Hugo, Marion Delorme
- Artist/Author/Producer: Victor Marie Hugo
- Confronting Bodies: Official censors of the King Charles X
- Dates of action: 1829
- Location: France, Paris
- Description of the Art Work
- The play "Marion Delorme" is about a French courtisan famous for her
beauty and her many prestigious lovers. The play criticizes the King's
ancestor Louis XIII.
- Description of incident
- Performance of the play, Marion Delorme, was prohibited by the official
censors because it showed Louis XIII as a "weak, superstitious and cruel
prince", and this depiction might provoke public maleviolence and lead to
the disparagement of Charles X.
- Results of incident
- Hugo appealed to the King. A royal veto sustained the prohibition; but
Charles offered to raise the poet's pension from 2,000 to 6,000 francs.
After Charles was removed by the Revolution of 1830, the play was
produced at the Theatre Francais and published for the first time, in
1831.
Source:Banned Books, Anne Lyon Haight, RR Bowker Co., NY,1978