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The paradox of Molière was to have been simultaneously a man of power and of contestation, an official figure and at the same time marginal. He found himself forever at the center of battles. The negotiation that permitted him a Christian burial was not the last of these.—Michel Delon, “Lectures de Molière au 18ème siècle” MolièrewasoneofthemostperformedplaywrightsoftheRevolution,but he was not spared the vilification of the Old Regime repertory that began inlate1792andcontinuedforeighteenmonths.LouisXVIwasguillotined in January 1793, his decapitated body thrown in a pit with quicklime to hasten its destruction. Thus France entered a new phase as revolutionaries grappled with the reality that guillotines and quicklime would not erase the Old Regime from the collective imaginary or vacate the power of its symbols. The phenomenon that came to be known as vandalisme révolutionnairebegan .“Vandalism”wastheneologismcoinedintheaftermathof the Terror to describe the widespread destruction or modification of the material and symbolic artifacts of the Old Regime. A decree issued on August 14, 1792, calling for the suppression of all “feudal signs” set off a frenzy of demolition, disinterment, incineration, and proscription that lasted nearlytwoyears.1 As for the theatre, depictions of Old Regime society were discouraged, deplored, and eventually punished. In the Journal des spectacles of November 11, 1793, the theatre critic J.-M. Boyer noted that the theatres, including the Comédie-Française, were rapidly reformulating their repertories. “We have eliminated from the stage anything that might represent, in dangerous and seductive forms, the tone, the spirit, the manners, and the prejudices of our former enslavement.”2 Indeed, by fall 1793 theatre managers were purging their repertoriesofplaysthatmightrecall“thehumiliationoftheFrenchunder 31 history Rewriting the Story of Molière and Louis XIV the Old Regime.”3 They had little choice: in August 1793 the CommitteeofPublicSafetyissuedadecreeimposingrestrictionsontheatrereper tories , ordering that “any theatre performing plays that corrupt public spirit and reawaken the shameful superstition of royalty will be closed, and the directors arrested and punished according to the rules of law.”4 TheordercameontheheelsofaJulycommuniqué,issuedinanticipation of visits to Paris by delegates of regional assemblies, in which the CommitteeofPublicSafetyinvited “theatredirectorsandshareholdingactors to confer with it about the plays they will present while the regional brothers are in Paris.”5 The September 1793 shutdown of the Théâtre de la Nation and the imprisonment of its company members left no doubt about the consequences for those theatres defying the August decree. Iftherewasanopeninggunshotinthewarontheatricalrepertory,itwas the controversy over Jean-Louis Laya’s L’Ami des lois that arose in January 1793.TheplayopenedinJanuaryattheThéâtredelaNation,justasthetrial ofLouisXVIwastakingplace.Theplaycriticizedtheradicaldirectionthe Revolution had taken in general and the extremism of the Jacobin faction inparticular.ItrepresentedRobespierreandJean-PaulMaratinbarelydisguised terms as the characters “Nomophage” and “Duricrâne.” Over the next two weeks the play became a focal point in a power struggle that pitted the municipal government of Paris against the National Convention. The Commune initially prohibited performances of Laya’s play and then furthercommandedthatalltheatresbeclosedduringthecontroversy.The National Convention nullified the municipal ban and ordered theatres to stay open. Caught in the middle of this tug-of-war was the Théâtre de la Nation,whichdespitethissupportdecidedonJanuary14toforgotheperformanceofLaya ’splayandreplaceitwith L’Avare.Thedecisionbackfired, as audiences refused to let the performance of Molière’s play take place.6 Overthenextsixmonths,repertorieswerescrutinizedandcondemnednot just for plays with antirevolutionary sentiment—few theatres would dare it anyway—but for sedition in the form of any seemingly favorable representation of Old Regime society. As is evident from the revolutionary press, the vilification of the Old RegimerepertorygrewharsherafterSeptember1793.Playsportraying“life under despotism” were no longer to be tolerated, according to the Feuille du salut public.7 A theatre surveillance officer deplored having to attend pieces recalling “our former errors.” “Let’s burn, if we must,” he wrote, “the 50 1 h i s t o r y masterpiecesofMolière,Regnard,etc.Theartswilllosesomethingbutour principleswillsurelygain.”8 TheJournaldelaMontagnedemandedthatthe nation “no longer present any play that recalls the Old Regime, if not to make it detestable, to recall its vices, its absurdities, its monstrous abuses, and to anathemize it. . . . Let us pack away in our libraries those plays with kings and stuff in our attics the faded finery of those little princes of the boards.”9 Tragedies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were the naturaltargetsfortheseattacks:“Almosteverytragedyinspiresdevotionto kings,” according to another article in Feuille du salut public; “one dared to call our national drama those plays in which the French are humbly prostrated before a glorious monarch.”10 “No more kings on our stages,” pronounced the Journal de la Montagne, “unless they appear cruel, bloodthirsty , barbarous, false, or hypocritical, such as...

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