ROBIEN Christophe-Paul de (EN)
Biographical article
The biography of Christophe-Paul de Robien is well known today thanks to the numerous studies conducted by historians, in particular those of Gauthier Aubert (Aubert, G., 2001). In this article we will give an overview of his biography.
De Robien’s family belonged to the nobility of the sword and emerged in Brittany at the end of the third quarter of the thirteenth century in the diocese of Saint-Brieuc. The surname was probably derived from words meaning ‘small rock’ in Breton (roch bihan). In the sixteenth century, this family was absorbed by the Gautron family, which subsequently laid claim to the use of the name of de Robien, which was granted. Then, in the seventeenth century, the descendants bought an office in the Parliament of Brittany, which enabled the family to extend its influence. In 1705, Paul de Robien (1660–1744), the father of the individual who is now unanimously acknowledged as the family’s principal collector, acquired the office of President à Mortier, the most prestigious of the magistrates in the Parliament of Brittany, which was permanently established in Rennes. This office was also acquired by two generations of his descendants. Hence, the de Robiens also belonged to the prestigious nobility of the robe in Brittany.
Christophe-Paul was born from the marriage of Paul de Robien and Thérèse du Louët de Coëtjunval on the night of 3 to 4 November 1698 at the Château du Fœil, near Quintin (in the Côtes-d’Armor). He was the couple’s second child—the eldest being Louise-Jeanne (1697–1762); there were just two siblings as their mother died suddenly a year later in Paris. His father never remarried. Christophe-Paul had no Christian name at the time, as he was not baptised, and signed his name as ‘Anonime de Robien’ until the age of sixteen, when he was finally baptised. During the ceremony, poor beggars were chosen to be the godfather and godmother, as no important figure was present (ADCA, BMS, the old municipality of Quintin, 3.10.1714).
The magistrate’s career was relatively remarkable and linear: he became a counsellor in 1720, then President à Mortier in 1724. The years 1720–1730 were vitally important for the de Robien family. Indeed, his private mansion in Rennes, whose construction dated back to the end of the sixteenth century and which was acquired by Paul de Robien in 1699, was extended on the south side as of 1720, shortly before the great fire of 23 December of the same year; the building was not affected but 40% of the city was destroyed. Yet, a dozen or so of the family members seemed to live there on a permanent basis, despite the presence of an existing cabinet of curiosities: hence, the living areas needed to be extended, especially as Christophe-Paul married the young Julienne de Kerambourg (1716–1742) in 1728, who bore him seven children. It was also during this period that some of his character traits began to emerge. He was involved in a row in which insults were exchanged with the young counsellor Piquet de La Motte during a highly official reception: the two young men, who were both clearly drunk, decided to settle scores, which was common at the time due to the incredibly hierarchical culture of society. Hence, a mixture of great pride in social standing and youthful turbulence paint the picture of a young, strong-willed parliamentary who, quite exceptionally, was suspended for six months (Aubert, G., 2001, pp. 103–104).
The collector retained a moderate interest in law, and was in fact a judge throughout his life. A relatively absent and inactive magistrate, he was no more active on the political front and could be described as a contributor to ‘the inactivity of Parliament’ between 1736 and 1756. Overseas trade had no real place in his life and barely affected his personal fortune. Only during the period from 1712 to 1721 did he make a minimal investment of 11,000 livres on ships belonging to the East India Company. Yet, the collector probably never really lost contact with the milieu of the overseas traders, including those based in St Malo. Indeed, his wife was the descendant, via Agnès Séré, her mother, of one of the famous ‘Messieurs de Saint-Malo’. In fact, there was further correspondence in the 1740s between Christophe-Paul and the family Lebrun-Forty from St Malo, which also collected objects of curiosity (ADIV, 1 F 1983, letter dated 14 April 1740). Lastly, anecdotally, it was the Director of the port of Lorient who gave Christophe-Paul de Robien one kilo of ginseng that a Breton monk had brought back from China for the pope so that he could have children. Having an interest in but uninvolved in industrial ventures, de Robien also owned forges, mines, and textile works; but apparently he preferred to describe them rather than run them (Veillard, J-Y., 1974, pp. 229–255). His millions came rather predictably from his thirteen seigneuries scattered here and there in Brittany. If his fortune distinguished him from his co-religionists, it was in fine because he owned moveable goods of an exceptional value estimated to be worth 78,000 livres, a value related to his collections and library, which was the largest for an individual in Brittany (4,300 Volumes).
He mainly travelled in Brittany and to Paris: no trace has been found that he had any interest in the Grand Tour, even though it was so fashionable at the time in the development of sociability for the nobility. But his presence in Paris was unusual for parliamentarians from Rennes, as he seems to have gone to the capital dozens of times. It is important to remember that over a period spanning almost a century, the journey between Paris and Brittany had become significantly shorter: the complaints of the Marquise de Sévigné (1626–1696), who lived not far from Rennes, related to the duration of a brief but trying one-month journey to reach the capital, half of which was spent in the Breton bogs, while the account of Desforges-Maillard, who accompanied de Robien on the trip, only mentions a three-day journey (Desforges-Maillard, P., 1752, Vol. II, pp. 306–414).
