's characters —Sougandhie, Roukminie, and
Augusta —Gille and Gondinet created in Lakme an operatic figure whose
vengeful father, love affair with Gerald, and death by a poisonous flower invited
opportunities for lyrical expression and suspenseful drama. Delibes expected
no less for a work written as a vehicle for the American soprano Marie Van
Zandt, who had recently made a splash in the premiere of Ambroise Thomas's
Mignon at the OpeYa-Comique in March 1880. Indeed, the other female roles
in Lakme pose no threat to the sovereignty of the title character. Lakme's hand-
maiden Mallika —whose name Gille and Gondinet culled from "Cherumal le
Mahout," yet another of Pavie's stories published in Scenes et re'eits— is the only
other woman in Lakme-who participates in a significant musical set-piece, "Sous
le dome epais" the duet she sings with Lakme" as the two paddle off in search
of lotus blossoms.13
The three Englishwomen in Lakme'— Rose, Ellen, and Mrs. Bentson—appear

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 S T O R Y OF D E L I B E S ' S L A K M E 25

to be entirely the librettists' invention; neither Pavie's "Babouches" nor Loti's

Rarahu has parallel characters. Significantly, we find that the participation of
these three women is limited to the finales and a trite quintet in which they
are joined by the two soldiers to chirp, like opera buffet types, the refrain "Les
femmes sont partout les memes, fort heureusement" [Women are the same the
world over, most fortunately] while blithely trespassing on sacred ground. The
starchy, ridiculous Mrs. Bentson is mocked not only by her overage charges,
Ellen and Rose, but also by the natives, who handily discombobulate and rob
her in the second-act market scene. An additional hint of Delibes's jaundiced
conception of his English characters is heard in Ellen's counter to Gerald's fan-
tasy about Lakme, which is an espousal of the less glamorous, more practical
talents of her compatriots: "Ces beautes celestes savent tout charmer, mais nous,
plus modestes, nous savons aimer" [These divine beauties know how to charm
to the fullest, but we more modest women know how to love]. Like Micaela's
in Carmen, Ellen's personality pales in comparison to the exotic woman who
replaces her in Gerald's heart.14
The strongest link between Pavie's "Babouches" and Delibes's Lakme is
Nilakantha, the protective and vengeful Brahmin who is central to both works.
"Babouches" shares with Lakme the paradigm of cultural animosity played out
in the hostile relationship between Nilakantha and a young Englishman. As
clearly as the presence ofLakme"s Nilakantha establishes "Babouches" as the
foundation of the opera's story, the same character's absence in Loti's Rarahu
attenuates the connection between that novel and Delibes's work.15
In both Pavie's and Delibes's works, Nilakantha is a devout Brahmin with a beau-
tiful daughter. Both Nilakanthas despise the English colonists and disguise them-
selves as mendicants [sunyasis] to seek vengeance for Westerners' profanation of
their homes. In "Babouches" Pavie identifies the specific reason why Nilakantha
hates the English: their missionaries had converted all his spiritual adherents, leav-
ing him destitute and alone. In act i of Lakme', Gerald's friend Fre'de'ric mentions
that outside the cities the number of adherents to "Brahmanism" was diminish-
ing, presumably because of incursions by European missionaries.
The animosity between Nilakantha and his European nemesis reflects not
only Indian anger over imperialist incursions, but also Hindu religious zeal. In
Pavie's "Sougandhie," the guide Hanouman explains to the narrator that "the
Brahmins are without pity, and glorify in this fact. As they teach that their gods
never pardon certain offenses, they are careful to do likewise in order to resem-
ble more closely the divinities of which they claim to be the living image. Near
and far their anger is terrifying."16
Although the Brahmins of the two stories have much in common, the means
by which they carry out their respective acts of revenge underscore distinct per-
sonalities. LaknWs Nilakantha is a violent fanatic who botches his crude attempt
to assassinate Gerald. This rough-hewn character betrays the librettists' limited
understanding of Indian culture. On the other hand, Pavie'sfinelydrawn and
more credible Nilakantha evinces a genuine knowledge of Indian life and its

