"THE KING DANCES" "We'll begin." "But Mr. de Lully..." "Not without the King!" "The King will not come." "Silence!" "The King's Te Deum!" "Don't amputate!" "Not the leg!" "Not a dancer's leg!" "I beg you..." "Let me go!" "Very well, cut out my heart!" "but not my leg!" "Not a dancer's leg!" "Since when has our music" "Ceased to please the King?" "Since you began to play him your own?" "You moan just climbing stairs." "As for dancing..." "Is muddy Italy to dictate its ways to the French Court?" "Dance is a French specialty, my good man." "Nothing to do with opera, that ludicrous Italian form which few French can abide." "Nothing but vocalizing!" "Can you imagine?" "The King dances, Monsieur, he does not sing." "Music is movement, must be movement." "Attracting the King's attention has turned your head." "Such favors last no longer than fairy tales." "The toad will turn back into a toad." "Indeed, the Italian still reeks of mud." "Monsieur de Cambefort..." "Tell Lully I wish to speak to him." "The King, Monsieur..." "Notes follow the movement like butterflies." "Caught up in its wake." "but who leads whom?" " The King wants you." " He can wait." "He's master, he has all the time he wants." "The King..." "Wait?" "Lully, Sire... asks Your Majesty to wait." "He dares say, Sire, you are the master, therefore you can wait." "Mr. Lully works for our pleasure." "We are content." "The King dances." "February 23, 1653" "Sire!" "Come!" "I've a surprise." "The sun will rise soon." "I'll never be ready." "Per favore, a royal surprise." "So they can see you as never before." "You're stubborn like me." "but luckily you're curious like me." "A fine fault, even in a king." "A kind of personal little platform." "A little stage to carry with you, from which Your Majesty can dominate the world." "You're mad." "I can't dance in these." "I wore them myself, to break them in." "See how supple they are." "You'll tower over the greatest men!" "I swear on my mother's head," "I want the best for you." "I want them to drool with awe... to acclaim you, for I would see you happy." "I warn you:" "If I fail, you go right back to Italy." "And if you don't fail?" "What would you like most?" "To be French, Sire." "An Italian is despised in Paris today." "My heart is entirely French, Sire." "Lo giuro." "Only my tongue still resists." "but if you like, I will cut it off." "It serves no purpose for playing music or dancing." "I must cut it off." "Once I am truly the King," "I shall make you French." "but you are the King!" "On stage, Baptiste, only on stage." "The realm of Music and Dance is all my mother and her ministers allow me." "Power..." "Pleasure..." "Radiance..." "As the light arises from the Sun, still in the fire of its Dawn," "Honor follows its luminous train. "" " Look!" "Prince de Conti!" " Is he back in favor?" "The King keeps him in check." "See how he shrinks." "In its wake, ever follow" "Grace... and Victory. "" "He has all the young rebels dancing!" "Yesterday's foes." "A son per family won over." "An excellent idea." "So they find you talented, you Florentine scourge!" "but your luck could quickly turn." "The King loathes Italian manners." "A pity!" "Favor, Renown and Peace now all join in the universal chorus to celebrate he who," "with his divine rays, brings down to Earth" "Life and Light." "This child..." "He is no longer a child, Madam, he is a king." "Eight years later March 10, 1661" "O Lord, don't let me tremble." "Often I cannot find the words, and though I would not admit it," "I'm often beset by doubt." "My mother will oppose me." "I must resist." "Stand up to her anger, her tears." "I must speak clearly and firmly, suffer no argument." "Lord, I beg you, do not forsake me." "The Cardinal is dead." "Now is the time." "Gentlemen." "Madam." "Today, the theater inaugurates a new drama." "Until now, I have Let my ministers govern under the late Cardinal," "Mazarin." "Henceforth, I rule alone." "I shall govern on my own." "You will counsel me if I request it." "I order you to sign nothing, not even a passport, without my consent." "Such is my will, gentlemen." "Now you must obey it." "Louis!" "You cannot rule without a Prime Minister." "That, Madam, is exactly what I intend to do." "but, Louis!" "You have no experience of governing." "Yes, you know the guitar." "And hunting, and ballet!" "but the State?" "What do you know of that?" "I think I know how to govern properly." "As for my fondness for ballet, know this:" "My father founded a French Academy, I shall create