Mark Bannister

Oxford Brookes

The term 'political theatre' is well established in relation to the first half of the seventeenth century in France, though its use tends to vary. In 1948, in a seminal work, Bénichou included a chapter on 'Le drame politique dans Corneille', in which he argued that Corneille produced political theatre in so far as he reflected the concerns and outlook of the noblesse d'épée, the need for them to defend their own honour and prerogatives and maintain what they saw as their inalienable moral autonomy against the encroachments of the monarchy.[1] Couton took the question further in several of his works by looking at Corneille's plays and finding close parallels between them and political events or concerns current at the time.[2] Since then, there has been a regular output of works linking Corneille and sometimes other dramatists to political events, but much of what is described as 'political theatre' consists of plays making dramatic capital out of ideological or axiological conflicts or tensions, only some of which could strictly be said to fall into the political category.

Similarly, an analysis of the plays produced during the 1630s and 1640s reveals various types of work that might justifiably be included in a category of 'political theatre'. At one extreme is the political allegory, written to draw attention to contemporary events and to impose a particular interpretation onto them, the most obvious example being Desmarets de Saint-Sorlins's Europe (1643), commissioned by Richelieu as propaganda in the war between France and Spain. During the regency of Anne of Austria (1643-1651), playwrights frequently chose historical plots involving unmarried or widowed queens and the pressures to which they were subjected, in some cases obliquely raising questions of principle regarding women as rulers that were exercising thoughtful minds (though the author's motivation is as likely to have been flattery of those in power or the desire to make the play more "relevant" to the audience as any concern for political argument).[3]

A major factor affecting any consideration of the existence of a political theatre is the nature of political debate at the time. Whereas, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, competing ideologies offered alternative models of the state developed in response to clearly recognised social problems, the seventeenth century saw politics as closely linked to moral enquiry. The machiavellian concept of the state as a human construct with no inherent religious dimension, Calvin's model of the theocratic state in Geneva, the range of theories that emerged from the Religious Wars in France according to which the state is a synallagmatic contract between monarch and people: all of these depended on assumptions about human nature which had equally important implications for law, ethics and religion. As Stegmann has put it, 'la politique, affaire de tous, dépend par essence de l'idée qu'on se fait de la nature humaine et, secondairement, de la science des mœurs. Le départ est souvent mince entre un ouvrage de philosophie politique et un traité de philosophie morale.'[4] The spokesmen for the Counter-Reformation, especially the Jesuits, often used the word 'politique' virtually as a synonym for 'atheist' on the grounds that those who rejected God's all-embracing providence and believed it was possible to divorce the exercise of power from Christian morality and to rely on human foresight or prudence were effectively godless. On the other hand, Cardinal Richelieu and his apologists, who promoted a concept of the state in which undisputed power was vested in the monarch and for which raison d'Etat was a necessary tool, did not think that such ideas affected their relationship with God.

Any taxonomy involving 'political theatre' must therefore include the numerous plays that parallel the long-established tradition of the speculum principis, the moral treatises in which the qualities and types of behaviour required to make a good ruler were set out. It is only occasionally that a playwright adopts a straightforwardly didactic approach, producing a kind of dramatised treatise, such as Gillet de la Tessonerie's L'Art de régner (1644), in which each of the five acts is a self-contained playlet illustrating one of the virtues required of a good monarch or one of the vices that turn a king into a tyrant. Generally, the preferred approach was to look to the ancient historians for exempla, stories of figures from the past which both provided the ingredients for a good plot and also allowed the playwright to raise questions, implicitly and sometimes explicitly, about the proper behaviour of rulers. Political polemics arising out of specific conflicts tended not to be a significant ingredient in the theatre. The normal vehicle for rapid-fire polemical exchanges was the pamphlet or the short treatise, which the theatre could not rival in terms of speed of response or directness of argument. Nor did the necessary dramatic dynamics of plot and characterisation emerge naturally from polemics. The nobles' revolt against Marie de Médicis, religious confrontations, the opposition to Richelieu, all produced plenty of pamphlets but no theatre. However, the greatest pamphlet explosion of all, that of the Fronde, contained within it a concern to move beyond the straightforward expression of political views and to clothe the subject-matter in literary form—verse, dramatic dialogue, mock-epic—that is quite exceptional.[5] The converse is also true: a number of plays were written to embody polemical arguments and I propose to take two of them, Corneille's Nicomède and La Balance d'Estat by Claude Dubosc-Montandré, and consider how they convert a political position into drama. Both deal with a key part of the second phase of the Fronde_the imprisonment of the Prince de Condé, together with his brother and his brother-in-law in 1650-51_and the questions of political and moral principle that it raised, though from opposite sides.

