Focus
Extract from sacha guitry, "if Paris were told to us" (1955)
Narrator [Sacha Guitry]: "King Charles VII, who had grimly abandoned Joan of Arc to her tragic destiny, had morally very little credit. His throne seemed to him an unstable equilibrium and, knowing his unpopularity, he was sinking into a miasma of remorse. But an ideal reached him who came from Touraine. Who was that person? It was Agnès Sorel, the “Dame de Beauté”. Yes, from Beauté-sur-Marne. She came from there to speak a couple of words to him, but in particular.
Agnès Sorel [Danielle Darrieux]: "Sire, in the state you are in, you can not escape that you are setting a bad example to your subjects. A good example would have been better, but nobody’s asking the impossible. So become for your people a model of dissipation, of impudence and even of perversity, if needs be. Loved or not, kings always serve as an example.
Charles VII [Paul Colline]: "She is charming".
Agnès Sorel: "Get drunk tonight and tomorrow your subjects will all be drunk! But that example would be pernicious. I propose one which could immediately prove beneficial, firstly to your majesty and much more so to the Parisians. Paris is like a little province. Be careful! And this is my plan: Become in love, madly in love, sensual, immoral, and so that in the end no one is unaware of it, openly grant me rights, lord! Give me jewels, castles and rents! And you will soon see all the Parisians conquered by your example, in love with love, prodigal from now on and freed at last from all hypocrisy.
Charles VII: "Please name yourself Madam".
Agnès Sorel : « Agnès Sorel ».
Charles VII : « Agnès ?».
Agnès Sorel : « Sorel ».
Charles VII: "Sorel! And we are in ?"
Agnès Sorel : « 1432 ».
Charles VII: "What does the date matter when the prize is so pretty? Your advice is certainly singular, but I see some advantages in it.