Grace
Dalrymple Elliott's friendship with the Duc d'Orleans forms
the basis for the French film The Lady and the Duke
(L'Anglaise et le duc), directed by Eric Rohmer, which
highlights the events of the French Revolution from the viewpoint
of the aristocracy. When the film begins, in 1790, not long
after the storming of the Bastille, the Duke (played by Jean-Claude
Dreyfus) has just returned from England to play a key political
role in the revolution. Grace (played by Lucy Russell), his
onetime lover, greets the Duke at her estate in Paris. The
Duke urges Grace to leave for England while the coast is still
clear. However, having been brought to France by her mother
some years ago when her affair with the Prince of Wales went
sour, she cannot now countenance leaving France, her adopted
country. She discounts the Duke's worst-case scenario because
she is an aristocrat and a royalist who cannot imagine how
common people could detest the monarchy or even the aristocracy.
Nevertheless, events deteriorate badly. A curfew is imposed,
the gates of the city are sealed, and houses are regularly
searched for traitors who are hiding out from orders for their
arrest. On one occasion Grace evades the authorities by climbing
through a breach in the city walls and then walking on foot
to her country home. When she receives word from a Paris friend
that someone needs her help, she goes back, only to discover
that the person needing assistance is Champcenetz (played
by Léonard Coblant), an aristocratic who has angered
the Duke and is on the most-wanted list of traitors, yet she
steadfastly protects him out of hatred for the uncouth revolutionaries.
One evening she stands up to a search party, looking for Champcenetz,
showing courage and ingenuity. The Duke magnanimously keeps
her protection of Champcenetz a secret, out of his respect
for her, and solemnly pledges not to vote the death penalty
for Louis XVI, who was then on trial. Yet the Duke later votes
for the guillotine, foolishly believing that he will thus
save his own skin and greatly disappointing Grace. In due
course, when England is at war with France, Grace is arrested
as an English citizen; for evidence, authorities confiscate
a sealed letter from an Englishman in Naples to a prominent
English opponent of the war with France. At her trial, the
letter is opened, and she is exonerated, but her anger in
court over the guillotining of the king results in her later
rearrest and detention as a traitor. When Robespierre is ousted,
she is released, but by then the Duke had been guillotined
as a member of the royal family despite his early support
for the revolution. Since historians tells us that the revolution
spun out of control and that the aristocracy was completely
out of touch with the masses, The Lady and the Duke
presents nothing new, though a different spin on events. Based
on Elliott's obscure autobiography Journal of My Life During
the French Revolution (1859), titles at the end are extracted
from the text of the book. The film has sets that appear to
be paintings but in fact are digitally inserted from drawings
by Jean-Baptiste Marot. The French movie has English subtitles,
but the stilted dialog appears to be for the convenience of
British filmviewers who might need to practice their French.
MH
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