The Prince de Condé was the senior aristocrat outside the immediate royal family and, until he was 40, he was third in line to the throne, which gave him the title Premier Prince du Sang. But he also turned out to be arguably the greatest French general of the century, winning a series of outstanding victories over the Spanish and Imperial forces in the years before the Fronde. As a result, he became an icon of the heroic individualism that was felt to be the essence of the noblesse d'épée. However, the years of his greatest successes were also the years during which Mazarin was bringing out ordinances aimed at changing the political landscape, continuing the 'taming' of the great nobles begun by Richelieu, and the ideological positions represented by the two men were to collide. During the Parliamentary Fronde in 1649, Condé was the military mainstay of the Court and aroused the hostility of the people by commanding the troops that blockaded Paris, but for several months after the restoration of a precarious peace, his relationship with Mazarin and the Queen Regent degenerated rapidly until, in January 1650, they had him arrested and imprisoned without trial. Over the twelve months that he was in prison, Condé's supporters worked hard to convince the populace that he was the guarantor and the bulwark of a version of the state that was as old as the monarchy itself: he would protect the rights of all ranks and orders in society and 'rescue' the state from Mazarin who wanted to impose a monarchical tyranny with himself as the real power behind the throne.

Nicomède was published in November 1651 but it was first performed, we are told by contemporary observers, round about the time of the liberation of the Princes, 13th February 1651. We are also told that the audience saw parallels between the play and current events, which is not surprising in view of the very obvious similarities. The hero is a prince, a great conqueror who is the right arm of a weak monarchy. He is imprisoned on the grounds that, although he may not yet have done any wrong, he is so powerful that he is likely to do so and must be pre-empted. Popular feeling is stirred up in his favour by a princess (in the play, by Laodice; in Condé's case, by his sister), which leads to his release and reconciliation with the monarch.

During the last fifty years, many scholars have considered the link between Nicomède and Condé and in general have tried to show that the play was a vindication of Condé at the time of his release from prison. Bénichou concluded that Nicomède depicted an imaginary version of the Fronde in which the Princes won but then submitted to the king, thereby bringing about a reconciliation between the monarchy and 'les gens de cœur'.[6] Couton went further and argued that the play was clearly an apologia for Condé, a model of générosité at odds with devious opponents representing the monarchy who used machiavellian tricks to achieve their ends.[7] Others have adopted the same or similar interpretations.[8]

If the link between Nicomède and Condé seems credible, there are none the less a number of serious objections to the thesis that the play is an apology for Condé. The most obvious is that, throughout the period of the Fronde, Corneille was a known supporter of Mazarin, not so much of the man himself as of the legitimate representative of the monarchy, which Corneille never ceased to support wholeheartedly. He received patronage from both Mazarin and the Chancellor, Séguier. He was the first author chosen to contribute to a work published by royal command and at great expense in 1649, Les Triomphes de Louis le Juste, which set out the exploits and achievements of Louis XIII: his contribution was a set of epigrams expressing a strongly absolutist view of monarchy. More relevant perhaps is the fact that, when Condé and the other two princes were imprisoned in 1650, there was a general reallocation of posts under the new patronage. Corneille was made Procureur des Etats de Normandie in place of one Baudry, a protégé of the duc de Longueville, and was described by the princes' supporters as an enemy of the people because he was in the pay of Mazarin. Corneille had to sell his office of Avocat du Roi because it was incompatible with his being Procureur and he lost money on the sale. After the release of the princes and the departure of Mazarin, there was a further reallocation which led to the post of Procureur being taken from Corneille and given back to Baudry. In view of his continuous support for Mazarin, it would be odd to find Corneille writing a play hailing Condé as a paragon of virtue and depicting the opposition to him as pusillanimous and devious while at precisely the same time being rewarded for his fidelity to the Court.

