Angélique and the Roy

Synopsis

Angélique married in the previous chapter to her cousin Philippe de Plessis-Bellières. The film opens with the war led by Louis XIV in Flanders, where Angélique’s husband was seriously wounded. On his deathbed, he asks the king not to take his wife from him, the only thing over which he has no power.

At the end of his official mourning, the monarch sends François Desgrez pull the beautiful widow of her black dresses to entrust him with a secret mission whose content she ignores. Reluctant, Angelique yet left for Paris, where King despises the poor M ^me de Montespan to find his new spy whose beauty dazzles as always.

His mission: to convince by his charms the Ambassador of Persia to go to Versailles to sign a treaty with the French rather than the Muscovites, as it was then expected. To convince her altogether, Louis XIV returned the title of the mansion of Joffrey de Peyrac, in which she surrendered. Signs soon make her heart beat: fresh food, light, laboratory, she is convinced that Joffrey is alive and lives here without the knowledge of all. But an old man breaks his hopes: his name is Savary, he is an alchemist, lives here, and had a great admiration for his husband, but claims to have seen with his eyes his corpse burn in place of Greve like everyone else. Desgrez then makes his appearance and teaches him where to find the bey , and begin the mission entrusted to him by the king.

The King’s translator to the ambassador, St. Amon, is of a notorious inefficiency and awkwardness, but he is the only man of the Court to speak Persian. She finds him in a torture of which Zoukim Batchiary Bey delights, which leads Angelique to utter insults against him. Astonished, the bey asks the marchioness to follow him to his home, from where he hunts Saint-Amon, yet responsible for never leaving the two people alone. The king will not fail to reproach the translator for his incompetence, depriving him of pension and title, and even considering sending an army to seek Angelique, whose fate greatly worries her: all the blond women who had been offered to the ambassador have been rescued, throat cut, in the Seine.

Meanwhile, Angelique is fierce in the Bey’s room. A servant enters with a tray and overthrows, on a sign of the master of the place, on the dress of the marchioness, that the ambassador forced to dress in a dress of his country, much lighter and alluring. But when Angélique finds that this same obedient servant is whipped for having soiled her dress, her jailer explains to her that in Persia the problem of the choice does not arise as in Europe: to give him the proof, he tears his dress Marquise, proving that she is quite his prisoner.

When he tries to abuse her, Angelique threatens her with a dagger, but does not resolve to become a murderer, bursting into tears. Their interview is then interrupted by kidnappers who try to kill the ambassador, but the marchioness stops their action, before being kidnapped by them. His kidnapper introduces himself as Vladimir Stanislas Racoczi, brother-in-law of the disgraced king, yet secretly instructed by him to remove Angelica from the clutches of the Persian ambassador. He immediately asks him for a wedding, which the beautiful rejects with a laugh.

Meanwhile, the ambassador is furious, and asks for the head of Angelique’s abductor; he is preparing to go and fetch her with reinforcement, but this one arrives to stop him: she reprimands him for his manners, but the conquered bey begs her to tell him where to find her. She invites him to Versailles to sign the treaty.

The ambassador runs and offers the monarch many gifts. Louis XIV wished to offer him one in return, and the ambassador claimed the Marquise de Plessis-Bellieres as a present. To save Angelica, Colbert claims before the Bey, M ^me de Montespan and the entire Court, it is the favorite title of King, causing a public outcry, and the triumph of the Marquise.

Meanwhile, Racoczi on the run takes refuge with Angelique with whom he shares the bed that night.

Asked to sleep in Versailles, Angelique occupies the privileged room, that of M ^meMontespan, which contains a corridor to access the apartments of the king. Desgrez comes to warn him: he “accidentally” spilled the sherbet that was destined for him in the kitchen, and the dog that licked everything died in two minutes. Although he begs her to leave before giving up the ghost, she goes to join the king who summoned her. She refused to tell him that Joffrey had not died at the stake but had drowned: he had had her replaced by the corpse of another convict, and embarked by boat, but the Count de Peyrac had fled, then was engulfed by the waters. Angelique does not believe that her great love could be conquered by the waters, and decides to return home. When she goes to bed, she misses a few to be murdered by contact with his dressing gown soaked with a thundering poison; questioning her maid accomplice of this attempt, she snatches the name of the sponsor: Mlecarnations .

She instructs the dwarf Barcarole to investigate it, which he learns went to a lady called La Voisin , known to be the Devil himself. They go to the next appointment the next day at midnight: they attend a black mass, where the favorite of the king pact with the evil to keep the love of the king and its exclusivity. At the moment when a priest is about to sacrifice a baby, Angelique shows up and is pursued by the company. During their flight, Barcarole is killed.