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influence on personality. In "Babouches," instead of a possessed authority figure,

we encounter a refined man whom Pavie paints in delicate shades:
In the streets crowded with sedan chairs, swift carriages, and heavy
wagons, [Nilakantha] walked, eyes half-closed, parasol on his shoulder,
letting flutter about his knees the skirts of his tunic, placing his slippers
with that haughty disdain, that affected nonchalance, which in an Asian
betrays pride and knowledge of his true social standing.17
The vendetta executed by Pavie's character is similarly refined and carried out
incrementally, almost imperceptibly. Pavie's Nilakantha haunts Edward and
grows spookier with each unexpected reappearance, reciting the disingenuous
benediction: ccVa, monfils,va oil tes voeux fappellent, et que les routes te soient
douces!" [Go, my son, go where your wishes call you, and may your way be
easy!]. Ultimately, his murder weapon is not a dagger or other armament whose
use requires physical strength, but a poisonous flower whose beauty— like that
of India in general—disguises its deathly power. The means of Nilakantha's
revenge, therefore, is his understanding of nature in the East; a corresponding
ignorance thereof spells doom for the Westerners.
Ge'rald, the other male principal in Lakmt, falls in love with the title charac-
ter. Pavie's "Babouches" and Loti's Rarahu have parallel roles, those of Edward
and Lori, respectively. All three are European soldier-adventurers who form
romantic attachments to exotic women whom they ultimately lose or aban-
don.18 A loyal friend from the homeland accompanies each of the three, but of
these only Fre'deYic—in Lakme— plays a significant part as he tries to prevent
Gerald from "going native" through his romantic attachment. Apart from the
broad commonalities shared among these three characters, the events that Loti
confronts in Rarahu are unrelated to those that befall Gerald in Lakme1 and
Edward in "Babouches." Loti commits no sacrilege, intentional or otherwise,
and enjoys a warm and extended welcome from the tolerant and passive Tahi-
tians. No sinister and overprotective father stalks Loti, who ultimately leaves
Tahiti on his own terms, abandoning Rarahu, who dies of natural causes some
time thereafter.
The dubious marriage of Loti and Rarahu also has a cast different from those
of the more balanced relationships between Lakme' and Ge'rald, and between
Edward and Augusta. The union of Loti and Rarahu has an on-again, off-again
quality tainted by the protagonist's ambiguous remarks that sound patronizing
to late-twentieth-century ears:
"Loti," said Rarahu, after a long silence, "what are your thoughts?"
"Of many things," said I, "which you cannot understand. I am thinking,
my little pet, that on those distant seas are scattered many unknown
islands; that they are inhabited by a mysterious race destined soon to
perish; that you are a child of this primitive race; and that here, perched

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 S T O R Y O F D E L I B E S ' S L A K M E 2 7

on the summit of one of these islands, far from all human creatures in
this absolute solitude, I, a son of the old world, born on the other side
of the globe, am sitting and loving you."19
One can safely conclude that Delibes derived Gerald not from Loti, but from
Pavie's Edward because of the similar transgressions Gerald and Edward com-
mit and the consequent vengeance of Nilakantha they both suffer that brings
about the loss of their beloveds. Furthermore, the gradual buildup toward the
final tragic events, precipitated in both stories by misunderstandings that repre-
sent a larger cross-cultural friction, makes "Babouches" andZ/wbwtf'suspenseful,
a quality absent from Lori's quasi-autobiographical Rarahu.
The names, personalities, and actions of the principal characters of Lakme
reveal the extent to which Delibes based his opera on the work of Theodore
Pavie. ButLakme's setting also evinces the proximity between "Babouches" and
Lakme that in turn points up the distance between these two works and Loti's
Rarahu. The relatively propinquitous locations of "Babouches" and Lakme—
the west coast and northeastern regions of India, respectively— have little in
common with Rarahu's southern-hemisphere setting on the island of Tahiti.
As to be expected in works written for a nineteenth-century French audience,
the majority of whom had never left the continent, each of these stories empha-
sizes the natural beauty and climate of an exotic location. In Rarahu in partic-
ular, hardly a page fails to allude to the paradisiacal climate and vegetation of
Tahiti. Like the Tahitians themselves, the island landscape is seductive but rarely
treacherous, despite the occasional scorpion that drops from the palm trees dur-
ing storms. How appropriate that the score of Meyerbeer's Africaine should
appear on the music rack of the first piano in Papeete, newly arrived from
Europe! In a picturesque scene, Loti accompanies himself in a performance of
Vasco da Gama's aria from that opera, the words of which echo his own feelings
about the salubrious quality of tropical nature, but are not specific to Tahiti:
"Pays merveilleux! Jardin fortune! Temple radieux, salut! Oh paradis sorti de
l'onde! Ciel si bleu, ciel si pur dont mes yeux sont ravis!" [Wondrous country!
Lush garden! Radiant temple, I greet you! Oh paradise rising out of the sea!
So blue the sky, so pure the sky to my delighted eyes!].
In "Babouches" and Lakme', however, nature is not always as benign a force
as it is in Rarahu. Lakmd draws upon her knowledge of the medicinal proper-
ties of Indian vegetation when she nurses Gerald back to health after her father
has stabbed him; but among these plants is xhtAscUpiade that kills Edward's
young wife, Augusta, as well as the Datura that Lakmd purposefully consumes
to commit suicide. The polysemous lotus also appears in Lakme'; in act i Mallika
and Lakme collect its blossoms to adorn themselves and the pagoda. Moreover,
the description of the pagoda itself, as worded inLakme"s libretto, is strikingly
similar to that used by Pavie in the earlier "Babouches" when he refers to the
religious significance of the lotus blossom. These references may also conjure

