RICHELIEU'S DESMARETS C

Jean Desmarets later Sieur de Saint-Sorlin was a late Renaissance `universal man': first Chancellor and founder-member of the Académie-française last jester of the French royal court and star performer in ballets novelist playwright poet architect inventor and mystic. He was also the first man to publicize the notion of `a century of Louis XIV'. Hugh Gaston Hall's book examines that notion by looking afresh at Desmarets' vigorous career andrelating the `century of Louis XIV' to its origins in the reign of Louis XIII. It questions historical misconceptions about Cardinal Richelieu's cultural policies and demonstrates the importance for the Court ballet of his patronage. Giovanni Bernini's illusionist sets and lighting effects for the Grand'Sallewhich later became Molière's theatre and the Opéra are discussed here in English for the first time. Desmarets' many high-level court offices his family connections and works - ballets plays poems and religious and polemical pieces - reveal new and important links with contemporary institutions and preoccupations. In particular Dr Hall considers the plays in the light of exemplary eloquence and considers the intentions of the Académie-française and the Quarrel of theImaginaires in relation to royal policy and the Cartesian revolution.