CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift To Cornell Club From H. G. Chat field-Taylor Cornell University Library PQ 1852.C49 1907 Moliere 3 1924 027 209 547 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027209547 MOLIERE: A BIOGRAPHY ^^p Moliere as Mascarille M O L I E R E A BIOGRAPHY BY H. C. CHATFIELD-TAYLOR WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THOMAS FREDERICK CRANE Professor of the Romance Languages in Cornell Unii/ersity ILLUSTRATIONS BY JoB CH ATTO^ s/'WiWDUS -"! '• MDCDvii ;-,_ / Nenjj Works in Trench Literature JULIE DE LESPINASSE. By the Marquis de Segur. Authorised English Edition, with Portrait. Demy 8vo. 7/6 net. MARIE DE MEDICIS and the Court of France in the XVII Century. By M. Louis Battjfol. Authorised English Edition, with Portrait. Demy 8vo. 7/6 net. ^ A O Copyright in the U. S., igo6 BY DUFFIELD & COMPANV THE UJTIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U»S,\» * • ' ••- •••■ • . • Paqe Author's Preface xi Introduction xvii I. Childhood and Youth i II. Madeleine Bejart and the Illustrious Theatre ig III. The Comedians of the Duke of Epernon . 35 IV. Early Dramatic Efforts 50 V. The Comedians of the Prince of Conti . 65 VI. Parisian Success 84 VII. Les Precieuses Ridicules lOi VIII. The End of Apprenticeship 119 IX, Armande Bejart 135 X. The School for Wives and its Corollaries 155 XI. Moliere the Courtier 181 XII. The Poet Militant 202 XIII. Theatrical and Domestic Life 231 XIV. The Misanthrope 254 XV. Moliere and the Physicians 279 XVI. Moliere and his Friends 306 Vlll '., CONTENTS ■ XVII. The HisTfe*ioNic.. Plays,. XVIII. Death- . . V •-' •* •'. ' \ '' Page Appendix . . . * .' •"..•'.! .•. . .^ .•••.*•.'•/-. » ' • • • • 3^1 Chronology . . . .' t ../'.• ./\. • '. 409 Bibliography 419 Index 435 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Moliere as Mascarille Frontispiece The Pont Neuf . Facing page 8 Moliere's Chariot of Thespis „ ,,40 Moliere in the Role of Barber „ ,,76 The Nymph of Vaux „ ,,132 Armande Bejart and Moliere „ „ 144 Moliere and Bellocq making the King's Bed . . „ ?, 186 The Soldiers invading the Theatre „ „ 234 The Medical Faculty of Paris „ ,,282 " What ! a sepulture is denied a man worthy of altars!" „ ,,378 i^BTHOR'S PREMCE. In writing this' biogi'kpHy the :aim 'has been to tell the story of Moliere's life., for; English readers. With this in view, I have translated all the quoted passages, whether in prose or verse, using English heroic measure for the excerpts from Moliere's versified plays. The French classic form is the Alexandrine rhymed couplet, a metre ill according with the genius of our language ; hence it has seemed wiser to employ the blank verse measure of our own dramatic poetry rather than to attempt a rendering of Moliere's rhymed hexameters in English. Manifestly it is impossible for such transla- tions to retain the melodious rhythm of the original. My sole aim has been to suggest rather than convey the charm of Moliere's imagery, and to embody the spirit rather than the letter of his verse. The student may find in the Appendix the quoted poetical passages in the original French. As the intention has been to interpret Moliere's life by his plays and his plays by his life, rather than to write an exhaustive criticism of his dramatic works, in the chapters devoted to the comedies more attention has been given to those concerned with his life than to pieces written mainly for stage purposes or to adorn some court festivity. The titles of Moliere's plays, as well as those by other authors of the period, have been translated, except when xli AUTHOk'S PREFACE ' ■•• • •'.'-■/'. . . • . ; J .' : a title is etymoio^catlf" the same ift bbili' languages ; as in the case of .CbrnJeille's Andromede 'or'.Moliere's Le Misanthrope, in' V4ilch_ instances, the. Eingllsn equivalent alone has beentised/v'riice.'i&'rsVtiitt^ajplay is|mentioned, however, or when it. becomes the subject of special com- ment, the French.Vtitle is given in pare'ntVesis. In all other cases the EAg'tis'h. .translatio.n, 1^ preferred, save in the rare instances 'whert-a Htic sticti 'as Les Pr'ecieuses ridicules is translatable dr>ly "irt « • circumlocutory way. French rules of capitalisation differing from our own, the method adopted by MM. Despois and Mesnard in their edition of Moliere's works has been used in the printing of French titles. The bibliography contains the titles, authors, and, whenever possible, the original date of publication of the works consulted or quoted in the preparation of this volume. The authorities for important passages are given in the footnotes. In nearly every case it has been possible to examine and compare the passages cited with the original authori- ties ; but, being compelled by illness to leave France be- fore the work was completed, here and there reliance has been placed upon the readings in the definitive edition of Moliere's plays (CEuvres de Moliere, Collection des Grands Ecrivains de la France), the earlier volumes of which appeared under the editorship of M. Eugene Despois, the work after his death being carried to superb completion by M. Paul Mesnard. The reader seeking original sources will find the prin- cipal of these in La Grange's famous Registre ; in the preface to the edition of Mohere's works edited by La Grange and Vinot and published in 1682 ; in Moliere's biography by J.-L. le Gallois, known more generally as the AUTHOR'S PREFACE xHi " Sieur de Grimarest"; in the biography attributed to Bruzen de la Martiniere, and in the biographical sketches made by Perrault and Bayle. To these should be added the gossipy chronicles of Tallemant des Reaux, De Vize, Loret, Robinet, Brossette, and other contemporaries of Moliere, as well as two scurrilous libels written by the poet's enemies, details of which are fully set forth in Chapter II. When a few historical works, such as the histories of the French stage of the period by Chappu- zeau and the Brothers Parfaict have been added, together with the invaluable documentary discoveries of Beffara, Jal, and Soulie, a fairly complete repository of knowledge regarding Moliere has been catalogued. Although there have been many modern French biog- raphers of the poet since Taschereau, the first of them, the Notice biographique of M. Paul Mesnard (Vol. X, CEuvres de Moliere) is by far the most scholarly and trustworthy ; next in accuracy is M. Louis Moland's La Vie de J.-B. P. Moliere, while from the ^human point of view M. Gustave Larroumet's La Comidie de Moliere is decidedly the most interesting. Mention should be made, too, of the MolVeriste magazine, so ably edited for ten years (1879-18 89) by M. Georges Monval, the dis- tinguished archivist of the Comedie Franpise and this same writer's Chronologie Molieresque. Le TM&trefrano^ais sous Louis XIV by Eugene Despois is another work in- valuable to students. The reader wishing to pursue further the study of Moliere in English will find Mr. Henry M. Trollope's The Life of Moliere a painstaking and accurate work, and Moliere and his Times by the Danish writer Karl Mantzius (English translation by Louise von Cossel), a pleasing and scholarly treatise upon the French stage of xiv AUTHOR'S PREFACE the seventeenth century. A charming and accurate picture of the theatrical life of the period may be found in Shakespeare in France by his Excellency J. J. Jusse- rand, the present ambassador of France to the United States. Although no edition of Moliere's plays at once satisfactory and complete has yet appeared in English, the translation by Miss Katherine Prescott Wormeley is decidedly the best. A word upon the illustrations. Aided by M. Georges Monval, the artist, M. Jacques Onfroy de Breville (JoB), has examined the original documents and plates contained in the archives of the Comedie Franfaise, the Bibliotheque nationale, etc. Moreover, the costumes of the Comedie Fran9aise and the Theatre de I'Odeon have been placed at his disposal. The famous arm-chair from Gely's barber shop at Pezenas, known as the fauteuil de Moliere, and the interior of the shop have been reproduced in the illustration representing Moliere in the role of amateur barber ; while for the drawing in which he and the poet Bellocq are making the King's bed, the room of Louis XIV in the palace at Versailles having been altered considerably in 1701, the original architect's drawing in the Estampes nationales was used for the decorative features. In the sketch depicting Armande Bejart in Moliere's room, the furniture and effects have been reproduced from the description given in the inventory of the poet's property made a few weeks after his death ; in fact in every instance the artist has used the utmost care in making his illustrations historically exact. Having been aided in the gathering of my material by the invaluable assistance of M. Jules Claretie, director of the Comedie Franjaise, M. Leopold Mabilleau, director AUTHOR'S PREFACE xv of the Musee Social, M. Georges Monval, archivist of the Comedie Fran9aise and M. Truffier, a notable soci- 'etaire, I wish to take this opportunity of thanking these distinguished Frenchmen for their courtesy. To Mr, Wallace Rice I am indebted for technical suggestions regarding the metrical translations ; to Professor Crane I wish to express my gratitude for the encouragement and help he has extended me throughout the preparation of this work. H. C. CHATFIELD-TAYLOR. Lake Forest, Illinois, July first, 1906. INTRODUCTION The Age of Louis the Fourteenth is attracting just now the attention of the " general reader " through the translation of memoirs and such brilliant historical monographs as Madame Barine's Youth of la Grande Mademoiselle and Louis XIV. and la Grande Mademoiselle. Society at Versailles and in the salon of the Hotel de Rambouillet is fairly well known, and the visits of French actors to this country maintain a certain degree of ac- quaintance with the classical drama of the seventeenth century. Interesting as is the political history of that period, its social and literary history is even more attractive and instructive. It was during this time that modern polite society was constituted and conversation raised to the level of an art. Literature, abandoning the slavish imita- tion of antiquity which characterised the sixteenth cen- tury, followed the models of Greece and Rome in a free and independent manner, and no matter how classical may be the form of this literature it is the exact reflection of the national spirit. To understand this literature, then, we must bear in mind some of the characteristics of the monarchy under Louis the Fourteenth. That king, it is true, has quite erroneously received the entire credit for the literature and art developed in the previous reign under the en- lightened patronage of Richelieu. Still, no great injus- xviii INTRODUCTION tice is done to Louis the Thirteenth or to Richelieu in attributing the glory of Corneille to the Age of Louis the Fourteenth. It was the latter monarch who settled the political and religious quarrels which had come down from his father's reign, and established the most absolute and unquestioned regime of modern times. Some of the results of this regime are the absence, until late in the reign, of political and religious discussion, and an attitude toward the person of the monarch little short of adoration. As society is excluded from intellectual activity involving politics and religious controversy, it is forced to direct its attention to itself and to examine its constituent parts. Never have there been such absorbing study of mankind and such profound knowledge of the human heart.. The maxims of La Rochefoucauld resume the interminable discussions of the drawing-room upon the mainsprings of human action, and the interest of Corneille's dramas is largely an ethical one arising from the conflict of duty and inclination. The large and varied literature repre- senting this tendency of the age will always preserve its universal interest, and Pascal, La Bruyere, and La Rochefoucauld belong to the literature of the world. Next in interest is the dramatic literature of the period, which, with the exception of one author, finds with diffi- culty appreciation among English readers. It is usual to attribute the fact to the form of the French classical drama and to the failure of the attempt to naturalise this form in England. A French classical tragedy represents one action which takes place within twenty- four hours in one locality. The result of the compres- sion of the action is that the French tragedy begins with the denouement of the Shakespearean tragedy, for ex- ample ; the result of the rule of the one locality is that INTRODUCTION xix all events which do not occur in the prescribed spot, and there must necessarily be many such, have to be narrated and not represented. For this reason, and from the French fondness for declamation, monologues abound and check the feeble current of action. The outward form of the play, the Alexandrine verse of twelve sylla- bles, with its obligatory pause at the sixth, and the couplets rhyming alternately in masculine and feminine rhyme (that is, with rhymes containing an e mute, and those which do not) seems monotonous and sing-song. In addition to all this, for reasons which cannot be given here, the subjects of French tragedy were, in the seven- teenth century, taken exclusively from Bible (Old Testament) history or from Greek and Roman history and legend. We often wonder how plays so artificial could have interested (and we know that they did) French audi- ences for so long a period. It must, however, always be remembered that, artificial as these plays were, they were instinct with the spirit of the times. The grandiose reign of Louis the Fourteenth found its expression in the sonorous verse and lofty sentiments of Corneille's heroes, while Racine reflected the gallantry of the age in his somewhat languishing Greeks and Romans. In the tragedies of both the characters spoke the artificial lan- guage of the day, and Moliere himself, even when he was ridiculing this affectation, could not escape from it. The limitations of French classical tragedy apply equally to the comedy of the seventeenth century, but not with the same injurious effects. The author is not confined to historical or quasi-historical, plots, but may invent or borrow plots to suit his purpose. He may also abandon the form of verse and employ prose, but he XX INTRODUCTION will run the risk of offending the taste of his audience if he uses prose for anything but farce. Comedy, then, is a freer form, and, as it deals with ordinary mortals and not with kings or heroes, is of more universal interest than tragedy. Then, too, French comedy is not an exotic plant like classical tragedy, but is the regular development of elements as old as French literature itself. Between French classical tragedy and the serious drama of the middle ages lies the gulf of the Renaissance: the comic drama has an unbroken history. It required, however, a long series of efforts to raise the medijeval farce to the dignity of comedy and to free it from the influence of Italy. Here, again, the genius of Corneille made itself felt, and Le Menteur (1642) is as epoch-making as the Cid (1636). For these and other reasons French comedy is more intelligible and attractive to the foreign reader than French tragedy, and the one great writer of comedy, Moliere, has peculiar claims to his interest. The fame of Moliere, even in France, has over- shadowed the glory of Corneille and Racine, and out of France Moliere is now the only one of the great trium- virate familiar to those who are not students of French literature. There is in France and out of France a cult of Moliere, just as there is a cult of Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, and Browning. The cause of this pre-eminence of Moliere must be sought not only in his works but in his life. The greatest dramatist of the modern world and the one whom the French would willingly place at his side were both actors as well as writers of plays, and so great is the glamour of the stage that Shakespeare and Moliere are far more interesting characters to us than Marlowe or INTRODUCTION xxi Webster or Corneille or Racine. Of the two, Moliere is in our minds the one more intimately associated with the stage. From the time he was twenty-one to the very day of his death in his fifty-first year he was acting con- stantly, and for nine years he was the husband of an actress. Of Shakespeare's career as an actor we know almost nothing, but from 1658 to 1673 we can follow Moliere almost from day to day in his theatrical roles. We have the description of his acting by his contempora- ries and his own defence of his method. We possess even portraits of him in his serious and comic parts. Indeed, the story of Moliere's life is largely the history of his company, and his comedies, on which his fame rests, were due to the exigencies of his position as manager. The publicity of the actor's profession is the greatest of its many disadvantages, and the man is usu- ally lost in the player. This is the case with Moliere, and we catch glimpses only of his private character. But from whatever standpoint we regard it, the life of Moliere was singularly interesting, and for fifteen years belongs almost to the public history of France. This life falls under three divisions : the first twenty-one years (1622-1643) of general education, and it is always well to remember that Moliere enjoyed the best training of his times; the fifteen years (1643-1658) of appren- ticeship to his profession, twelve of them spent as a wandering actor in the provinces ; and the last fifteen years (165 8-1 673) of managerial success and literary glory in Paris. It is these fifty-one years of toil, dis- couragement, and fame which Mr. Chatfield-Taylor has undertaken to depict in the following work, and I may say, since these lines will not meet his eye until after publication, that I think he has accomplished his diffi- xxii INTRODUCTION cult task with singular success, and has given a vivid and correct picture of Moliere the Man, the Actor, and the Dramatist. The materials for these three phases of Moliere's life are not equally profuse or important. There are gaps that we can fill only by the exercise of our imagination, — a dangerous factor in biography. We often lament our limited knowledge of Shakespeare's private life and character, although the materials for forming an impres- sion of them are not so scanty as is generally supposed. We must remember that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the actor's profe^on was under a social ban, and it did not occur to Shakespeare's or Moliere's con- temporaries to preserve their memories as they did those of statesmen and warriors. Grimarest, the author of the first independent biography of Moliere (1705), was criticised because " he had taken as much pains with his work as if it had been the life of a hero," and was taxed with ignorance of etiquette in calling Moliere Monsieur, " a title which did not at all belong to him, as he was an actor, that is to say, a man of an ignoble profession." It is unfortunate that most of the per- sonal details concerning Moliere are due to his enemies, but when used with proper care they tell us much that is valuable and interesting about Moliere's appearance and manner of acting, and even contain historical infor- mation which we should seek in vain elsewhere. Still, as has already been said, there are in Moliere's history unfortunate gaps that we cannot fill. We are not acquainted with the particulars of his early life and education ; his first theatrical ventures are obscure ; the long years spent in the provinces are known largely by civil and notarial documents establishing the presence of INTRODUCTION xxiii Moliere and his company in a certain locality at a certain date. After the final return to Paris in 1658 we are embarrassed by the profusion of materials, dealing, it is true, almost exclusively with the management of the company and the literary life so inseparably connected with it. With Monval's convenient chronology of Mo- liere {Chronologie Moliiresque, Paris, 1897) in his hand, the reader can follow year by year the life of the great dramatist from his birth to his death, and woven in with it the synchronous social, political, and literary events of the period. To the student who knows thor- oughly these three phases of the age such a chrono- logical table might well be the most satisfactory life of Moliere, but the " general reader " must have this knowl- edge supplied to him in a judicious form, and, above all, must have Moliere brought for him into proper relations with his times. This is no easy task for the biographer. He must retrace the history of the drama in order that we may understand the peculiar forms of Moliere's plays and the milieu in which the actor lived. He must depict the society which Moliere satirised and describe the literary movements of the day. The biographer will be tempted to lay undue stress upon some one of the phases of Moliere's life according to his own tastes and interests. Moliere the Man and Actor will be lost in the Dramatist, or will appear only as a figure in the history of the French stage. These seem to me the faults of the two most recent works devoted to Moliere. One is over- loaded with literary and financial details concerning the separate plays, the other conveys no idea of the personal- ity of Moliere. The author of the present life of Moliere has long xxiv INTRODUCTION been a serious student of the French drama, and it is pleasant for the writer of these lines to recall the time when Mr. Chatfield-Taylor was his pupil at Cornell University in classes devoted to the study of French society and literature in the seventeenth century. Our biographer has been able to pursue this study since in the home of Moliere and to collect everything of value relating to his subject. The result is a life of Moliere both scholarly and popular, in which the man stands out vividly in the midst of his managerial and literary labours. Mr. Chatfield-Taylor's book cannot fail to interest even the reader who knows no French, and should be an incentive to acquiring a knowledge at first hand of plays which are not particularly difficult to read in the original. This is certainly true of the plays in prose ; the plays in verse are naturally more difficult, but they, or similar plays, are read by pupils in our schools after a year's study of French. Prolonged study of the seventeenth century in France has impressed me more and more with its extraordi- nary social and literary interest, to say nothing of its picturesque political history. A great mass of memoirs and letters, many of them of the highest literary value, enable the reader to form a vivid idea of the period. Moliere, above all, presents the most perfect picture of the society of the Age of Louis the Fourteenth in its various aspects. And this picture is ever fresh and attractive because its interest depends on the portrayal of the immutable passions of the human heart. The Miser, the Misanthrope, the Hypocrite, the Coxcomb, the Pedant, the Quack, the Parvenu, the Bore, the Coquette, are the same in all ages, and live in Moliere's comedies INTRODUCTION xxv with a real personality that seems almost historical. Every form of society from the court to the cabin is unrolled before us on Moliere's stage, and in the Impromptu of Versailles we are admitted behind the scenes of his theatre. By the performance of Les Facheux before the King and Fouquet at Vaux-le-Vicomte (August 15, 1 661) Moliere is connected with one of the most picturesque events of the reign, — the fall of the great superintendent. That Moliere's comedies are of present interest has lately been shown by Mr. Mansfield's fine performance of the Misanthrope. May we not hope to see him revive those characters which are so much in evidence at the present day. The Nouveau Riche {Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) and The Club- Women {Les Femmes savantes). From every point of view, then, Moliere is worthy of our attention, and any work which will attract readers to him should be welcomed, especially if it is a readable and accurate account of the Man, his Times and his Work. Such, I am confident, is Mr. Chatfield-Taylor's book, and I am glad that the honour of producing such a work has fallen to an American writer. T. F. CRANE. Ithaca, New York, July 20, 1906. / 1=1 .a be Fh" C8 EH ^s 'S p; o ^ "Vi i a te o ai '^ V '^ F4 OJ o )M ■3.'? o td o -d P4 o rt ^ o o ^ V s a Q £ CO . hjo m 5 I Oi H nj P4 Tl CD ri-1 ^ in > tH t:^ ^ ^^ !o a) ra IB bjo £ rt -Ti in o 1=1 s ^ :§^ a g> § 3 13 o o bo & ® 23 f=^ o ^ o "*^ o m be o ai o ,Q ^ c3 ■ a 2 03 tn sag J3 B H O to :i; a ^ bjo p o Ca rri ^ rl3 01 VJ PI U) fl aj V H -tJ tM & i: bB — , c ^ ^ " be rn ." bio ,£3 OJ o O to O Is < 3 he '« 3 'So b(j i " .• :• \ :f •; ■•- CHILDHOOD-' ANf)* YOUTH " What great writer has most honoured my reign ? " Louis XIV asked Boileau one day. " Moliere, sire," the critic answered ; but the King could not believe that a comedian who blackened his face daily to produce the moustache of Sganarelle was greater than Pascal, La Bruyere, La Fontaine, or La Rochefoucauld ; greater han Bourdaloue, Fenelon, or Bossuet ; greater, even, ^ 'lan Corneille, or Racine. j Others besides Louis XIV may take issue with Boi- 'tau, but none will deny Moliere a place among the reat writers of France of every age ; and surely no one iias arisen to challenge his supremacy in the sphere of comedy. To make a nation laugh through centuries is renown enough for any man. No mere comic writer could have called forth Boileau's ribute. To be great in literature, a man must have a eart capable of intense joy and infinite sorrow, and om its depths must come thoughts shared by all man- ;ind. Sympathy is a quality conferred by suffering ; d because Moliere suffered bitterly, his characters 2 living men and women, as true to-day as when they •e drawn. To quote Voltaire : "He possessed a .lity apart from Corneille, Racine, Boileau, and La 2 MO'tlfe'KE.-. Fontaine. He yraV'^.phnosopfi'er*'.-iiiV-bt).th theory and practice." The-c^Upn of his plays Fi^'.lh 'their human- ity ; but to appiejl^te them ftilly, one invtst understand the man himself and*. fh^ityi^eSl jiilwhich he hved. He was borri somewhere iii tHe'lldarf 9f Paris in 1622. On the fifteenth of.; January of that yeaf-he-was baptised in the parish chuKjk'.'pf St. Eustache, "ub^er the name of Jean-Baptiste Po*qUflliii.(]V[pHiS?e''bang*a pseudonym), and since it was cuslotiiary '.'ttJ b^pti'se children on the day of their coming into the world, this may have been the date of his birth as well. All his early life, however, is much shrouded in obscurity ; and a wanderer in the streets of Paris may see two houses each bearing a tablet stating that it was built upon the site of the poet's birth. One is in the rue du Pont-Neuf (No. 31), and the mis- guided enthusiasts who placed a bust of Moliere above its door in 1799, chose a spot where he never even dwelt and a date for his birth two years amiss (1620). The other, at the corner of the rue St. Honore and thej rue Sauval, formerly called the rue des Vieilles-Etuves, unquestionably stands upon the site of the house where he spent the years of his childhood. That he was born there is probable, but not certain. In 1633 Moliere's father purchased another house under the arcades of the market-place. It was situated opposite the pillory, which stood a few steps from the church of St. Eustache; but this second house is of far less interest than the one in which the poet passed his childhood. Of more importance, however, than his birthplace, are the times in which he lived and the influences surround- ing him in his early years. He was Parisian born and bred, and he grew to manhood in the centre of the life of Paris — the Paris of Richelieu, a city of about five CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 3 hundred thousand souls huddled within walls which stood where the boulevards now teem with life. France, welded to a state by Henry IV, was being drilled in nationality by its cardinal martinet; religious wars had already rent the land, and the bickerings of the Fronde were to follow, before the monarch destined to be called grand should rule. Moliere's father, Jean Poquelin by name, and a scion of a family established at Beauvais as early as the four- teenth century, was a respectable upholsterer by royal appointment to the King {valet de chambre tapissier du rot). His shop in the rue St. Honore, near the market- place, was within a stone's throw of the seats of the mighty. Standing in the doorway, young Jean-Baptiste might almost see Madame de Rambouillet in the win- dow of her famous blue salon, or hear the fish-wives hawk their wares ; and there, in middle class Paris, half- way between the great and the despised, he passed his boyhood among men and women whose types he was destined to immortalise. Jean Poquelin, the elder, was a man of importance in the shopkeeping world. His father had likewise been an upholsterer, and his wife's father as well ; so his business, as was customary in shopkeeping families, was inherited. His wife, Marie Cresse by name, brought him a comfortable dowry, and, being also a tapissier du roi, he had a certain function to fulfil at court. His younger brother, Nicolas, had held this appointment, but in 1 63 1 resigned it in favour of the poet's father. Six years later, on December eighteenth, 1637, the reversion of the office was settled upon the future dramatist. There were eight of these royal upholsterers among the domestic officers of the King's household. 4 MOLIERE each receiving a salary of three hundred livres, for three months annual service at court ; and it is easy to see that such an appointment would be sought by all well- to-do burghers of the upholsterer's craft. Jean-Baptiste, the future Moliere, was the first fruit of the marriage of Poquelin the upholsterer with Marie Cresse. Five other children followed, with the usual middle class regularity, and when the mother died in May, 163 a, at the age of thirty-one, Jean-Baptiste, aged ten, Jean, aged eight, Nicolas, aged six, and Madeleine, aged five, survived her. His brothers and sisters had small part in Moliere's life, and need no further men- tion ; but it may be said, in passing, that Marie Cresse left an inheritance of five thousand livres to each of her children, and that, a year after her death (May 30, 1633), her husband married Catherine Fleurette, daughter of a bourgeois merchant. She died three years later, leaving two children — half sisters of Moliere. So much for the bare family facts. The Poquelin house in the rue St. Honore, called the monkey pavilion (Je pavilion des singes), was a bit of old Paris made curious, even in those times, by a corner- post carved to represent a band of pilfering monkeys climbing an orange tree to pluck the fruit ; and by a sug- gestive coincidence, monkeys have occasionally appeared from very ancient times as symbols of comedy. The shop was on the ground floor, and behind it the kitchen, serving, probably, for a dining-room as well. Above was a loft, and over the shop an entresol in which were a bed- room and a closet. The first floor was used for storage ; the room over the shop, looking out on the rue St. Honore, was evidently the bedroom of Poquelin and his wife, and, possibly, the room in which Moliere was born. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 5 M. Eudore Soulie* gives a description of this apart- ment which deserves translation : To see how this room looked and to form an idea of its occupants, one should visit the Hotel de Cluny and the Louvre, and then read the inventory of Marie Cresse's eifects, made at the time of her death. On each side of the fireplace with its brass andirons, were two small wooden seats called by the worthy housewives of the seventeenth century caquetoires. They were well worn by frequent use — there the women sat to gossip near the fire. In the centre of the room reposed a seven-legged walnut table, covered with green tapestry, a rosette de Tournay ; and against the wall stood one of those old cabinets, now so rare, in which the most cherished bric-a-brac was kept. That of Marie Cresse was of walnut, with a marble top ; it had four doors with lock and key, and was lined with Bruges satin. Against another wall lay a huge chest, covered with flowered silk tapestry and used to hold the family valuables. Along the walls were six high-backed upholstered chairs, and the bed, with its valance of lace-fringed Mouy serge and silk testers, was covered with a counterpane of ceremony. In the ruelle, or space beside the bed, was an armchair, kept for guests of honour — the doctor or the father con- fessor. Five pictures and a Venetian glass mirror hung against the walls, and the drapings of the Poquelin room were of Rouen tapestry. Continuing, M. Soulie remarks that " the furniture was nothing extraordinary for the house of an uphol- sterer, but the rest of the family belongings surpassed in rather an unexpected manner the luxury, perhaps it would be better to say the comfort, of the bedroom," An inventory of the family effects was made (January 15-JI, 1633) after Marie Cresse's death, so we know * Recherches sur Moliere, 6 M0LI£RE that M. Poquelin's clothes were of fine black or gray- Spanish serge with gold buttons, and that his wife wore gowns of Neapolitan taffeta, gros-de-Naples, Florentine ratteen, or changeable watered silk, while her under- clothes were of the finest linen. Marie Cresse had jewels enough to put many a modern duchess to shame, — bracelets, necklaces, pearl ear-rings, emeralds, and rubies, fourteen rings of diamonds and opals, and sufficient bibelots to stock a curiosity shop. The family had embroidered damask napery, too, and heavy table plate with gilt handles and feet, while the least of the housekeeping utensils was of silver. There can be no doubt that the Poquelins were well-to-do. Had Jean-Baptiste been content to accept the lot of a successful shopkeeper, his only care need have been to learn his father's trade. But he was born with a turbu- lent heart, and that atmosphere of middle class respecta- bility, with its smell of upholstery and glue, must have stifled him even in childhood. One day was like another. The shop must be opened and swept, the goods arranged to attract purchasers, orders filled, bills collected, and regular meals eaten in the kitchen. Yet even the narrowness of such a life was not unblessed. While watching his father's customers, young Poquelin learned to know the capricious ladies of the aristocracy, the bourgeoises who aped court manners, the fops, the un- couth burghers, and the rascally servants — in a word, the characters that he drew so inimitably. His father, too, was such an object lesson in thrift and the strenuous stultification of wit that many writers have tried to identify him with Harpagon in Moliere's play. The Miser {UAvare). Undoubtedly, he was a close- fisted shopkeeper who counted pennies, or his business CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 7 would not have thrived ; but he lavished upon his son the most liberal education that money could buy, and once endorsed a note to save him from a debtor's prison ; so the stories that Moliere was, at one time, an abused appren- tice in a miser's shop, must be taken with reservations. His mother, likewise, is a woman about whom little is known, except that her parents were well-to-do. At the time her will was drawn her dowry had increased con- siderably under thrifty management ; and we know she brought six children into the world ; while the books noted in the inventory of her effects — the Bible and a set of Plutarch — indicate that she had thoughts other than those of scrimping and child-bearing. There was so much tenderness in Moliere's nature, sentiment so deep, that one likes to believe his mother was such a woman as he sought for in vain in after life. Marie Cresse died when her eldest son had reached the age of ten. The years from eleven till fourteen were passed in another woman's leading strings ; and it has been hinted that Catherine Fleurette, his father's second wife, was the original of Beline, the heartless, double- faced stepmother in The Imaginary Invalid [Le Malade imaginaire). Even dismissing this supposition as mere conjecture, the fact remains that young Poquelin fretted in parental harness. Such a lad as he could never be content in a sordid shop while the sun was shining on bright Paris ; and it is safe to venture the guess that he played truant whenever chance offered, in order to roam about the streets. Paris, at that time, was not the well paved, tree lined city of to-day, but a maze of tangled lanes. It was the Paris of D'Artagnan, where gilded coaches heralded by lackeys crowded passers-by against the house walls, while 8 MOLlfiRE the cardinal's musketeers fought for an unlucky throw of the dice, or, it might be, a lady's smile: the Paris of misery, too, where starving peasants trudged behind the panniers of overladen donkeys, and fifty thousand beg- gai:s dragged misshapen forms through ill smelling streets ; where criminals languished in the stocks, or died in tor- tui^e on the Place de Greve. Around the corner from Jean Poquelin's shop lay the market-place, where the pillory stood and the cut-purse thrived ; and there beneath the rambling arcades mer- chants in fine mantles chaffered to the click of the pew- terer's . hammer, while the market women cried their wares in the open square. But the Pont-Neuf, the main artery of Paris, must have delighted young Jean-Baptiste far more. While busy people came and went across this bridge, street singers trilled their ballads, poets recited pasquinades; quacks hawked opiates and drugs, clowns grimaced, and acrobats tumbled to gaping crowds. There, in that throng of artisans, students, valets, swashbucklers, grisettes, and wenches, he idled away many an hour ; for, according to tradition, he acquired his first taste for comedy on the Pont-Neuf. Each quack had a troupe of, mountebanks to draw him custom. The plays they gave upon their crude stages were screaming farces, with swaggering bullies or thieving servants as heroes, and wives who deceived their husbands as heroines ; rough frameworks, or canevas as they were called, the actor's ready wit supplying the lines ; and these may easily have served as models for Moliere's earliest work. The. Pont-Neuf was not the worst of schools. Gaultier- Garguille, Turlupin, Guillot-Gorju, and Gros Guillaume, all famed comedians of the Hotel de Bourgogne, learned their art while serving as mountebanks for its quacks. c o V h CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 9 In Moliere's time such op'erateurs as Bary and L'Orvietan were the vogue, so the lad may have been among their ardent admirers ; and, as his paternal grandfather owned two booths at the celebrated fair of St. Germain-des-Pres, another haunt of charlatans and mountebanks, he was doubtless a frequent spectator at the theatre of the fair as well.^ Grimarest's Life of Moliere ^ having been used by Vol- taire as a basis for his very inaccurate biography of le grand comique, as Frenchmen delight in calling their dramatic genius, it has ever since been the fashion to dis- credit that authority. However, as Grimarest's book was published only thirty-two years after Moliere's death, when comrades, notably Baron, were still living, it seems only just to give him some degree of confidence — cer- tainly in unrefuted stories like the following : Moliere had a grandfather who loved him distractedly ; and, as this good man had a passion for the theatre, he often took little Poquelin to the Hotel de Bourgogne. His father, fearing that such dissipation would spoil the child and divert his attention from his trade to other channels, asked the good man one day why he took his grandson to the play so often. " Do you wish," said he with much indignation, " to make him a comedian ? " " May it please Heaven," the grandfather answered, "that 1 Le Boulanger de Chalussay, in his comedy Mlomire hypocondre, accuses Moliere of having touted {brigu'e) Orvietan ; but as this satirical play was intended as a malicious attack upon the poet, its statements should not be accepted without substantiation. ^ La Vie de M. de Moliere by J.-L. Le Gallois, sieur de Grimarest, 1705. This work is the first biography of the poet. Although far from trustworthy in the matter of absolute facts, its anecdotes are referred to so frequently in these pages that it has seemed unnecessary to burden the footnotes with repetitions of the title. In all other instances Grimarest's name in the text has been deemed sufficient reference. lo moliEre he become as good a comedian as Bellerose!" (Belle- rose being a famous actor of the day.) This reply made a deep impression upon the young man, and since he had no fixed inclination for the trade of upholsterer, it aroused a distaste for it in his heart. As his grand- father wished him to become an actor, he believed that he might aspire to something more congenial than his father's calling. It will be seen that Grimarest fails to identify the grandparent responsible for so perverting the youthful mind; and, as Moliere's paternal grandfather died in 1626, the tempter — if the story be in any way true — must have been the maternal grandfather, Louis Cresse; a supposition rendered more probable by the fact that the latter shared with Jean Poquelin, the elder, the executorship of Marie Cresse's estate, and was, in con- sequence, one of the guardians of the heirs, the Poquelin children. To take his grandson to the theatre occasion- ally would have been neither heinous nor unnatural. Even if Louis Cresse were not fully as culpable as Grimarest paints him, it does not need a far stretch of one's imagination to picture the future Moliere standing beside him in the parterre of the Hotel de Bourgogne, and gazing with open-eyed intentness at the ranting actors of the time, Bellerose and the famous Mondory, " than whom no man ever appeared with greater splendour on the stage." Besides, there was Gros Guillaume to make the child, father of the man, laugh till his little sides split ; and, in the role of comic doctor, Guillot-Gorju, of huge peruke and pump like nose, to give him his first impression of the ridiculous side of medicine, his first distaste for the Faculty. The reader who can recall the first act in M. Ed- CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH ii mond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac should have a fairly- accurate impression of the Hotel de Bourgogne in Moliere's youth. Needless to say, it was the leading play-house of the capital. Its actors, glorying in the title of Troupe royale des comidiens, received a royal subsidy; and, unlike the tennis-court theatres of that period, this play-house occupied a spacious hall, and had a permanent stage and boxes. In the parterre, or pit, then entirely devoid of seats, a various rabble gathered, — lackeys, soldiers, artisans, shopkeepers, and impecunious gentlemen ; and to keep the quarrelsome from interfer- ing with the actors, the spectators were separated from the stage by a barrier at the height of a man's shoulder. Orange girls cried refreshments in the parterre, ladies of the court graced the boxes, men of fashion sat upon the stage ; crudely painted back drops sufficed for the scenery, clusters of candles, suspended from the roof by a cord and pulley, gave the stage its light ; in a box, fiddlers sat bowing wheezy violins ; and the " dead heads" of the day — the King's musketeers — were so quick to draw their rapiers that riots were of frequent occurrence, and duels not unknown : such in brief was the Hotel de Bourgogne. Its only rival, if rival it might be called, was the Theatre du Marais in the old rue du Temple, a typical play-house of the time, situated in a vacant tennis-court, where D'Orgemont, husband of the great Turlupin's widow, was the principal actor. Of more importance to the student of Moliere was the Hotel du Petit Bourbon, where a band of Italian buffoons held the boards, and Tiberio FiurelH, whose stage name of Scaramouche is a word in many languages, was in his prime. There is a tradition that the transalpine player was a friend of 12 MOLIERE young Poquelin's and gave him lessons in acting. If this histrionic instruction were ever given, it seems most probable that it was after Moliere's return to Paris from the provinces, in 1658; but the discussion of this may be left to a later chapter. That Moliere profited by his observations of Italian mummery and play construc- tion, is proved by his after work. Loitering occasionally in the crowds on the Pont-Neuf or standing beside his grandfather in the pit of the Hotel de Bourgogne or the Petit Bourbon, his keen young mind doubtless received lasting impressions ; yet he was obliged to spend too many years at school to have had much leisure for intimacy with buffoons and mountebanks. Since the young nobles usually received their earlier education at home, the pupils of the primary schools were, for the most part, sons of the bourgeoisie. When Moliere entered the Jesuit college of Clermont, early in his teens, he must have had previous training in books, and, if he held to the habit of his class, it was received at a primary school. In such an institution the life of the bourgeois boy was irksome to a degree. His costume was a simple uniform of coarse and sombre cloth, with a belt about the waist ; his hair was never curled or perfumed, and, in place of the broad felt hat and jack boots of a nobleman's son, he wore a round cap and low cut shoes. Instruction in manly exercises was denied him and, likewise, a sword; his holidays were few, and he had but a single hour of play a week, with an extension in summer of another on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Obliged to speak Latin during such recesses, he was forbidden to quarrel or to strike a com- rade, and his punishment varied only in the number of lashes administered by the whipping master, or the CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 13 length of time he might be condemned to a diet of bread and water. Charles Sorel gives a picture of the schoolmasters of the time which should inspire deep sympathy for their pupils : They were men who came to the desk from the plough, preparing themselves as proctors in the school hours they stole from the service of their masters, pr while their codfish sizzled over the fire. They contrived to become masters of arts with the consultation of few books ; but they did not know what civility meant, and a lad in their charge must be born good and noble not to be corrupted.^ If Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was taught by such masters, he learned a few phases of human nature, to say the least ; but when he entered the Jesuit college of Cler- mont (since called the college of Louis le Grand), in the rue St. Jacques, he was to be envied rather than pitied. Besides being the most fashionable school in the capital, it was also the best, and it brought him in contact with a superior class of boys, several of whom were to prove life long friends. The Jesuits, long persecuted by the University of Paris, had been obliged to close their college for a num- ber of years ; but the King, at the petition of the nobility, reopened it by Royal Letters Patent in 1618, whereupon the young nobles and sons of the upper middle classes flocked thither in such numbers that Clermont soon out- shone the University, its rival. The course of study was devoted mainly to Latin classics : Caesar, Sallust, Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, the poets * La Vraie bistoire comique de Francion. 14 M0LI£RE from Horace to Juvenal ; and, of far more importance to a future dramatist, the comedies of Plautus and Terence. Greek was taught less thoroughly ; in the humanities, the pupils were given a taste, at least, of the best Athenian authors, possibly Sophocles, ^Eschylus, and Euripides; and, in all probability, Moliere's familiarity with the classic drama was acquired while a student at Clermont. There was one feature in the life there which must have played a part in the development of his peculiar genius. Latin dramas were acted by the students ; the professors, too, occasionally wrote original tragedies and comedies to be interpreted by their pupils ; and, although no verify- ing record exists, it seems more than likely that Moliere's first appearance as an actor was in that Jesuit theatre. Because His Serene Highness, Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, brother of the great Conde, and a cousin of the King, became Moliere's patron at a later day, he is reputed to have been his friend at school; but the royal scion was nearly eight years his junior, and was rushed through his humanities with such sycophantic speed by his masters that at Clermont he must have been a privileged character, holding aloof from common lads. When he came to school escorted by a retinue of flunkeys in peach-coloured liveries, Jean-Baptiste doubtless ridiculed him when he was not within earshot, and may even have been present when he read his thesis to Cardinal Mazarin from a dais eleven feet high; yet to imagine that this prince of the blood royal and an upholsterer's son were ever intimates is to trifle with probability. About Moliere's acquaintance with some fellow pupils of more congenial tastes less doubt exists. Claude Chapelle, natural son of Luillier, mattre des comptes, and CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 15 a wit and dandy of society, and probably Fran9ois Ber- nier, the great traveller and doctor to the Grand Mogul, together with the poet Hesnault, truest friend of Fouquet in the hour of his disgrace, formed, with young Poquelin, a coterie of kindred spirits. When Luillier, Chapelle's father, persuaded his friend Gassendi, the epicurean, to take his son as a pupil, Bernier, Hesnault, and Jean- Baptiste Poquelin, were admitted to the philosopher's school as well. Soon that eccentric Verigourdin of tumid nose, Cyrano de Bergerac, also joined Gassendi's classes. The philosopher having been absent from Paris about seven years, returned in February, 1641, and in March was a guest of Luillier, an old time friend with whom he had once made a journey through Holland. During the previous year, De Bergerac, wounded at Arras and forced to leave the military service, developed a passion for philosophy; so 1641 is apparently the year when these five famous men studied with the epicurean. "If Moliere was a good humanist," says the preface to the first complete edition of his works (1682), "he be- came a still better philosopher; and his inclination for poetry made him read the poets with particular care, so he knew them thoroughly, above all, Terence." If such were his tastes he could have chosen no better master than Gassendi. The philosopher was a lover of the beautiful, who be- lieved that the lot of a man of letters was the best in the world. Gassendi had learned by heart a quantity of French and Latin verse which it was his habit to recite to his pupils while walking. " Beautiful poems learned and recited daily," he said, " elevate the mind, ennoble the style of those who write, and inspire grandiose senti- ments." Lucretius was his favourite author, and the i6 M0LI£RE effect of this epicurean poet upon his pupils is not diffi- cult to trace. Hesnault^ translated the invocation to Venus, and Moliere paraphrased a passage on the blind- ness of love, which, years later, found a place in ne Mis- anthrope. Chapelle, le grand ivrogne du Marais, as he was called, became the most epicurean of Gassendi's pupils, at least in the popular acceptance of the word ; but Moliere, although he led an actor's life, evinced, on more than one occasion, somewhat strenuous habits, and was decidedly more of a Cartesian than a follower of his early master's teachings. Luillier was a good liver, who, together with his poet friends, Desbarreaux and Colletet, may readily have initiated his son Chapelle and comrades in the delights of epicureanism ; and no doubt The Service and Fir Cone, The Lorraine Cross, and The Green Oak, all famous taverns of the day, rang to the laughter of these young lovers of the joys of life and verse. But what- ever may have been the habits of his friends, Jean- Baptiste Poquelin's life was not entirely devoted to revelry, for, upon leaving Gassendi's classes, he made a pretence, at least, of studying law. Le Boulanger de Chalussay ^ says that Moliere took his licentiate degree in law at Orleans, "where any donkey could buy a diploma, but only went to the law courts once"; while the preface of 1682 states that " after leaving the law schools he chose the profession of comedian." In 1641 Moliere was studying philoso- phy, while late in January, 1643, he had taken his first * M. Paul Mesnard considers the evidence that Hesnault was a mem- ber of Gassendi's class too slight for acceptance ; on the other hand, he presents no evidence to contradict a long established tradition. ' &lomire hypocondre. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 17 step toward the stage ; so his intervening law studies must have been more desultory than serious. According to Grimarest, " when Moliere finished his studies he was obliged, on account of his father's great age, to fulfil his duties as royal upholsterer for a while, and consequently made a journey to Narbonne in the suite of Louis XI IL" Moliere's trip to Narbonne, although unverified, has never been disproved ; but Grimarest's uncorroborated statements, being classed as mere traditions, have been held of doubtful authenticity ; especially as Poquelin, the elder, far from being decrepit, was only forty-seven at the time. However, the upholsterer was occupied with business transactions in Paris while the King took his eventful journey (1642), and the reversion of the office of valet de chambre tapissier had already been settled upon his son ; so the theory that young Poquelin filled his father's post on this occasion is based on more than mere conjecture. If he accompanied the King through the South in an official capacity, Moliere had opportunity to learn the flippant and servile ways of courtiers, their ambitions and jealousies, and to witness the futile but tragic end of a famous conspiracy. On the twelfth of May, Cinq-Mars and De Thou were arrested at Narbonne for plotting Richelieu's death ; and an attempt has even been made to identify the future dramatist with a young valet de chambre who tried to conceal Cinq-Mars in a closet and circumvent his pur- suers. However, the proof that Moliere played this humane role is quite as shadowy as the evidence that he lodged during this journey with one Melchior Dufort, a worthy bourgeois of Sigean, who at a later day is sup- i8 MOLIERE posed to have helped meet the financial difficulties of his strolling theatrical company. If Moliere at the age of twenty travelled in the King's suite, to be in the fashion he must have played the part of lover as well as courtier. Perhaps this was the case, since tradition would have it that during this journey in the South he met the strolling actress destined to lead him from the darkness of his middle class exist- ence into the light of day. But this early love affair is so thoroughly a part of Moliere's theatrical career that it must be related in connection with the story of his first appearance on the stage. MADELEINE BEJART 19 II MADELEINE BfijART AND THE ILLUSTRIOUS THEATRE In telling Moliere's love story one is in sore straits at the outset. That posterity might be interested in the doings of a mere actor certainly never occurred to him ; for with the exception of his plays he has left no word to shed light upon himself. Besides a few contracts, wills, mar- riage licenses, and baptismal records, the only sources for a history of his private life are the occasional re- marks of contemporary gossips, Grimarest's untrustwor- thy biography, and the slanders of enemies. Two of these last have almost attained the dignity of historical documents. One is a satire by Le Boulanger de Chalussay, published in 1670, and entitled Elomire Hypochondriac ; or. The Doc- tors Avenged {Elomire hypocondre ou les midecins veng'es) — Elomire being an anagram of the word Moliere, and the work a venomous comedy upon the poet's life. The other is a scandalous attack upon his wife in the form of a pamphlet called The Famous Comedienne ; or. The Story of La Gu'erin, formerly wife and widow of Moliere {La Fameuse comedienne, ou histoire de la Gu'erin auparavant femme et veuve de Moliere^. Guerin was the name of the actor Madame de Moliere married for her second hus- band, and this libel upon her character, published fifteen years after the poet's death, was so abusive that the anony- 20 MOLIERE mous author was obliged to print it in a foreign country. In spite of documentary evidence to the contrary, the vile charges it contains have been accepted wholly or in part by the majority of Moliere's biographers. Thus intro- duced, let the gossips and slanderers have their say. " A fellow named Moliere left the benches of the Sor- bonne to follow Madeleine Bejart. He was long in love with her, gave advice to her troupe, joined it finally, and married her." Moliere did love Madeleine Bejart, but he was not a student of the Sorbonne, and he did not marry her. However, when Tallemant des Reaux jotted down this bit of town talk in his Historiettes (a collection of gossipy tales written at the time, but not published until 1 833), Moliere was only an obscure actor ; so the wonder is that his humble love story should have been found worthy of record at all. Now let the slanderer speak : " Madeleine Bejart was the pastime of a number of young men of Languedoc," says the anonymous author of The Famous Comedienne. She was certainly in dalli- ance with one noble of the court, yet if all that libel says of her be true, it is strange that the name of only one lover besides Moliere has been chronicled. How easily one young man of Languedoc might be magnified until he became " a number " in the eyes of a vilifier ! But to pass over this unpleasant feature of her life, it is suffi- cient to say that she was the mistress of Esprit de Remond de Mormoiron, Baron de Modene, a young nobleman of the county Venaissin and gentleman-in-waiting to the Duke of Orleans. She bore him a natural child, baptised on the eleventh of July, 1638, under the name of Fran- 9oise. The sponsors were Modene's legitimate son, Gaston, and Madeleine Bejart's own mother ; while Jean- MADELEINE BEJART 21 Baptiste Tristan 1' Hermite, a decayed gentleman-actor, whose daughter later became Modene's second wife, stood proxy for the eight-year-old godfather — leaving it certainly an inclusive family affair, and an interesting side light on the loose manners of the day. Nor is this the only questionable baptism in the Bejart family. The parentage of Moliere's wife, Armande Bejart, — Madeleine's sister or daughter, as the case may be, — is still a question for debate ; but its discussion will be left to another chapter. The date of Madeleine Bejart's birth, January eighth, 1 61 8, is recorded in the parish of St. Paul; hence she was Moliere's senior by four years. Her father, Joseph Bejart, Sieur de Belleville, was a petty court official with the untranslatable title of Huissier audiencier a la grande maitrise des eaux et forSts, si'egeant a la table de marbre du palais. He married Marie Herve in this same parish of St. Paul on the sixth day of October, 16 15, and she bore him eleven or twelve children, of whom only five were living when he died in the spring of 1643, — the year that Moliere went upon the stage. All these surviving chil- dren were more or less connected with the poet's life. Joseph, the eldest, was twenty-six, possibly twenty-seven, years old at the time of his father's death ; Madeleine was twenty-five ; Genevieve, another sister, was probably about nineteen ; and there was a brother, Louis, aged thirteen, as well as an unbaptised baby, — this last a fact to be remembered in the future discussion concerning Moliere's wife. The fortune of Joseph Bejart must have consisted solely in debts, for the widow took proceedings on March tenth, 1643, in the name of herself and children to aban- don the right of inheritance. Perhaps it was this family 22 MOLIERE poverty which made the eldest son and daughter adopt the profession of the stage ; for, like his sister, Joseph Bejart the younger was a strolling player. Madeleine has been painted as a ne'er-do-weel who ran wild in the streets of Paris and finally joined a travelling theatrical company ; yet all the evidence points to a time- filled, hard-working youth. Her father's position was honourable if not lucrative, while his brother held the office of Procureur au chatelet. Her family lived not far from the Hotel de Bourgogne ; and she had an uncle who, besides being a bailiff, managed a tennis-court, — in those days so nearly synonymous with theatre that she may be said tx) have passed her youth in a theatrical atmosphere. She probably went upon the stage at seventeen ; but she was the friend of Rotrou, the dramatist, herself wrote verses in his honour, and there is a tradition that one or two plays by her were performed in the provinces ; so the idea that she was a child of the streets is certainly questionable. Le Boulanger de Chalussay says she had reddish hair ; this in itself indicates temperament ; but her reason for adopting a stage career was doubtless the inborn love of excitement and admiration which has inspired many an actress. Whether from choice or necessity, Madeleine prob- ably wandered through the provinces with a strolling company ; and she may have played in Paris from time to time at some outlying theatre, since at eighteen she bought and occupied a small house in the Cul-de- sac de Thorigny. Rotrou, too, in the same year, 1636, published as dedication to his tragedy, "The Dying Her- cules, these verses by her : MADELEINE BEJART 23 Thy dying Hercules, in heaven or earth. Brings glory to immortalise thy name ; And leaving here a temple to thy fame. His pyre becomes an altar to thy birth. No common wanton surely, this Madeleine Bejart, who could write verses to flatter the least susceptible great poet of the day ! But Rotrou was not alone in think- ing well of her attainments : Tallemant des Reaux wrote in his Historiettes that, " although he had not seen her, he understood she was the best actress of them all," — a tribute, indeed, considering that she never appeared at the Hotel de Bourgogne. Her protector, the Baron de Modene, was a restless dare-devil who played his part in half the conspiracies and intrigues of the time. His master, Gaston, Duke of Orleans, a brother of Louis XIII, spent his life in plotting, and his court was of the usual Orleans type, — a rendezvous for libertines and intriguers. Modene lived apart from his wife, and, when not fighting or conspiring or fleeing from justice, spent his time in revelry with his royal master ; so he could hardly have been faithful either as lover or husband. Madeleine is supposed to have met this handsome, turbulent Lothario in Languedoc when he was an exile from court ; and there is a story that he wooed her under a promise of marriage. In view of her later fidelity to the dramatist, this is not difiicult to believe ; for, with the exception of the attacks of libellers, there is not a word to indicate that she loved any one but Modene and Moliere, and none that she ever bartered her charms. She was a strolling actress in an age of license, it is true, and many were the nights she must have slept upon the straw of some barn or beneath the canopy of her 24 MOLIERE Thespian chariot. When she happened to please village bucks, they swarmed about her in the corner behind the stage where she dressed or besieged her quarters at the inn ; and it would be hard for a woman to remain modest and immaculate in such surroundings. When Moliere first knew her, she was about twenty-five years old, and had seen much of the shadowy side of life. Surely it is not the only time an actress with a past has bewitched a callow youth of twenty. The place of their meeting is still a mystery. Tradi- tion would have it in Languedoc during the King's journey ; and because some comedians played before his Majesty when he stopped to take the waters at Mont- frin, and a troupe headed by Charles Dufresne, an actor associated with Moliere at a later date, appeared at Lyons the following year (1643), It has been argued that these organisations were identical, and Madeleine a member of them at the time.