Chapter 1 - From tragédie nationale to pièce militaire: Pierre-Laurent de Belloy’s Le Siège de Calais

Summary

This chapter describes theatrical responses to France’s defeat in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), often described by historians as the first global war. This is achieved through a close reading of the dramatic text and performance history of Pierre-Laurent de Belloy’s Le Siège de Calais (1765), which was pitched by its author as France’s “first national tragedy” and used by government officials to rally French subjects around their country and their army. The play was vital in creating through theater a new relationship between French subjects and the nation’s armed conflicts. De Belloy’s success was predicated on his manipulation of new forms of “bourgeois” and “sentimental” drama, and the play went on to inspire more soldier plays and war dramas. The chapter concludes with an examination of the tragedy’s reverberations throughout the French empire by way of parodies and public readings of Le Siège de Calais in fairground theaters and military garrisons.