A Theater of Diplomacy. Ellen R. Welch
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Название: A Theater of Diplomacy
Автор: Ellen R. Welch
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Историческая литература
Серия: Haney Foundation Series
isbn: 9780812293869
isbn:
That I can no longer recognize
Which of the two of you is the real Jupiter.69
Mercury’s confusion recalls myths about Jupiter (perhaps especially the story of Amphitryon) that depict him as a shape-shifter who enjoys masquerading as mortal creatures. In a reversal of those tales, though, Mercury represents Louis XIII as the imitator of the god. The verses highlight the French king’s divine right to rule and his supreme power. The comparison to Jupiter lifts him above the lesser mythological “monarchs” whose entrées preceded this part of the ballet.
The staging and rhetoric of these scenes clearly transfer sovereignty from the mythological figure leading the performances of France to the extradiegetic French king. Yet the principle of similitude between the divine head of the entrée and the character of the people she leads remains in place. Although Minerva has been associated with wisdom, music, and the arts, this ballet stresses her relationship to war. She presents a sword and pike to the king as symbols of his valor, as underscored by the accompanying récit:
Most glorious Monarch
Who ever walked the earth,
Just and victorious Prince,
Supporter of laws and honor of war,
The Gods, oh worthy king,
Have they more divine qualities than you?70
Echoing Mercury’s assertion of Louis XIII’s divinity, these verses imbue the king with the virtues Minerva herself embodies.
Although conceived to respond to the delicate reconciliation of Louis XIII and Gaston d’Orléans, the Ballet des quatre monarchies chrétiennes performs additional, more subtle political work in the way it figures sovereignty. It rehearses the reflection on national character typical of the ballet of nations genre, but it also extends that reflection to the person of the monarch, positing that the most appropriate leader or figurehead for a people is one who shares that people’s traits. The ballet implies that embodying the state entails not simply a contractual authorization to “speak for” the populace but also an essential resemblance to it, an ability to incarnate and do justice to its national character.
Staging Interaction
How national cultural traits (such as language or religion) should affect the government of states was a matter of debate in early modern political theory. In particular, early works on international relations considered national character an important concern in organizing the political landscape of Europe. Emeric Crucé’s Le nouveau Cynée (The New Cineas), published in 1623, Sully’s “Grand Design,” published in his Les oeconomies royales, ou mémoires d’État (Royal Economy, or, Memoirs of State) in 1638 but circulated in manuscript form as early as the 1610s, and Hugo Grotius’s De jure belli ac pacis (The Rights of War and Peace), published in Latin in 1625 delved into questions of nationality and sovereignty as they pertained to international cooperation. Most often read as providing the theoretical undergirding for an emergent “society of states” in early modern Europe (a concept to be discussed further in Chapter 5), these texts also challenge the presumption that sovereignty did not necessarily have to respect natural or linguistic borders.
Crucé, for example, argued that ambitious sovereigns trumped up cultural or ethnic rivalries between their subjects and those of their neighbors in order to fuel violent competition for territory. Such antagonism would cease, he contended, if everyone would recognize the meaninglessness of cultural differences between “nations”: “I say that such enmities are merely political, and cannot take away the conjunction that is and must be between men…. Why should I who is French wish ill upon an Englishman, Spaniard, or Indian? I cannot when I consider that they are men like me.”71 If sovereigns would only see the unfoundedness of regional and cultural enmities, perhaps they would limit the extent of their ambitions, content themselves within the borders of their existing dominions, and all of Europe could benefit from the peace and prosperity that would follow.72
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