Nicolas Anselme Baptiste, more commonly known as Baptiste aîné (June 18, 1761 – December 1, 1835), was a French actor. He was born in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

, the elder son of Joseph François Anselme, a popular actor. His mother played leading parts in tragedy, and both his parents enjoyed the protection of

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

and the friendship of

Lekain Lekain was the stage name of Henri Louis Cain (31 March 1728 – 8 February 1778), a French actor. Early career He was born in Paris, the son of a silversmith. He was educated at the Collège Mazarin, and joined an amateur company of players ag ...

. It was probably under the auspices of the latter that Nicolas Anselme made his first appearance as de Belloy in ''Gaston et Bayard''; and shortly afterwards, under the name of Baptiste, he made a contract to play young lover parts at Arras, where he also appeared in opera and even in

pantomime Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment, generally combining gender-crossing actors and topical humour with a story more or less based on a well-known fairy tale, fable or ...

. From

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine, in northwestern France. It is in the prefecture of Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one ...

, where he had three successful years, his reputation spread to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and he was summoned to the new theatre which the comedian Langlois Courcelles had just founded, and where he succeeded, not only in making an engagement for himself, but in bringing all his family, father, mother, wife and brother. They were thus distinguished in the playbills: Baptiste, ainé, Baptiste père, Baptiste cadet, Madame Baptiste mère, Madame Baptiste bru. This resulted in the pun of calling a play in which they all appeared une pièce de baptistes. Nicolas soon obtained the public favour, specially in La Martellière's ''Robert'', ''chef de brigands'', and as Count Almaviva in Bèaumarchais’ ''La Mere coupable''. His success in this was so great that the directors of the Théâtre de la République—who had already secured Talma,

Dugazon Jean-Henri Gourgaud (15 November 1746 – 19 October 1809) was a French actor under the stage name Dugazon, the son of Pierre-Antoine Gourgaud, the director of military hospitals there and also an actor. He began his career in the provinces, m ...

and Madame Vestris—hastened to obtain his services, and, in order to get him at once (1793), paid the 20,000 francs forfeit which he was obliged to surrender on breaking his contract. Nicolas took all the leading parts in comedy and tragedy. As he grew older his special forte lay in noble fathers. After a brilliant career of thirty-five years of uninterrupted service, he retired in 1828. But, after the revolution of 1830, when the Théâtre Français was in dire straits, the brothers Baptiste came to the rescue, reappeared on the stage and helped to bring back its prosperity. Nicolas died in

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Baptiste, Nicolas Anselme 1761 births 1835 deaths French male stage actors 18th-century French male actors 19th-century French male actors