^ If this be so, Montfrin was the place of her first meeting with Moliere ; but the young man's journey itself is still a matter of doubt, so it seems quite as likely that they met first in Paris when she came from the provinces to set up her trestles in some vacant tennis-court. If this conjecture be correct, in the company she brought with her from the country were her brother Joseph, who had a habit of stuttering even upon the stage, and probably an out-at-elbow gentleman named Jean- Baptiste Tristan I'Hermite, a brother of the poet Francois Tristan I'Hermite, and like him asserting descent from the gossip hangman of Louis XI. Modene, La Bejart's lover, played fast and loose with the wife of Jean-Baptiste, ^ M. de Modene: ses deux femmes et Madeleine Bejart, by Henri Chardon. MADELEINE BEJART 25 and afterward married Madeleine I'Hermite, his daugh- ter. Perhaps at the time Moliere came upon the scene, Modene, already tiring of his love for Madeleine Bejart, had begun to be enamoured of L'Hermite's wife, known on the stage as Marie Courtin de la Dehors. This would tend to leave La Bejart at once resentful and fancy free ; and if, as seems most likely, she was in financial straits, the budding passion of a young man who had just received an inheritance from his mother's estate might have ap- peared in the light of a godsend to such a girl. The one certainty, however, to be deduced from all this conjec- ture is that Madeleine Bejart met the future genius of comedy before June thirtieth, 1643, the date when he signed his first theatrical contract. The actors of the time were vagabonds. The patron- age of Richelieu had done something to improve their lot, and at his instigation the King had decreed that no aspersion should attach to the profession of player ; but no royal decree could remove a deep-rooted prejudice. To a worthy bourgeois, such as Poquelin the upholsterer, a comedian was an outcast unworthy to be shrived ; hence it took rare courage on Jean-Baptiste's part to cut himself loose from family and prospects. When he decided to forsake the profession of the law for an actor's calling, he is reputed to have conceived a harebrained scheme which he hoped would lend respecta- bility to his venture. Madeleine, the daughter of a court official, was as well born as he ; and if they could surround themselves with a company of respectable amateurs — gens de famille, Hke themselves — they might elevate the stage by giving free performances in fashionable circles. The name of this venture was "The Illustrious Theatre" {L'lllusire 'Th'eatre) ; undoubtedly an ill-starred theatrical 26 MOLIERE company bearing this title was organised by young Poque- lin and the Bejarts ; but whether the members gave ama- teur performances before appearing on the professional stage is still a matter of considerable doubt. A somewhat questionable legend is told by Perrault^ about a writing-master named George Pinel whom the upholsterer employed to dissuade his son from making a fool of himself. Instead of listening to righteous argu- ment, the lad painted the charms of an actor's life in such glowing terms that the scrivener was himself persuaded to join " The Illustrious Theatre." As he succeeded in borrowing money from the worthy upholsterer both before and after espousing his son's cause, Pinel, if the story be true, must have been a pharisee as well as a scribe. The facts of history relating to the organisation of " The Illustrious Theatre " are few. On the sixth of January, 1643, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin received from his father the sum of six hundred and thirty livres due from his mother's estate, and renounced his right of succession to the office of Royal Upholsterer. The decease of Madeleine's father about this time may have retarded the organisation of the company somewhat, since it was not until the thirtieth of June that its members were brought together to sign the contract which was to bind them to the venture. This latter document contained a clause whereby Clerin, Poquelin, and Joseph Bejart should have the right to choose successively the role of hero in the plays to be produced, while to Mile. Bejart was given the selection of the parts which pleased her. It set forth as well that the contracting parties united to play comedy and to ^ Les Hommes illustres qui ont paru en France pendant te siicle : avec leurs portraits au naturel. MADELEINE BfijART 27 retain their organisation under the title of " The Illustri- ous Theatre." From these two clauses it has been ar- gued that the troupe had given performances before the instrument was drawn, else its members would not wish to retain their organisation or entrust leading roles to a young man without experience. But that is a question of minor importance. The signing of this contract marks the beginning of Moliere's career as a professional actor. The document itself, discovered in a Parisian notary's office by M. Eudore Soulie, is authentic. The names of the following signatories occur in the eccentric spelling of the day: Beys G. Clerin Jean-Baptiste Poquelin J, Beiart Bonnenfant George Pinel M. Beiart Magdale Malingre Geneviefve Beiart Catherine Desurlis A. Mareschal Marie Herve Fran^oise Lesguillon Duchesne. — Fieffd. Although Beys wrote the initial of his Christian name as " D " to later documents of " The Illustrious Theatre," he was possibly the wine-bibbing Charles Beys, born in 1 6 10, whose epitaph Loret wrote, and who was cited by the Brothers Parfaict ^ as the author of The Madhouse {L'Hdpital desfous) and other pieces. Little is known of Germain Clerin. Joseph Bejart was Madeleine's eldest brother, while Genevieve was her younger sister, doubtless just beginning her theatrical career. Nicolas Bonnenfant was a lawyer's clerk, Andre Mareschal an advocate in parliament, and George Pinel the Pharisaical scribe already mentioned. Catherine De- * Histoire du theatre fraiifais. 28 MOLIERE surlis, or de Surlis, was the eldest daughter of Etienne de Surlis, record clerk of the Privy Council of the King, and Fran9oise Lesguillon was her mother, who, as the actress was a minor, signed the contract to make it binding. Madeleine (or, as she wrote her name, Magdale) Malingre remained in the company only a short time, joining the forces of the Theatre du Marais, where, according to Tallemant des Reaux, she fought a duel upon the stage with an actress named La Beaupre. Marie Herve was the mother of the Bejart family. Duchesne and Fieffe were notaries. In this document young Poquelin gave his address as the rue de Thorigny, where Madeleine had owned a house since her eighteenth year ; so, although the lady discreetly gave her mother's residence in the rue de la Perle as her own domicile, it is evident that, without the benediction of the church, the young man had already joined his inamorata for better or for worse. To complete his separation from middle-class respecta- bility, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin chose a stage name, — a common practice among actors then as now, — but his reason for selecting " Moliere " has ever remained a mystery. There was a ballet-master, poet, and musician attached to the court called Louis de Molier, or, as it was often written, Moliere, and there had been an author, Fran9ois de Moliere, whose amorous novels had had quite a vogue. This Fran9ois de Moliere was dead. Possibly young Poquelin had been reading one of his books to his lady-love and liked the author's name. But this is a question quite as unanswerable as whether love of art or love of a more tender nature made " a fel- low named Moliere leave the benches of the Sorbonne," or, to be more truthful, his father's house, " to follow MADELEINE BEJART 29 Madeleine Bejart." The blood runs warm at one-and- twenty, and in spite of his undoubted passion for the stage the lady's glances must have been more potent in turning the scales than " the invincible appeal of a noble art," which M. Paul Mesnard^ cites as the cause of the youth's apostasy. Once having taken this rash step, the young man must needs find a theatre for his madcap venture. Just beyond the walls of the city on the left bank of the Seine, stood a vacant hall called from the name of its proprietors the Mestayers' Tennis-Court This was the place selected by Moliere and his impecunious comrades for their enter- prise. Situated in the foss'e de Nesle,** it was remote from the haunts of fashion ; yet the annual rental alone of nineteen hundred livres demanded by Noel Gallois, the tennis master, was fiilly three times Moliere's capital, and the expense of transforming the place into a theatre was not included therein. The young man did not hesi- tate, however, to sign a three years' lease for this tennis- court, dated September twelfth, 1643, and since Marie Herve hypothecated her goods, chattels, and house in the rue de la Perle as security, Moliere's confidence in the enterprise seems to have been shared by her children, the Bejarts. While the Mestayers' Tennis-Court was being trans- formed into a play-house, the members of " The Illustri- ous Theatre," together with Catherine Bourgeois, a new recruit, ventured forth to Rouen to try their fortune at a fair.^ Engaging four " rascal fiddlers," who styled them- * Notice Biographiqtie sur Moliere. ' Probably on the site now occupied by houses lo, iz, 14 in the rue Mazarin and 11, 13 rue de la Seine. * La Foire du pardon, ou de Saint Romain. 30 MOLIERE selves " master players of instruments," to draw them cus- tom, these unfledged actors set up their trestles near the gypsy tents and peddlers' booths of Normandy ; there played to an audience of yokels, and made their bid for fame. As the fair opened, on October twenty-third, it is rea- sonable to presume the company had reached Rouen by that time. On November third, there the members signed a contract with Michault, a master-builder, and Duplessis, a carpenter, for alterations to their Paris house; so their presence in the cathedral city on that day is attested. Corneille lived at Rouen, and his comedy, 'the Liar (Le Menteur), being somewhat in the vein of Moliere's own earlier work, imaginative writers have pictured the master of comedy playing the part of Dorante at the time of his debut. Unfortunately for the truth of this tribute of a future genius to one already laurel-crowned, Moliere's early bent was tragedy, and at the time of his first appearance at Corneille's birthplace he was courting Melpomene with an ardour still unquenched. Although the exact length of their sojourn among the merry-andrews of the West is not known, Moliere and his fellow Thespians were certainly back in Paris on December twenty-eighth, for on that day the members of " The Illustrious Theatre " signed an obligation to pay Leonard Aubry, pavier in ordinary of the King's build- ings, two hundred livres for a pavement twelve fathoms long by three wide before the new theatre. Aubry agreed, further, to widen the street so that coaches might reach the door, and that the work should be completed on the following Thursday, weather permitting. The twenty- eighth of December, 1643, falling upon a Monday, the Thursday following was the thirty-first. If the condi- MADELEINE BEJART 31 tions of the contract were fulfilled, the opening of " The Illustrious Theatre" probably took place on New Year's Day, 1644, one year less five days from the time Moliere had received the sum of six hundred and thirty livres from his father and renounced his right of succession to the appointment of Royal Upholsterer. The few whom curiosity attracted to the new play- house went away to cavil. Even Madeleine Bejart's talent could not save the doomed enterprise. There is no sadder spectacle than a bad actor playing to an empty house; and in those days Moliere was so bad an actor that in his efforts to curb the volubility of his speech, he acquired the habit of a sort of hiccough which lasted him through life ; the houses he played to standing so empty that his patrimony was soon exhausted and debts contracted to the sum of two thousand livres. For a full year he and his fellow tragedians struggled on in the Mestayers' Tennis-Court ; but the expected coaches never came, and the sumptuous boxes remained ungraced. True, they received the empty boon of styl- ing themselves " The Troupe of His Royal Highness," probably through the intercession of Modene, but the Duke of Orleans was chary of his pensions, and the honour could not have been half so useful in drawing custom as the ballet-master named Daniel Mallet, en- gaged on June twenty-eighth, 1644, for thirty-five sous a day, with an additional five when he performed. The name Moliere appears signed to the contract with this terpischorean artist for the first time, — Moliere, at the nadir of his career. The thought of a hired dancer doing steps as an anti- dotal interlude to the tragic bellowings of the genius of comedy would be pathetic if it were not humorous. For 32 MOLIERE tragedy was the undoing of " The Illustrious Theatre." Indeed the new play-house became a veritable morgue, where every poetaster in Paris exposed dead plays, ^he Death of Seneca and l!he Death of Crispus, by Tristan I'Hermite, Scavola, by Pierre du Ryer, and Artaxerxes, by Jean Magnon, were among the lugubrious pieces pro- duced by these ingenuous actors ; and, not content with turning their theatre into a mortuary, they admitted one Nicolas Desfontaines, already the author of eleven trag- edies, to partnership. No theatrical company could bear such a burden of the " heavy " ; yet, actor-like, these crushed tragedians did not attribute their failure to lack of talent or choice of plays, but to the situation of their theatre. In Decem- ber, 1644, when debt had driven them from their play- house, they rented another tennis-court called the Black Cross, over by the St. Paul gate, a far more aristocratic quarter then than the Faubourg St. Germain. Another master-builder was engaged to make the new house ready for occupancy on the eighth of January, 1645, and unless he was a trusting soul, Moliere and his comrades had already received their windfall of cast-ofF garments to pawn for his remuneration. Old clothes were no unusual reward for poets and actors who had pleased some great noble. Madeleine's former protector, the Baron de Modene, had become first gentleman-in-waiting to the Duke of Guise, and Tristan I'Hermite was attached to his household ; so " The Illustrious Theatre " shared the wardrobe his Grace distributed among the actors of Paris about this time. In an anonymous collection of poetry, printed in 1646, occur these lines, evidently written by an actor the duke had overlooked : MADELEINE BEJART ^3 Already, in the royal troupe. Sir Beauchateau, that popinjay. Lets his impatient spirit droop. Whene'er thy gift he can't display; La Bejart, Beys, and Moliere, Three stars of brilliance quite as rare. Through glory thine, have grown so vain That envy makes me loudly swear I '11 none of them, shouldst thou not deign To grant me clothes as fine to wear. Even a duke's cast-ofF garments could not avert "The Illustrious Theatre's " stalking doom. The receipts at the new play-house were no better than in the Faubourg St. Germain. At last came the hour of reckoning : Jean- Baptiste Poquelin, Sieur de Moliere, having pawned two gold and silver embroidered ribbons, probably the rem- nants of De Guise's gift, was tried in July, 1645, ^"d imprisoned in the Grand Chatelet early in the following month. A chandler named Antoine Fausser had pressed a claim for a debt of a hundred and forty-two livres ; and, having gone security for the ill-fated company, Moliere was placed in a debtor's cell. On the fifth of August the civil lieutenant, Dreux d'Aubry, ordered him set at liberty upon his own recognisances, but one Fran9ois Pommier, acting for other creditors, demanded that he be reincarcerated, and a linen-draper named Dubourg obtained a decree of arrest. The chief of " The Illustrious Theatre " was there- upon again imprisoned; but his friends rallied to his support, and Leonard Aubry, who paved the street before the Mestayers' Tennis-Court for the carriages which never came, went upon his bond. When the young actor was released, his comrades gathered in the Black Cross Tennis-Court, August thir^ 34 MOLIERE teenth, 1645, and agreed to indemnify his benefactor; but the ranks of " The Illustrious Theatre " had been sadly shattered. The company no longer styled itself " The Troupe of His Royal Highness," and of the original members, Moliere, the Bejarts, and Germain Clerin alone remained loyal. Catherine Bourgeois and Germain Rabel, later recruits, signed the obligation to the pavier, thus swelling the total of the depleted ranks to seven Thespians all told; but the honourable inten- tions of these wretched vagabonds were beyond their powers of fulfilment. When the obligation to Leonard Aubry fell due, December twenty-fourth, 1646, Moliere's father, so frequently maligned as the original of Har- pagon the miser, came to the relief of his wayward son by endorsing the note, — surely not the least of the upholsterer's good acts. This ends the story of " The Illustrious Theatre." Madeleine Bej art's faith in her young lover was still unshaken, but Paris would have none of them ; so the undaunted pair went forth to seek their fortune in the provinces. The temptation to return to his father's house must have been very strong, but Moliere's belief in himself was still the confidence of youth, — the glow in the heart that lessens only with the years. COMEDIANS OF DUKE OF EPERNON 35 III THE COMEDIANS OF THE DUKE OF fiPERNON When Moliere fled from Paris, he became, in the phrase of the theatre, a " barn-stormer." An ox-cart was his home, his play-house some vacant grange or tennis-court. Eventually he obtained a following in certain towns, and recognition as an official entertainer in at least two provinces ; yet for nearly thirteen years he was at best a vagabond, tramping the highroads of France beside his unwinged chariot. Court records, the registration of in- fants born to his actresses, and entries in a few provincial ledgers of payments made to his company are the only recorded facts relating to the first eight years of his wan- derings ; so in order that the story may be told at all, it becomes necessary to shed a dim light of circumstantial evidence upon that darkest period of his life. Only the Bejarts — Madeleine, Joseph, and Genevieve — are known to have accompanied him in his flight from Paris, and he was of so little importance, even in the theatrical world, that no record of his departure has been preserved. Catherine Bourgeois, as a member of " The Illustrious Theatre," had paid her share of that hapless venture's obligation to Fran9ois Pommier on the fourth of Novem- ber, 1646, and during the following month Jean Poquelin, senior, had endorsed his son's note to Leonard Aubry, the pavier, to tide over " The Illustrious Theatre's " misfor- 26 MOLIERE tunes. From this it may be argued that Moliere lingered in Paris until the end of the year 1646 ; though sixteen months intervened between the agreement of the shattered company to indemnify Leonard Aubry and the date when Moliere's father came to its relief, without any record of intermediate financial difficulties, Catherine Bourgeois's settlement was manifestly her own affair, and it would have been possible for Moliere to arrange his business with his father by correspondence, or even to take a fly- ing trip to Paris ; therefore it is far easier to believe that he fled to the provinces shortly after his second escape from prison than that he was able to dodge both bailiffs and gaolers from August thirteenth, 1645, *^° December twenty-fourth, 1646. M. Mesnard * enhances the value of this theory that the chief of "The Illustrious Theatre " left Paris in 1645 by quoting from the memoirs of a contemporary named Tralage, to the effect that the " Sieur de Moliere began to play comedy at Bordeaux in 1644 or 1645." It was impossible for the poet to have reached the capital of Guyenne until after his escape from the Chatelet in August, 1645 > ^"* i^ he left Paris then, he might have reached Bordeaux long before the end of that year. The Duke of Epernon was governor of Guyenne at the time, and, according to Tralage, " he esteemed Moliere, who appeared to him to possess considerable wit." There is other evidence to indicate that Moliere and his company reached Guyenne before December, 1646. During the autumn of that year Jean Magnon, whose tragedy of Artaxerxes had been played by " The Illus- trious Theatre " preliminary to its downfall, published a tragi-comedy called Jehosophat. In the preface, he took * Notice biograpbique sur Moliire. COMEDIANS OF DUKE OF fiPERNON 37 occasion to thank the Duke of Epernon for " the protec- tion and assistance he had given the most unfortunate and one of the most deserving of French actresses." Made- leine Bejart was undoubtedly most unfortunate at the time this was written, and, considering Magnon's connection with " The Illustrious Theatre," it is reasonable to sup- pose she was the actress the Duke of Epernon be- friended. Again, in April of that same year (1646), A. Mareschal, another former comrade, likewise dedicated a tragedy called Papirius; or. The Roman Dictator to the Duke of Epernon, and, in his preface, refers to the troupe his Grace had " enriched by magnificent presents as much as by illustrious actors." ^ Thus Tralage mentions Moliere as having pleased the Duke of Epernon, while Magnon calls attention to an unfortunate actress he had befriended, and Mareschal to his " illustrious actors." Piecing together this fragmen- tary evidence, it is fair to presume that Moliere, together with Madeleine Bejart and the remnants of " The Illus- trious Theatre," left Paris before the publication of either Jehosophat or The Roman Dictator, and that the Duke of Epernon extended them his patronage. It was customary for travelling companies to organise at Easter, so that the spring of 1646 seems a probable date for the departure from Paris. On the other hand, if Moliere fled from the capital immediately after his escape from prison, he reached Bordeaux before the end of the year, which would accord with Tralage's statement that he was there in 1644 or 1645. Of far more human interest, however, than the date of his departure for the provinces is the fact that he had 'i- M. de Modene : ses deux femmes et Madeleine Bejart, by Henri Chardon. 38 MOLIERE the pluck to persevere in his chosen calling. Over- whelmed by discouragement and disgraced by a debtor's cell, his most natural course would have been to re-enact the story of the prodigal's return ; but rather than ac- knowledge defeat, he became an outcast denied even the right of Christian burial. In those days the strolling player was beset by want and persecution, while the unsettled state of French politics added the danger of highway robbery to the certainty of police oppression. Courage and perseverance are qualities which distinguish genius from mere cleverness, and when Moliere turned his back upon the joys of Paris to lead a life of privation and social ostracism, he proved the quality of his fibre. The best existing picture of life in a travelling the- atrical company, at the time when Moliere took to the highroads of France, is in Scarron's Comic Romance {Le Roman comique), a story of the trials, tribulations, and amours of a band of strolling players, told with true picaresque humour and gaiety. It was evidently in- spired by some travelling company which the worldly abbe met while attending the general chapter of St. Julien at Le Mans in 1646, and as Moliere and La Bejart bear a vague resemblance to the hero and heroine, more than one attempt has been made to prove that he had them particularly in mind. But other theatrical companies were tramping the highroads at the time, and M. Chardon,^ who has studied the matter exhaustively, comes to the conclusion that Moliere was not the hero. The opening paragraph of Scarron's story might pass, however, for a picture of Madeleine Bejart and her young lover at the time they were forced to storm the barns of provincial France : ^ La Troupe du Roman comique divoU'ee. COMEDIANS OF DUKE OF fiPERNON 39 Between five and six in the afternoon a van entered the market-place of Le Mans. It was drawn by four lean oxen led by a brood mare, whose colt scampered back and forth about the vehicle like the little fool it was. The bags, trunks, and long rolls of painted cloth which filled the chariot formed a sort of pyramid upon the apex of which sat a young girl whose country garments were relieved by a touch of city finery. A young man, poor in dress but rich in countenance, tramped beside the van. . . . Upon his shoulder he carried a blunderbuss which had served to assassinate a number of magpies, jays, and crows. These made him a cross-belt, from which a chicken and a gosling, evidently captured in desultory warfare, hung by the legs. This ox-cart described by Scarron was typical of Moliere's own chariot of Thespis. When it halted at the end of a day's journey, village urchins greeted it with jeers ; and while the footsore actors who had, tramped behind its creaking wheels argued with some swaggering archer of police for permission to set up their trestles, village rakes with feathered hats against their breasts besieged the tired actresses, sitting huddled on its pile of baggage, with offers of gallantry and ribald compliment. The strolling player found manifold trials awaiting him on every hand ; bandits infested the highroads, the police were merely authorised brigands, and so great was the prejudice against his calling in certain localities that a tatterdemalion mob armed with stones sometimes greeted him at the end of a day's journey. Even in more hospitable regions, he was forced to seek an ofEcial permit to present his comedies, and for some vacant grange or tennis-court to serve him for a play-house. A few deals laid upon wooden trestles were the veritable 40 MOLlfiRE " boards " he trod ; and as his theatre was frequently a barn, the term " barn-stormer " is no misnomer. If his company were affluent, it might boast a roll or two of canvas daubed to represent a street or palace; but his scenery was more likely to be merely a pair of travel- stained curtains which rumpled the hair of his tragedy queen as she made her haughty entrance. His lights were only tallow dips stuck by their own grease on a pair of crossed laths ; his orchestra, a drum, a trumpet, and a pair of squeaking fiddles ; while in costuming and " make-up " he did not attempt historical accuracy ; a tawdry toga and a plumed helmet sufficed for the classic heroes of both Greece and Rome; a clown's dress or swashbuckler's cloak for comedy parts. For the buffoon, he whitened his face with flour and pencilled grotesque moustaches on his lips with char- coal ; but nature herself was usually the " make-up artist." An official permit obtained and his theatre ready, the manager of a strolling company must then secure an audience. This was no simple matter. His drum-beats gathered a crowd ; and by an harangue on the marvels of his actors he endeavoured to extract sufficient coppers from the pockets of his yokel auditors to keep out of the bailiff's hands. To feed a dozen mouths when five sous was the price of admission was a task to appal even the most aspiring heart. Happy the comedians who obtained a governor's patronage ! Official thorns were removed from their path, their coffers filled from the public exchequer, pres- elttts and favours bestowed upon them ; so, in befriending " the most unfortunate and one of the most deserving of French actresses," the Duke of Epernon spared the Moliere's Chariot of Thespis COMEDIANS OF DUKE OF EPERNON 41 remnants of " The Illustrious Theatre " many a supper- less night, many a pallet of straw. " Our troupe is as complete as that of the Prince of Orange, jor of his Highness of Epernon," said one of the characters in The Comic Romance. Moliere's portion of this divided compliment was due, no doubt, to the eventual union of his company with the troupe of Charles Dufresne, a comedian who appeared in Lyons as early as 1643. The date when the two organisations joined forces is still uncertain, but it is quite likely that Moliere, when he reached Guyenne, found Dufresne already in the governor's favour, and, through Madeleine Bejart's influence, was invited to join his ranks. An acknowledgment for five hundred livres paid " The Comedians of the Duke of Epernon " by the town au- thorities of Albi in October, 1647, contains the names of Dufresne, Pierre Rebelhon, and Rene Berthelot. Rebel- hon, or Reveillon as he is usually called, played with Moliere in the provinces, while Dufresne, as well as Berthelot, a fat comedian known on the stage as Du Pare and nicknamed Gros-Rene, were in the company he brought to Paris in 1658. As the Bejarts and Moliere are not mentioned in this document, it is uncertain whether the two companies were yet united ; but on May eigh- teenth of the following year (1648), Dufresne, Du Pare, Marie Herve, and Madeleine Bejart stood sponsors at Nantes for Reveillon's daughter. Moliere was also in Brittany near this time ; for, ac- cording to the municipal records of Nantes, " The Sieur Morlierre {sic), one of the comedians of the troupe of the Sieur Dufresne," appeared before the civic authorities on April twenty-third, " humbly to beg permission to erect a stage and present comedies," — a petition refused until 42 MOLIERE the Marechal de la Meilleraye, governor of the province, had recovered from an illness. On May seventeenth, Dufresne alone conferred with the aforesaid city fathers about a performance which was to be given for charity on the following day, while on June ninth he signed a document pertaining to the lease of a tennis-court at Fontenay-le-Comte ; so apparently he, and not Moliere, was the manager of "The Duke of fipernon's Come- dians." Being a man of greater experience, it was but natural for him to assume the leadership until his com- rade's genius asserted itself in no unmistakable way. This did not occur until after the company reached Lyons ; meantime the future poet, while serving his apprenticeship in stagecraft, was acquiring much in the way of worldly knowledge. A writer who has never studied in the school of emo- tion will find himself ill-equipped for the portrayal of human nature ; so perhaps of even more value to Moliere than stage experience was his experience with the sex. He had flaunted himself out of his father's house because he was in love with a pretty actress, but he found it quite another matter to remain in love with her throughout the years he spent in ox-carts, barns, and hostelries. When the scales had fallen from his eyes, Madeleine Bejart appeared in her true light, — a clever actress and a good comrade, yet a woman older than himself, and one whose life was not above reproach. She, on the other hand, knowing his nature thoroughly, was ready to pardon his lesser faults because of her implicit faith in his abounding genius. His failure to realise that she was the one above all others suited to be his helpmate was undoubtedly a weakness in his character ; but remember he shared with her the countless hardships of a strolling player's life. COMEDIANS OF DUKE OF EPERNON 43 Though a vagabond, he could never forget he had been born above his station. His writings and his unfortunate choice of a wife prove that he possessed a distinct ideal of womanhood Madeleine Bejart could not fulfil. Never- theless, his conduct during those years of wandering, if his slanderers are to be believed, was none too scrupulous. According to the author of The Famous Com'edienne : When the troupe arrived at Lyons, they met another company in which were two actresses named Du Pare and De Brie. Moliere was at first charmed by the former's good looks, but the lady, hoping for a more brilliant conquest, treated him so disdainfully that he was obliged to turn his affections toward De Brie. She received him with no such coldness, and, unable to avoid her, he engaged her in his company, together with Du Pare. This story from the pen of a slanderer need not be accepted in its entirety. On January tenth, 1650, Mo- liere and Catherine du Rose (or Rozet) stood sponsors for a child baptised at Narbonne, while on February nineteenth, 1653, the poet witnessed Du Fare's marriage at Lyons with Marquise Therese de Gorla. Catherine du Rose was the stage name of Catherine Leclerc, who married Edme Villiquin, a surly member of Moliere's company called Sieur de Brie. After her marriage, she became known as Mile, de Brie. Likewise Marquise Therese de Gorla (Marquise being a name, not a title), after marrying Du Pare (Gros-Rene), adopted her fat husband's name, and is consequently the actress re- ferred to above as Du Pare. These being the first authentic dates regarding either lady, De Brie, rather than her rival, would seem to have the benefit of historic priority. 44 MOLlfeRE Since both these actresses played a considerable part in the poet's life, a word regarding them may not be without interest. De Brie was a tall, graceful blonde,^ who ap- peared in tragedy and higher class comedy. In marked contrast, Du Pare, the daughter of an Italian charlatan, was a stately brunette, who played second tragedy parts and possessed a natural talent for dancing in " a skirt so split down the sides that her legs and part of her thighs could be seen." In spite of her great beauty and won- derful pirouetting, such an acknowledged critic as Boileau found Du Pare a mediocre actress ; but she had the dis- tinction of being admired by the four greatest geniuses of the century — Moliere at Lyons in 1653, Corneille at Rouen in 1658, La Fontaine and Racine at Paris in 1664. To chronicle all the meagre details of the poet's early wanderings would be to record a tedious list of documents and dates unearthed from time to time by some ardent Moliiriste. Bordeaux, Albi Nantes, Toulouse, Carcas- sonne, Agen, Limoges, Narbonne, and Pezenas are towns where some trace of him still remains, and on April four- teenth, 165 1, he was in Paris in connection with the settlement of his mother's estate. The rebellion of the Fronde broke out in 1648 ; soon the Duke of Epernon was at war with the inhabitants of Bordeaux ; bands of marauding soldiers made travelling dangerous, a livelihood more diiEcult to gain. At Nantes, a troupe of marionettes proved a successful competitor, and there is a tradition that Moliere's reception at Limoges was so hostile that the poet's antipathy for ^ Grimarest quotes a friend of Moliere's as speaking of La de - (evidently De Brie) as plain and "a skeleton"; but this is manifest malice. COMEDIANS OF DUKE OF EPERNON 45 the place rankled in his heart until twenty years later he wrote Monsieur de Pourceaugnac in revenge ; but up to the time he reached Lyons there is little to distinguish his life from that of any other strolling player of the day. The time of his arrival at the capital of ancient Gaul, as well as the date of the production of The Blunderer ; or. The Mishaps {UEtourdi ou les Contretemps), his first successful comedy in verse, has never been conclu- sively settled. Grimarest, however, is emphatic on the latter point. " Moliere and his troupe," he says, " were loudly applauded in Lyons in 1653, where he presented The Blunderer" ; and the preface of 1682 likewise states that " Moliere came to Lyons in 1653 and there gave to the public his first comedy, called The Blunderer." Such twofold evidence would appear convincing were it not for a direct contradiction to the effect that " this piece was presented for the first time at Lyons in the year 1655." This latter quotation is from La Grange's famous Register {Registre de la Grange). La Grange was an actor who joined Moliere at Paris in 1658. From the time he became a member of the company until his death, he kept a minute account of its receipts and dis- bursements, with the dates and titles of the plays pro- duced. So emphatic a statement by him as the foregoing cannot be passed by without consideration. La Grange was known in real life as Charles Varlet; in 1672 he married Marie Ragueneau, formerly Mile, de Erie's maid, but then a character actress in Moliere's company. This lady's father was Cyprien Ragueneau de I'Estang, the pastry-cook poet, made familiar to present-day readers by Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac. To escape his creditors, Ragueneau fled from Paris and became a 46 MOLIERE strolling player, but hopeless alike as pastry-cook, poet, and comedian, he fell once more in the artistic scale and ended his life in 1654 as moucheur, or candle snuffer, to a Lyons play-house.^ La Grange, Ragueneau's son-in-law, would seem, at first sight, to have been in a position to know the truth regarding Moliere's various peregrinations to Lyons, but before accepting his statement that The Blunderer was not produced until 1655, it is well to remember that he did not enter the company until 1658, nor marry Mile. Ragueneau until eighteen years after her father's death. He was somewhat confused in regard to the date of Moliere's own marriage, an event which took place under his very eyes ; so to believe that he made a mistake in recording a play produced five years before he was a member of the " Troupe de Moliere," requires no great exercise of one's credulity. There is other evidence that La Grange was in error. An interesting document has been unearthed in the library of the Count of Pont-de-Veyle, which sheds light upon the date of Moliere's advent in Lyons, Written in a time-worn hand, evidently of the period, the following distribution of parts was found in a copy of an early edition of Corneille's Andromeda : * In the last act of Rostand's play, Ragueneau appears as a moucheur at a Paris play-house, and tells the dying Cyrano that Moliere has pilfered a scene from his farce The Tricked Pedant (Le Pedant joui). It is true that the scene referred to is found in Moliere's Rascalities of Scafin {Les Fourberies de Scapin), but Ragueneau died at Lyons in 1654, and De Bergerac at Paris in 1655, while Moliere did not return to the capital until 1658 and his farce was not played undl 1671. To paint Ragueneau as a candle snuffer in Paris at the time this piece was pro- duced, and likewise as a witness of De Bergerac' s demise a year after his own death, is justifiable only by a very broad poetic license. COMEDIANS OF DUKE OF EPERNON 47 Jupiter Du Pare Juno, and Andromeda .... Mile. Bejart Neptune De Brie Mercury, and a page of Phineus . L'Eguise (Louis Bejart) The Sun, and Timanthes . . , Bejart (Joseph) Venus, Cymodocia, and Aglanthia Mile, de Brie Melpomene, and Cephalus . . . Mile. Herve (Genevieve Bejart) ^olus, and Ammon .... Vauselle Ephyra Mile. Menou Cydippe, and Liriope .... Mile. Magdelon The Eight Winds Supernumeraries Cepheus Dufresne Cassiopeia Mile. Vauselle Phineus Chasteauneuf Perseus Moliere Chorus of the people .... Lestang L'Eguise, meaning " the sharp-tongued," was the nick- name of Louis Bejart, Madeleine's younger brother, aged twenty-three or thereabouts, who had probably made his debut several years previously. Chasteauneuf was an actor who again became associated with Moliere at a later day ; and Vauselle is the stage name of Jean-Baptiste I'Hermite, whose wife. Mile. Vauselle — or Marie Cour- tin de la Dehors — supplanted Madeleine Bejart in the affections of Monsieur de Modene, and whose daughter, Madeleine I'Hermite, became the second wife of that in- constant nobleman. Mile. Menou is a lady to whom there will be occasion to refer in a later chapter ; but of most moment, now, is Lestang, none other than the bankrupt pastry-cook Ragueneau, reduced to playing the humble chorus of the people under a stage name. The addition of all these players to " The Duke of Epernon's Comedians " indicates that Andromeda was performed by this cast in some large town, and the 48 MOLIERE presence of Ragueneau would point to it as being Lyons. Moliere may have reached that city as early as 1651, when he is supposed to have visited an academician named Boissat at the neighbouring town of Vienna ; his presence there on December nineteenth, 1652, when Reveillon stood sponsor for a child, is indicated strongly ; on February nineteenth, 1653, when he himself wit- nessed the marriage of Gros-Rene and Marquise de Gorla, it is assured. A vagabond poet named D'Assoucy, who spent three months at Lyons in 1655, failed to embellish his eccen- tric memoirs * by any account of so momentous an event as his actor friend's first success in comedy ; and as Ragueneau died on August eighteenth, 1654, both Andromeda and 'Che Blunderer were, in all probability, played in Lyons in 1653. Far easier to decipher than the date of Moliere's first appearance at Lyons is the reason for his advent there. During the rebellion of the Fronde " The Duke of Epernon's Comedians," an experienced company with a repertory of standard plays, were forced by their patron's political misdeeds and consequent unpopularity to leave Guyenne and seek a new field. In all that pertained to the production of plays, Moliere had become the direct- ing spirit, while Madeleine Bejart kept an eye on the finances. Dufresne, an old stager already known at Lyons, was still the nominal head of the organisation, and, confident that in the capital of ancient Gaul lay their best chance of fortune, he directed the steps of his comrades thither. * Lei Aventures de Monsieur ^Assoucy. COMEDIANS OF DUKE OF EPERNON 49 Caravans from Germany, Provence, and Italy filled the streets of Lyons then, and transalpine merchants bartered for the product of her looms. Jews from Lom- bardy and Frankfort drove bargains in bills of exchange ; but, of far more import to Moliere and his comrades, Lyons was the haunt of the poet and exquisite, — the provincial Mecca of the strolling player. There many new plays were produced, and a theatrical success won upon the Lyons stage was little short of a Parisian tri- umph. When the poet made his first hit before an audi- ence of critical Lyonnais with a comedy in verse, he ceased to be an unknown " barn-stormer " ; indeed, the outburst of genuine laughter which greeted "The Blunderer has re- echoed through the centuries ; nevertheless, the story of that first triumph must give place for the moment to a word upon Moliere's earlier dramatic work. 50 MOLIERE IV EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS A TRAGEDY Called 'I'he Thebaid {La Th'ebdide) — suppos- edly played at Bordeaux in 1646 — has been invented, without corroborative proof, as Moliere's first play. This fanciful effort of our poet's youth has also been acclaimed the inspiration of Racine's tragedy of the same name ; but certainly until the production of The Blunderer the truth concerning Moliere's work as a dramatist is overshadowed by imagination. In all prob- ability his first piece was never written at all — a paradox inspired by the nature of the roaring farces he had seen played in his youth. Even the best of these were given so empirically as an antidote for tragedy that they found no place in the liter- ary pharmacopoeia of the day ; for, as has been noted in a previous chapter, such farces were bare outlines to which the actor's wit applied the dialogue. Used as afterpieces at the Hotel de Bourgogne or as drawing cards for prating quacks, they were but Italian scenarii adapted to French usage, while the farceur himself remained the servile imitator of the Italian buffoon. The action was developed in a single act, and to per- mit the player to suit the humour of his audience, prose was the vehicle employed. Verse being the medium of both tragedy and comedy, farce consequently was with- EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 51 out the literary pale, and about the time MoHere fled from Paris it was banished altogether from established play-houses. Until he made the King laugh with a farce from his own pen, this coarse form of merriment was confined to the booths of quack doctors or the barns and tennis-courts of provincial France. Needless to say that pieces intended to amuse an audi- ence of yokels in an age of license, were distinguished by neither refinement nor finesse. They have been aptly described as composed of "imbecile old men, young libertines, women of every kind — except the good, two or three disguises, three or four surprises, combats, and tumults." As the earliest of Moliere's existing farces were much in the vein of these buffooneries, his first attempt at play-making was probably an unwritten dose of humour administered by " The Duke of Epernon's Comedians " to drive away the melancholy resulting from some turgid drama. Although a great poet and a still greater philosopher, Moliere was considered a farceur by his contemporaries, — a crime in him that Boileau never pardoned. He began and ended his life work with farce ; whenever he forsook this form of construction it was to gratify his King or to unburden his own heart. Because of a genius for jug- glery, or rather an unerring skill in painting human nature, his deft hand often made farce appear in the guise of character comedy ; but when the most popular of his plays are analysed — plays with characters so human as Harpagon the miser. Monsieur Jourdain the socially ambitious parvenu, and Argan the hypochondriac — they are found to be farces in construction, traceable to Italian, Spanish, or classical sources. This is not said by way of reproach. Moliere boasted 52 MOLIERE that "he took possession of his property wherever found,"^ and literary grave robbery was then a petty offence. In- deed, in all literary justice, every author who embalms a stolen body and dresses it so gorgeously in garments of his own creation that it is mistaken for an idol should receive a high priest's homage, not a desecrator's male- diction. Moliere did even more : he created French comedy from the dust of Menander and Plautus, breath- ing into it the spirit of Italian mummery. Finding himself a member of a strolling company sorely in need of farces, and having a better education than his comrades, he began their manufacture. Naturally he turned for his models to those seen in his youth, — the Italian scenarii of the Hotel du Petit Bourbon, the canevas of the Hotel de Bourgogne and the Pont-Neuf. Gros-Reni: A School-boy {Gros-Rene: holier) y The Three Rival Doctors {Les Trots docteurs rivaux). The School- master {Le Maitre d'icole), Gorgibus in the Bag {Gorgibus dans le sac). The Fagot Gatherer {Le Fagotier), The Physician in Love {Le Docteur amoureux), Gros-Reni's Jealousy {La Jalousie du Gros-Reni), and The Cassock {La Casaque) are the titles of canevas attributed to Moliere ; but the only examples of this form of work which have been preserved are The Jealousy of Smutty Face {La Jalousie du barbouill'e) and The Flying Physician {Le Midecin volant). These two early attempts, both of uncertain date, are as crude as their author's models, and unworthy of notice except as forming the stepping- stones of a genius toward fame. The Jealousy of Smutty Face, suggestive of a story by Boccaccio, but probably taken by Moliere from some Italian scenario, is merely a jumble in one act of broad * See note, page 351. EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 53 humour with little variety of scene or story. A wife's father and a pedant intervene in a matrimonial squabble in a comic but inconclusive way, and the closing speech, " Let 's all take supper together," shows the tenor of this bit of aimless fun. The character of the pedant is note- worthy as heralding the ostentatious but empirical man of learning Moliere so delighted in portraying later. To hold impostures up to scorn became his aim in after life, and jealousy the keynote of his own misery. By a coincidence almost prophetic, the pedant and the jealous husband both appear in this, his earliest existing play. The Flying Physician is merely a French adaptation of // Medico volant e, a scenario played by Scaramouch e. Entirely Italian in spirit and far less simple than its predecessor, it is, in brief, a coarse farce in one act of " three or four surprises and two or three disguises." The use here made of a door and a window by a character who disappears and reappears as speedily as Harlequin in the Christmas pantomime, indicates that Moliere's com- pany carried scenery, while its story of a lover aided by a rascally servant in outwitting an obdurate father, a favour- ite theme of Italian farce, recurs more than once in the poet's later plays. A matter of more moment, however, is the first appearance here of the merry-andrew character, Sganarelle. To aid a pair of lovers, he is represented as assuming a doctor's guise, and it is interesting to note that this incident became the motive of Moliere's far more amusing farce. The Doctor in Spite of Himself {Le M'edecin malgr'e lui). In The Flying Physician Sganarelle is represented as a masquerading fourbe, or knave, and one is tempted to beheve that in the original manuscript he was called Mascarille — a name derived from the Spanish term 54 MOLIERE mascarilla, meaning a little mask, or from the Italian word maschera — and used by Moliere in other farces of this period to designate this same rascally, intriguing servant of Italian origin. Sganarelle, being a French translitera- tion of the Italian word Zannarello, the diminutive of Zanni (a familiar form of Giovanni), is our English zany, a silly-John, or foolish clown in a play. In all other instances Moliere's Sganarelle, even when endowed with the attributes of a French bourgeois and voicing the poet's own sentiments, was within this definition. A recurrence of the same character in successive pieces was so usual at the time, that farceurs, both Italian and French, became known by the roles they played habitu- ally ; thus, the Italian buffoon, Tiberio Fiurelli, was called Scaramouche ; and Rene Berthelot — Du Pare of Moliere's company — Gros-Rene. Moliere discarded the role of his early successes shortly after his return to Paris, and his reputation as an author soon overshadowed his histrionic ability, else he would probably have been known to posterity as Mascarille. Both Mascarille and Sganarelle are more than mere low-comedy characters. Each represents a period of Moliere's work and a distinct phase in his development. When he began writing farce, he was a dweller in that land of the free and home of the beautiful we call Bohemia : to thwart a bailiff was his pastime ; to supply humour for a company of strolling players his chief care. The farces and comedies he wrote under these conditions are entirely in the spirit of Italian zanyism ; and sprightly, quick-witted Mascarille, their recurring character, is typical of these happy-go-lucky days in the poet's own life. This Mascarille, the gran furbo of decadent Italy, is a rascal, cunning to a degree, and EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 55 wholly without morals. His intimacy with his master is transalpine, too, for as some Frenchman contends — and if memory serves it is Stendhal — " in Italy there is a diversity in fortune, but none in manners." Moliere made no attempt to gallicise either the plots or the characters of his earlier plays, and even 'The Blunderer, though an ambitious comedy in verse, is really an adaptation. This first, or Italian, period ended in 1659 with the production of Les Pr'ecieuses ridicules, that play of un- translatable title — unless one is willing to countenance 'The Laughable Lady-Euphuists. Mascarille, a natural- ised Frenchman at last, made his final appearance in this brilliant comedy of manners : the first true flight of Moliere's genius beyond Italian zanyism. If Mascarille be typical of the Italian, Sganarelle may be said to represent the second, or Gallic, period of Moliere's work. Discarding transalpine models, except as bare suggestions in the way of plots, the poet became truly national ; for in such comedies as The School for Husbands {L'Ecole des maris, 1661), The School for Wives {L'Ecole des femmes, 1662), and The Forced Marriage {Le Mariage forc'e, 1664), his point of view is essentially Gallic, his wit in the spirit of Rabelais. Sganarelle, too, though first a zany, is always a bourgeois through and through, and often a jealous man of forty in love with a young coquette : in other words, a Frenchman and another phase of the poet himself. Closely allied with the Gallic, in point of time, was the third, or obsequious, period when Moliere's art became a courtier's stratagem. To win the favour of his King, he wrote court plays, such as The Bores {Les Facheux, 1661), The Versailles Impromptu {L'lm-' 56 MOLIERE promptu de Versailles, 1663), and various ballets for the royal fetes. They were merely a means to an end, but none the less they represent another aspect of Moliere. He no longer walked in Italian leading- strings, and his wit became more delicate than the broad Gallic humour of Sganarelle; but he was Moliere, the courtier, a man who felt it an honour to make the King's bed, who never lost an opportunity to sign his name valet de chambre tapissier du rot} When thus assured of his monarch's protection, he arose in all his strength and became the poet militant. Two masterpieces, ne Hypocrite (Le tartuffe) and The Misanthrope, distinguish the fourth period, or that of aggression. Success walked hand in hand with him, but happiness had turned aside; gaining full knowl- edge of the canting world after " the voice of all the gods " had spoken bitterly, he became the champion of truth, the implacable foe of imposture and formalism. Realising to the full his highest duty, he attacked the foibles and hypocrisy of society with "ridiculous like- nesses." His genius reached its zenith then. In the period that followed, his powers began to wane, almost imperceptibly, it is true, but with a recognition of the futility of breaking lances against church walls which left him content with satirical rapier play. Apprentice in an Italian workshop, then Gallic journeyman, courtier, and knight-errant, he became at last a master craftsman ; for, if the period of The Hypocrite and The Misanthrope was militant, the next, and last, was fully histrionic. ^ Even when a strolling player, he signed his name at Narbonne, in 1650,35 " Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, valet de chambre du roi," although he had previously renounced the reversion of his father's office in favour of his younger brother. EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 57 To be convinced of this one need only study the Moliere repertory of the Theatre Fran9ais at the pres- ent time. The Doctor in Spite of Himself, The Miser, The Burgher, a Gentleman {Le Bourgeois gentilhomme). The Rascalities of Scapin {Les Fourberies de Scapin), The Learned Women {Les Femmes savantes), and The Imaginary Invalid, the most readily acted as well as the most fre- quently presented of his plays, were still to be written, and all during the last seven years of his life. It was a period of unerring success from the dramatic point of view; but one may still search through it in vain for a poetical masterpiece of human philosophy such as The Misanthrope. This division of Moliere's work into five periods has been made in order that the reader may understand how thoroughly the poet's muse was affected by the events of his own life. An author may write what he has seen, what he has felt, or what he has imagined ; and Moliere's work, like that of nearly every genius, was a constant blending of the three. He wrote what he saw and what he imagined, yet his writing was invariably tempered by his own feelings at the time. In his plays one may read the story of his life : Mascarille, the light-hearted bohe- mian ; Sganarelle, the jealous man of forty seeking do- mestic happiness in vain; Eraste, the courtier and wit condemned to be bored since he durst not oiFend ; Alceste, the generous misanthrope who, in spite of his philosophy of life and knowledge of the world's imposture, loves a heartless coquette because "he cannot banish all past tenderness, howsoever ardently he longs to hate her "; and in a way, Argan, the hawking invalid, married to a faith- less wife, — are, part by part, Moliere himself, concealed little more than the ostrich with its head in the sand. 58 MOLIERE To appreciate how unconsciously his imagination was influenced by experience, one should have undergone the discouragement, indifference, toleration, praise, and envy which are the lot of even a moderately successful author ; above all, realise that " learning is but an adjunct to our- self," for in the words of Moliere's one surpassing rival : • • Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs ; Oh, then his lines would ravish savage ears And plant in tyrants mild humility. From women's eyes this doctrine I derive : They sparkle still the right Promethean iire ; They are the books, the arts, the academes That show, contain, and nourish all the world : Else none at all in aught proves excellent." This grouping of Moliere's plays as Italian, Gallic, time-serving, militant, and histrionic, in accordance with the poet's varying sentiments and ambitions, may be open to challenge ; but any classification from a purely literary point of view would be more difficult to compass, since, partly owing to fear of giving too great offence, partly to wise generalship, his work invariably took a reactionary turn after each step in advance. Returning to the first, or Italian period, it should be borne in mind that only four of Moliere's earlier pieces have been preserved : The Jealousy of Smutty Face, The Flying Physician, The Blunderer, and The Love Tiff {Le D'epit amoureux)} The first two, as has been seen, are unworthy of consideration in the literary sense ; but The Blunderer, his first play in verse, was likewise the first demonstration that he possessed qualities beyond those ' The Love Tiff, produced at Beziers in 1656, is considered in the ensuing chapter. EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 59 of a mere farceur. When Moliere wrote this piece, tragi-comedy had banished farce to the provinces. Pure comedy did not exist. Corneille, it is true, had trans- formed a Spanish comedia ^ into the versified The Liar, a so-called comedy, and in doing this he is said to have pointed the road for Moliere. When the younger poet turned an Italian commedia into another so-called comedy and named it The Blunderer, he did no more than follow in the footsteps of his guide. A farce is a play full of exaggeration and drollery ; a comedy, a dramatic picture of life treated sincerely but lightly. Absurd situations distinguish the one ; truth and characterisation the other ; therefore, in spite of their Alexandrine verses and five-act construction, both The Liar and The Blunderer were but exotic farces trans- planted to French soil under a false name. By putting stage humour into literary form, Corneille pointed the road, perhaps, but he did not create French comedy. To Moliere belongs that honour ; for although farcical in construction, Les Precieuses ridicules is the first true dramatic picture of the light and trivial occurrences of French life. However, Moliere's first genuine comedy must give place for the time being to the story of his first success. When he reached Lyons about 1653, he was still a strolling player whose farces had no more merit than those of any other play-hack of the time. They were, indeed, so coarse that he felt called upon to write some- thing more suitable to the taste of a cosmopolitan city, and, as the rich of Lyons were bankers from Lombardy and Tuscany, an Italian motive seemed most likely to fill the coffers of his company. 1 La Verdod sospechosa. 6o MOLlfiRE Troupes of comedians from Italy had frequently made pilgrimages to the city by the Rhone ; and one in partic- ular, called the Gelosi, led by Francesco Andreini, together with his more celebrated sister, Isabella, had even had the honour of playing at Paris before Louis XIII, when Moliere was a lad. In this company was a comedian named Nicolo Barbieri, known on the stage as Beltrame, who, like Moliere, was a composer of farces for his troupe. Barbieri, becoming more ambitious, decided to embroider one of his best scenarii into a written farce ; but the subject had been used by Plautus and, again, by a blind poet of the Renaissance named Luigi Groto ; so he could hardly lay claim to it as his own property. Moliere, following in Barbieri's footsteps, thought the time-worn plot of this play. The Dolt {L' Inavvertito), might be worked over so as to appeal once more to the Italian taste of Lyons ; and when it had been refurbished in Alexandrine verse and rechristened by him, it became The Blunderer; or. The Mishaps {UEtourdi ou les Contre- temps). Because its five-act construction and classical versification raise it, from a purely literary point of view, far above the level of farce, many critics accept this play as Moliere's first real comedy ; but when looked at from the stage point of view, it stands as farce pure and simple. Filled with absurd and improbable situations, it could by no stretch of the imagination be styled a sincere dramatic picture of life. To be convinced of this, one need only to study its exaggerated plot. The scene is laid in Messina, where Pandolfe, a worthy citizen, has arranged that his son Lelie shall marry Hippolyte, the daughter of Anselme, his bosom friend. Unfortunately for the realisation of this parental scheme, Lelie is in love with Clelie, a beautiful slave, owned by a EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 6i cantankerous master named Trufaldin, while Hippolyte has bestowed her unrequited affections upon Leandre, a young man of good family, who, like Lelie, is infatuated with the slave girl and intent upon possessing her. Lelie is the blunderer whose stupidities give the piece its name ; Mascarille, his rascally servant, whose mischievous schemes to aid in rescuing Clelie from the hands of Trufaldin are unwittingly blocked by his master. To thread the maze of Mascarille's intrigues and Lelie's blundering would only weary the reader ; for the rascal's trickery, though amusing when presented before an audi- ence, is highly improbable and hard to follow. As he invariably fails to inform his master of his schemes, the latter as conscientiously upsets them by some stupid coun- terplot. Whether it be a plan to make old Anselme overlook a purse he has dropped by flattering him with a story of a lady's languishing love for him, or an at- tempt to enter Trufaldin's house with a party of maskers for the purpose of abducting Clelie, the outcome is the same. Lelie either picks up the purse and returns it to its lawful owner, or warns Trufaldin of the intended raid, before Mascarille can make him aware that he is spoiling a scheme to purloin the purchase price of Clelie or a brilliant plan to forestall his rival, Leandre. In fact, the plot oi The Blunderer is one quick succes- sion of knaveries in which Mascarille, by the use of every stratagem he can invent, endeavours to obtain pos- session of Clelie in the interest of a master who, with the best of intentions, is ever upsetting the rascal's plans, until he finally exclaims that he will no longer ask help because he is " a dog, a traitor, a detestable wretch whom death alone can succour, unworthy of aid and incapable of anything." But before suicide can orown Lelie's folly. 