Walter Meyer wrote:

>and Margaret Mikulska wrote:
>
>>"Droit du seigneur" didn't exist - it was an 18th-century notion,
>>symbolizing the power of aristocrats.
>
>Perhaps whether or not the "droit" existed as common practice is rendered
>moot by DaPonte's text itself, according to which the count had enjoyed
>certain privileges which he renounced and now wants to reclaim:

But that's the point: Beaumarchais and Da Ponte, being 18th-century
people, used the fictitious droit du seigneur to show the power of the
Count over lower-class people.  There is nothing moot about it.

I'm not sure why this point is misunderstood.  Nowadays people believe
that ius primae noctis was a historically documented medieval (and later)
custom.  In reality, it did not exist (at least not as an accepted custom
- certainly there were cases of upper class men abusing lower class women
and girls); it was invented by the 18th-century French philosophes.  So
in the 18th century at least the brighter people understood that it was
a fiction, but a fiction invented and used to fight class inequality -
something that is very well shown in Beaumarchais's play.  Of course Da
Ponte makes us believe the custom existed, but he knew very well it was
just a rhetorical device and he uses it as such.

-Margaret Mikulska