Acknowledged early on for his collection, and mentioned by Gersaint (Gersaint, E.-F., 1736, p. 38), Dezallier d’Argenville (Dezallier d’Argenville, A.-J., 1742, p. 212), and Piganiol de La Force (Piganiol de La Force, J.-A., 1754, p. 276), de Robien doubtlessly had more academic ambitions. Despite his publications, half a dozen of which were written during his lifetime, particularly in the fields of natural history (de Robien, C.-P. de, 1737; 1751a; 1751b), he never succeeded in establishing an Académie Bretonne de Sciences et d’Arts, neither in 1727, nor in 1738, due to a lack of royal approval. At best, he became a member of the Royal Academy of Berlin in 1755. It is not a simple historical coincidence however that one year after his death in 1756, the States of Brittany founded the first Société d’Agriculture, de Commerce et des Arts in the kingdom. His manuscript, now famous after its publication by the Musée de Brittany (Veillard, J-Y., 1974), of the Description historique, topographique et naturelle de l’Ancienne Armorique would have justified the establishment of an academy. He began to suffer from an illness in 1747, and Christophe-Paul de Robien passed away in Rennes on 5 June 1756. His will requested that his heart be extracted and placed in the Carmes in Quintin, attesting to his attachment to medieval practices.
The collection
Despite appearances, de Robien’s collection was not related to a desire to imitate other collectors. Of course, the first impression is that the parliamentarian wished to compete with prestigious and ancient European collections, either those of German prince electors, or those of scholars who preceded him, such as Kircher, Baillou, and Beger. A more detailed study of the ensemble of remaining items has highlighted the point to which his collection was, on the contrary, entirely connected with historical preoccupations. Indeed, at least with regard to all of the European objects, it is surprising to observe how de Robien strove to collect the prestigious vestiges of dilapidated furniture, attesting to a lost luxury and epochs of which only the splendid materials had survived. Fragments of some precious furniture (ivory statuettes, cast-iron plaques inlaid with gold, paesine< from Florence, etc.), remarkable series of coins that set out the lineage of Roman emperors and the kings of France, numerous medieval objects … everything points to a fascination with these objects from the past, a poetic notion of tracing the history of objects, a real desire to collect vestiges in order to constitute a collection, which was fascinating both aestheticallyalthough the style of the objects was outdated, but admirableand as a subject of study.
It is likely, theoretically, that the persistent notion—until relatively recently—of a fundamentally archaic Brittany has biased the study of this collection that researchers have concentrated on: marked by the disgraceful stamp of this depreciatory point of view, the aim was to develop an approach to the collection in a way that might ultimately detach it from its provincial archaisms, especially as the collection of the parliamentarian from Rennes was like a meteor in the Breton sky. How can this be explained? Indeed, it is no doubt due to the desire to rehabilitate a Brittany that contributed to the Enlightenment that the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes and also the Musée de Bretagne collaborated in 1972 to pay tribute to president de Robien (‘Robien, l’homme et le collecteur’, Museums d’Art et d’Archéologie de Bretagne, Rennes, May–October 1972). Yet, aside from this linear and universalising issue, dictated by our taxonomic way of thinking that lays the foundations for our teleological vision, a more in-depth study of the objects has made it possible to assign them a sui generis meaning that has restored the originality of the collection (Coulon, F. et al., 2020).
The number of objects of Asian provenance is modest compared with the ensemble of almost ten thousand objects relating to natural history, and they currently account for two hundred articles (the thirty-three sheets of the Indian pantheon, for example, count as a single object because it relates to a book whose pages have been removed). It was, however, the largest number of extra-European objects (around thirty for the Americas and a dozen for Africa), which followed the fashion at the time, which was very marked by the chinoiseries that were both authentic and Western. The status of these objects, a large part of which was described in the collector’s manuscript (BCLR, MSS 2437), was also varied. Indeed, it is certain that the Chinese porcelain decorations had already been collected by the father, Paul de Robien, to decorate the Salon de Compagnie in the mansion on the Rue aux Foulons in Rennes. So in that case it was not so much about collecting objects but rather decorative objects, which is clearly not the case with regard to the items cited in the manuscript. In contrast with these objects, which were acquired at an earlier date by the family, the book about the preparation of tea and the one about the manufacture of porcelain, as well as the paintings under glass of Chinese landscapes, two Chinese scroll paintings, two pewter statues, and even an entire series of small magots clearly date from the years 1760–1770. Yet, it is known that de Robien’s son acquired the latter articles. Indeed, and in contrast with all the heirs of cabinets in Europe, Paul-Christophe Céleste de Robien (1731–1799) did not sell his father’s collection when he passed away, but on the contrary added to it, as attested by the publication dates of the many books acquired under his management. Furthermore, there was a de Robien based in Canton from 1767 to 1777, the cousin of Paul-Christophe Céleste, and the same age as him: Pierre-Louis Achille de Robien (1736–1792), called ‘le Chinois’ (Huard P. and Wong, M., 1963, pp. 269–289). The reasonable and currently generally accepted hypothesis is that de Robien’s cousin may have brought back to Lorient—a port where it is known that he disembarked in 1777 and near which the de Robiens owned a seigneurie (the Château du Plessis de Kaër, in Crac’h, near Auray)Chinese objects that were added to Paul-Christophe’s collection.
