LA MORT DE MITRIDATE - University of Liverpool

La Mort de Mitridate
d’Allemagne’. 19 Leaving the winter quarters for Paris, he could then have seen his
first play performed at the end of the year. An anecdote is responsible for the
tradition that it was performed on Twelfth Night, le jour des Rois. At the moment
in the last act when Mitridate drinks the poison saying: ‘Mais, c’est trop differer’
(V.1.1461), a wag in the parterre began shouting: ‘Le Roi boit, le Roi boit’. 20
However, since the play is mentioned in the Épître to Mairet’s Galanteries du duc
d’Ossonne, the publication of which precedes Twelfth Night, this could not have
been its first performance as some of the encyclopedists believed. 21
Unfortunately, as with all but one of La Calprenède’s plays, we do not know at
which theatre La Mort de Mitridate was performed. What evidence we do possess
would seem to point to the Hôtel de Bourgogne, the frères Parfaict, for example,
saying that the plays were given ‘au Théâtre François’. 22 Certainly Le Comte
d’Essex was in the repertory of the Hôtel de Bourgogne between 1642 and 1647, 23
and Bellissaire was performed there in 1659. 24 It is also likely that La
Calprenède’s sequel to Tristan’s Mariane, La Mort des enfans d’Hérode, was
written to allow this theatre to take advantage of La Mariane’s success at the
Marais. Deierkauf-Holsboer also proposes an association with the Hôtel de
Bourgogne (II, 20), a view which is strengthened by the fact that a contemporary
panegyric of La Calprenède by Grenaille also contains fulsome praise of the
troupe royale. 25 Although Mahelot does not include a design of the set for the
play, only two tragedies are included amongst his designs for the Hôtel de
Bourgogne. 26
La Mort de Mitridate met with considerable success. Tallemant relates how
during the run of the play La Calprenède was seen dressed in an extravagant
fashion. On being asked the colour of this costume, the marquis de Gesvres
quipped: ‘C’est du Mitridate’ (p. 585). In the Épître to Les Galanteries du duc
d’Ossonne, Mairet singles out Benserade for his Cléopâtre along with La
19 Théâtre du XVII e siècle, II, 206.
20 Hoefer, Léris (p. 227), Michaud, Nicéron (p. 241), Parfaict (Histoire, V, 160).
21
Hoefer, Léris, Michaud, Nicéron.
22
Dictionnaire des théâtres de Paris, 7 vols (Paris: Lambert, 1756), s.v. Calprenède.
23
S. Wilma Deierkauf-Holsboer, Le Théâtre de l’Hôtel de Bourgogne, 2 vols (Paris:
Nizet, 1968-70), II, 51. See also [Laurent] Mahelot, Le Mémoire de Mahelot, Laurent
et d’autres décorateurs de l’Hôtel de Bourgogne, ed. by Henry Carrington Lancaster
(Paris: Champion, 1920), pp. 26-28, 54.
24
Bellissaire is the one play for which we know the theatre where it was performed: see
Jean Loret, La Muze historique, new edn, rev. by Ch.-L. Livet and others, 4 vols
(Paris: Jannet, 1857-78), III (1878), 78 (12 July 1659). The play itself appears never to
have been printed and has been lost.
25
[François Chatounières de] Grenaille, ‘Ouverture générale à toute la pièce avec un
discours sur les Poëmes Dramatiques de ce temps’, prefacing his Innocent
malheureux; ou, La Mort de Crispe (Paris: Paslé, 1639), sig. ã4 r .
26
Le Mémoire de Mahelot: Mémoire pour la décoration des pièces qui se représentent
par les Comédiens du Roi, ed. by Pierre Pasquier (Paris: Champion, 2005), p. 103.
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