Again, to construe Nicomède as propaganda in favour of Condé requires the rôle of Araspe to be misinterpreted. If the opposition to Nicomède is seen as dishonest and machiavellian, it is possible to argue that the maxims professed by this immoral opposition have been put into the mouth of Araspe who poisons the king's mind against his son by casting doubt on his motives. Accordingly, he has been described variously as a 'peste de cour', a 'mauvais conseiller' and 'le subtil Araspe'.[9] However, such a view of him is not supported by the text. He is on stage for ten scenes in all (II,1-4, III,7, IV,1-4, V,5). In seven of these scenes, he says nothing and no-one makes any reference to him. In III,7 he comes to fetch Nicomède to see the king and says no more than is necessary to carry out that errand. In V,5 he simply reports that the people are trying to rescue Nicomède from arrest and warns that he cannot guarantee to hold him for much longer. In the one scene in which he conducts a conversation with Prusias (II,1), he argues that Nicomède's virtue is so great that he cannot be suspected of having returned to court without orders for his own purposes, as one would have to suspect of any less virtuous general. If we are to accept that he is being heavily ironic in his defence of Nicomède and thereby trying to turn the king's mind against him, there has to be evidence that there is a discrepancy between what he says and what he means. Yet the evidence in the play does not support such a thesis. Araspe is not a courtier, one of a crowd of flatterers noted for their deviousness, but the captain of the guard, a soldier like Nicomède. He has no connection with Arsinoé, the real schemer and villainess. Nicomède never says a word against him, never treats him as an enemy, never suggests he is a schemer. When Attale reports his death in the course of carrying out his orders (V,7), he is described merely as 'le malheureux Araspe': nobody speaks ill of him, nobody suggests that he has received his just deserts.

There is also the question of the dénouement. The action of the play is brought to a close by an uprising of the people who blockade the palace and bring about the release of Nicomède. This has suggested a parallel with the events of February 1651 when popular sentiment moved in favour of the Princes and the Palais Royal was blockaded by the common people who feared that the Queen Mother might once again remove the young king from Paris, as she had done in 1648 and 1649. It has been argued that the plot of Nicomède was modelled on these events, with popular support being responsible for the release of Nicomède and of Condé in real life. However, there are two important points to be borne in mind here. First, the popular uprising in the play is not a sudden, contrived ending but an integral part of the plot, prepared for by earlier events. In the very first scene (115-6), Laodice points out that Nicomède enjoys popular support and draws strength from it. In II,1 (450-1), Prusias concludes that Nicomède has returned to court in order to stir up the people, who worship him. Laodice again makes clear the sympathies of the people and their hostility to Arsinoé in III,2 (849-54) so that when, in V,1, they do what has been predicted throughout and rise up against an unjust monarch, no-one is very surprised. If, however, all this was inspired by the events of early February 1651, it would mean that Corneille had written the play and passed it to the actors who had rehearsed and prepared their performance, all within two or three weeks, which seems unlikely. Corneille usually needed much more than a few weeks to write a play and when, in the case of Œdipe, he succeeded in completing the writing within two months, he made a special mention of it (Au lecteur). The second point concerns Corneille's attitude towards the common people. In his plays, he generally showed little sympathy for the idea that they should be the arbiters of their own destiny and he certainly never implied that rebellion against a legitimate monarch was acceptable or justifiable, however weak or tyrannical he might be. If we are to assume that Corneille approved of the uprising that had liberated Condé, it can only be because he had undergone a radical change of heart, which again seems unlikely.

