the ocular harpsichord of louis-bertrand castel - Gewina

30 Maarten Franssen
complete."''^ In entertaining these hopes Castel even tried to make up with the
members of the Academic des Sciences, with whom he had embroiled himself
some twenty years earlier. As he wrote to Montesquieu in 1748:
I wanted to appease them concerning ... my harpsichord, that I am making for real without
money, without workers, without leisure, but which I am making anyway piano, sano. (It is quite
true, this harpsichord; ... the preliminaries have already convinced some unbelievers; I will defy
them all without much ado three or four months from now; not only is it possible, this
harpsichord, but easy as well).
In a PS he added: "I will not leave my room any more until I have perfected my
harpsichord."^* In this letter we find the first mention of an obvious problem:
money.
The last phase of Castel's desperate attempts to complete the harpsichord is
recorded in his manuscript "Historical and demonstrative journal of the practical
execution of the ocular harpsichord", perhaps meant to be published just as the
"Nouvelles experiences" had been published in 1735. The "Journal" is written as
a series of letters to the Comte de Maillebois, who had been his pupil at Louisle-Grand
and to whom he had finally run for rescue in 1751. The "Journal" can
be dated to 1752. It shows a Castel who is now at the end of his wits; in the
drafts there are up to eleven new starts of his account of the history of his
invention, and intermittently he varies the story of his triumphs and complaints
with fragments of poetry. Some passages breath an atmosphere of utter failure:
The nature of things is diminished, agitated, inadequate. The whole game of the universe, just
as that of the rainbow and of music, is in a minor key ... in violet, in black, or in semi-black. All
of nature, all our arts, all our organs, all our senses, all our faculties are in mourning for their
initial perfection. Everything is dcximed in our hands and around us, everything is in discord
and in di.ssonance.'"
Butler, Trawls, p. 65. Butler's cryptical description of the harpsichord says that "when you
touch a string or key, to produce a particular note, the whole instrument evidently assumes the
colour that corresponds to it by analog)".
Montesquieu, Oeuvres, vol. 3, pp. 1157, 1158: "j'ai voulu les amadouer vis-a-vis ... de mon
clavecin, que je fais dans le vrai sans argent, sans ouvriers, sans loisir, mais que je fais pourtant
piano, sano. (II est bien vrai, ce clavecin; ... mes seuls apprcts ont deja convaincu quelques
incredules; je les defie tous sans fa^on dans trois ou quatre mois d'ici; non seulement il est
possible, ce clavecin, mais desormais facile) ... Je ne sors plus de ma chambre depuis que je fais
tout bon mon clacecin."
Brussels, Royal Library Albert I, manuscript collection nr. 15746, f. 53: "La nature des choses
est diminuee, affoiblie, enervee, infirmee. Tout le jeu de I'univers comme celui de Tare en ciel et
de la Musique est mont^ dans le mineur ... en violet, en noir, ou demi-noir. Toute la nature, tous
nos arts, tous nos organes, tous nos sens, toutes nos facultcs portent le deuil de leur premiere
perfection. Tout est maudit entre nos mains et autour de nous, tout est en discorde et en
dissonance,"