Un Phénomène Français fter the third quarter of the 16th trologers. It had been announced, vine decision. Century “only the French” – as a and therefore imposed, by the most Obviously such explanations Acontemporary put it – “recklessly ancient and venerable prophecies, do not explain the phenomenon for engaged in duels,” or at least en- ranging from a vision which King us, but they have an interest which gaged in them with an ardour which Chilperic had at the dawn of French goes beyond anecdotal curiosity. had no equivalent elsewhere. The history to one of David’s psalms or These explanations, formulated and accounts given by foreigners are the Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Holy disseminated at the time, helped to best proof of this. We must there- Writ itself. So the French were du- consolidate phenomenon and rein- fore take as a pertinent observation elists because of a mysterious and di- force its durability. For if it were destiny, be it biological, astrolog- ical or providential, which forced the French, commoners includ- ed, to fight duels, then it was pointless to try to resist. The ac- ceptance that it is the nature or fate of a nation to adopt a cer- tain social attitude, it is a guaran- tee that individuals are not re- sponsible for the unfortunate consequences of their actions. The stereotype of the furia francese, of the hot-blooded people, justified and reinforced the duel’s strength in France. from The Duel, Its Rise and Fall in Early Modern France by François Billacois (New Haven: Yale University Press, Fencing positions from a French seventeenth-century handbook. 1990). and not as boasting the affirmation by French authors that their compa- triots surpassed their Italian masters and that the duel, which was brought back from Naples by Charles VIII’s army, found its most favourable territory in France—as al- ready witnessed by the character of the ancient Gauls. For it was not enough to state that dueling was a chiefly French phenomenon. This fact was justified and interpreted with all sorts of arguments which we can classify as natural and supernatu- ral. According to supernatural ar- guments, the French aptitude, and indeed vocation, for single combat was beyond all rational explanation, A German training school, from a sixteenth-century handbook on fencing. except perhaps for that of as- Lovers and Executioners •SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P3 Antoine Jacob de Montfleury by John Strand larly on French stages well after the playwright’s death. Among ntoine Jacob (1640-1685), these were Le Mari sans known as Montfleury, femme (The Husband With- Awrote plays for a brief, out a Wife), La Fille capi- twelve-year period during the taine (The Girl Soldier), golden age of French comedy. and his masterpiece, Louis XIV reigned absolutely on La Femme juge et par- the throne, and Molière, less abso- tie (The Wife, Judge lutely but no less brilliantly, on the and Accuser). stage. As a writer of comedies, Montfleury Molière had several serious rivals came from a presti- in his day. Of these, Montfleury gious theatre fami- was, for a time, the most serious. ly. His father, He was the principal play- Zacharie Jacob, wright for the Hôtel de Bour- also known as gogne, the prestigious troupe that Montfleury, was a predated Molière’s, and which was sometime-play- also funded directly by the king. wright and re- He wrote some 15 plays, all come- nowned actor, one dies, with the exception of one of the great stage well-received tragedy (which inci- performers in a cul- dentally, bears a good deal of re- ture that took its the- semblance in plot to Hamlet, atre very seriously, de- Montfleury having used the same bated it hotly, and sup- source material as Shakespeare). ported it assiduously. Of his comedies, several were su- Montfleury père was a big perior, enjoyed great success in presence, literally. He was a their day, and were played regu- mammoth figure, rotund with a powerful, booming voice and Zacharie Jacob de Montfleury (1600- given to 1667), father of the playwright. Cyrano de Bergerac (pictured at left) wrote a letter in which exaggerated he made fun, rather heavily, of Montfleury’s large stomach: stance and de- “I can assure you,” he wrote, “that if a beating could be livery, a style sent by post, you would read my letter with your shoulders; then much ap- and don’t be surprised by my suggestion as, your rounded preciated, al- surface being so great, I am convinced you are a land in which I would like to plant sticks to see what would become though not uni- of them.” In Act One of his play versally: Zacharie produced at SCR this June) Cyrano de Bergerac Montfleury’s epistolary incident into a face-to-face, Edmond Rostand meeting turned between(to this be chief detractor Cyrano and Montfleury on the stage of the