The question of Corneille's loyalty, the rôle of Araspe and the problems surrounding the dénouement provide good grounds for revisiting the received interpretation of the play and, in particular, the assumption that Nicomède represents Condé seen as the admirable and heroic victim of devious courtiers. The justifications for Condé's arrest published by the Court were woven around a number of charges concerning his character and his behaviour. It was claimed that he was insatiably greedy for honours and wealth, despite the generosity of the king. He was driven by a desire to be a sovereign in his own right, an ambition which was all the more dangerous in a man 'tout de feu' like Condé in that 'nous sommes bien informez qu'il a eu souuent dans la bouche, parlant à ses confidens, la pernicieuse maxime qu'on peut tout faire pour regner'.[10] He was arrogant towards the representatives of the monarchy, taking the opportunity to humiliate the Queen Regent and adopting a supercilious and aggressive manner towards the king's ministers, 'dont presque aucun n'étoit plus exempt de menaces en particulier ou d'affronts en public & en nostre presence mesme, quand leur conscience & leur deuoir les obligeoient à embrasser quelque auis qui ne se trouuoit pas conforme à celuy dudit prince' (p. 12). His ultimate aim, so it was said, was to weaken the royal authority so that, when the king came of age, he would have only the name and appearance of king while Condé would retain all the real power. His supposedly heroic exploits were primarily based on self-interest: 'Il a seruy l'Estat et son roy mais son premier motif estoit de se seruir soy-mesme.'[11]

Condé's partisans reacted strongly to these charges and produced a series of lengthy replies to the main points raised, but in response to the charge that Condé's service as a general was self-interested, which particularly infuriated them, they could only affirm that it was not true and that everything he had done was on behalf of the king. A running debate was conducted in pamphlet form between the spokesmen of the Crown and the supporters of Condé throughout 1650, that is, during the gestation period of Nicomède, and it is remarkable how closely the motivation and character assigned to Nicomède in the play reflect the view of Condé presented by the Court. Like Condé, Nicomède is a great conqueror, the essential support of a weak monarchy 'depuis dix ans qu'il commande une armée' (1191), to the point where he could seize power if he wished. He claims to be obedient to the king but in fact places limitations on his obedience, either by demanding something in return (515-6) or by interpreting an order in the way that suits him best (1335-9) or, when he is arrested on the king's order, by submitting with scorn and declaring his readiness to thwart the order by escaping (1388-90). His submission to the king is in fact usually a temporary suppression of his own power for the sake of his own interests and he lists the treasons he is not committing, thereby implying the threat of what he might be capable of doing (1242-54).[12] Similarly, his claims to disinterested service are suspect, if not false, for he makes it plain that his conquests are an investment for the time when he is king and he warns Rome to expect more expansion (614-20), refusing to accept any limitation on his right to conquer, even from the mouth of the king (629-34). Flaminius's wry comment, 'A ce que je puis voir, vous avez combattu, Prince, par intérêt, plutôt que par vertu' (665-6) very aptly echoes Lyonne's criticism of Condé.

Nicomède is in the position where he does not need to rely on his legitimate right to succession since he is assured of popular support to put him on the throne by acclamation (1348-55) and his pointed remark to Prusias, 'je ferai bien pour moi ce que j'ai fait pour vous' (1362), reflects exactly the kind of self-interested ambition that had been imputed to Condé in the Lettre du Roy. Indeed, Prusias had already admitted that Nicomède had the power and authority of a king while he retained only the name and appearance (498-500), just as the Lettre du Roy accused Condé of wanting to reduce the monarch to the same state, 'que nous n'eussions plus [...] que le nom de Roy & les apparences, & qu'il en eust en effet toute la Puissance & l'autorité' (p. 8). The official view of Condé is reflected also in Nicomède's haughty and aggressive behaviour in the council chamber. He shows contempt for the Roman ambassador, insulting him and talking down to him (949-54, 957); he is even insolent to the King, showing none of the respect owed by a son and a subject (1344-6, 1385-6), and he threatens Prusias through Flaminius (714-6, 725-7).

