ABSTRACT
‘La face du theatre change.’ With these words Louis XIV announced his decision to assume personal power on the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661. The phrase has an authentic ring: this was indeed a major change of political direction as seen by a young monarch passionately fond of ballets, masques and operas and fully aware of the part he was to play. The doctrine that kings are the living image of God on earth and that they are his viceroys and lieutenants was widely current in seventeenth-century Europe. In 1647, the year of his martyr play Saint-Genest, Rotrou also produced his most deeply considered masterpiece, a royal tragedy entitled Venceslas. With his mock-Bohemian counterpart of Christmas carol fame Rotrou’s Polish king has little more than rank and age in common, and his tragedy really turns on the taming of the mettlesome personality of his son.
