La Ville dont le prince est un enfant (film)
1997 television film directed by Christophe Malavoy
La Ville dont le prince est un enfant is a 1997 made-for-television film adapted from a 1951 play by French dramatist Henry de Montherlant of the same title.
The title, literally translated, The City Where the Prince is a Child, is taken from Ecclesiastes 10:16: "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning!"
The French-language film was subsequently released in North American markets on DVD in 2004 under the title, The Fire That Burns, similar to the 1977 English language translation of the play produced in 1977 under the title, The Fire that Consumes.
Summary
Philosophy student André Sevrais (played by Naël Marandin) attends a Catholic boys' school in Paris, where he becomes fast friends with his younger schoolmate, a little rebellious boy named Serge Souplier (played by Clément van den Bergh). This friendship between the two youngsters does not go unobserved by the Abbot of Pradts (played by Christophe Malavoy), who harbors a secret obsession with Souplier and uses his position of authority to try to handle the adolescent Servais, with the pretext of protecting the youngster Souplier; ultimately, however, he is undone by his own hand.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3213826. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1997, 1951, 2004 and 1977.
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This entry incorporates text from “La Ville dont le prince est un enfant (film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.