Spectacle of Empire. Jerry Wasserman

Membertou, and other chiefs” of the Souriquois, who “sat at table, eating and drinking like ourselves. And we were glad to see them, while, on the contrary, their absence saddened us . . .” (II:344). Consciously using the honorific Mi’kmaq word for chief (Sagamos), Lescarbot claims that the French shared a mutual admiration with the Native people, les Sauvages – a term encompassing a range of meanings not at all fully reflected by the English word savages (Miller 31–32): “[A]nd hereby one may know that we were not, as it were, marooned on an island . . . for this tribe loves the French, and would at need take up arms, one and all, to aid them” (II:344).Whatever the truth value of this claim, and despite the problematics of Lescarbot’s Franco-Christian imperialism and Noble Savage romanticism, he remains consistent throughout the History in praising these people “of noble and generous heart” and “great liberality” (II:352). The local inhabitants comprised for Lescarbot one of the primary elements of his community’s complex ecology of survival, which included the physical environment itself, the real and symbolic power of Poutrincourt, and the food and drink, both real and symbolic, at the dinner table and in The Theatre of Neptune.

      Scholars have described The Theatre of Neptune in New France as a pageant, a triumphal entry (entrée), a réception, or a masque – all of which are sometimes subsumed under the term fête, or court festival. In his book on the theatre of early French Canada, Leonard E. Doucette explains that the play falls within the European tradition of “public masques and triumphal entries, the nautical extravaganzas and allegorical galas so integral to French (and English) courtly life since the Renaissance. The triumphal entries in particular, where the king’s household received the corresponding cortege coming out from the town through which he wished to pass . . . seem to have influenced Lescarbot’s work” (7). In a typical réception or entrée royale,

      [t]he personage was normally welcomed by the more important residents and escorted to his destination where he was offered a feast. In the case of the ruler or his representative, he was also offered reassurances of their loyalty by representatives of the various orders of inhabitants. The entry was the visible sign of a contract between ruler and subject town, the ruler assuring the prosperity and protection of the town by his power; the town, in return, offering its loyalty and all its resources in exchange . . . The ordered form of the entry expressed symbolically the relationship between the entering dignitary and the townspeople, as well as providing an opportunity for communal rejoicing and solidarity. (Fournier 3)

      Glen Nichols has identified eight other réceptions performed in French Canada between 1648 and 1810 to receive and honour dignitaries ranging from the headmaster of a school to the governor of Québec. Like The Theatre of Neptune, all were produced expressly for one particular event and all directly address by name at least one individual present in the audience for the performance (Nichols 72). In Lescarbot’s pageant the god Neptune and his Tritons along with the Indians and the “companion of jolly disposition” from the colony offer their praise and allegiance, their loyalty and foodstuffs directly to Poutrincourt, the King’s representative and living symbol of French power, on the occasion of his safe return. Through the symbolism of performance, the play dramatically reinforces the contract between ruler and ruled that promises the subjects’ survival and prosperity in return for their fealty.

      Lescarbot’s nautical spectacle cites a full century’s development of the European arts of courtly celebration. As Roy Strong argues, “A tremendous revolution had taken place in which, under the impact of Renaissance humanism, the [medieval] art of festival was harnessed to the emergent modern state as an instrument of rule . . . [I]ts fundamental objective was power conceived as art . . . In the court festival, the Renaissance belief in man’s ability to control his own destiny and harness the natural resources of the universe find their most extreme assertion” (1984, 19, 40).Drawing on classical mythology and the sometimes arcane language of neo-Platonic emblems and devices, these celebrations affirmed visually and verbally the magnificence of Renaissance rulers in their ability to effect spectacular transformations in both the natural and human realms, enabling a harmony “which centred on political power being a reflection of a geocentric universe” (40).

      The learned Lescarbot would have been familiar with these spectacles not only through first-hand experience but via the print and visual forms, including elaborate published accounts with engravings, by which most major events of this kind were recorded. For archival and political purposes the court festivals and royal entries were preserved in manuscripts, statues and triumphal arches, and printed festival books: “[T]he whole effort of memoria engaged in by every court during this period . . . [was] driven by the desire to mitigate the transience of an event by pinning it down for posterity, by the necessity to manufacture the official story of that court in order to create fama