Ruy Blas is a tragic play in five acts written by French author Victor Hugo. It was the first play presented at the Théâtre de la Renaissance and opened on November 8, 1838. Though considered by many to be Hugo’s best play, it was initially met with only average success.
Madrid, 1698, during the reign of Charles II of Spain. Ruy Blas, an indentured commoner and valet to Don Salluste de Bazan, dares to love the Queen. The play is a thinly veiled cry for political reform.
The story centers around a practical joke played on the Queen, Maria de Neubourg, by Don Salluste de Bazan, in revenge for being scorned by her. Knowing that his valet, Ruy Blas, has secretly fallen in love with the Queen, and having previously failed to enlist the aid of his scapegrace but chivalrous cousin, Don César, in his scheme, Don Salluste disguises Blas as a nobleman and takes him to court. Intelligent and generous, Blas becomes popular, is soon appointed prime minister, begins useful political and fiscal reforms, and conquers the queen's heart.
Then, Don Salluste returns to take his revenge. The Queen and Ruy Blas are betrayed into a compromising situation by Don Salluste, who, when Don César threatens to frustrate his revenge, ruthlessly sacrifices his cousin to his injured vanity. Don Salluste discloses the masquerade by cruelly humiliating Blas – he commands Blas to close the window and pick up his handkerchief, while trying to explain the condition of Spanish politics. Blas kills him and decides to commit suicide with poison. Upon his death, he is forgiven by the queen who openly declares her love for him.
Several adaptations have been made, including a 1948 film starring Jean Marais, a 1971 comedic film version titled Delusions of Grandeur and starring Louis de Funès and Yves Montand, and a 2002 TV film starring Jacques Weber, Gérard Depardieu and Carole Bouquet.
Tropes
- Aristocrats Are Evil: The king's coucil is nothing but a bunch of over-inflated egos tearing up pieces of the crown's income like vultures.
- Awful Wedded Life: For the Queen. At the beginning of the play, she has seen her husband twelve days in the six months they had been married, and longs for the freedom of her childhood. King Charles is later described as living with the corpse of his first wife in another castle.
- Becoming the Mask: Ruy Blas is initially thrown into Salluste's scheme, making him pretend to be his cousin Don Cesar de Bazan, count of Garofa. When Salluste is Put on a Bus, he actually makes his way up at court, is made duke of Olmedo, prime minister, and skillfully starts reforming the government.Ruy Blas: I will have you arrested! I am duke of Olmedo!Salluste: Olmedo was only pinned on Garofa, my dear.
- The Bus Came Back: Salluste is banished from court at the end of Act I, and returns in secret at the end of Act III.
- Chekhov's Gun: In the fist act, Salluste has Ruy Blas write two letters under his dictation, one proclaiming his (Ruy Blas's) devotion as a valet to Don Salluste, and one inviting a woman to the house of a man named Cesar. Both of them come back to bite him in the ass in acts IV and V, six months later.
- Chekhov's Skill: Ruy Blas aparently has a very pleasant and distinctive handwriting. His letters are a major plot point, and the King sent him to carry his letters to the Queen because he dictated them to him.
- Composite Character: The Duchess of Albuquerque was Camerera Mayor in 1698, but her roughness and character are those of her predecessor, the Duchess of Terra-Nova.
- Dirty Old Man: Don Salluste fathering a child on the Queen's handmaiden gets him kicked out of court. He himself even talks about what a stupid idea it was.
- Everyone Has Standards: Don Cesar is more or less a thief, a drunk, a gambler and a cheater who lives under a false name to escape his creditors, but he refuses to cause harm to a woman.
- Evil Chancellor: Salluste, at the beginning of the play; a font of cruelty and corruption. The Queen jumps on the excuse of his seducing one of her lady's maids to banish him from court. Priego, Camporeal, Del Basto, Albe, Arias and Santa Cruz are this too.
- The Good Chancellor: What Ruy Blas becomes as Duke of Olmedo, possibly due to being the opposite of a Sheltered Aristocrat.
- Fisher King: Invoked with Charles II. According to the Queen, he often watched his Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering tearing the kingdom apart, and, unlike Ruy Blas, never reacted.Ruy Blas: What did he do?The Queen: He went hunting.
- Gilded Cage: The court of Spain to the Queen. She is only allowed to play games with the king's kin (he has no kin), she can only eat alone or with him (he's never at court), she can only go for a walk if all the chamberlains are here to open the doors for her (they're hardly ever around), she can't even look out the windows. She had parrots, but her handmaid Casilda implies that the duchess of Albuquerque killed them (according to the footnote, because the birds spoke French, which was unseemly).
- In Spite of a Nail: When Don Salluste tries to compromise him and the Queen, Ruy Blas has a message sent to her not to leave the palace for any reason for the next three days. The message doesn't go through. The Queen receives Salluste's forged invite to Ruy Blas's house, and takes care to send a chaperone to confirm the invitation. Unfortunately, the chaperone is met by the real Don Cesar, who eagerly agrees to receive a pretty woman for a secret rendez-vous, even if he doesn't know what it is about.
- Made a Slave: When Don Cesar refuses to help him with his plan, Don Salluste has him sold to Algerian corsairs.
- Meaningful Name: Ruy Blas's name is a compound of a noble name (Ruy is short for Rodrigo) and a common name.
- Nepotism: One of the great sins of the court of Spain. Ruy Blas, disguised as Don Cesar, initially gets a position as squire of the Queen's household solely due to being the cousin of a high-ranking minister. Salluste, a great defender of Status Quo Is God in terms of politics, claims that this should be the least of Ruy Blas's concern.Salluste: You exiled dear Priego, one of the Grandees? You have forgotten that you are kin. [...] This is no way to treat a kinsman.
- Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: In a country on the decline, losing war after war and province after province, where misery and hunger rule unchallenged and a bandit has an army larger than any baron's, all the ministers care about is which tax will be going into their pockets.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- Ruy Blas delivers one of the most famous of Hugo's speeches in a massive 101-verse tirade against the corrupt ministers of the Spanish government.
Ruy Blas: Bon appétit, gentlemen!- As soon as he returns, Salluste delivers one to Ruy Blas, belittling all of his political achievements as naive and improper.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something:
- Completely averted with King Charles, who spends his time hunting and sulking at the Escurial.
- Subverted with Queen Maria, who has no effective power and can only do something by subtly promoting Ruy Blas.
- Servile Snarker: Casilda, the Queen's handmaid.Casilda: I think age comes from the eyes, and one ages quicker only seeing old men!
- Uptown Girl: Maria de Neubourg, Queen of Spain, to commonborn valet Ruy Blas.