one for dance." "This shall be my first decree." "My poor child!" "well, well... my cousin Conti." "It's admirable, Madam, how he has regained your favor... since giving up his riotous life to adopt these airs of fervent piety." "At least he doesn't flaunt a mistress 6 months after marrying a Spanish princess!" "before playing the prude, our Conti did worse things than I ever will." "My lord de Conti is a Pharisee like his order of bigots," "which, banned by the Cardinal, still meets in secret." "As prince of the blood, he is a royal threat and richer than I." "How I loathe these long, hypocritical faces!" "France is exhausted, she is ill." "She needs lively blood, a new sun." "I revere God as you do, dear Mother, but ours are different gods." "Yours wallows in shadow and penance." "He bewails the past." "He fears the future." "Mine is the God of life." "He drives me toward the light." "Whatever you and your friends in black think," "I shall be my God's eldest son, and representative on earth." "The Prince de Conti will surely frown on this, but I care not." "He may no longer sit in Council." "You can't exclude him!" "Who is to prevent me?" "I will!" "Then I have no choice but to exclude you, as well." "You wouldn't dare!" "Louis!" "I would, Mother, for the good of the realm." "In fact, it is done." "Cousin, the Queen and you will no longer attend the Council." "Sire!" "I am 22 years old, Mother, and I am your King." "The King dances!" "Play the finest music for the god Jupiter," "Master of the Universe!" "You'd given me your word, Madeleine." "Your father awaited my proposal." "I thought it was his wish, too." "It is the King's wish." "The King's?" "Lully's?" "Or yours?" "Lully, the King, it's all the same." "I am nothing." "Lully turned your head, as he did the King's." "He is steeped in vice." "He lies with boys and visits whores." "Madeleine, you're mine." " Must I remind you..." " He knows." "I told him, hoping to disgust him." "He only laughed." "He found it titillating to come after you." "When the King married 6 months ago Lully decided to do the same." "Coming, my angel?" "You won't have her." "Change your tone, Mr. Steward of the Queen's Music." "I understand you make her weep." "bravo!" "I have the King's ear." "He likes my music." "I make him dance." "When he dances, he's like a god." "My sun rose with the King's." "You'll be forgotten along with the old court." "Madeleine chose well." "Don't, please!" "Weakness means your downfall here." "Mr. Le Vau, Mr. Le Notre!" "I want an enchanted garden, with flowerbeds, ponds, fountains, forests." "Ali to be built in this perspective." "Sire, the countryside around Versailles is hopelessly flat." "The ground is a sewer." "There are trees on the hills, but only marshes here." "Nature must obey as men do." "I wish it." "Do it." "Hire 3,ooo workers, if you must, plant full-grown trees." "Here we shall built a canal, wide as a sea." "I will sail galleys upon it." "About statues..." "Le Vau, we'll discuss the statues, for the ponds, too." "There, a maze to lose myself in with someone eager to find me." "There an open-air theater for Mr. de Molière and his sumptuous theatricals." "Molière, come here." "Start thinking about entertainments, something with brio." "See Lully." "He knows my tastes." "I will provide the theme." "I will see to it, Sire." "Heed him." "He will set your words to music as he does my dreams." "We will make this marsh dance, make this kingdom dance." "We shall give such balls as none have dreamed of." "With lights to dim the stars." "We shall sing of life, of love." "A glimpse of Eden before the Fail." "My Lord, this is an outrage." "He'd sink us in this swamp?" "The fever's still rising." "The windows!" " I can't breathe!" " The wind's too strong, Sire." " Fresh sheets will cool you." " Prepare everything!" "Let go of me!" "Molière..." "Preparing our festivities?" "Yes, Sire." "We'll astonish them." "It's the fever!" "We must bleed his foot." " We did, three times." " Cup him, then?" "How is he?" "I can't just wait." "They've barred my way." "He won't die, will he?" "If he dies, I lose everything." "It can't be." "God won't allow it." "You, invoking God?" "When I need God, I'm a good Christian." "You're a strange one." "Not him." "He can't die, he's young, strong." "He's a god." "He can't die, he's a god." "How inopportune, is it not?" "No more dancing, Signor Batista." "Tomorrow, I will have your pretty ass booted out of this court that your antics contaminate." "bugger you, my