62 MOLlfiRE Clelie turns out to be Trufaldin's long-lost daughter and is duly given in marriage to her blundering lover. Leandre requites Hippolyte's enduring passion, and Mascarille exclaims in his single blessedness, " May heaven give us children whose fathers we really are ! " Mr. Richard Mansfield once told the present writer that he would not accept a play unless the scenario could be written on a visiting card. He meant that a well- constructed modern piece should tell its story so concisely that the curtain situations, climax, and denouement could be indicated within limits so narrow. Judged by such a standard. The Blunderer fails lamentably. It is, however, an unfair example of Moliere's craftsmanship. Far too involved and with situations too exaggerated for true comedy, the marvellous characterisation which so dis- tinguishes his later work is almost entirely lacking. Later in life he tells stories of human interest in so concise a way that he may be justly called the first modern play-writer, but not until after his genius has risen superior to Italian zanyism. TTie Blunderer, it should be remembered, is little more than a French adaptation of an Italian farce filched from classic sources. Mascarille is a paraphrase of Pseudolus, the knavish slave of Plautus, and the play itself merely a new rendering of an old plot which, shorn of Alexandrine verse, remains farce pure and simple. Instead of pre- senting it as an original piece of work, Moliere gave it an Italian hall-mark ; but he was then unready to exclaim, as he did at a later day, " Let us cease to be Italian, let us disdain being Spanish, let us be French." Far from being a natural type, knavish Mascarille is merely the vehicle for an intricate plot ; but on the other hand artless Lelie, the blunderer, rings true. His very EARLY DRAMATIC EFFORTS 63 folly is genuine, and, being a lovable personality who falls a victim to his own frankness, he may be said to foreshadow Moliere's powers of characterisation. His passion for Clelie, too, is a commendable sentiment ; for even when strategy forces him to depreciate her qualities, he exclaims in all sincerity, " To blame where I adore is to wound me to the soul." His honest incapacity for deception is again shown when, smuggled into Trufaldin's house disguised as an Armenian, he is admonished in this manner by Mascarille for so clearly showing his love : What tantalises me beyond compare Is seeing you so far forget yourself. By Clelie' s side, your love is like a porridge Stewing up to its brim beside too fierce A fire, then boiling over everywhere. Lelie Could I coerce myself to more restraint ? Thus far with her I 've scarcely had a word. Mascarille In sooth; yet silence is not all. Your conduct During one moment of the feast lent more Of substance to suspicion than the rest Would give in all the year. Lelie Pray you, explain. Mascarille Explain what all have seen ? Your eyes were e'er Close fixed upon the table-seat where she Was placed by Trufaldin. To everything Oblivous, you ogled, blushed, and saw Not what they served ; for only when she drank Did dryness parch your lips. Her glass you seized 64 MOLlfeRE With eagerness from out her hand, you stopped ^ To rinse it not, drank down the dregs, lost ne'er A drop, and boldly showed your preference For spots her lips had pressed. Yes, every bit She touched with her fair hand or chose to put To her white teeth, you laid your paw upon Far quicker than a cat upon a mouse — To gobble it as if it were pease-pudding. From the literary point of view, such touches of genu- ine sentiment, told with true poetical feeling, entitle The Blunderer to the name of comedy it has always borne. In spite of seemingly inexhaustible intrigue, it is still above mere Italian farce; for its verse, although not masterful, is delightful in expression and literary in quality. Judged as the first attempt of a dramatic hack to rise above the vulgarity of one-act canevas, it is indeed a marvellous performance. When first pre- sented, it carried fastidious Lyons by storm and raised this strolling play-wright to the rank of dramatic poet. Even now one cannot read its sprightly story without realising that a new king was crowned that day. COMEDIANS OF PRINCE OF CONTI 65 V THE COMEDIANS OF THE PRINCE OF CONTI No longer a disheartened youth fleeing from his creditors, the Moliere that left Lyons during the summer of 1653 was a fairly successful man of thirty-one. The tempestu- ous days of his youth were over; his love for Madeleine Bejart had reached the comfortable stage of companion- ship ; the occasional flurries which disturbed his calm, such as his fancies for Miles, du Pare and de Brie, were nothing more than passing zephyrs. The storm of passion which was to embitter later years had shown no signs of gathering. The man was a vagabond, it is true, but a prosperous vagabond with a following in the cities of the South, and friends to welcome him. Capricious Paris was still unwon, but his unconquered fields were merely those of ambition. While he was winning his first laurel crown on the Lyons stage, Moliere's former schoolmate, Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti and generalissimo of the opera boufFe army of the Fronde, had been making peace with Mazarin. The wily cardinal, thinking a friend in hand better than an enemy at large, granted the rebellious prince complete amnesty with a view to offering him his niece, Anna Martinozzi, in marriage and, with her, the governorship of a province, when the young man's tem- per should have cooled sufficiently. Conti spent his period of probation at the chateau of La Grange des Pres 5 66 MOLlfiRE in Languedoc in company with Mme. de Calvimont, his mistress, who, like most frivolous ladies, found that country life paled before the gaieties of Paris. The mild diversions of Languedoc being soon exhausted, she pro- posed to send for some comedians, — a caprice not to be doubted, since the story is told at first hand in the memoirs of the Abbe Daniel de Cosnac. Having the disbursement of the prince's fund for amusement, this prelate decided to gratify the lady's whim by engaging Moliere's troupe, then in Languedoc, for some performances. Another company, managed by an actor named Cormier, had arrived in the neighbouring city of Pezenas meanwhile, and, royal mistresses being nothing if not fickle, Mme. de Calvimont declared she could wait no longer for her diversion.^ To humour her the prince summoned this rival organisation to his chateau, and the upshot was that when Moliere arrived he found Cormier in possession. He demanded full payment for his services, but this Conti refused. The abbe, having pledged his word, was on the point of pre- senting the disgruntled actor with a thousand hus of his own money, when the prince was persuaded by his secre- tary, the poet Sarrasin, to command a performance at La Grange des Pres, Moliere's company did not please Mme. de Calvimont, and was consequently out of fa- vour with her royal lover; but the audience found it superior to the rival troupe, both in acting and mise en- scene. After a second performance the praise was so universal that the prince was forced to banish Cormier. ^ Because of the readiness with which she accepted presents, Sainte- Beuve calls Mme. de Calvimont la femme a cadeaux, — a name well merited, since the Abbe de Cosnac assures us that Cormier rewarded her liberally for the privilege of playing at La Grange des Pres. COMEDIANS OF PRINCE OF CONTI 67 The chasm between royalty and vagabondism being too great for any boyhood friendship to bridge, youthful ties played small part in the bestowal of Conti's patronage. On the contrary, Moliere's success seems to have been due to the charm of one of his actresses ; for the Abbe de Cosnac in his guileless way observes that " the prince's secretary supported Moliere's company in the first in- stance at his instigation, but after falling a victim to the charms of Mile, du Pare, he became its champion for her sake." In telling the story of "The Illustrious Theatre" Grimarest says that " the Prince de Conti invited Moliere to his Parisian hotel on several occasions and encouraged him " ; but Armand de Bourbon was not likely to have been a patron of the drama at the age of fifteen, and his reception to Moliere at La Grange des Pres was not of the nature one would expect from a former protector and schoolmate. There is a possibility, of course, that Moliere appeared at the Hotel de Conti in 1651, when in Paris to transact business in connection with his mother's estate ; but it is far more likely that his first professional appear- ance before the Prince de Conti was the one at La Grange des Pres just recounted (September, 1653), — an event so momentous that for three years thereafter his company was known as " The Comedians of the Prince de Conti." In order to indulge in a final debauch before going to Paris for his wedding, Conti, shortly after Moliere's debut at La Grange des Pres, set out for Montpellier to visit the Comte d'Aubijoux, the governor. There he dismissed Mme. de Calvimont with a niggardly gift of six hun- dred pistoles,' and installed in her place a certain Mile. ^ The prince's original gift was six hundred pistoles, but the Abbe de Cosnac, charged with the dismissal of Mme. de Calvimont, increased 68 MOLIERE Rochelle. His stinginess was notorious, but with the public funds he was not so chary. After he had married Mazarin's niece and been named Governor of Guyenne (February twenty-second, 1654), Moliere's troupe was summoned to the States {Les Etats) held at Montpellier during the winter of 1654-55, and was so well reimbursed from the parliamentary exchequer that, on February eighteenth, 1655, Antoine Baralier, tax-gatherer at Mon- telimart, acknowledged an indebtedness to Madeleine Bejart (probably acting as the troupe's treasurer) of thirty-two hundred livres. By April first the profits of the organisation had so augmented that La Bejart was able to lend the province of Languedoc the sum of ten thousand livres, while, at a session of the States held at Pezenas in the winter of 1655-56, the authorities paid the company the sum of six thousand livres for its services.* The years of discouragement were ended. Hence- forth there is no distress to chronicle, unless it be a collection said to have been made among the inhabitants of Marseillan for " the relief of these comedians whom insufficient receipts had placed in need," or a dispute with the magistrates of Vienne over the right to play in their city. Moliere, the manager of a successful company, this sum to a thousand — the only present, save a diamond, which the lady ever received from her miserly protector ; making her habit of receiving gifts from others seem less unpardonable. 1 The livre, originally of the value of a pound of silver (the sol, or sou, being a twrentieth part thereof) , is the modern franc. Its weight and value have varied considerably during the centuries. In Moliere's day the livre tournois of twenty sols, or sous (there being also a livre parisis of twenty-five sous) , had a purchasing power about equivalent to that of the American dollar of to-day. The pistole, according to M. E. Littre {Dictionnaire de la Langue Fran false), was worth ten livres tournois; the ecu, three livres. COMEDIANS OF PRINCE OF CONTI 6g now playing a season in Lyons, now returning to Languedoc at the summons of a prince, was likewise a dramatic poet of considerable local reputation. His treasury was comfortably filled ; but he was a vagabond in the eyes of society and the law, nevertheless. Nicolas Chorier, in his Life of Pierre de Boissat} pre- sents Moliere's social standing in an unmistakable way. Boissat, a member of the Academy, who had been a loose living author of erotic novels in his youth, had settled down at Vienne, a suburb of Lyons, to pass the remainder of his days in the contrite scribbling of moral treatises. The actor's senior by some twenty years, he was none the less his friend ; and, according to Chorier, did not go about speaking ill of him, "like certain people who affected a foolish and haughty austerity of manner toward Moliere," but insisted that " a man so distinguished in his art should have a place at his table." Moreover, when the actor visited Vienne, Boissat gave him excellent suppers, and " did not, like some fanatics, place him in the ranks of ' impious rascals,' although he was excommunicated." A writer himself, this acade- mician viewed Moliere in a liberal light, but the attitude of the Church towards the stage was so rancorous that to the community at large a strolling player, such as he, was an excommunicated reprobate. Professionally he might visit the chateau of a prince, or draw a pension from the treasury of a province, but his place was still among the outcasts. Boissat, however, was not the only man of intelli- gence to recognise Moliere's merit during those years of wandering. There is a tradition that when he first took to the road, he knew the poet Goudouli, and used to * De Petri Boessatii . . . vita amicisque litteratis. 70 MOLIERE visit him at Toulouse ; but a more incontestable friend- ship was that with two artist brothers named Mignard. Nicolas, the elder, a painter, architect, and engraver of Avignon, persuaded him to give some performances in the papal city ; while Pierre, his more celebrated younger brother, painted his portrait as Caesar in Corneille's Pompey. Pierre Mignard had been destined by his father for the medical profession, but his love of art had been too strong to overcome — a story not unlike that of Moliere's own experience with the law and the stage — and possibly this resemblance in their early lives proved the bond of sympathy which made their friendship lasting. At Carcassonne, in 1651 or 1652, Moliere met Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy, a scapegrace poet, who sang his own verses to a tinkling lute; and in 1655 they passed three months together at Lyons. D'Assoucy had been one of the bohemian set in Moliere's youth, of which Chapelle and Bachaumont were shining lights ; being in a state of abject poverty through a passion for gaming, Moliere took pity on him, and invited him to be his guest during a trip to Avignon. Known as Scarron's monkey, and styled by himself the " Emperor of Burlesque," this profligate travelled through France and Italy attended by two fantastic pages whose sex was a matter of dispute ; but he had sufficient manhness to say in his autobiography^ that " what pleased him most at Lyons was meeting MoHere and the Bejart brothers." " As comedy has its charms," he continues, " I could not leave such delightful friends, so I remained three months at Lyons amid the dice-cups, comedians, and feasts, although I should have done far * Les Aventures de Monsieur tP Assoucy. COMEDIANS OF PRINCE OF CONTI 71 better not to have remained a single day." This appar- ent ingratitude was inspired by a realisation of his beset- ting sin ; for when he and Moliere drifted down the Rhone to Avignon, the wretch lost his last icu, his ring, and his cloak at the dice-cups, yet paid the following tribute to the actor's generosity and friendship : As a man is never poor so long as he has friends, so I, having the esteem of Moliere and the friendship of all the Bejart family, found myself richer and more content than ever. These generous people were not satisfied with assisting me as a friend, but wished to treat me as one of the family. Being summoned to the States, they took me with them to Pezenas, and words fail to tell of all the favours I received from the entire household. It is said that the best of brothers is tired at the end of one month of feeding his brother; but these people, more generous than all the brothers one could have, never tired through all one winter of seeing me at their table. That table was well furnished, for Moliere lived on the fat of the land during those Languedocian days. "When at Narbonne, he was always a guest at the Three Nurses Hotel; and he grew so fond of the succulent fish and waterfowl of Meze that the hostelry there, known as the Holy Spirit, obtained the sobriquet of " The Actors* Inn." " Never was a beggar thus fat- tened ! " cries D'Assoucy, — an exclamation which causes Karl Mantzius^ to draw this charming picture of Mo- liere's well-filled board and its familiars: His [D'Assoucy's] words conjure up before our eyes the picture of Madeleine Bgart, strong and well built, * Moliere and his Times : The Theatre in France in the Seventeenth Century, Vol. IV, History of Theatrical Art, 72 MOLlfiRE with her bright, intelligent face, presiding over the sumptuous table, where seven or eight courses were the usual fare ; Moliere, — with his large brown eyes under dark, bushy brows, and a humorous smile about his full, sensitive mouth, — watching the greedy, loquacious poet of the highroads, who is having an argument with the sharp tongued Louis Bejart, while the quiet elder brother sits by and enjoys himself in silence. But after the meal musical instruments are brought out, the sparkling ruby-coloured muscat is placed on the table, and merry songs and stories go on, till Madeleine's authoritative voice gives the signal to break up, and every one goes about his business. Moliere retires to work at a new five-act play in verse, Joseph Bejart puts the last touch to his work on heraldry,* Madeleme goes to her accounts, while D'Assoucy makes an effort to tear himself away from the sweet muscat wine. Chapelle and Bachaumont went South during the autumn of 1656; and if Moliere met them journeying through Languedoc, as the story goes,'' the sight of these comrades of his youth must have made him long for the joys of Paris ; yet his friendships were not confined to poets, artists, and gay sprigs from the capital. One at least was of a more commercial nature. In the town of Sigean, not far from Narbonne, lived Martin-Melchoir Dufort, a burgher, with whom Moliere ^ Recueil des litres, qualites, blazons et armes des Seigneurs Barons des Est at s Generaux de la Province de Languedoc tenus a Pezenas, 1654. " M. Mesnard {Notice biographique sur Moliire) does not believe that Chapelle met Moliere during this trip. In substantiation of this contention he calls attention to the fact that Chapelle in his account of this journey {Voyage de Chapelle, Saint-Marc edition, 1755) describes a comedy he saw played at a country house near Carcassonne, which " was not bad," but makes no mention of Moliere, — a strange omission, had he met his old schoolmate at this time. COMEDIANS OF PRINCE OF CONTI 73 is reputed to have lodged when he travelled in the service of his King. This journey itself being a matter of doubt, the story that Dufort came to Moliere's aid at a later day may be accepted with reservations, especially as there are two ways of telling it. The popular version is that, instead of being paid for his services during the States held at Montpellier in 1654—55, the actor received a promissory note drawn upon the military fund of the province {fonds des itapes) for five thousand livres. Though a considerable sum, this was not ready money, but Dufort played the friend in need by discounting the royal paper with twelve hundred and fifty livres cash and a bill of exchange for the remainder. M. Loiseleur,* on the other hand, insists that, a draft being drawn by one Cassaignes (joint trustee with Moliere's friend of the military fund) on Dufort himself, this bill of exchange was merely an official connivance between Conti, the two trustees, and the treasurer of the province to cover the irregularity of paying comedians from the public treasury ; yet even this author admits that " the affair is most obscure." Of far more interest than this equivocal transaction, are the difficulties Moliere's actors met in travelling during those happy-go-lucky days. When in the royal service, they journeyed luxuriously at the public expense in carriages requisitioned by the Prince de Conti, and were even escorted by gendarmes; but the official countenance once removed, they were often reduced to a horse for each two actresses or three actors of the company. Even when the means of transport was a waggon and temporary opulence permitted an exchange * Les Points obscurs de la vie de Moliere. See also Le Moliiriste, August, 1885, article by Auguste Baluffe. 74 MOLIERE from oxen to horses, the difficulty of locomotion seems to have been only enhanced ; for among the more or less truthful anecdotes gathered by M. Galibert (Emmanuel Raymond) for his delightful story of Moliere's wander- ings in Languedoc^ is one to the eflfect that while the troupe was travelling from Pezenas to Beziers, the cart came to a sudden halt and the driver announced that it was impossible to go farther. When the comedians protested that they were only half-way, the jehu replied that a rush of blood had paralysed the right eye of his colt, a young gelding thirty years old. " And for that you mean to stop ? " continued the actors. " Your other two horses will lead the colt." " Impossible ! My other two horses are both blind, and the colt which used to lead them was blind in one eye before the accident." After this revelation there was nothing to do but take foot to the journey's end. To trace the route the company followed in that summer land is hardly necessary, even were it always possible. When not attending upon the States of Lan- guedoc at Pezenas, Beziers, or Montpellier, or playing at La Grange des Pres, they were travelling back and forth among the neighbouring towns of Meze, Lunel, Gignac,* Marseillan, Agde, Nissan, or Montagnac. They usually went to Lyons once a year, and made excursions up and down the valley of the Rhone or eastward to ^ Histoire des pirigrinattons de Moliere dans U Lauguedoe. ' Among the legends told by M. Galibert is one to this effect : The town council having inscribed upon a public fountain of Gignac, Qua fuit ante fugax, arte perennis erit, some admiring citizens of the place asked Moliere one day the meaning of the words. He gave as his translation : Thou eager looker-on, who Mst know it all, Here Gignac asses for their water call. COMEDIANS OF PRINCE OF CONTI 75 Toulouse and Carcassonne, sometimes by waggon, some- times in the saddle. On the horseback journeys Moliere, as manager of the company, had a nag to himself; and M. Galibert tells another humorous legend about his saddle-bag contain- ing the tragedy regalia, which the rustics often mistook for jewels. One morning, too absorbed in day-dreaming to note his property slipping from his horse's crupper, the actor rode on, while two peasant girls made quick to seize such untold wealth. Moliere discovered his loss, however, before they had made off with their booty ; but one of these imps, quick-witted enough to cover the bag with her petticoats until his back was turned, sent it tumbling into the ditch with a dexterous kick, and ran to direct the fictitious search, while her comrade secured the plunder. In telling this story Moliere asked laughingly how it could have turned out otherwise " when from Gignac you go through Brignac only to turn your steps toward Montagnac, while passing Lavagnac, and in the midst of these gnu and these gnac, you hear without motive and without cessation, ^^aro Moussul Ah! boutats Moussu! AoU sabitz pas Moussul P'ecairi Moussu! until your ears, eyes, and wits become so confused by these weird sounds, accompanied by still stranger gestures, that you end by losing what was only mislaid." In the course of time, however, he became proficient in the soft language of the South, and used it intelligently in Monsieur de Pourceaugnac. Mediaeval Pezenas was Moliere's headquarters in Lan- guedoc, his favourite resort the barber shop of Maitre Gely. Seated in an armchair, known to this day as le fauteuil de Moliire, he delighted to gossip with this 76 MOLIERE Eigaro's customers or improvise little comedies for his own delectation. One day a patron mistook him for the barber; ever ready to try his hand at a new role, Moliere smeared the fellow's face with lather. Too merciful to cut an inno-: cent throat, he confined his tonsorial efforts to hair rais- ing stories about supposed robberies, fires, murders, and sudden deaths, until the victim, overcome with horror, ran headlong from the shop, leaving a cravat as evidence of the actor's success on the garrulous side of barbering. On another occasion a country lass came to the shop with a letter from her wounded betrothed at the wars for Gely to read ; but he, being busy, directed her to Moliere with the remark that " there is a gentleman who reads far better than I ! " Contents were improvised to suit the actor's fancy. To counteract the story that the maiden's lover had distinguished himself for bravery, but had lost an arm, he was obliged to invent a triumph, of surgical skill whereby the wounded soldier recovered both his arm and his spirits. Upon learning that this miraculous cure had caused such a commotion in th^ neighbourhood that a rich lady insisted upon marrying her hero, the poor girl might have ended her life with one of Gely's razors, had Moliere not told her, as a final ano- dyne, that her lover was true despite every allurement. AH might have gone well, had not the letter been shown to some one who could read without embroidering. Even then the girl refused to believe the truth and exclaimed, in tribute to Moliere's skill in romancing, " There is a gentleman at Gely's who knows how to read far better ! " ' * These various legends are taken as stated from M. Galibert's Histoire det peregrinations de Moliere dans le Languedoc. The author, who wrote under the nam de plume of Emmanuel Raymond, heard them Moliere in the role of barber COMEDIANS OF PRINCE OF CONTI 77 Barber shops were the news centres in those days, the gathering places for gossips. Moliere, sitting in his arm- chair by Gely's window, noted many absurdities among the patrons waiting their turn at the brass basin for future use; but the States of Languedoc were quite as rich a mine for character and local colour. In the monarchical machine which dexterous Richelieu had built from a feudal scrap-heap and crafty Mazarin was oiling to perfection, the States {Les Etats\ or provin- cial parliaments, were political fly-wheels designed to go round and round to aid in preserving without disturbing the balance. Their functions being more imaginary than real, their sessions became the rendezvous for provincial society; hence Moliere, official entertainer to the States of Languedoc, was brought in contact with the country imitators of Parisian ways. During a session at Mont- pellier in 1655, the ladies and gentlemen of the province, assisted by professionals, presented a phantasy called The Ballet of the Incompatibles before the newly wed Princesse de Conti. Moliere appeared both as a poet and a scolding fishwife ; and to avoid discussing his pos- sible authorship of this mediocre ballet — a veritable literary deformity after '[he Blunderer, were such the told in his youth by J. F. Cailhava d'Estandoux, a Languedocian drama- tist who died in 1 8 1 3 at the age of eighty-two. Throughout his life Cailhava was an ardent admirer of Moliere ; yet he cannot be explicitly trusted in the matter of accuracy. In his youth he made a trip through Languedoc collecting stories of Moliere from the natives, and it was his intention to publish a volume of Souvenirs de Languedoc. It is presumed that he wrote pordons of this book, but the manuscript has never been discovered. M. Galibert writes the legends from memory, and, although not authenticated, they are repeated because of their interest. Some of them are told as well by M, Jules Taschereau in his Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de Moliere. 78 MOLIERE case — it is sufficient to point out that, having met the high society of Languedoc at such close range, he made trenchant use of country ladies who imitate Parisian ways some four years later in Les Pricieuses ridicules. Playing thus at a provincial court, touring a province, supping with his literary friends, studying human nature in Gely's shop, Moliere spent three happy years in Languedoc in constant contact with the witchery of sex ; yet notwithstanding a host of slanderers to vilify him, the only women — besides Madeleine Bejart and his wife — whose names have been linked with his are those of Miles, du Pare and de Brie.^ Although a strolling player in a wanton age, Moliere, judged by his contemporaries of exalted rank, instead of being classed among the liber- tines, should take his place among the more faithful lovers of his day. Necessity was ever his best taskmaster, so The Love Tiff (Le Dipit amoureux) is the only play to chronicle for this period of contentment. This five-act comedy in verse, wherein Moliere follows the Italian vein of The Blunderer, contains two plots so distinct that each may be presented separately. One, an adaptation of Nicolo Secchi's Cupidity (L'lnteresse), concerns the fortunes of Ascagne, a young girl, disguised as a boy in order that she may inherit a fortune left by an uncle to a male heir ; the other presents the quarrels of two pairs of lovers, Eraste and his valet Gros-Rene, Lucile and her maid Marinette. Mascarille again appears, but less prominently than in The Blunderer ; and judged as a whole The Love Tiff is inferior to its predecessor. ^ M. Galibert calls attention to a legend regarding an intrigue between Moliere and the Chatelaine de Lavagnac, but its fabric of truth is too slight to merit serious consideration. COMEDIANS OF PRINCE OF CONTI 79 Although the longer and more completely Italian in treatment and ori^n, the first of these two distinct plots is by far the less interesting. Nicolb Secchi's vulgarity, much to Moliere's credit, has been so toned down that, compared with the original, this story of a girl in man's attire becomes a gem of refinement ; but the play's chief interest lies in the poet's treatment of the other plot ■which gives it name. He has been accused of having taken his story of a lover's quarrels from both Italian and Spanish sources, but he is no ordinary pirate. His lovers are painted with a fine Gallic touch, and he tells the story of their passion with such truth and gaiety that The Love Tiff, although sadly lacking in clearness, is perhaps the only French play founded on an Italian imbroglio which retains its freshness and youth. Italian tradition is partially discarded, and the master of French comedy revealed for the first time. For this reason The Love Tiff is a landmark in the development of Moliere's genius. It was produced at Beziers during the session of the States in 1656, and marks a change in Moliere's fortunes as well as in his craftsmanship. Grimarest tells a some- what apocryphal story to the effect that when the poet Sarrasin died in December, 1654, Moliere, then in favour with the Prince de Conti, was offered the post of royal secretary, which he declined through love for his chosen calling. Whatever the truth of this, there is no doubt that Moliere lost his patron's favour shortly after the pro- duction of ne Love 'Tiff, — an event for which neither the play nor his own conduct was in any way responsible. Armand de Bourbon blew hot or cold according to environment. Opera bouffe hero of the Fronde, tool of Mazarin, and profligate protector of Mme. de 8o MOLIERE Calvimont, he now became a zealous convert of the Jansenists, — the Puritans of the time. This change of heart was compassed by the Bishop of Aleth ; and when the States of Languedoc adjourned on February twenty- second, 1656, the Prince accepted with a child's docility the rules of conduct of the austere order, and banished comedy, dancing, and gaming from his court. So great was his zeal in the new cause that he wrote from Lyons to the Abbe Ciron in the spring of 1657 to say that "there are comedians here who formerly bore my name. I have forbidden them to use it longer, and you may be sure I have taken good care not to attend their performances." Once more without a patron, Moliere was forced to wander for two years through a country he had often visited. Narbonne, Beziers, Nimes, Lyons, Dijon, and Avignon are places where some trace of him remains ; while at Grenoble, early in 1658, he is supposed to have set up his trestles without a license, being consequently forced to remove his play-bills, close his theatre, and humbly beg permission from the offended authorities at the Hotel de Ville to present his comedies. As Conti retained only " missionaries and policemen " in his suite, Languedoc was no longer a desirable circuit for a com- pany of players; so Moliere turned his steps toward Normandy in the spring of 1658, to be within easy reach of Paris and the court. The company he brought to Rouen in that month of May was a very different organisation from the band of unknown amateurs he had led thither fifteen years before. It was now a compact, well balanced, and ac- complished troupe of eleven players ; which, to quote the words of Segrais, " was moulded by the hand of the man who was its soul, — a company which could never COMEDIANS OF PRINCE OF CONTI 8i have its equal." Besides Moliere and the Bejart family, the members were Du Pare, Dufresne, De Brie, Croisac, — this last a gagiste, or hired actor having no share in the profits, — and the ladies Catherine de Brie and Mar- quise du Pare, each a player of ability, and their chief — a master of stage craft. Their repertory was not confined to the plays of their manager. Indeed these were but secondary to the tragedies of Rotrou and Corneille, and, with the excep- tion of The Blunderer and The Love Tiff, were merely used as afterpieces. Moliere was not yet sufficiently self-confident to set his own work in the foremost place. Even as an actor he felt his limitations. Nature had refused him the external gifts so necessary on the stage, above all for tragic parts. He had a monotonous voice, hard in inflection, and he spoke with a volubility which made his declamation hurried. He was only able to correct himself of this fault, so contrary to good articulation, by constant effort, through which was produced a sort of hiccough, lasting to his death. He sometimes took advantage of this fault and used it to give a certain variety to his inflection ; but it caused him to be accused of an affectation which in time came to be accepted as natural. This passage is attributed to Mile. Poisson, a woman whose mother. Mile, du Croisy, entered Moliere's com- pany in 1659, and who herself played a part in one or two of his pieces a year before his death. It was not published until 1740, but the author, both from obser- vation and the stories doubtless told her in her youth, was in a position to appreciate and understand the histrionic difficulties under which Moliere laboured.^ * Lettre sur la vie et les ouvrages de Moliere et sur les com'ediens de son temps, published in the Mercure de France, May, 1 740. The author- 6 82 MOLIERE As director of his troupe, he possessed the cunning of the modern manager. Knowing his public, he gave it pieces suitable to its taste, and only in rare moments, when he dared offer the general a morsel of caviare, did he write to please his own fancy. No detail was too trivial for him to master, and as poet and dramatist he called forth an amount of erudition that would be astonishing in any age. Although he did not hesitate to pluck from Menander, Plautus, Terence, and the dramatists of Italy and Spain, or even to cull material from Montaigne, Brantome, Noel du Fail, and Rabelais, as well as from the story tellers of his own time, he was nevertheless a student and a deep thinker, — an artist, who painted real men and women in the vigorous colours of truth. Such was the strolling player who, after an experience of fifteen years in his craft, returned to Rouen, the scene of his first essay in the art of acting. Feeling the time ripe to brave the criticism of the capital, he spent the summer there trying to obtain a hearing at the court. He had made friends among the authorities in many places, and he knew Pierre Mignard, a painter then in high favour with Mazarin. The great Corneille lived at Rouen, too, and his first play had been produced by just such a travelling troupe; so he may have had a fellow feeling for Moliere, the more so because in this actor's repertory were many of Corneille's own tragedies. But there is a more human reason for his interest in this strolling company. The Italian beauty. Marquise Therese du Pare, so bewitched the great man with her irresistible ship of this article, although attributed to Mile. Poisson (nee Du Croisy), is far from being authenticated. See Lettres au Mercure sur Moliere (Nouvelle collection molieresque) by M. Georges Monval. COMEDIANS OF PRINCE OF CONTI 83 wiles during that summer at Rouen that he indited verses to her, such as this : Dear Marquise, should my face Bear marks of life's long race. Remember, at my age,^ You 'd scarcely more engage, etc. Corneille's mediocre brother, too, was led a captive at the lady's chariot wheel and added his small mite of verse to her garland ; so doubtless Moliere and his company were benefited by this double triumph of their fair comrade. The name of the courtier who hinted to Monsieur, the brother of the King, that it was befitting his station to have a company of players in his suite, and suggested the late comedians of the Prince de Conti as worthy of his patronage, has never been divined ; but Moliere used every influence he could command in bringing this event to pass, spending the summer of 1658 in journeying back and forth to Paris, until at last the royal summons came. In October of that eventful year the actresses and actors of his troupe packed their tawdry costumes for the last tramp on the road. No more jolting ox carts or weary footing, no more brutal soldiers of the Fronde to terrorise these humble Thespians : for Paris, bright beneath an azure sky, stood smiling at their journey's end. ^ Corneille was then fifty-two. 84 MOLIERE VI PARISIAN SUCCESS To assure the company a Paris theatre, should Moliere's schemes for a hearing at court miscarry, Madeleine Bejart, as its business manager, began negotiations for a lease of the Theatre du Marais. The royal summons put an end to this transaction ; yet it is noteworthy, because, in sign- ing a document at Rouen in connection therewith, she gave her address in Paris as the house of " Monsieur Poquelin, tapissier valet de chambre du Rot, living in the arcade of the market-place in the parish of St. Eustache." This was the house Moliere's father purchased in Sep- tember, 1633, and if the actress who had led his son from the paths of duty was his guest, his welcome to the prod- igal was complete, to the slaying of the fatted calf. Even an upholsterer by special appointment might pardon a first-born who had written two successful plays ; but financial reasons were, perhaps, more potent than pride in inspiring this paternal welcome. Including the sums advanced to absolve his debts, Moliere had received only a portion of the money due from his mother's estate. Possibly the elder Poquelin found it easier to forgive than to account. Of far more importance than Moliere's welcome be- neath the paternal roof was his first appearance at court. Monsieur, a close-fisted young reprobate of eighteen, wished a company of actors to vie with his brother's troupe of the Hotel de Bourgogne, and to gratify this whim, the late comedians of the Prince de Conti were PARISIAN SUCCESS 85 commanded for a trial performance. Moliere's intrigues had at last borne fruit, but he had reached the age of thirty-six ; failure to please meant that he must return to the barns and high-roads of provincial France. October twenty-fourth, 1658, is a momentous day in the life of this strolling player. To give him audience, ladies with coifs and point lace collars, courtiers in perukes and silken doublets, gathered before a temporary stage in the guard room of the old Louvre ; King Louis, too, was there ; Monsieur, the profligate ; portly Anne of Austria, and Mazarin, triumphant ; — possibly brave D'Artagnan stood guard that night. Behind the royal family and the pleasure loving dames d!honneur were flip- pant gentlemen prepared to yawn ; actors of the Hotel de Bourgogne, to scofl^. Amid the glow of candles and the odour of frangipane, Moliere made his bow to Paris and the world. His play was Corneille's tragedy of Nicomedes ; scorn, the verdict of his rivals. With an inspiration equal to his genius, he stepped before the curtain at the conclusion of the Corneille tragedy, and thanked the King for hav- ing pardoned the defects of a company which had appeared with hesitation before so august an assemblage. "The desire," he continued, "of having the honour of amusing the greatest monarch in the world had made them forget that his Majesty already had in his service an excellent troupe, of which they were only modest imitators. Since the audience had already endured their awkward country manners, he humbly begged permission to give one of the trifling entertainments which had amused the provinces." The heart of a king then scarcely past his teens was touched by this artful flattery; therefore Moliere, having made his debut in the role of courtier, placed 86 MOLIERE upon the boards The Physician in Love {Le Docteur amoureux), a farce of his own devising. The manuscript of that " trifling entertainment " is lost, but the King's laughter echoes through the centuries. By his decree those " modest imitators " of the royal players became "The Troupe of Monsieur, Only Brother of the King," and the libertine, thus honoured, granted each a pension of three hundred livres. As at La Grange des Pres, Moliere's success was, in some measure, due to feminine charms : the Preface of 1682, in speaking of this memo- rable performance at the Louvre, says that while " the new players did not displease, the charms and the acting of the actresses were, above all, most satisfactory." Monsieur's pension was a shadowy boon, for with true Orleanist parsimony it was never paid ; not so the King's permission to use the Hotel du Petit Bourbon on the days unoccupied by Scaramouche and his Italian buffoons. A Paris theatre being Moliere's quest, no time was lost in agreeing with the transalpine players that for fifteen hundred livres his company should have the right to play Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. According to tradition, as has been seen, Moliere, when a lad, took lessons in acting from this same Scara- mouche ; but in view of the limited time at a French schoolboy's disposal, their mutual tenancy of the Petit Bourbon seems a more likely occasion for this histrionic instruction. That Moliere became the pupil of Tiberio Fiurelli, whose stage name, Scaramouche, is a household word,^ is attested by a quatrain printed beneath a portrait- engraving by Vermeulen of this great buffoon : * " Scaramouche " (Italian scaramuccio) was a buiFoon part in the old Italian farces. Tiberio Fiurelli was known as Scaramouche because he habitually played this part dressed in black from head to foot. PARISIAN SUCCESS 87 This actor of illustrious tone Acquired his art's most pleasing feature : Though he was Moliere's patient teacher. Dame Nature was herself his own. The evidence of Le Boulanger de Chalussay, too, is not to be despised, since, by exaggerating fact, he made slan- der poignant. In his Elomire the Hypochondriac he says : For instance, Elomire, Fully bent on being any actor's peer. In a manner wily, laid a cunning plan : Scaramouche to mimic, justly famous man ; So with mirror went he, every morn and eve. Face to see reflected, technic to achieve ; For this noted pupil, grimace and wry traits Imitated neatly in a hundred ways. Within a week after the performance of The Physi- cian in Love before the King, Moliere's company made its debut at the Hotel du Petit Bourbon. Situated on the right bank of the Seine, between the old Louvre and the church of St. Germain I'Auxerrois, this theatre had been the palace of the Constable de Bourbon, Confis- cated to the State upon his condemnation for high treason, the family arms had been effaced wherever found, and the door daubed with the yellow paint used to mark the houses of criminals convicted of Use majesty ; but in spite of such disfigurement, it was, according to Sauval, the " widest, highest, and longest theatre in the kingdom," ^ — a eulogy borne out by a pamphleteer of the period, who asserts that it was " eighteen fathoms long by eight wide, ending in a circular apse seven fathoms deep and eight and a half in width." Vaulted, and covered with ^ Histoire et recherches des antiquitis de la ville de Paris. 88 MOLIERE fleurs-de-lis, this spacious auditorium was otherwise in the Doric style, while opposite the dais of the King stood a stage six feet high by forty-eight square, — an imposing play-house, it would seem, for that or any period. Monsieur's comedians appeared at the Petit Bourbon November second, 1658. Grimarest maintains that The Blunderer was the first piece presented; but Boulanger de Chalussay names five tragedies by Corneille, which were hissed, before Moliere resorted to his own plays. The persistence with which he worshipped Melpomene inclines one to belief in the latter contention. In the words of M. Louis Moland,^ " failure on the one hand, applause on the other, forced Moliere to surrender to his own genius. How many attempts were necessary to un- deceive him, by what a roundabout way, by what drastic coercion, the author of The Misanthrope became almost in spite of himself the greatest of comic poets ! " When the dust was finally shaken from The Blun- derer, the piece which had set Lyons laughing turned the hisses of the Parisians to applause ; when The Love Tiff followed " its elder brother," even Boulanger de Chalus- say, the slanderer, exclaimed, " C'est la faire et jouer des pieces comme il faut ! " Seventy pistoles, according to La Grange, was each actor's share of The Blunderer* s receipts, and The Love Tj^was equally profitable. The court, absent from Paris since the memorable performance at the Louvre, returned on January twenty- eighth, 1659, and a fortnight later Monsieur honoured his comedians with a visit to the Petit Bourbon, when Moliere, ever the courtier, made a speech in compliment to his royal patron. With the advent of Lent the dramatic season ended. * Vie de J.-B. p. Moliere. PARISIAN SUCCESS 89 During the Easter holidays Gros-Rene and his pretty wife. Mile, du Pare, inspired no doubt by some trivial theatrical hufF, deserted to the Theatre du Marais, the veteran Dufresne retired from the stage, and the gagiste Croisac was discharged. To repair his depleted ranks, Moliere engaged two actors of the Theatre du Marais, Jodelet and his brother De I'Espy, together with three players new to Paris : Charles Varlet, Du Croisy, and his wife, Marie Claveau. Jodelet, an experienced comedian, known in real life as Julien Bedeau, was a lean/anw^, or buffoon, who whit- ened his face with flour, and had but to show himself upon the stage to provoke laughter. He died within a year, so that his association with the company was short- lived ; but Charles Varlet remained a member until after Moliere's death. Indeed, this latter actor, more usually known by his stage name of Sieur de la Grange (his matronymk, with an assumed nobiliary particle), was the compiler of the famous register of the troupe's receipts and disbursements, still preserved in the archives of the Theatre Fran9ais. Robbed of his inheritance by an ab- sconding guardian. La Grange drifted to the stage and, meeting Moliere in Paris, was engaged for subordinate parts at the Petit Bourbon and, upon the death of Joseph Bejart, promoted to be jeune premier. Later he became orateur of the troupe, and besides compiling his register, edited the first complete edition of Moliere's works (1682), in conjunction with his friend Vinot. In 1672 La Grange married Marie (or Marotte) Ragueneau, the pastry-cook- poet's daughter, who, serving first as Mile, de Erie's maid, became a ticket collector for the company, then a character actress. Philibert Gassot, a gentleman of Beauce, best known 90 MOLlfiRE by the pseudonym of Sieur du Crolsy, had been head of a strolling company. Even his obesity could not destroy his graceful bearing on the stage, and he was reckoned one of Moliere's best comedians. At the time of his advent at the Hotel du Petit Bourbon, he was married to Marie Claveau, an indifferent actress engaged because of her husband's talent ; while the same might be said of Jodelet's brother, Sieur de I'Espy, who failed except in parts written to suit his eccentricities. With his company thus enlarged, Moliere opened the theatrical season of 1659 by playing The Love Tiff at the chateau de Chilly-Mazarin before the Marechal de la Meilleraye's august guest, the King. This comedy in verse gave the young monarch a better opportunity of judging its author's merits than the farce he had witnessed in the guard room of the Louvre, and his discernment proved keener than that of his courtiers. Even Jean Loret, the society journalist of the day, considered the comedy played at Chilly of no more importance than the violins provided for his Majesty's diversion, but Louis was so edified that on May tenth The Blunderer was played before him at the Louvre.^ During this command performance Joseph Bejart, the company's jeune premier, if the term be not a misnomer * What more remains to say — The violins ? the play ? Muse bistorique, April 19, 1659. La Muse hisiorique, a weekly pamphlet in which current events in politics, literature, the drama, and society were treated wittily in verse by its editor, Jean Loret, constituted the press of the period, together with its senior. La Gazette de France, established in 1 631 by Theophraste Renoudot. Le Mercure galattt, founded by Donneau de Vize, which, later, became Le Mercure de France, filled the role of monthly magazine. PARISIAN SUCCESS 91 for a man fifty-one years old, was taken ill while playing his accustomed part of Lelie, and died a few days later. His sister's companion in her early wanderings, the poet's comrade since the days of "The Illustrious Theatre," his loss must have been keenly felt, for his colleagues closed their play-house during a fortnight. Owing to a habit of stuttering, Joseph Bejart was an indifferent actor, but he had the commercial spirit strongly developed. In 1656, for a genealogy of the provincial nobility of Languedoc he had written, he was rewarded by that province with a grant of fifteen hundred livres ; but a paltry five hundred was made to requite a supple- ment, and Bejart was dismissed with an admonition to indulge in no more such literary cupidity. Unabashed, however, by this rebuff, he continued grubbing money in divers ways, until he had amassed an estate valued at twenty-four thousand kus, a colossal fortune for a comedian. In July, 1659, owing to the departure of his Italian competitors for Italy, Moliere was left in sole possession of the Hotel du Petit Bourbon. This enabled him to give performances on Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday, the so-called regular theatrical days. Plays were presented in the afternoon, hence, Monday being post day for Germany and Italy, Wednesday and Saturday market days, and Thursday the time of the fashionable prome- nade, the advantage of the regular days is apparent However, this good fortune was almost counterbalanced by the departure of the court from Paris. France had been at war with Spain for some twenty years, and Mazarin, in negotiating peace, had in view a marriage between his sovereign and the Infanta Maria Theresa ; but the ministers of Philip IV were so dilatory 92 MOLIfiRE that the artful cardinal set off for Lyons with the King to meet the Princess Margaret of Savoy, a possible candidate for the throne. The ruse succeeded; the Spaniards hastening to resume negotiations with the result that Maria Theresa was affianced to Louis XIV on November seventh, 1659. The successful runs of The Blunderer and The Love Tiff terminated while these negotiations for the royal marriage were still in progress. The court being absent, Moliere's audiences were considerably diminished ; so, obliged to seek a novelty for autumn production, his last recourse was to his own muse. The result of this forced labour was an epoch-making play, Les Pricieuses ridicules. When this satirical comedy was produced at the Hotel du Petit Bourbon, November eighteenth, 1659, all Paris laughed except the pricieuses, or fashionable blue-stock- ings, who saw themselves portrayed. The story of this play will be left to the ensuing chapter, but it may be said in passing that the influence of the ladies, thus antagonised, was sufficient to interdict its performances for a time. The enthusiasm of the public had been too great, however, for such a ban to be effective, and in response to popular clamour Les Pricieuses ridicules was again presented on December second. Its success was so pronounced that the price of tickets was doubled, while people came to Paris from twenty leagues around to be amused by a comedy called, by a contemporary, " the most charming and delicate which had ever appeared upon the stage." From December second, 1659, until the Easter closing of the theatre. La Grange records thirty-two performances of this piece, not counting the representations given at fashionable houses in Lent. PARISIAN SUCCESS 93 During the Easter holidays death removed lean Jo- delet, the faring, from the company, but his loss was not irreparable. Gros-Rene, together with his fascinating wife, returned to the fold of the Petit Bourbon, and, according to Loret, this fat comedian " was worth three Jodelets." While Les Pricieuses ridicules was arousing the anger of the blue-stockings, the King was in the Pyrenees, and before he could reach his capital to join in the laughter at their expense, Moliere had produced Sgana- relle ; or. The Imaginary Cockold (Sganarelle ou le Cocu imaginaire), a one-act farce in verse, with sufficient mirth to fill the Petit Bourbon thirty-four times during the dull season and command various engagements at country houses. The merits of this piece will be dis- cussed in a future chapter ; but a word from an eye- witness upon Moliere's acting in the title role : Nothing more delightful had ever been seen upon the stage than Sganarelle's attitudes behind his wife's back, while his face and gestures expressed jealousy so thor- oughly that speech was not needed to make him appear the most outraged of husbands. Sighing for " the brush of a Poussin, a Le Brun, or a Mignard, to picture these drolleries," the admirer who thus expressed himself, Neufvillenaine by name, stood in the parterre until he had learned the play by heart, then rushed to a printing-office and gave it to the world. Not only did this freebooter publish Sganarelle from memory, but enjoined the author himself from printing it for five years. Rather than submit to such high handed robbery, Moliere seized the pirated copies in the bookstalls, and sued the offender ; whereupon Neuf- 94 MOLIERE villenaine published a new edition of Sganarelle, with a dedicatory letter to the author containing the ingenuous defence that " no harm had been done him, since his piece had been played nearly fifty times." The Blunderer and The Love Tiff had not been con- sidered worthy of publication, and even Les Prkieuses ridicules was printed more through a desire to present a defensive preface to the public than to protect the author's rights. His experience with Monsieur Neufvillenaine taught Moliere a salutary lesson, however, and thereafter his work was given to the public before it could be stolen. All thanks to this literary pirate ! ^ On the seventh of June, 1660, King Louis met the Infanta Maria Theresa at the frontier ; then journeying toward Paris, tarried through July and August at Vin- cennes. Hefe Moliere appeared three times, playing both Les Prhieuses ridicules and Sganarelle with such marked success that, after the King had entered Paris in triumph with his Spanish bride, the poet was thrice sum- moned to the Louvre. This royal advertising was a somewhat empty boon just then, for the public was too engrossed with processions and fireworks to attend the- atrical performances. Indeed what comedy could compete with the spectacle of a royal wedding ? Maria Theresa was displayed to the populace in a gilded car ; young Louis, clothed in gold and silver embroidery, rode at the head of his nobility amid huzzas and acclamations. It was his first real hour of kingship and, while he tasted splendour to the foil, Fran9oise d'Aubigne looked upon his handsome face and ^ A reason for Moliere' s hesitancy regarding the publication of his plays is found in the curious law of the period, which made a published play public property for acting purposes. PARISIAN SUCCESS 95 envied Mazarin — until that day his ruler. This won- drous lady's hour of liberation was at hand. Within the month Scarron, her lord and master, drew his last will and testament in verse, then died. Having nothing to bequeath but jokes, he left his wife the privilege of remarrying ; to Loret he bequeathed a pipe of wine ; five hundred pounds of gravity for the two Corneilles, and to his other literary friends the qualities and ab- surdities they possessed already. Then, remember- ing one who had just carried theatrical Paris by storm, he left "To Moliere, cuckoldom," — a legacy indeed prophetic! Moliere had need of a bequest less cynical. During the royal wedding festivities the receipts of his theatre had diminished wofully, and at the time of Scarron's death he was in a plight far more serious' than playing in opposition to processions, tournaments, and fireworks. Being without fame heretofore, he had been without enemies ; but when Les Prhieuses ridicules set all Paris laughing at the expense of high society, he sowed dragons' teeth. Now, when his fortunes seemed wan- ing, foes sprang full armed to his attack. On October eleventh Monsieur de Ratabon, superin- tendent of the royal buildings, began to destroy the Hotel du Petit Bourbon without warning to its occu- pants. Dumfounded by this unforeseen attack, Moliere complained to the King ; whereupon the official justified his action by stating that the building stood in the way of proposed improvements to the Louvre, while the stage fixtures, having been built for the royal ballets, belonged to his Majesty. As La Grange ingenuously remarks, " the evil intention of Monsieur de Ratabon was appar- ent," and doubtless powerful social leaders, resenting ^6 MOLIERE Les Prkieuses ridicules, inspired this covert attack upon its author. The King bore no such enmity, and when his brother asked for the theatre in the Palais Royal to indemnify his comedians for the wrong done them, his Majesty granted the request, and ordered the offending Ratabon to make the necessary repairs. Built in 1639 by Richelieu to gratify his passion for the stage, this theatre had fallen into such a state of ruin since the Palais Cardinal had become the Palais Royal, that three beams had rotted and half the auditorium was unroofed ; but being the property of the King, Moliere could not be molested there except by royal command. Occupying the right wing of the palace, it had its en- trance in the rue St Honore near where the Theatre Fran9ais now stands, and was, according to Sauval, " the most comfortable theatre ever known." This authority maintains that it held four thousand spectators, but in Moliere's day its seating capacity must have been greatly reduced. Karl Mantzius thus transcribes the contem- porary descriptions of the auditorium : The hall was a long parallelogram, with the stage at one end ; the floor ascended gradually in the opposite direction by means of twenty-seven low, broad stone steps, on which stood wooden seats. The steps did not curve, but crossed the whole breadth of the hall in a straight line, and ran up to a kind of portico at the back of the hall formed of three large arcades. Along each side two gilded balconies ran from the portico to within a short distance of the proscenium. The actual stage did not occupy the whole breadth of the hall, but formed a kind of large, flat arch supported by two pillars of masonry, which on the sides facing the audience were decorated with Ionian pilasters, while the sides that faced each other contained each two niches with allegorical PARISIAN SUCCESS 97 statues. From the stage six steps led down to the seats on the floor, and at the top, in the middle of the arch, was Richelieu's coat-of-arms.* Although, to hasten the repairs, Moliere asked permis- sion to remove the boxes and stage appliances from the Hotel du Petit Bourbon to his new theatre, the King's machinist kept the latter under the pretext that they would be useful at the Tuileries, then promptly burnt them. Court officials and ladies of quality were not alone in their hostility ; Moliere's rivals at the Hotel de Bourgogne, seeing the stage of the Petit Bourbon taken from under his feet, tried to spread sedition in his com- pany by offering more lucrative positions to its members, but they did not know their man. Witness this tribute of La Grange : All the actors loved their chief, Le Sieur de Moliere, who, besides being worthy and extraordinarily capable, was so honest and had such engaging manners that they felt obliged, one and all, to protest their loyalty, and vow they would follow his fortunes, no matter what inducements or advantages might be found elsewhere. These words, written by a comrade at a moment when Moliere's fortunes were ebbing, paint his character in unmistakable colours. "All the actors loved their chief" — no modern eulogy is needed. During the three months while Moliere was without a play-house, his troupe appeared occasionally in private houses and at the Louvre, These performances brought five thousand one hundred and fifteen livres, but the * Moliere and his Times : The Theatre in France in the Seventeenth Century, Vol. IV, History of Theatrical Art. 7 98 MOLIERE major portion being expended on the new theatre, the comedians were on short commons. The company was a mutual benefit association, in which each member received one share of the net receipts. The only diver- gence from this rule was the allotment of an extra share to Moliere at the time of his marriage in 1661, and another in 1663, in recognition of his rights as author, — a modest compensation, indeed, for one who filled the triple role of play writer, manager, and star. An annual pension of one thousand livres was paid a retiring actor by his successor, and, in case of death, a like sum was given the nearest kinsman ; hence membership in the company included both a disability pension and a life insurance. After each performance the chambrie, or money re- ceived, was counted, and, when expenses had been deducted, divided among the players. The receipts fluctuated greatly. Often falling below one hundred livres, they dwindled, on March ninth, 1660, to the mere pittance of forty; yet on March fifth, 1669, at the first public production of The Hypocrite, they reached the phenomenal sum of two thousand eight hundred and sixty livres, and frequently passed the thousand mark.