A constrained prelate: Political gesture in French memoirs (second half of the 17th century)

Abstract

A vagary of the duke de La Rochefoucauld, who constrained the coadjutor of Paris, J.-F.-P. de Gondi, in a door in the building of the Parliament of Paris, was one of the most dramatic episodes of the Fronde, and was depicted in several memoirs from that period. The article deals with texts by the cardinal de Retz, F. de La Rochefoucauld, F. de Motteville, and G. Joly to analyze these memoirists' construction of the two main meanings of La Rochefoudauld's gesture — threat and abuse. The author looks into narrative strategies determined by the political, social and spatial position of each memoirist during the confict. Our analysis reveals interrelations between politics and literature, strategies of political action and textual utterance. Abuse appears to be an effective ‘scenic' political weapon in early modern politics and reveals the importance of imagination, allusions and ambiguities in political actions as well as in texts. Corrspondingly, memoirs about the Fronde had much in common with novels, stage plays, burlesques in ways of affecting the reader, with political intention being far more important than telling a ‘true' story.