Le roi l'a dit

Le roi l'a dit (The King Has Spoken) is an opéra comique in three acts by Léo Delibes to a French libretto by Edmond Gondinet.

It was not staged in France between 1914 and 1959, when it was revived in Bordeaux under the baton of Roger Gayral, with a cast including Christine Harbell, Hélène Régelly, Louis Noguéra and André Dran,[5] a well-received production which transferred to Paris.

L'ordre du Roi was staged for the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, Russia and first presented for the benefit performance of the ballerina Virginia Zucchi on 26 February [O.S.

The two elder, Agatha and Chimène, are just in the act of reading theirs, when they hear a serenade outside, and shortly the two lovers are in the room, having slipped in through the window.

Her words excite terror, and the girls retreat with their lovers and receive the two elderly suitors, Baron de Merlussac and Gautru, a rich old financier, with coolness and refusal of their costly gifts.

When the suitors are gone, the two young strangers are found out and the angry mother decides at once to send her daughters to a convent, which they will only be able to leave on their wedding-day.

Benoit takes readily to his new position; he is fitted out and when the merchants come, offering their best in cloth and finery, he treats them with an insolence worthy of the proudest seigneur.

Then the old suitors of Agathe and Chimène appear, to complain that their deceased wife and grandmother were invited, and while the Marquis explains his son's mistake, the four daughters rush in, liberated by their lovers and their unknown brother, whom they greet with a fondness very shocking to the old marchioness.

Miton appears in mourning, explaining that Mme de Maintenon's visit being expected, they must all wear dark colours as she prefers these.

Nobody is happier than Javotte, who now claims Benoit for her own, while the Marquis, who receives a Duke's title from the King in compensation for his loss, gladly gives his two elder daughters to their young and noble lovers.

The girls, well aware that they owe their happiness to their adopted brother, are glad to provide him with ample means for his marriage with Javotte, and the opera ends to everybody's satisfaction.