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in the reader's mind die fruit of the mythical lotus tree, said to induce a dreamy
indolence abhorrent to the Western psyche:
"Babouches" Lakme
The image of a lotus blossom, A very shadedgarden overrun with all
sketched in chalk on the doorstep, theflowersofIndia. At back a low-built
traced a large rosette and formed a house, half hidden by the trees. The
type of block in which no profane design ofa lotus blossom is carved over
foot would have dared to tread. A the front door. This, and a statue of
garland of freshly cutflowerswas Ganeca [Ganesh]—idol with an
balanced above the door and also elephant's head, the goddess of wisdom-
decorated the statuette of Ganeca, impart to the mysterious dwelling the
idol with die head of an elephant, appearance ofa sanctuary.1^
that the Brahmins invoked as the
goddess of wisdom.20
Theodore Pavie learned from his travels and deeply appreciated the trans-
formative influence of foreign cultures and geographies. His description of
Augusta, the woman Edward marries, reflects this belief in nature's power to
affect not only our physiognomy, but also our personality: "An Englishwoman
born in India, who combined the graceful delicacy of the Northern races with
the more severe beauty of the Asiatic types. The scorching climate of Bengal,
which had etched a soft languor on her features, seemed to have enhanced,
rather than dissipated, die force of her personality."22
Nature in the East, like Oriental culture in general as understood by nine-
teenth-century Europeans, combined ameliorative and injurious powers
unknown to Westerners. In Lakme and "Babouches," a flower—nature in its
most beguiling manifestation—devastates die lives of the Western protagonists
whose ignorance of its venomous strength results in the loss of not only the
women they love, but also their perception of the Orient as a place of oppor-
tunity and innocence.
The parallel characters, settings, and plots in "Babouches" and Lakme pro-
vide convincing evidence for the claim that Delibes's opera owes its story to
Thdodore Pavie. This is not to say, of course, that Lakme precisely mirrors
"Babouches," for the librettists freely selected characters and events from sev-
eral of Pavie's stories. In accounting for divergences between those tales and
Lakme', we should also keep in mind the differences in genre. The constraints
of time and the braking effect of sung words and separable musical numbers
on dramatic momentum are accepted limitations in opera and, as such, predis-
pose audiences to suspend the standards of verisimilitude and coherence that
are more rigorously applied to spoken drama and literature. We are not, for
instance, disconcerted byLakme''s pat ending. The British troops conveniently
march by Ge'rald (AWOL in Lakme"'s purportedly remote cabane en bambous),
the sound offifeand drum dividing Gerald's loyalty to England from his devo-
tion to Lakme\ This unlikely convergence of events — heavily underscoring the