All this points to a Nicomède who is indeed based on the character of Condé, but one who has the characteristics ascribed to Condé in the Lettre du Roy and other statements put out by the royal propaganda machine, i.e. his heroic military record is built up primarily out of ambition, he lacks restraint and moderation, he insults the monarch and his representatives and might well be prepared to use illicit means to gain the throne for himself. His sense of gloire has tipped over into arrogance, his générosité has degenerated into self-aggrandizement. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the play contains a statement of the principle of preventive detention, on which the Court based its imprisonment of Condé. The idea that the monarchy did not need to justify the actions necessary to defend itself had been propagated by Richelieu, Philippe de Béthune, Guez de Balzac, Naudé and others [13], and was now being applied by Mazarin. In the play, it is Araspe who spells out the principle:

Aussitôt qu'un sujet s'est rendu trop puissant,
Encor qu'il soit sans crime, il n'est pas innocent:
On n'attend point alors qu'il s'ose tout permettre;
C'est un crime d'Etat que d'en pouvoir commettre;
Et qui sait bien régner l'empêche prudemment
De mériter un juste et plus grand châtiment,
Et prévient, par un ordre à tous deux salutaire,
Ou les maux qu'il prépare, ou ceux qu'il pourrait faire.
(433-40)

Araspe, however, adds the considerable qualification that Nicomède is above suspicion because of his vertu. He says it three times (367-68, 397-400, 441-42) because Prusias insists on assuming the worst about Nicomède and, as was indicated earlier, there is nothing in the text to suggest he does not mean it. His version of the principle, that preventive detention is justifiable unless the individual's vertu is so solid that his motives are beyond question, is one which the weak Prusias does not have the moral strength to accept, but it is one on which Corneille might have been prepared to give Condé the benefit of the doubt.

Corneille's attitude towards Condé also throws light on the question of the dénouement. The problem, it will be recalled, is that, though it can be argued that the uprising of the people that brings about the conclusion was inspired by the events of February 1651 when the populace blockaded the Palais Royal, it would have meant that Corneille had written the play in an excessively short time and that he had reversed his normal antipathy towards political initiatives taken by the common people. A further significant factor needs to be introduced, viz. the break between V,7 and V,8. In his Examen, Corneille comments on the speed with which events occur in the dénouement and on the inconsistency in the behaviour of Prusias and Flaminius who escape from the uprising in a galley, both of them described by Attale as terrified (1760-64). Suddenly, in the next line, they return, resolved to die gloriously. Theirs is not the only inconsistency. Nicomède, who has been insolent to his father and hostile to Flaminius, suddenly expresses complete submission to his father's will and declares that he can quite well understand and does not condemn the reasons behind Flaminius's intriguing. He even goes so far as to forgive Arsinoé. There is a general reconciliation, inspired by the spectacle of Nicomède's générosité and vertu. The common people, who had hitherto been depicted as a fickle force capable of interfering, without any right to do so, in the workings of the state and who had been described, even by Laodice, as 'mutins' (1559), 'peuple sans foi' (1585), 'peuple coupable' (1693) and 'rebelles' (1696), are now excused for 'un peu trop de chaleur Qu'à sa compassion a donné mon malheur' (1793-4). Their crime is apparently amply counterbalanced by the justice of its effect. The ending is romanesque and out of line with the way the play had been developing up to that point. Corneille in fact revealed in the Examen that he had changed the ending. The original version apparently showed Nicomède being released by the uprising and the action of Attale; Prusias and Flaminius had escaped by sea and Nicomède, now king, had expressed his regrets to his stepmother that he had been unable to assure his father of his obedience. Corneille tells us that the original ending 'ne démentait point l'effet historique' because it left the death of Prusias in uncertainty. Strict historical accuracy, following Justinus, would have required Nicomède to pursue and kill Prusias, as Prusias had wanted to have him killed, but parricide and regicide were presumably too much for Corneille to depict. None the less, the original ending would have resolved the themes of the play by having Nicomède proclaimed king after he had been liberated by a popular uprising which drove the rightful but ineffectual monarch from the kingdom. It suggests that Corneille was not optimistic about the role Condé would have liked to play within the state, but it also offers a possible explanation of the link between the play and contemporary events. Since, as we have seen, Nicomède has all the characteristics of a Condé-like heroic figure viewed by a partisan of the absolutist monarchy, the anticipated change in Condé's fortune in early 1651 would have indicated to the playwright that the original ending was inappropriate. It would have been politic to change it in line with the new situation developing and the ninety lines required for the last two scenes could have been written quite rapidly. Nicomède now presents himself in the terms used by Condé's propagandists. He protests that he is no rebel :