Hôtel de Bour- was Molière. gogne. When the latter lampooned Mont- (from Daily Life in the French Theatre at the Time of Molière fleury in The Im- by Georges Mongrédien, translated by Claire Eliane Engel) promptu of Ver- sailles, the rivalry P4 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY • Lovers and Executioners turned to bitter en- mity. To the de- fense of his father leapt the son, then aged 24 and a lawyer who had written a half dozen plays. An- toine penned The Impromptu of the Hôtel de Condé, a deliberate counter- attack that lam- pooned Molière in the same fashion. The family honor, at least, was intact. Shortly there- after, Zacharie Montfleury made the mistake that earned him the disdain of genera- tions of French lit- erary historians The Royal Players of the Hôtel de Bourgogne. and theatre critics: he denounced Molière to the King, was forced to wear to support his Tartuffe. It is said that Mont- accusing the great playwright of enormous belly. fleury’s play was considered by his having married his own daughter, Antoine’s breakthrough as a contemporaries to be the equal of a rumor that plagued Molière playwright came just after his fa- Molière’s. History has disagreed. throughout his later years. The ther’s death. Montfleury fils admired King did nothing directly above all else the Spanish about model—the great dramatists Lope de Vega and Calderòn. He could speak Spanish fluently, better, ac- Hôtel de Bourgogne cording to the Queen of Spain (whom he knew) than many Built in 1548, the Hôtel de Bourgogne was the first theatre in Paris Spaniards of her court. Many of and for a long time, the city’s only true theatre. The building was his own plots were borrowed, in leased to traveling players until 1610, when the first permanent com- the common practice of the day, pany was formed. Called the King’s Players, the actors at the Bour- from Spanish plays. At a time gogne were the unchallenged masters of theatrical art, with legendary when Molière was inventing a performers such as Bellerose, Floridor and Montfleury setting the bom- French comedy of manners, bastic style of the day. The arrival of Molière at the Théâtre du using the Italian model as a Marais in 1658 created fierce competition between the two compa- jumping-off point, Montfleury nies and the Hôtel de Bourgogne was never able to regain its former remained devoted to the roman- supremacy. In 1680, these two companies merged to form the tic, florid, and often bawdy ma- Comédie Française. La terial of Spanish theatre. As a re- Femme juge et partie was a sult—in a curious, geography-de- the charges, resounding success and fying twist of literary fate—Mont- Montfleury père died a short time something of a scandal, due to its fleury’s work is closer in style to later, having been mortally injured, controversial subject matter. Play- Elizabethan theatre than to the the story goes, by a portion of his ing on stage a few blocks away new French style Molière was es- stage costume—the metal belt he was another scandal: Molière’s tablishing. Lovers and Executioners •SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P5 Horns of Dilemma he Oxford English Dictionary promiscuity was the defines “cuckold” as a “deri- order of the day. Tsive name for the husband of The origin of an unfaithful wife.” The word can the image of horns, also be used as a verb meaning which is typically “to dishonor a husband by com- associated with mitting adultery.” Derived from cuckoldery, is un- the Middle English word clear. It may have cukeweld or cokewold, which in descended from the turn appears to have come from pagan sign of the the Old French cucuault, this Horned God, which derogatory term has been around was sacrificed as a for more than seven centuries. stag, goat, or ram at The modern French word the spring feasts. for cuckold, cocu, is also the Priests wore the name of the European cuckoo. horns of the sacri- Females of this species make no ficed animals on nests of their own, but instead lay their heads, and their eggs in other birds’ nests— horned masks or unusual behavior that apparently headdresses were recalls the scandalous deeds of commonly worn by unfaithful wives. The cuckoo was participants in the sacred to the medieval May- rite. When a mar- games, when marriage bonds ried woman had were temporarily ignored and sexual relations out- side of mar- riage, her husband was said trating this concept. In the one at to sprout horns, in reference left, the betrayed husband has ac- to his public humiliation. tually sprouted horns; in the one Throughout history, the horn above, the seducer of the woman has been a on the couch is drawing a cuck- powerful em- old’s horns blem of sexu- BERNARD: al power (or I now speak the word I am loathe to hear, the lack That damns the very soul of the woman I held dear, thereof).