The master's right

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Data
Title: Le Droit du Seigneur
Genus: comedy
Original language: French
Author: Voltaire
Publishing year: 1763
Premiere: January 18, 1762 in the Comédie-Française
Place of premiere: Paris
people
  • Le Marquis du Carrage
  • Le Chevalier de Gernance
  • Metaprosis , Vogt
  • Mathurin , farmer
  • Dignant , former servant
  • Acante , Dignant's foster child
  • Berthe , second wife of the Dignant
  • Colette
  • Champagne
  • servant
Jean-Michel Moreau : Illustration for Le Droit du seigneur , 1785

Le Droit du seigneur ( The Lord's Law ) is a sensitive comedy in five acts and in verse by Voltaire from 1760 . The play was premiered on January 18, 1762 in Paris with the unauthorized title L'Écueil du sage and published in book form the following year.

action

The action takes place in the French province of Picardy at the time of Henri II. The Marquis of Carrage is supposed to agree to the marriage of the beautiful Acante with the wealthy farmer Maturin. The marquis of integrity loves the girl herself, but cannot marry her due to the difference in class. In a draw, he repeatedly delays permission. Maturin fears that the Marquis wants to exercise the traditional rights of a man. After Acante is found to be the Marquis' cousin, three couples find each other.

Literary source and biographical references

Voltaire repeatedly dealt with the obscure, historically only selectively verifiable, Droit du seigneur , which he passionately denounced in the Essai sur les moers and in La Défense de mon oncle . In his lewd comedy Le Droit du seigneur , written in a few days at the request of Charles-Augustins de Ferriol d'Argental in 1760 , the law of men is cited only in the third act by a fear of Mathurin. The plot of the fleetingly written piece varies the marriage of a class , which was already a theme in the comedy Nanine of 1749. D'Argental submitted the piece to the Comédie-Française, which, however, to Voltaire's annoyance, did not take over the widely used title. Voltaire reworked the five-act first version into a three-act version, which was only performed after his death in 1779.

Performances and contemporary reception

The comedy premiered on January 18, 1762 at the Comédie-Française under a different title. The audience reacted cautiously. Isolated performances followed in the provinces and probably in Vienna . Charles-Nicolas Favart processed the material from Le Droit du seigneur into the libretto for the successful musical comedy Les Moissonneurs (1768) with musical interludes by Egidio Duni . The revised three-act version was not performed until 1779.

Going to press

Le Droit du Seigneur was first published by Duchesne in 1763 as a pirated print in Paris, according to Voltaire's assumption on the basis of the stage manuscript. The first authorized print of the five-act version took place in 1763 in the Ouvrages Dramatiques of the work edition at Cramer in Geneva. The editors of the Kehl 1784 edition of the work opted for the three-act version from 1779. For the current edition of Oxford's works, the print of the five-act version in the Cramer and Bardin edition of 1775 was used as the basic text.

First editions

  • Le Droit du seigneur, comédie en vers par M. de Voltaire, Représentée pour la première fois sous le titre de l'Écueil du sage, par les Comédiens françois ordinaires du Roi, le January 18, 1762 , Geneva, chez les Frères associés (Paris , Duchesne), 1763, 8 °, 119 pp.
  • Le droit du seigneur, comédie en cinq actes. Elle a été jouée à Paris sous le nom de l'Écueil du sage, qui n'était pas son véritable titre. , in: Ouvrages Dramatiques, avec les Pièces relatives à chacun. Tome cinquième, Geneva, Cramer, 1763, 8 °, pp. 325-472. on-line
  • Le Droit du seigneur, com'edie (sic!) En vers par M. de Voltaire, Représentée pour la première fois sous le titre de l'Écueil du sage, par les Comédiens françois ordinaires du Roi, le 18 janvier 1762. , Geneva , chez les Frères associés (Paris, Duchesne), 1763, 8 ° or 12 °, 119 pp.
  • l'Écueil du sage, comédie de M. de Voltaire, reduite à 3 acts pour le service de la Cour de Vienne par M. de la Ribadière. , Vienna, Ghelen, 1764, 8 °, 72 p. Online
  • Le droit du seigneur, comédie en cinq actes. Elle a été jouée à Paris sous le nom de l'Écueil du sage, qui n'était pas son véritable titre. , Geneva, Cramer, 1764, 8 °, p. 88. online
  • Le droit du seigneur, comedie en cinq actes. Par Mr. de Voltaire , Naples, Gravier, 1777, 108 p. Online

literature

  • Marcel Couvreur: Le Droit du seigneur , in: Dictionnaire Voltaire, Hachette Livre, 1994, p. 65.
  • Siegfried Detemple: The right of the first night, in: Voltaire: The works. 300th birthday catalog. Reichert, Wiesbaden 1994, p. 150 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Siegfried Detemple: Das Herrenrecht , in: Voltaire: Die Werke. 300th birthday catalog. Reichert, Wiesbaden 1994, p. 150.
  2. ↑ Marcel Couvreur: Le Droit du seigneur , in: Dictionnaire Voltaire, Hachette Livre, 1994, p. 65.
  3. ↑ Marcel Couvreur: Le Droit du seigneur , in: Dictionnaire Voltaire, Hachette Livre, 1994, p. 65.