prince!" "Make way!" "Monsieur, the baby is coming!" "Madeleine needs you." "The baby's in the breech position." " Tend to her." "I'm busy." " busy!" "He needs me." "Don't leave me." "I'm here, Louis." "You must think of the kingdom's future." "Your cousin Conti is here." "For the love of God, speak to him." "You've been recommended to me with great urgency, cousin." "I entrust to you what is most dear to me..." "My mother and my kingdom." "Let him in." "Let him in." "Get out!" "She's dead!" " She's dead..." "Madeleine!" " back, you'll smother her!" "Let him in." "It's a miracle." "You're a wizard, Baptiste." "No, no, Molière!" "How can you have speaking and singing in the same scene?" "Moron can say he's so used to singing he can't talk otherwise." " And?" " Satyre answers in song." "Music first, music and nothing but." "Mixing words and music!" "They won't understand." "An audience understands if it knows the basic rules." "Words and music don't mix that easily." "The unconventional scares you." "Why refuse to blend them?" "It's like a dialogue..." "Let go!" "It's like two people vying for power." "Ludicrous!" "Ludicrous!" "The King won't like it." "Why won't he like it?" "You're the Ludicrous one." "Anyway, we can't back out now." "May 8, 1664" "Do you know what those two buffoons have in store?" "The worst, Madam, the worst." "but he'll like it, I fear." "Most ladies today can be led by the ears." "Thus everyone meddles in music." "One only wins them over with little songs." "I must learn to sing as others do." "And here's just the man." "Satyre, my friend, remember your promise:" "Teach me to sing." "A song?" "A song for singing?" "Good gracious, a love song!" "He's so used to singing he can only talk that way." "Let us sing..." "Sing to my beloved, dear bird..." "See, we've done it!" "My mortal pain, dear bird" "My deathly pain" "Wait, Madeleine!" "Wait, please!" "It can't be too late." "I don't know how your brow remains so pure." "When I think of Lully infecting you, or how you could become like all these swine!" "Not you!" "Not us!" "I can't undo what is done." "He is my husband before God." "before the King." "God had nothing to do with it." "Wear this." "It will protect you, as my love would protect you." "God is my Last hope since you left me." " I didn't leave you." " Answer me." "Is it Baptiste or is it me?" "He gave me two sons, and I sleep in his bed." "It was your decision." "You're too young to be at court, naughty girl!" "I'm a dream, Baptiste." "A cloud." "An angel." "A little devil, rather." "You alone resist me." "If you weren't my wife's niece..." "Long live the comedy-ballet!" "As high priestess of the arts, and certified virgin," "I invite you to celebrate the nuptials of Theater and Music." "Jean-Baptiste Molière, King's upholsterer, author and actor, do you take in true and loyal union, Jean-Baptiste Lully," "Steward of the King's Music, to love, cherish and support him till death do you part?" "Jean-Baptiste Lully is a usurper, a sodomite" "and the devil incarnate." "And Molière, an incestuous libertine, who married his own daughter." "It's public knowledge." "The King protects you but God will not spare you." "The products of this monstrous union will be doomed to the flames." "Nothing will remain!" "What can be more odious than these zealots, charlatans who scoff at what mortals hold most sacred." "The King won't confront his mother." "He's using you." "You'll be taking all the risks." "I serve the King, Baptiste." "He's prescribed the words we're to use on stage and which I enjoy rehearsing." "Self-interested people who make piety their stock in trade." "Who buy merit and dignity with winks and false gushing." "The zealots have powerful protectors." "You're mad." "People we see on the way to Heaven, rushing to fortune, burning and praying, adapting their zeal to their vices." "Ali the more dangerous for killing with sanctified steel using the weapons we revere." "We are the instruments, the hands." "Instruments are broken, hands cut off." "Coward!" "We must spit on the old graybeards, and your mouth is dry." "Take this handkerchief before you speak." "Cover that bosom, the flesh is weak." "Such sights as that undermine the soul." "Unclean thoughts are difficult to control." "Your soul, it seems, has poor defenses," "Has flesh such sway over your senses?" "If I saw you naked from head to toe" "Not all your skin would tempt me so." "Madam is coming down..." "I must be too old to appreciate Mr. Molière's jests." "but I see