The Marquise takes refuge in François Desgrez and reveals everything to him, but this one teaches him that if he is not ignorant of these practices, he has yet no proof, and is indifferent enough to the death of a child whom we went to look for among gypsies. He reveals, however, that he has proof that Joffrey is alive: he takes her to the cemetery of Innocents, in which a well leads to the garden of the property of Joffrey, where he found a chest containing the money of the Count, that this one would have come to seek.

Angelique sleeps in the property. During the night, Joffrey makes an appearance and comes to contemplate the calm sleep of his beloved. But at the moment of his departure, he surprises a man heading for Angélique’s room knife in hand: this assassin is sent by La Voisin and the priest of the Black Mass to silence the witness of their satanic actions. Joffrey gets rid of the importunate, but the noise wakes up Angelique: she sees Joffrey, who nevertheless fled into the underground, which he condemns.

Savary then entrusts him with a letter which the count, who has been his accomplice for a long time, has given him. She explains to Angelique that her husband has fled to let her live happily, far from being banished on the run. Since she was never reasonable, and she still is not, she immediately sets out with Savary, heading for the south where he was going.

Technical sheet

• Original title: Angélique and the Roy
• Director: Bernard Borderie
• Assistant Director: Tony Aboyantz
• Scenario: Alain Decaux , Bernard Borderie , Francis Cosne , based on Anne and Serge Golon’s novel
• Dialogue: Pascal Jardin
• Sets: Robert Giordani
• Costumes: Rosine Delamare
• Photography: Henri Persin
• Sound: René Sarazin
• Music: Michel Magne
• Editing: Christian Gaudin
• Production: Francis Cosne , Raymond Borderie
• Production Companies :
  •  Francos-Films , CICC
  •  Fonoroma
  •  Gloria-Film GmbH
• Country of origin: France , Italy and Germany
• Original language: French
• Format: Color – 35 mm – 2.35: 1 – Mono sound
• Genre : adventure film , historical film
• Duration: 100 minutes
• Release date: France :  January 31 , 1966
• Poster: Yves THOS

Distribution

• Michèle Mercier : Angélique from Plessis-Bellière
• Jean Rochefort : François Desgrez / voice of the narrator
• Jacques Toja : Louis XIV
• Sami Frey : Zoukim Batchiary Bey
• Estella Blain : Madame de Montespan
• Claude Giraud : Philippe de Plessis-Bellière
• Philippe Lemaire : Of Vardes
• Fred Williams : Vladimir Stanislas Racoczi
• Pasquale Martino (VF: Georges Chamarat ) : Savary
• Jean Paredes : Saint-Amon
• The dwarf Roberto  (it) : Barcarole
• Michel Galabru : Bontemps
• René Lefèvre : Jean-Baptiste Colbert , Comptroller General of Finance
• Carole Lebesque : Eyelets
• Ann Smyrner : Therese
• Joëlle Bernard : The Neighbor
• Robert Hossein : Joffrey de Peyrac
• Jacques Hilling : M ° Molines
• Robert Favart : The surgeon
• Michel Thomass : M. de Bonchef, executioner.
• Claire Athana : Queen Maria Theresa of Spain
• Jean Lefebvre : The apothecary
• Jean Degrave : The servant of Angélique
• Frederico Boïdo : Jean Pourri
• Dany Jacquet : A lady of the court
• Robert Berri : The sorcerer
• Dominique Zardi : A henchman
• Jean Gold: courtier
• Valérie Boisgel

Filmography of Angelica

The series Angélique , which includes five films made by Bernard Borderie , was a huge commercial success on its release and dozens of times rebroadcast on television since.

• 1964 : Angelica, Marquise of the angels
• 1965 : Wonderful Angelic
• 1966 : Angelique and the Roy
• 1967 : Indomitable Angelic
• 1968 : Angelica and the Sultan

See also

Related article

• Angélique (literary series)

Bibliography

• Christelle Taraud, ” Angélique et l’Orient: a certain vision of otherness “, Man and Society , Paris, L’Harmattan , vol.  4, n ^o 154 “Popular Cinema and ideologies”2004, p.  9-30 ( read online  [ archive ] )

External links

• (en) Angélique and the Roy [ archive ] on the Internet Movie Database
• (En) Angélique and the Roy [ archive ] on Allociné
• (fr) Angélique and the Roy [ archive ] on the Ciné-Ressources website ( Cinémathèque française )
• (fr) Angélique and the roy [ archive ] on Unifrance

References