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A borrowing from French, the phrase épater le(s) bourgeois means: to shake or shock traditional ethical and/or artistic middle-class attitudes.
Interestingly, the French verb épater (derived from the French feminine noun patte, i.e., a paw, a leg, a foot) means:
– (literally) to break off a paw, a leg, a foot, from;
– (hence, figuratively) ‘to knock somebody off their feet’, i.e., to astound, to flabbergast.
The earliest occurrence of the French phrase épater le(s) bourgeois that I have found is from Paris anecdote : Les Industries inconnues, La Childebert, Les Oiseaux de nuit, La Villa des chiffonniers (Paris: Chez P. Jannet, 1854), by the French author and journalist Alexandre Privat d’Anglemont (1815-1859) [Les Industries inconnues. IV. Le favori de la déesse., page 85]:
—Context: Over a meal in a restaurant where he is a popular figure, M. Auguste has just explained to the narrator and to the narrator’s friend how he makes a living as a crooked usher at the Palais de Justice of Paris—in the following, “those bourgeois” are the narrator and his friend, “his admirers” are the other people in the restaurant:
Quand nous quittâmes M. Auguste, il nous regarda d’une façon triomphante, et il dit à ses admirateurs : « —Je les ai épâtés [sic], les bourgeois ! »
Il avait raison, en effet : nous étions émerveillés.
translation:
When we left M. Auguste, he looked at us triumphantly, and he said to his admirers: “—I have astounded them, those bourgeois!”
He was right, indeed: we were awestruck.
The French phrase épater les bourgeois occurred as a translation of to astonish the natives in the following from A Dictionary of English, French, and German Idioms, Figurative Expressions and Proverbial Sayings (London: Dulau & Co., 1878), by Arthur M. de Sainte-Claire, Emmanuel Pasquet and Otto Hölscher [s.v. Astonish, page 29, column 2]:
ASTONISH. I’ll — the natives … Je vais épater les bourgeois.
The earliest uses of the phrase épater le(s) bourgeois that I have found in texts written in English are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From The Telegraphic Journal and Electrical Review (London, England) of Saturday 23rd September 1882 [page 243, column 1]:
IMPROVEMENTS IN ACCUMULATORS.
We have no intention of prolonging the discussion with M. Blanchart; indeed, it has already lasted too long. We criticised his method of calculation, and our opinion remains unaltered, notwithstanding the long reply of our esteemed correspondent. The figures 23,600 kilogrammetres per kilogramme of active material is at once surprising and fanciful, and, if we may be allowed to use a somewhat familiar expression, it serves to épater les bourgeois; and we might designate M. Blanchart’s method—The art of manipulating kilogrammes of minium so as to obtain fanciful—we repeat the term—results in kilogrammetres.
2-: From an article about French literature, by the French politician and author Joseph Reinach (1856-1921), published in The Athenæum: Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music and the Drama (London, England) of Saturday 4th July 1891 [page 16, column 3]—the following is about the Symbolist movement, a late-19th-century school of French poets who aimed at representing ideas and emotions by indirect suggestion rather than by direct expression:
In spite of my wish not to discourage these young writers—some of whom are quite sincere in their researches after originality—I cannot help saying that their efforts only tend to make them untrue to the spirit of the French language, which is before all things clearness of expression; and their immoderate desire that they shall not be confounded with the general herd forces them in their writings, as well as in their manners, to break away from established rule, for no better object than to “épater le bourgeois.”
3-: From a review of Letters of Marie Bashkirtseff (London: Cassell & Co., 1891), by the Ukrainian-born French artist and diarist Marie Bashkirtseff (1858-1884)—review published in The Speaker: A Review of Politics, Letters, Science, and the Arts (London, England) of Saturday 3rd October 1891 [page 419, column 1]:
She presents herself to M. de M—— (read, doubtless, Guy de Maupassant *) as a sister-soul worthy of a confidential correspondence. This time, however, she is wiser than before, and does not appoint a rendezvous at the opera ball; she prefers to remain unknown. M. de M——, as might be supposed, replies that he is not the man she is seeking, that he is not romantic, poetical, or gallant, and that he is the victim of eternal ennui. They play at hide-and-seek for a short time; the author very cautious and mistrustful, the would-be celebrity of the future brilliantly flighty and impertinent. Evidently she thought that the watchword of 1830, “épater les bourgeois” (startle the Philistines), was out of date, and that modernity demanded that one should rather endeavour to startle the literary artists themselves.
* Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) was a French novelist and short-story writer.
4-: From The Free Stage and the New Drama, an article about the Théâtre Libre, founded in Paris in 1887 by the French actor and theatre manager André Antoine (1858-1943)—article by the Scottish theatre critic William Archer (1856-1924), published in The Fortnightly Review (London, England) of Sunday 1st November 1891 [page 666]:
The conservative critics are unwearied in proving that the talents it [i.e., the Théâtre Libre] has revealed are for the most part misguided, and that the tendencies it fosters are inartistic and impermanent; but they do not attempt to deny or to minimise its importance as a factor in the artistic life of Paris. Many of their criticisms are no doubt perfectly just. Progressive art is necessarily tentative, and apt to run into errors and extravagances. Sheer party fanaticism, combined with an impish desire to “épater le bourgeois,” has, no doubt, betrayed the Théâtre-libristes into some “very curious and disgusting” excesses.