he mocks the pious." "May Heaven, whose infinite goodness we adore," "Preserve your body and soul forevermore." " I trust you are again well and strong" " Quite well, the fever didn't last for long." "My prayers, I am sure, Did not merit this cure." "Why is your hand there?" "Feeling your gown, what soft stuff!" "Please don't, I'm ticklish." "Enough!" "My, what lovely lacework on your dress!" "The workmanship's miraculous, no less." "I've seen nothing to equal it so." "You care for nothing here below." "My heart's not made of stone, you know." "To love eternal beauty far above Is not to be immune to earthly love." "Our senses are easily captivated by perfect works that Heaven created." "How to look on you, flawless creature," "And not admire the author of all nature?" "A most gallant declaration, sir, but don't you find it out of character?" "It ill becomes a pious man like you." "I may be pious, but I'm human too." "Though such words are strange from me." "I'm no angel nor meant to be." "And if you think I put myself to shame" "Your charms are to blame." "Don't you fear I may take a notion" "To tell my husband of your emotion?" "I know in your gracious charity, You will pardon my temerity," "And that you will bear in mind," "I'm human, and not blind." "Sit down, Madam." "Kindly cease this commotion." "Your manners, your protégés, your life cause the commotion." "You will account to God for it." "I'll work things out with Him." "Without sacred values, no reign can endure." "You are the Church's eldest son." "Don't be its shameful son." "Molière is a good servant, Madam." "His play is merely a farce." "It made many people laugh and did not displease me." "between Christ and a lowly buffoon, you choose the buffoon?" "No, Louis, so long as I live, nothing shall be done to those who spur the progress of devotion." "Molière is a devil." "A devil in man's clothing, the vilest sinner that ever lived." "He must do public penance for his lewd, irreligious poetry." "Sire, think of the consequences." "The Church condemns this play." "The Church has no mission to dictate to the King of France." "The theater, you will agree, Sire, must not judge the Church nor its advocates." "Louis, it is Molière or war with the high clergy." "Another rebellion..." "Is that what you want?" "Will you defy the voice of God?" "Armande is young." "You'll have other children." "My mother lost three, and still has four." "There's worse, my friend." "The King has banned your play." "He's banned Tartuffe." "but he commissioned the play." "The Queen Mother's clique has won." "Someone had to be sacrificed." "I read him a few scenes." "He had me modify each one." "They weren't harsh enough for him." "The old courtiers are using you to get at the King." "Once the King silences the zealots, once he rules alone, he will impose your play." "Words burn, Baptiste." "but with music you can say anything and remain above reproach." "Look at me." "I don't know failure." "It's a meaningless word." "Yes, it is the coward speaking." "Fear gives me wings, it makes me run like the wind." "I'm afraid." "Afraid since the day I arrived with my three penny violin." "Afraid to be sent back to Italy, to have no one to compose for, to set dancing." "Fear ensured my success." "Music is the queen." "We must wed her to the King." "I will write enchanted music and you a story, to accompany my music, are we clear on that?" "No explicit messages, no slings or arrows." "Our art is a political tool, it uses grace and emotion to turn the listener inside out, without his noticing." "I don't know..." "I can't..." "Yes, you can." "Come." "You must live." "Our life is a stage, you know that." "Or else death will claim you." "Come with me." "We'll scorch the asses of the zealots, the Queen, the King if you wish." "What have you done?" " Baptiste, what have you done?" " If I only knew." "Try as I may, I can remember nothing." "Oh, my God!" "Don't mention Him, please!" "You've been drinking?" "A lot." "And all the rest, as usual." "I don't remember." "The marquis's page... lovely as a girl, better than a girl..." "Lying on me naked this morning... with his throat cut." "You killed him?" "Killed?" "No, Madeleine, no!" "If so, you must tell me." "The zealots are behind this." "First they struck at Molière, now you." "They'll use every means to soil the King." "You must leave!" "I'll get the coach!" "Without him, I'm nothing." "He's my reason for living." "My talent is useless without him." "I can't leave him." "Forgive me, Madeleine." "Your