- COLLÉ (Charles). La Partie de chasse de Henri IV, comedy in three acts & in prose, with four intaglio prints, after the drawings of M. Gravelot. Paris, veuve Duchesne, Gueffier, 1766; in 8°, 120 pp. (the first ix in roman), with 4 plates engraved by Duclos, Rousseau and Simonet after Gravelot, orange paper boards decorated with a white dot pattern, long green title-piece, marbled edges. 19th century binding. A good copy. First edition of this play which can be read as a dramatic manifesto in favour of what is not yet called "Orleanism".it forms in effect the second version of The King and the miller, inspired by Robert Dodsley (The King and the miller of Mansfiled, 1736), and was first performed on July 8, 1762 in Bagnolet, on the theatre of the duke of Orleans (and which corresponds to acts II and III of the final version). Despite its great success, it was not admitted to the repertoire of the Comédie française. Collé then decided to give it more scope, and added the present Act I, centred on the character of Sully, based on the then common edition of the Memoirs of this minister. Thus modified, the play was again performed at Bagnolet on 25 December 1764, at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels (1 January 1767) and in many society theatres. The printing was authorized in 1766, but Louis XV was always opposed to its being performed on Parisian stages. No doubt the sovereign feared the parallel that would have been drawn between his style of monarchy and that of Henry IV. The exaltation of the ideal of a monarchy rooted directly in the people and setting aside the nobility and the court, presented as hotbeds of intrigue, could then be seen as subversive, even if it was perfectly anachronistic as far as Henry IV was concerned. It was not until the advent of Louis XVI that it finally appeared in the repertoire of the Comédie française; it was a huge success from 1774 onwards. Until the French Revolution, it was performed as often as The Marriage of Figaro. Favoured by the Restoration, which had taken the figure of Henry IV as a model of benevolent and restorative government, it continued to be performed until the beginning of the 20th century. Cioranescu, XVIII, 20080. Cohen, 246-47.