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opera's larger cultural conflict—would be embarrassingly contrived in a liter-

ary work but is unremarkable within the context of an opera.23
The miscegenational relationship between Gerald and the Brahmin's daugh-
ter in Lakme constitutes a significant departure from the stories of Pavie.
Although in "Sougandhie" the Hindu maiden is infatuated with a French sol-
dier, her feelings are not reciprocated. And if the protagonist in "Babouches"
admires die pretty Roukminie from afar, when it comes to marriage there is no
further thought of her; Edward's wife, though raised in India, is English. In
diverging from Pavie's models, Delibes and his librettists subscribed to the
vogue in opera for exotic romances in which a European soldier or explorer
personifies the West; an attractive but inscrutable woman, who is undone as a
consequence of her taboo liaison, represents the East. Carmen and Madama
Butterfly are, of course, the most popular examples of this genre of opera; they
tell us little about other cultures but much about European perceptions and
misperceptions of them at the end of the nineteenth century.
Pavie's "Babouches du Brahmane" and "Sougandhie" both end with the death
of a Westerner: in the former, Augusta succumbs to poison; in the latter, the
French soldier is killed by an Englishman's bullet. Pavie had a firsthand knowl-
edge of the natural and political dangers that nineteenth-century European trav-
elers met in the Orient, and die premature demise of his characters reflects this
reality. Why, in Lakme', did the librettists not follow Pavie's example and end
the life of the Westerner instead of sacrificing the exotic heroine? We need only
recall Madama Butterfly, Carmen, UAfricaine, and Thais to realize that it was,
glibly speaking, the thing to do in opera of this period. But Lakme"s ending,
regardless of its conventionality, reflects the sober fact (one deeply appreciated
by Theodore Pavie and, eventually, Pierre Loti) that racial, national, and geo-
graphical differences are extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and that coloniza-
tion threatens the sui generis beauty offoreigncultures. Although Lakme's rela-
tionship with Gerald offers the tantalizing possibility of the blossoming of
genuine understanding between East and West, not even primordial attraction
between the sexes can overcome their cultural differences. At the end of the
opera, Lakme's lifeless body suggests a nineteenth-century perception of the
potentially dire consequences attending attempts to dismantle cultural bound-
aries in any place or time.

NOTES
i. According to Joseph LoiseL, Delibes,
at the suggestion of librettist Edmond
Gondinet, read Rarabu while traveling by
train to Vienna. Enthralled by the story,
Delibes telegrammed his enthusiasm to
Gondinet even before leaving the station at
Vienna ("Lakmd" de Leo Delibes [Paris:
Iibrairie Delaplane, 1924], pp. 28-29).
Assuming the accuracy of this account,
Delibes's reading of Ramhu may indeed have
led him to abandon his plans for writing a
work about the artist Jacques Callot in favor
of working on "an amorous idyll in an exotic
land" (ibid., p. 28). The authors thank Hugh
Macdonald for identifying for them Loisel's
account of Delibes's decision to write an
exotic opera.
2. Wright and Eleanor Frierson, in the