heart belongs to another." "but me... what did I do to win you?" "I'm here." "I'm here, Baptiste." "I'm your wife." "I bear your children," "I keep your house, uphold your reputation." "I'm wholly devoted to you." "You fill my life." "You've become my life." "The disease is stubborn." "What we cut out has formed again." "but there's no putrefaction." "With God's help, and your courage, Majesty, we'll master it." "I ask Your Majesty to forgive me for the pain I'm about to cause you." "I won't cut deep tonight." "bite the sponge." "Adjust the movement of the planets, Beauchamp." "Planets don't brush against the Sun, they keep a respectful distance." "They allow it to glow." "The aim is to stress its brilliance, not smother it." "Air, Beauchamp!" "Air!" "You're angry." "I'm not guilty." "That night..." "I don't wish to know." "However," "I demand you change your ways." "Do you understand?" "Do you know the punishment for sodomy?" "Sire, I am married." "I know you're married." "Thank you, spare me that music." "Your wife has a great deal of merit to keep you." "So do I." "Consider your luck as great as your talent." "I thought we were friends." "I have no friends." "As for me..." "I've not changed toward you." "Music embodies universal harmony." "Thus... it has a political function in the order I wish to establish." "It serves me." "It serves the State and God." "The Steward of my music doesn't carry on like an ass." "France must have the finest music in Europe." "And the most respected." "My God!" "The physicians said they were healing you, that the disease had regressed." "They cut my breast to the bone." "The tumor seemed defeated." "but as you see..." "I am dying, Louis." "Don't move." "Listen to me." "I fear for the kingdom." "I fear greatly for you." "Your people's salvation depends on your own." "If you're lost, so will they be." "I am not lost, Mother." "I buy my old enemies with the pleasures at court." "Gathered around me, intent on pleasing me, they forget about plotting." "No, Louis, you seek only your own pleasures, your own glory." "We have discussed this before, Madam." "Let us not quarrel now." "Swear to me you will mend your ways." "I can't bear what you have become." "Swear, Louis." "I don't want to die with the anxiety you've plunged me into." "I won't make a vow I can't keep." "You don't love me." "Don't ask me to repudiate myself." "You've always criticized me, always fought me." "If not directly, you and your friends attacked those who served me best." "Always harsh, forbidding, ready to condemn, brandishing God's name like a whip over my head." "Never did you give me the slightest solace," "or support, or tenderness." "You never gave me leisure to love you as I would have wished." "Remember God, Louis!" "My goddess..." "He who rises to the heavens must know how to remain there." "We shall know how." "Passacaglia, passacaglia, and right." "Yes." "Double left." "And right." "Pile." "Leap." "And right." "And double left." "And right." "Pile." "Leap." "And right." "And double left." "And right." "Pile." "Out, Molière!" "In fact, everybody out." "Shall I call your doctor, Sire?" "No." "No one." "It's too fast." "No one can dance it." "My dancing master can." "So can I." "Leave me." "Of all light I am the source," "And the stars which in their course Form a great circle about me" "Only draw their brilliant force From the luminosity that I decree" "Let us open our eyes wide To this display supreme." "What grace extreme!" "What bearing and pride!" "No God can claim such esteem!" "Stop!" "The State seems to be tottering." "No one is God on this earth." "He's 32 years old, remember that!" "He wants a body of bronze, like his statues." "but nature is catching up." "He's aging." "You saw how he nearly fainted." "You can't make him the best anymore." "He can't bear that." "He never gave up." "He won't give up." "He wants to drive me mad." "Drink!" "Drink!" "Cough and die." "I'll die and so must you." "Here!" "Real wine that kills!" "You were to make him as admirable in the theater at Court as he is in the theater of war." "To push him to that absurd perfection he seeks in all things." "Drink!" "Damn your doctor, your lungs, your liver and your spleen!" "There's something else." " What?" " You read hearts, can't you guess?" "You're on the wrong track." "We mustn't peer under the King's doublet." "We must find a replacement for the Royal ballet." "So what can we do to sing his praises, glorify him?" "We jump into this river." "If we're