Cyrano de Bergerac: A Heroic Comedy in Five Acts

‘Tonight When I make my sweeping bow at heaven's gate, One thing I shall still possess, at any rate, Unscathed, something outlasting mortal flesh, And that is ... My panache.'

The first English translation of Cyrano de Bergerac, in 1898, introduced the word panache into the English language. This single word summed up Rostand's rejection of the social realism which dominated late nineteenth-century theatre. He wrote his ‘heroic comedy', unfashionably, in verse, and set it in the reign of ...