The Shooting party of Henri IV

the Shooting party of Henri IV is a comedy in 3 acts, in prose, of Charles Collé (1709 - 1783), which belongs to sound Théâtre of company .

Argument

The part comprises two definitely distinct shutters:

with act I, while Henri IV and its courtiers prepare to leave for hunting, one attends the outcome of an intrigue of court directed against Sully: during a discussion with the king (Act I, Scene 6) the minister manages to clear himself of the charges which had been carried against him and is reconciled with the sovereign who returns his friendship highly to him;
with acts II and III, Henri IV, who was separated from his hunting by a storm, is found in peasants and profits from the hospitality of a miller. He can observe simple manners of the common peoples and test his own popularity. He also on the occasion to return justice to a virtuous young girl removed by a large lord. The outcome of the part comprises a recall of act I.

History

A first version of the part, entitled the King and the Miller , corresponding to acts II and III, was undertaken by Collé in 1760, on the basis of “dramatic” tale of Robert Dodsley, the King and the Miller of Mansfield (1736), which had been translated into French in 1756. Stuck the intrigue to France transposed and introduced the character of Henri IV, but especially, it completely modified the character of the country-woman who, in the English original, had let herself allure by the lord who had made him believe that it had been given up by its been engaged, which did not prevent the business from being concluded by a marriage at price from money paid by the seducer. In the French part, the virtuous character of the peasants is in conformity with the spirit of the time, impregnated by the philosophy of the Lights.

the King and the Miller was played the July 8th 1762 with Bagnolet, over the theater of the duke of Orleans, and gained a great success. Stuck tested, but in vain, to make receive its work with the Comédie-Française. He wanted to then give more broadth to him and added act I, centered on the character of Sully, and whose primary source is to be sought in the Mémoires of the minister. Thus supplemented, the coin was represented in Bagnolet the December 25th 1764, then with the Théâtre of the Currency to Brussels on January 1st 1767, and on many theaters of company, including in the presence of Louis XV during the inauguration of the house of Madam of Barry to Louveciennes on September 2nd 1771.

On the other hand, the King always opposed so that she was played on the public theaters of Paris, though it let it print starting from 1766. No doubt Louis XV feared the parallel that one had not failed to establish between his style of monarchy and that of Henri IV. The exaltation of the ideal of a monarchy which directly takes its roots in the people and puts to side the nobility and the court, presented like hearths of intrigue, could then pass for subversive. If the concept were not anachronistic, it is the ideal of the Orléanisme which was thus proclaimed - as in the Head office of Calais of Dormont de Belloy - and one will not have guard to forget that the author was with the service of the duke of Orleans, which could incarnate this ideal catch and middle-class man perfectly.

After the death of Louis XV in 1774, Louis XVI and its minister Turgot could on the other hand claim couple Henri IV/Sully: also the part it was accepted at once with the Comédie-Française with an immense success. Until the French revolution, it was played as often as the Marriage of Barber .

Under the Restoration, the air Lives Henri IV! was frequently played in the ceremonies being held out of the presence of the King and the royal family. It then had the appearance of an quasi-official song of legitimate monarchy:

Lives Henri Four!

Lives this valiant king!

This devil with four

has triple talent

Of drinking and beating

And to be a gallant green .

The part was supported with the repertory of the Comédie-Française until the beginning of the 20th century. It, since, ceased being represented.

External bonds

Full text on Gallica (text mode)
All representations with the {{XVIIIe century}} on site CÉSAR

Random links: