Saint-Georges Le Chevalier
- James A. Goins
- Aug 14
- 5 min read
The Forgotten Chevalier Rides Again
There are figures in history whose lives seem too extraordinary to be true.
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, is one of them.
Born in Guadeloupe in 1745 to a French planter and an enslaved African woman, Joseph Bologne rose from the complicated racial world of the French Caribbean to become one of the most remarkable men of eighteenth-century Europe.
By his early thirties, he had become a celebrated violinist, composer, conductor, swordsman, horseman, military officer, and favorite within the highest circles of French society. He moved in the orbit of Marie Antoinette, served as one of her musical associates and instructors, and became a familiar figure in the cultural life of Paris.
His name was Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. And I have spent the past several years bringing his story to the musical stage.
A Life Almost Too Large for the Stage
Saint-Georges was not merely talented. He was extraordinary in several completely different disciplines.
He became one of the finest swordsmen in Europe.
He was a violin virtuoso.
He composed symphonies, violin concertos, operas, chamber works, and symphonies concertantes.
He conducted some of the finest musicians in France, most notably the celebrated Concert des Amateurs.
His music circulated throughout Europe and appears to have influenced composers who came after him, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was eleven years his junior. Musicologists have identified striking parallels between passages in Saint-Georges's compositions and later passages in Mozart's works.
Saint-Georges also knew many of the leading cultural and political figures of his time. Franz Joseph Haydn was connected to the musical world he helped create. The Prince of Wales knew and admired him. Marie Antoinette played music with him. He moved comfortably between concert halls, fencing academies, aristocratic salons, royal residences, and eventually battlefields. Even John Adams would describe Saint-Georges in extraordinarily admiring terms, calling him among the most accomplished men in Europe. And music was only half the story.
The Swordsman Became a Soldier
When revolution engulfed France, Saint-Georges did not simply stand on the sidelines.
He became a military commander. During the French Revolution, he commanded a regiment composed largely of men of African ancestry and people of color—the famous Légion Saint-Georges. Among the officers serving under him was Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, father of the novelist Alexandre Dumas. That connection alone is remarkable.
The younger Alexandre Dumas would eventually give the world The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, and The Man in the Iron Mask. His father's experiences as a Black general in revolutionary France clearly helped shape the extraordinary world of courage, betrayal, honor, adventure, and injustice that later emerged in his son's fiction, to which some of his most famous characters were fashioned after Saint-Georges.
Saint-Georges belonged to that same world.
And his own life contained nearly everything a dramatist could ask for.
Music.
War.
Romance.
Race.
Royalty.
Revolution.
Jealousy.
Friendship.
Betrayal.
Triumph.
And ultimately, erasure.
So Why Don't We Know His Name?
That question is what first pulled me deeply into Saint-Georges's story.
As a Black American musician and composer, I found it astonishing that I had gone through years of musical education without encountering him in any meaningful way.
We studied Mozart. Haydn. Beethoven. Bach. Handel.
We studied the courts, orchestras, composers, conductors, and musical traditions of eighteenth-century Europe.
Yet here stood a Black man of mixed race squarely in the middle of that world—conducting major orchestras, composing significant works, performing for royalty, fencing before European nobility, influencing the musical culture around him, and later commanding troops during the French Revolution. And somehow, for generations, his name nearly disappeared.
That silence fascinated me. Because Saint-Georges was not standing at the margins of European history. He was standing in the room.
Introducing Saint-Georges: The Knight
That extraordinary life has now become the foundation for my new stage musical, Saint-Georges: The Knight.
The musical follows Joseph Bologne from Guadeloupe to France and through the extraordinary transformation that made him the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. But this is not simply a historical pageant. At its heart, it is the story of a man attempting to understand who he is in a society that simultaneously celebrates his gifts and limits his humanity.
Joseph can enter rooms other Black men cannot enter.
He can perform before queens.
He can defeat noblemen with a sword.
He can command an orchestra.
He can compose music admired throughout Paris.
He can become one of the most celebrated men in France.
And yet there remains a line society refuses to allow him to cross. That contradiction is where the drama lives.
The musical explores Joseph's relationships with royalty, musicians, soldiers, women, rivals, and revolutionaries while examining the cost of becoming indispensable to a society that may never completely accept you.
There is humor in the story. There is romance. There is spectacle. There is fencing.
There is war. And, naturally, there is music. A great deal of music.
Mozart, Haydn, Marie Antoinette—and Joseph
Part of what makes Saint-Georges's world so fascinating is that the names surrounding him are names we already know.
Mozart.
Haydn.
Marie Antoinette.
Louis XV.
Louis XVI.
The Prince of Wales.
Thomas Alexandre Dumas.
These figures did not inhabit some separate historical universe. They inhabited Joseph's universe.
One of the central ideas behind the musical is therefore very simple:
What happens when we place Saint-Georges back where he actually belonged?
Not as a footnote.
Not as a historical curiosity.
Not as “the Black Mozart,” a description that diminishes both his identity and his achievements. To note: Joseph was 10 or 11 years older than Wolfgang and at the height of his powers in Paris while Mozart was trying to get a job. Leopold, his own father, told him to go to the Concert de Amatuers, which Joseph was directing at the time. It's curious why he would not approach. Instead, he went to the Concert Spirituel! But to be fair, do children always do what their parents want them to?
But Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges—composer, violinist, conductor, champion swordsman, soldier, lover, celebrity, and revolutionary. A man entirely worthy of standing under his own name.
Bringing the Chevalier Back to the Stage
For me, writing this musical has become more than simply telling an interesting story.
It has become an act of historical restoration. Saint-Georges does not need to be invented.
He does not need mythology added to make his life interesting. The documented facts are already astonishing. The challenge is not making Joseph extraordinary. The challenge is helping modern audiences understand that he already was.
After more than two centuries of relative silence, perhaps it is finally time for the Chevalier to step forward again. Sword in one hand.Violin in the other. Orchestra waiting. Revolution approaching.
And a story that should never have been forgotten. Saint-Georges: The Knight. A new musical.
The Chevalier has been gone long enough. It's time to hear his music—and his story—again.
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