UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS L,;jRARY AT URBANA-ChAMPAIGN BOOKSTACKS The Montespan The Montespan [DRAMA IN THREE ACTS] by ROMAIN ROLLAND TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH h HELENA VAN BRUGH DE KAY NEW YORK B. W. HUEBSCH, INC. MCMXXIII Copyright, 1922, by HELENA DE KAY Copyright, 1923, by B.W. HUEBSCH, INC. For permission to read this play in public, or to produce it in any manner, apply to Helena de Kay, care of the publisher. PRINTED IH U. 8. A. ' * TRANSLATOR'S NOTE I want to thank Miss Lucile Watson for her constructive criticism of this translation, and the late Mr. Andre Tridon and my sister, Miss Sylvia de Kay, for helpful suggestions. INTRODUCTION A "LA MONTESPAN" POUR LES LECTEURS AMERICAINS. Je viens de relire cette ceuvre, ecrite il y a plus de vingt annees. J'y ai retrouve 1'atmosphere lourde et charnelle de la cour de Louis XIV, telle que je la respirais alors dans les -Memoires se- crets du temps et les archives du fameux proces: 'TAffaire des Poisons," ou se revelerent les sau- vages passions de cette societe compassee. Car, a 1'exception des libertes que j'ai prises avec 1'etat- civil de mes personnages et dont je fais 1'aveu dans mon "Avertissemenf," tout dans cette piece est exact: la couleur morale, les sentiments, la langue souvent presque textuellement empruntee aux recits des "Conquetes du grand Alcandre." Et ceci m'a amene a des reflexions, dont je veux f aire part a mes lecteurs americains : II est d'usage courant dans le language des civilises de distinguer, au milieu du fleuve aux mille bras de 1'histoire humaine, quelques ilots qui emergent, couronnes de gloire et de lumiere, 1 "Le grand Alcandre" est le nom sous lequel etait designe Louis XIV dans les memoires secrets du temps. vii viii Introduction et qui passent pour les cimes de la civilisation. On les nomme les grands Siecles ; et Ton dit : "Le siecle d'Auguste, le siecle de Leon X, le siecle de Louis XIV," (bien qu'en realite, le regne de ces souverains n'occupe qu'une partie des periodes sur Jesquelles s'etend leur rayonnement). Ce sont les ages dits "classiques." II semble qu'a ces moments, 1'humanite ait atteint sa supreme har- monic, 1'equilibre parfait des forces de 1'esprit et du cceur, la maitrise de la raison et la perfection du gout. Mais 1'homme est ne courtisan du succes; il prete a la victoire toutes les vertus. Les grands triomphateurs rois, papes, ou empereurs, ont beau depuis longtemps etre rentres dans la pous- siere la posterite continue de les aduler. Et, comme de leur vivant, la consigne est observee de ne voir de ces ages que 1'ordre et la majeste du splendide decor. Mais le decor a des trous, regardons au travers ! Que sont-ils, au vrai, ces ages'? Des siecles de proie, une meute d' instincts fauves, tou jours pres d'echapper au poing du grand-veneur. Auguste edifie son "siecle" sur un sol rouge du sang des infames Proscriptions; c'est pour les nouveaux-riches engraisses de Tor de leur victimes, Introduction ix des depouilles de la Rome de Brutus et de Ci- ceron, que Virgile chante ses Eglogues, qu' Hor- ace entonne son "Carmen Seculars" ; et nous sav- ons les scandales que recouvre et qu'etouffe, dans la propre famille du maitre, la pourpre imperiale. L'interlude somptueux du pape epicurien aux belles et grasses mains, Leon le dilettante, se joue entre les orgies sanglantes des Borgia, les coups d'epee de Jules II et le sac de Rome atrocement devastee. Le regne de Louis XIV, a grand peine echappe au chaos de la Fronde, qui renouvela les miseres et les debordements de la Ligue (le mot d'ordre de 1'histoire officielle fut de n'en laisser voir que le cote romanesque) fut pendant cinquinte ans un "refoulement" constant (au sens Freudian du mot) d'une sauvagerie latente, a deux doigts d'exploser. Sous une extreme contrainte, une extreme brutalite. A tout moment, celle-ci se trahit par soudaines eruptions. La main du Roi- Soleil en vain renfonce les monstres. Us sont la. L'Affaire des Poisons, qui a inspire ce drame, montra a 1'orgueilleux monarque qu'a 1'heure tri- omphale ou ses armees lui conqueraient en pleine paix 1'Europe, il n'etait meme pas maitre de ce qui 1'entourait. Introduction Non, ils ne furent jamais la fleur de la civili- sation, les siecles dits "classiques"! Cette fleur, bien plutot, exhala sa douceur de vivre dans les ages plus fins, plus amollis, qui suivirent, tel le XVIIIe siecle franc.ais. . . . Et apres, vient le coup de faux de la Revolution: la fleur tombe. . . . Leur grandeur est ailleurs: dans les forces maitrisees, dans un exces de passions que tient en respect un exces de raison, dans le combat tra- gique qui se livre en secret entre la violence des instincts et celle de la volonte. C'est pourquoi nous voyons une epoque comme la notre, qui sent le sol trembler et 1'ecorce de I'ame humaine, convulsee, qui se fend sous la poussee des guerres et des revolutions, tourner son regard anxieux vers 1'ideal "classique" 1'age de 1'ordre a tout prix, 1'age des maitres imperieux. Eternels flux et reflux de 1'histoire humaine! Contemplons-les d'un regard apaise. Tout n'a qu'un temps. Apres les ages de liberte, les ages d'autorite. Apres les ages d'autorite, les ages de liberte. J'admire celle-la; mais a la Libert?e seule, malgre ses risques, je reserve mon amour. ROMAIN ROLLAND. juillet 1923. INTRODUCTION TO "THE MONTESPAN" FOR AMERICAN READERS I have just reread this work, written more than twenty years ago. Once again I inhale the thick carnal atmos- phere of the court of Louis XIV, just as I then breathed it in the secret memoirs of the times and the archives of the famous case, "The Poison Affair," where the savage passions of this af- fectedly formal society are revealed. For, ex- cept for the liberties I have taken with the social status of my characters and to which I refer in the "Notice," [at the end of this volume] everything in this play is veracious : the moral color, the emo- tions, the language itself often borrowed ver- batim from accounts of "Conquests of the Great Alcandre." x And this has led me to make some reflections which I should like to share with my American readers. It is customary among civilized people to dis- tinguish in the thousand-branched river of human history a few islets which emerge, crowned 1 Name by which Louis XIV was designated in the secret memoirs of the times. xi xii Introduction with light and glory, and which pass for the heights of civilization. We call them the great eras; and we say the era of Augustus, the era of Leo X, the era of Louis XIV (although in re- ality the reigns of these sovereigns occupy but a part of the periods over which their radiation ex- tends). They are the ages called "classic." It would seem that at those times humanity had at- tained its supreme harmony, perfect balance of the forces of head and heart, mastery of reason, perfection in taste. But man is a born courtier of success; he lends every virtue to victory. The great conquerors kings, popes or emperors may well have long ago been gathered into dust, posterity continues to adulate them. And, as in their life-time, the command is obeyed to discern in these epochs only the system and majesty of their splendid pageant. But there are holes in this pageantry. Let us look through them. What are they in truth, these times'? Epochs of prey, a pack of hounds with blind instincts, always straining to escape from the huntsman's leash. Augustus builds his "age" upon ground red with the blood of the infamous Proscriptions; it is for the nouveaux-riches, glutted with the gold Introduction xm of their victims, spoils of the Rome of Brutus and Cicero, that Virgil sings his Eclogues, that Horace intones his "Carmen Seculare"; and we know the scandals in the master's own family which only imperial purple stifles and conceals. The sumptuous interlude of the epicurean pope, with fat, beautiful hands, Leo the dilettante, is played between bloody orgies of the Borgias, sword thrusts of Julius II and the atrociously devastating sack of Rome. The reign of Louis XIV, narrowly escaping the chaos of the Fronde, which in turn renewed the miseries and uprisings of the League (the pass-word of official history was to allow only the romantic side to be seen), constituted during fifty years a constant "repression" (in the Freud- ian sense) of a latent savagery on the point of ex- ploding. Beneath an extreme restraint, extreme brutality, the latter betraying itself frequently through sudden erruptions. In vain does the hand of "le Roi-Soleil" drive back the monsters. They remain. The "Poison Affair," which has inspired this drama, showed the proud monarch that at the hour triumphant when his armies were conquering a peaceful Europe he could not even master his own surroundings. xiv Introduction No, they were never the flower of civilizatio the so-called "classic times" ! This flower rathe exhaled its sweetness in the finer, mellower ge] erations that followed, such as the French XVI century. . . . And then comes the scythe thru of the Revolution: the flower falls. . . . The greatness lies elsewhere : in the mastery of force in an excess of passions which an excess of reasc holds in leash, in the tragic combat secretly ta ing place between the violence of the instinc and that of the will. This is why we see an epoch like our own- which feels the ground tremble beneath it an the shell of the human soul, convulsed, crack ui der the pressure of wars and revolutions, tui its anxious eyes toward the "classic" ideal, tl time of order at any price, the time of imperioi masters. Eternal flux and reflux of human history. L us contemplate it peacefully. Everything has i day. After eras of liberty those of authorit After eras of authority those of liberty. I a( mire the former, but to Liberty alone in spite < her risks I give my love ROMAIN ROLLAND. July 1923. CAST OF CHARACTERS FRANCES ATHENA!'S, Marquise de Montespan (aged 39 or 40}- MARIE-AUBE DE BLOIS, her daughter (aged 16} . ANGELIQUE DE FONTANGES {aged /