Summary
In the shadow of a decaying monarchy, Jeannette’s trajectory from innocence to infamy begins at the Rampaumaux ball, where the predatory Jean Du Barry, a nobleman whose status has withered into the management of a gambling den, marks her for his own machinations. While Jeannette finds a fleeting, genuine tether in the form of De Cosse Brissac, a captain of the Guards, Du Barry’s orchestration of fate proves more potent. He lures her away from a pastoral tryst of picking violets to witness the King’s procession—a move that effectively auctions her soul to the crown. As Jeannette is swallowed by the profligacy of the court, she undergoes a metamorphosis into a titled pawn, married off to Du Barry’s brother in a cynical transaction of one hundred thousand francs to facilitate her status as the Royal mistress. The narrative spirals into a tragedy of intercepted missives and long-term incarceration for Brissac, who languishes in a dungeon while Jeannette becomes the polarized icon of a nation on the precipice of upheaval. The eventual revolutionary fervor transforms her former lover into her executioner, culminating in a devastating sacrifice where Jeannette must publicly renounce her love to save his life, only to meet her end beneath the cold blade of the guillotine eighteen years later, a victim of the very extravagance she once symbolized.
Synopsis
At a ball at Rampaumaux, Jean Du Barry, an impecunious nobleman operating a gambling house, sees Jeannette for the first time and is strongly attracted to her. He determines to lure her into his gambling house. Jeannette meets De Cosse Brissac, captain of the Guards, and the young couple fall in love. In the hope of bringing matters to a quick issue, Du Barry one day invites her to go out and see the King pass, after she had promised to go to the woods and pick violets with Cosse. The King is immediately smitten with Jeannette. That night she accompanies Du Barry to his gambling house. Jeannette falls easily into the new life. She goes to the opera where the King sees her and has her followed. Cosse also catches sight of her and refuses to recognize her. However, he later visits Jeannette and begs that she leave the life and marry him. About this time the King makes a visit in disguise and asks Jeannette to take dinner with him at a merry party that evening. Cosse leaves indignant, and later writes her reproachfully. In order to become the King's favorite, it is necessary for Jeannette to be titled. To accomplish this, Du Barry arranges for a consideration of one hundred thousand francs, to marry her to his brother. This is done and Jeannette is soon installed in the Royal Palace. Some time later, Cosse meets Du Barry and the men quarrel with the result that the now jealous King has Cosse thrown into prison. Cosse's message to Jeannette is intercepted by Du Barry and Jeannette never learns of his imprisonment. The days fly by. Cosse languishes in prison, and Jeannette becomes at once the most admired and despised woman in France. A revolution breaks out among the people, owing to the King's extravagance. By strangling a guard, Cosse escapes and becomes a leader of the people. Meanwhile, Du Barry begs more money of Jeannette and when she refuses, threatens to destroy her. Jeannette quarrels with the King and offers to sell her pretty baubles to buy bread for the people. At this time Cosse makes bold to scale the wall and enter Jeannette's room. He is wounded by a chance ball and is watched by Du Barry, who follows him. Jeannette hides him in her bed and bribes Du Barry with two hundred thousand francs to say nothing of the incident. In this extremity Jeannette calls upon her old friend, the Papal Nuncio, who is unable to help her, owing to Du Barry's close watch. In her effort to amuse the King and keep his mind from the subject of Cosse, Jeannette holds a great outdoor festival. In the midst of it, Du Barry tells the King of Cosse's presence in the Palace and Cosse is captured and taken out to be shot. The King suggests to Jeannette that by telling Cosse, in the presence of the Court, that she hid him in her bedroom merely to hand him over to the King, he will commute Cosse's death-sentence to life imprisonment in the Bastille. This sacrifice Jeannette makes. After a lapse of eighteen years the King dies and the people again revolt, freeing Cosse from the Bastille. He again becomes their leader and when they determine to behead Jeannette, he pleads for her life in vain. She is taken to prison and later guillotined.
Review Excerpt
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The year 1914 stands as a watershed moment in the evolution of visual storytelling, a period when the cinematic medium began to shed its nickelodeon skin and embrace the operatic weight of historical tragedy. Edoardo Bencivenga’s 1914 rendition of Du Barry is not merely a chronicle of a royal mistress; it is a sprawling, celluloid fresco that captures the suffocating opulence of the Ancien Régime and the visceral tremors of its inevitable collapse. Unlike the more epis..."
