Laughing Matters: Farce and the Making of Absolutism in France (review)

“Laughter is often a political act,” says Sara Beam (2). There has been a steady stream of publications on the history of French drama, and even more on French politics in early modern Europe, and her bibliography and footnotes show that Beam has studied them carefully. But she is arguing something new. She believes historians have neglected the powerful role of farce, especially its correlation with politics (69–70). Supporting her argument with substantial data on the development of farce and on cultural, religious, and political events, Beam reconstructs a part of history from the pre–Religious Wars (1450–1550) until the establishment of absolutism in France (1550–1660).

Written so as to be accessible to nonspecialists, Beam’s book presents a chronological layout of the chapters, which supplies a logical structure to the argument. Calling the period between 1450 and 1550 the “heyday” of farce, Beam argues that farce’s bawdy humor was tolerated because “plays reflected values held dear by all urban residents, most important among them being Christian morality and the need to maintain one’s personal honor” (18). Farces “often pointed lessons of obedience, piety, and resignation” by ridiculing the bad, as Molière would claim a century later (33). She also argues that it was a medium “to focus young men’s rowdy energies” (58). Beam notes that farce was always somewhat controlled even throughout this auspicious period, and she demonstrates quite effectively that it was not an innocuous form of art:

Being patrons of farce also meant engaging in manipulation of public opinion, most of the time at the local level but sometimes concerning matters of royal policy. Indeed, those who regulated and patronized farce, as well as the performers who eluded their censorship efforts, were creating a political public sphere in Renaissance France.

(68)

Beam suggests that farce’s regulation and support at the city level were the sign of a decentralized monarchical power. She provides concrete examples of how farce was used to offer the king public counsel on the occasion of his passing through cities. The body politic used such public counsel to remind the king that he needed the cooperation of his people to govern successfully (75).

Beam identifies a notable change in mentality between 1550 and 1660, when political and religious satire was pushed underground because of the Religious Wars (1562–98) and the reign of Henry IV (1589–1610) (3). She explains that when religious conflicts arose in France, farce was quickly suspected as the cause of disorder and violence in the streets of French cities (58, 63, 112, 114). Beam claims that the “urban elite … decided that farce was dangerous in principle” and points out that this change of heart toward farce is a significant indication of its critical nature (58). She discusses how over time the plots of farce gave way to an “absolutism discourse,” which she defines as “a way to addressing the monarch that flatters and cajoles him by apparently accepting his view of himself and refrains from insisting on the traditional political privileges of the nobility or the city officials” (75, 182, 185).

Throughout her text, Beam pays attention to the theatrical patronage of the French kings, to farce in particular. The kings gradually took control of this genre, a “weapon … and an object over which different bodies competed to control” (55). And while the kings permitted farce to survive a little longer, urban officials, on the other hand, wished to stifle it. This, she claims, was another indication that the foundation of a centralizing power was what impacted the evolution of farce. But once monarchical power was virtually all concentrated in the head of the body, that is, the king, city officials and amateur performers fitted their drama to what the king wanted. It is no surprise, then, that, given its bawdy nature, farce barely resurfaced.

Beam attempts to rectify the focus of historians who have bestowed too much...