C'est un nom que je n'aurai jamais.
Je ne viens point ici montrer à votre haine
Un captif insolent d'avoir brisé sa chaîne;
Je viens en bon sujet vous rendre le repos
Que d'autres intérêts troublaient mal à propos.(1782-6)

His heroic virtue is recognised by all and confirmed by acclamation because he is obedient and submissive. The proper order is restored, as Condé had always claimed it would be if he were to be released, and Corneille can claim that he was celebrating the return of a prince who was a true subject of the king. The new ending is, however, dramatically unsatisfactory: it cuts right across the direction the play had been taking, contradicting the logical outcome, and solves the problems by ignoring them.

Nicomède was successful when it was first performed, not only because of its topical allusions, but because of Corneille's skill at crafting the kind of play that appealed to the public. Later in 1651, the events surrounding the release of Condé from prison were the subject of another play which forms a contrast with Nicomède in virtually every way. La Balance d'Estat is written from a pro-Condé point of view by a man who had none of Corneille's talent as a playwright. Dubosc-Montandré earned his living by his pen, but his forte was the kind of strongly polemical pamphlet that became a feature of the later stage of the Fronde. He published at least fifty lengthy pamphlets, making him the most prolific pamphleteer of the Fronde. He became the chief polemicist for Condé, producing some pamphlets that were considered so subversive and revolutionary that the Parlement ordered them to be publicly burnt by the executioner; and he had his nose cut off by the lackeys of a gentleman he had insulted. After Condé's release from prison and Mazarin's departure into exile, it seemed as though the need for verbal justifications of the Prince had gone, and Dubosc turned his hand to drama.

La Balance d'Estat appears at first sight to be a straightforward dramatisation in allegorical form of the intrigue and political manoeuvring that made the release of the Princes possible.[14] The action covers the months during which the erstwhile opponents of Condé were persuaded to work in his favour against Mazarin. All the major protagonists of the Fronde appear under transparent names (e.g. Gaston d'Orléans is Protarque, First in Command; Mazarin is Pamphage, He who devours everything; Anne of Austria is Philarchie, She who loves and maintains Sovereignty), as do some institutions (the Parlement appears as Thémide or Philthémide, Lover of Justice), and the play consists largely of lengthy speeches setting out the various political positions, modified as the action develops. As far as is known, the play was never performed.

By choosing the dramatic form, however, Dubosc was able to bring out more strikingly a number of points that might have been lost in a pamphlet and to demonstrate that the political situation obtaining after Condé's release was the 'correct' one, with the natural order restored. The fact that Condé (Pantonice, He who overcomes all things) never appears on stage emphasises the absolute justice of his cause: there is no need for his case to be stated because he is quite simply a victim of Mazarin's duplicity and self-interest. The letter Condé wrote to the Parlement in December 1650 asking for its support [15] appears in the play as a disinterested warning that the Parlement will be the next victim of Mazarin if he succeeds in having the Princes put to death (V,4).

The presentation of institutions as characters enables Dubosc to simplify complex sets of motives and intrigues. Thus, the ambivalence and vacillation of the Parlement in deciding to support the Princes, due in fact to the internal struggle between pro- and anti-Mazarin factions, are converted into the natural hesitations of Thémide who has to be convinced that she has the power as well as the wish to do what she knows to be right (II,3, IV,4, V,4).