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introduction to their English translation of Le la "Revue des deux mondes" (Paris: Revue des
manage de Loti claim that the name Lori is a deux mondes, c.1940), pp. 102-11.
corruption of the Tahitian word roti [rose] 7. Eugene Bournouf was a linguist and
(Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, comparative mythologist who held the chair
1976), p. xv. In thefirstchapter of the novel, in Sanskrit at the College de France (Sor-
Viaud writes that in Tahiti he was rebaptized bonne). Before he died in 1853, Bournouf
"Loti" because his Western name—Harry designated Pavie as his successor, though
Grant—was unpronounceable to the Pavie was never tenured in that position.
Polynesians. Elsewhere, however, it is Pavie also studied with Garcin de Tassy and
reported that as a young naval officer Julien Stanislas Julian. The names of these oriental-
Viaud's timidity earned him the sobriquet ists are little known to Americans today, who
"Loti," the name of aflowerthat grows in tend to be more familiar with the artists from
India and that hides like a violet among its this period.
leaves (Dictionnaire universel des amtemporains Michel LeVy published Scenes et remits in
[1893], s.v. "Loti"). 1853. His brother Calmann inherited Michel's
3. Philippe Gille (1831-1901) was also an interest in the publishing house in 1875.
art and music critic for Le Figaro. The Coincidentally, though Calmann Levy
Dictionnaire universel des amtemporains (1893)forwarded Lori's Rarahu to the Nouvelle Revue
provides an extensive treatment of Gille's for initial serial publication, he too published
oeuvre but identifies Edmond Gondinet this novel in 1880. He also put out at least
(1829-1888) as simply "auteur dramatique two editions of the libretto to Lakmi.
francais." Although Gondinet is said to have 8. "Les babouches du Brahmane" was first
sparked Delibes's initial interest in writing published in the Revue des Deux Mondes of 4
Lakmi, Gille was brought in early on to assist October 1849. Subsequent citations from
with the libretto {The New Grove Dictionary of "Babouches" refer to this publication.
Opera, s.v. "Gille"). 9. "Rene" Durbal" was the anagrammatic
4. Although photography eventually pen name of Andre" Bruel. Another local
undermined the tradition of "pencil-and-pen" account adds that Pavie bought the book
travelers, in the 1880s Julien Viaud (Pierre from a bouquiniste along the quays of the
Loti) still followed his forebears' example. Seine (Auguste Pinguet, Theodore Pavie
His drawings of Tahiti illustrate at least one et Lakmi" La Province d'Anjou, no. 43
of Calmann-Le'vy's editions (1898) of Rarahu. (September-October 1933), pp. 297-99. The
Perhaps Gille and Gondinet saw his sketch of authors are grateful to Yves Pavie, Louis
Rarahu's thatch-roof hut, which may have Torchet, and Andre' Laiyet for their assistance
been the prototype of Lakme^s cabane en in identifying and obtaining these documents.
bambous. Lakmi also evokes this pencil-and- Unless otherwise indicated, translations of
pen tradition in the act 1 scene in which French source material in this article are by
Gdrald considers sketching Lakm^'s jewels the authors.
(Trendre le dessin d'un bijou"). 10. In 1883, two years after having been
5. "Vblney" was the pseudonym of promoted to the rank of lieutenant, Loti was
Count Constantin-Francois Chasseboeuf stationed in Indochina to assist in the Tonkin
(1757-1820) from Angers. He was a classical campaign. After publishing a letter in Le
scholar who spent four years in the Middle Figaro criticizing the cruelty of the French
East and later wrote about these travels in a soldiers during that campaign, Loti was repri-
two-volume work entitled Voyage en Fgypte et manded and ostracized from the navy for
enSyrie (Paris: Desenne, 1787). See Edward about half a year. Absent from Paris at the
W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon time of Lakmi's premiere in 1883, Loti then
Books, 1978), p. 81. would have been unable to correct any
6. Rene" Bazin (1853-1932), a popular misattributions regarding the source of the
French writer also born in Angers, identified opera.
Pavie as such in his discussion of him in Le 11. In Rarahu, when their ship docks in the
livre du centenaire: Cent ans de vie Jmnpaise a port of San Francisco (May 1873), Loti and

