The Prince de Joinville looks back on the high-school and vaulting courses he followed at the Cirque Franconi with other prestigious alumni such as Eugène de Beauharnais.
 "After the gymnastic lessons came riding lessons, for which we were taken to the Cirque Olympique, I and my two elder brothers being always put in the charge of a single tutor. But as he invariably found the riding school too cold, he used to go and shut himself up in the manager's room, and leave us to the tender care of Laurent Franconi and the rough riders, which amounted to leaving us to ourselves. This icy cold arena, in the Place du Château-d'Eau, consisted of one immense hall, where the place of the pit was taken up by a circus or riding school for all sorts of horsemanship, which circus was connected with the stage by inclined planes, whenever a military piece with battles in it was performed. In this circus Laurent Franconi made us practise "la haute école," and his assistants, Bassin and Lagoutte, taught us to vault on horseback, astride and sitting, and standing upright — after every fashion, in fact. And to our great amusement, too, these lessons, falling as they did on Sunday afternoons, generally coincided with the rehearsals on the stage, in which we joyfully took our share during the intervals we were allowed for rest, scaling the practicable scenery, or taking part with the artists in certain interludes not mentioned on the programme."

Image:
Porcelain plate from the "Cirque Franconi" series, between 1840 and 1844

Collection: Gallé-Juillet Museum in Creil © RMN-Grand Palais / Martine Beck-Coppola