full of wine, it won't be so cold." "Andiamo!" "Can you swim?" "Sire, the new play commissioned by Your Majesty is nearly finished." "It will be the apt riposte, I am sure, to the affront the Turks dared inflict on Your Highness." ""Our best weapon is laughter," claims Molière." "buffoon!" "He's always laughed at you." "You were more buffoon than I." "Look at me, at what I've become!" "Did you see how the King laughed!" "He's never laughed so hard." "He used to dance." "It all had meaning." "Now he laughs at me." "At me!" "Spare me the sackcloth and ashes." "And if I won't?" "Then go drown yourself." "And no one will pity you." "We've never had such success." "You should thank me." "For reducing me to a rattle Molière shakes to make others laugh?" "Thank you?" "I've always known it, Molière." "You are the king." "Now, your sense of satire is unrivaled." "Lully, are you hungry?" "Yes, Sire, I am." "Since I stopped making you dance" "I'm always hungry." "Aren't you?" "A regal reply to the Turks, Baptiste!" "You hit the bull's eye." "I have an idea I'd like to discuss with you." "It's an art form combining theater, dance, music and the plastic arts." "My dream is to stage a tragedy for you." "Stop, please, stop it!" "Stop that!" "I love you." "I love you." "You've been after me for years." "You thought you'd won." "That all you had to do... was to grow up, to have big tits!" "You'll never get me!" "Never!" "I have an idea for you and the King." "Theater more magnificent and imposing than anything we've done till now." "Dramatic art taken to its farthest limit musical tragedy." "It will have everything." "Audiences will dream, weep, come away both dazzled and elevated." "I have something in mind..." "a form, really..." "Don't say a thing." "It's a form of opera." "but French in essence." "Cambert has just finished his." "An opera in French." "The King gave him a theater," " and they say..." " Silence that slut!" "You've taken up with Cambert!" "Get out!" "And you, my dear wife, you're a part of it with your old lover." "Playing the bawd now?" "." "Aren't you two plotting against me?" "Out of my sight!" "To the devil with you!" "I'm going." "And you..." "You suck my blood like these leeches." "Opera is a bastard form, Molière." "A pollution." "Vomit." "An Italian thing." "Mere vocalizing." "The King made me French." "Dance, ballet, these are French." "You're infecting me, you're out to pervert me." "It's the King's madness." "You're infecting yourself." "Watch out." "Don't trust yourself." "believe me." "believe me, I'm your friend." "I have no friends." "It's you who should watch out!" "A triumph!" "The first opera in French!" "In French we all understand, you and I." "Nothing spoken, nothing but songs!" "Pomone, Cambert's masterwork." "Hurry!" "Hurry!" "Pomone is inside." "The curtain is about to rise!" "Why?" "Why did you do it?" "You said, go to the devil." "I waited for you." "I wanted you to come for me." "I'd have forgiven anything but this." "You never looked at me, never listened to me." "Tonight, you listened." "And now you see me." "Here I am, duped, ridiculed by a pious musician and an unfaithful child." "You planned your scheme subtly, and underhandedly." "I never saw it coming." "Just say the word and I'll give it up, give up Cambert." "I'll sing for you only." "You'll write for me with Molière." "We'll go from triumph to triumph." "We'll be happy." "Tell me, Julie..." "I want to know, to understand." "Molière's right, Baptiste." "The audience is out there." "They came." "They're applauding us." "Nothing is finer than singing." "Nothing is finer than opera." "So you're interested in opera now?" "." "That's new." "Cambert is debasing this privilege, Sire." "If France is to have opera, only I can write it." "I am your voice." "For 2o years now, it has been me." "And for eternity, it can only be me." "And if I decided to change instruments?" "You'd lose by it, Sire." "You know you would." "It's a matter of your image, Sire." "From the heights of your glory, we must control everything." "Everything." "I'll write "musical tragedies" for you." "Opera, but in French." "You will be the inspiration, the architect." "Nothing but vocalizing, but combined with our glorious ballet." "Without embellishments." "No Italian-style excess." "Restraint, nobility, grandeur." "Gods and kings will not be sung by effeminate voices in the Italian manner, but by French basses" "and baritones." "Males, true males." "In Your Majesty's image." "You no longer dance, alas." "but