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A Royal Child Learns to Like Plays: The Early Years of Louis XIII

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

W. L. Wiley
W. L. Wiley*
Affiliation:
The University of North Carolina
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Extract

During a period of something like fifty years, roughly from 1580 to 1630, there developed in France a complete change of attitude toward the theatre as a professional and social institution. This shift in concept was responsible for the growth in the city of Paris of successful dramatic companies who derived their total livelihood from the theatre. It is true that toward the end of the sixteenth century and in the early years of the seventeenth century, as has been pointed out by Trautman, Faber, Rigal, Fransen, Madame Deierkauf-Holsboer, and others, there existed struggling companies of professional actors who gave plays in French in the provinces as well as in Belgium, Holland, and across the German frontier. Such a group was in Strasbourg in 1593, and later went to the Hôtel de Bourgogne in Paris.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance News , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1956 , pp. 135 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1956

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References

1 Among other studies might be mentioned: Trautman, K., Französische Schauspieler am bayrischen Hofe (Munich, 1888)Google Scholar; Faber, F., Histoire du théâtre français en Belgique (Brussels, 1878)Google Scholar; Rigal, Eugène, Le Théâtre français avant la période dassique (Paris, 1901)Google Scholar; Fransen, J., Les Comédiens fraçais en Hollande (Paris: Champion, 1925)Google Scholar; Deierkauf-Holsboer, S. Wilma, La Vie d'Alexandre Hardy (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1947)Google Scholar and Le Théâtre du Marais, T. 1 (Paris: Nizet, 1954). Fransen and Madame Deierkauf-Holsboer have traced the movements of companies through records in various city archives. Eudore Soulié in his Recherches sur Molière et sa famille (Paris, 1863) showed the value of examining municipal archives for the stories of actors and theatrical companies.

2 Bruscambille, , Nouvelles et plaisantes imaginations (Bruxelles, 1864; a reimpression of a 1615 ed.), pp. 69–71 Google Scholar. Quoted by Rigal, op. cit.

3 Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de, Oeuvres complètes, publiées par Ludovic Lalanne (Paris, 1864-82), vii. 346.

4 In the passage indicated above, Brantôme describes Catherine de' Medici's developing antipathy for tragedies: ‘ … (elle) aymoit fort à veoir jouer des commédies et tragédies; mais depuis Sofonisba… elle eust opinion qu'elle avoit porté la malheur aux affaires du royaume, ainsi qu'il succéda; elle n'en fist plus jouer, mais ouy bien des commédies et tragi-commedies, et mesme celle des Zani et Panthalons.…’

5 See Pierre de l'Estoile's Mémoires-Joumaux, éd. Gustave Brunet et al. (Paris, 1875-93), 1, 189 and 201–202, for the quotations in this paragraph.

6 The Journal de Jean Héroard sur l'enfance et la jeunesse de Louis XIII, 1601-1628, éd. Eudore Soulié- and Ed. de Barthélemy (Paris: Didot, 1868), 2 vols. The introduction and notes are excellent.

7 Héroard, Journal, 1, 386.

8 Ibid., I, 88.

9 Soulié, , Recherches…. p 153.Google Scholar

10 Héroard, , Journal, 1, 91–92 Google Scholar, for this quotation and the two following.

11 Ibid., 1, 251.

12 Héroard, , Journal, 1, 346 Google Scholar and 351 (for Colo).

13 Ibid., 1, 377, 382, 384, 386.

14 Ibid., 1, 392.

15 Ibid., 1, 420-424.

16 Ibid., II, 42, 52, 62, 67, 71, 78. Gustave Lanson thinks this performance of Bradamante was a shortened version of the play, and possibly even a ballet, ‘Etudes sur les origines de la tragédie en France’, RHL, x (1903), 223.

17 Héroard, , Journal, II, 112 Google Scholar, 115, 118, 121, 126, 130, 131, 132, 143, 146, 156, 169, 173, 174, 203, 219. The authors of the plays mentioned in this paragraph will likely remain anonymous. Lancaster, H. C. in his A History of French Dramatic Literature in the Seventeenth Century (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1929), Part 1, 1: 68–69, 86-87Google Scholar, mentions the plays but makes no attempt at identifying the authors. Lanson, cited above, speaks of the Godefroy de Bouillon, which he calls a ‘tragédie latine’, and the Clorinde—but says nothing about the composers.

18 Héroard, , Journal, II, 221 Google Scholar, 230, 235, 254, 257, 264, 269, 284, 293. The Jesuits used the theatre as a part of their instruction, and their performances were frequently well done. As for the identification of the Andromède, it could have been the anonymous Andromède delivrée, an intermède included in a collection of plays published in 1624—see Lancaster, , op. cit., pp. 190–193.Google Scholar

19 See Lough, J., ‘French Actors in Paris from 1612 to 1614’, French Studies, ix (1955), 218–226.Google Scholar