By Dr Helen McKelvey
For the past eight years, O Holy Night has been voted the Nation’s Favourite Carol on Classic FM, but did you know that those lyrics, delivered by singers from Céline Dion and Mariah Carey to Andrea Bocelli, Aled Jones and Malakai Bayoh, are a translation of a French carol called Minuit Chrétiens? Or that despite its wide popularity across the globe, it was really quite controversial and divisive?
O Holy Night is not my favourite carol, but it’s certainly an interesting one, and as a French literary and cultural historian with an interest in slavery, its story, with all the references to slavery, is one that fascinates me.
Minuit Chrétiens was penned in 1843 by Placide Cappeau, a wine merchant from Roquemaure, just north of Avignon, at the behest of his priest, who wanted something special to celebrate the restoration of the parish church organ.
Cappeau wrote the words to be sung by his friend, Émily Laurey, a soprano, who asked the composer Adolphe Adam to write the tune. Minuit Chrétiens was almost immediately a success upon its debut in 1847, and soon became a staple of the midnight mass on Christmas Eve in France, with even French Protestants going along just to hear the song sung.
It was not long before Minuit began to be translated into other languages. For the church and the clergy, however, it became a thorn in the flesh, despised and repudiated.
The music was considered “mediocre”, it was seen by some as the last word in bad taste, in no way conforming to the spirit of the church, and best forgotten. Right through into the mid-20th century, Catholic clergy were debating the theology and place of this song.
So why did they hate it so much? To understand this, we must dig a little deeper into the language and the context of the original carol, to see why Cappeau enraged the church, and why the English translation might obscure some of the most interesting parts of the story.
Cappeau, although a wine merchant by trade, had been to Paris to study law. He wrote other poetry, and was politically and philosophically switched on. He was a Republican, convinced of the Revolution of 1789 and the freedom it brought from despotism, and while he was not a devout Catholic — at times he was actively anticlerical — he certainly had some spiritual feeling, arguing that a God that we can’t love is no God at all.
The French lyrics of Cappeau’s Christmas hit might surprise us. He launches straight into the first verse with explaining how Jesus — the God-man — came to earth to remove the stain of original sin and to stop the wrath of God the Father.
Having spelt this out, he launches an attack in the second verse on what he perceives to be one of the biggest sins in France at the time — slavery, with the words that (the translation here is my own) “The Redeemer has broken every shackle, Earth is free and Heaven open” and “He sees a brother where once was a slave.”
The lyrics might not seem controversial to us today, but France’s relationship to slavery in the 19th century was complex and often self-contradictory. France had abolished slavery as part of the Revolution in 1794, but Napoleon reinstated it in 1802. It would not be until 1848 that France would again, and this time finally, abolish slavery.
In the intervening 50 years, and despite pressure from, and treaties with, other European powers, hundreds of slave trading voyages would continue to leave French shores for West Africa and the Caribbean.
France found itself caught between Enlightenment and revolutionary values that claimed the equality, freedom and brotherhood of man (Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité), and the imperial profits of transatlantic slavery.
The Catholic church was also heavily implicated in this. At the same time as preaching and teaching Christian values, it was making serious money from enslavement, and even at times supporting racial pseudo-science, which put enslaved people at the bottom of the hierarchy of humanity.
Outspoken clergy such as Abbé Grégoire and Abbé Raynal, who argued for abolition, found themselves censored and their works banned. So, it is into this context of national and religious facilitation of enslavement and oppression, that Cappeau speaks very clearly, challenging his listeners to see the enslaved as their brothers, as the same as them.
In addition, in the English version of the carol, the word “redeemer” is not used once, yet in the French original it is used in every refrain.
That, to me, is so important: redeem is a word that means to buy back, to restore, and it is connected with slavery throughout history, not just the transatlantic trade. Jesus not only breaks chains and buys back out of slavery those who have been oppressed, he also restores relationships, so that “love unites those that chains once held”.
In the final verse, Cappeau goes on to address “Powerful men of today, proud in your greatness, it is to your pride that God now speaks.” Is it any wonder that the establishment, the church, felt threatened?
Focusing either on the first mentions of a God of wrath, or on the critiques of the slave trade, or the challenge to power that they construed as socialism, the church sought to discredit Cappeau as a godless socialist whose work had no place in the church.
They also attacked the composer, Adolphe Adam, suggesting that the tune belonged in a concert hall, an opera or a cabaret, rather than the church, and spreading unfounded rumours that he was a Jew, tapping into a vein of antisemitism that pervaded France throughout the 19th century.
Despite all this, the carol remained popular in churches, sung piously and powerfully, inviting the parishioners to midnight mass and a contemplation of the Nativity.
I believe some of the carol’s power is lost in its English translation, especially in the first verse. John Sullivan Dwight, the translator, was an American music critic and a transcendentalist who believed in the inherent good of humanity. Thus, in English, we have no mention of original sin, and while there is a saviour, the idea of redemption, with all its physical and spiritual connotations, it is left by the wayside.
Cappeau’s original, however, set in its context, draws a very clear line between original sin and the prevailing sin of slavery in his day.
But to all the critiques claiming Cappeau writes of a cruel, angry God who is not the answer, look at his final refrain: “People arise, and sing of your deliverance … praise the Redeemer!”
Despite all attempts to silence this carol, it lives on today, growing in popularity on both sides of the Channel and further afield. It’s difficult not to be charmed by the tune, whose ebbs and flows swell to a wonderful conclusion, even if it’s more of a solo song and not a congregational carol.
It’s still not my favourite, but I hope the fascinating story of the carol, and its focus on slavery, will help you to see it in new ways this Christmas.
Dr Helen McKelvey, a lecturer in French at Glasgow University, has taken part in a podcast about the carol and its origin, produced by Rosie Dawson for Things Unseen on CTVC
O holy night, the stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth;
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
‘Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;
Chorus
Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices!
O night divine! O night when Christ was born.
O night, O holy night, O night divine.
Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming;
With glowing hearts by his cradle we stand:
So, led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men from Orient land,
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger,
In all our trials born to be our friend;
Chorus
He knows our need, To our weakness no stranger!
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King! your King! before him bend!
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is Love and His gospel is Peace;
Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother,
And in his name all oppression shall cease,
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful Chorus raise we;
Let all within us praise his Holy name!
Chorus
Christ is the Lord, then ever! ever praise we!
His pow’r and glory, evermore proclaim!
His pow’r and glory, evermore proclaim!
Minuit, chrétiens,
C’est l’heure solennelle
Ou l’Homme Dieu descendit jusqu’à nous
Pour effacer la tache originelle
Et de Son Père arrêter le courroux.
Le monde entier tressaille d’espérance
En cette nuit qui lui donne un Sauveur.
Peuple a genoux, attends ta délivrance!
Noel! Noel! Voici le Rédempteur!
Noel! Noel! Voici le Rédempteur!
Le Rédempteur
A brise toute entrave:
La terre est libre et le ciel est ouvert.
Il voit un Frère ou n’était qu’un esclave,
L’amour unit ceux qu’enchainait le fer.
Qui Lui dira notre reconnaissance?
C’est pour nous tous qu’Il nait,
Qu’Il souffre et meurt.
Peuple debout, chante ta délivrance!
Noel! Noel! Chantons le Rédempteur!
Noel! Noel! Chantons le Rédempteur!