your Court mustn't leave the stage." "Let the theater be its reflection." "A magnificent, even sublime mirror." "They will tremble." "They will weep." "Most of all, they will admire." "And everywhere, they will honor you." "There is not another like you at court, Lully." "That would be one too many." "Grant me the privilege, Sire." "To me alone." "I'll use it better than anyone." "Refuse me today, and I will see it as a repudiation." "I will draw my conclusions." "And Molière?" "Sick men disgust you as they do me, Sire." "He spits out his lungs a little more every day." "He coughs, he coughs more and more." "From now on, France shall have only one music." "Only one." "I need your absolute support." "I have only one love, which no one can measure." "And like you, I have no friends." "You can seal up your pit." "You'll have no orchestra." "Since yesterday, no play may include more than 2 singers and 2 instruments." "What is this nonsense?" "This nonsense is the King's decree." "Here is a copy, signed by his hand." "I alone may produce musical drama." "I alone." "I come from Cambert's." "He must close his theater." "You're not serious!" "No more than 2 musicians, only 2 singers." "Without music, my theater won't last 2 seasons." "You've signed my death warrant, you know that." "I'm renovating in order to put on the comedy-ballets we wrote together, you and I, Baptiste." "Psyche." "The Magnificent Lovers." "Monsieur de Pourceaugnac." "The bourgeois Gentleman." "All are now published under one name..." "Mr. de Lully." "They're my works too." "You can't steal them!" "The King's decree stipulates that all texts set to my music become my property." "It is under my name that these works will now appear." "Wait!" "You can't take it all." "This isn't like you." "Look at yourself now." "Who is compromising now?" "." "You smother us with farces." "The Court laughs." "Gold fills your coffers." "You've lost your soul." "You accommodate to life." "Not me!" "I grapple with it like a wrestler." "At times above." "At times beneath." "What's going on?" "You're mad." "What all this?" "You want the truth?" "The real truth?" "The naked truth?" "I won't be your subordinate anymore." "For years, you've badgered me:" "Baptiste, give me some notes here, a bit of ballet there... "" "I won't take any orders now." "My music won't be second to your words." "It's beauty will stand on its own." "I will rule the music of this nation as the King rules Europe." "Alone." "Sharing with no one." "Get out." "Take your people and go." "It's all over." "I'd warned you, Molière." "The King's fed up with your spitting and wheezing." " You're mere clay, Molière." " Enough." "A cloud." "A storm." "It suits you to tell him I'm dying." "A relic." "I reek of death, is that it?" "I chose between him, whom I love, and you, my friend." "He is fickle." "He loves only his glory, but I love him." "He's the best of me." "This is a farce." "A farce!" "You move me to write this farce." "Here and now." "About a fake invalid." "To music, and to hell with you, Lully!" "February 17, 1673" "The King still hasn't come." "If he doesn't come tonight, it's all over." "but we have the public." "Think that's enough?" "blockhead!" "Take your places!" "How sad to be a slave to the whims of the mighty!" "Go on!" "My God, how a man must suffer before he can die!" "Curtain!" "3 and 2 make 5, and 5 make 1o," "and 1o make 2o." "Total: 63 livres, 4 sols and six deniers." "That means for this month I've had...  1, 2, 3, 4, 5," "6, 7, 8, 9...  1o, 11, 12 enemas!" "And last month I had...  12 prescriptions and 2o enemas." "No wonder I'm feeling less well this month." "They can't hear." "The bell's not loud enough." "They're deaf." "Toinette!" "This is infuriating!" "Ding-a-ling-a-ling!" "The devil take them!" "How could they leave a poor sick fellow all alone!" "This is pathetic!" "They'll let me die here alone." "This is new." "Thank you for coming." "He's been asking for you for 3 days." "I feared you'd be too late." "He won't have his leg amputated." "He says he must make the King dance and that Molière is waiting on stage." "You still love him so." "My little light." "You're here, at last." "The King is coming." "Show your best face." "The King will come no more." "You know that." "The King no longer wants me." "He no longer wants my music." "Your music made him immortal." "Immortal..." "That's true..." "That's good." "Does he even know I'm dying?" "My god, what silence..." "What silence..." "Is there no music tonight?"