La Maréchale d'Ancre

Octavo, xiv and 142 pages. Paperback, printed cover, as published.

215 x 135 mm.

Vigny, Alfred de. La Maréchale d’Ancre.
Paris, Charles Gosselin, 1831.

First edition of this beautiful drama by Alfred de Vigny, which aroused the admiration of Alexandre Dumas and Sainte-Beuve.
Clouzot, 275; Carteret, II, 454; Vicaire, VII, 1057-1058.

“Your work is beautiful, my dear Alfred, 1617 is entirely alive. It is the playful and brave Court of Louis XIII, and all these lords have words that fit well with velvet and satin. Your 3rd act is one of the most beautiful in all theatre” (Alexandre Dumas).

“My dear friend, I return filled with the emotions from your Maréchale. […] The 3rd and 4th acts seem to me admirable from beginning to end, of a powerful, continuous, contrasted drama, ever increasing. […] You have never done anything more beautiful than this” (Sainte-Beuve).

Drama in five acts and in prose performed at the Théâtre Royal de l’Odéon on June 25, 1831, the play tells the dramatic end of the Florentine Concini, Marshal d’Ancre, and his wife Léonora Galigaï, favorite of the regent Marie de’ Medici (1615). To strengthen their position, the couple succeeded in imprisoning the Prince de Condé, leader of the disaffected party. This overly bold move ignited the powder keg and signaled the uprising that would bring down the Concinis, discredit the Regent, and lead to the personal reign of the young king Louis XIII.

After reading Vigny’s play, Jean-Michel Berton, future deputy for Lot, was also enthusiastic: “Reading with delight your Maréchale d’Ancre, I wholeheartedly cursed the political ambition that kept me 150 leagues away from Paris when it was performed at the Odéon during the 1831 elections. Your prose is poetry, true poetry, the kind founded on the play of passions.”

Beautiful copy, enriched with a lithograph by Tony Johannot, preserved in its original brochure, as issued.

Provenance: from the library of Georges Vandaele, with bookplate.