French poet Cyrano de Bergerac foreshadowed moon landing

Three centuries before Apollo 11 a French author was writing about landing on the moon. Cyrano de Bergerac was born 400 years ago today

Lloyd Corrigan and Jose Ferrer in the 1950 film version of Cyrano de Bergerac.

Fifty years ago this year the first humans landed on the moon. But it may surprise some people to learn that three centuries before Apollo 11 touched down on the lunar surface a Frenchman wrote a book about men travelling to the moon.

The author was Cyrano de Bergerac. Born 400 years ago today his name has since become better known as the big-nosed, poetry writing, gifted swordsman who was the title character of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play.

Although Rostand based his play on a real historical figure he took some liberties with Cyrano’s life. For one thing his nose was large but not abnormally so, as it has appeared in hundreds of stage productions over the years and in many films.

Portraits of Cyrano show his nose to be slightly bulbous, but not deformed. The real Cyrano was also not actually a stereotypical hothead from Gascony, although he wished he was from that region and even affected the accent of a Gascon. He was able to pass himself off as a Gascon primarily because his name was de Bergerac, a town in the southwest of France very near Gascony, but he was not raised in the town and never lived there.

A statue of Cyrano de Bergerac in Bergerac, France. Picture: Brad Crouch

A 17th century portrait of French writer Cyrano de Bergerac.

Although Rostand’s Cyrano is a colourful and fascinating man, his historical counterpart was every bit as fascinating and slightly more mysterious. He was born Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac in Paris on March 6, 1619, the son of Abel de Cyrano seigneur de Mauvieres, a legal counsel to the Parlement of Paris. His grandfather had once been a secretary and counsellor to King Charles IX, but at the time of Cyrano’s birth the family was “richer in titles than in estates”.

When he was six Cyrano was sent to a curate in the country to be educated, but the boy found his teacher to be of limited intelligence and physically abusive. It soured Cyrano on teachers and the clergy.

But Cyrano formed a strong, lifelong friendship with another
of the priest’s students, Henry le Bret.

At 12 Cyrano enrolled at the College de Beauvais at the University of Paris, where his disrespect for teachers was reinforced by the strict discipline and obsessive pedantry of people such as his principal Jean Grangier. Cyrano would later send up Grangier in his comedy play Le Pedant Joue.

David Wenham (left) and Gerry Connolly in an Australian production of Cyrano de Bergerac.

He was about 18 when he left university and was free to enjoy the delights of Paris, with some financial help from his cousin Madeleine de Robineau, an older woman with whom he is thought to have had a romantic attachment.

He also signed up for the king’s cadets, joining an exclusive company composed mostly of Gascons. They spent their spare time drinking and duelling. Cyrano had daily sword practice and became one of the finest swordsmen in Paris, often testing his skills in duels. In many cases he defended friends and is said to have once driven off a band of a hundred bandits. But at times people would draw him into a fight simply by making comments about his big nose. He appears to have been very sensitive about his nose and in his book A Voyage To The Moon he wrote about large noses being a sign of intelligence and good breeding.

When he wasn’t drinking, duelling, writing poetry or love letters, Cyrano was found in the company of a philosophical group known as the Libertins or freethinkers. After being wounded at the Battle of Arras in 1640 he left the military and in 1641 he became a student of the philosopher Pierre Gassendi.

The death of his father at about this time allowed him to sustain himself as a writer. He wrote verse plays that were enjoyed more as pieces of writing than as works of theatre. Moliere plagiarised Le Pedant Joue, using a long passage word for word in his Les Fourberies de Scapin.

But as his inheritance ran out he needed to find another way to pay for his lifestyle. In 1654 he dedicated a collection of his writings to the Duc d’Arpajon, by way of gaining his patronage. The duke was flattered and commissioned Cyrano to write poetry. At a performance of de Bergerac’s play La Mort d’Agrippine, the audience misinterpreted his use of a word, finding it blasphemous and the scandal caused Cyrano to withdraw.

He spent this time writing his works about a man taking a voyage to the moon and the sun, first using dew filled glass jars that were drawn into the air by the sun and later using fireworks to carry him into the sky.

Sources differ on the injury that brought about his death; some say a wooden beam fell on him as he entered the duke’s home, another source says he was defending the duke from an attack on his coach.

He died in 1655.