Most significantly, the creation of Andrigène (She who produces Great Men), representing France but described as Queen, very effectively makes an essential point in the ideological case for Condé. The Queen Regent, Anne of Austria (Philarchie), appears in the list of characters as Intendante Souueraine de la maison d'Andrigene, the Parlement (Thémide) as Intendante Souueraine de la Iustice d'Andrigene. They are thereby shown to have parallel but separate responsibilities and are both subject to Andrigène, the French nation. Anne of Austria may well bear the title of 'Queen' but she is no more than the guardian of the political side of the nation's life. The Parlement has, or should have, an equal input into the decisions that affect the welfare of Andrigène, with whom true sovereignty resides. This interpretation of the political structure corresponded to that on which Condé based his opposition to Mazarin and his policies. His spokesmen had long made the point that the Crown was only one element in the state alongside several others, each of which had its own prerogatives, and, although the Crown could claim the primacy, it had no authority to override the prerogatives of the Princes du Sang or any other established order. When, in 1651-52, Condé felt himself to have been forced into open hostility against the Crown, Dubosc published a number of polemical pamphlets in defence of the Prince, stressing the claim that the lois fondamentales on which the unwritten constitution was based pre-dated the monarchy, so that the Crown was bound by the responsibilities and the limitations on its powers supposedly prescribed by those laws.[16]

Having, in the play, imposed his own version of the structure of the state through the creation of Andrigène, Dubosc then sets out to isolate Mazarin/Pamphage and to present him as the sole source of the ills afflicting France. He has deceived Anne of Austria/Philarchie, who could see no good reason for imprisoning Condé/Pantonice without trial (I,2, III,2), and he has browbeaten the Parlement/Thémide into passing on to the nation/Andrigène his own justification for this criminal act (II,1: a reference to the Lettre du Roy). The other chief actors in the real political drama have their motives simplified and, in some cases, whitewashed. Gondi/Mystarque and Beaufort/Philidème, whose intrigues had been a major contributory factor in Condé's imprisonment in 1650, are shown to be fundamentally opposed to Mazarin and to be apparently supporting him only the better to bring him down (II,5,6). Gaston d'Orléans/Protarque, whose hesitations in real life had caused a considerable delay in the release of Condé, emerges as a decisive character, successful in persuading the Parlement to oppose Mazarin openly (V,4). Andrigène is bewildered by much of the intrigue that goes on, but never doubts that Condé must be released so that the natural order can be restored (II,4).

Not only is Mazarin isolated but he is charged with an arrogance that carries within it the seeds of his downfall. One of the secondary characters, Disangel, acts as a kind of chorus, predicting that this hubris will lead to nemesis:

ie pense
Que tu verras icy l'escueil de ta puissance,
Et que de tes destins, l'admirable dessein
N'ayant pû par autruy, te perdra par ta main:
Les vapeurs de ta bille ont grossi la tempeste,
Que ie vois sur le point de creuer sur ta teste. (I,4)

His view is reflected by Philarchie:

on voit bien souuent que celuy qui se trompe
S'esleue auec excez, pour perir auec pompe:
Qui se flatte par trop ne se reconnoist pas,
Et qui se connoist bien s'allarme à chaque pas. (III,2)

It would be unrealistic to suggest that Dubosc was in any way trying to depict Mazarin as a tragic figure. This 'faquin d'Estat', this 'Cyclope estranger' was the butt of Dubosc's scorn and hatred, but La Balance d'Estat none the less shows that the polemicist was willing to read more than a straightforward interplay of conflicting interests into the year-long struggle over Condé's imprisonment. The absolute certainty of Condé's innocence and the self-destructive aspect of Mazarin's pride emphasised in the play add an element of inevitability which suggests that, in Dubosc's mind, the political struggle was closely linked to questions of human nature and destiny. In that way, if in no other, a comparison might be drawn between La Balance d'Estat and Nicomède. It was unusual for Corneille to incorporate the detailed concerns of polemicists into his plays. He drew much of his dramatic strength from his ability to identify ideological tensions of which many of his contemporaries were only just becoming aware, but he did not generally tie them to immediate events. Although, in Nicomède, he wove the arguments against Condé set out by the Crown into the fabric of his play and pursued the implications of Condé's position for the state at that moment, his treatment of the subject retained a significant, even major, element of universality. The questions of power and legitimacy, of the outstanding individual and the politics of the court, dealt with in Nicomède were recurrent themes in much of his output. Dubosc's overriding interest, on the other hand, was the details of the specific case of Condé. La Balance d'Estat is arguably, at its primary level, no more than an overtly partisan version, in alexandrines, of Claude Joly's Histoire de la prison et de la liberté de Monsieur le Prince (s.l., 1651). Yet the play shows the beginnings of an awareness on Dubosc's part that the theatre is much better suited than the polemical pamphlet to linking political argument to wider questions of human psychology, a lesson he applied in his only other play, Dioclétien et Maximian, tragédie, published in Brussels in 1654 when Condé's fortune was very different.

