Monsieur d'Olive by George Chapman

First produced: 1604

First published: 1606

Type of work: Drama

Type of plot: Romantic comedy

Time of work: Seventeenth century

Locale: An imaginary dukedom near France

Principal Characters:

• Vandome, a gentleman
• Monsieur D’Olive, a fop
• St. Anne, a count
• Marcellina, a countess
• Eurione, her sister

Critique:

The most entertaining part of this drama is the subplot, which is concerned with the action, or inaction, of d’Olive, a fluent, self-assured fop. D’Olive’s ill-fated mission to France is a satire on certain English embassies of the seventeenth century that were distinguished by magnificent preparations and long delays. Also ridiculed is King James’s wholesale creation of knights. Although these events are of little interest today, Chapman’s treatment of them retains its power to amuse, mainly because of the delightful character of d’Olive.

The Story:

On returning home after three years of travel, Vandome was greeted with two pieces of bad news. First, he heard that his friend Marcellina, the wife of Count Vaumont, had gone into voluntary exile: shutting herself in her curtained chamber, she had resolved never again to be seen in the light. This unusual behavior had been her response to the unjust accusations of her husband. Before Vandome left on his travels, Marcellina had carried on with him a circumspect and perfectly acceptable platonic affair. When he left, she had spoken of him with such passion that Vaumont had been filled with jealousy and had asserted that the relationship went beyond the purely spiritual. Vaumont later realized that he had made an error, but it was too late to dissuade Marcellina from her action.

Vandome’s second piece of bad news concerned the equally eccentric behavior of the Count St. Anne. St. Anne’s wife, who was Vandome’s sister, had died. His devotion to her was so great that he refused to have the corpse buried. Instead, he had her body embalmed and placed in a chair in his chamber. With sad music playing in the background, he was weeping out his life at her feet. When Vandome learned of these problems, he determined to find solutions.

Forcing his way past the servants, he entered Marcellina’s chamber. He called her course of action stupid and implored her to abandon it, but she was unmoved and refused to answer him. Sharing her isolation was her sister Eurione, who had been a close friend of St. Anne’s wife. Eurione claimed that she had gone into seclusion in honor of the dead woman. In reality, however, she had become a recluse because of her love for St. Anne, a love that developed from her observation of the amazing fidelity of the bereaved husband for his dead wife. Eurione now revealed to Vandome her feeling toward St. Anne, and asked his help.

Meanwhile, measures to help St. Anne were being contemplated in another quarter. Duke Philip had decided to ask the King of France to intervene. He planned to petition the king, who was the uncle of St. Anne’s wife, to demand the burial of the corpse. Since it was necessary to send an emissary to the king, Monsieur d’Olive was recommended for the post. Two courtiers, Roderigue and Mugeron, had suggested d’Olive, partly for selfish reasons and partly for amusement. D’Olive—an idler, wit, and man about town-had agreed to consult with the duke, mostly for amusement. In his interview with Duke Philip, d’Olive declined to accept advice about the mission. Instead, he gave a learned talk on the advantages and disadvantages of using tobacco. Duke Philip, pleased with his wit, appointed him the ducal envoy.

Vandome, who had a marked physical resemblance to his dead sister, used this fact to establish a bond with St. Anne on his first visit to the widower. While St. Anne readily accepted the friendship of Vandome, he was deaf to suggestions that he seek a new love or that he bury his wife’s body. On his second visit, Vandome declared love for Eurione and appealed to St. Anne for his help. The count, out of affection for his brother-in-law, agreed to visit Eurione and try to advance the suitor’s cause.

D’Olive proceeded slowly with his preparations for his journey. Having dismissed St. Anne’s affliction as stupidity, he turned his attention to the more important business of forming a retinue. He had no difficulty in collecting followers; in fact, they soon became a nuisance to him. Many people felt that a trip to France as members of an embassy would revolutionize their lives, that they would return with exquisite manners and newfound wisdom. After Mugeron had collected bribes from the applicants, d’Olive assigned them, according to his whim, to the rank of gentleman or yeoman.

