Artémise, princesse de Carie : essai de décryptage d’un roman à clef

Abstract

Artémise, princesse de Carie (1635) is a novel about a woman, Madame de Morangis, who was close to Queen Anne of Austria. Its unknown author (Georges de Scudéry or/and his sister Madeleine?), who claimed to be familiar with the royal court, recounts, through a story set in ancient Persia, the rivalry in love of two enemy brothers, who we can recognize as Gaston d’Orléans and Louis XIII. The purpose of this study is to decipher the historical allusions concealed in this work and to analyse how it functions as a roman à clef. It reveals that the latter cannot be seen solely as an allegorical reflection of reality. The author sought above all to use the story to illustrate a political plan in accordance with events of the time. In 1634, the king and his brother had just officially reconciled and it seems that Artemise was intended to illustrate through fiction the search for an agreement between the two men that transcended their disaccord. Thus in this romance their rivalry is constantly considered in the light of an ideal of concord. However, this ideal is not fully expressed: the novel is unfinished and Artemise’s adventures do not culminate in the happy end promised in the preface. Their course may have been interrupted, following the brief episode of his return to favour, by renewed political tensions between Gaston d’Orléans and Louis XIII and Richelieu.

Keywords

• Orléans (Gaston d’)
• Louis XIII
• Richelieu
• Morangis (Madame de)
• Scudéry
• roman à clef