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his chum William, in a theater in Chinatown, Hadji for Lakme''s loyal servant makes no
tie together the braided pigtails of two sense in light of the fact that the presence of
Chinese men in the seats in front of theirs. a Muslim in Nilakantha's home would have
"Oh Confucius!" adds the author, with a offended him as much as that of an
wink. It is a minor event, but reminiscent of Englishman. The librettists found the name
the prank in "Babouches." Hadji — appropriately applied to a Muslim
12. One encounters similarly sadistically pilgrim—in Pavie's "Ismael Er-Raschydi," the
flavored scenes—in which a young woman is first of the stories published in the collection
forced to use her talents against herself— in that Gille happened upon at die Parisian
contemporary works like Offenbach's Contes bouquiniste's stall. Pavie spells die word
d'Hoffmann (1881) and Massenet's Rot de "haddji" and uses it not as a proper name but
Lahore (1877); in the latter, the Hindu maiden as an occupational tide to refer to a pilgrim.
Sita is ordered by the high priest to intone According to Del Bonta, Hadji is a Muslim
the evening prayer in order to expose her name denoting a pilgrim who has "made the
lover. In another Massenet work, the ballet hajj, visited Mecca" (ibid.).
Espada (1908), the dancer Anitra, after receiv- 16. The'odore Pavie, "Sougandhie" in
ing news that her lover has been killed, is Scenes et ricks despays d'outre-mer (Paris, 1853),
forced to dance until she, too, drops dead. p. 241. ^
See Demar Irvine, Massenet, A Chronicle ofHis 17. Pavie, "Babouches" p. 301.
Life and Times (Portland: Amadeus Press, 18. James Parakilas addresses this recurrent
1994), pp. 94, 273- topic in opera in his two-part article, "The
13. This duet has become the most widely Soldier and the Exotic: Operatic Variations
disseminated number Delibes ever wrote, on a Theme of Racial Encounter" The Opera
having been appropriated for British Airways Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 2 (Winter 1993/94),
commercials and die soundtracks of the PP- 33-56; vol. 10, no. 3 (1994), pp- 43-69-
movies Someone to Watch over Me, I Heard the 19. Pierre Loti [Julien Viaud], Le manage
Mermaids Singing, and most recently The de Loti, trans. Clara Bell (London: T. Werner
American President. Laurie, 1929), p. 109. The insensitivity with
14. Delibes completed the piano-vocal scor- which Loti treats his wife links him with the
ing of an aria for Ellen, "C'est un peu de obtuse narrator of his Madame Chrysantheme
jalousie" but he never orchestrated it. He also (1887), published seven years after Rarahu.
eventually cut a trio for Ellen, Rose, and Madame Chrysantheme has the same static
Fre'de'ric (intended to be sung when Fre'de'ric quality of Rarahu, and the two works offer
discovers Gerald's hideaway in act 3); this trio the same story— through different venues—
was supplanted by a scene for Fre'de'ric and of a young serviceman's impressions of an
Ge'rald that the composer completed during a Asian society and his oddly impersonal,
visit to Lake Lucerne in August 1883, about diough physically intimate, relationship with
four months after the opera was first a young woman in an exotic land, like Loti,
performed in Paris. the narrator of Madame Chrysantheme is a
15. Robert J. Del Bonta, in his article naval officer, though of the French rather
"Songs of India," The Opera Quarterly, vol. 2, than the English navy. He is stationed in
no. 1 (Spring 1984), p. 10, points out that Japan, which has led writers to assume that
Nilakantha ("Blueneck") is the name given he was the model for Pinkerton in Puccini's
the god Shiva, whose neck turned color after Madama Butterfly. Arthur Groos believes that
he swallowed poison in order to save others the inspiration for John Luther Long's short
at the Creation. On the basis of the use of this story on which Puccini based his opera was a
name, Del Bonta credits Gille and Gondinet true event witnessed by Long's sister, married
for "doing their homework" (ibid.). How- to an American missionary in Japan. See
ever, it now appears that they were relying Groos, "Madama Butterfly: The Story,"
on Pavie's knowledge, for—as pointed out Cambridge OperaJournal, vol. 3, no. 2 (July
by Del Bonta— their use of the Muslim name 1991), pp. 125-58. Also see the same author's

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 S T O R Y O F D E L I B E S ' S L A K M E 3 3

"Return of the Native: Japan in Madatna
Butterfly/Madama Butterfly in Japan,"
Cambridge Opera Journal, vol. i, no. 2 (July
1989), pp. 167-94-
20. Pavie, "Babouches" p. 301.
21. LaknU, act 1: translation of stage direc-
tions in the Gille-Gondinet libretto (New
York: Charles Burden, n.d.), p. 4.
22. Pavie, "Babouches" p. 311.
23. Along these lines, Delibes is reported to
have argued with Gondinet about Lakmd's
death by the Datura plant. Gondinet
claimed—incorrectly—that the Datura was
not poisonous and that they would have to
choose a more plausible means for Lakmd's
death. "It is poisonous because we need it to
be" was the gist of Delibes's response to
Gondinet's objection. Eventually they
reached a compromise, having Frederic main-
tain that the Datura, while not toxic in
Europe, becomes so when transplanted to
India! (Loisel, "LakmP de Uo Delibes, p. 28.)

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