In the first Volume of his manuscript, the author clearly begins the description of the so-called exotic objects with Asia, to which he devoted a considerable number of pages. It is certain that he was particularly interested in this continent, both with regard to its cultural wealth (in this case, the variety of the gods) and the aesthetic beauty of certain objects. Hence, he readily devoted several lines to the description of the famous Tower of Nankin, which was entirely covered in carved and gilded mother-of-pearl. In addition, he devoted many pages to descriptions of the gods of India, and revealed a pantheon that rivalled those of the ancient Graeco-Romans, which he goes onto mention later in the manuscript. In his second Volume, he wrote about his exotic animals that either lived with him (a tame agouti cat he seemed to be particularly fond of), or at the end of his garden, as though in a small menagerie: an African lioness that was also tame, as well as Bengal dogs, and a leopard cat from the same region.
There are no accounts of the way the collections were assembled by de Robien (only the statue of Vishnu is believed to have been given by Mahé de La Bourdonnais to de Robien), nor about the way they were presented in his private mansion, where they were taken during the Revolution in 1794. With regard to acquisitions, we are reduced to generalising and speculating about links with the circles in St Malo and Lorient, those with the family networks (hence, in 1735, it was Pierre Mériadec de Robien who introduced Cristophe-Paul to the family of the governor of Saint-Domingue who lived in Brest, enabling him to acquire American objects), and with the dealers in Paris, which he visited so often. With regard to the presentation of the collection in de Robien’s mansion, which tourists passing through Rennes were invited to visit, neither an examination of the building nor a scan of the manuscripts provide the slightest clue. Quite on the contrary, familiarity with the mansion leaves one confused, as its surfaces were relatively small and the walls lacked linearity due to the large number of windows. And for want of a better solution, it may be that the attic, with its very high ceiling, housed a great number of rustic bookcases, as suggested by four still lifes executed by the painter Valette-Penot (1710–1777) (today in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes) and by an engraving of the president by Jean-Joseph Balechou (1715–1764) (in the Musée de Bretagne), representing the parts of the cabinet, all of the collections associated with the library, which is huge for this room.
In 1789, when the Revolution broke out, Paul-Christophe Céleste de Robien emigrated to Hamburg, where he died in 1799. In the autumn of 1792, by way of reprisals, the fledgling First Republic ordered the property of the emigrants to be confiscated. However, it was difficult to implement this, and the Chouannerie (guerrilla) movement in Brittany aggravated the situation. Hence, it was only on the 1st Germinal Year 2 (21 March 1794) that the objects were confiscated under the watch of Pierre Quéru de La Coste, who was the commissaire. In several documents that have survived, he expressed his surprise when he came across an unrecognisable ensemble, covered with dust, which he considered to be in a particularly poor state (ADIV, L. 966, 6 Floréal, Year 2, 21.01.1794). The objects were moved in bags or baskets on four occasions until 1819, which of course caused damage. The Tower of Nankin, which was already in poor condition in 1794, did not feature in any of the inventories between 1868 and 1932 (that of 1850 mentions: ‘entirely broken up, many pieces of mother-of-pearl are missing’; and a hand-written note dating from 1868 indicated: ‘invalid object: in too poor condition’). In addition, the exhibition conditions, which were poorly managed, also caused damage: the small Chinese woman’s shoe, in bright ponceau red, described as being in good condition in 1794, had completely deteriorated by 1850.
The collection was, however, returned to de Robien’s heir during the Restauration (1826), as was the case for Napoleonic spoliations in Germany. As these objects were not included in the offer, they remained the property of the State until their recent transfer to the city of Rennes (2018). Today, the objects from this collection, in particular those of exotic origins, have been in the Cabinet de Robien in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes since 22 May 2012. An early version had already made it possible to assess the benefit of this restitution in 2006, during the exhibition ‘Collecteurs d’âmes. Du cabinet de curiosities aux collections extra-europééens des museums bretons’ (Rennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 6 December 2006–4 March 2007). Some items, particularly those from the Côtes-d’Armor, and some rare vestiges from the section relating to natural history are present in other public collections in Rennes: either in the Musée de Brittany, or in the Musée de l’Université de Rennes 1. As for the library’s contents and the collector’s manuscripts, almost all of them are in the Bibliothèque des Champs Libres de Rennes Métropole.
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