ABSTRACT
Charles Le Brun's panel on the ceiling of the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles, Passage du Rhin en presence des enncmis, illustrates perfectly the concept of heroism. While apparently concerning himself with a due recognition of Le Grand Conde's military record, Rene Rapin in fact reasserted the premiss on which his work was based, that heroism derived from valeur was no longer the mark of true greatness. The battle of Seneffe illustrates the way in which Conde's actions in the field were interpreted and presented in the new terms. The process of ensuring that Conde's status as a hero was fully redefined and thereby maintained, even though the ground on which it had originally been established was fully occupied by the King, was completed by Rapin who introduced Conde into a treatise on the sublime. When novelists looked for a model of the sublime hero, they turned automatically to Conde, as Madame de La Fayette and Segrais did in Zaide.
