SOURCE: "The People in Seventeenth Century French Tragedy," in Modern Language Notes, Vol. LII, No. 11, November, 1937, pp 475–81.

In the essay that follows, Baudin discusses the depiction of popular sentiment in seventeenth century French tragedy in relation to the changing political atmosphere of the time.

[Cardinal] Richelieu and Louis XIV established an order in which the people had no voice; accordingly, in the theater, public opinion, a counterpart to tyranny, was no more than a relic of another age that had become a cliché. Like obsolete tyranny, emancipation may tempt the skill of a du Ryer or a Corneille, but does not engage his convictions. Such, I believe, is the consensus of modern criticism. With due regard to the history of popular assertiveness, the temper of the government, and the persuasion of the dramatists, I submit that the tragedy of the XVIIth century embodies a new notion of the...