-^ As the charge for admission depended much upon the success of a piece, it is diflicult to present an accurate scale of prices. The various parts of the house were known as stage seats, lower tier boxes, amphitheatre, upper boxes, third tier boxes, and par- terre. The first three of these divisions were the most desirable, and the price of seats therein, the same. Three livres was the ordinary charge, but when a suc- cessful piece held the boards, the demi-louis d'or — or ' Registre de la Grange. . .■■■'.■V-;.-Vv\-\2. PARISIAN SUCCESS., :-:.-" '-g^I V • five livres ten sous — was demanded in the fashionable ';'';• portions of the house. For the ^the,:siage '' ' seats of the dandy nobles seldom paid for, arid 'Men-' sieur's subvention a will-o'-the-wisp ; so Moliere's most reliable source of revenue was the patronage of the bour- geoisie. Although his rivals at the Hotel de Bourgogne drew annually from the royal treasury a pension of twelve thousand livres, and the Italians drew fifteen thousand, Moliere, during the first eight years of his sojourn in Paris, had no such good fortune. Still the lot of a comedian in his company was not to be despised, for La Grange, from the time he became a member until the poet's death — a period of fourteen years — received the sum of fifty-one thousand six hundred and seventy livres as his share of the receipts, an amount a modern actor might envy. Although his name was not yet on the royal pension list, Moliere possessed his King's regard — a far more valuable asset. He had called him " the greatest mon- arch in the world," and when the young man of twenty thus flattered was amused as well, Moliere's fortune was assured. In that complaisant age the King's favour was essential to any man whose livelihood depended on the public. To Moliere it meant far more, for it gave him the courage to paint society in the unerring colours of truth, and when his company was homeless, financial support as well : for example, between October eleventh, ^ Le Theatre franfais sous Louis XIV by Eugene Despois. 1 06 ' - >}" .- . MO LI £ RE -, r-y , 1660, and Jaiiuafy- twentieth of the following year — the period when Ire-'^as without a theatre — his company blayed?^'c6ui!t six times, while the troupe of the Hotel de Bourgogne appeared but once. One of thea?cbfiimand performances is of more than passing int&rest. * On October twenty-sixth, 1660, Mo- Jierc's jtro'u^jfe Vfent to the Louvre to present The Blunderer ' ■^ndk!. hes - Pr'ecieuses ridicules. "Monsieur le Cardinal Mazarin was ill," says La Grange, "and his Majesty saw the comedy while resting on the back of his Emi- nence's chair " ; in a word, a young king on the thresh- old of his power, his dying master, and his hired player, — the greatest despot, the greatest knave, and the greatest genius of France. LES PRECIEUSES RIDICULES loi VII LES PRECIEUSES RIDICULES Until the eventful afternoon when Les Prhieuses ridi- cules was produced at the Hotel du Petit Bourbon, the term prhieuse had meant a woman of cultivation truly precious. It became thenceforth an obloquy. To ap- preciate how vulnerable to satire were the ladies who had gloried in that title, their story must be told. During the religious wars the manners of society had been those of the camp. At their close Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet, a social leader of unequalled talent, re-created French refinement; yet so far reaching has been the effect of Moliere's comedy that she is often classed with her copyists as a prhieuse ridicule. Besides being ambitious and tactful, this re- markable woman was actively virtuous, — a merit which led her to head a reaction against the coarseness of con- temporary court life, and revive a taste for true culture among the idle born. Rebuilding her hStel in the rue St. Thomas du Louvre' with this end in view, she discarded the cus- tomary central stairway, and substituted for the single vast and dreary salon of the period a series of ante- chambers and cabinets. In her drawing-room the con- * Situated on the site now occupied by the Grands Magazhs du Louvre. 102 MOLIERE ventional shades of red and tan colour were rejected, and the blue velvet furnishings installed which gave it the name of the Blue Room, le salon bleu. When its doors were thrown open to the wit and beauty of Paris, French verse rose from the mire of tavern song to the dignity of poetry. Richelieu's condescension had made the writer's lot intolerable ; but Madame de Rambouillet received the humblest author on a plane of equality with the grandest seigneur. During its career of more than forty years (1617-65), the Hotel de Rambouillet passed through three well defined phases. In the period of formation its famous coterie was animated by youthful enthusiasm. Mme. de Rambouillet was in the charming thirties ; Julie, her eldest daughter, and Madeleine de Scudery were just budding into womanhood ; Vaugelas, Racan, Jean Louis de Balzac, Chapelain, and Voiture ranged in age from thirty-five to twenty-two. Imperious Malherbe alone was old and crusty ; yet even he unbent so far as to contrive the poetic anagram of Arthenice from the Chris- tian name of his hostess. The assumption of fantastic noms de Parnasse was a feature of preciosity, so credit for inventing that cult might be given Malherbe; but in those earlier days affectation played small part at the Hotel de Rambouillet. To quote Chapelain, " In no other place in the world was there more good sense and less pedantry." Conver- sation was cultivated as a fine art, and literature discussed with such intelligence that authors stood in honest dread of the Blue Room coterie's verdict. Moreover, new words were introduced into the language, superfluous letters suppressed, obscure points argued, and terms defined which were soon to find a place in the dictionary LES PRECIEUSES RIDICULES 103 of the French Academy ; * in short, through one charm- ing woman's tact, the poet and the scholar replaced the swashbuckler as a social influence. Restraining Malherbe died in 1628, whereupon Eru- dition, that just god, was deposed by Verbiage. Sarrasin, Conrart, Patru, Godeau, Menage, Benserade, and Segrais became the acolytes of High Priest Voiture, arbiter of elegance ; Mile, de Coligny and Mile, de Scudery, the Princesse de Guemene, the Marquise de Sable, and the Comtesse de Maure were among his devotees ; even the great Conde, Saint-Evremond, and La Rochefoucauld bent the knee. Garlands of verses were entwined in daughter Julie's honour; young Bossuet preached ex- perimental sermons in the Blue Room ; Corneille read tragedies ; but, alas, circumlocution dominated the ritual of its culture worship. Still, Voiture's sonnets and roundelays were charming poetry, his al fresco fetes distinguished for good taste : not until his death did preciosity become ridiculous. The third phase is the period of decline. In 1645 Julie d'Angennes, Madame de Rambouillet's eldest daughter, married a persistent nobleman,^ whose austerity chilled the Blue Room atmosphere ; and Voiture died three years later. Then the Fronde divided society into bitter factions, and family deaths closed the doors of the Hotel de Rambouillet for a time ; the subse- quent illness of its hostess, too, although accountable for ' The French Academy was founded officially by Richelieu in 1635. Many of its members, however, had been meeting for some years previous at the house of Conrart, an habitue of the Hotel de Rambouillet. One of its first labours was the compilation of an authoritative dictionary of the French language. " The Marquis de Montausier, created Due de Montausier in 1664.. I04 moli£re the quaint custom of receiving guests at the ruelle, or bedside, restricted its coterie to her intimate friends. After the wars of the Fronde the Blue Room was re- opened, but Madame de Rambouillet was verging on seventy. Claimants for her social throne appeared — to emulate but not to equal her in brilliancy — and in the salons of these rivals the preciosity that Moliere satirised was born, — a base imitation of the Blue Room culture. Among these competitors was Madeleine de Scudery, whose novel, Artaniene ou le Grand Cyrus (1649-53), appeared about the time the mysterious word fr'ecieuse was first whispered from lip to lip. This interminable story portrayed the Blue Room familiars in the guise of classic heroes, and its success was so marked that its old maid author resolved to secede from the Hotel de Ram- bouillet and embark in leadership herself. When the languishments and love maps oi Artamene's ten-volume successor, Clilie (1656), created a maudlin craze through- out feminine Paris, Mile, de Scudery's salon in the rue de Beauce became the consecrated temple of preciosity. Socially ambitious women were early proselytes of the new cult. Knowing the futility of storming the exclusive Hotel de Rambouillet, they concentrated their attacks upon the weaker stronghold, and in their zeal for re- finement endeavoured to annex the entire realm of knowledge: if Mile, de Scudery's salon was lacking in distinction, it certainly made up for it in frenzy. In the rue St. Thomas du Louvre, preciosity had been a creditable avoidance of distasteful terms, — a literary movement no more pronounced than the euphuism of Sidney and Lyly, less so than that of Gongora in Spain or Marini in Italy, — but in the rue de Beauce it became an absurd neology and the cult of extravagant words. LES PRECIEUSES RIDICULES 105 Imagine a fashion demanding circumlocutory quirks in ordinary conversation, such as "defiers of the weather " for hats, " indispensables of conversation" for chairs, " furniture of the mouth " for teeth, " pearls of Iris " for tears, and " gates of the understanding " for ears ; yet such was the preciosity of Mile, de Scudery's disciples. Moreover, it was not confined to love-lorn spinsters or to new women ; for each fricieuse had her aMviste, or attendant cavalier, and precious verbiage was designed, above all, adequately to express the tender passion. There were several degrees of prkieuses — ks illustres, les grandes, et les petites — and in Parisian society a pr^- cieuse illustre took rank as a duchess at court. In the capital the disciples of the new ritual performed just such antics of culture as did the aesthetes in England a quarter of a century ago, and in the provinces, where Parisian manners were aped by all foolish women, the pranks of the pricieuses passed all reason. This was the state in which preciosity found itself when Moliere reached Paris in the autumn of 1658. He was no stranger to the cult, for it had already penetrated Languedoc ; furthermore, Sarrasin, the poet- secretary of the Prince de Conti, was a familiar of the Blue Room and the successor of Voiture as arbiter of elegance. The influence of such a man upon a provin- cial court must have been paramount; and when Moliere took part in the Ballet of the Incompatibles at Mont- pellier in 1655, he doubtless met many ridiculous pr'e- cieusesy any one of whom might have inspired his comedy. Indeed, Grimarest states that Les Prhieuses] ridicules was first played in the provinces ; while Roe- derer^ places its production at Beziers in 1654. ^ Mimoire four servir a I'bistoire de la sociitd polie en France. io6 moli£re La Grange and Vinot, on the other hand, assert in the Preface of 1682 that " M. de Moliere made (Jt) the comedy of Les Pricieuses ridicules in 1659," while the former, in his Register, calls it the poet's " third new piece." Roederer's arguments being far from conclusive and Grimarest a much discredited authority, this point is still a mooted one. Moliere's pricieuses, however, are ladies from the provinces, and it remained his habit to make use of scenes and characters from his earlier pieces ; therefore it is reasonable to suspect that Les Pricieuses ridicules was a provincial canevas, embellished and recon- ; structed for Parisian use. Chaf>elle and Bachaumont, after their journey through the South in 1656, composed a satire on the ways of coMntry pricieuses which, it is more than likely, Moliere had seen ; that same year, too, the Abbe de Pure pub- lished a novel called 'The Prhieuse; or. The Mystery of the Alcove {La Prkieuse ou le Myst'ire de la ruelle), and a play by him on a similar topic was presented by the Italians at the Hotel du Petit Bourbon. Indeed, Moliere's contemporaries openly accused him of steal- ing his idea from this churchman, — a false accusation, of course, if his comedy had been first played in the provinces. Les Pricieuses ridicules, as has been seen, was produced at the Hotel du Petit Bourbon with marked success on November eighteenth, 1659, and so antagonised the real pricieuses that the author was forced to withdraw it for a fortnight. Now, as the reader is already aware, these ladies were the society leaders of that day ; so it must be admitted that in ridiculing the foibles of his most influential patrons Moliere, still a man comparatively jonknown, was playing a bold game. This courage, LES PR:feCIEUSES RIDICULES 107 displayed at the moment when it was necessary to secure his precarious hold upon the public, shows that talent for aggressive leadership which became thenceforth so dominant a feature of his character. In this discussion, however, the play itself is being overlooked. The story is simple, but a sufficient framework for delicious satire. A word upon its construction : Magdelon ^ and Cathos, newly come to Paris from the provinces, are respectively daughter and niece to Gorgi- bus, and have been provided by that worthy bourgeois with a pair of honest suitors, called La Grange and Du Croisy. Although unacquainted with the great world ex- cept through Mile, de Scudery's vapid pages, these young ladies assume the airs and graces of full-fledged prhieuses, and scorn their admirers for having the eifrontery to propose matrimony point-blank, instead of proceeding discreetly in accordance with precious standards, by billets doux, petit s soins, billets galantSy et Jolis vers. Enraged at being jilted by such upstarts. La Grange and Du Croisy plan a cruel revenge. The former has a valet named Mascarille, who, as he says, " can pass in the eyes of most people for a fine wit — since nothing is cheaper nowadays than cleverness " ; so this fellow, dressed in extravagant finery and bearing the grandilo- quent name of the Marquis de Mascarille, is borne by chairmen into the very house of these imperious country ladies, there to pass himself off as a wit and beau of society. Deceived by his ribbons and his ready tongue, both Magdelon and Cathos fall an easy prey to his blan- dishments ; and flattered by the attentions of one so influ- ential at court as Mascarille pretends to be, they consider * This is the spelling of the earlier editions of Molibre's works, the name being first printed as Madelon in the edition of 1734. io8 MOLlfiRE their social fortunes made. To abet his fellow-servant's knavery and complete the head-turning of the ridiculous prkieuseSy Du Croisy's valet presents himself as the Vicomte de Jodelet, un brave a trots polls — or fashion- able fire-eater ; but at the moment when these rascals are celebrating their triumph by music and an impromptu dance, their masters appear to strip the foppish doublets from their backs. Before the humiliated ladies who pre- ferred their lackeys to themselves. La Grange and Du Croisy give the pair a sound beating ; Mascarille, robbed of his finery and sore from his blows, thus bemoans his fate to his fellow victim : Is this the way to treat a marquess? But it is the way of the world. The slightest disgrace makes those who petted us despise us. Come, comrade, let's seek our fortunes elsewhere. They care for nothing here but vain appearances : virtue unadorned has no consideration. Upon this canvas Moliere painted a caricature of polite society. The antics of preciosity had passed all bounds of intelligence ; so his subject appealed to every sane mind. Even though his frhieuses were nobodies from the provinces, and his alctviste a masquerading servant, the shaft went home because its aim was true. Magdelon and Cathos languished and sighed like the real prkieuses, and their talk was just as maudlin. Take, for instance, the former's protest to her father against the boorish love-making of La Grange and Du Croisy: My cousin will tell you, father, as well as I, that mat- rimony ought never to happen till after other adventures. A lover, to be agreeable, must know how to express fine sentiments ; to breathe soft, tender, and passionate vows ; his courtship, too, must be according to the rules. In the first place, he should behold the fair creature with whom LES PRECIEUSES RIDICULES 109 he falls in love at a place of worship, when out walking, or at some public ceremony ; or else he should be intro- duced to her by a relative or a friend — as if by chance ; and when he leaves her presence, he should appear pen- sive and downcast. For a time he hides his passion from the object of his admiration ; but, when paying her visits, he should never fail to present some question of gallantry to be discussed by all the wits present. When the moment of his declaration arrives — which usually should be contrived in some shady walk with the com- pany at a distance — it must be quickly followed by anger, shown by our blushing, sufficient to banish the lover from our presence for a time. He soon finds means, however, to appease our resentment and gradually accus- tom us to his tender avowals, as well as to draw that confession from our lips which causes us so much pain. Then follow vicissitudes : rivals who cross the path of our mutual love, parental persecution, unfounded jeal- ousies, complaints, despair, abductions, and all that fol- lows. Thus are such matters arranged in fashionable society, and true gallantry cannot dispense with these forms. But to come out point-blank with a proposal of marriage — to make love with a marriage contract, and begin a novel at the wrong end ! Once more, father, nothing could be more tradesman-like, and the mere thought of it makes me sick at heart. Surely there are many foolish girl novel readers in the twentieth century whose conception of the art of love- making is not unlike Magdelon's. Indeed, Moliere's characterisation and dialogue display such a modern quality that Les Pr'ecieuses ridicules might readily be edited so as to become a skit upon the "smart set" of Paris, London, or New York. Take, for instance, this bit in which the masquerading servant Mascarille impresses the country pr'ecieuses with his metropolitan airs: no moli£re Mascarille Well, ladies, what say you of Paris ? Magdelok Alas, what can we say ? Not to confess that Paris is the main office of wonders, the centre of good manners, taste, and wit, one must be the antipode of rational. Mascarille As for me, I maintain that outside Paris there is no salvation for right-minded people. Cathos A truth most indisputable. Mascarille Of course, it is rather muddy, but then we have the sedan. Magdelon True ; the sedan is a marvellous curtailment of the insults of both mud and inclement weather. If the word automobile were substituted for sedan in the foregoing, it would be difficult to believe Mascarille was not a present-day valet masquerading as un homme du dernier chic. Again, when he is calling attention to his dress, his conceit is not unlike the modern French dandy who instead of ribbons from Perdrigeon's wears ties from the rue de la Paix. Mascarille What do you think of my finery ? Is it in keeping with my coat ? Cathos Perfectly ! Mascarille A well selected ribbon, eh ? Magdelon Tremendously well selected — real Perdrigeon. Mascarille What have you to say of my canons ? LES PR^CIEUSES RIDICULES iii Magdelon They have quite an air ! Mascarille I may boast that they are a quaner wider than any yet made. Cathos I am forced to confess that I have never seen exquisite taste in dress carried so far. Mascarille Kindly apply to these gloves the reflection of your sense of smell. Magdelon They smell terribly well. Cathos I have never inhaled a more delicate scent. Mascarille (^Presenting his curled wig to he smelt.") And this ? Magdelon It is perfect in quality ! It penetrates charmingly the sub- limity of one's brain. Mascarille You have n't said anything about my feathers. How do you find them ? Cathos Terribly beautiful! Mascarille Do you know that each sprig cost me a gold louis ; but, above all, it is my mania to wish everything of the very best. Magdelon 1 assure you, we have tastes in common, you and I ; for I have a frantic delicacy regarding what I wear. Even to my stock- ings, I can't endure anything that is not made by a skilled workwoman.^ ^ The ribbon referred to by Mascarille was the favour worn upon the shoulder or breast of his doublet — an article brought into fashion by 112 MOLlfeRE By substituting "tie" for ribbon in this dialogue, "spats" for canons, and "top-hat" for feathers, Mas- carille's language might readily be that of a modern popinjay. Indeed, middle class young ladies who ape society manners and servants who fancy themselves above their station are such perennial types that to this day Les Pricieuses ridicules never fails to call forth peals of laughter. Imagine, then, the sensation it cre- ated when the very people ridiculed were seated in the boxes ! The dialogue between the false marquess and his precious dupes might have passed for a model conversa- tion at one of Mile, de Scudery's Saturdays ; flowery love verse, too, received its coup de gr&ce when languishing Mascarille composed this impromptu quatrain in tribute to Magdelon: Oh, oh! quite careless of your charm, My heart, without a thought of harm. Is slyly filched by glances lief — Stop thief, stop thief, stop thief, stop thief! Too many poets had indulged in superfine expression of the tender passion, too many butterflies of society had figured in the role of alcSviste, for the fashionable play- goer not to appreciate Moliere's satire even though it cut to the quick. Henceforth a pricieuse — whether Mazarin's sumptuary decree of 1644, prohibiting the use, not only of point lace, but gold, silver, and copper lace {clinquatti) as well. Camm were the canions, or ruffles, worn at the end of the haul de chausses, or loose breeches, just where they joined the bas de iottts, or boot-hose. At the time of Mascarille's first appearance they were wide rolls of starched linen such as were said by a writer of the period to so resemble paper lanterns that "one evening a laundress of the royal palace made use of one to protect her candle from the wind." Mascarille's feathers were the dozen or more ostrich plumes which ornamented his broad felt hat. LES PRECIEUSES RIDICULES 113 illustrious, great, or small — could not fail to be ridicu- lous as well. The simple announcement of its title should have been sufficient to make Moliere's new comedy create a flutter in society ; but the author evidently did not foresee its phenomenal success, else he would not have presented it as a mere after-piece to tragedy. The orateur, too, must have failed lamentably in advertising its sensational merits; for the receipts at the first pro- duction were but five hundred and thirty-three livres ; while, at the second, with the prices doubled, fourteen hundred were realised. Nevertheless, many distinguished people were present at the first performance; for in Minagiana, a collection of the sayings and criticisms of Gilles Menage, published shortly after that writer's death, we learn that " Mile, de Rambouillet was there, together j with Mme. de Grignan, M. Chapelain, and the entire Hotel de Rambouillet set." — The Mme. de Grignan here mentioned was one of Mme. de Rambouillet's five daughters. Her more celebrated sister, Julie, had married the Marquis de Montausier fourteen years previously, while her three remaining sisters were nuns ; but Mme. de Rambouillet herself lived only a few doors from the Hotel du Petit Bourbon, and though past seventy was far from being too infirm to attend an afternoon performance of a play the title of which should have piqued her curiosity ; so it seems far more likely that Mile, is a proof-reader's error for Mme., than that Menage or his editors made the extraordinary mistake of calling the Marquise de Montausier Mile, de Rambouillet. Somaize, the historian of preciosity, chronicles that 8 1 14 MOLlfiRE after the first production of Les Pr'ecieuseSy " an influen- tial alcdviste interdicted that spectacle for several days ; " * but Mme. de Rambouillet was a woman of too much sense and good taste to have incited this persecution. Barely three years later she invited Moliere to her ASfel — a proof that she bore him little malice ; and if she was present at the first performance of his satire on the foibles of her silly imitators, one is tempted to believe she shared the prescience which Menage's admiring editors impute to him : The piece was received with general applause, and I [Menage], in particular, was so satisfied with it that I immediately perceived the efi^ect it would produce. On leaving the theatre, I took M Chapelain by the hand and said, " Monsieur, you and I have approved all the stupidities which have just been criticised so cleverly and with such good sense ; but, believe me — to quote what Saint-Remy said to Clovis — ' We must burn what we have adored, and adore what we have burnt.' " Les Pricieuses ridicules sounded the death knell of affectation on the stage as well as in society. Accus- tomed to classic tragedy or Italian farce, the audience could scarcely believe its lifelike characters were in a play. Their very names, too, were those of the actors on the stage : Magdelon was Madeleine Bejart ; Cathos, Cathe- rine de Brie;^ La Grange and Du Croisy, the new recruits of that name. Jodelet, the lean farini from the Theatre du Marais, with sombre doublet buttoned to his chin in the style of the old court, and a huge false beard ^ Le Grand Dictionnaire da Pricieuses. * M. Aime-Martin arbitrarily allots the role of Magdelon to Mile, de Brie, and that of Cathos to Mile, du Pare ; but in the case of the latter, he is manifesdy in error, as she was not a member of the company at the time. LES PRECIEUSES RIDICULES 115 upon his whitened face, played the Vicomte de Jodelet ; while Mascarille, the swaggering, insolent, masquerading valet in love with his own vanity, was Moliere himself.* Mile, des Jardins — an eye-witness of that first per- formance — thus describes Moliere's droll make-up : His wig was so huge that it swept the stage every time he bowed, and his hat so small that it is easy to ima^ne that the marquess carried it in his hand more often than upon his head. His cravat suggested a seemly dressing-gown ; and his canons seemed made for children to play hide-and-seek in. . . . A bunch of tassels dangled from his pocket as if it were a horn of plenty ; and his shoes were so covered with ribbons that you could not tell whether they were Russia leather, English calf-skin, or Morocco ; at all events, I know they were at least half a foot in height, and I found it hard to under- stand how heels so high and slender could carry the weight of the marquess, his ribbons, canons, and powder.' The success of the play was instantaneous. Accord- ing to tradition, an old man in the audience cried out : " Courage, Moliere, that is real comedy ! " — a verdict upheld by posterity. If Moliere's victory was complete, still he paid the customary penalty of depreciation and petty annoyance. His piece was stolen from the Abbe de Pure, said jealous rivals, or found among the papers of Guillot-Gorju (a dead comedian of the Hotel de Bour- gogne) ; ' and the reader already knows the story of the ^ Moliere was then known upon the stage as Mascarille ; for Somaize, in the pre&ce of his comedy Les Veritables precieuses, calls the author Mascarille, and dismisses him contemptuously as "one whose acting has pleased enough people for him to be sufficiently vain to boast of being the chief y^r^^«r of France." " Recit en prose et en vers de la farce des Pricieuses. * Le Cercle desfemmes by Chappuzeau and Jodelet ou le Mattre valet ii6 MOLlfiRE official persecution which resulted in the loss of his theatre. He made more than one attempt to mollify the enraged prhieuses, and even went so far, in 1660, as to present a comedy by another author entitled 'The True and the False Prhieuse {La Vraye et fausse pri- cieuse) ; while in the preface to his own play he is careful to say that — The most commendable things are frequently aped by vulgar monkeys who deserve to be flouted ; and these vicious imitations of the best have in all ages been the subject of comedy ... so the genuine pricieuses would be wrong to take offence when I make game of the ridiculous people who imitate them so badly. This attempted pacification of his enemies was merely diplomacy. " It is my belief," he said at a later day, " that, for a man in my position,^ I can do no better than attack the vices of my time with ridiculous likenesses." Les Pricieuses ridicules was his first skirmish in this war against the false. In subsequent years he never let pass a favourable opportunity to marshal his mental forces in unremitting hostility to the hypocrites and formalists of his day ; for Moliere, the poet militant, was a master strategist. In Segraisiana, a miscellany of the sayings and recol- lections of Segrais, the poet, published in 1721, Moliere is reputed to have said, after the success of Les Pricieuses ridicules, that " it was no longer necessary for him to by Scarron are plays from which Moliere may have culled ideas for his comedy. ^ This statement is found in the first petition Moliere presented to the King for permission to play Le Tartuffe in public. Dans I'empki o& j( me trouve are his words, and they are held by commentators to refer to his position as comic poet. LES PRECIEUSES RIDICULES 117 study Plautus and Terence or pluck from the fragments of Menander." " I need study only society," was his boast ; but as it is recorded over half a century after the triumph which called it forth, one is tempted to doubt the chronicler's veracity. Moliere was too modest ever to have played the role of fanfaron ; so, like the story of the old man in the parterre, this swaggering should be interpreted rather as the verdict of time than as an actual occurrence. It was indeed true that he need study only society; for Les Priciemes ridicules, as has been stated in an earlier chapter, was the first real comedy of manners. Being a one-act play in prose, full of exaggeration and drollery, it is farcical in construction, so technically it must be classed with the poet's light buffooneries; but in the sense that it is a dramatic picture of life, this trifling farce becomes pure comedy. In characterisation, too, it is a dramatic landmark. Heretofore French dram- atists had slavishly imitated classic or Italian models ; in Les Prhieuses ridicules a new dramatic note was sounded, — the note of truth. During the preceding century the Seigneur de Mon- taigne, a country gentleman, who, in his own words, " had done no more than nibble at the outside crust of learning," began to write what he termed " essays," in a style intended as a protest against the stilted and arti- ficial literature of the day. According to his own esti- mation, "he wrote a little of everything, and nothing complete — in true French fashion " ; but he took a fair and comprehensive view of life, and through that very quality of truth became unconsciously the Dean of modern letters. One cannot read him without being impressed with the modernness of his point of view ; ii8 MOLlfiRE nor can one see Moliere played without feeling that, in spite of their ribbons, canonsy and feathered fans, his characters are the men and women whom we meet daily. Their talk is quaint, maybe, but their ambitions, foibles, and philosophy of life are modern. Naturalness, the very quality that distinguishes Mon- taigne, constitutes the charm of Moliere's work. Our poet knew humanity in all its phases, and being blessed with the courage of his convictions, he too wrote in pro- test against the stilted and artificial, "in true French fashion." Until Les Pricietises ruiicules appeared, he was bound by Italian fetters, but henceforth he was stead- fast in his Gallic loyalty. If at moments his work be- came objectively Italian, his point of view was subjective, his technic French. Truth was his ideal ; and with Les Pricieuses ridicules as foundation, he buUt from the fer- cical ruins of the past his eternal city, — a Rome to which the roads of modern comedy all lead. THE END OF APPRENTICESHIP 119 VIII THE END OF APPRENTICESHIP In Les Pricieuses ridicules transalpine Mascarille appears as a naturalised Frenchman, but Moliere was verging on forty when this play was produced, and needed a vehicle less sprightly for his talent ; so Sganarelle was created to supplant his predecessor. A homely bourgeois, through and through, with all the prejudice, thrift, and cunning of his class, this riper character bears but slight relation to Zanarello, his Italian namesake. Like Shakespeare's FalstafF, or the Sancho of Cervantes, he belongs to his creator. If from time to time he savours of the crea- tions of Rabelais or Scarron, it is only because he, too, is thoroughly human. The Flying Physician., it is true, contained a character of that name, but this personage was merely a rogue with the attributes of Mascarille ; the real Sganarelle is first met with in the one-act rhymed farce bearing his name. Thereafter, a Frenchman to the bone, he reappears in The School for Husbands {L'Ecole des maris). The Forced Marriage (Le Mariage ford), Don Juan ; or. The Feast of Stone {Don Juan ou le festin de pierre), and The Doctor in Spite of Himself. Sganarelle; or. The Imaginary Cuckold {Sganarelle, ou le Cocu imaginaire), the one-act vehicle of his first real appearance, is replete with rapid action ; but to present I20 MOLIERE the plot in its entirety would only bewilder the reader. It is enough to say that false appearances lead jealous, self-sufficient, bourgeois Sganarelle to believe his wife is faithless, and a pair of guileless lovers each to regard the other as the cause of his unhappiness, in a way so ingenious and plausible that the reader's sympathies are commanded to a degree seldom accorded to characters so fatuous. Written wholly in a spirit of raillery, this farce may be accepted as a protest against the insipid romantic school, — a resurrection of primitive Gallic wit. It is so cleverly constructed that, by the mere substitution of spirited colloquial prose for its somewhat antiquated and often ribald verse, it might serve as a modern "curtain raiser " ; while its sentiments are so far from being ar- chaic that, in the following diatribe against husbands delivered by Sganarelle's wife, George Meredith may be said to be antedated by nearly two centuries and a half in his plea for easy divorce : To be a marvel for a day- Is but a husband's usual way ; Love's troth he'll plight with ardent fire. But of caresses soon will tire. Then the base traitor scorns our charms For solace in another's arms. Ah, me ! if woman might concert A change of husbands as of skirt. With Les Prkieuses ridicules Moliere planted the standard of truth upon the ramparts of the false. To renew hostilities against the privileged classes would have been bad generalship, so he used the broad humour of Sganarelle to make his enemies forget the stinging satire of its predecessor. However, he did not escape the usual charge of plagiarism : Louis Riccoboni — an eigh- THE END OF APPRENTICESHIP 121 teenth century writer who denies originality to all but three of his comedies — pronounces Sganarelle an adap- tation of an Italian force, called The Portrait ; or. Har- lequin Homed by Opinion {II Ritratto ovvero Arlechino cornuto per opinione)} As this piece is first known to have been played in 17 16, its priority should be estab- lished before it is presented as Sganarelle's original ; for, to quote Monsieur Louis Moland, "The assertions of Riccoboni and the wiseacres who have followed in his footsteps have been accepted altogether too readily."^ The popular success oi Sganarelle has been noted in an earlier chapter ; it is only necessary to add that of all its author's plays it was the one most frequently performed before the King. Returning for the moment to events, Moliere's reno- vated theatre in the Palais Royal was opened on the twentieth of January, 1661. This gave him a playhouse of his own, one destined to be his theatrical home until his death. Although he shared it with the Italians when they returned to France, they were the tenants, he the landlord ; the regular theatrical days belonged to him. This new theatre was opened with a double bill consisting of The Love Tiff" and Sganarelle; but a piece was already in rehearsal which Moliere felt would estab- lish his reputation as a dramatist of the first order, — a belief destined to be rudely shattered. At the time of the King's wedding a troupe of Spanish actors had been received with considerable friendliness by the Parisian stage, though the public held aloof. Their advent, however, created a taste for the Spanish drama among literary people, and was apparently * Observations sur la Comidie et sur le ginie de Moliere. * (Euvres computes de Moliere, Vol. II. 122 MOLlfiRE not without efi«ct upon Moliere ; for in attempting the one serious drama of his career he chose a Spanish subject. Don Garcia of Navarre ; or^ The Jealous Prince {Don Garcie de Navarre ou le Prince jaloux) * was the name of this venturesome effort. It was presented at the Palais Royal, February fourth, 1661, proving so lamentable a feilure that only seven public performances were given. This ill-feted play was the outcome of Moliere's love for tragedy, — a futile attempt to scale dramatic mountain tops. His experience might have shown him that truth is the straightest path to the highest art ; but instead of painting human nature with the inimitable touch of Les Pricieuses ridicules, he resorted to heroics, and composed a tragi-comedy or reconciliation drama {Versohnungs- drama, the Germans style it), which, being neither tragedy nor comedy, fell like most attempts of the kind between two stools. Jealousy, made ridiculous in Sganarelle, be- came a noble passion in Don Garcia; but Moliere's tedious prince is too suspicious and too unreasonable to be sympathised with ; misunderstood Elvire, his lady- love, far too exemplary to be diverting; so this drama of exalted jealousy is dull to a degree, and moreover never rises to a tragic climax. The story of its failure can be no more tersely told than by Voltaire : Moliere played the role of Don Garcia; and this play taught him that, as an actor, he had no talent for the serious. Both the drama and Moliere's acting were very badly received. This piece, drawn from the Span- * In the seventeenth century the Spanish word Dou was written Dom in France, — a word nearer the Latin Dominus in form, and still in use in Portugal. THE END OF APPRENTICESHIP laj ish, has never been firesented since its failure. Moliere's budding reputation suflfered much from this disgrace, and his enemies triumphed for a time.' Voltaire, like other commentators, arbitrarily attributes Don Garcia to a Spanish source; but, in view of its resemblance to an Italian comedy of jealousy by Andrea Cicognini,' it would seem to be Spanish only in subject. It proved a failure so complete that La Grange disdained to credit its authorship to his chief; yet to the modern reader it is not devoid of charm. Indeed, when judged with regard to dreariness, it compares so favourably with other tragi-comedies of that period that one is tempted to agree with M. Mesnard ' in believing that its failure was in some measure due to its author's acting in the title- role, — a point made apparent by Mascarille's contention in Les Prhieuses ridicules that " the great comedians are alone capable of giving things their true value." " The others," that rogue continues, "are ignoramuses, who recite as they talk and don't know how to roar their verses." Now, the "great comedians" referred to by Mascarille were the actors of the Hotel de Bourgogne ; " the others," Moliere's own company ; so if the poet recited Don Garcids turgid lines in natural tones, his performance, howsoever artistic it might appear to us, must have been distasteful to an audience accustomed to actors who "roared" their verses. Still, Moliere did not lay ponderous Don Garcia of Navarre aside without one final effort to demonstrate his own belief in it. Six months subsequent to its fail- ure he played it before the King, and after three further * Vie ie Moliere, avec des jugements sur ses ouvraget. * Le Gelosie fortunate del prineipe Rodrige. * (Euvres de Moliere. 124 MOLIERE attempts to make it please the court tried it once more at the Palais Royal ; but the first verdict of the public stood as final. He accepted this universal condemna- tion, then, by refusing to have it printed; but later made use of certain of its sentiments and verses in The Learned Women, Amphitryon, and The Hypocrite. Fur- thermore, Don Garcia was the herald of a masterpiece. After its author had himself suffered the pangs of jeal- ousy and learned beyond peradventure that truth was the road and comedy the vehicle for his genius, he wrote "Hhe Misanthrope, a play inspired by the same ideals as its sombre predecessor, but resembling it little more in craftsmanship than a masterful statue resembles a tombstone. The groping period of outlines, sketches, and coups d'essais with which Moliere experimented on the public and himself ended with Don Garcia of Navarre. Realising his limitations, he now began to specialise his genius, and utter failure never crossed his path again. His appren- ticeship terminated at the very moment when the young King, freed from tutelage, began to rule. Mazarin died at Vincennes, March ninth, 1661 ; and when the president of the assembly of the clergy asked to whom he should address himself in future upon affairs of state, Louis replied : " To me." These words sounded the key-note of a new era. Henceforth Moliere's success, like all else in France, was dependent on the monarch's will. Before his death the crafty cardinal eased his con- science by presenting his ill gotten wealth to the King. Louis, not to be outdone, gave it a clear title by promptly returning it as a gift from himself, and was requited for this generosity by the following remarkable words: "Sire, I owe your Majesty everything; but I THE END OF APPRENTICESHIP 125 believe I can pay you, in a great degree, by giving you Monsieur Colbert." This great man was then a subordi- nate of Nicolas Fouquet, superintendent of the finances, an official whose business methods are summed up in his unabashed reply when the King asked for pocket-money : " Sire, the exchequer is empty, but his Eminence, the Cardinal, will lend you what you want." Upon Mazarin's death Fouquet became the man of the hour ; yet, like many a financier of modern times, he rode for a fall. Gloomy Colbert, " who had never been taught anything, but knew everything," went nightly to the King's cabinet with proofs of his chief's pilfering. While his downfall was thus secretly plotted, the vain- glorious superintendent, unconscious of impending dan- ger, planned a marvellous fete in honour of his young monarch, — a fete which gave our poet the opportunity to enhance the royal favour already won ; though, for the moment, its story must give place to an account of the play which retrieved the popularity Don Garcia had lost. The comedy which accomplished this is called The School for Husbands {L'Ecole des maris), — a piece so amusing in conception, strong in situation, and clever in characterisation that Voltaire credits it with having estab- lished Moliere's reputation for ever; and further adds that, " had he written but this one play, he might have passed for an excellent author of comedy." ^ This is not hyperbolic praise. The School for Husbands fulfils all the demands of pure comedy ; moreover, it Is refined in tone, — an even rarer quality in its day. Its story concerns a pair of brothers having the guar- dianship of two sisters whom they Intend, respectively, to * fie de Moliere, avec des jugements sur ses ouvrages. 126 MOLlfiRE marry. Ariste, the elder, g^ves his ward, Leonor, full confidence and every liberty, much to the disgust of Sganarelle, the younger, who jealously keeps her sister, Isabelle, in strict seclusion. " I find that one must win a woman's heart to govern her," says Ariste. " I have always consented to Leonor's young wishes. . . . Amusements, balls, and comedies are things I hold quite proper in forming youthful char- acter; and since one must breathe its air, the world, according to my idea, is a better school than any pedant's book." Ariste's theory of education has made little headway in France. Sganarelle's doctrine that a young girl should " close her ears to the flattery of coxcombs and never walk abroad unattended," conforms more nearly with the customs of that country; but Moliere shows his own sympathy with Ariste's enlightened views by the ingenious way in which the apparently demure and docile Isabelle out-manoeuvres suspicious Sganarelle and makes him the unwitting go-between for her lover, Valere, and herself. So cleverly does this typical jeune fille play her cards that her poor guardian is tricked and discomfited at every turn, only to learn that he has been the in- advertent means of aiding his ward to marry his young rival for her hand. In this denouement, which Voltaire calls "the best that Moliere ever contrived," Ariste's theory of trust and freedom triumphs unconditionally. Indeed, The School for Husbands is throughout an argument in behalf of that character's philosophy that " locks and bars do not make the virtue of our wives or daughters." Montaigne held that "it would be more fitting to see the class rooms strewn with leaves and flowers than with the THE END OF APPRENTICESHIP 127 blood-stained stumps of birch rods," and in The School for Husbands Moliere, too, preaches this doctrine of kindness to the young. The world is just beginning to listen to the wisdom of these great Frenchmen. Pure comedy, besides painting life sincerely and lightly, should tell the story of an individual's triumph over the complications of existence, in a way that bears no kinship with the sorrow of tragedy or the hilarity of farce. Verse, although not essential, adds dignity, and the more closely the three oft decried unities are ob- served, the better organised will the structure be; yet the charm of comedy depends, above all, upon the skill with which both character and situation are blended in an atmosphere of natural mirth. Judged by these stand- ards. The School for Husbands is the first pure comedy from Moliere's pen ; and if the embodiment of noble thoughts and emotions in a musical flow of words be poetry, he rises, by means of Ariste's high-minded stanzas, to the dignity of a true poet. Structurally it is admirable. The story of Isabelle's triumph over suspicious Sganarelle and her happy union with Valere is consistently told by cleverly probable situations ; while Ariste's well requited love for Leonor forms the contrast necessary for the secondary plot. Heretofore the classical five acts of the ancients had been the common form for both tragedy and comedy ; by using three only in his School for Husbands^ Moliere adopted a construction now recognised as the ideal form for the latter. The characterisation of this comedy, too, deserves all praise. Two persons so well contrasted as liberal minded Ariste and his bigoted, middle class brother, Sganarelle, one seldom meets ; while in Isabelle's attendant, Lisette, 128 MOLlfeRE Moliere introduces the confidential servant, whose famil- iarity, cunning, and fidelity he finally apotheosised in the Toinette of The Imaginary Invalid, — the archetype of all such maids. Since Terence, Boccaccio, and possibly Lope de Vega each contributed his share in the situations, entire origi- nality cannot be claimed for this play; but Moliere's plots and characters were derived either from his ex- tended knowledge of classical, Italian, French, and even Spanish dramatic literature, his keen observation of the world, or the experiences of his own life. For instance, The Blunderer was the result of research, Les Pr'ecieuses ridicules, of observation. The School for Husbands, on the other hand, was a subjective play, wherein the author's own jealous nature found vent in Sganarelle, his ideals expressing themselves in Ariste's liberal philosophy. But of this more presently. Lxjoked at, therefore, from every point of view except that of originality, Voltaire's judgment is correct. Mo- liere's public, too, was quick to recognise the charm of his new comedy ; for although produced at the end of the dull month of June it attained such instantaneous success that within a fortnight gossip Loret gave it this doggerel tribute : The School for Husbands, you should know. Pleases all Paris as a show. This piece, so highly prized and new. Of Mr. Molier {sic) is the due. Such charm and fun does it disclose That off to Fontainebleau he goes. With actors skilled to entertain In plays both classic and pro^e ; There, with its humour unforeseen. To bring delight to King and Queen.* * La Muse historique, July seventeenth, 1661. THE END OF APPRENTICESHIP 129 The words " King and Queen " refer to the success of The School for Husbands before the mighty. While it was drawing crowds to the Palais Royal, Fouquet was entertaining lavishly at his fool's paradise of Vaux-le-Vicomte, not far from Fontainebleau. His guests included Monsieur and his bride, Henrietta of England, together with her mother, the dowager queen of that country ; and as the King's brother had been married only three months, what more appropriate for the waning days of a honeymoon, thought the superin- tendent, than to summon Moliere's comedians to present their skit upon husbands ? They came, and the success of the new play at Vaux was so great that the King must needs see it at Fontainebleau. This triumph, however, was only a prelude to the part Moliere played at Fouquet's downfall. Versailles was then merely a square palace with a park of tangled undergrowth ; St. Germain and Fontainebleau, mere hunting-boxes — put to shame by the mosaic floors, marbles, paintings, vases, bas-reliefs, parks, cascades, and fountains of Vaux-le-Vicomte. Le Vau had been the architect, Le Brun the decorator, and Le Notre the landscape-gardener of the superintendent's marvellous country-seat; his maitre d'hote! was the peerless Vatel. To show the handiwork of these four geniuses to the King was his ambitious dream ; and as Colbert thought a royal visit would throw the superintendent off his guard, the entire court was ordered to make merry at Fouquet's expense. If the park at Vaux-le-Vicomte was a hotbed of conspiracy, its shaded alleys, Italian gardens, bowers, walks, grottoes, terraces, and esplanades made it fairy- land as well. To amuse a young king and his pleasure ijo MOLIERE bent court between the amazing repasts devised by Vatel, there were games of skill and chance, musicians, dancing girls, and fireworks ; and wherever a boscage gave shelter, baths, tennis-courts, swings, chapels, and billiard-rooms. In the midst of lovers* trysts stood dainty booths where fans, gloves, sweetmeats, pastilles, or perfumes were dis- tributed to the guests ; while, to cap the climax of this newly rich hospitality, the insatiate gambler found upon his dressing-table a well filled purse, placed there by his ostentatious host. But instead of the encomiums poor Fouquet looked for, came cruel rebuff. When the King viewed this peculated splendour, he merely said, " I am shocked at such extravagance," while the courtiers, instead of being overawed, grew envious. Blazoned throughout the chateau were the Fouquet arms — a squirrel pursued by a snake up the branch of a tree — and beneath was the motto, "Quo non ascendam." The King, whose knowledge of Latin was limited, asked its meaning, and jealous favourites were quick to interpret it as " Whither wilt thou not rise," point- ing at the same time to the serpent, which by a strange coincidence was a charge upon the arms of Colbert. His Majesty was, indeed, in a mood to wonder whither the squirrel would not aspire to rise ; for, while Colbert, the serpent, coiled nearer and nearer with poison in his fangs, Fouquet made a roue's bid — so the story goes — of two hundred thousand livres for the charms of slender, blue-eyed Louise de la Valliere. But this one true lady in all that wanton court loved the handsome young King with the fervour of a girl's first love, and told him of the insult in a flood of tears. The monarch was tempted to transgress the laws of hospitality then and there by arresting the rake who had robbed him and tried to THE END OF APPRENTICESHIP 131 debauch his sweetheart; but the wiser counsel of his mother, Anne of Austria, prevailing, the superintendent was spared, until a fortnight later a time more opportune arrived to compass his downfall.* In the midst of these plots and counterplots, with their setting of love and enchantment, Moliere, engaged by Fouquet, gave a comedy in an open-air theatre, with interludes of music and dancing. The piece thus pre- sented was The Bores {Les Facheux), a skit in verse upon court life written to order in a fortnight. Nearly two years had elapsed since Les Prkieuses ridi- cules had startled Paris; meantime Moliere had gathered courage for another onslaught on the follies of society. The royal visit to Vaux gave him his opportunity ; but instead of masking his batteries behind middle class ladies from the provinces, or servants disguised as gen- tlemen, he made a bold frontal attack upon the full strength of the court. To no man could the folly of a courtier be more apparent than to the King ; so the poet aimed his satire at the flatterers and dandies swarming about the throne. If the King laughed, what mattered it if toadies and parasites should frown ! Moliere's new play was to be the climax of the super- intendent's fete. When the guests had gathered in a shaded alley, the author, without make-up or theatrical costume, appeared alone; and, apparently dumfounded by the presence of the King and so many courtiers, made a hasty apology for being without the actors necessary to give a play.'^ This was merely a ruse to whet curiosity, ^ M'emoires de Louis XIV, edition de Charles Dreyss ; Steele de Louis XIV, by Voltaire ; The Life and Times of Louis XIV, by G. P. R. James ; XVIIme stick, by Paul Lacroix. * Moliere's Preface. 132 MOLIERE for every detail had been looked to on that verdant stage. The scenery was flowers and giant trees; star shine, the limelight ; and soon, to the strains of the royal violins, a nymph appeared in a shell upon the waters of a fountain, saying she came to that entrancing place from her grotto deep to see the greatest monarch the world had ever known. In this flattering key she announced that the sole purpose of the hour was well to amuse the King ; and to honour him she summoned wood-nymphs, fauns, and satyrs from the trees and thickets. They came, dancing their lissome steps to the music of hautboys, to the mournful plash of fountains, until from her vantage- shell she called : Bores, retire ; or, if he see you in some measure. It must be solely for his pleasure ! '■ The " he " referred to was, of course, the King ; and this prologue was the signal for the play — if play it can be called. The Bores was more of a conceit than a comedy ; a series of sketches from the author's note-book on so- ciety, presented with delightful ballet interludes. The plot can actually be put in a nut-shell. Eraste, the hero, has a rendezvous with his lady-love, Orphise, which, during three brief acts in sparkling Alexandrine verse, a dull lot of gentlemen bores prevent him from keeping. One by one they waylay him and insist that he shall listen to pet crotchets or settle silly quarrels. One has an air of his own composition to hum ; another a new dance step to show ; a third is a gamester with a story of misfortune to tell ; two more have a sentimental dispute whether or ' The prologue in verse was written by Paul Pellisson, a poet in Fouquet's service. The Nymph of Vaux THE END OF APPRENTICESHIP 133 not a lover ought to be jealous; and the distraught hero is compelled to listen to these bores, — no sooner rid of one than another appears with some new maggot in the brain. A scene of real action finally occurs when Damis, the guardian of Orphise, in seeking to avenge Eraste's clandestine attentions to his ward, is set upon in the dark, and his life spared by the hero whom he sought to destroy. Damis's anger turns to gratitude, and Eraste and Orphise are united, thus giving this delightful con- ceit some semblance to a play. After the success of Les Pricieuses ridicules, Moliere, according to tradition, was so dined and wined by cour- tiers who wished to see some rival travestied, that when he received Fouquet's order for a play he resolved to write a skit upon the very fops who had bored him with their pet ideas. If this be true. The Bores was certainly a neat revenge ; for there was hardly a parasite at court who did not see his counterpart flaunting plumes and ribbons on Fouquet's woodland stage. In serving its purpose " well to amuse the King," it was a masterpiece of strategy too ; for Louis was so overjoyed with this caricature of his courtiers that he congratulated the poet personally, and, maliciously pointing to the Marquis de Soyecourt, his grand veneur, or Master of the Stag Hounds, said, " There is an original fellow you left out." Moliere took the hint, and ten days later when The Bores was repeated at Fontainebleau, the sports- man's part of Dorante had been added. His hunting jargon was learned, so the story goes, from De Soyecourt himself; for the author, knowing nothing of the chase, buttonholed the grand veneur, and made him chatter about his favourite sport until the needed details were procured.^ * Mhagiana. 134 MOLlfeRE From that hour in which Moliere made him laugh at the follies of his own courtiers, Louis never failed in his protection. Henceforth, secure in the royal favour, our poet might defy his enemies ; so The Bores, first of those plays he wrote to amuse his King, proved indeed a tri- umph. Although it must be classed as obsequious, its Gallic truth was so apparent that it won for him an even more notable partisan than Louis the Grand. La Fon- taine, the fabulist, was a pensioner of Fouquet, and after the historic fete which compassed his patron's downfall he wrote a versified letter to a friend, acclaiming Moliere greater than Terence, and crediting him with having revolutionised the dramatic art ; for, as he concludes. Full altered is the former style. Chalked Jodelet 's no more worth while ; And now it is no longer art. One step from nature to depart.^ Thus La Fontaine, after Moliere the most original genius of that time, recognised his rival's worth and proved his own merit as a critic. That very quality of never departing one step from nature is the charm of Moliere. Full altered, indeed, was the former style ! * Lettre a Maucroix. ARMANDE BEJART 135 IX ARMANDE BfijART The actress who recited the naiad's prologue to The Bores at Vaux-le-Vicomte was Madeleine Bejart, then forty-three years old ; and the thought of Moliere's faithful comrade trying to simulate a joyous nymph with her time-worn smile is rendered even more pathetic by the knowledge that a young rival was soon to play her role of heroine in the poet's life as well as in his come- dies. This usurper was Armande Bejart, Madeleine's youngest sister, a girl of "twenty or thereabouts," whom Moliere married on Shrove Monday, 1662. La Bejart must have known the prologue she was speaking was concerned with another woman's happiness ; but she had consolation in the thought that her sister's veering nature would be the undoing of her in the end. Standing alone on the shore, she heard the alluring song and saw the hidden reef, but dared not cry a warning to her lover. However, the story of Armande the siren must give temporary place to a consideration of Moliere's worldly situation at the time of his marriage, and the reasons which led him to that act of folly. In the early days of wandering, both Dufresne and Madeleine Bejart shared with him the business manage- ment of the troupe ; but after his plays had won Parisian success, he became sole director, — a fact demonstrated by the allotment to him of an extra share of the receipts 136 MOLIERE as author, and the statement made by La Grange on the first page of his Register that, " This book belongs to the Sieur la Grange, one of the comedians of the troupe of the Sieur de Moliere." In 1 66 1 his share as an actor was doubled in order that his intended bride might be provided for; so if his yearly income at the time of his marriage had not reached the enviable sum of thirty thousand livres,^ with which he is later accredited — a sum equivalent to as many dollars — it was rapidly approaching it. He had scrimped too much during the days of ill fortune not to gratify his tastes when the coin of the public finally jingled in his pockets ; and having an artist's tempera- ment, he could no more avoid spending his money for good fellowship and beautiful things than he could avoid being born with emotional nerves. Yet he did not live beyond his means, and took good care to guard his interests against the rainy day which comes to nearly every public entertainer. Although he enjoyed luxury, and was reproached by his enemies for indulging in tapestries, pictures, and other objects of art,^ generosity was his cardinal virtue. "He always gave to the poor with delight," says Grimarest, " while his charities were never of the ordinary sort." Rich, generous, and protected by his King, Moliere possessed, at the time of that memorable performance of ne Bores at Vaux, all he had a right to hope for in this world, except domestic happiness. To long for relief from such a dearth in an otherwise well rounded life was in the nature of the man. Bohemian though he was, he prided himself upon his respectable birth, never 1 Fie de J.