Ridicule demonstrates life at the heart of the 18th century, where the only way to have an audience with the king was by using wit, or using intelligence and beautiful language. Rivalry is always present in the court, the nobles humiliate each other in the hope of lifting their status in front of the king. One of the characters in the film even goes so far as to kill himself because he believes he has been ridiculed out of a meeting with the king. The king appears to be like a god, inaccessible and ruthless, selfish and capable of driving men to death, without even realizing it. The heroes of
Ridicule, the Baron de Malavoy, although a stranger to this atmosphere, is obligated to enter there to be able to address the king, so that he can obtain the funds necessary to dry the marshes of the Dombes. He discovers very quickly that he has a gift for wit, but will not succeed however in obtaining a true conversation with the king. Historically speaking, the film is intended to be close to the descriptions historians have of the Court under the Ancien Régime, although it evokes more so the ways of the Court of
Louis XIV than those of
Louis XVI:
the Count of Bussy-Rabutin describes in his memoirs the beginning of the reign of
Louis XIV, the inaccessible aspect of the sovereign, and the extreme difficulty he has in getting messages to the king, even though he comes from one of the oldest and most influential families in the kingdom.
The Duke of Saint-Simon, for his part, recounts in his memoirs his embassy to Spain for the engagement of
Louis XV and the Infanta
Mariana Victoria of Spain in 1720, and appreciates the weekly sessions where the King of Spain receives any applicant, unlike what happens in France. We can also cite the testimony of Norbert Elias who describes the phenomenon of the Court in which
Louis XV, but especially
Louis XVI (who sought to escape this environment by taking refuge on the roofs or by practicing manual trades), allowed themselves to be locked up. The king became almost inaccessible, unlike
Henry IV (1589-1610), who traveled all over France and slept in modest inns. At court, verbal witticisms circulated regularly and were learned and used (Rothschild Sotheby's sale in May 2006, the personal copy of the
Marquis de Marigny, brother of the
Marquise de Pompadour). However, if the costumes seem consistent with the descriptions of the time, see for example the festive book entitled "The Marriage of the Dauphin" – son of Louis XV – the film takes some liberties, in particular for the scene of the Autumn Ball and depicts
Louis XVI and
Marie-Antoinette in particular rather grotesquely. ==See also==