La Trilogie, une œuvre révolutionnaire ?

This article shows that the French Revolution played a fundamental role in the reception of ­Beaumarchais’s trilogy in the sense that it provided it with an interpretive structure, while making the Mariage de Figaro the focal point for all critical discourse. The hermeneutic debates on the meaning and revolutionary reach of the work were fashioned to a large extent by the historiography of the Revolution.