-B. P. Moliere by Louis Moknd. * Le Boulanger de Chalussay : Elomire hypocondre. ARMANDE BEJART 137 letting pass an opportunity to sign himself valet de chambre du Roi ; while his plays show, time and again, that domestic happiness was his ideal, and cuckoldom his dread. This longing for a fireside was natural to one of his antecedents ; this suspicion of the other sex, the inevitable result of living in an atmosphere of loose morality. But the society of frail women could not pervert his bourgeois nature entirely. Madeleine Be- jart having lost her charm, and a theatrical life its nov- elty, Bohemia became his place of daily toil ; home, the Promised Land. From an undated letter in which Chapelle,^ his old schoolmate, refers to a certain feminine trinity, many biographers have jumped to the conclusion that, before his marriage, he was a species of theatrical sultan. The trinity, of course, was Madeleine Bejart, Marquise Therese du Pare, and Catherine de Brie ; and because Chapelle begs Moliere not to show some verses to his women — a ses femmes are his words — a charge of polygamy is evolved which, in view of the loose morals of the time, it is impossible entirely to disprove. Never- theless, as the French word femme means woman as well as wife, the three ladies in question, being rival actresses, may have been referred to merely in the sense oi femmes de th'edtre. Chapelle's letter and verses certainly present Moliere and his trinity in a theatrical manner. After humorously ridiculing his friend's troubles and describ- ing the intrigues of Minerva, Juno, and Venus, together with Jupiter's failure to reconcile these contentious goddesses, he concludes : * Published in 1692 in Vol. V of the Recueil des plus belles pieces des poetes franpis, tant anciens que modernes, depuis Villon jusqu'a M. de Benserade. 138 MOLIERE Such is the tale ; do you not find That any man of sober mind Must, from its lesson, quickly see 'T is hard to make three dames agree ? Profit, my friend, good Homer follow ; Neutral be, and know 'tis hollow Ever a project to conceive, A god so great could not j*hieve. According to ^^jisene Houssaye,^ "Juno was Made- leine BejjaPt, who wished no one to approach Moliere ; 34inerva, the beautiful Du Pare on her marble pedestal, and Venus, blond, voluptuous De Brie, a mellow peach, a ray of light, a sweetheart unexpected." Still there is nothing in Chapelle's lines to indicate that this likening of Moliere, a stage autocrat, to Jove, and his trinity of stars to quarrelsome goddesses, was anything more than an attempt to lampoon his friend's theatrical trials. The Mecca of every actress is the centre of the stage ; ca- jolery, flattery, and even love-making are managerial wiles. As our poet, in his triple role of author, man- ager, and comedian, had only a single stage to satisfy the aspirations of three leading ladies, it is quite con- ceivable that his troubles differed greatly from those of a Padisha. Whatsoever the truth of this may be, he knew that any young bourgeoise transplanted from her kitchen- garden to his theatrical hothouse would either wither or prove a hybrid ; yet to inspire a child of Vagabondia with his longing for a hearthside seemed within the range of possibility. Believing his knowledge of the world would enable him to mould a wife according to his own ideals, he chose for his experiment a young girl ^ Les Comidiennes de Moliere. ARMANDE BEJART 139 whom he had known from childhood, and so confident was he of success that in 'the School for Husbands, pro- duced but a few months before his marriage, he put into the mouth of Ariste this sermon on the duties of a guardian toward the ward he intends to marry : We must instruct the young good-naturedly. Their many faults correct with kind intent. And never frighten them with virtue's name. These maxims I have followed with Leonor : I have not called all petty freedom crime ; Her youthful wishes I 've considered, too : The gods be praised, I 've not repented yet ! "With my consent, she has indulged in balls. Amusements, plays, and fine society : Things which appeal to me as suitable In broadening the youthful character ; For, since we breathe its air, the world must be A better school than any pedant's book. What matters it if pretty ribbons, clothes. And linens fine she buys ? My purpose is To gratify her whims ; and these are still The pleasures all rich folk should give their daughters. Her father's testament would have us wed. But my design is not to tyrannise. I know our years are scarcely in accord. And therefore give her choice the fullest range. If forty thousand ecus should succeed In making her o'erlook divergent years. She '11 marry me ; if not, she 's free to choose . , . Resolved upon marrying a girl barely twenty, Moliere gave this doctrine to sensible Ariste, while acting the part of jealous Sganarelle. If the former represents the ideality, the latter is far nearer the reality of his nature. His betrothed hoodwinked him as completely as the Isabelle of his play duped her jealous guardian ; for in I40 MOLlfiRE the apt words of a commentator, " Love's blindness made him believe that he, a serious, jealous, and passion- ate husband of forty, would be able to captivate and control a young wife." ^ The youth of Armande Bejart is shrouded in obscurity. According to the anonymous author of The Famous Co- medienne, " she passed the tender years of childhood in Languedoc with a lady of quality," and it has been hinted that this foster-mother lived at Nimes. From facts so hazy, the truth can only be sketched. All the elder Bejarts were strolling players, and as Marie Herve, their mother, travelled with them, Armande probably lived at a baby farm in Languedoc until old enough to join her family. Sharing her sister's passion for the stage, she became a member of the company at last, and seeing in the manager a means to her own advancement, used her wiles to win him. He meantime, watching her grow to womanhood, took pleasure in training her mind. At first her girlish graces and natural intelligence merely excited his interest; but as her charms matured this sentiment assumed the character of passion. Though this story has, at least, the ring of truth, the parentage of the clever girl who thus beguiled Moliere into matrimony is a mystery which may never reach solution ; for the statement that she was " Madeleine Bejart's youngest sister," made on a previous page, was but a throw of the gauntlet to her traducers. M. Edouard Fournier says : On a day of uncertain date, in a place no better known, since it is impossible to say whether it was Guyenne, Languedoc, or Provence, a girl was baptised with the ^ Histoire de la vie et des outrages de Moliere by J. Taschereau. ARMANDE BEJART 141 name of Armande Gresinde Claire Elisabeth. She was born in the Bejart family. Who was her mother?^ Were it not for slander, the answer to M. Four- nier's question would be Marie Herve ; for, in re- nouncing the inheritance of her husband's debts on the tenth of June, 1643, this woman named, in addition to her four elder children, " a little one not yet baptised " ; furthermore, the marriage contract signed by Moliere and Armande Bejart on January twenty-third and the marriage act entered in the parish register of the church of St. Germain I'Auxerrois, February twentieth, 1662, both state distinctly that the bride was the daughter of Marie Herve and her husband, the defunct Joseph Bejart ; so the logical supposition is that Armande was this unbaptised little one.^ Alas, calumny has done its utmost to controvert the truth of this, the most reasonable of all theories regard- ing Armande's parentage ! For instance, our old friend, the anonymous author of The Famous Comidienne, in- sists that " Moliere's wife was the child of Madeleine Bejart, a country actress, who was the pastime of a num- ber of young men of Languedoc at the fortunate time of her daughter's birth," and further adds that "it would be difficult to tell exactly who her father was; for, although Moliere married her, she was believed to be his daughter." 1 Le Roman de Moliere. ^ The marriage act was discovered by L.-F. Beffara, and published in 1 82 1 in his Dissertation sur J.-B. Poquelin Moliere. The marriage contract was first published in 1863 by M. Eudore Soulie {Recberches sur Moliere'). To these two archsologists and M. A. Jal {Documents sur Moliere et safamille, 1867) is due the preservation in text of inval- uable documents concerning Moliere, many of the originals of which were destroyed by the Communists in 1 871. 142 MOLIERE Even this vilifier admits that " the truth of this is not fully known," and his (or her) base insinuations would have gained no credence had not Racine in a letter to the Abbe le Vasseur stated that a jealous actor named Montfleury was so enraged by Moliere's ridicule that he sought to undermine him at court. " Montfleury has drawn up a charge against Moliere," are Racine's words, "and has presented it to the King. He accuses him of having married the daughter after having loved the mother," and adds, " but Montfleury is not listened to at court." Boileau, too, is quoted as having said that Moliere's first love was Madeleine Bejart, "whose daughter he married,"^ and Grimarest, writing from hearsay, maintains that Armande was the daughter of La Bejart, "who preferred being Moliere's mistress to being his mother-in-law." Boulanger de Chalussay repeats the calumny of The Famous Com'edienne in words which will not bear trans- lation ; but an intendant of the King's brother, named Guichard, who attempted to discredit the testimony of Moliere's widow in a suit at law by calling her "the daughter of her husband and wife of her father," was condemned to make honourable apology with bared head and bended knee ; so it is evident that the charge of incest, at least, was incapable of proof; and this is the view of all Moliere's biographers. The majority, how- ever, accept the theory of Armande's illegitimacy. Even when BefFara unearthed the marriage act wherein she appears as Marie Herve's daughter, M. A. Bazin^ was equal to the occasion. Because " it was necessary to • MS. Notes of Brossette in the Blbllotbique nationale. Notice bio- graphique sur Moliire by Paul Mesnard. * Notes bistoriques sur la vie de Moliere. ARMANDE BEJART 143 offer Moliere's father and brother-in-law a daughter and sister for whom they need not blush too deeply," he argues that " the widow of Bejart, senior, consented to declare herself the mother, and her late husband the father, of the child born in 1645 i"'^)" To accuse a man able to brighten rather than tarnish his family name, together with all his wife's relatives, of forgery for the mere purpose of appeasing a father's pride, seems preposterous enough ; but M. Edouard Fournier^ plays even greater havoc with probability by imputing the supposed falsification to Madeleine's anxiety to hide the birth of her child from the Baron de Modene. If she could convince him of her fidelity, urges this writer, he would honour her with his hand in marriage. Modene being married already, Madeleine could scarcely expect he would resort to uxoricide, or even bigamy, for her sake ; and the contention of M. Jules Loiseleur^ seems equally hazy. After admitting that Armande Bejart's age of " twenty or thereabouts," re- corded in the marriage contract, coincides with that of the " little one not yet baptised," this writer considers the maternity of Marie Herve — a woman supposedly fifty -three at the time of her husband's death — wholly preposterous. Marie Herve's death certificate does give her age as eighty ; but the witnesses were her son-in-law and youngest son — of all her family the least likely to be familiar with the date of her birth, whereas the Abbe Dufour^ cites good evidence to show that, on the tomb ' Le Roman de Mo Here. ' Les Points obscurs de la vie de Moliere. * Le Molieriste, May, 1883. 144 MOLIERE Madeleine erected to her mother's memory, the following epitaph was inscribed : Here lies the body of Marie Herve, widow of the honourable man, Joseph Bejart, deceased the ninth of January, 1670, aged seventy-five.-^ It is highly improbable that Madeleine inscribed a lie upon her mother's tomb ; so, instead of being fifty- three at the time of Armande's birth, Marie Herve was barely forty-eight. Her fecundity, though unusual, was wholly within the range of possibility. An explanation of the supposed falsification of court records more reasonable than any yet advanced is that Marie Herve's assumption of parentage was for the pur- pose of deceiving Moliere himself. That Madeleine should wish to hide her shame from a stage struck youth until she had succeeded in alienating him from his family, is certainly conceivable; and were this the case, to oppose her daughter's marriage with her former lover would have been her most natural course. Accord- ing to Grimarest, this is precisely what happened: La Bejart suspected his intentions toward Armande, and often threatened violence to Moliere, her daughter, and herself should he dare dream of this marriage. However, this passion of a mother, who tormented her continually and made her endure all the vexations she could invent, did not suit the young girl. Feeling she would rather try the pleasures of being a wife than sup- port the displeasure of her mother, this young person decided one morning to burst into Moliere's apartment, ^ M. Gustave Larroumet, writing in the Molieriste of October, 1 886, calls attention to an error of the Abbe Dufour, — Marie Herve's age being given as seventy-three, not seventy-five, in this epitaph. IrfHSSW Armando Oejart and Moliere ARMANDE BEJART 145 firmly resolved not to leave until he had recognised her as his wife. This he was forced to do ; but the outcome caused a terrible hubbub : the mother showed as much sign of rage and despair as if Moliere had married her rival, or her daughter had fallen into the hands of a blackguard. If the poet was kept in ignorance of his wife's true parentage, Madeleine's attitude, here described, becomes most reasonable ; but there is danger that this new theory may arouse still another hornet's nest. Indeed, opposed to Grimarest's testimony is that of the author of 'The Famous Comedienne, who assures us that — Madeleine prepared and concluded the marriage by a series of patient and tortuous intrigues, her object being to recover, through Armande, the influence over Moliere of which Mile, de Brie had deprived her. An elaborate chain of documentary evidence, covering a period longer than thirty years, points to Armande Bejart's legitimacy. Besides the marriage contract and the marriage act already mentioned, a power of attorney given by the heirs of Marie Herve to Madeleine Bejart ; Madeleine's will ; a power of attorney from Moliere to his wife ; the marriage contract between Genevieve Bejart and J. B. Aubry ; the plea of Armande to the archbishop of Paris for permission to inter Moliere ; an income settlement by the heirs of Madeleine Bejart ; a contract between Moliere's widow and the wardens of the church of St. Paul ; the letters ratifying this contract ; and the marriage contract between J. F. Guerin and Armande Bejart herself, — all present Moliere's wife most un- equivocally as being Marie Herve's daughter. Madeleine's will is a document containing particularly 146 MOLIERE strong testimony in favour of Armande's legitimacy ; for La Bejart was of sound mind when she drew her last testament (January ninth, 1672), and it is difficult to believe that, had Armande been her daughter, she would have sworn to a lie upon her death-bed. Moreover, the codicil to this will, drawn but three days before Made- leine's death, is further evidence that, were Armande her daughter, she was facing death with this lie upon her lips. Such evidence would certainly be sufficient to close the case, did not the testimony of Montfleury and Boi- leau remain in rebuttal. But the defender of Moliere's character has a seventeenth-century witness, too, — the King, — to whom the infamous charge was made. Un- doubtedly there was much verisimilitude in Montfleury's contention. After thirteen years of absence Madeleine, known to have borne one illegitimate child, returned to Paris accompanied by Armande Bejart, corresponding very nearly in age with her daughter, Fran9oise, bap- tised in 1638 ; and, by drawing the conclusion that the two were the same, Moliere might, with much semblance to truth, be accused of " having married the daughter after having loved the mother." First, to convince his monarch of the falsity of this charge, then to re- main silent in the face of slander, would have been his most dignified course; and the King's conduct is evi- dence that such was the case. Louis , became the god- father of Moliere's first child.^ In no other way could 1 Louis, Moliere's eldest son, born January nineteenth, baptised Feb- ruary twenty-eighth, died November tenth, 1664, Moliere had two other children. Esprit Madeleine (who alone survived him), baptised August fourth, 1665, and Pierre Jean Baptiste, born September fifteenth, baptised October first, died October tenth, 1672, ARMANDE BEJART 147 he more effectually give the lie to all the slanders of Montfleury. La Grange records that "the wedding [mariage] of M. de Moliere took place after a performance at Mon- sieur d'Equeuilly's," or, in other words, at night, — a time when the churches were deserted. As but one ban, instead of the habitual three, was published, it is argued that in order to hide the base origin of the bride the ceremony was clandestine. La Grange's entry, however, was made on Tuesday, February fourteenth, while pre- viously he says that " M. de Moliere married Armande Claire Elisabeth Gresinde Bejard (sic) on Shrove Tues- day, 1662." Shrove Tuesday fell upon February twenty-first, and the parish register of the church of St. Germain I'Auxerrois gives Monday, February twentieth, as the date of the religious ceremony, which M. Jal, a most careful archaeologist, maintains took place in the morning. The suppression of the bans being purely a question of a fee, with that fact the argument of secrecy vanishes. As only kinsfolk witnessed the marriage contract, the wedding itself was, in all probability, a family affair ; and if the word mariage in La Grange's Register was used in the sense of noce, the entertainment after the performance at Monsieur d'Equeuilly's was probably some prenuptial affair in honour of the groom's theatrical comrades. So far as La Grange is concerned, this was the " wedding of M. de Moliere " ; consequently his confusion of Monday with Tuesday in recording a ceremony he did not attend becomes a trivial error. A cash dowry of ten thousand livres, given Armande by Marie Herve, is still another bone of contention. Where, it is argued, could a widow who inherited nothing 148 MOLlfiRE but debts have obtained such a sum, especially as Gene- vieve Bejart received but four thousand livres, mostly in chattels, at the time of her marriage ; and since Made- leine favoured Moliere's daughter in her will, she must have given the dowry, too, and was therefore Armande's mother. It is equally apparent that Moliere might have used Marie Herve as a means of presenting his wife with an independent fortune ; so the affair of the dowry might be dismissed entirely, were it not for the baptismal certificate of Moliere's second child. This in&nt was christened Esprit-Magdeleyne (sic) — a union of La Bejart's name with that of her first protector, the Baron Esprit Remond de Modene ; and, moreover, that very nobleman stood sponsor with Madeleine at the ceremony. If this pair of ci-devant lovers were the child's grand- parents, this joint sponsorship becomes comprehensible ; indeed, it is difficult to find any other explanation. Of all the evidence cited by Armande's traducers, this is certainly the most damning, yet it is purely circumstantial, be it remembered. It is still possible to believe that Madeleine and Modene, having reached the age when passion's fires were only smouldering embers, thus offi- ciated together in order to keep alive the memory of their own dead child. " On revient toujours a ses premiers amours," is the French proverb. Shall it not be applied in this instance ? Perhaps, as M. Loiseleur says, "A veil no hand will ever raise hides the origin of the young woman whom Moliere married on the twentieth of February, 1662";* but no amount of surmise or slander can completely break that chain of documentary evidence * Lts Points titcurt dt U vie dt Mtlih-e, ARMANDE BEJART 149 beginning with Marie Herve's renunciation of her hus- band's inheritance in the name of the "little one not yet baptised," and ending with Armande Bejart's second marriage contract. If Armande was not Marie Herve's daughter, then Moliere, his wife, and all her family must be classed together as forgers ; and he, the greatest literary genius in France, the friend of the King, be accused either of the most abject of crimes, or of an utter disregard of common decency. His philosophy was certainly too pure, his ideals too exalted, for him to have been the vile man his enemies and unwitting friends portray, A more agreeable mystery concerns the identity of the young person to whom Chapelle, in the undated letter already quoted,' referred to in an injunction regarding some sentimental verses which accompanied his Olym- pian satire. " You will show these beautiful verses only to Mile. Menou," he says to Moliere, " for they are the description of you and her." Chapelle, of course, may have made mention of some unknown enchantress ; still it is more reasonable to pre- sume that Menou was the stage name of Armande Bejart before she was known as Mile, de Moliere. At a time (1653) when Moliere's wife was only ten, the part of Ephyra in Corneille's Andromeda was allotted to a Mile. Menou ; ^ yet a nereid with four lines to speak might readily have been played by a child. Although M. Baluffe' unearths a distant connexion of Chapelle's named Mathieu de Menou who possibly had a daugh- ter, it is far more likely that Chapelle's injunction re- ferred to Armande Bejart. His letter was probably written (1659) at a moment when Moliere's love for his * See page 137. * See page 47. ' Moliere inconnu. I50 MOLIJ^RE ward was turning his thoughts toward matrimony ; so an afiair with another young person was an unlikely occur- rence, and there is no record of any actress of the name Menou having appeared in Paris ; so the Ephyra of Andromeda as well as the lady of the verses was, in all probability, Armande Bejart. The date of this lady's Parisian debut is another unsolved mystery. La Grange, silent regarding her ad- vent, mentions her as a member of the company in June, 1662 ; but the first role she is known with certainty to have filled is that of Elise in The Criticism of The School for Wives {La Critique de VEcole des femmes). About her character and appearance no such doubt exists. A verbal portrait, attributed to Mile. Poisson,* says that " she had a mediocre figure ; but her manner was engaging, although her eyes were small, and her mouth large and flat. She did everything well, however, even to the smallest things, although she dressed most extraordinarily, in a manner always opposed to the fashion of the times." " She was full of charm and talent," says M. Genin,* "and sang French and Italian delightfully. Being an excellent actress who knew how to take the stage even when only playing the listener, she was an incorrigible flirt as well, and the despair of Moliere, who loved her distractedly to his dying day." Her bitter enemy, the author of The Famous Cemidieme, while denying her beautiful features, is forced to admit that " her appearance and manners rendered her ex- tremely amiable in the opinion of many people," and that she was " very affecting when she wished to please." * Lettre sur la vie et Us ouvraget de Moliere. See note, p«ge 8 1 . « Lexique ctmfari di la Ungue Je Meliere et des ecrivains du Xl'IV sikcU. ARMANDE BEJART 151 " No one," according to the Brothers Parfaict,^ " knew better than she how to heighten the beauty of her face by the arrangement of her hair, or of her figure by the cut of her costume " ; while a writer in the Mercure galant (1673) bears out Mile. Poisson's testimony regarding the eccentricity of her dress by ascribing to Armande Bejart a radical reform in the fashion of the day, whereby the waist line, heretofore concealed, "was made to appear more beautiflil." Perhaps the best description of his wife's charms and his own feelings regarding her is given by Moliere him- self. In a scene of The Burgher, a Gentleman, Cleonte, a lover, and Covielle, his valet, discuss Lucile, the character played by Armande Bejart in the following manner : Covielle You might find a hundred girls more worthy of you. In the first place, she has small eyes. CLiONTE True, she has small eyes, but they are full of fire and the most brilliant, the most piercing, the most sympathetic eyes it is possible to find. Covielle She has a large mouth. CLiONTE Yes, but one finds there charms one does not find in other mouths. The very sight of that mouth is enough to create desire : it is the loveliest, the most lovable mouth in the world. Covielle As for her figure, she is not tall. ^ Histoire du th'eatre frattfais. 152 MOLIERE Cleonte No, but she is graceful and well made. COVXELLE She affects indifference in speech and manner. Cleonte Quite true ; but it is all delightful, and I can't describe the charming way in which she ingratiates herself into people's hearts. Covielle As for her wit — Cleonte Ah ! that she has, Covielle — the keenest and the most delicate. Covielle Her conversation — Cleonte Her conversation is charming. Covielle It is always serious. Cleonte Do you want bubbling mirth and unrestrained hilarity ? Is there anything more tiresome than women who laugh at everything ? Covielle Well, at least, she is the most capricious person in the world. Cleonte Yes, she is capricious, I quite agree ; but everything becomes beautiful women. One suffers everything from beautiful women. None knew better than Moliere the meaning of those words, " One suffers everything from beautiful women." ARMANDE BEJART 153 It was the key-note of his married life. No man has written his heart more truly than he : sometimes in a lamentation like the above ; sometimes in a prophecy, as when, in Don Garcia of Navarre, he wrote : No marriage could join us; I hate too well Bonds that for both must prove a living hell. Moliere's marriage was, if not a hell, certainly a purga- tory ; yet how could a union between a man of forty with emotional nerves, and a young, frivolous girl who lived for admiration and flattery, prove different ? The summer following the wedding was passed at St. Germain. Doubtless before the honeymoon had waned, Armande began to show her leopard spots. Having taken the centre of the stage from her three rivals, to waste her charms upon so humdrum a thing as a husband was not in her nature ; and being in the region of fine gentlemen, there were means at hand to practise the arts so aptly described by M. Fournier : By means of her airs and graces, her nonchalance, and her bewitching glances, Armande took in only too many people and listened to too many of the exalted rakes who haunt court antechambers in the morning and theatres in the evening, merely to boast of their con- quests to the entire town. Our poet soon learned that the lot of Sganarelle was to be his own, and that the dying Scarron had predicted truly, in 1660, when he bequeathed, in his burlesque will : " To Moliere, cuckoldom." ^ The reader may think he got his deserts ; but love is not a thing to be calendared, nor are great natures likely to prove the most discerning. Though open to the 1 Le Roman de Moliere. 154 MOLIERE charge of fickleness, Moliere need only be compared with Shakespeare, Byron, or Shelley, to be acquitted of any crime more serious than that of being a genius ; for no man is able to think the thoughts of all mankind until his hand has touched all human chords. He loved without the church's benediction in his youth, and with a hapless marriage paid the penalty. Blame him, if you like ; yet when the young blood sings in a pretty woman's veins, even a stronger man than a genius will listen. A word of justice, too, for Madeleine Bejart, that nymph of forty-three, who spoke the prologue to her heartless sister's happiness. Four years Moliere's senior, her love for him was almost maternal ; and throughout her life she bore upon her shoulders those material cares so irksome to a man of genius. He would doubt- less have written his masterpieces without her inspira- tion and help ; but, as M. Loiseleur truly says, " He would not have written them so soon, nor so rapidly, nor would they have sparkled so delightfully with wit, spirit, and liberality." THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES 155 THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES AND ITS COROLLARIES ScARAMoucHE was now tenant instead of landlord, and the troupe of the Hotel de Bourgogne rapidly losing prestige; for in May, 1662, Moliere's players were commanded by the King to St. Germain-en-Laye, while their rivals were left without the royal pale. The court was dangerous ground for a bride of Armande Bejart's temperament; but her husband had proclaimed that " locks and bars do not make the virtue of our wives or daughters," so in taking her to this region of "balls, amusements, plays, and fine society," he merely practised his own doctrines. Though the world might be "a better school than any pedant's book " for the Leonor of his School for Husbands^ he was soon to learn that for a young woman as vain as his wife it was merely a playground. The sojourn at St. Germain was well requited from the privy purse, but the famous tournament in honour of the dauphin's birth which gave the court between the Louvre and Tuileries the name of " Place du Carrousel " proved a dangerous competitor. The pavilions, cos- tumes, booths, and tilt-yards for this pageant cost the King a million or more ; but so valiantly did his cour- tiers cut the Turk's head — it might have been some fire-spitting dragon — that he got his regal money's 156 MOLlfiRE worth ; the more so when he caracoled before the noblest Romans of his court in a glittering international quad- rille, wherein Monsieur led Persian warriors ; the great Conde, fierce turbaned Turks ; the Due d' Enghien, a band of rajahs, and De Guise, a tribe of whooping savages. No comedy could vie with such a spectacle, so Moliere closed his theatre on the tournament days (June ^-6) ; but Louis soon made amends by again summoning him to St. Germain, where he remained six weeks and re- ceived a honorarium of fourteen thousand livres. This caused La Grange to remark that "the King believed there were but fourteen parts, while the troupe was of fifteen"; but two actors from the Theatre du Marais had lately joined the company, so his Majesty's mistake seems pardonable. The new-comers were La Thorllliere and De Brecourt, comedians with the common characteristic of being medi- ocre play-wrights, but of very different parts ; since the former, though at one time a captain of infantry, was a genial, peaceable fellow, while the latter was a veritable bretteur who once fled the country for killing a cabman, — a crime the reader familiar with the Parisian genus will be likely to condone.* ^ Cleopatra, a tragedy by La Thorilliere, was played by Moliere' s troupe, December second, 1667 ; De Brecourt's comedy. The Great Booiy of a Son as Foolish as his Father {Le grand benit de fils aussi sot que son fire"), is attributed by the Brothers Parfaict, in their Histoire du thiatre franfais, to Moliere himself, and consequently has been often cited among the lost one-act canevas of his barn-storming days. On January seventeenth, 1664, however (a fact unknown to the Brothers Parfaict), La Grange chronicles the first performance of this play as a "new piece of M. de Brecourt," and on February first, third, and £fth of that same year, states that it was the only comedy presented at THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES 157 After the six weeks spent at St. Germain, La Grange records that " the queen-mother summoned the come- dians of the Hotel de Bourgogne, who had begged her to procure them the favour of serving the King — the troupe of Moliere having made them most envious." However, as these rivals had a royal subvention of twelve thousand livres and his own players but an unpaid pension, Moliere could not permit even court grass to grow under his feet ; so before his honeymoon had waned a new play was put upon the stocks. His own marriage being still paramount in his mind, he again chose the theme of a jealous guardian's love for a girl of "twenty or thereabouts," but his new school was, in name at least, for wives instead of husbands. The School for Husbands contained two brothers of diverging views bent upon marrying wards of differing character; in The School for Wives {L'Ecole des femmes), its companion piece, benign Ariste and high-minded Leonor are eliminated. Sganarelle, too, becomes a pedantic moralist named Arnolphe ; but so similar is this charac- ter in disposition to his predecessor that one wonders at the change of name. Sganarelle's theory of preserving marital honour by keeping a wife behind closed doors gives place, however, to the belief that ignorance is a woman's safeguard, — a doctrine which forms the motive of the play. The opening scene strikes the key-note, for at the very outset Arnolphe, "a railer o'er the cuckold's horns of others," announces that he will prevent their appear- the Palais Royal ; so it could not have been a one-act piece, nor could it have been written by Moliere. Another piece by De Brecourt, The Shade of Moliere {V Ombre de Moliere, 1674), ^^^s been several times printed as an after-piece to the poet's works. 158 MOLlfiRE ance on his own head by wedding a fool. When the soundness of this principle is doubted by his sceptical friend, Chrysalde, he defends it warmly in the following tirade against clever women: I wed a fool lest I become a fool : Your better half is wise, I hold as any Christian ; and yet the cleverest wives are signs Of evil, and I know the price that some Must pay for choosing those who 're far too bright. What ! charge myself with some o'er brilliant jade Who '11 talk unceasingly of routs and clubs. Or write soft sentiments in prose and verse For swarming wits and dandies to admire ! And have me known, forsooth, as madam's mate, — A saint benighted none will reverence ? No, no ! I wish no goodly wit in mine : A wife who writes knows more than woman should. And mine, I hold, shall know not what it is To rhyme ; and if at torbillon she plays, I wish her to j'eply," Just one cream tart," When in her turn she 's asked just what it is She '11 offer to the basket.* Well, in brief, I wish her to be ignorant ; and hold It is enough that she should tell the truth. And loving me, sew, spin, and say her prayers. For his experiment Arnolphe has chosen Agnes, a girl he loved at the age of four " above all other children" because of her " sweet, sedate manner." Believing her to be the daughter of a peasant woman " glad to be rid of her," he has educated her to be his wife in a manner best explained in his own words : * Corbilkn, meaning literally " a little basket," was a fashionable game of the period, similar to crambo, wherein a player was obliged to reply, by a word rhymmg in on to the question Qiie met-on dans mon torbillon ? THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES 159 From turmoil far, within a convent's quiet. They reared her closely, following my views — One way of saying that each rule laid down Was meant to make an idiot of her. Wherefore, may God be praised ! success has crowned My work ; and now, fiiU-grown, she has become So innocent, I bless the saints who showed Me how to mould a wife unto my taste. Upon the completion of this education in nescience, Agnes is confided to the care of two venal servants, who, in spite of assurances that the " sparrow shall not go out for fear of the cat," permit a fair-haired gallant to bribe his way into the cage. When the play begins, Arnolphe is unaware of this intrigue ; and in order to conceal the identity of his pompous hero from the disturber of his happiness, Moliere employs a dramatic expedient unworthy his craftsmanship, introduced in the shape of an inordinately snobbish desire on Arnolphe's part to be called Monsieur de la Souche (literally Mr. Blockhead), — an affectation made light of by Chrysalde in the retort that he " once knew a peasant who dug a muddy ditch around his quarter acre and thereafter called himself Monsieur de I'lsle." ^ Having thus set forth his matrimonial doctrines and distaste for his patronymic in the opening scene, Ar- nolphe immediately reassures himself of the dutifulness and safety of his beloved Agnes, and soon thereafter meets his rival face to face. Discovering that this young ^ This incident has given rise to considerable controversy whether Chrysalde' s retort was not intended to ridicule the name, Comeille de risle, by which Thomas Comeille, the mediocre brother of the great poet, was then known. A contemporary writer, the Abbe d'Aubignac (1663), first called attention to this apparent satire of a rival. i6o MOLIERE spark, Horace by name, is the son of his bosom friend Oronte, he lends him a hundred pistoles to abet a love affair ; whereupon the grateful youth, unaware, of course, that Monsieur de la Souche, the "rich old fool" who keeps his adored one in total ignorance of the world, is the man to whom he is speaking, tells him her name, with an effect upon Arnolphe's wrath easy to conceive. Careful not to betray himself to Horace, outraged Arnolphe upbraids innocent Agnes for her treachery^ but receives a confession so ingenuous and frank that, more alarmed for her safety than mollified by her expla- nation, he resolves to marry her forthwith. Hastening to arrange the wedding, he again meets Horace, who in- forms him that Agnes has closed her door in his face and thrown a stone at him ; but the joy of this news is quickly abated by the discovery that around it was wrapped a billet doux. Plunged once more into fury and despair, Arnolphe plots revenge, rushes to the girl they love in common, only to interrupt a ren- dezvous — his rival eluding him by jumping from a balcony. In the resulting confusion Agnes escapes to her lover's arms; but with an obtuseness worthy of Lelie the blunderer, he confides her to Arnolphe's care, thereby making possible the climax, wherein the latter upbraids his false affianced bride, then pleads in vain for her love. Arnolphe has been heretofore a pedantic taskmaster, yet when he confronts the truly feminine " little serpent he has warmed in his bosom," and learns that despite his teachings she has discovered that " love is full of joy," he becomes a man of impulse, sentiment, and passion ; witness the following lines: THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES i6i Arnolphe Why don't you love me. Madam Impudence ? Agnes Good heavens, I am not the one to blame : Why didn't you, as he did, make me love ? For surely, I have never hindered you. Arnolphe I 've tried by every means vyithin my power; But all my efforts are in vain — all lost ! Agnes Indeed, he knows more of that art than you. Since teaching me to love required no pains. But the girl relents sufficiently to exclaim that from the bottom of her heart she wishes to please him, and asks what it would cost her to succeed. Arnolphe's answer is worthy a less pragmatic lover; indeed, it turns the interest to him, and strikes so strong a note of sympathy that this comedy is raised at once to a higher level than any Moliere had yet reached : Pray leave this fellow with the love he brings And all the spell some mystic charm exerts ; For happier with me a hundred times You '11 be. Your wish is to be wise, arrayed Full richly f Both are yours, I swear ! By night. By day, I '11 worship you, and close within My arms enfold and kiss you, with my love Devour you — every whim of yours shall be My law — : I can't explain, for all is said. {Aside) Such passion leads to what extremities ! ( To Agnes) No love approaches mine. Demand what proof You will, ungrateful girl ! Can streaming cheeks. i62 MOLlfiRE Or bruised back, or half my locks out-torn. Or death itself bring satisfaction ? Speak, Most cruel one ; I 'm ready all to dare And all to do, that I may prove my love ! Yet, woman-like, Agnes prefers her blond lover, so this appeal falls on deaf ears. Arnolphe is dismissed with the admonition that "two of Horace's words are worth all his own dissertations," and but for the timely arrival of a pair of fathers — the long lost parents of Agnes and Horace, respectively — his just anger might have consigned the cruel minx to " the inmost cell of a convent." The assertion of these progenitors that their offspring have been betrothed since infancy brings the play to a happy conclusion for all save the disconsolate hero ; but even to accomplish this cheerful result, Moliere seems hardly justified in burdening his work with these time-hallowed fathers of classic comedy, — a fault which causes Voltaire to exclaim that "in The School for Wives the denouement is quite as artificial as it was skilful in The School for Husbands ! " ^ In conception this play is even less original ; for the story of a lover who makes a confidant of his rival, besides occurring in The Jocular Nights {Piacevoli notte), by Straparola, has been traced through preceding Italian and classical authors, even to Herodotus ; while a novel by Scarron — itself filched from a Spanish source — called The Useless Precaution {La Pricauiion inutile), con- tains a character resolved not to wed unless he can find " a wife enough of an idiot to prevent fear of the evil tricks which clever women play their husbands." Still * Fie de Molilre, avec des jugements sur ses outrages. THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES 163 to fertilise a sterile subject until consummate flowers spring forth is a triumph of genius. Though its subject may not be original, for all that it is inferior technically to The School for Husbands, the verses of this sprightly comedy certainly " do not give advantage to stubborn critics." In fact, Voltaire assures us that " connoisseurs admired the dexterity with which Moliere was able to interest and please throughout five acts, solely by Horace's confidence in an old man, told in simple speeches." He might have added that this dexterity lay in making simple speeches present exalted sentiments in a musical flow of words ; for never before had Moliere shown such depth of feeling. Indeed, in the human scene between Arnolphe and Agnes, The School for Wives passes far beyond the foot-hills, almost to the noble heights, of tragedy. It is masterful also in characterisation ; for although Ariste, the altruist, is lacking, Chrysalde, the man of the world, is an equally true and far more practical philoso- pher ; while both Arnolphe and Agnes, drawn with a firmer hand than Sganarelle and Isabelle, are conceived in closer accordance with present day ideas. Few modern lovers would uphold Sganarelle's doctrine of locks and keys, but Arnolphe's dream of innocence is shared by many. As M. Louis Moland aptly says, "the germ of him is in every old bachelor." ^ Like its companion piece, it deals with the problem of an elderly man's love for a young girl, the problem of its author's own life. The School for Husbands was pro- duced, be it remembered, nine months before Moliere's marriage, whereas The School for Wives was presented ten months thereafter, — a divergence in time sufficient to 1 He de J.-B. P. Moliere. i64 MOLlfiRE justify the conclusion that Ariste's optimism expresses a bridegroom's hopes, Chrysalde's cynicism a husband's experience. For instance, when Arnolphe, fearful of wearing horns, ridicules his friend's theory that "when you don't get the wife you want, like a gambler, you should mend your luck by good management," that imperturbable philosopher replies : You scoff, my frfend, but candidly I know A hundred ills in this world of mishap Greater than the dire accident you dread. Do you not think, that were I free to choose, I 'd rather be the thing you fear than married To an upright wife, whose temper makes a storm Grow out of nothing ? one of those pure fiends. Those virtue-dragons fortified around By spotless deeds, who, owing to the wrong They have not done to us, unto themselves Would arrogate the right to domineer ; Who, since they 're faithful, ask we shall forgive Most meekly every pitiful defect And all endure ? One parting shot, good friend : The plight of cuckoldom is what we make It be ; in some ways much to be desired : Like all else in this world, it has its joys. The husband of a coquette might find considerable solace in this stoical reasoning. Indeed, throughout the play there is such an undertone of dread for the catas- trophe Chrysalde thus makes light of, that one is tempted to read between the lines the story of the author's own fears. Usually this takes the form of cynicism ; but sometimes it becomes broad humour, as when Alain, the servant, exclaims : In truth, a woman is a husband's pottage, And when a husband sees that other men THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES 165 Would like to dip their fingers in his soup. Immediately his anger waxes hot. Since the optimistic School for Husbands was penned, Moliere had certainly experienced a change of sentiment ; for the Utopian theories of amiable Ariste give place to raillery as sceptical as this : I know the artful tricks, the subtle plots. Which women use to leave us in the lurch ; And how they dupe us by their cleverness. To interpret this passage as the plaint of a man to whom marital experience has taught the ways of women is not difficult ; while the following lines from one of Arnolphe's all too frequent soliloquies might equally be said to express Moliere's feeling whenever courtiers made un- hallowed love to his young wife during that honeymoon at St. Germain. Certainly the period of thirteen years coincides with the time the poet wandered through the South of France and Armande Bejart was his ward : What ! supervise her training with such care. Moreover cherish her within my house For thirteen years, while every day my heart Beats faster to her growing girlish charm. And meantime she is pampered as my own. In order, now, that in this very hour When we are fully half as good as wed, A coxcomb whom she fascinates shall pluck Her slyly from beneath my bearded lip ? No, by the heavens, no ! . . . But the depth of Moliere's passion for his vain, unfeel- ing wife can best be traced in the scene between Agnes and Arnolphe, when, thus unconsciously, his own heart is laid bare: i66 MOLIERE Arnolphe {Aside) That word disarms my wrath ; that look recalls Unto my heart sufficient tenderness To blot out all the blackness of her guilt. How strange is love ! To think that sober men Should stoop to folly for such renegades When all the world must see their faults. 'T is base Extravagance, indeed, and rashness wild. For wicked are their brains and weak their hearts. And nothing stupider could be, or more Disloyal, naught more frail ; yet, in despite. The world moves solely for these little brutes ! ( To Agnis) Peace be it then, and pardon take for all ! Go, traitress, go ; I give thee back affection: Thus by the love I bear thee, learn my love. And seeing me kind, love me in revenge. There is danger, of course, that, in this quest for introspective passages, caution may be outweighed by zeal ; still, so vain a bride as Armande Bejart could not long restrain her coquetry in the atmosphere in which her honeymoon was passed, nor could her doting hus- band long remain blind to the ways of libertine ad- mirers ; so the conclusion that the many touching strophes of this comedy set forth the trials and sorrows of the poet's heart seems amply justified. Indeed, no- where, save in The Misanthrope, did he so clearly sing the misery of his soul ; and it is perhaps this very sub- jectivity which makes The School for Wives the greatest of his Gallic plays. Although national in spirit, this comedy was in a way a militant play ; yet now that the tornado of abuse which burst upon Moliere after its first performance has long subsided, it is difficult to realise how even the pharisees of that day could have found in its sprightly THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES 167 mirth sufficient heresy to declare, him the enemy of both common decency and Holy Church ; yet such was the case. Chrysalde's defence of wifely indiscretion was de- nounced as an attack upon mafrfal" ethics^ a scene wherein Arnolphe instructs the innocent heroine in wifely duties and threatens her with " b ojling caldro ns " should she fail in circumspection, was held to be a travesty up on pulpit homilies. Furthermore, the eleven Maxims of Marriage ; or. Duties of a Married Woman, together with her Daily Practice, compiled by Arnolphe for the in- struction of his bride elect and read aloud by her, were anathematised as a bas e parody of the catech ism. Two of these harmless precepts, freely translated, should es- tablish the creed-bound acrimony of Moliere's enemies : Maxim III Far from duty is sly glancing, Likewise rouges and pomade. Learn the thousand drugs entrancing. By which blushing tints are made. Mortal poisons are to honour. Since the powder, paint, and scent Every false wife puts upon her Seldom for her liege are meant. Maxim IV She 's honour bound, 'neath coif sedate. To stifle glances soft and low. Since sworn to please her lawful mate 'T is wrong for her to please a beau. Among the most scandalised religionists was the Prince de Conti, the erstwhile rake whose sanctimonious zeal condemned his former schoolmate's comedy " as a i68 MOLIERE licentious work offending good manners";* still, this skirmish with bigotry was only preliminary to the five years* war Moliere soon waged against both Jansenists and Jesuits in behalf of his masterpiece. The Hypocrite. Impiety proved so strong a drawing card that The School for Wives became the greatest stage success of its author's career. Between its production in Christmas week, 1662, and the Easter holidays, it was presented at the Palais Royal thirty-one times, — a run made even more phenomenal by the fact that the receipts exceeded a thousand Hvres at each of fourteen of these perform- ances, whereas during the entire four years Moliere had been in Paris that mark had been reached only twelve times, all told. De Vize's statement that " all the world found The School for Wives wicked, and all the world ran to see it,"^ shows the part sensation played in this triumph ; for what result other than success could be attained by a play that " the ladies condemned, but went to see " ? " For my part," this writer adds, " I hold it the most mischievous subject that ever has existed, and I am ready to maintain that there is not a scene without an infinite number of faults " ; yet he was obliged to avow, " in justice to the author," that " the piece was a monster with beautiful parts," and, in tribute to the histrionism of the company, to admit that " no comedy was ever so well played, or with such art," for each actor knew just how many steps to take, each glance was numbered. Loret, too, accounts Moliere's comedy — * Traite de la comedie et des spectacles, selon la tradition de /* tglise tir'ee des conciles et des saints Peres, by Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, 1 66 1. * Nouvelles nouvelles. THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES 169 A play at which such blame is hurled. Although 't is seen of all the world. That never topic of such worth So much attention has brought forth. ^ Moreover, The School for Wives made at least one ardent friend, for within a week after its presentation Boileau, then a young man of twenty-six, addressed the author a few complimentary stanzas upon "his most beautiful work," concluding with this cheering advice : Let all your envious critics growl, Though far and wide they idly howl That you have charmed the mob in vain. That your best verses do not please — If you did not such plaudits gain. You could not anger with such ease.' Thus Boileau's friendship, like La Fontaine's, was in- spired in the first instance by a just estimate of Moliere's genius. The School for Wives was first played before royalty on January sixth, 1663, and, according to Loret, "made their Majesties laugh until they fairly held their sides " ; indeed so great was the royal mirth that Louis must needs see it again within a fortnight. Emboldened by his monarch's approval of a work the critics had so un- reservedly condemned, Moliere, with a view to answer- ing them in kind, placed upon his boards, June first, 1663, The Criticism of The School for Wives {La Critique de I'Ecole desfemmes), — a dialogue rather than a play. The plot of this charming conceit consists solely in * La Muse hhtorique. ^ Stances a M. Moliere sur sa comedie de P &cole des femmes que plu- sieurs gens frondoient. lyo MOLIERE the discussion of 'The School for Wives by a coterie of fashionables, meeting by chance at Uranie's house to gossip "over the teacups," as we should now say. Climene, the pr^cieuse, Elise, a woman of fashion, a mar- quess, and Lysidas, a poet a la mode, voice popular disapproval of that play; while the hostess and Dorante, a chevalier, uphold Moliere, and are, so to speak, his mouthpieces. These butterflies, painted in colours time cannot dim, are so lifelike that it is difficult to realise Uranie's drawing-room is not in the Champs Elysees quarter ; for who has not known just such a woman as the hostess describes Climene to be when hearing she resents being called a prhieuse? She disproves the charge in name, it is true, but not in deed ; for she is one from head to foot, and, besides, she is the most affected creature in the world. Her whole body seems to be out of joint ; her hips, shoulders, and head apparently move only on springs, and she always affects a silly, languishing tone of voice, pouts to show a small mouth, or rolls her eyes to make them look large. How cosmopolitan is the marquess, too, who adjudges Moliere's play "the worst in the world," because, "deuce take it ! " he could hardly find a seat ! — an exquisite, whose critical acumen is thus asserted : Truly, I find it detestable — detestable, egad! De- testable to the last degree. What you may call detesta- ble. . . . Zounds ! I guarantee it to be detestable. . . . It is detestable, because it is detestable ! This twaddle of a man of fashion is perhaps surpassed by the same character's answer to the assertion of Elise that she cannot digest the pottage or the cream tart : THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES 171 Ah, upon my word ! yes — cream tart ! That is what I was saying earlier : Cream tart ! I say, but I am obliged to you, Madam, for reminding me of cream tart. Are there enough apples in Normandy for cream tart ? ^ Cream tart, egad, cream tart ! But this macaroni, like Climene, the prhieuse, is designed only as a target for Moliere's shafts ; witness Dorante's retort : Then, Marquess, you are one of those fine gentle- men who won't admit the pit has any common sense, and would be mortified to laugh with it, even were the play the best in the world, I saw one of our friends make himself ridiculous the other day in just that way by sitting a comedy out with the wryest face imaginable. Whenever anything pleased the audience, he frowned, while at each outburst of laughter he shrugged his shoulders, gave the pit a look of spite or compassion, and shouted : " Laugh away, pit, laugh away ! " ^ Our friend's annoyance was a supplemental comedy, most worthily acted, and the audience was agreed it could not have been done better. I beg you to learn, my dear Marquess, and the others as well, that in the theatre common sense has no exclusive abode. The difference between half a louis and fifteen sous has nothing to do with good taste; for, either sitting or standing, you may judge badly. In short, taking it as it comes, I should be inclined to trust the^ approval ^of the pit, since among its denizens there are many capable of criticising a play according to dramatic standards, while the rest pass judgment, as indeed they ought, by letting them- selves be guided by events, without blind prejudice, silly complaisance, or absurd delicacy. * The apple orchards of France are in Normandy, and this fruit was the favourite projectile of the pit. ' Presumably an actual occurrence, since Brossette in his edition of Boileau (1716) names one " Plapisson, who passed for a great philoso- pher," as the author of this insulting prank. 172 MOLIERE This passage, just though it be, is surely an appeal to the " gallery gods " ; but Moliere, be it remembered, was an actor. Indeed this entire skit appears intended to delight his cash-paying patrons at the expense of the dandies, whose rush-seat chairs upon the stage were so seldom paid for. Furthermore, his own art is placed on trial, and he waxes warm in its defence when Dorante answers Uranie's assertion that comedy is quite as difficult to write as tragedy : Assuredly, Madam ; and as for the difficulty, if you allow comedy a trifle more than its share, you will not be far from wrong. Indeed, I think it far easier to soar aloft upon fine sentiments, beard fortune in verse, impeach destiny, and arraign the gods, than to depict the ridicu- lous side of human nature or make the common faults of mankind appear diverting on the stage. When you paint heroes, you make them what you choose ; no likeness is sought in such fancy portraits ; therefore you need only follow the winged shafts of an imagination more than likely to desert truth for the accomplishment of marvels. But when you paint men you must paint from nature ; and if you do not make us recognise the men and women of our time, you have accomplished nothing. In a word, all that is necessary in serious plays is to escape censure, talk common sense, and write well. But in comedy that is not enough. You must jest, and to make honest people laugh is a strange undertaking. An author whose comedy was playing to what a mod- ern manager would call " capacity business," would have been preternatural did he not glory a little in his achieve- ment ; moreover, it is a pardonable revenge to take upon his critics when Uranie thus answers the poet Lysidas : THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES 173 It is odd that you poets always condemn the plays the whole world rushes to see, and only speak well of those every one avoids. Toward the one you display an unconquerable hatred, toward the other an incon- ceivable affection. But Moliere's satire is even more delicious, his techni- cal judgment keener, when Dorante answers the pedantic strictures of this same Lysidas as follows : You poets are amusing fellows with those rules of yours, made only to embarrass the ignorant and deafen the rest of us. To hear you hold forth, one would think the rules of art were the greatest mysteries in the world ; while in reality they are merely a few simple observations which good sense has made upon elements that might destroy the pleasure one finds in such poems. The same good sense which once made those observations now continues to make them quite as readily without the aid of Horace or Aristotle. I should like to know whether the great rule of all rules is not to please, and if a play which attains that end has not travelled a good road ? Can the entire public be mistaken, and is not each one capable of judging of the pleasure he receives ? Far from convincing Moliere's critics of the futility of condemning a play " the whole world rushes to see," 'The Criticism of The School for fVives served only to redouble their anger. Soon an army of revengeful scribblers began discharging replies, defences, and counter-criticisms at their arch-enemy as rapidly as they could dip their pens in noxious ink. Foremost, in point of acrimony, was Donneau de Vize's dialogue, Zilinde ; or. The True Criticism of The School for IVives, and the Criticism of the Criticism {Zilinde ou la veritable critique de PEcole des femmes et la Critique de la critique), — a pamphlet wherein Moliere was accused of having offended the church 174 MOLIERE morality, the stage, the court, and society: but a comedy called The Portrait of the Painter; or. The Counter- Criticism of The School for Wives {Le Portrait du peintre ou la Contre-critique de VEcole des femmes) from the pen of a young writer named Boursault, which was played at the Hotel de Bourgogne while Moliere himself was seated on the stage, apparently inflicted the deepest wound upon the poet's vanity. De Vize even accuses him of making " a wry face " ^ during this performance. In Boursault's play Moliere's comic characters, the frecieuse and the marquess, appear in defence of The School for Wives, while his wiseacres attack it; thus the marquess claims it to be " admirable, egad ! admirable to the last degree," and there is a story to the effect that when Moliere was asked his opinion of his portrait, he answered, "Admirable, egad, admirable to the last de- gree ! " '^ — a bit of sententiousness tempered with honest pride ; for, as he said, " the actors of the Hotel de Bour- gogne, in turning my plays inside out like a coat, profited by their charm." Fellow craftsmen, however, were not the only enemies he was obliged to encounter. One day, as he passed through an apartment of the palace, the Due de la Feuillade, while pretending to greet him, seized his head suddenly, and crying, " Cream tart, Moliere, cream tart," rubbed his face against the sharp buttons of his doublet until it bled.^ Fortunately the King took his ^ Reponse a I' Impromptu de Versailles. " Les Amours de Calotin, a comedy by Chevalier, a comedian of the Theatre du Marais. ' This story is first told in the Life of Moliere (Vie de Moliere) attrib- uted to Bruzen de la Martiniere, and published at The Hague in 1725 ; but Grimarest makes mention of a " cream tart " incident between Moliere and " a courtier of distinction, " while De Vize refers in Zilinde THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES 175 part, and reproved the recalcitrant duke; else the Bastille, rather than a nose-rubbing, might have been Moliere's fate. Boursault's play, The Portrait of the Painter, was an attempt to hoist Moliere with his own petard, and so galled him that he penned and rehearsed a comedy, in retort, called The Versailles Impromptu {L' Impromptu de Versailles)} Produced, as its name implies, before the court at Ver- sailles, this one-act piece is in the vein of The Criticism of The School for Wives ; but Moliere's attacks upon his critics, instead of being entrusted to poets, fops, and pr'ecieuses, are voiced by the members of his own com- pany, himself included, in propriis personis. In other words. The Impromptu presents the stage of his theatre during the rehearsal of a new play, in the course of to "the cream tart adventure"; so it seems more than probable that Moliere suffered this indignity. Brossette, however, says that Monsieur d' Armagnac, the grand equerry, was the author of the insult. 1 The question whether Boursault's play preceded or followed The Versailles Impromptu on the boards is still a mooted one. In the latter play Moliere unquestionably shows familiarity with The Portrait ; but this might have been acquired through a reading. According to a docu- ment unearthed at Berlin, the envoy of the Elector of Brandenburg was present at the first performance of The Portrait, — an event occurring at the Hotel de Bourgogne, October nineteenth, 1663 ; while the preface of 1682 gives October fourteenth as the date of the first production of The Impromptu, — facts which would apparently establish the priority of Mo- liere's piece, were it not that La Grange, in stating that the Palais Royal company went to Versailles October eleventh and returned October twenty-third, 6ils to give the exact date of The Impromptu' s pro- duction there. As the King, absent on the eleventh, did not reach Versailles until the fifteenth, evidently the new play was not presented until after his arrival. The possibility of the two comedies having been produced on the same day is suggested by M. Paul Mesnard, Notice biographique. 