History, Politics, and Melodrama in Boirie's Henri IV, ou la Prise de Pari

Given the date of its production (1814) and the transparence of its historical subject matter, Boirie's play is clearly meant to celebrate the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. Analyses of the actantial structure and of the plot of the play show that the melodramatist shapes and orders his historical materials in accord with generic (i.e., dramatic) imperatives rather than out of concern for representational accuracy. This leaves historical events ripe for ideological manipulation. Indeed, when pressed between Peter Brooks's moralist and Anne Ubersfeld's Marxist definitions of the ideology of melodrama, Henri IV, ou la Prise de Paris yields up two messages: (1) that the right to rule can only be redounded to the virtuous, and (2) that the principal supporters of virtue, and hence of the monarchy, are to be found among the bourgeoisie. Thus, if on one level Henri IV, ou la Prise de Paris celebrates the Restoration of 1814 by means of a transparent historical fiction, on another level it appears to announce the unification of France under the rule of the bourgeoisie. (BTC)