LES HUGUENOTS
ACT I A group of Catholic noblemen are feasting over the graves of murdered Huguenots. The Count of Nevers entreats them to accept a Huguenot into their circle, as the Queen Mother Catherine de’ Medici and her son Charles IX have ordered a reconciliation of the estranged religious denominations. The young Huguenot Raoul arrives in the company of Marcel, an old man with a child-like soul, who conjures up the horrors of the wars of religion in the recent past. A veiled lady arrives incognito, asking to speak with Nevers, the host of the festivities. She is his bride-to-be, Valentine de Saint-Bris, a Catholic and wishes to be released from her engagement to marry him. This tête-à-tête is observed by the guests, who take it to be an amorous tryst of Nevers’ with a lover. Raoul cannot help but recognize in her the unknown woman, with whom he recently fell madly in love. He too misunderstands the scene and believes that his love is unrequited. Urbain, sent by Marguerite of Valois, the daughter of Catherine de’ Medici, brings Raoul an assignation to a secret rendez-vous and suddenly the underdog Raoul, newly chosen as the favourite of Marguerite, is surrounded and congratulated by the entire company.
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ACT II Marguerite of Valois is preparing a great feast of reconciliation, of which the centrepiece will be the mixed marriage between Valentine, the Catholic, and Raoul, the Huguenot. Raoul, who Marguerite has invited for the preparations, begins to flirt heavily with her, as he has decided to take revenge for what he still believes an unrequited love. Without hesitation, Raoul gives Marguerite his consent to marry a Catholic. But when the Count of Saint-Bris brings his daughter Valentine to him as his future bride, he recognizes the unknown lady he assumes to have so grievously betrayed his love and a scandal ensues.