176 MOLIERE which his actors receive their stage directions and are frankly told their chief's opinion of their respective abili- ties. Indeed, this play is a biographical document wherein Moliere shows himself in the role of manager, and reveals his stage business and theories of histrionic art in a way that clearly indicates his character to be at once nervous and patient, headstrong and even stubborn; moreover, he paints the eccentricities of his comrades so cleverly that they appear more lifelike than any purely biographical notice could present them ; hence, besides being a polemic, this play is a realistic picture of life in Moliere's company. " Ah, what strange beasts actors are to drive ! " he exclaims while distributing the parts for an imaginary play, — an opinion many a modern manager will share ; and he is equally unsparing of irony when he refers to his own family relations, as the following bit of dialogue will testify : Moliere Be quiet, wife ! You are a fool. Mlle. MoLifeRE [Armande Bejart] Thanks, lord and master. That shows how marriage changes people. You would not have said that eighteen months ago. Moliere Be quiet, I beg you. Mlle. MoliIre Strange that a trifling ceremony is able to rob us of all our good qualities, and that a husband and lover regard the same woman with such different eyes ! Moliere What a sermon ! THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES 177 MlLE. MoLlfeRE Upon my word, if I were to write a comedy, that would be my subject. I should acquit women of most of the charges brought against them, and make husbands afraid of the contrast between their rough manners and a lover's courtesy. Interesting as is this side light upon Moliere's domes- tic affairs, the fact that this play was designed and rushed to completion within eight days as a retort to Boursault's Portrait of the Fainter should be borne in mind. A true picture of theatrical life at the beginning, including even a flirtatious marquess who besieges the stage door, it soon degenerates to a polemic wherein Moliere is upheld, not over modestly, it must be confessed, and his enemies handled with scant pity. Thus Boursault, when Du Croisy speaks of l!he Portrait, is given the worst insult an author can receive — that of being dismissed as un- known — in the following : It is advertised, sir, under Boursault's name ; but, to let you into the secret, a number of men have had a hand in this work, so it is a case of great expectations. As all authors and all comedians consider Moliere their greatest enemy, we are all united to do him an ill turn. Each of us has added a stroke of the brush to his por- trait, but we have been careful not to sign our names to it. To capitulate beneath the eyes of the whole world before the attack of a combined Parnassus, would be too much glory ; so, to render his defeat more ignominious, we have expressly chosen an author without reputation. In the imaginary play under rehearsal, Moliere allots himself the part of a comical marquess. " What, mar- quesses, again ? " asks one of the characters when the parts are being distributed. "Yes, marquesses again," Moliere answers ; " what the devil would you have me lyS MOLIERE do for a low comedy character ? Nowadays a marquess is the clown in a play ; for, just as formerly there was always a loutish servant to amuse the audience, now all our plays must have a comical marquess to make the spectators laugh." This bold onslaught upon the clan of marquesses certainly proves how secure Moliere felt in his mon- arch's protection. However, when the poet speaks of his enemies, he forgets that he is playing a character part : The worst harm I have done them is to have the good luck to succeed a little more than they wished me to. Their whole conduct since we have been in Paris shows only too clearly what annoys them ; but let them do their worst! — all their schemes cannot worry me. They criticise my plays : so much the better ; and Heaven forefend I should ever write any they would like ! That would certainly be a piece of bad business for me. Again, he exclaims with the desperation of a hounded man : Courtesy must have its limits ; for there are some things that can amuse neither the spectator nor the one at whom they are aimed. I gladly surrender them my works, my face, my gestures, my words, my tones of voice, my way of reciting to do with and talk about and as they see fit, if they can derive any profit therefrom. I have nothing to say against all this ; and I should be enchanted if it served to divert the world ; but after surrendering to them all that, they might at least have the kindness to leave me the rest, and not touch on subjects of the nature of those by which I hear they attack me in their comedies. This is what I shall po- litely urge upon the worthy man who undertakes to write for them, and this is all the answer they shall have from me. THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES 179 As a final blow to his enemies. The Versailles Impromptu proved as ineffectual as The Criticism of The School for Wives. In the former Moliere imitated the methods and mannerisms of the various actors of the Hotel de Bourgogne, much after the manner of a modern imperso- nator, pointing out at the same time the utter disregard of nature in their heroic declamation. This was, of course, a throw of the gauntlet to the tragedians, and Corneille, too, felt himself aggrieved by the assertion that it was harder to make honest people laugh than to write trag- edy ; so The Versailles Impromptu called forth a new crop of plays and pamphlets. Robinet's Panegyric of The School for Wives; or, A Comic Talk on the Works of M. de Moliere {Le Pan'egyrique de TEcole desfemmes, ou Conversa- tion comique sur les CEuvres de M. de Moliere) — in many ways the reverse of a panegyric — and De Vize's Reply to The Versailles Impromptu ; or. The Marquesses^ Revenge {Riponse a V Impromptu de Versailles ou la Vengeance des marquis) were the chief contributions of men of letters to this new attack, while the tragedians found a valiant champion in Montfleury — a ranting member of their guild — who replied to Moliere's aspersions upon the art of the Hotel de Bourgogne in The Impromptu of the Httel de Cond'e {IS Impromptu de IHttel de Condi), — an uninspired comedy in which the author endeavours to repay Moliere in his own coin by ridiculing his elocu- tion and pantomime. The stage of the Hotel de Bourgogne was the arena for this Billingsgate warfare ; but Moliere, wisely refrain- ing from further controversy, permitted The Versailles Impromptu to be his last trial of strength with his ene- mies. His hapless excursion into the field of acrimony had taught him the trite but true lesson that speech is i8o MOLIERE human, silence divine. Characteristic as are the sub- jective passages of his two polemical plays, his reputa- tion nevertheless suffers considerably by this descent to fish-market methods. True, the master of the art of comedy speaks ; yet, when all is said, had the man Moliere been content to "float upon the wings of silence," he would appear to us in a light far more dignified. Surely those acrid passages, superb though they be as tenets of the art of " making honest people laugh," tend to strip the Parnassian robes from his back and leave him a giant trembling on the pedestal of a god, far too nettled to hold his tongue while envious pygmies jeer. Sainte- Beuve once called Montaigne the wisest Frenchman that ever lived; he might have added that Moliere is the most human. M0LI£RE the courtier i8i XI MOLIERE THE COURTIER Since the gross receipts at the Palais Royal increased fully ninety per cent during this period of controversy, the attacks of the critics proved a boon to its treasury ; moreover, the sole change in the ranks of the company was caused by De I'Espy's voluntary retirement on ac- count of age (March twelfth) ; so, theatrically, 1663 was an auspicious year. This prosperity was due in a great measure to Moliere's ability "well to amuse" his monarch, — an event of such frequent occurrence that during the first five years of his sojourn in Paris the exchequer of his company was enriched by some forty thousand livres from performances given at court and in society. Though perfumed marquesses were legitimate meat for his satire, he wisely avoided even the suggestion of lese majest'e. He was, indeed, no " unseasoned courtier " ; for the King's wishes were his law, — a policy he thus discloses in 'The Versailles Impromptu : Kings like nothing so much as prompt obedience, and are not at all pleased at finding obstacles in their path. Things are only acceptable to them at the moment they want them, and to try to postpone their amusement is to deprive it of charm. They want pleasures that do not keep them waiting, and the least prepared are always the most acceptable. In catering to their wishes we should never consider ourselves ; for we exist only to i82 MOLIERE please them ; and when they command/our part is to respond quickly to their immediate desires. It is far better to do badly what they ask than not to do it soon enough ; for even though one be ashamed of not having succeeded entirely, one always has the glory of having promptly obeyed their behest. Lest Moliere appear in the light of a literary toady, such as Swift, it should be borne in mind that the very roof over his head was there by the King's grace and that in courting Louis he but emulated all France. In- deed, not to recognise the debt he owed the man he was pleased to call "the greatest monarch in the world," would have been base ingratitude. That he wisely re- frained from asking favours is shown by the fact that although summoned to court thirty-one times during his first five years in Paris — often for a sojourn of weeks — his name did not appear in the royal pension list until March seventeenth, 1663, a few weeks after the first performance of 'The School for Wives. Although Corneille received two thousand livres on this same occasion, as " the first dramatic poet of the world," and Menage, the critic, a like sum, Moliere's pension was but a modest thousand, as " an excellent comic poet." Furthermore, at least twenty other writers, of whom Benserade alone has fame, were rewarded as fully as he ; while only seven — among them Racine, then comparatively unknown — received less. Gratitude for official recognition at a moment when bigotry was pro- claiming his School for Wives an assault upon morality, and, maybe, pride at being the only actor named in a pension list designed to award great scientists and men of letters, prompted him to thank his monarch for this paltry recognition of his merit. MOLIERE THE COURTIER 183 The verses he Indited for this purpose were so charm- ing that even Robinet was forced to exclaim, " Have you seen the acknowledgment [remerctment) Moliere has composed for his pension as a fine wit? Nothing so gallant or pleasing has been seen. It is a portrait of the court, feature by feature. You see it as if you were there : its garments, the ways of courtiers ; in short, everything appears before you, even to the sound of the voices." ^ Moliere's acknowledgment is, indeed, " a portrait of the court"; for, summoning his "lazy muse," he bids her don the frills and ribbons of a marquess and attend the King's levee, in order to thank his Majesty for his precious boon. But " a muse's manner is offensive there," he warns her, " so thus disguised, you '11 pay your court far more agreeably. You know what you must do to simulate a marquess : perch a hat adorned with thirty feathers on a costly wig, and let your neck- band be large, your doublet small ; but, above all, I recommend a cloak with a ribbon tucked on the back ; and, remember, great gallantry is required to be accounted a marquess of the first order." Chatting thus familiarly, the poet then admonishes his muse upon the way to be- have when she presents his thanks : " Cross the guard room combing your hair gracefully, glance sharply about you, and do not forget to greet imperiously, by name, each one you know — no matter what his rank may be ; for such familiarity gives any one a distinguished air. Scratch the King's door with your comb,^ or if, as I ''■ Le Panegyrique de /' Ecole des femmes ou Conversation comique sur les (Ettvres de M. de Moliere. 2 It was customary to scratch, instead of knock, at the King's door ; thus, for instance, the Baron de la Crasse, the hero of a play of that name 1 84 MOLlfiRE foresee, the crowd there is great, wave your hat from afar or climb on something to show your face, then cry out continuously, * Mr. Usher, for the Marquess So and So.' Throw yourself into the crowd, bluster, elbow without mercy, press, push, and do your devilmost to get in front. Even should the inflexible usher shove some repugnant marquess in front of you, don't re- cede, but stand there firmly. To open the door, he must dislodge you ; therefore stand so no one can pass, and they will be obliged to let you in, in order to let any one in. When you have entered, don't relax your efforts. To besiege the throne, you must continue the struggle ; so, by conquering your ground, step by step, try to be one of the nearest to it. If preceding besiegers hold all the approaches in force, make up your mind quietly to await the prince in the passage. He will recognise you, in spite of your disguise ; so pay him your compliment without further ado." Thus, with a few bold strokes Moliere paints the courtier : to his fellows, a bully ; to his master, a puppy with a frill about his neck. In the closing stanza, too, he flatters Louis more than all the praise and incense of his satellites : A prince magnificent but asks For compliments ftill brief and true. And ours, you see, has many other tasks Than hearkening to words from you. Untouched is he when fiilsome praise he sips ; So when you try with open lips To speak of grace or favours gay, by Raymond de Poisson (1662), recounts that, having knocked at the King's door, the gentleman in waiting exclaimed : " . . . Apprenez done. Monsieur de Pezenas, qu'on gratte a cette porte, et qu'on n'y heurte pas." MOLIERE THE COURTIER 185 At once your meaning's clear, hence off he slips. An arrow flying, straight away ; But sweetly smiles, meantime, with manner bland. No heart can e'er evade. What more do you demand ? Your compUment is paid. One can fairly whifF the perfumed air of the throne room and see Louis trip away amid a throng of bowing marquesses with ribboned canes. In thus revealing the real man beneath the robes of state, Moliere showed how worthily he played the cour- tier's role ; for a king likes to be treated as a man and equal, provided we stand just a step or two below him with hat in hand. Our poet knew that art ; so he won Louis' confidence. Nevertheless there was just a grain of snobbishness in his nature; though he ploughed the field of snobs to his advantage, yet, like Thackeray, true to his middle class antecedents, he dearly loved a lord. This failing is manifested by the pertinacity with which he clung to the paltry title of valet de chambre tapissier du rot. In 1645, ^^'^ again in 1650, he thus signed himself to public documents, although he had previously resigned all rights to that office ; while upon his brother's death, in April, 1660, he made haste to regain his lost quality ; for in November of the following year he witnessed a document as valet de chambre du rot. To his own marriage certificate, however, the name of his father alone is signed in this manner, — possibly because the parent objected to a usurpation of his dignities. The first published record of his appearance at court is found in 1663, when among the eight tapissiers valets de chambre serving during the January trimester, " M. i86 MOLIERE Poquelin and his son, in reversion " are mentioned officially.^ The latter was, of course, Moliere, and the preceding year being the period of his marriage and long sojourn at St. Germain, it seems likely that his wife's social ambi- tions played no small part in causing him to assert his inherited right to make the King's bed. In the words of the Preface of 1682, " Moliere fulfilled his duties at court during his quarter until his death " ; but conceive the disdain with which the marquesses received this actor- upholsterer who had so frequently held them up to public scorn — this outcast unworthy to be shriven. To quote The Versailles Impromptu, " I leave you to imag- ine if all those who believed themselves satirised by Moliere would not take the first occasion to avenge themselves ? " When he appeared in the royal bed-chamber, one valet de chambre openly refused to serve with him, and this sedition might have become widespread had not an amateur poet named Bellocq rebuked such snobbery by asking the offended actor if he might not have the honour of making the King's bed with him. Thus aided by a fellow craftsman, Moliere gained a foothold at court ; yet the picture of these two poets, gorgeous in their laces, ribbons, and perukes, smoothing the royal pillows and sheets like a pair of chambermaids, is certainly one to provoke a smile. There is a charming sequel to this incident, which, like many stories concerning Moliere, has been stamped as apocryphal. To repeat it is to court the charge of being a persifleur ; yet, even at that risk, it shall appear once more. The officials of the privy chamber, it appears, ^ L' itai de la France. Moliere and M. Belloc making the King's bed MOLIfiRE THE COURTIER 187 showed plainly how it annoyed them to be obliged to eat at the same table with Moliere ; so Louis, hearing of their rudeness, said to the actor one morning during the petit lever : " I hear you are badly entertained, M. de Moliere, and that my people don't find you good enough to eat ■ with them. Perhaps you are hungry. Sit down here and try my en cas de nuit" (a provision made in the evening in case the royal appetite should suddenly require satisfaction during the night). Then cutting a chicken and ordering Moliere to be seated, the King helped him to a wing, took one himself, and gave orders that the most favoured personages of the court be admitted. " You see, I am making Moliere eat something," said Louis, " for my valets de chambre don't find him good enough company for them." This is the incident known as the en cas de nuit. It is classed as legendary because it was first told in print in 1823 by a certain Madame Campan, whose father-in-law heard it from an old physician of Louis XIV, whom she failed to name ; and because decorous little Saint-Simon assures us that, " save with the army, the King never ate with any man, not even a prince of the blood." How- ever, as M. Moland aptly says, " there are always excep- tions to the most positive of protocols." Ingres, Gerome, and Vetter have painted the scene ; no archaeologist may destroy its charm. Let this human incident remain, — it is far too delightful to be banished by evidence no more tangible than mere conjecture ! ^ * M. Gustave Larroumet {La Comiiie de Moliere) calls attention to the fact that the valets de chambre tapissier did not eat at the palace with the valets de chambre, citing in proof thereof U Etat de la France, and thus adding, "it must be confessed a strong argument against the verisi- i88 MOLIERE When the marquesses were convinced that Moliere could not be undermined in the royal favour, they paid him court with all the superciliousness of their caste. " These gentlemen," says De Vize,^ " often invited him to dine, but, as those who believe in their own merit never lack vanity, he returned all the cheer he received, his wit making him pass on a par with many people far above him." He was, perhaps, the first actor since classic days to knock at society's door. Considering the obloquy the church had cast upon his calling, his success was remark- able. Even Saint-Simon, whose breviary was precedence, bears witness to it in an amusing anecdote he tells about Julie d'Angennes' husband, the Due de Montausier. This austere nobleman, it seems, having heard he had been travestied in 'The Misanthrope, was furious until he saw the piece played ; whereupon, feeling it an honour to be likened to Alceste, the hero, he sent for the author. Moliere appeared with much perturbation ; but the duke ran to embrace him, and, supper being announced, the actor was invited to share it. To quote Saint-Simon: " Moliere, who had supped more than once with young lords during some gay carouse, had never eaten, in other circumstances, even with them ; much less with a man of the dignity, age, position, and austerity of Monsieur de Montausier."'* Saint-Simon makes it apparent that the cabaret was the only meeting-ground for the stage and society ; there- fore it is easier to understand Moliere's persistence in militude of this incident ; for if Moliere did not eat with the gentlemen of the court, there was no cause for them to refuse to sit at table with him." ^ Nouvelles nouvelles. ' Ecrits inedits de Saint-Simon. MOLI^RE THE COURTIER 189 making the King's bed. Besides asserting his birth- right, he thus obtained an insight into court life ; for, if he dearly loved a lord, like Thackeray he dearly loved to paint one. Posterity should be grateful that he smoothed the King's sheets ; for as the great English satirist him- self said of the Frenchman's masterful portraits, " What fine ladies and gentlemen Moliere represents ! " ^ " In catering to the wishes of kings," our poet told his actors, "we should never consider ourselves, since we exist only to please them." This doctrine is repeated here as its author's own excuse for the inferior quality of his court comedies and ballets. According to a state- ment in an earlier chapter, the obsequious period of his art was closely allied with the Gallic in point of time ; but, more correctly speaking. Its inception took place then, for time-serving plays appear in both the militant and histrionic periods. Indeed, these court comedies were Moliere's quick responses to the King's " imme- diate desires," — in other words, a courtier's artifice. ne Bores, written to order in fifteen days, is a pleasing example of these court plays ; for it has distinct charm, — a quality lacking in the Forced Marriage {Le Mariage forc'e), the play which followed l^he Versailles Impromptu. Styled a comedy ballet, but in reality a one-act farce in prose, 'The Forced Marriage, as Voltaire justly says, is " more remarkable for buffoonery than for either art or charm." ^ Save for a few touches of Rabelaisian mirth, it might pass for a crude canevas of Moliere's youth. When presented at the Louvre in Anne of Austria's apartment, January twenty-ninth, 1664, this play so pleased the royal family that it was repeated before the 1 The Firginians. * Fie de Moliere avec des jugements sur ses ouvrages. 190 MOLIERE court three times within a fortnight, — a success due to the King's appearance as a gypsy in one of the ballet interludes, danced to LuUy's music.^ Although given, to quote La Grange, "with the ballet and ornaments," ^he Forced Marriage, when placed upon the boards of the Palais Royal, February fifteenth, was without the allurement of Louis' dancing; so the receipts dwindled from some twelve hundred livres at the first public per- formance to barely two hundred at the twelfth, when it was withdrawn. In June of the following year (1665) Moliere went to Versailles with his company and presented The Favourite {Le Favori) — a comedy by Mile, des Jardins — upon an alfresco stage. This performance was heightened by his own appearance in the audience disguised as a ridiculous marquess, who, despite the prearranged efforts of the guards to suppress him, carried on a humorous conver- sation with one of the actresses in the play, — a bit of theatrical by-play still current upon our own stage.^ Although Moliere was ever thus ready to amuse his King, the failure of 'The Forced Marriage should have convinced him of the fallibility of his doctrine that " in catering to the wishes of monarchs we must never consider our- ' Giovanni Battista Lully (or LuUi) was a Florentine composer and violinist, who, joining the Royal French Orchestra in 1650, was soon thereafter appointed Director of Music to Louis XIV. He composed the music for Moliere' s comedy ballets, until, receiving in 1672 the privi- lege of establishing a Royal Academy of Music, he became so dictatorial and so tenacious of his rights that he opposed the productions of pieces with incidental music by theatrical companies, thus forcing Moliere to seek the services of another composer (Charpentier) when writing his last comedy ballet (The Imaginary Invalid). Lully composed twenty operas, and may justly be called the founder of the French lyric drama. ^ La Grange's Regis tre. Le Molieriste, April, 1881. MOLIERE the courtier 191 selves." Yet his desire to please Louis at all hazards was so great that the first act of his next effort, "The Prin- cess of Kits {La Princess a' Elide), and one scene of the second, are in Alexandrian verse, whereas prose is the vehicle for the remainder, — a perfiinctory treatment, one is tempted to say slip-shod, thus excused by the poet in his Preface : The author's intention was to treat the entire comedy in verse ; but a command from the King so hastened its completion that he was obliged to finish the remainder in prose and pass lightly over several scenes he would have expanded further had he possessed more leisure. Hasty though it be in workmanship, its conceptive charm entitles 'the Princess of Elis to a higher rank than falls to the lot of many of the author's court plays. The scene is in an imaginary Greece, the heroine a young Diana roaming the forest in contempt of the wooers her father has gathered at his court, until Euryale, a prince of Ithaca, makes use of her own weapon, scorn. In the lovers' battle-royal which ensues, victory hovers over the contestant appearing to seek her least, until finally the contumelious princess becomes a truly feminine victim of love. Pastoral comedy was strange ground to Moliere, yet this fanciful excursion therein is so delightful that he might well have tarried longer " under the greenwood tree." Had he known Shakespeare, he would be open to the suspicion of having found " his property " on the banks of the Avon ; for Elis is an imaginary realm like unto Bohemia, and Moron the jester, played by him- self, a cousin-german to Touchstone; moreover the princess is a heroine whose charm is truly Shakespearian, 192 MOLlfiRE and Euryale a lover quite as romantic as Orlando or Florizel. In this instance, however, the poet borrowed from a Spanish comedy by Augustin Moreto, called Scorn with Scorn {El Desden con el desden), a title which strikes the key-note of both plays. "ithe Princess of Elis was styled " a gallant comedy interspersed with music and ballet interludes," — a sub- title justified by six ballets, wherein musicians, bears, huntsmen, whippers-in, satyrs, and shepherdesses danced and sang to music by Lully, and incidentally abetted Moron the jester in his love for Phyllis the princess's maid. Indeed, the play must have been written to a great extent around these interludes ; for it was designed, primarily, to grace an alfresco fete. No royal demesne could yet vie with Vaux-le-Vicomte. To eclipse the superintendent's achievement, the young monarch began to embellish his father's hunting-box at Versailles ; but so great was the outlay that Colbert re- monstrated, saying, " Ah, what a pity it would be should the greatest of kings, the most virtuous, in the true virtue which makes the greatest princes, be measured by the ell of Versailles ! " Colbert's letter was certainly pro- phetic; for Louis, despite the really glorious achieve- ments of his reign, is gauged by this ell. In 1664, however, it was a modest measure. Only the central portion of the palace was built ; the park covered only a fraction of its present extent ; and of the marvel- lous fountains and canals the Basin of Apollo had alone been dug. Still, there was a zoological garden, and an orangery embellished by twelve hundred or more of Fouquet's own trees ; so Versailles was sufficiently im- posing to warrant Louis' choice of it as the scene of a MOLIERE THE COURTIER 193 series of fetes designed to outshine the superintendent's ill-starred magnificence.^ These were held in May, 1664, and lasting an entire week, were known as " The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle" {Les Plaisirs de Tile enchant'ee). Heretofore Bense- rade had been charged with the creation of court festivals ; but on this occasion the Due de Saint-Aignan, master of ceremonies, had recourse to Moliere. The subject chosen was Ariosto's account, in Orlando Furioso, of Ruggiero the paladin's sojourn in the island palace of Alcina the enchantress. The King was allotted the part of Ruggiero, his courtiers each assuming a character in the Italian poem until every knight had found his counterpart.^ A circular meadow was chosen as the site of Alcina's palace, and at each entrance a portico bearing the royal arms was erected. There was a dais, too, for Anne of Austria and Maria Theresa ; since true-hearted Louise de la Valliere, though playing the role of Bradamante, adored of Ruggiero, was prevented by etiquette from being crowned queen of the festival. " The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle " began on the first night at the twilight hour, with a flourish of trumpets and drums to herald a king-at-arms, gorgeous in crimson and silver. With him rode the pages of Ruggiero, of the earl marshal, and of the judge of the lists, bearing their masters' shields and lances. Mounted trumpeters ^ La Criation de Versailles, by Pierre de Nolhac. * A complete description of this astonishing spectacle, entitled Les Plaisirs de l^ lie enchant'ee, was published in 1664, and Marigny, a writer of the day, has left a spirited account of it {Relation de Marigny) ; while a series of engravings by Israel Sylvestre gives a wonderfully clear impression of the mise-en-scine. 13 194 MOLlfiRE and kettle-drummers followed, their banderols and tim- brels glittering with blazoned suns of gold ; then came the earl marshal, the Due de Saint-Aignan, himself, armed a la grecque with dragoned helm and silver corselet In his wake rode more trumpeters, sounding a fanfaron of joy to herald Louis. Resplendent in jewels and in gold, he appeared^ followed by his paladins. In the words of an anonymous chronicler, ** his bearing was worthy of his rank; for never had an air more free and martial placed a mortal above his fellow-men." ^ Hardly had the loyal acclamations of Louis* subjects died away, when Milet, his coachman, arrayed as Father Time, drove Apollo's chariot upon the scene, his vehicle gorgeous in azure and gold. The divinity was the young comedian La Grange ; the Ages of Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron,grouped at his feet, were Mile. Moliere (Armande Bejart), M. Hubert,'* Mile, de Brie, and M. du Croisy, all of Moliere's company, — a triumph for the Palais Royal theatre which caused a spectator to suggest that if Father Time overturned Apollo's chariot, the Hotel de Bour- gogne would be easily consoled.' Indeed, the royal troupe had cause for jealousy, since not a single member graced this fete. But Apollo's chariot did not over- turn; so Moliere's actresses — " barn-stormers " barely six years before — triumphed over their rivals and recited verses in adulation of the queen. A ring tilting contest followed, lasting till darkness * Les Plaisirs de Pile enchantie. ^ An actor from the Theatre du Marais, who had just joined Mo- liere's forces, noted both as a female impersonator and as the author of the Registre de Hubert, a chronicle of the company during the years 1672-73. ' Relation de Marigny. MOLlfiRE THE COURTIER 195 fell ; then a myriad lights blazed upon the scene, while Lully, Orpheus of the day, entered with a choir of singers, marching to the cadence of their instruments, and followed by a grotesque cavalcade depicting the four seasons. The beautiful Du Pare, mounted on an Andalusian palfrey, represented Spring; Summer was her fat husband, Gros Rene, riding, appropriately, on an elephant ; Autumn, La Thorilliere, astride a camel ; and Winter, Louis Bejart, mounted on a bear, — a whimsi- cal stable, made possible by the proximity of the royal menagerie. Gardeners, harvesters, vintagers, and patri- archs escorted these masquerading players; and a sylvan float, heralded by hautboys and flutes, appeared, mov- ing by imperceptible means, with Moliere perched in its topmost branches as the great god Pan, and his wife as Diana, queen of the night. When these woodland deities had recited verses to the queen, a ballet symbolical of the Hours of the Day and the Signs of the Zodiac was danced to Lully's measures ; meantime the comptrollers of the King's household laid tables weighed with " laughter, sport, and delight " — a contemporary way of saying good things — before the royal dai's ; whereupon their Majesties and the attend- ants partook of a banquet " whose magnificence," in the words of a chronicler, " was comparable to the ancient feasts of the gods." ^ Moved to a woodland dell on the second day, Alcina's palace became a verdant theatre; and there, when the sun had set, Ruggiero and his valiant paladins were re- galed by l^he Princess of Elis. The title role of this comedy was filled by Armande Bejart, Moliere playing Moron the jester. In an engraving of the scene Israel ' Relation de Marigny. 196 moli£re Sylvestre depicts a stage as wide as that of the Milanese Scala, with a depth surpassing it. The actors wear flow- ing robes and plumed helmets — the pseudo-classic cos- tume of the time — and the trains of the actresses are carried by pages ; so the ballet interludes, wherein bears, huntsmen, fauns, and shepherdesses abetted Moliere's buffooneries, were certainly in marked contrast to this stateliness. Yet, according to a contemporary, the audi- ence found the performance "so excellent, complete, and delightful " that this apparent temerity proved sound theatrical judgment. On the third day Mile, du Pare, representing Alcina the sorceress, and MlleS. Moliere^ and de Brie, as two nymphs, floated about the basin now dedicated to Apollo, on the backs of huge wooden sea monsters, and recited verses in honour of Anne of Austria, — a diversion fol- lowed by a ballet of giants, dwarfs, and demons dancing to the strains of the royal violins. Meantime Alcina's palace, built upon a rocky isle, blazed forth in fireworks so magnificent that the spectators believed " the sky, the earth, and the water all were ablaze ! " This final burst of pyrotechnic glory ended "The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle " ; but the King tarried on at Versailles, cutting the Turk's head a Fallemande, and distributing costly gifts to the ladies by means of a lottery. In these supplemental gaieties Moliere played an impor- tant role. On Sunday, May eleventh, 1'he Bores was per- formed in a salon of the palace, with ballet interludes danced to music by Beauchamp ; on the following day the first three acts of l^he Hypocrite {Le Tartuffe) were * After her marriage Armande Bejart was known as Mile. Moliere, the word Mademoiselle being used to describe married women of lesser rank ; Madame being confined to ladies of the court. M0LI£RE the courtier 197 presented, while on Tuesday, the thirteenth. The Forced Marriage was given.^ Moliere's triumph was now complete, his hold upon the King's favour firmly established. In August, 1665, Louis granted his troupe an annual pension of six thou- sand livres, but of far more significance^ was his request to Monsieur that the patronage of Moliere's company be ceded to him. Henceforth the Palais Royal players were known as "The King's Troupe," and, the com- pany of the Hotel de Bourgogne being styled "The Royal Troupe," it is apparent that in thus distinguish- ing Moliere's organisation Louis desired to indicate his personal consideration and proprietorship. At every royal fete the actor poet — a veritable buf- foon laureate — was expected to provide cleverness and mirth. His numerous comedy ballets were all written for such a purpose. In September, 1665, he composed in five days a three-act prose comedy of this nature, called Love as a Doctor (JO Amour m^decin), which was performed at Versailles. In December of the following year MHi- certBy — styled An Heroic Pastoral, — only two acts of which were completed, was played at a fete at St. Ger- main, known as " The Ballet of the Muses " ; while a comic pastoral from his pen and a comedy ballet entitled The Sicilian ; or. Love as a Painter (Le Sicilien ou I 'Amour peintre) were also presented on this occasion. The last of these Voltaire called the first one-act piece in the lan- guage " possessing both grace and charm " ; still it is but an agreeable trifle which might serve as a framework for an opera bouffe. * The Hypocrite forms the subject of the ensuing chapter. The part played by " The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle " in Moliere's domestic aifairs is treated fully in Chapter XIII. 198 moli£re In 1668 a fete rivalling "The Pleasures of the En- chanted Isle " was held at Versailles in celebration of the conclusion of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. On this oc- casion Louis spent a hundred thousand livres in a single evening, and Moliere provided a comedy which, in the precious language of Mile, de Scuderjr, " was interspersed with the most surprising and marvellous symphony ever known, in which several scenes were sung by the most beautiful voices in the entire world, and with divers amus- ing ballets." This comedy was George Dandin, that de- lightful satire upon peasants who wish to rise above their station. For the fete held at Chambord, in 1669, Moliere wrote Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, the original of many succeeding farces in which a country lout has the temerity to court a pretty girl ; and in the year following the King himself suggested the subject for a five-act comedy, with ballet interludes, known as The Magnificent Lovers {Les Amants magnifiques). This collaboration with Louis perhaps accounts for the stilted dulness of this later play, — the most uninteresting in the entire range of Moliere's work. In 1670, too. The Burgher, a Gentle- man, the only one of Moliere's comedy ballets, save The Imaginary Invalid, that takes high rank among his works, was produced before the court at Chambord ; and in 1 67 1 Psyche, a so-called tragedy ballet dealing with Cupid's familiar love story, was put forth hurriedly for the carnival. This latter play is perhaps the most re- markable piece of collaboration in dramatic literature. Moliere had time only to sketch the idea and indite a part of the verses ; so Corneille was called upon to fin- ish them, while Quinault wrote the words to the songs, and Lully the music. Again, at St. Germain in 1671, The Comtesse d" Escarbagnas, a one-act comedy ballet. moli£re the couRxmi^v ,1.49. was produced before the court. 'The Inhapnary Invalid, however, though intended for court ptipd^ction, was first presented at the Palais Royal. ^ I i ;';. :'; /. y. George Dandin, The Burgher, a Xrentlmahl ^ 'and- ^i' Comtesse d'Escarbagnas, though first prpduced at court, are comedies of such distinctive merit th^t th,ey fall more naturally within the category of histrionic plJ^ys which fop^iv ' the topic of a succeeding chapter, while Love. as, a'p-pctor' and ^he Imaginary Invalid, so essentially a part of the per- sistent warfare Moliere waged against the quackery of his time, are militant comedies, treated in the chapter devoted to Moliere and the physicians. The others, Milicerte, The Sicilian, The Magnificent Lovers, and Psyche, neither Gallic in subject nor Molieresque in treatment, because lacking in the quality of truth, the hallmark of Moliere's genius, are undeserving of special comment here. This recital of Moliere's court plays should indicate how thoroughly he merited his pension ; not for the surpassing nature of this form of work so much as for his readiness " to respond quickly to the King's imme- diate wishes." Indeed, these comedy ballets may be passed by with the assurance that they present ample evidence of the poet's sincerity in believing that " even though one be ashamed of not having succeeded entirely, one always has the glory of having promptly obeyed the King's behest." His court plays gave him the opportunity of winning his monarch's good will, while in fulfilling his functions as valet de chambre, he was brought in personal contact with the King, and, being a shrewd observer, he might readily have seized an opportune moment to advance his fortunes. Yet his regard for Louis was something more than a courtier's stratagem. In the words of M. Bazin : "'.2qd ..^/.-'/v/ ,> MOLIERE From the fn'oinent these two men, placed so far apart in the social or^er',; saw and understood each other — the . .on&a king;freejiYrora all restraint, the other an unequalled '.' 'Juptak^iiti%^t itill timid moralist — a tacit understanding was established 'between them, permitting the subject to :_ dare everythirjg; -aftd promising him full assurance and ■■'. . protection upon fhe sole condition that the monarch be •',.•' Jim ufi^df.' '.;/»%'•. He, to whom all things were thus per- • . jnittfedr^'wa* no 'knight-errant, fulfilling his mission at his pfoper*rfsk and peril, exposed to vengeance, and fearing to be abandoned to his fate. A caprice of sovereign power, for once enlightened, gave him confidence and strength ; his genius gave him the rest.^ Although M. Gustave Larroumet* is inclined to believe that the protection Louis XIV extended to Moliere was slighter than that shown such men as Boileau and Racine, still, as this writer himself remarks, " We must first of all bear in mind the state of public opinion regarding Moliere. In the eyes of his contem- poraries, his profession and the character of his works created a notable difference between him and other poets." In other words, he was an actor in an age when the members of his profession were social outcasts. That Louis was so complaisant regarding so many trenchant satires of his courtiers is proof sufficient that Moliere possessed the monarch's affection to a marked degree. Shrewd Mazarin once said of Louis that there was "the wherewithal in him for four good kings and one honest man." Though the truth of the first part of this apothegm is apparent, save as regards the qualifying adjective, the wherewithal for the one honest man might • Nates bistoriques sur la vie de Moliere. ^ La Com'edie de Moliere. MOLIERE THE COURTIER aoi be a matter of considerable doubt were it not for the King's generous treatment of his favourite comedian. " Laughter," says Carlyle, " is the cipher-key wherewith we decipher the whole man " ; and it was the talent of the one to kindle, and of the other to be warmed by, the fire of honest fun which made these geniuses of comedy and kingship each understand the other. 202 MOLIERE XII THE POET MILITANT In Les Precieuses ridicules Moliere, ceasing to be Italian, became truly Gallic ; in The Hypocrite {Le Tartuffe) knight-errantry appears. Cant is the enemy, mocking portraiture the lance; yet the play is not quixotic, for the poet's knighthood lies solely in the boldness of his attack upon false piety at a moment when pharisaisra was abroad in the land. The first three of this play's five acts were produced at Versailles during the fete known as " The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle," and so great was the animosity they inspired that five years elapsed before permission was obtained for a public performance. To understand the persecution Moliere underwent at the hands of the clericals, a cursory glance at his inimitable comedy is necessary. The scene is laid in Paris at the house of Orgon, a pious bourgeois who has aroused the anger of his family by introducing into its midst Tartuffe, a canting devo- tee whom he has met at church and whose unwitting tool he has become. Orgon's mother alone, of all his family, has been deceived by this hypocrite's feigned piety. In the opening scene the wife, daughter, son, brother-in-law, and maid-of-all-work of the atrabilious master of the house hold an indignant though futile meeting to rid themselves of the hateful creature which has fastened his tentacles upon them. THE POET MILITANT 203 Madame Pernelle, the stubborn mother, Elmire, the artful wife whose worldly knowledge is her safeguard, Mariane, the timid daughter, Damis, the impetuous son, Cleante, the sane and honest brother-in-law — "the opposite of TartufFe," to quote Sainte-Beuve, " his counterweight" — each is a human type as distinct as consummate art can paint it. Dorine, too, — the confi- dential slave of classic comedy metamorphosed into a family servant, — is a character frank and sprightly enough to test the powers of even the cleverest sou- brette; while Valere, Mariane's suitor, with his flavour of the court, adds the note of distinction so necessary in bringing the bourgeoisie^ of this household into the high light. The most striking character is, of course, TartufFe, the hypocrite. The manner of his introduction is in- deed ingenious. Throughout two acts he is only spoken of by the other characters ; yet his presence is always felt, and so great is the animosity created toward him that, when he finally appears, one is only too ready to join the cabal against him. For instance, after the family conference has come to naught, Dorine tells Cleante that Orgon, his brother-in-law. Since by TartufFe beguiled is like a dolt. He calls him brother, and his love for him Is fiiU a hundredfold more deep than love For mother, daughter, wife, or only son. He is his one fond gossip, in good sooth, ^ M. Ch. L. Livet, writing in the Moli'eriste, February, 1880, makes an interesting argument to prove that both Orgon and Tartuffe were gentlemen of the court. The present writer, however, holds to the bourgeoisie of this family, — certainly a servant of the type of Dorine could be found only in a middle class household. 204 MOLIERE The circumspect director of his deeds. Whom he caresses, hugs more tenderly, I swear, than any mistress might expect. At table in the foremost seat he 's placed. And joyftilly he sees him eat for six ; Makes others cede him all the choicest bits. And if he belches, cries, " God bless you, friend !" In short, he is a fool, whose only hero Is this one man who has become his all ; Whose every word he hangs upon or quotes As from an oracle, whose slightest act Appears to him a miracle divine. The other, knowing well his dupe, makes most Of him, confounding him in fivescore ways. And dazzling him so shrewdly that each hour He pharisaically steals his coin. Boldly proclaiming right to chide us all. This sanctimonious scoundrel's portrait is again painted when Orgon himself, returning from a visit to the country, inquires anxiously after his beloved friend, and, learning from Dorine that "he is marvellously well, — fat, sleek, with ruddy cheek and rosy lip," exclaims most tenderly, " Poor man ! " Hearing that his wife had no appetite the previous night, although TartufFe, sup- ping with her tete-h-tete, devoutly ate a brace of par- tridges and half a leg of hashed mutton, the dupe again cries, " Poor man ! " and when he learns that although his wife was bled, TartufFe bore the ordeal so nobly that he drank four draughts of wine to make up for the blood she had lost, he exclaims in one final outburst of com- passion, " Poor man ! " To realise fully the insidious way in which the canting villain of this play has hoodwinked his benefactor, one must turn to the description Orgon gives Cleante, his brother-in-law, of their first meeting: THE POET MILITANT 205 You would be glad to know him, brother dear, — Your ecstasy would never have an end. He is a man ... who ... ah ! ... a man ... a man In short, who following his precepts well Enjoys a mind of perfect peace, and treats The world as so much dirt. Since converse with him I 'm wholly changed. He separates my soul From friendships dear, instructing me to love Nothing of earth ; so with least pain I 'd bear The death of brother, mother, children, wife. Cleante My brother, those are human sentiments ! Orgon Ah, had you seen him as I saw him first With me you would have shared this love profound! Each day to church he came with humble air To kneel and face me, draw the eyes of all Upon him by the fervour of his prayers To God. He sighed, and in a transport deep Kissed him the earth with ardour meek, unceasing. Rising when I did, following in my steps. Proffering holy water at the door. His serving lad, who imitates him well In everything, told me his poverty. And who he was. I made him little gifts. But, shrinking, he would e'er return a part. "It is too much," he said, " too much by half, I am unworthy of your sympathy," And when I would not take my largess back. He gave it to the poor, before my eyes. At last, inspired by holy light, I brought Him to my house ; and from that blessed day All 's prosperous here. He censures everything. And even of my honour takes great care ; For when bold wooers glance upon my wife, Quick warning of the peril comes to me — My jealousy he multiplies sixfold. ao6 MOLIERE The height to which his zeal doth carry him You 'd scarce believe : within himself he deems A trifle mortal sin. Why, yesterday. He blamed himself for killing, while at prayer, A flea, in anger too tempestuous. After presenting this picture of pharisaism, Moliere, fearing no doubt, its effect, is careful to portray the difference between hypocrisy and piety in the scene where Cleante, seeking to undeceive his brother-in-law, tells Orgon that — Just as some to bravery make pretence. So in religion there are hypocrites. Yet as the hero makes but little noise When honour calls, the truly pious man. Whose footsteps we should tread, makes no grimace. This sane reasoning fails, however, of its object ; likewise Cleante's efforts in behalf of Mariane and Valere, the lovers for whose happiness he had been commissioned in an earlier scene to plead. When he broaches the sub- ject of their marriage, Tartuffe's dupe is evasive. Hinting that he will fulfil the will of Heaven in dis- posing of his daughter's hand, he leaves Cleante appre- hensive of some mishap to Mariane's love, — a fear soon realised ; for in an opening scene of the second act Orgon tells Mariane that he has selected Tartuffe to be her husband. This announcement causes Dorine the maid to assert that " a man who weds his daughter to a husband she loathes is responsible to Heaven for her sins " ; yet in spite of the wisdom of a doctrine French parents in general might so well take to heart, Orgon tells Mariane: In short, my child, you must obedience pay. And to my choice the fullest deference show. THE POET MILITANT 207 Dorine chides her too submissive mistress for " per- mitting such a foolish proposition to be made without a protest"; but Mariane, a French jeune file par excellence, though acknowledging her love for Valere, prefers death to disobedience, because, to quote her own words, A father, I confess, such empery holds No hardihood was mine to make reply. Valere, however, does not so readily adhere to the fifth commandment. On learning of his betrothed's submis- sion to her father's will, he parts from her in high dudgeon, only to return, lover-like, before he is even out of the house, and become reconciled through Dorine'i|f5 intervention, learning at the same time from that sage domestic's lips that "all lovers are fools," and from Mariane's that — I cannot answer for my father's will ; Yet I shall marry no one but Valere. This reassurance, accompanied by Dorine's discreet suggestion to the lovers that "one had better go this way, and the other that," brings the second act to a close. The third begins with a tempest of rage at the proposed marriage of his sister, on the part of Orgon's hotheaded son, Damis. " May lightning finish me on the spot ! " he exclaims, " may I be proclaimed the greatest rascal alive, if any respect or authority hinders me from doing something rash. ... I must stop this fellow's schemes ! " " Softly," whispers politic Dorine. " Leave both him and your father to your step-mother — she has influence with Tartuffe. ... In short, she has sent for him to sound him upon this marriage." Damis, insisting upon playing the eavesdropper at this 2o8 MOLlfeRE interview, hides in a closet just as TartufFe appears in propria persona. Throughout two acts this wretch has hung in the wings like a cresset of woe, shedding a bale- ful light upon the other characters. When his voice is heard, speaking " off stage " to his servant, there is no doubt that he is Tartuffe, the hypocrite: My scourge and haircloth shirt, you '11 put away ; Pray then to Heaven, Laurent, for its light. Should callers come, you '11 say I 'm at the gaol Giving away the alms I have received. " What affectation, what boasting ! " Dorine exclaims, and, being about to address him, Tartuffe restrains her until he has covered her bare neck with his handkerchief, " lest by such sights the soul be wounded and evil thoughts awakened." When Orgon's wife appears, the full depth of the hypocrite's perfidy is made apparent. Being asked if it is true that her husband wishes to give him her step- daughter's hand, he replies that such a hint has been made him, but that he " has beheld elsewhere the mar- vellous attractions of the bliss which forms the sole object of his desires." His hypocritical love-making and EI- mire's naive manner of extracting the secret of his villainy are best told in the words of the play : Elmire I know foil well your sighs toward Heaven tend, And nothing here below your passion stirs. Tartuffe The love we feel for everlasting grace. Our love for earthly beauty leaves unquenched. By Heaven's work, our senses soon are charmed Most readily. Within your sex its light THE POET MILITANT 209 Reflected shines : in you its glories are Displayed ; for in your face it has disclosed Consummate miracles, our eyes to dazzle. Our hearts to thrill. O creature most superb, I 've never seen your charms, but I beheld The Author of us all, and felt my heart Beat hard with soul-entrancing love for you. The perfect portrait painted of Himself. At first I felt this secret love might prove A devil's snare ; so fearing you might be A bar to my salvation, my poor heart Resolved your eyes so beautiful to spurn. That passion such as mine could be no sin I knew at last, thou too engaging beauty. And saw that I might well conciliate My love with purity ; and that is how My heart abandoned all. I know indeed It is audacity beyond compare To tender you that heart ; but I expect From goodness such as yours, infinity. And nothing fi'om the weakness of my love. My hope is you, my peace, my happiness ! On you depends my bliss, my torment, too ; For by your sole decree my fate is sealed — Happiness or misery as you please. Elmire Your declaration is, forsooth, gallant ; But most astounding, too, to say the least. Far better you should arm your heart, methinks. And ponder somewhat on your rash design. A devotee like you, proclaimed by all — Tartuffe Though devotee, I 'm none the less a man. On first beholding beauty heavenly As yours, a heart will yield but cannot reason. I know that such discourse surpassing strange Must seem from me ; but after all, Madame, I am no angel, so, if you condemn 14 2IO MOLlfiRE My declaration, you must blame your charms. As soon as I beheld your superhuman Loveliness, you became the sovereign dear Who rules my soul. Your glance divine broke down With godlike sweetness my resisting heart. Conquering everything — my fasting, prayer. And tears, — and turned unto your beauty all My vows. Each look, each sigh, has told you this A thousand times, until, to tell it better, I must my voice employ. If you, benign. Will gaze upon the sorrows of your slave. Unworthy me, if your sweet charity Will solace, if you '11 stoop to nothingness Like me, I shall ever love you, most sweet Miracle, with a love unparalleled. Your honour's safe with me, you need not fear Disgrace. Those courtiers whom your sex adores. Are boastful of their deeds, and vain of word. The favours they receive are soon divulged. Their wagging tongues betray and desecrate The sacrificial altar of their pasdon ; But love burns prudently in men like me — For ever is the secret wisely kept. The care we take to guard our honour's name Is shield enough unto the one adored : In us you *11 find when you accept our hearts. Love without scandal, pleasure without fear. Having led Tartuffe thus to avow himself, Elmire, by promising not to divulge his passion to her husband, is on the point of making him renounce Mariane's hand, when Damis, rushing from his hiding-place, exclaims in blundering anger, " No, madame, no, this shall be made public ! " and despite Elmire's endeavours to prevent scandal, goes forthwith to undeceive his father and " lay bare the heart of a villain." When Orgon asks Tartuffe if "what he has heard is true," that worthy, feigning humility, convinces the dupe of his innocence by the very frankness of his confession : THE POET MILITANT an Yes, my brother, I am a wretched sinner. Guilty, corrupt, and with defilement stained — The greatest scoundrel of all time ; for all My life is tainted with impurity And a mere slough of sin and iilthiness. I see that Heaven for my punishment Means now to mortify me; so whate'er The crime with which I may be charged, no wish Nor vanity have I to exculpate Myself. Believe the cry of scandal, arm Your indignation, drive me from your hearth A felon proved ! For what disgrace soe'er Is heaped upon me, I have earned still more. This master-stroke of self-depreciation turns Orgon's wrath upon TartufFe's accuser. "Traitor," he cries to his son, " dare you tarnish the purity of his virtue by this falsehood "; then, denouncing children, wife, and servants as "a pack conspiring to drive a pious man from the house," he announces that Mariane shall wed his friend forthwith. When Damis refuses to kneel and beg for- giveness of TartuiFe, the infuriated Orgon turns his con- tumacious son out of the house ; and in proof of his confidence bids TartufFe be frequently seen with his wife, and straightway swears he '11 deed him all his property ; " for," as he says, " the faithful and honest friend whom I take for a son-in-law is dearer to me than son, wife, or parents." " Heaven's will be done ! " the hypocrite ex- claims as the curtain falls upon this picture of credulity and guile, painted so truthfully that we see and know hypocrisy for evermore. Two more acts were added after the first performance at Versailles. In one, Elmire convinces Orgon of Tar- tufFe's villainy by inducing her stubborn lord to hide beneath a table while his friend avows his unholy passion ; in the other, TartufFe, unmasked, attempts to turn his 212 MOLIERE benefactor out of house and home by means of a bailiff of his own cloth, and a writ of possession taken under the deed of gift of Orgon's fortune. He even accuses his dupe of high treason on evidence confided to him in trust ; but coming with an officer to arrest him, he, in- stead, is borne to prison. In arresting this arch-hypocrite, the officer pays the following subtle tribute to the King : A prince, the mortal enemy of fraud. Rules over us — a prince whose eyes all hearts Illuminate, and are themselves deceived By no impostor's art. With judgment rare Endowed, his splendid soul surveys all things With equity, and is by passion ne'er Led far afield ; nor sinks his reason firm To any base excess. For worthy men Immortal fame he holds ; unblinded burns His zeal, while love for truth ne'er shuts his heart Against the horror falsehood should excite. After explaining that the monarch thus praised has de- tected TartufFe in his villainy, the officer tells Orgon that the deed of his property is annulled and his supposed treason pardoned. This is certainly a trite method of untying a clever knot ; yet it is idle to criticise a master- piece. I^he Hypocrite is one of the great comedies of the world, and will ever live as containing an abhorrent pic- ture of human duplicity. Never, save in The Misanthrope, did Moliere's genius rise to such a height. To understand the sensation this comedy created, a glance at the religious situation is necessary. There were then two parties within the French church, — the Jesuits and the Jansenists. The former were men of the world, seeking to guide religion along expedient paths; the latter, deriving their name from Jansen, a reformer who THE POET MILITANT 213 died in 1638, were Puritan idealists demanding church reform. The Jesuits denounced Jansen's denial of the freedom of will and the possibility of man's resisting grace — a creed not unlike Calvinism — as heresy, and when the Holy See issued a bull of condemnation against these doctrines in 1653, the Jansenists, in retreat at their con- vent at Port Royal, were led by Antoine Arnauld to wage such a wordy warfare of defence that they became the ob- ject of violent persecution. Though bravely defended by Pascal in his famous Provincial Letters {Lettres pro- vinciales), Arnauld was expelled from the Sorbonne and eventually driven from France ; nevertheless, he was upheld by a large party, including some sixteen bish- ops and twenty doctors of the Sorbonne, while many prominent nobles, the Prince de Conti, Moliere's for- mer protector, among them, were zealous converts to Jansenism. During this controversy religious animosity ran high ; and Moliere's play appearing in the midst of it, each party discovered in Tartuffe a portrait of the other. His scourge and haircloth shirt might easily pass for a skit upon the austerities practised at Port Royal ; yet his philosophy is Jesuitical, according to the popular defini- tion of that company's casuistry. For instance, the following logic used by Tartuffe to tempt Elmire from the paths of virtue, while her husband listens beneath a table, has frequently been considered a travesty upon the Jesuitical doctrine of Direction of Intention : Those idle fears, Madame, I can dispel ; I know the art of pacifying doubts. Some pleasures, truly, are inhibited By God ; yet easily with Him we can Accommodate ourselves. To stretch the bonds 214 MOLIfiRE Of conscience in accordance with our needs And reconcile the evil of an act With purity of purpose is a science. These secrets I '11 impart to you, Madame : Be led by me, my passion gratify. And have no further fear. I 'm liable For all ; upon myself I take the sin.