When St. Anne visited Eurione, she adroitly succeeded in acting and speaking as the dead woman had done in life. Suddenly St. Anne discovered that all his deep emotions had been transferred to Eurione. After leaving her, he spoke aloud to himself of his passion, and was overheard by Vandome. Vandome, after first calling St. Anne a traitor, revealed that he had only feigned love for Eurione, that she was, in reality, in love with St. Anne.

All the attention that d’Olive had received as a result of his ambassadorship began to go to his head. While he was congratulating himself on his great fame Roderigue came and told him that the trip had been canceled because St. Anne had buried his dead wife. Mugeron rebuked d’Olive for having taken such a long time with his preparations. D’Olive, after first refusing to believe the news, decided to sever completely his connection with the court. His followers, he said, could take care of themselves.

Roderigue and Mugeron, who profited from having d’Olive in the court, were now faced with the problem of getting him back. They decided that his most vulnerable side was his interest in women. Accordingly, they forged a love letter to him from Hieronime, a lady of the court whom he liked. The letter told him to come in disguise to her chamber between two and three o’clock.

Vandome, having successfully solved St. Anne’s problem, now turned his attention to Marcellina. Standing outside her window, he shouted that he brought bad news and that she must come out. When she had reluctantly come from her room, he told her that her husband had become a libertine. With help from Eurione, he fabricated a lurid story of Vaumont’s activities. He claimed that Hieronime was the current object of his lasciviousness, and that she, disliking his attentions, was planning to expose him to public shame. When it was suggested that Vaumont might suffer castration or death for his behavior, Marcellina decided that she would break her vows in order to save him.

When Vandome’s group arrived outside Hieronime’s chamber, d’Olive was there, preparing to enter. Hidden nearby were Mugeron, Roderigue, and Duke Philip. Now that Marcellina’s vows were fully broken, Vandome revealed his trickery, but to insure that she did not hurry back to her room he told Duke Philip that she had come out of seclusion to see the duke’s wife, who was ill. When Mugeron and Roderigue revealed themselves to d’Olive, he was furious with them. The duke brought peace by stepping forth and assuring d’Olive that his services would be desired in the future.

Further Critical Evaluation of the Work:

This Jacobean comedy is made up of the usual two plots, one involving Vandome’s coercion of retreating people back into the mainstream of life, the other depicting the fluent but foolish d’Olive. The two plots are not firmly connected in action, but thematic unity does exist. “Opinion” is the central idea of the play. Desire for the good opinion of others leads Marcellina into seclusion when she loses her husband’s approval, induces Count St. Anne to forbid the burial of his dead wife to show his love for her, and causes d’Olive to be vulnerable to Roderigue and Mugeron’s gulling in his eagerness to leave the obscurity of his private life and become an admired and followed public man.

Vandome acts as psychological midwife to both Marcellina and St. Anne. Both wish to live apart from the real world. Marcellina’s love relationship with Vandome was Platonic, free of the flesh, but the world’s opinion has defamed that love; her reaction is to live without the world. St. Anne apparently loved his wife, but she succumbed to death, that other susceptibility of the flesh; his reaction is to deny the fact of death. In both cases, Chapman causes Vandome to persuade these moral cowards to take up again the normal activities of life. To lead life as these two are living it is no virtue.

D’Olive too is drawn out of seclusion, though he seems only too happy to be so drawn. His acceptance of the Duke’s appointment to the post of ambassador, his presumption in kissing the Duchess, and his sprightly but asinine verbosity, mark him clearly as a “Lord of Misrule” figure. He rises from a lower social order to a position of mock power, indulging his every whim and thereby creating the chaos out of which his society will renew itself. Typical of such figures, d’Olive is brought to defeat; but unlike most, he is rescued finally by the Duke, an action which is in keeping with the comic nature of the play.