Total Theatre for Total War: Experiences of the Military Play in Revolutionary France

Abstract

After storming the Bastille on 14 July 1789, Joseph Arné had little time to take in the significance of his actions. Earlier that day, the twenty-something soldier from Franche-Comté had led a daring assault, neutralized several Swiss Guards with his bare hands, and supposedly disabled a cannon that was pointed at his charging comrades. As the sun set, Arné was greeted by throngs of cheering Parisians, who joined the young grenadier in patriotic songs, chants, and dancing. What Arné perhaps did not understand when he finally went to sleep that night was that he was about to become a theatrical star and a public figure. The next morning, Arné was back in the streets, this time “drawn through Paris in a triumphal chariot.” Several weeks later, he was portrayed as the protagonist in La Fête du grenadier, the first play dedicated to the July events, which premiered at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu on 3 September. That evening, the real-life Arné, and not the actor who was playing him, was “enthusiastically celebrated by the spectators and at the end of the piece went onstage to standing ovations.”