^ TartufFe might readily pass for a Jesuit among that society's enemies ; to the present generation, at least, there is little in his character suggesting Arnauld or his zealous followers, — by far the most sincere churchmen of their day. In the seventeenth century, however, the Jansenists, a radical opposition minority in church politics, were held in a very different light by their conservative opponents ; moreover, they were violent enemies of the theatre, even advocating its abolition ; hence the natural foes of Moliere. M. Mesnard ^ cites a statement by Bros- sette to the effect that " the King hated the Jansenists, whom he regarded ... for the most part, as the real subjects of Moliere's comedy," and quotes the Abbe Joly as saying that " many people have pretended Moliere had Port Royal in mind, and particularly M. Antoine Arnauld, who is satirised in the scene where TartufFe says he has devoutly eaten two partridges and half a leg of hashed mutton." Roquette, a fashionable churchman who was " Maza- rin's man-of-all-work and a servant of the Jesuits," was thought by some of his contemporaries to have been Tartuffe's original ; likewise Charpy, Sieur de Sainte- ' M. Auger (^(Euvres de Moliere) calls attention to the scene in Act V, where Orgon, in speaking of Tartuffe, uses the expression " sous un beau semblant" as savouring of a Jesuitical doctrine, on "Mental Restrictions." ' (Euvres de Moliere. THE POET MILITANT 215 Croix. Talletnant des Reaux, too, recounts the declara- tion of a certain Abbe de Pons to Ninon de Lendos as having inspired the line : Though devotee, I 'm none the less a man. Furtnermore, the Duchesse de Longueville, a fervent Jansenist, has been indicated as the Elmire to whom Tartuffe paid his suit ; while the Prince de Conti has been called the original of Orgon. It has remained for a modern writer, however, to propound the theory that Moliere's comedy was written at the express command of Louis XIV to ridicule the Jansenists.* These attempts to discover the original of Tartuffe are, in reality, unwitting compliments to the poet's genius. Each man saw his neighbour portrayed, — a fact well indicated in a letter of Racine's regarding a reading of the play at the Duchesse de Longueville's, postponed on account of the expulsion of some Jansen- ist nuns from their convent. " These people have been told," says Racine, referring to the Jansenists, " that the Jesuits had been satirised in this comedy," but he adds that the Jesuits " flattered themselves it was aimed at the Jansenists." Tartuffe's original was, in all probability, not an indi- vidual or sect, but a peculiar kind of pharisee known as a director of conscience [directeur de conscience) which the religious revival of Louis XIV's reign had brought into fashion. Often a layman like TartufFe, the director of conscience was employed by wealthy families in addition to the confessor as a spiritual guide charged with the regulation of its members' daily actions. The women were apparently his chief care ; for, according to La ^ Le Tartuffe par ordre de Louis XIV by Louis Lacour. 2i6 MOLIERE Bruyere/ " they confided to him their joys, griefs, hopes, and jealousies, their hatreds and their loves," while he was seen with them " in their carriages, in the streets, and on the promenade, and seated beside them at church and in the theatre." Certainly such a personage is nearer the reality of Moliere's hypocrite than any Jan- senist or Jesuit partisan. That the poet had these pro- fessional conscience directors in mind, is evinced by the following lines, spoken by Cleante in contempt of the class to which TartufFe belonged : Those downright cheats, those devotees for hire Whose sacrilegious and deceitftil smirks Revile the sacred, holiest precepts Of mankind, boldly making them a jest — Those men with soul by interest subdued Who make both wares and calling of their faith. Who by false glances and feigned rapture seek Both dignities and confidence to buy.' Furthermore, Dorine speaks of TartufFe as the " circum- spect director " of Orgon's deeds {de ses actions le di- recteur prudent), while that hypocrite himself, when telling Elmire that " love burns prudently in men like me," speaks of himself as belonging to a class, by using we and us instead of the more natural pronouns / and me? ' Les Caractires. " Alexis Veselovsky in a Study of Tar tuff e {Etudy o Molierie. Tar- tuffe. Istoria tipa i piesy. Monographia. Aleksieia Veselovskayo), published in Moscow in 1 879, treats the possible originals of Moliere's hypocrites, particularly the directors of conscience, exhaustively. Having no knowledge of Russian, the present writer has only been able to gather Mr. Veselovsky' s views, second hand, by means of French rewews. Mr. Henry M. TroUope, too, in his The Life of Molilre discusses the directors of conscience at considerable length, and presents some thoughtful conclusions, indicating that they were the originals of Moliere's Tartuffe. * See page 208. THE POET MILITANT 217 The latest theory regarding the original of TartufFe is advanced by M. Raoul Allier/ According to this writer there had existed in France since 1627 a religious body called the Society of the Holy Sacrament, — not a sect, but an association of men and women within the church working for moral purity and the strict observ- ance of religion. Founded upon high moral principles, this organisation, though counting among its members many people of high standing, gradually became an asylum for hypocrites; and it was against these that Moliere, according to M, Allier, directed his satire. The peculiar wording of Dorine's speech in which she refers to TartufFe as "the circumspect director" of Orgon's deeds would indicate that the director of con- science was the original of Moliere's TartufFe. However, the members of the Society of the Holy Sacrament were doubtless spiritual directors as well. That hypocrites, such as TartufFe, were rife at the time is indicated in a story told by the Abbe de Chateauneuf, ^ about a reading of the play to Ninon de Lenclos which caused her to sketch a portrait from life of a hypocrite of the same stamp as TartufFe, with whom she had just had an adventure. This was painted in such " lively colours," to quote the Abbe, " that if the play had not been written, Moliere avowed he would not have under- taken it, so incapable was he of putting on the stage anything as perfect as Ninon's TartufFe." The name Tartuffe is another indication that Moliere's satire was aimed at hypocrites in general rather than at a particular sect. In Old French, according to M. Mes- nard, the word truffe signified deceit, and when used to • La Cabale des divots. " Dialogue sur la tnusique des anciens. ai8 MOLIERE denote a truffle was written tartufle (in Italian tartufo). So perfect was Moliere's picture of hypocrisy that tartufe., written with one /, has become a French word signi- fying " hypocrite." In this connection M. Littre, the lexicographer, says : Moliere, who spelt it Tartuffe, borrowed the word from the Italian, 'Tartufo being used in Lippe's Mal- mantile in the sense of a man of evil mind.^ This reference to Malmantile leads to the inevitable discussion of the sources from which Moliere drew his play. Regnier's Macette, an Italian comedy called TX^ Hypocrite {L'Ipocrito) by Pietro Aretino, a farce called The Hypocritical Doctor (II Dot tor bacchettone) attributed to Bonvicino Gioannelli, another called The Basilisk of Bernagasso {II Basilisco del Bernagasso) and The Novel of the Hypocrites {La Nouvelle des Hypocrites) by Scar- ron are various anterior satires of hypocrisy in which scholars have discovered some likeness to The Hypocrite. Boccaccio, too, has been haled into court ; yet Moliere's comedy is convincing evidence that in literature it is not a crime to steal. The crime lies in not bettering the stolen goods, — an offence which can never be laid at our poet's door. In the words of Lessing : " The public has no interest in learning where Moliere finds his subjects to divert it. * If it be by theft,' the public assures itself, * we humbly and politely pray the other poets to be so kind as to steal in the same way.' " After the first three acts were played at Versailles on • Lippe's Malmantile VI i.% not printed until 1676, but is stated to have been circulated in manuscript in France previous to that date. M. H. Monin in the Moltiriste, July, 1 866, urges that tartuffe is derived from cartufie, — a word used in the South of France to signify " potato " — German, kartoffel . THE POET MILITANT 219 May twelfth, 1664, The Hypocrite was attacked so strenu- ously on the ground of impiety that the King forbade its public representation, although permitting the author to read and even perform it in society. The Court Gazette announced that " His Majesty, fully enlightened in everything, considered it absolutely injurious to reli- gion, and capable of producing the most dangerous con- sequences," yet the official description of " The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle " conveys the impression that the King's proscription was inspired solely by state polity. The impression that the King's proscription was polit- ically inspired is further substantiated by the permission he gave Moliere to read his play before Chigi, the papal legate, at Fontainebleau during the summer of 1664. This prelate, officially engaged in the distribution of indulgences, apparently granted one to Moliere's play, since in the first of three petitions to the King for per- mission to play 'The Hypocrite in public, the poet speaks of having won the approbation of Monsieur le Legat. Almost simultaneously with this reading before the emissary of the Holy See, Pierre Roulle, a doctor of the Sorbonne and priest of the parish of St. Bartholomew, announced in print that — A man, or rather a demon clothed in the flesh yet dressed as a man, and the most notorious and ungodly libertine the world has ever known, has been so impious as to send forth from his diabolical mind a play now ready to be given to the public by being played at his theatre, which scofi^s at the entire church, and derides the most sacred character, the most divine function, and all that is holiest in the church.^ ^ Le Roi glorieux au monde ou Louis XIV le plus glorieux de tous les rots du monde. 220 moli£re Furthermore, this outraged churchman assures us that the King, besides proscribing The Hypocrite, had ordered Moliere, " under pain of death, to tear, stifle, and burn all of it that he had written." Roulle's sentiments were apparently father to his state- ments; since, far from executing this sentence, the King permitted three acts of Moliere's comedy to be played at Villers-Cotterets in September before the Due d'Orleans and members of the royal family; while in November the entire play was performed for the great Conde at Raincy.^ From the first the victor of Rocroy had been a par- tisan of Moliere's comedy. In the preface to its first edition the author himself tells us that the King, having asked Conde why a comedy called Scaramouche a Hermit {Scaramouche ermite) failed to irritate the people who were so greatly scandalised by The Hypocrite, the soldier replied that : " Scaramouche laughs at Heaven and religion, about which these gentlemen care nothing ; while Moliere's comedy laughs at themselves, — a thing they cannot tolerate." Conde's epigram sounds the key-note of the persecu- tion to which Moliere was subjected. The hypocrites could ill afford to be laughed at ; therefore, to shield ^ The 1682 edition of Moliere's worics states that The Hypocrite, " perfect, entire, and finished in five acts," was performed at this time ; and La Grange in his Registre says : " Le Tartuffe, in five acts, was played there [Raincy]." On the other hand, M. Louis Moland {Vie de J.-B. P. Moliere) quotes a contemporary letter signed by Henry Jules de Bourbon, indicating that the last two acts were still unfinished ; M. Moland, however, as well as M. Mesnard, is of the opinion that the five acts were performed at Raincy. THE POET MILITANT 221 themselves, they attacked this play on the ground of impiety. Louis, on the other hand, though relishing Moliere's satire, found it politic not to add fuel to a religious conflagration already raging; so The Hypocrite was prohibited, — a most kingly policy, since Napoleon, certainly a less religious monarch than Louis, has been quoted as saying that, had the play been written in his day, he would not have permitted its representation.^ Moliere had already fought a skirmish with the hypo- crites over The School for Wives ; yet, undaunted by this baptism of fire, he marshalled his forces anew against these most despicable of human beings. To quote the words of his preface: All the hypocrites have armed themselves against my comedy with appalling fury ; yet they have taken care not to attack it on the side which wounds them ; for they are too politic for that, and know the world too well to lay bare their souls. Following their praiseworthy habit, they have cloaked their interests with the cause of Heaven; so The Hypocrite on their lips becomes a play which offends piety. This indicates clearly the lines on which the pharisees waged war. In the first petition Moliere presented to the King he outlines his own attitude thus : I believe that I can do nothing better than attack the vices of my time with ridiculous likenesses ; and as hypocrisy is, without doubt, one of the most common, the most disagreeable, and the most dangerous of these, I thought, Sire, that I was rendering a not unimportant service to the honest people of your kingdom. This is the challenge of a knight couched in the language of a courtier. Ever too politic to offend his * Memorial de Sainte-H'eline. 222 MOLIERE sovereign, Moliere flattered Louis in the denouement of The Hypocrite by calling him "the mortal enemy of fraud," * and in the three petitions in which he asked permission to present his comedy, addressed him in a tone of frankness, not to say familiarity, showing a con- viction that the King at heart approved of his satire on hypocrisy. There is space only to indicate the chief battles in die war Moliere fought for the right to present his play in public. It began when The Hypocrite was proscribed, and lasted until the poet emerged triumphant. Three years after his comedy was prohibited, Moliere suddenly placed it upon the boards of his theatre (August fifth, 1667), under the title of The Impostor {U Imposteur), with TartufFe's name changed to Panulphe, and his sombre garments of a director of conscience discarded for the brocades and plumes of a courtier. It was the summer season and the King was absent in Flanders ; yet Monsieur de Lamoignon, president of the board of police, promptly closed the theatre. Nothing daunted, Moliere despatched two of his comedians. La Thorilliere and La Grange, to the camp before Lille with a petition to his Majesty in which the poet assured Louis that " if the hypocrites should win, he would no longer dream of writing comedy." The King sustained the authorities in their action, but gave Moliere's emissaries oral assurance that eventually The Hypocrite would be played. Meantime the relig- ionists continued the war. Moliere's most bitter oppo- nent was Hardouin de Perefixe, archbishop of Paris, who, according to Brossette, " placed himself at the head of ' See page 212. THE POET MILITANT 223 the devotees." This prelate decided to render the police proscription doubly sure by forbidding the Christians of his diocese "to act he 'fartuffe — whatever the name of the said comedy might be — to read it, or hear it read, under pain of excommunication." This interdiction was posted on the door of every church in the diocese of Paris, and, as if this were not suiEcient anathema, a Jansenist pamphleteer named Adrien Baillet declared Moliere to be " one of the most dangerous enemies the century or the world had aroused against the church," while Bourdaloue, at least a worthy foe, pronounced The Hypocrite "one of those damnable inventions intended to humiliate worthy people and render them liable to suspicion." ' These attacks told upon Moliere's health. During the summer of 1667 he fell ill and his theatre was closed for seven weeks. Finally his indomitable persistence was rewarded. After Clement IX had restored the Jansenist bishops to papal favour, Moliere petitioned the King for the third time for permission to play his comedy, and Louis, finding a temporary calm upon the religious sea, restored The Hypocrite to the stage by the royal decree of February fifth, 1669. So great was the curiosity aroused in the public mind by this five years' controversy that the receipts of the theatre reached the phenomenal sum of two thousand eight hundred and sixty livres at the first performance ; the crowd about the doors of the Palais Royal becoming so immense that, in the words of a chronicler, " cloaks and sides were both torn," — a striking proof that the enmity of the church is the best advertisement a play can receive. * Sermon sur I'hypocrisie. 224 MOLIMRE the Hypocrite was not the sole missile discharged by Moliere against the ramparts of hypocrisy. Within a year after it had been interdicted he had placed upon the boards (February fifteenth, 1665) Don Juan; or. The Feast of Stone {Don Juan, ou le festin de pierre), a five- act comedy in prose founded upon a Spanish play by Tirso de Molina.^ The Spanish work told with impressive sombreness the legend of Don Juan Tenorio, a Sevillian rake dragged to everlasting torment by the statue of the man he had murdered after betraying his daughter. Mozart's opera has made this story too familiar to need repetition here. Indeed, it was equally well known when Moliere's play appeared; for two Frenchmen, Dorimond and Villiers by name, had each written a version in verse, while in Italy there were at least three Don Juans upon the contemporary stage.** Whether Moliere modelled his play after Tirso de Molina or after one of the Spaniard's foreign imitators, is a matter of slight consequence. He wrote it, so the story goes, at the urgent request of his comrades, and most likely the material he used was as international as the legend of Don Juan Tenorio's misdeeds, though the lightness of his touch, at least, is suggestive of the Italian Don Juans rather than Molina's more lugu- brious Sevillian, Moliere's rake is essentially Gallic; his other characters truly of the soil of France. In- deed, our interest in this comedy lies in its vigorous characterisation. * El burlaior de Sevilla y combidaio de piedra, " George Bernard Shaw's play, Man and Superman, is the most mod- em version of this ancient theme. THE POET MILITANT 225 Though less masterful than its predecessor as litera- ture, it bears equally the hall mark of dramatic genius. To quote M. Louis Moland : Don Juan tends more and more to fill a higher place in Moliere's works. True, it is not written with such incomparable art as The Misanthrope or The Hypocrite . . . yet Moliere's conception is presented with extra- ordinary boldness ; his genius has never shown itself at once so independent and vigorous. . . . This comedy is a world fully set in motion by the impetus of the main idea creating it and giving it life. All classes of society pass in turn before our eyes. The unity lies in the foundation, not in the design. The same breath ani- mates all its characters ; the same atmosphere surrounds them ; moreover, around them a sublime space prevails. It is quite in Shakespeare's mighty style.^ In this passage M, Moland touches the dominant note ; for of all Moliere's plays Don Juan is the most suggestive of Shakespeare. The pernicious unities of time and place, so long a fetich of French dramatists, are cast to the four winds ; for the scene shifts from sea- coast and forest to interior and tomb with a disregard of Aristotle worthy of the Bard of Avon, Still there is unity of action. Each incident, incongruous as it may at first appear, furthers the story of a rake's progress to perdi- tion. Atmosphere and action furnish the exposition. Complications, catastrophe, and denouement are subordi- nated to character painting ; yet there is more movement in Don Juan than in any of Moliere's comedies, — move- ment of scene, movement of incident, tempered by the author's marvellous gift of characterisation. As M. Moland truly says, " all classes of society pass before » Vie de J.-B. P. Molitre. 15 226 MOLIERE our eyes," — patricians, rakes, paupers, peasants, spadas- sins, flunkies, tradesmen, and even ghosts are projected upon the scene with the veracity of a vitascope. It is the psychology of society, rich in unerring touches, but society droning a chorus as in a Greek play ; for the characters, to whom all else is subordinated, are Don Juan and his servant, Sganarelle. Even the latter is de- signed as a foil to the impious rake, his master; since Sganarelle's cunning, superstition, and qualms of con- science form part of Moliere's dominant idea that " a great lord who is a wicked man is a terrible thing." A railer and a debauchee, riding rough-shod over man- kind with birthright for his steed — a rake, a seducer, a conscienceless murderer, without faith or respect, yet replete with personal charm ; a man with every vice, and but the single virtue — courage ; in short, this Don Juan is a grand seigneur of the old regime, ruthlessly asserting his seigneurial right while starving peasants beat the swamps throughout the night to keep the frogs from croaking. His creed that " two and two make four, and four and four make eight," is the essence of atheism. His admonition to his father to " die as soon as possible as the best thing he can do," is inspired by his egoistic theory that "every one must have his turn," — a doctrine that in the succeeding century found French expression in the apothegm " After me, the deluge." This libertine's ideas of love are in keeping with his egoism : Would you have a man bind himself for ever to the first object which has caught his fancy, renounce the world for her sake, and have eyes for no other woman ? A fine thing to pique one's self upon, the false honour of being faithful. . . . No, no, constancy is only fit for THE POET MILITANT 227 fools ... as for me, beauty delights me wherever I meet it . . . What matters it if I am pledged else- where ; the love I feel for one fair lady does not per- suade my heart to do injustice to others ; I have eyes to see the merit of each, and I pay to each the homage and tribute nature demands. . . . Budding desires, after all, have an indescribable charm, and the chief pleasure of love is in variety. . . . Yet when once I am master, there is nothing more to say, nothing more to wish ; all the joys of passion are over, and I am lulled to sleep by the tranquillity of such a love. ... In short, there is nothing so sweet as to triumph over the resistance of a pretty girl. Under such circumstances I am inspired by the ambition of a conqueror, flying perpetually from victory to victory, and unable to set bounds to his long- ing. Nothing can restrain the impetuosity of my de- sires; I feel I have a heart capable of loving all the world, and, like Alexander, I could sigh for other worlds wherein to extend my amorous conquests. This " greatest rascal the earth has ever held," as Sganarelle calls his master, "this madman, dog, devil, Turk, and heretic who believes in neither Heaven, Hell, nor werewolf," stalks brave as a paladin through danger with scorn upon his lip and a hand upon his rapier. " Nothing is capable of inspiring terror in me," he cries in the face of a spectre foreshadowing his doom. " With my sword I shall prove if it be body or ghost." " No, no ! " he tells Sganarelle, as the spirit vanishes ; " it shall never be said of me, no matter what happens, that I am capable of repenting. Come, follow me ! " Byron, a libertine himself, idealised Don Juan. Moliere paints this arch-seducer — symbol of the vices of the old nobility — in remorseless colours, yet pays full homage to patrician bravery. When the statue of the man he has wronged and murdered asks if he has courage 228 MOLIERE to sup with him, Don Juan accepts without a moment's hesitation ; when his sepulchral host demands his hand, he extends it boldly, though it means to clasp the hand of death. As the earth opens to engulf him, no cry of fear escapes his lips. What a portrait of the debonair noble of a century later, mounting the scaffold with a smile upon his vitiated face ! When hell's lightning flashes to extol his master's doom, servile, superstitious, tricky Sganarelle exclaims : Alas ! my wages, my wages ! Everyone is satisfied by his death : offended Heaven, violated laws, seduced maidens, dishonoured families, outraged parents, injured wives, husbands driven to despair — all are satisfied. I, alone, am miserable — my wages, my wages, my wages ! ^ When there were no more wages, the people, " driven to despair," whom Sganarelle here symbolises, arose to avenge those violated laws 1 Then the feast of stone became the feast of the guillotine. There is one false note in this picture of the old re- gime. Moliere's Don Juan becomes a hypocrite in his last hour, because, as he says, " hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtues." The poet should have left hypocrisy to TartufFe; it ill be- comes patrician Don Juan. A man who boldly acclaims himself incapable of repentance, who faces death with unflinching courage, is not a hypocrite. Aristocrats are ^ Rochemont, a contemporary, in his Observations sur une comidie de Moliere intitulee le Festin de Pierre, 1665, mentions Sganarelle's plaint about his lost wages as one of the impious passages of the play ; and so does a pamphlet written in response to Rochemont. After the first per- formance Moliere was obliged to alter this speech, although M. Louis Moland and M. Mesnard both point out that it occurred in Cicognini's Italian version and consequently was not original with Moliere. THE POET MILITANT 229 gamblers, rakes, libertines, debauchees, and atheists, if you like, but hypocrisy, thriving upon material gain, is essentially middle class. The hypocrites of France were the parasites of humble origin who used religion as a stepping-stone to power ; not the debauched nobles, like Don Juan, fearing neither man nor God. Don Juan, exclaiming that hypocrisy is a " privileged vice," that " a man who is no fool adapts himself to the vices of his age," is Moliere preaching ex cathedra to his enemies. This second attack upon hypocrisy reawakened the bitterness aroused by the first. Don Juan's atheism and impenitence were scandalous, Sganarelle's burlesque lamentations a shock to the community's moral sense, cried the religionists ; and means were soon found to cut short the life of this play. Only fifteen performances were given. At the second the scandalous lines were suppressed, and after the closing of his theatre for the Easter holidays, Moliere found it expedient to reopen with another play, although there had been no diminu- tion in the receipts of Don Juan sufficient to warrant its suppression. According to Voltaire, a five-act comedy in prose written without regard to the unities was too unheard of a novelty to please a Parisian audience ; but M. Mesnard is far nearer the truth in attributing Don Juan's short life to " a silent persecution." " It is clear," he says, " that during the Easter vacation the wisdom of taking his comedy from the boards was pointed out to Moliere." ^ In The Hypocrite the iniquities of the lords spiritual were exposed ; in Don Juan the depravity of the lords temporal was laid bare. Moliere could do no better " than attack the vices of his time with ridiculous like- * CEuvres de Moliere. 230 MOLIERE nesses," for only when his lance was poised against some evil did he rise to his full height. Had France profited by these lessons from his fearless pen, she might have been spared her Reign of Terror. Moliere, the poet militant, is indeed a noble figure, — a Bayard of litera- ture, sans peur et sans reprocbe. THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 231 XIII THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE In more ways than one the theatrical year beginning at Easter, 1664, was the most eventful in Moliere's career. In May, at the Versailles fetes, he reached the climax of mundane glory possible for an actor in an age so pre- scribed ; before the year had ended, both The Hypocrite and Don Juan had been written, while The Misanthrope, the greatest unit in this trilogy of unrivalled brilliance, was conceived, and work upon it begun. Not only did this year mark the culmination of Moliere's genius, but of his happiness as well, for the walls of his fool's paradise crumbled then; ere it had closed, he might well exclaim, like Alceste, his misan- thrope : " At court or in town I behold only objects that heat my bile." But before his domestic tragedy is unfolded, a few theatrical happenings must be chronicled, else they may be lost sight of entirely. In November (1664) La Grange replaced Moliere as orateur of the troupe, — a functionary with the attributes of the modern " press agent " ; yet, there being no daily papers, his effusions upon the merits of forthcoming productions were delivered orally from the stage at the close of each performance. The young actor thus pro- moted was of all Moliere's comedians the most praise- worthy. Playing lovers' parts to perfection, he added a personal note of decency to a profession really too disso- 232 MOLIERE lute, and, as a writer, not only chronicled the doings of the company, but was his chief's first editor as well. To quote M. Gustave Larroumet, " Moliere crowned the dramatic profession with the aureole of genius ; La Grange brought to it the soft tones of a fine talent and a fine character." ^ In November of this same theatrical year Gros Rene, long Moliere's companion in his " barn storming " days, and the husband of the imperious Italian beauty Mar- quise Therese de Gorla du Pare, departed this life ; and his comrades were so affected that they closed their the- atre at the time of his death, although it was Tuesday, a regular theatrical day. In March, 1664, Brecourt, a quarrelsome actor who will be remembered as the es- timable murderer of a Parsian cabman, left Moliere's forces to join those of the Hotel de Bourgogne, and was replaced by Hubert,^ a comedian of the Theatre du Marais ; but the theatrical event of most striking inter- est is that chronicled by La Thorilllere,* regarding vari- ous eleemosynary payments made during June and July, 1664, to a wounded porter or door-keeper. In those days of "radiant baldrics" and keen-pointed rapiers the porter of a theatre held a perilous post in- deed. It was his duty to collect the admission money, and he was likely to be spitted by the first impecunious ' La Com'edie de Moliere. ' See note, page 194. » Two registers kept by La Thorilliere, and somewhat similar in purpose to La Grange's famous work, are preserved in the archives of La Com'edie franfaise. They cover the period from April sixteenth, 1663, to January sixth, 1665, and chronicle the expense account of the troupe. The first of these registers was republished in 1 890 by G. Monval in his Molieresque collection. THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 233 swashbuckler to whom he refused admittance; hence the four gifts of from three to eleven livres each to a wounded porter, recorded by La Thorilliere. More- over, during July, 1664, a police guard was required at Moliere's theatre for nearly every performance. This may seem an anomaly in the law and order reign of Louis XIV; yet howsoever pacified the noble-born /ro«- deurs may have become, the populace was far from tran- quil, and street duels were of almost daily occurrence. The retainers of great nobles considered themselves above the law, and the theatre was a favourite haunt for plumed and begirdled rascallions of all degrees. The King's musketeers, life-guards, gendarmes^ and light horse were " dead heads," and the troopers of these favoured corps filled the parterre in such boisterous numbers, according to Grimarest, that Moliere obtained a revocation of this privilege from the sovereign ; where- upon the irate soldiery forced the theatre doors and " by dint of sword " sought to avenge the loss of their pre- rogatives. The porter fell, pierced by " a hundred thrusts," and his assailants were about to wreak ven- geance upon the actors themselves when Louis Bejart, made up as an octogenarian for the play in hand, begged them at least to " spare an old man of seventy-five who had but a few days to live." Bejart demonstrated his right to the sobriquet of L'Eguisi (the sharp), for his presence of mind turned the ire of these spadassins to laughter, whereupon Moliere, taking the stage, lectured them upon their behaviour until they sheepishly with- drew ; but so great had been the tumult that a veritable panic ensued among the members of the company. Hubert and his wife dug a hole in the wall of the Palais Royal ; and the husband, with manlike trepidity, forced 234 MOLIERE his way in first; but the exit being only big enough for his head and shoulders, he became wedged therein, and raved like a madman until the riot subsided and he was rescued from his precarious position. After this experience Moliere's actors were willing enough to renew the "dead head privileges" of the soldiery ; but the manager opposed any concession, and his adroitness in assuring the guards sent to protect the theatre that he had sought only to exclude a few scoun- drels who were masquerading as mtuketeers, seconded^ no doubt, by royal command, so mollified the wearers of the King's livery that further outbreak on their part was avoided. On another occasion a theatre porter named Germain was attacked by five retainers of a nobleman's house- hold, and rescued only after one of the offenders had been killed and another wounded by two pistol shots fired by an unknown hand. Once when Moliere was playing in La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas, he became a target for stones and " the stub of an old pipe," while at the end of the play a nobleman's page augmented the dis^ turbance by beating a young man in the audience on the head with a bludgeon. A king's counsellor, seated on the stage, sought to calm the rioters by calling upon them to remember that they were in the presence of one of their judges ; whereupon " a young man in a black velvet doublet with a sword at his side and a white plumed hat upon his head," raised his voice and cried disdainfully, " We defy our judges ! We have no judges ! " — a manifesto so popular that the counsellor was glad to escape with his life. At a performance of Psyche ^v en ?i few weeks before Moliere's death, some fifty or sixty rowdies stopped the play, and when La 1 he soldiers invadinif the theatre THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 235 Thorilliere, addressing the audience at the instigation of another king's counsellor, offered to return the dis- turbers their money or lower the curtain, they replied that they did not care a hang for their money, but only wished to be amused, upon which assurance the play proceeded.* Filling the triple role of author, manager, and come- dian amid such turbulent surroundings, Moliere presents, indeed, an heroic figure, especially when it is remembered that besides fighting hypocrites, quelling riots in his theatre, settling the squabbles of his players, and acting four times a week, he wrote an average of two comedies a year, in which he was called upon to provide satisfactory roles for four actresses with almost equally tenable claims to the centre of the stage, the most capricious of whom was his own wife. The evidence of The School for fTives, The Versailles Impromptu, and The Forced Marriage all tends to prove that Moliere's eyes were early opened to the shortcom- ings of Armande Bejart ; yet until the time of the fetes known as " The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle," this ill assorted couple dwelt together in apparent concord. At Versailles, however, Armande Bejart became the theatrical centre of a very theatric occasion. She rode upon Apollo's chariot as the Age of Gold, played Diana to Moliere's Pan, and as one of Alcina's nymphs floated about the Basin of Apollo on a wooden sea monster; while, to crown her triumphs, she appeared upon a ver- dant stage as the Princess of Elis. Her power to charm the beholder in this role can be no better told than in the words of Euryale, the enraptured prince of the play : * Documents iniditj sur J.-B. Poqueltn Moliere by Emile Campardon. 226 MOLIERE She is, in truth, adorable at all times; but at that moment more so than ever, and new charms redoubled the splendour of her beauty. Never was her face adorned with more lovely colours ; never were her eyes armed with swifter or more piercing arrows. The softness of her voice persisted in showing itself in the perfectly charming air which she deigned to sing ; and the marvel- lous tones she uttered pierced the very depth of my soul and held all my senses in a rapture from which they were unable to escape. She next showed a disposition alto- gether divine; her lovable feet on the enamel of the soft turf traced delightful steps, which carried me quite beyond myself and bound me by irresistible bonds to the grace- ful and accurate movements with which her whole body followed those harmonious motions. Armande Bejart had in her soul the passion and the instinct of the theatre. Sooner or later, she would have given a husband of Moliere's temperament real or imagi- native cause for jealousy. To the great majority of Moliere's biographers she is a grossly unfaithful wife, singularly ungrateful for the kindness and affection of the man whose great name she bore ; yet when the evi- dence against her is examined minutely, the only fact clearly established is that she and Moliere separated after a few years of married life. Whether this marital dis- agreement was caused by actual misconduct on her part during the Versailles fetes, or merely by the impru- dent flirtations in which she apparently indulged, is exceedingly difficult to determine. Indeed, the most tangible evidence against her is that of Moliere's own plays. If it be admitted that on many occasions the poet wrote subjectively, then his heroines become more or less faithful portraits of his wife as she appeared to him at THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 237 various moments of his life ; his heroes, not himself cer- tainly, but the embodiment of his overburdened heart. A critic whose own work has been purely technical or objective will be likely to scoff at the personal equation in Moliere's comedies ; but an imaginative writer knows how, consciously or unconsciously, both characters and opinions are tempered by an author's own experience in life. Moliere, a man of forty, married a giddy girl of twenty ; and thereafter the theme of a middle aged man's love for a young and frivolous woman recurs in his plays with such singular frequency that to deny subjectiveness to his work is to deny the man a heart capable of voicing its own misery. The reader has seen how Ariste's generous views of women, as expressed in The School for Husbands shortly before Moliere's own marriage, differed from those voiced in The School for Wives., a few months thereafter, by the pathetic, unrequited love of Arnolphe, a man who had learned — the artful tricks, the subtle plots Which women use to leave us in the lurch. And how they dupe us by their cleverness. It has been urged, probably by bachelors, that, when The School for Wives was written, Moliere had not been married sufficiently long to have discovered his wife's real character; yet many a man besides him has been disillusioned ere the honeymoon has waned. In The Forced Marriage., presented but a few months before Armande Bejart played so prominent a part at Versailles, Dorimene, the flighty young heroine, tells Sganarelle, her bourgeois fiance, that after marriage she means to give herself over to pleasure, and make up for the time she has lost. " As you are a well bred man," 238 MOLIERE she says, " and know the world, I think we shall get on together famously, and that you will not be one of those bothering husbands who expect their wives to live like bugbears. I confess that would not suit me. Solitude drives me mad. I like gambling, visiting, assemblies, entertainments, promenades, in fact, all kinds of pleasure ; and you should be overjoyed to have a wife with my tastes." Giving birth to her first child, Louis, for whom the King stood sponsor, only ten days before this play was produced, Armande Bejart was unable to speak these lines ; yet who will deny the aptness of their reference to herself? The reader will recall how faithfully Moliere painted her portrait in The Burgher, a Gentleman;^ while in George Dandin the heroine complains of the tyranny of husbands " who wish their wives to be dead to all amusements and to live only for them." Further- more, in The Misanthrope, — a comedy to be considered at length in the ensuing chapter, — the similarity between fact and fiction is even more striking. That Armande Bejart, instead of being actually vi- cious, was merely a vain and incorrigible flirt, is the view Grimarest takes of her character in the following paragraph : No sooner was she Mile, de Moliere than she be- lieved she ranked with a duchess ; and scarcely had she appeared upon the stage ere the idle courtier made her the topic of his tales. . . . Moliere imagined that the entire court and all the town had designs upon his wife, and she did not take the trouble to disabuse his mind of this idea. On the contrary, her scrupulous care in dress, designed, as he supposed, for every one but himself, and * See page 151. THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 239 a proceeding he did not care for, only increased his sus- picion and jealousy. He tried to point out the way she must behave if their domestic happiness was to be as- sured, but his teaching seemed to her too severe for a young person who, besides, had nothing with which to reproach herself; so she failed to profit thereby. Moliere suffered much from the heartlessness of his wife, but that he believed her guilty of transgressing the decalogue is still unproved. Had it not been for the anonymous author of The Famous Com'edienney it is prob- able, to quote Mr. H. Noel Williams, " that Armande's name would have gone down to posterity without any very serious stain upon it." ^ The first lover imputed to her is the Abbe de Richelieu, a grand-nephew of the noted cardinal, and a libertine with a marked partiality for actresses. To quote The Famous Comedienne : " He was very liberal, and, the young woman being fond of expenditure, the matter was quickly arranged between them. In order that her engagement to him might be manifested in the finest style, it was agreed that he should give her four pistoles a day, exclusive of clothes and entertainments. The abbe did not fail to send each morning, by a page, the pledge of their compact or to visit her every afternoon. * Queens of the French Stage. * The authorship of this scurrilous pamphlet has been attributed, suc- cessively, to Racine, La Fontaine, Chapelle, Blot, a balladist of the Fronde, and Rasimont, an actor, without any apparent rhyme or reason ; likewise to Mile, Guyot, a member of Armande Bejart's company after Moliere's death, and to Mile. Boudin, a provincial actress. M. Gustave Larroumet believes that because of the preponderating place it allots to women and the manner in which it speaks of men, the author was one of Armande's professional rivals. The present writer folly concurs in this opinion. 240 MO LI ERE Armande Bejart bore Moliere a son on January nine- teenth, 1664, and the Abbe de Richelieu left France in March of that same year to war against the Turks in Hungary, and died at Venice, on January ninth, 1665; so it is apparent that any intrigue between this church- man and Moliere's wife must have taken place before the lady's honeymoon was fully eclipsed. To conceive of the abbe's page knocking at the bridal chamber each morning with his master's pistoles requires too fanciful a flight of the imagination for the modern mind to com- pass ; yet our anonymous vilifier thus proceeds to detail another adventure quite as improbable : The abbe's affair lasted several months without dis- ruption ; but Moliere having written The Princess of EUs, in which La Moliere played the princess, she created such a sensation that her husband had cause to repent of having exhibited her in the region of gilded youth. Scarcely had she arrived at Chambord, where the King gave this entertainment, than she became infatuated with the Comte de Guiche, while the Comte de Lauzun fell madly in love with her. The latter spared no effort to please her, but La Moliere, having lost her head over her hero, would listen to no proposition, and contented herself with visiting Du Pare to weep over the indifference of the Comte de Guiche. The Comte de Lauzun, however, did not abandon hope of triumphing, experience having taught him that he was irresistible. Furthermore, he knew that the Comte de Guiche was one who set small store by woman's love, for which reason he doubted not his indifference would end in the repulse of La Moliere, and that his own star would then produce in her heart what it had produced in the hearts of all the women he had essayed to please. He was not deceived; for La Moliere, angered by the coldness of the Comte de Guiche, threw herself into the arms of the Comte de Lauzun as THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 241 if desirous of seeking protection against further suffer- ing at the hands of a man who failed to appreciate her. At the time of the Versailles fetes the Comte de Guiche was in exile at Warsaw; but he returned during the summer and was at Fontainebleau when Moliere's company played there in August. However, he was falling passionately in love with the Duchesse d'Orleans at the time, while the Comte de Lauzun, whose presence at the Versailles fetes, although unrecorded, is possible, presents a similar amorous alibi, for his affections were then engaged by the Princess of Monaco. Still, it would be easy to believe that the notoriously expansive hearts of both these gentlemen had beaten for a pretty ac- tress as well, were it not that the Abbe de Richelieu, then engaged in cutting the Turk's head (in reality, not a Tallemande), is made by the author of The Fa- mous Com'edienne to play the abhorrent role of a resentful sneak who, intercepting a tender letter written by Ar- mande to De Guiche, calls Moliere's attention to the fact that "the great care he took to please the public left him no time for examining the conduct of his own wife." When the abbe had furnished this meat for Moliere's jealousy to feed upon, a bitter matrimonial quarrel fol- lowed, according to this anonymous author. Shedding repentant tears, Armande confessed her love for De Guiche, but said nothing about Lauzun ; then, protest* ing that her guilt was only in intention, she obtained Moliere's forgiveness "merely to continue her intrigues with more eclat than ever." Tiring of unrequited sentiments, such as her love for De Guiche, she resolved to make profit of her charms, 16 242 MOLIERE the writer goes on to say ; but in due course of time Moliere learned anew of her misconduct and forthwith threatened to confine her in a convent. Armande wept and swooned, but instead of entreating pardon, as before, turned the tables upon her husband by charging him with undue intimacy with his former flame, Mile, de Brie. Conceiving henceforth "a terrible aversion" for her husband, she treated him with the greatest con- tempt, until matters reached such extremities that Mo- liere, "beginning to realise her wicked propensities," consented to the separation she demanded ; so, " without a parliamentary decree, they agreed to live together no longer." Finally the author of 'The Famous Comedienne stands upon tenable ground ; for although the three lovers are apparently chosen at hazard, the separation here re- counted undoubtedly took place. As for the part played by Mile, de Brie in bringing this to pass, this same scandalmonger asserts that she lived in Moliere's house. If this were the case, any one familiar with theatrical life will readily perceive that she must have proved a warring element ; yet the modern writers who assert the truth of the contention that " Mile, de Brie lived in the Moliere house and had not left it since the marriage," have drawn their information, to quote M. Mesnard, " from no source we are aware of besides The Famous Com'edienne" ^ It is difficult to follow with certainty the various changes of residence made by Moliere ; but the most likely theory is that at the time of his marriage he was living in his father's house, where he remained until he moved to the rue St. Thomas du Louvre to occupy * (Euvres de Moliere. THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 243 lodgings in a building owned by one Milet, marichal des camps et armies du Rot. The first record of his residence in the latter establishment is found in the burial per- mit for his first child, dated November eleventh, 1664, M. Milet likewise rented apartments to Madeleine, Gene- vieve, and Louis Bejart; so, again to quote M. Mes- nard, " it would not be surprising to find Mile, de Brie in the house in the rue St. Thomas du Louvre, since it was customary for the actors of the same troupe to lodge near each other." It was certainly an unwise move on Moliere's part to take his young wife to live with her brother and sisters ; and if Mile, de Brie and other theatrical ladies dwelt under the same roof, the domestic tranquillity he sought was impossible of attainment. Another disturbing element was introduced into his household by Moliere himself in the person of Michel Baron, a child comedian he rescued from a strolling com- pany. Both the mother and the father of this boy had acted at the Hotel de Bourgogne with considerable suc- cess ; and, being left an orphan at an early age, he was apprenticed by an aunt and uncle to a troupe of child actors managed by a woman named Raisin. Having squandered in the provinces the profits of her venture upon a gentleman attached to the Prince of Monaco's suite, this woman came to Paris in 1664 to recoup her fortunes, where, appealing to Moliere's charitable heart, she obtained the use of his theatre for three perform- ances. Young Baron's acting on this occasion made such an impression on the great man that he took the lad to his house to sleep, and had him sumptuously dressed in new clothes. Grimarest, whose materials for his biography were obtained from Baron himself, may here be allowed to speak ex cathedra : 244 MOLIERE Moliere asked the lad what he' most wished for at that moment. " To be with you for the rest of my days," Baron replied, " in order to show my sincere gratitude for all your kindness to me." " Very well," said Moliere, " the thing is done ; for the King has given me permis- sion to take you out of the troupe you are in." Mme. Raisin naturally objected to being forcibly de- prived of her star performer ; but there was no gainsay- ing the King's will, so young Baron was transferred to Moliere's care, henceforth to be treated as a son. The poet's interest in the lad was justified, for he became, in later years, the greatest actor of his day, as well as a successful dramatist ; but Moliere's fondness was not shared by his wife, nor did Baron's own conduct fully justify his benefactor's interest. It appears that Ar- mande hated the lad for his impertinence and precocity, and still more for the influence she believed he exercised over her husband. To display the talents of his protege at court, Moliere began the writing of M'elkerte, a. play he was pleased to term ^n Heroic Pastoral. This comedy was intended for production at a fete known as " The Ballet of the Muses," held at St. Germain in December, 1666. Baron was cast for the title role ; but one day, at re- hearsal, Armande Bejart's resentment and jealousy rose to such a point that she dealt the lad a sound box on the ear. So indignant was he that he took himself off forth- with to join his former manageress, leaving Moliere with an unfinished play and no one for the leading part. As Baron was then a handsome lad in his teens, " already in great request among the ladies of the theatre and also among certain ladies of the fashionable world," Armande's resentment was possibly caused by his indif- THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 245 ference to her. Moliere should have been thankful to be rid of the young scamp ; but such was not the case, since Baron returned to the Palais Royal several years later, at its manager's earnest solicitation. Although the date of Moliere's rupture with his wife is uncertain, manifestly it took place shortly after the Baron episode, since early in the following year (1667) the poet became so ill from overwork and domestic worry that he lived upon a milk diet for two months, and re- tired to an apartment in a large country house at Auteuil which he had rented from one Jacques de Grou. There he dwelt until he became reconciled to his wife, some four years later.* The milk diet suggests alimentary ills and a dis- ordered nervous system. Indeed, there is considerable reason for believing that although Moliere died of a lung trouble, he was long a sufferer from neurasthenia, a malady so often the result of excessive mental work. His irritability, moroseness, excessive tenderness, violent jealousy, and the strong introspective tendency displayed in his plays, all suggest that complaint ; and indeed there are few brain workers who have not, at some time and in some degree, suffered the torments of that intangible disease. Some have maintained that Moliere's disposition was the cause of his wife's misconduct, — a criticism not with- out reason ; for once a husband has " got on a wife's nerves," to use a colloquial expression, the latter, if she be at all flighty by nature, will be likely to seek diver- sion everywhere save at home. In this connection M. Mesnard's remarks seem most pertinent : * Les Points obscurs de la vie de Moliere by Jules Loiseleur. 246 MOLIERE It has been said that Moliere's restless character and jealous transports irritated his wife's nature to such a degree that she sought vengeance for this tiresome want of confidence in flirtatious bravado. This apology for Mme. Moliere is at best excessive, since to strike an even balance for this couple appears to us an injustice. However, we shall oppose no difficulty in the way of recognising the discord of their characters, or certain of Moliere's traits likely to appal a frivolous young wife. Doubtless the great man appeared to her too much of a philosopher and dreamer, often too melancholy, and, when borne down by the weight of his incessant work, more harassed than she would have wished for her pleas- ure and comfort; while he felt the need of a tranquil home and a tenderness equal to his own. The inborn jealousy which in his stage life passed for mere oddity made him appear to this Bejart an importunate, trouble- some husband. She might well exclaim, like Celimene in The Misanthrope : " There are a hundred moments when I find him the greatest bore in the world." Still was he not easily enraged, and had he not offensive man- ners and impatient impulses ? One might perhaps cite, in proof of this, the anecdote told by Grimarest about his anger against a valet who twice put on one of his stockings wrong side out, but this proof is very meagre. One moment of passion does not convey the right to regard as unmerited Moliere's reputation for much gen- tleness and unrestrained kindness toward those who served him.^ In his contention that Moliere's faults were not in- supportable, M. Mesnard submits the evidence of Mile. Poisson, daughter of the poet's old comrade, Du Croisy, to the effect that he was " kind, obliging, and generous." Now, it is often the case that persons the most irritable at home show, in the presence of strangers, the very ^ Notice biograpbique sur Moliere. THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 247 qualities Mile. Poisson cites. If the so-called artistic temperament be analysed, it will be found to be little else than a nervous disease ; for the very transports an artist experiences when in the throes of creation are off- set by restless fits of depression at his inability to inter- pret his conceptions satisfactorily, or intense outbursts of passion toward unappreciating critics, all of which bespeaks an unequable nature and disordered nerves. Tranquillity of mind is a characteristic of mediocre people, but not of great artists such as Moliere. Re- member, he was twenty years his wife's senior, and, de- spite his brilliance, generosity, and kindness, it is easy to imagine he was not easy to relish as a daily conjugal diet. Such a psychological view of this couple's incom- patibility makes Moliere's wretchedness of heart no less intense, nor his wife less culpable for her failure to love, honour, and obey a man so manifestly her superior in both ability and moral worth. It merely makes clear the impossibility of such an ill mated pair ever living together in peace and comfort. Physiognomy, too, may be cited as evidence of this couple's incongruity. For instance, Loret calls Ar- mande Bejart " the actress with the pretty face "; while Robinet, another rhymester of the period, says " noth- ing could be so beautiful or dainty as she." Her lord and master, however, judging by the following word portrait painted by Du Croisy's daughter,^ could scarcely be dubbed a handsome man : Moliere was neither too fat nor too thin. He was tall rather than short, his bearing was noble, his leg well turned. He walked sedately, his manner was serious, his nose important, his mouth large, his lips thick, his ^ See note, page 81. 248 MOLIERE complexion dark, his eyebrows black and bushy, while the various twitches he gave them made his expression extremely comical. * After the rupture with his wife, Moliere, to quote Grimarest," " did his utmost to confine himself to his works and to his friends without grieving over his wife's conduct." In his retreat at Auteuil " he lived as a true philosopher," where, " engaged in pleasing his Prince with his works and in acquiring an honest reputation, he bothered little about the caprices of his wife, whom he allowed to live according to her fancy, although he re- tained for her a veritable affection." This tenderness is further attested by Moliere's first biographer in an account of a conversation between the poet and his friend Jacques Rohault, a noted Cartesian philosopher. " Yes, my dear Rohault," Moliere is quoted as saying, " I am the most wretched of men, yet I deserve my fate. Not seeing I was too austere for a ^ During the summer and autumn of 1905 a prolonged discusaon oc- curred in the French press regarding the moustache made so familiar by the existing portraits of Moliere. In one of these he is presented with a smooth face ; yet it seems most likely that he wore a slight moustache, which on the stage was extended by means of charcoal in accordance with the fashion set by Scaramouche. This is the opinion expressed by M. Georges Monval, the venerable archivist of the Comedie Franjaise and for ten years editor of the Molieriste ; yet a writer in the Westmin- ster Gazette may be quoted, in this connection, with a certdn amount of pertinency. "The amusing part of this controversy," he says, "is that none of those who engaged in it seem to have hit upon the idea that Moliere, like minor mortals, might have worn a moustache at one period of his life and lived without it at another." ^ For events occurring after the advent of Baron as a factor in Moliere's life, Grimarest, who learned his facts from this actor's lips, seems, to the present writer, a far more trustworthy authority than for happenings pre- vious to the time when Baron joined the forces of the Palais Royal. THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 249 domestic life, I felt my wife should subject her behaviour to her virtue and my wishes ; yet, had she done so, I fully realise that she would have been far more miserable than I. She is sprightly and witty, and keen for the pleasure of making herself appreciated ; yet, in spite of myself, this makes me gloomy." Again, in the same imaginary conversation, Moliere is made to say that " a hundred times more reasonable than he, his wife wants to enjoy life ; so, confident in her innocence, she goes her own way, disdaining to subject herself to the pre- cautions I demand." Surely this does not savour of a belief in her misbehaviour ! Moreover, Moliere, still speaking with Grimarest as his mouthpiece, exclaims that his wife, above suspicion on the part of any one less disturbed than he, " unmercifully leaves him to suf- fer " and " laughs at his weakness." Whether innocent or not of actual misconduct, Ar- mande Bejart's frivolity was ill contrived to bring peace and happiness to the heart of such a man as Moliere. To quote Shakespeare's immortal tragedy of jealousy, " But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er Who dotes, yet doubtsj suspects, yet strongly loves ! " In The Famous Comedienne there is an oft quoted scene, which, while raising that contemptible screed to the dignity of literature, paints the " damned minutes " Moliere underwent so vividly that one is loath to be- lieve it the work of a traducer. Here, in another imagi- nary conversation, Moliere again unburdens his heart. The friend on this occasion is Chapelle, the epicurean comrade of his youth ; and so touching are the poet's words, so replete with true sentiment and feeling, that some have believed them to be taken from an actual letter written to his friend by the poet himself. 