Footnotes

[1] P. Bénichou, Morales du Grand Siècle (Paris, 1948).

[2] G. Couton, Corneille et la Fronde: théâtre et politique il y a trois siècles (Paris, 1951) and Corneille et la tragédie politique (Paris, 1984).

[3] See e.g. Gillet de la Tessonerie, Sigismond (1645), Du Ryer, Nitocris (1648) and Dynamis (1649), Jobert, Balde, reine des Sarmates (1650), Corneille, Pertharite (1652).

[4] A. Stegmann, 'Le mot "Politique" et ses implications dans la littérature européenne du début du XVIIe siècle', Cahiers de Lexicologie XIII (1968)/2, 33-48, p. 33.

[5] See H. Carrier, Les Muses guerrières: les mazarinades et la vie littéraire au milieu du XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1996).

[6] Morales du Grand Siècle, p. 106.

[7] Corneille et la Fronde, pp. 61-77.

[8] cf. S. Doubrovsky, Corneille et la dialectique du héros (Paris, 1963), pp. 321 ff.; B. Dort, Corneille dramaturge (Paris, 1957), pp. 80-81; J. Truchet, La Tragédie classique en France (Paris, 1975), p. 93; R. Jasinski, A travers le XVIIe siècle, 2 vols. (Paris, 1981), I, 121-2; M. Prigent, Le Héros et l'Etat dans la tragédie de Pierre Corneille (Paris, 1986). I am grateful to Professor Alain Viala for drawing to my attention the thesis of Deborah Blocker, La Question de l'utilité du théâtre en France au milieu du XVIIe siècle (Doctorate, Paris III, 2002), which offers a new interpretation of Nicomède.

[9] Bénichou, Morales du Grand Siècle, pp. 103-4, Doubrovsky, Corneille et la dialectique du héros, p. 322, A. Stegmann, L'Héroïsme cornélien: genèse et signification, 2 vols. (Paris, 1968), II, 614, Jasinski, A travers le XVIIe siècle, I, 135.

[10] Lettre du Roy sur la detention des Princes de Condé et de Conty & duc de Longueuille. Enuoyée au Parlement le 20. Ianuier 1650 (Paris, 1650), p. 7. The Lettre du Roy contains the official justification for the arrest of the Princes.

[11] M. Lyonne, Discours et considerations politiques & morales, sur la prison des princes de Condé, Conty & duc de Longueuille (Paris, 1650), p. 8. Lyonne's pamphlet gives a gloss on the charges presented in the Lettre du Roy.

[12] cf. Aduis aux Parisiens, seruant de response aux impostures du Cardinal Mazarin (s.l., 1650), pp. 11-12.

[13] Richelieu, Testament politique, ed. L. André (Paris, 1947), p. 212; Ph. de Béthune, Le Conseiller d'Estat (Paris, 1632), p. 396; J.-L. Guez de Balzac, Œuures, 2 vols. (Paris, 1665), II, 61-63; G. Naudé, Considerations politiques sur les coups d'Estat (s.l., 1679), pp. 182 ff.

[14] The text of the play can be found on the Textes et Contextes du XVIIe Siècle website (http://solinux.brookes.ac.uk/mark/textes/index.html). On Dubosc-Montandré, see H. Carrier, La Presse de la Fronde (1648-1653): les Mazarinades, 2 vols. (Geneva, 1989-91), I, 127-33, II, 51-58 and A. Viala, Naissance de l'écrivain: sociologie de la littérature à l'âge classique (Paris, 1985), pp. 60-68.

[15] Lettre de Monseigneur le Prince de Condé à Messieurs de Paris (Paris, 1650).

[16] See La Franche Marguerite (s.l.n.d.), Les Decisions du censeur monarchique (Paris, 1651), La Decadence visible de la royauté, reconnuë par cinq marques infaillibles (s.l., 1652).

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