Year 1655

Year 1655 marks the play’s return to the present of its final act after a fifteen-year leap. Set in Paris, it establishes a sharp temporal and material contrast with the siege that preceded it: the privations and military danger of the campaign recede into the past, while the final act begins in the Garden of the Convent of the Sisters of the Holy Cross.

Dramatic Placement

Act V, “Cyrano's Gazette,” opens with a stage direction identifying the year as 1655 and describing the setting as fifteen years later. The date therefore functions as more than a calendar label: it signals that the story has passed from the siege’s immediate crisis into a later period, in which the consequences of that earlier history can be encountered at a distance.

The Earlier Siege in Contrast

Before this temporal jump, the siege is defined by shortages and encirclement. Carbon calls it disgraceful that the besieging force should itself be starving, while Le Bret observes the reversal that the besiegers have been trapped and besieged by the Cardinal Infante of Spain. The contradiction makes the campaign’s danger plain: the French forces are not simply pressing an attack but are themselves under pressure.

The shortage is compounded by military movements that leave the camp exposed. Count de Guiche reports that the Marshal made a final effort to bring in provisions and took a substantial force with him; as a result, half the army is absent from camp. Count de Guiche also says that one cannon remains available for the men to use if necessary. These details locate the earlier story in a precarious present of depleted supplies, weakened numbers, and readiness for attack, against which the later date carries the weight of elapsed time.

Hunger and the Passage of Time

Hunger shapes even the arrival of relief. When the cadets are reproached for talking about food in the presence of a woman, Roxane answers that the camp air is keen and that she is famished too, then asks for pasties, cold fricassee, and old wines. Her request turns food from a general military necessity into a concrete feature of the camp’s life. The opening date of 1655 places that episode behind the final act, making the passage of fifteen years part of the play’s structure: the immediate pressures of the siege belong to an earlier time, while the final act must reckon with what remains after it.

The 1655 Setting

The stage directions give the later setting a distinctly different physical character from the besieged camp. The action takes place in the Garden of the Convent of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in Paris, among magnificent trees. A house stands to the left, with broad steps opening onto several doors, and an enormous plane tree occupies the middle of the stage. The date and setting thus anchor the final act in a specific place and year, while the fifteen-year interval separates this composed garden from the earlier scene of hunger, military exposure, and threatened combat.