Hippolyte Monpou, a choirboy trained in the choir school of Notre-Dame, became the most fashionable musician of his whole generation. In 1830 he set to music a poem by Musset, L'Andalouse: an enormous success, a scandal to match, and Gautier summed it up by saying that mothers sent their daughters to bed. Hugo and Dumas were among his friends, who called him the Berlioz of the ballad. His first name is misspelt.
The story
Born in Paris on 12 January 1804, Hippolyte Monpou was a choirboy and then a pupil of the Notre-Dame choir school: a church training for the most worldly musician of his generation.
In 1830 he set L'Andalouse, by Alfred de Musset, to music. The success was enormous and the scandal matched it — Théophile Gautier summed it up: “mothers sent their daughters off to bed”.
A friend of Hugo, Musset, Dumas and Gautier, he became the musician of the Romantic circle: they called him “the Berlioz of the ballad”.
He moved to the stage: Les Deux Reines (1835), then Piquillo (1837), to a libretto by Dumas and Nerval.
The pressure of a commission from the Opéra-Comique made an acute gastralgia worse: he died at Orléans on 10 August 1841, aged thirty-seven. He rests in Division 58, on the Avenue Circulaire, first row, beneath a stone where his first name is cut “Hyppolite”.
The grave
A simple stone, whose interest lies in a mistake: “Hyppolite MONPOU, compositeur français, 1804-1841” — French composer. The first name is carved with two p's and the y in the wrong place. Nothing of L'Andalouse, nothing of Musset, nothing of the nickname “Berlioz of the ballad” the Romantic circle gave him — only a misspelt first name and two dates thirty-seven years apart.
On site, do not miss
Read the carved first name: “Hyppolite”, with two p's and the y in the wrong place. One more mistake in a cemetery that counts dozens — this one falls on the very first name of the deceased.
Visitors' questions
Where is Hippolyte Monpou's grave?
In Division 58, avenue Circulaire, first row, beneath a plain stone. His first name is carved “Hyppolite”, with two p's. The Division is also home to the choreographer Pierre Lacotte and Admiral Hugon.
Pierre LacotteWhat is Monpou's L'Andalouse?
A song of 1830 set to verses by Alfred de Musset, which brought its composer fame and scandal in equal measure. Théophile Gautier summed it up: when it was sung in the drawing room, “mothers would send their daughters off to bed”.
Alfred de MussetWhy was he called the Berlioz of the ballad?
Because he brought to song the same Romanticism Berlioz brought to the orchestra. A friend of Hugo, Musset, Dumas and Gautier, he was the resident musician of the Romantic circle of the 1830s, the one who set their verses to music.
Marie RozeHow did Hippolyte Monpou die?
At thirty-seven, in Orléans, on 10 August 1841: of an acute gastralgia, made worse by the pressure of a commission from the Opéra-Comique. He had written Piquillo four years earlier, to a libretto by Dumas and Nerval.
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