Gaston d’Orléans héros d’une fabula néo-latine, la Peruviana de Claude-Barthélemy Morisot (1644)

Abstract

Shortly after the deaths of Louis XIII and Richelieu, a novel in Latin with a double key (historical and alchemical), the Peruviana, was published. It describes in great detail the political and romantic intrigues of the reign that had just ended. The novel borrows from the structure and narrative codes of the ancient epic and novel: the use of this referential framework as an enunciative system makes it possible to establish the work’s political meaning, and also to sketch an original and nuanced portrait of Gaston d’Orléans. Indeed, the author of this novel, Claude-Barthélemy Morisot, a parliamentarian and scholar from Dijon linked to the Dupuy brothers’ scholarly network, as well as to Monsieur’s entourage, made the latter the protagonist of the action, an imperfect hero with a thwarted destiny, in whose hands rests the reconquest of a family and social Concord damaged by the influence of Cardinal de Richelieu – and perhaps the hopes of the coming reign.

Keywords

• Orléans (Gaston d’)
• Morisot (Claude-Barthélemy)
• roman à clef
• neo-Latin
• ancient novel
• epic