250 MOLlfiRE The scene is Moliere's garden at Auteuil ; the topic, his unhappiness ; for Chapelle, seeing his friend is more disturbed than is his wont, rallies him upon his weak- ness, and maintains that nothing is more ridiculous than to love any one who will not respond to his affection. " ' For my part,' says he, ' if I were unfortunate enough to find myself in like state, and be convinced that the person I loved granted favours to others, I should feel a contempt for her such as would certainly cure me of my passion. Moreover, a reparation is open to you which would be denied if she were only your mistress. The vengeance which commonly takes the place of love in an outraged heart can compensate you for all the vexations your wife causes you, since you can at once shut her up in a convent, — a method sure to set your mind at rest.' " Moliere, who had listened quietly to his friend, here interrupted him to inquire whether he had ever been in love. " ' Yes,' replied Chapelle, ' as much as a man of good sense ought to be, but I should never make mountains out of anything that my honour counselled me to do, and I blush to find you so undecided.' " ' I see clearly,' rejoined Moliere, ' that you have never really loved. You take love's semblance for love itself. Although I might give you infinite examples to demonstrate the power of that passion, I shall merely give you a faithful account of my own troubles, so that you may understand how little we are masters of our^ selves when once love's dominion is assured. As for the consummate knowledge of the human heart you say the portraits I am constantly presenting to the public prove me to possess, I acknowledge that I have en- THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 251 deavoured to understand its weaknesses ; but if science teaches me that danger should be avoided, experience convinces me only too thoroughly that escape is impos- sible. I judge this daily from myself. My disposition is by nature extremely affectionate, and all my efforts have never enabled me to overcome an inclination toward love ; hence I sought to make myself happy, — that is to say, as happy as a man with a sensitive heart may be, — and, convinced that few women are deserving of sincere affection, that interest, ambition, and vanity are at the root of all their intrigues, I endeavoured to insure my happiness by the innocence of my choice. I took my wife, so to speak, from the cradle, and educated her with the care which has given rise to rumours which have doubtless reached your ears. I persuaded myself that I could inspire her with the habit of sentiments time alone could destroy, so I neglected nothing to attain this end. As she was still young when I married her, I perceived none of her evil propensities, and deemed myself a little less unfortunate than the majority of those who contract similar engagements. Neither did my eagerness dimin- ish after marriage ; yet I found so much indifference in her that I began to perceive all my precautions had been useless, and that the feelings she had for me were far in- deed from those my happiness demanded. Reproaching myself with a sensitiveness which seemed ridiculous in a husband, I ascribed to her disposition that which was really due to her want of affection for me ; yet I had but too many opportunities of perceiving my error, for the mad passion she contracted soon afterward for the Comte de Guiche occasioned too much commotion to leave me even this appearance of tranquillity. So soon as I knew the truth, finding it impossible to change her, I spared 252 MOLIERE no endeavour to conquer myself. Employing all the strength of mind I could command, I summoned to my aid everything that might console me. Deeming her a person whose sole merit had lain in her innocence, and whose infidelity robbed her of all charm, I resolved henceforth to live with her as an honourable man whose wife is a coquette, and who is well persuaded that, whatever may be said, his reputation is not affected by the misconduct of his spouse. But I had the mortifica- tion to discover that a woman without great beauty, who owed what little intelligence she possessed to the educa- tion I had given her could in one instant destroy all my philosophy. Her presence made me forget all my resolutions ; the first words she said in her defence left me so convinced that my suspicions were ill founded that I asked her pardon for having been so credulous. "'However, my kindness wrought no change in her, and in the end I determined to live with her as if she were not my wife ; but if you knew what I suiFer, you would pity me. My passion has reached such a point as to cause me to sympathise with her ; and when I realise how impossible it is for me to conquer my feelings for her, I then tell myself that she has, perhaps, a like difficulty in overcoming her love of coquetry ; so I find myself more disposed to pity than to blame. " • No doubt you will tell me one must be a poet to love thus ; yet, for my part, I hold that there is only one kind of love, and that those who have not experienced such tenderness have never truly loved. In my heart, all things of this world are associated with her ; and so en- tirely are my thoughts given over to her that when she is away nothing gives me pleasure. When I behold her, transports of emotion which can be felt but not described, THEATRICAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE 253 deprive me of all power of reason, and no longer having eyes for her faults, I see only her lovable qualities. Is not this the last extremity of folly, and do you not marvel that all my reason serves only to make me aware of my weakness without giving me the strength to master it?'" As a touching contribution to the literature of the human heart, this scene is worthy of a laurel crown ; yet its author was the most vile and cowardly of all Moliere's traducers. The facts regarding the three lovers attrib- uted to Armande Bejart are manifestly wrong ; therefore undue credence should not be given to the charges of infidelity brought against either Moliere or his wife. True, the morality of theatrical people in an age of li- cense is not an easy cause to defend ; yet in judging Moliere it should be borne in mind that he lay particu- larly open to the attacks of jealous rivals. In his plays he evinces far more delicacy in situation and choice of language than Shakespeare in his ; while for the most part their tone is so moral, their point of view so commendable, that to accept the unrefuted charges of a cowardly slanderer regarding the author's character is to impute to him both hypocrisy and baseness, — a thing scarcely believable in the author of The Hypocrite and T!he Misanthrope. Indeed, when judged by his com- edies, Moliere stands forth a valiant defender of virtue in a dissolute reign, a sane philosopher in an age of cant. Anchorites do not dwell in theatres, it is true, yet there is not a particle of documentary evidence extant to prove that his relations with Mile, de Brie were more than those of an old and sympathetic companion, or that Armande Bejart was other than a vain, heartless, flighty coquette such as her husband painted in Celimene, the heroine of The Misanthrope, the play now to be considered. 254 MOLIERE XIV THE MISANTHROPE In the midst of his domestic troubles Moliere wrote Love as a Doctor {U Amour midecin), — a piece of buoy- ant mirth, contrasting strangely with the heaviness of his heart. In this comedy Sganarelle, no longer Don Juan's cringing servant, reappears in his more familiar guise of a well fed and well-to-do bourgeois, vain, narrow minded, superstitious, yet honest withal ; in other words, an epitome of the law and order backbone of the French body politic. This three-act farce in prose is a pleasing trifle, "far better comedy," as Voltaire truly says, "than The Forced Marriage" though, like it, written to divert the young monarch. To quote Moliere's preface : " It is but a simple pencil sketch, a little impromptu, which the King wished to amuse him, — the most precipitate, however, of all his Majesty has commanded of me ; for when I say it was suggested, written, learned, and produced within five days, I shall tell only the truth." With ballet interludes danced to Lully's measures. Love as a Doctor was first performed at Versailles, probably on September fourteenth, 1665.^ Possibly the King took part himself as one of the Joys, Laughters, or Pleasures. ^ La Grange and Vinot in the edition of 1682 give September fifteenth as the date of production. MM. Monval and Mesnard both incline to September fourteenth as the probable date. The latter (JEuvres de Mo- liere) discusses this point at length. THE MISANTHROPE 255 The plot is simple yet diverting. Sganarelle's daughter falling ill, five physicians called in consultation fail to diagnose her mysterious malady as love ; whereupon Clitandre, her lover, disguised in medical robes, pre- scribes matrimony, and induces Sganarelle to sign the contract by telling him that his daughter is temporarily demented, and that the document is but a prescription to humour her. A play written and produced in five days should be judged as dramaturgy rather than as literature ; for, as Moliere himself says, " comedies are written only to be played." From this point of view Love as a Doctor is certainly praiseworthy, for it moves consistently and rapidly to an amusing climax, and is replete in clever characterisation ; still, its chief interest lies not in its smart intrigue, nor in the likelihood that certain scenes were inspired by Tirso de Molina and Cyrano de Berge- rac. Above all else, it is distinguished as being Moliere's declaration of war against medical empiricism, — a con- test which will form the topic of the ensuing chapter. Although its mirth was sprightly and gay, Sganarelle's opening speech touches the note of melancholy which found symphonic expression in The Misanthrope : Ah, what a strange thing life is ! and well may I say with a great philosopher of antiquity that he who has land has war ; for misfortunes never come singly ! I had but one wife and she is dead. When next Moliere's pen touched paper, he painted the portrait of a wife who was dead to him, and sang the misery of his own soul in a way so masterful that The Misanthrope stands unrivalled as the greatest of French comedies ; for even The Hypocrite, superior from a purely 256 MOLIERE theatric point of view, must give place to its marvellous character analysis, its profound philosophy of life. To tell the anguish of a wounded soul betrayed by heart- lessness and falsehood into that most fatal of passions, the hatred of mankind, language has no stronger term than the one Moliere chose to typify his greatest comedy. The very word " misanthrope " conjures to the mind a dismal picture of outraged sentiment and embittered confidence. In Moliere's hero a loss of faith in mankind as a whole has followed a loss of faith in the woman he adores ; for Alceste's misanthropy is, after all, only a splenetic fancy that all men are deceitful because his mistress is so, — a lover's misogyny, in other words, if this be not a contradiction of terms. Celimene, the unworthy object of Alceste's affections, is, perhaps, the most perfect picture of feminine coquetry in the realm of literature. Vain, flighty, intoxicated by love of admiration and tainted by the scented air of drawing-rooms, she is best described by the modern word " flirt," — a term aptly derived from a Bavarian expression meaning " to flutter." Her character can be no better painted than in the words of Gustave Larroumet:^ Celimene is twenty years of age, and her experience is that of a woman of forty. Coquettish and feline with Alceste, frivolous and backbiting with the little mar- quesses, cruelly ironical with Arsinoe, in each act, in each scene, she shows herself under a different aspect. A contemporary, or one nearly so, of Mesdames de Chatillon, de Luynes, de Monaco, de Soubise, and the nieces of Mazarin, she ought to awaken, as a vague memory, these great names ; she is the exquisite and rare * La Comedie de Moliere. THE MISANTHROPE 257 product of an aristocratic civilisation in the full splen- dour of its development, and often she speaks a lan- guage of almost plebeian candour and freshness. Besides the hero and this frivolous young heroine, the chief characters in the play are Alceste's friend, Philinte, a social opportunist ; Eliante, a sensible emblem of womanly worth ; Arsinoe, a mischief-making prude, who in English would be denominated Mrs. Grundy ; Oronte, a dilettante poet, and Acaste and Clitandre, two court dandies of emasculated wit, about whom the reader might well exclaim, as did the character in 'the Versailles Impromptu^ " What, marquesses again ! " The play is in the conventional five acts, the scene being Celimene's drawing-room. The first is devoted entirely to the elucidation of Alceste's character, and the develop- ment of the single dramatic fact that he is in love with Celimene, the absolute opposite of his lofty ideals. An Alexandre Dumas fils or a Sardou would " blue pencil " this to about six speeches ; yet Henri Becque, from whom the best French dramatists of to-day, such as Paul Hervieu and Maurice Donnay, receive their inspiration, derived his technic from profound studies of Moliere's character comedy. Complications, catastrophe, and denouement should be subordinate to atmosphere and character drawing ; the analysis of events must give place to the analysis of persons, these modern Frenchmen maintain — likewise Ibsen, Strindberg, Hauptmann, Sudermann, and Eche- garay. These are not new principles, however ; Moliere taught them three centuries ago. Indeed, the closer a writer of plays studies the great Frenchman, the less likely is he to fall into the purely theatric rut of situa- 17 258 MOLIERE tion, as distinguished from the loftier dramatic ideals of atmosphere and characterisation. " Leave me, I tell you, and get out of my sight ! " Moliere's hater of mankind exclaims in the discursive opening scene with his rational friend Philinte, His anger is righteous indignation toward a man who, he says, "ought to die from very shame for almost stifling with caresses, protestations, and vows of friendship one whose name he can scarcely remember." Philinte's defence is that " when a man embraces you warmly, you must repay him in his own coin," — a worldly doctrine that calls forth the following outburst from the enraged Alceste : Nay, I cannot suffer such coward ways As nearly all your worldly men affect ; Nor hate I aught so much as the contortions Which great asseverators use — those fer Too cordial givers of unmeaning love. Too courteous utterers of empty words. Who in smooth manners vie, treating true worth And any fopling with an equal grace. To what good end if, swearing admiration. Tenderness and trust, friendship, zeal, and faith, A man shall laud you to the skies, then rush Into the arms of any common wretch He meets by chance, to do as much ? No, no ! A heart endowed with self-respect can ne'er Endure such prostituted reverence ; The vainest, even, finds but little cheer In mere confusion with the universe. Esteem on some true preference is based ; Thus in esteeming all, no man 's esteemed. Since to the vices of the day you 're pledged. You are, in Heaven's name, not of my clan. An indiscriminating heart's regard I scorn — myself must needs be prized ; in brief. The friend of all maniind 's no man. for me^ THE MISANTHROPE 259 Thus Alceste is painted in a few bitter strokes, — a blunt despiser of untruth seeking to rectify the vices of the world by the force of his own word and example : the type of man who in England writes to the times, and in America presides at reform meetings ; a man at once too virtuous to accept the laisser faire tenets of his practical friend Philinte, and too self-sufficient to forgive mankind for its failure to accept his honest views. "The world will not alter for all your meddling," Philinte tells this reformer ; " all these invectives against the manners of the age make you a laughing stock ! " " So much the better," Alceste replies ; " all men are so odious to me that I should be sorry to appear rational in their eyes." " Shall all poor mortals, without exception, be included in this aversion ? " Philinte asks. Alceste's answer sets forth his misanthropy : No, my distaste is catholic ; I hate All men : malevolence and wickedness In some ; the rest for paltering with these. Lacking the lusty hate vice should inspire In every upright heart, . . . Upon my faith. It wounds me mortally to see how vice Is spared ; unto a silent desert, far From man's approach, I 'm tempted oft to flee. In an untranslated portion of this speech the personal equation of Alceste's hatred for society is made appar- ent. " You see how unjustly and excessively complacent people are to that barefaced scoundrel with whom I am at law," he exclaims. In other words, having been out- witted by "a low bred fellow who deserves to be pilloried," Alceste has a personal grievance against the world. After all, is not all hate of a human creature for his kind just such embittered egotism as this ? a6o MOLIERE Alceste's even tempered friend, tactful man of the world that he is, answers his splenetic outcry in the following sane manner: About the manners of the time, egad. Let 's bother less, and more compassion show To human nature, judging it with less Asperity, viewing with charity Its faults ; for in society we need A pliant virtue, being often blamed For knowledge &t too great. Sane minds forsake Extremes for wisdom and sobriety. The rigid virtues of the ancient times Too far offend the manners of our day. Demand an excellence too great for man. Seeking to rectify the faults of this Poor world is second to no other folly ; Hence graciously to custom we should bow. Instead of profiting by this worldly wisdom, Alceste, harking back to his lawsuit, asserts that he will see whether " men have sufficient impudence, and are wicked, villainous, and perverse enough, to do him injustice in the face of the whole world " ; whereupon Philinte, at- tacking him suddenly in his most vulnerable part, thus forces from his lips the true secret of his misanthropy : Philinte Think you this virtue you demand of all. This worth wherein you hide yourself, prevails In her you love ? At war with all mankind, I am astonished that you find in spite Of all that makes man odious, the charms To soothe your eyes ; and I confess the choice Your heart has made astounds me more. Eliante The true admires, Arsinoe the prude With tenderness regards you ; yet your heart Is cold to both ; the meanwhile Celimene, THE MISANTHROPE 261 Whose coquetry and humour mischievous Accord so well with our more modem ways. In durance holds you with bewitching chains. Hating these things so mortally, how brook You them in one so fair; in one so sweet. Are they no longer faults ? Do you condone. Or does it mean that you are blind to them ? Alceste Nay, my regard for this young widow leaves My eyes still open to her faults. For all The love she has aroused, I am the first To see and to condemn ; yet spite of that. My weakness I confess ; for do whate'er I may, she has the art of pleasing me. ] In vain I see her faults, vainly I blame ; For notwithstanding all, she makes me love. Great is her charm, — my love will purge her soul Of all the passing vices of the time. This frank confession goes far toward clearing Alceste from the charge of being a prig. His misanthropy is but the gall of a noble nature betrayed by a woman's heartlessness into magnifying its own woes until they become those of humanity. He is a great hearted, gen- erous soul who loves the domestic virtues, — and falls in love with a coquette. Had she been a housewife, philan- thropy, not misanthropy, would have been his passion. When he rails against the insincerity of the world, it is a woman's insincerity he means ; thus, when Philinte tells him that Celimene's " steadfast and sincere " cousin Eliante would make him a far better wife than his chosen mistress, he exclaims in all asperity : 'T is true my reason tells me so each day ; Yet reason 's not the power to govern love. This deeply human passion for an incorrigible flirt saves Alceste from being a wretched Timon. His brav- 262 MOLIERE ery, too, commands respect. To tell the world it is base demands a certain hardihood ; but to tell a poet his verses are bad requires genuine courage. This latter comes to pass when the conversation be- tween the misanthrope and his tranquil friend is inter- rupted by Oronte, a fashionable poetaster with a sonnet he wishes to read to Alceste for the purpose of hearing if it is good enough for publication. " I have the fault of being a little too sincere," he is warned. " That is pre- cisely what I wish ! " cries the versifier ; yet, being a poet, praise, not sincerity, is, of course, his expectation, — a de- sire made apparent in his assertion that he spent only a quarter of an hour in composing his verses. His sonnet might have been written by any of the Hotel de Ram- bouillet poets, and so cleverly did its sighs to Phyllis imi- tate the precious poetry of the day that Moliere's first auditors thought it decidedly good, and were astonished when Alceste, urged by Oronte to tell the truth, replied in all sincerity : " Candidly, you had better put it in your closet. You have been following bad models, and your phrasing is not at all natural. . . . This figurative style that present writers are so vain of, is beside all good taste and truth. 'T is a mere trick of words, a sheer afifectation ; for it is not thus that nature speaks. The wretched taste of the age is what I dislike in this. Our forefathers, unpolished as they were, had far better judgment. Indeed, I value all we admire nowadays much less than an old song I shall repeat to you : • If the King had pven me Paris his great town. Then demand that I agree On my love to frown — THE MISANTHROPE 263 Thus King Henry I should pray ; " Keep Paris as of yore ; I love my darling more," I 'd say, " I love my darling more." ' " This versification is not rich," Alceste goes on to say, " and the style is antiquated ; but do you not see it is far better than all that affectation at which good sense revolts, and that its passion speaks simply ? " Oronte, indignant at receiving the plain truth he had invited, sneers at the judgment of his blunt critic, and demands that he write verses on the same subject as a sample of his style. Alas, I might write poetry as bad. But I should never show it to the world, Alceste replies, — a piece of candour which drives Oronte in peevish fury from the house. In the second act artful Celimene pettishly receives Alceste's remonstrances against her coquetry, and when, reproaching her for permitting so many suitors to be- siege her, he threatens to break from her thrall entirely, she craftily defends herself in the following ingenuous way: For having suitors am I culpable ? Can I keep men from finding me engaging ? And if to see me they take gentle means, A bludgeon must I use to drive them hence ? Alceste's retort shows clearly that he reads the heart he cannot sway : You need, Madame, a less susceptive heart More than a club. Your charms, I must concede. Go with you everywhere ; yet those your eyes Attract are by your welcome held, and those Who yield will find its proffered sweet completes The slavery of soul your charm began. 264 MOLIERE Continuing in this reproachful vein, he asks how it is that Clitandre has the faculty of so pleasing her. " Is it the long nail on his little finger, his mass of ribbons, or the width of his canons? " Then in plaintive suppliancy he asks : And I, accused of too great jealousy. What more have I than all the rest, I pray ? " The happiness of knowing you are loved," Celi- mene replies ; then, seeking to pacify him by the assur- ance that in the future no one shall deceive him but himself, she calls forth this genuine outburst of passion : Zounds, must I love You so ? Ah, if I might retake my heart From your &ir hand, for that rare boon I 'd bless The skies. To drive this terrible devotion From out my soul, I do my best, I grant ; Yet all my greatest efforts are in vain ; Indeed, 't is for my sins I love you thus. Alceste emerges from this scene a lover such as all the world may love. His passion commands respect, while his misanthropy stands revealed as the vehemence of an embittered heart sorely tricked by an inexorable coquette. Meantime Celimene tortures her victim with the charge of loving only for the sake of quarrelling, while her drawing-room, gradually filling with fashionable friends, becomes a Vanity Fair. There is no mistaking the atmosphere. It is the per- fumed air of the boudoir in the days when gallantry was a fine art. With the Marquesses Clitandre and Acaste as ready pupils, the fribbling hostess becomes the mis- tress of as merciless a school for scandal as ever graced a drawing-room. Eliante, too genuine to matriculate, holds aloof; likewise Alceste, till anger overflows his heart ; yet THE MISANTHROPE 265 how true are Celimene's vignettes of fashionable life ! Take this picture of a snob, for instance, drawn in answer to Acaste's query as to the character of their mutual friend, Gerald: Oh, the dull mumblenews ! He never fails the noble's part to play. And in high circles he is ever found. He only quotes a princess, prince, or duke ; His head by rank is ever turned ; his talk Is horses, carriages, or dogs ; while men Of highest quality he thees and thous. And mister is a word beyond his ken. Thackeray has painted no truer picture. How many of us, too, have dined with the rich upstart depicted in the following lines : CUTANDRE And young Cleon, whose hospitality The worthiest have accepted — what of him ? Celimene His merit is his cook ; his board alone The object of the visits that we pay. Instigated by the two silly marquesses, portrait upon portrait is thus painted by Celimene's scathing wit, until honest Alceste lashes her band of scandalmongers with this whip of words : Go on, my courtly friends, go on, till each Has had his turn, till none is spared ; yet let But one of them appear, and you will rush To greet him hurriedly, your hand extend, A flattering kiss bestow, and protest make Of meek servility in vows profound. " Why do you attack us ? " Clitandre asks. " If what is said wounds you, address your reproaches to the lady." 266 MOLIERE " No, pardie, it concerns you," Alceste replies, " for your approving smiles draw forth her slanderous shafts." Thus, even in his wrath, Alceste is the lover, though he accuses Celimene of " indulging in pastimes he cannot countenance." Both Clitandre and Acaste rushing to her defence with flattering assurances of her perfection, the misanthrope asserts that " the more we love, the less we should flatter," — a doctrine refuted by Eliante in the following interpolated remnant from the translation of Lucretius's poem, De Rerum Natura, Moliere made when Chapelle, Bernier, Cyrano de Bergerac, and he were students of Gassendi : Since lovers ever vaunt their choice, to brook Such lav?s love 's ill contrived. In loved ones Love Sees naught to blame ; for imperfections pass As charms with pretty names from lovers' lips. The pale one to the whiteness of the jasmine Is compared ; she whose sombreness inspires A goodly fear becomes a sweet brunette. The lean is lithe and has a comely shape ; The fat 's majestic with a carriage grand ; The sloven, graced with little charm, is styled A careless beauty ; e'en the giantess Appears a goddess to Love's eyes. The dwarf. Epitome of miracles divine Is deemed ; the haughty one a diadem Deserves ; the scapegrace ever teems with wit. And Mistress Nincompoop is wholly good. The chatterbox is dispositioned well ; If taciturn, she 's modest and reserved : For thus within the one adored, each fault. Each frailty, the ardent suitor loves. A hint from the marquesses that Celimene excuse her- self to their rival follows these lines ; but Alceste asserts that " he will never depart until they have left." This THE MISANTHROPE 267 lover's threat is unfulfilled, however, for Oronte the son- neteer, offended by Alceste's frank criticism, sends an officer to summon him before the mar'echaussie, — a tri- bunal having jurisdiction in disputes between gentlemen. Protesting that only the King has power to make him approve bad verses, the misanthrope goes, as the cur- tain falls, assuring Celimene meanwhile that he will soon return to finish their argument. The third act is of so little dramatic consequence that it might well be coupled with its predecessor. It pre- sents a new character, however, in the person of Arsinoe the prude, so deliciously described by Celimene as — A humbug, double-faced ! Worldly of heart, successless she has tried To hook her fish ; so enviously she looks Upon the suitors in another's train ; And so, forsaken in her wretched state. Must rail against the blindness of the age. With veil of counterfeited prudery. She seeks to hide the solitude of home ; To save the credit of her feeble charms. She brands as criminal the powers they lack. Forsooth a lover mightily would please My lady ; even now, methinks, she looks Upon Alceste with tenderness heartfelt. Visiting Celimene with intent to thwart Alceste's passion, Arsinoe asserts a friend's right to warn her hostess that she should appear, as well as be, above reproach, — an effrontery which calls forth the following retort : Madame, 't is easy all to blame or praise. And each is right according to his age Or taste. For coquetry there is a dme. And also one for prudery : one may a68 MOLIERE For polity take to it when the charms Of youth are faded, — cruel ravages Of time it often hides. I do not say I shall not follow your example bright In after years, — ^ age leads to all, Madame ; Yet twenty 's not the time to play the prude. The victor in this feminine passage at arms leaves her crestfallen foe with Alceste, who " comes very oppor- tunely," as she says, " and will better supply my place in entertaining you." Playing upon the misanthrope's vanity, Arsinoe assures him that " people of exceptional merit attract her," and " if some place at court might tempt him," suggests that " a great many engines may be set in motion by her to serve him " ; but Alceste showing plainly that " in ushering him into the world Heaven did not give him a mind suited to a court at- mosphere," Arsinoe is forced to try venom instead of flattery. Arousing the misanthrope's jealousy, she tells him that if he will escort her home, she will give him indubitable proof of Celimene's disloyalty, adding that " if his eyes would only shine for other eyes, she might offer him consolation," — a piece of feline hardihood which brings the third act to a close. "Alas," Alceste exclaims in the ensuing act, "all is ruined ! I am betrayed, I am stricken to death ! Celi- mene deceives me, and is faithless," — an unreasoning outburst prompted by a letter supposedly written by Celimene to Oronte, which Arsinoe has given him. So infuriated is Alceste that he lays his heart at the feet of Eliante, to punish Celimene, as he says, " by a transfer of his sincere attachment and profound love to another." Having just received a proposal from Philinte, prudent Eliante retires without declining either suitor's hand. THE MISANTHROPE 269 thereby showing herself not altogether free from the arts of Celimene. Alceste's passion is, indeed, " a savage jealousy that sometimes savours nobly." When confronted with the letter, Celimene, steeped in the ways of coquetry, ac- knowledges it to be hers, but hints that it may have been written to a woman ; then refusing to confess the truth or falsity of this, she scorns her lover's charges, telling him " it matters little to her what he thinks." The way in which this incomparable coquette holds her wretched lover spellbound is best told in the words of the play : Alceste, asiJe O Heavenly Power, can greater cruelty- Be forged ? Was ever heart so used ? I come In anger just to chide, and I, instead. Am quarrelled with. My anguish, my mistrust. Are driven to the uttermost. She boasts Of everything, she lets me credit all ; And yet to break these irksome bonds, to arm Against the thankless object of this love. My heart is still too base. (To Celimene.) Ah, traitorous one ! You know the way to turn this feebleness Against myself; the way to controvert To your sole use the riots of a fatal Passion, the offspring of your treacherous eyes. Defend yourself against this whelming crime. And cease to feign disloyalty to me. Assert this letter's innocence, I pray. If so it can be proved, — my love extends A willing hand. Ah, strive constant to seem. And to believe you so, I '11 force myself. CELIMENE Away ! your jealous transports drive you mad. My love you do not merit in the least. 270 MOLIERE I M like to know if any one can make Me sink for you to base deceit, and should My iieart unto another lean, I 'd like To know the reason why I should not tell You candidly. Does not, forsooth, the kind Assurance of my sentiments avert Your doubts from me ? In face of guaranty Like this, possess they any gravity f To lend them ear is an affront to me ; And since my sex's honour, enemy Of woman's love, to such avowal is Opposed so strictly, should a faithful swain Who for his sake has seen these stumbling-blocks O'ercome, mistrust with such impunity The oracle, and is he not to blame If he should fail to satisfy himself Upon a matter never told until Great battles with one's self are hazarded ? Away, away ! such doubts deserve my wrath. You merit not my thought. I am a fool ; And vexed I am at my simplicity In feeling still so graciously toward you. I ought to place my heart elsewhere and give You just and ample cause to make complaint. Alceste Ah, traitress, mine is strange infatuation ! Those tender words are doubtless meant to trick - What matters it ? To fate I must submit. My soul is wrapt in you, and I shall watch Your heart's behaviour to the bitter end. Learning if to betray it 's black enough. CIlim^ne No, no, you do not love me as one must Be loved. Alceste Alas ! to my surpassing love Is nothing comparable ; for in the ardour Shown to all, even to the end it goes THE MISANTHROPE 271 Of forming 'gainst you wild desires. Ah, yes, I wish that amiable you ne'er were found ; And furthermore that you to some mean state Would fall ; that Heaven at your birth did naught Bestow ; that you had neither fortune, rank. Nor lineage, in ordtt that my heart. By noble sacrifice, your unjust lot Might remedy ; and that I might, to-day. The joy and glory have of seeing you Accept your all from Love's adoring hand. CfLIMENE A manner strange, indeed, to wish me well. That you the chance will have, may Heaven forfend ! Before Alceste can bring this wayward flirt to terms, his servant appears in haste to tell him he is threatened with arrest in connection with his lawsuit. As the curtain falls upon his unquenched passion, he says to Celimene : It seems that Fate, whate'er I do, has sworn My holding converse with you to prevent. To triumph over her, permit my love Again to see you ere the day has closed. Having paid twenty thousand francs to settle his law- suit and been ordered by the mar^chaussie to embrace his enemy the sonneteer, Alceste, resolved to retire for ever from this " cut-throat hole " of a world, comes to learn whether Celimene's heart has any love for him, and over- hears Oronte paying court to her; whereupon he con- fronts the guilty pair and demands that she decide, once for all, whose affection she prefers. Thus brought to bay, the flirt is temporising, by inviting her cousin Eliante to decide the merits of the case, when Acaste and Clitandre, each bearing a letter addressed by Celimene to the other, burst upon the scene. These they proceed to read aloud. In the one Acaste is dismissed as "a. 272 MOLlfiRE little marquess whose sole merit is his cloak and sword " ; in the other Clitandre, as " the last man in the world whom she could love." Oronte, too, is dubbed one " whose prose bores as much as his poetry " ; while Alceste, " the man with the green shoulder-knot, amuses sometimes with his bluntness and his surly grumbling, although there are hundreds of occasions when he is the greatest bore in the world." Her perfidious coquetry thus unmasked, Celimene stands defenceless, as one by by one her suitors leave her house in scorn, Alceste, alone of all the pack, remaining. Her pride is humbled at last. Yielding her coquette's sceptre, she pleads for mercy, yet cannot forswear the flesh-pots : Celimene You may say all. To censure as you will, or to complain, — You have, indeed, the right ; for I confess The injury, and my bewildered heart With vain excuse ne'er seeks to pay its debt. The anger of the others I despise ; The guilt of my offence toward you, I grant. Beyond all doubt, your indignation 's just ; I know how culpable I must appear ; How all bespeaks my treason. In a word. You have a true and righteous cause to hate. And I must give you leave. Alceste How can I, traitress ? And how can I all tenderness subdue ? Even should I wish most ardently to hate. Will my own heart stand ready to obey ? {To Elian te and Philinte.) You see the path unworthy passion treads — I make you each a witness to my folly ; THE MISANTHROPE 273 Yet, to confess the truth, this is not all. You '11 see me push it to the bitterest end. And prove it wrong to deem me wise ; for something Of man all hearts contain. {To Cilimene.) Unfaithfiil one, I shall forget your crime ; and my poor heart Shall find a way to pardon your misdeeds. For with the name of feebleness to which The vices of the time have led your youth, I '11 cover all, provided your own heart Will lend a willing hand to the intent I 've formed of fleeing far from all mankind ; And that unto the desert where I've vowed To live, you '11 quickly follow. Only thus The injury these notes have wrought, can you In every mind repair ; for after scandal Which noble hearts abhor, 'tis only thus I may permit myself to love you still. Celimene What ! I renounce the world before I 'm old. And in your desert vast entomb myself? Alceste Ah ! if your passion answers to my love. What imports anything in this poor world ? Are not your wishes gratified by me ? CelimEne A heart of twenty is by solitude Dismayed ; and mine has not sufficient strength Or grandeur to conform to such a plan. If the offer of my heart will satisfy Your love, I might decide to forge such bonds ; For marriage . . . Alceste Nay, my heart but hates you now. And this refiisal has done more than all. Since all in me you cannot find, in ties i8 274 MOLIERE Thus dear, as I find all in you, go hence ! Your offer I decline ; by this deep wrong, I 'm freed from your ignoble chains for ever. Consistent even in defeat, Celimene retires, humbled but undismayed, to lay her coquette's snare, as one firmly believes, for some new dupe ; while Alceste, witness of the equable union of Eliante and Philinte, exclaims to these lovers, whose wooing has been as calm as their characters : To taste true happiness, this tenderness For one another may you guard for e'er! By malice overborne, upon all sides Betrayed, I leave this pit where vice exults. To find upon the earth some lonely place. Where one is free to be an honest man. True to his art, Moliere thus leaves his hero the vic- tim of his own spleen. As he goes out to begin the fulfilment of his vow, Philinte follows, calling to Eliante to aid him "in thwarting the scheme his friend's heart has proposed." Indeed, Alceste is far too noble and lovable to live eternally entombed in his desert, exclaim- ing, with Shakespeare's Timon : " I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind." He might better say, like Orsino, " If ever thou shalt love, in the sweet pangs of it remember me ; for such as I am, all true lovers are." When happy and contented, one may smile at Alceste's impotent invectives against the vices of society and even scoff at the sincerity of his jealous transports ; yet if the world be awry, his character appears both sympathetic and noble. Although not presented until June fourth, 1666, The Misanthrope was placed upon the stocks as early as THE MISANTHROPE 275 1664; and according to Grimarest it had been read at court before it was played at the Palais Royal, Al- though Michelet^ insists that neither the King nor his nobility was pleased with it, because "Alceste scolded the court more than he did Celimene," seventeenth cen- tury evidence tends to prove that it was most appreciated by the classes it satirised,'* — a likely supposition, since at the present day plays of Anglo-Saxon fashionable life are best received in London or New York, where the auditors are largely drawn from the class capable of recognising the truth of the picture presented on the stage. 'The Hypocrite, dealing with a prevalent vice, and well advertised by five years of religious persecution, played to what a modern manager would call " capacity busi- ness," whereas the receipts of The Misanthrope, so es- sentially a comedy of manners, were considerably less and its run of shorter duration ; yet to Boileau, Moliere was, above all else, "the author of The Misanthrope," while Racine, when told that it had failed, replied : " I don't believe it, because it is impossible for Moliere to write a bad play." Men and women of fashion, convinced that here was a true picture of society, acclaimed each character a por- trait. Thus Alceste was likened to Julie d'Angennes' atrabilious husband, the Due de Montausier ; Clitandre and Acaste were found to be the Comte de Guiche and the Due de Saint-Aignan ; Philinte, Moliere's epicurean friend Chapelle ; and Celimene, the Duchesse de Longue- ' Histoire de France. * De Subligny, La Muse Daupbine, June seventeenth, 1 666 ; Don- neau de Vize, Lettre ecrite sur la cemSdie du Misanthrope, published as an introduction to the first edition of the play. 276 MOLIERE ville, although, as M. Mesnard points out, this prin- cess of the blood royal must needs be dragged from a convent to become the type of worldliness. Moliere's misanthrope, too, has been called a symbol of Jansen- ism,^ his play a noble plea for social tolerance, or the hero merely an expression of the author's art of making honest people laugh, according to each critic's temperament. In the perennial riddle he presents, Alceste resembles Hamlet, and like the melancholy Dane, offers the actor an enigmatic role, demanding the highest histrionism. Indeed, that most eminent of modern comedians, M. Constant Coquelin, in a charming monograph upon the subject, quotes some wiseacre as saying that " one of the first symptoms of an actor's insanity is to wish to play The Misanthrope." ^ Confessing that his physical aspect alone has prevented his essaying the role, M. Coquelin takes a comedian's view of Alceste, and, denying him the at- tributes of a Hamlet, Faust, or Manfred, pronounces him a comedy character conceived by a comedian who, " pen in hand, obeyed his genius and not his passions." This leads to the inevitable discussion of the play's subjectiveness ; for Alceste, a man of middle age in love with an arrant flirt, has often been pronounced an expres- sion of Moliere's self. The evidence, of course, is purely circumstantial; yet, like that of The School for Husbands and The School for Wives, it is too much of a coincidence to be disregarded ; for at the very time when Moliere was driven by the frivolity of his own wife to part from her, he conceived Alceste, a hater of mankind inspired by a woman's heartlessness. ' L'Enigme d' Alceste by Gerard du Boulan, 1879. * Moliere et le Misanthrope, 1 881. THE MISANTHROPE 277 For a comedian to see only a comedy part in Alceste is in the nature of a professional judgment ; yet to deny this misanthrope a place in the sphere of Hamlet is to deny his author the attribute of profound philosophy and a niche beside Shakespeare ; for though Moliere may be inferior to our own " myriad minded " genius in his imagery and in the sublimity of his conceptions, as a creator he is, as M. Coquelin himself so happily expresses it, " his equal in fecundity, his superior in truth." Moreover, when he most nearly depicts his own suffering, his plays are most truly " the applause, the delight, and the wonder of the stage." Very likely, as M. Coquelin suggests, "if Moliere is in The Misanthrope, it is far more in the wise and indulgent calm of Philinte than in the stubborn, con- tentious puritanism of Alceste," for Philinte represents the clear-sighted sanity of the writer's mind. Alceste's love and jealousy, however, are the impassioned suffer- ings of a heart overborne by a coquette's cruelty ; so it is as idle to deny his subjectiveness as to gainsay the objectiveness of Celimene, — a role light and vain as Armande Bejart, and written to be played by her. For Moliere to choose a lovers' quarrel so nearly re- sembling his own, a hero so like himself in many essentials, and a heroine who might readily pass as a portrait of his wife, and then fail to express his own wounded feelings in the verses spoken by Alceste, would be impossible, if he be granted a heart. Indeed, to be immortal, a writer must be sincere, — a quality demanding a breadth of feeling alone aroused by a per- sonal experience of life. Moliere's genius was eclectic ; so neither Alceste nor Philinte is an actual portrait of himself. To mould the 278 MOLlfiRE character of his misanthrope, he formed an imaginative alloy, using Monsieur de Montausier for the spleen, if you like, and Boileau for the literary acumen, — as this critic has confessed ; but from his own misery sprang the love and jealousy. MOLIERE AND THE PHYSICIANS 279 XV moli£re and the physicians In the untiring warfare Moliere waged against the evils of society, his campaign against quackery, if not the most brilliant, was certainly the most prolonged. Beginning while he was still a strolling player, it lasted until the hour of his death ; for, with a fatality the medical men considered righteous judgment, he was seized with his last illness while playing the title role of The Imaginary Invalid, perhaps the most bitter of his satires against the physicians of his time. This enmity toward a calling at once so worthy and humane appears, at first sight, unreasonable. Indeed, some knowledge of the French medical faculty of the seventeenth century is necessary in order that one may sympathise with the biting satire oi Love as a Doctor, The Doctor in Spite of Himself, Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, and The Imaginary Invalid, the four principal medical satires from Moliere's pen. The Flying Physician and The Physician in Love, two canevas of his youth, the latter of which has been lost, had medicine as the topic of their humour as well ; therefore Moliere's warfare against the medical faculty may be said to have begun during his "barn storming" days. Moreover, he was not the only dramatist of that period to make the quack a comedy character ; for, at the Hotel de Bourgogne, Guillot-Gorju, once a medical student himself, acquired 28o MOLI^RE his reputation as a buffoon in the role of comic doctor. Certainly the charlatan of the Pont Neuf selling balms and opiates while acrobats tumbled and clowns grimaced, was so little removed in point of science from the licensed physician riding in cap and gown through the streets of Paris to bleed, or to administer an antimony pill, that no writer of plays possessing a sense of humour could overlook the mirth-provoking possibilities of such medicine.* On the left bank of the Seine, in the heart of the an- cient quarter where students in flowing gowns discoursed in Latin and pedantic doctors in crimson robes upheld the dignity of learning, a sombre building bearing on its fa9ade the inscription Urbi et orbi salus stood amid a laby- rinth of tortuous streets. For two centuries or more this dingy edifice had been the home of the Faculty of Medi- cine, youngest of the four faculties of the University of Paris, yet the most lucrative and by far the most widely known of these, since to the world at large it was the Faculty. Born in the cloisters of mediaeval monasteries, it had grown, but had not changed. It was powerful and re- spected, yet faithful to its spirit and traditions, — a proud, independent body, teaching and exercising the liberal pro- fession of which it held a monopoly ; a body so exclusive that its members scarcely exceeded a hundred in number, or, to be more explicit, about one physician to each five thousand of the inhabitants of Paris. When they met ^ In depicting the medical faculty of Moliere's day the author's facts have been gleaned from Maurice Raynaud's delightful monograph, Les M'edeeim au temps de Moliere, in which both the foibles and virtues of the seventeenth century physicians are treated with an impartiality most praiseworthy in a writer himself a member of the profession. MOLlfeRE AND THE PHYSICIANS a8i in solemn conclave, even these were divided into two classes, the Senior and Junior Bench, — a distinction made not according to age or ability, but to length of service. In dignity, however, if not in common sense, the Fac- ulty was admirable. Imagine a gloomy amphitheatre lighted by a stained glass window ; imagine a hundred doctors in violet cassocks and ermine trimmed robes of scarlet silk seated amid a throng of sable gowned stu- dents, while their dean, surrounded by his mace bearers, vaunts in Ciceronian periods the ancient glories of a lib- eral profession ; and one will have a fairly accurate pict- ure of the Faculty in conclave assembled, — a pageant " inferior," as M. Raynaud remarks, " to such an assem- bly of kings as the Roman senate, yet certainly not lacking in solemnity or grandeur." The supremacy of professional dignity over professional skill is well indicated by the oath a professor of medicine took when nominated : I swear and pronounce faithfully to teach in a long gown with wide sleeves, a doctoral cap upon my head, a knot of scarlet ribbon on my shoulder. Still, the Faculty was not without its virtues. At a moment when none of the great hygienic institutions which adorn modern society existed, it did its best to supply this want by fulfilling the functions of both the academy of medicine and the board of health. However, it wished progress to come from within itself, not else- where ; so surgery fell in sacrifice to its illiberality. Thus, too, the circulation of the blood was proscribed because it was English ; antimony, because it came from Montpellier ; and quinquina, because it was American, — 282 MOLlfeRE "three senseless and barren acts," as M. Raynaud says, " which laid it open to public ridicule." Confined in its investigations to the bodies of crimi- nals, the Faculty was compelled to wait for its anatomical subjects until an execution took place, whereupon the criminal lieutenant notified the dean, who, in turn, sent the grand beadle to summon the doctors and students. If at peace with the surgeons, they too were invited ; yet, owing to the dignity of science and the indignity of manual exercise, the professor was esteemed a man so erudite that he must remain upon the heights of learning, and not descend to manipulate the scalpel himself; hence it often happened that the modest preparator knew more than the master. That the knowledge of the Faculty was not far from quackery is attested by two prolonged and acrimonious disputes in which its members indulged. Does the blood circulate ? Is antimony a panacea for all pain ? These were problems about which medical men wrangled dur- ing the greater part of the seventeenth century; while in disputing the validity of Harvey's great discovery, such absurd arguments as the following were used: " If the blood circulates, it is useless to bleed, because the loss sustained by an organ will be immediately repaired, hence bleeding is useless ; therefore the blood does not circulate." The cause of antimony — le vin im'etique, as Moliere calls it — was espoused by the Faculty of Montpellier, therefore the Faculty of Paris regarded it with suspicion. " In brief," to use M. Raynaud's words, " this contro- versy was at bottom the old but ever new question as to what part the accessary sciences should play in medicine." Lest the technical pedantry of this dispute grow tedious. Oh h M0LI£RE and the physicians 283 it may be summed up in the means of transportation adopted by members of the two schools of medicine when visiting their patients. The doctors of the old school rode upon mules, while those who upheld the new doctrines used horses, — an appropriateness of selection which is apparent. To MoUere's sane mind these empirical physicians, absorbed in interminable scholastic wranglings and op- posed to everything in the nature of progress, were frauds only a little less deep in dye than the hypocrit- ical directors of conscience. His gauntlet was thrown to them by Don Juan, when Sganarelle, disguised as a medical man, prescribes for half a dozen peasants, and asks his master whether it would not be strange "if those sick people got well and then came to thank me ? " The scoffer replies : Why not ? why should not you have the same privi- leges as other doctors ? They have no more to do in curing patients than you, for their art is pure humbug. What they do is to take credit when a case turns out well ; so you, as well as they, may reap the advantage that comes from an invalid's good fortune, and see attrib- uted to your remedies all that may happen from good luck or the forces of nature. When in this same scene Don Juan's doubts regard- ing the efficacy of drugs are rebuked by Sganarelle as follows, the craze for antimony receives a telling thrust from Moliere's satirical rapier : Sganarelle Your mind is wretchedly distrustful. You know that antimony is now making a great stir in the world. Its wonders have con- verted the most incredulous persons, and less than three weeks ago I saw it produce a marvellous effect. 284 MOLlfiRE Don Juan What was that ? Sganarelle A man had been at the point of death for six days ; nobody knew what to prescribe, no remedy did any good. At last anti- mony was tried. Don Juan He got well, then ? Sganarelle No, he died. Don Juan The effect was marvellous, indeed. Sganarelle Of course it was. He had been dying for six days, and the antimony killed him at once. Could anything have done it better ? But Moliere attacked the dishonesty and pretence of the doctors even more than their ignorance. Indeed his shafts were really aimed at the TartufFes of medicine ; for in those days charlatanism was rife, and pedantry a shield for ignorance. In academic robes and pointed caps the doctors rode about Paris on their mules, im- pressing the populace with their importance, while in sick-room consultations they imposed upon their victims by concealing their ignorance behind grandiloquent Latin phrases, — a view of the profession not upheld by Moli- ere alone, as this epigram of his day witnesses : Assume a most pedantic frown. Some Greek or Latin spout ; Have on a wig and grotesque gown Of satin ftirred about ; For such things almost make, we own, A doctor out and out. MOLIERE AND THE PHYSICIANS 285 In Love as a Doctor {U Amour m&decin), the play which followed Don Juan, Moliere entered the fray in earnest. No longer ridiculing medicine in the abstract, he made the physicians themselves the object of his satire. It will be remembered that in this play Sganarelle's daughter falls ill of the malady called love, whereupon her father summons four doctors in consultation, all of whom fail to diagnose her disease.^ The names of these worthies are Tomes, Desfonandres, Macroton, and Bahis. In this connection Brossette, speaking through Cizeron Rival, editor of his posthumous papers,** tells us that " Moliere travestied the principal court physicians, MM. des Fougerais, Esprit, Guenaut, and d'Aquin, with masks expressly made for the purpose, while Boileau composed suitable Greek names for them. Thus, " to M. des Fougerais he gave the name of Desfonandres, which sig- nifies killer of men; to M. Esprit, who sputters, that of Bahis, which means yelping, barking ; while Macroton was the name he gave to M. Guenaut because he speaks slowly ; and finally that of Tomes, denoting bleeder, went to M. d'Aquin, who delights in bleeding." Gui Patin,' too, polemical medical man of the day, and possessed of a considerable sense of humour, wrote a friend, shortly after Love as a Doctor was produced, to the eflfect that a comedy against the court physicians was acted at Versailles in which the first five doctors were singled out, while three days later he added that " U Amour malade {sic) is now being played at the Hotel * Sec page 255. "^ Rhr cations litter aires, 1765. " The originals of the passages from Gui Patin, quoted by M. Ray- naud and M. Mesnard, occur in Lettres daisies de feu Mr. Guy Patin, Cologne, 1 69 1. 286 MOLIERE de Bourgogne, where all Paris rushes to see the court physicians on the stage, especially Esprit and Guenaut with masks expressly made for the purpose." Needless to say, Moliere's comedy was not played at the Hotel de Bourgogne ; nevertheless Gui Patin's evi- dence, coinciding so exactly with Cizeron Rival's assur- ance that " the principal court physicians were travestied with masks," has led to considerable discussion whether or not Moliere's doctors actually appeared a l' Aristofhane, — a supposition dismissed by M. Mesnard^ with the suggestion that Patin wrote from hearsay, while Cizeron Rival merely repeated the statements. To appreciate the satire of Love as a Doctor, no ar- chaeological research is necessary, however, for when Sganarelle's servant, Lisette, makes haste to tell her master that his daughter is dangerously ill, that worthy loosens his purse strings so far as to indulge in the expense of not only one but four doctors, — an extrava- gance which calls forth the following irony on the part of the maid : Now, pay attention ! You will be highly instructed — they will inform you in Latin that your daughter is ill. Instead of consulting upon the nature of the sick girl's malady, Sganarelle's plethora of medical men argue upon the relative excellence of mules and horses as a profes- sional means of conveyance, until a new discussion is thus incited by one of their number : Tomes By the bye, which side do you take in the quarrel between the two physicians, Theophrastus and Artemius ? It is a matter which divides the profession. J (Euvres de Moltere. MOLIERE AND THE PHYSICIANS 287 Desfonandrks I am for Artemius. ToMfes So am I; not that his advice did not kill the patient, as we know, while that of Theophrastus was assuredly better ; but be- cause the latter was wrong in the circumstances in holding an opinion opposed to his senior. What say you ? Desfonandrks Certainly. Professional etiquette must always be preserved, no matter what happens. Tomes For my part, I am devilish strict about it, except among my friends. When three of us were called in consultation the other day with an outside doctor^ I stopped the whole proceeding and refused to permit any one to express an opinion until matters were conducted according to rule. The people of the house did all they could, — the case was pressing, — but I would not give way ; so the patient died bravely, while the dispute continued. Desfonandres You did quite right to teach those people how to behave, and show them their inexperience. Tomes A dead man is only a dead man, and is of no consequence ; but a neglected formality does great harm to the entire profession. In the scene wherein the four doctors tell Sganarelle the result of their consultation, Moliere's satire is even more poignant : 1 The " outside doctor " with whom this worthy upholder of the old school of medicine was loath to consult was doubtless a member of the Faculty of Montpellier. 288 MOLIfiRE ToMfis Sir, we have duly argued upon your daughter's complaint, and my opinion is that it proceeds from the overheating of the blood ; consequently I would have her bled as soon as possible. Desfonandres And I say that her illness arises from a putrefaction of humours caused by a too great repletion ; consequently, I would give her an emetic. Tomes I maintain that an emetic will kill her. Desfonandres And I, that bleeding will be the death of her. Tomes It is like you to set up for a clever man ! Desfonandres Yes, it is like me; and at least I can cope with you in all branches of knowledge. Tomes Do you recall the man you killed a few days ago ? Desfonandres Do you recollect the woman you sent to the other world three days ago ? Tomes (to Sganarelle) I have given you my opinion. Desfonandres {to Sganarelle) I have told you what I think. Tom£s If your daughter is not bled directly, she is a dead woman. \Exlt. MOLIERE AND THE PHYSICIANS 289 Desfonandr^s If you have her bled, she will not be alive a quarter of an hour aftervtrard. [Exit. The two physicians remaining arrive at the conclusion that " it is better to die according to rule than to recover in violation of it," whereupon Sganarelle exclaims de- jectedly, " Here am I, even more in the dark than before. Deuce take it, I '11 buy some Orvietan, and make her swallow that." ^ The counterpart of this scene is found in Gui Patin's account of a consultation held at the time of Mazarin's death, whereat four famous court physicians failed to agree upon the disease of which the great man was dying. " Brayer," to quote Patin, " said the spleen was infected, Guenaut that it was the liver, while Valot insisted it was water on the lungs, and Des Fougerais that it was an abscess in the mesentery." The apostle of the liver apparently triumphed, for shortly after Mazarin's death a carter, recognising Guenaut in the midst of a street blockade, called out, " Let the doctor pass ! Thanks to him we are rid of the Cardinal." No sooner had Love as a Doctor been produced than its author, borne down by overwork and domestic un- happiness, was seized with an illness so severe that he was obliged to close his theatre for a time and subsist upon milk for two months, — an event affording him ample opportunity to test the inefEcacy of medicine. His dis- ease, according to the doctors of to-day, was either tuber- culosis or an aneurism, manifesting itself by a cough so * Orvietan was a quack remedy named after a famous charlatan of the Pont Neuf. 290 MOLIERE characteristic that Boulanger de Chalussay in his libellous play ^ makes a character exclaim, " Yes, it is he. I just recognised his cough." Failing to find relief, Moliere manifested his resentment toward the doctors in a way, to quote M. Bazin, " comparable to the revolt of an incor- rigible sinner against Heaven." ^ Had he been willing to retire from the stage, his life might have been pro- longed ; but instead of seeking rest, he fought an incur- able disease with a steadfastness truly heroic. He could not refrain, however, from lashing the quacks who failed to relieve his suffering. Thus a fifth physician, by name Fllerin, is introduced in Love as a Doctor, appar- ently for no other purpose than to voice the author's own scepticism, in a speech made to Tomes and Desfonandres : For my part, I fail to understand the bad policy of some of our people ; and it must be admitted that all these bickerings have lately brought us into an ill repute so pronounced that if we are not careful we shall bring ruin upon ourselves. I do not speak for my personal interest, for, thank Heaven, I have settled my own affairs. Whether it blows or rains or hails, those who are dead are dead, and I have enough to live upon with- out thinking of those who are alive ; but all these squab- bles do the medical men no good. Since Providence has been so kind to us for ages past as to make the world infatuated with us, we should not disabuse man- kind with our senseless disputes, but should take ad- vantage of its gullibility as gently as we can. . . . The greatest weakness in men is their love of life, and we, availing ourselves of this by our ostentatious nonsense, know how to make the most of the veneration the fear ^ Elomire hypocondre. " Notes historiques sur la vie de Moliere. MOLIERE AND THE PHYSICIANS 291 of death inspires for our profession. Let us therefore maintain for ourselves that degree of esteem which man's weakness has given us, and be united regarding our patients, so that we may attribute to ourselves the for- tunate results of an illness, and blame nature for all the blunders of our art. In The Doctor in Spite of Himself {Le M'edecin malgr'e lui), Moliere satirised medicine with less acerbity. Having run the gamut of middle class stupidity and egotism, vain, cowardly, self-interested Sganarelle makes his final appearance in the title role^ descending in this instance several steps below the social status of even Don Juan's cringing servant. A sly, drunken rogue of the people, this new Sganarelle, by trade a woodcutter, bears slight resemblance save in Rabelaisian mirth to his namesakes, though he may assert a certain kinship with the imaginary cuckold. Having learned the rudiments of Latin and a smattering of Aristotle from a famous doctor whom he once served, he has become a lazy, tippling lout who begins his comedy career by practising upon Martine, his shrewish better half, the doctrine that a wife, like a dog and a walnut tree, needs to be beaten to better be; yet when a well-meaning neighbour chival- rously intervenes in behalf of the lady, both wife and husband unite in trouncing him for meddling in their domestic affairs.^ Although Martine thus resents a stranger's interfer- ence, she vows vengeance, nevertheless, upon her lord and master. When the servants of a wealthy bourgeois, whose daughter's sudden loss of speech has baffled his ' A few months ago the Parisian press chronicled a similar occur- rence, wherein a passer-by, attempting to rescue a wife from the blows of her lord, was set upon by both and soundly beaten for his impudence. 292 MOLIERE family physicians, arrive in search of a man of science capable of curing their young mistress, she points out her husband as the one they seek, assuring them he is a "strange fellow who keeps his knowledge to himself," and warning them, meantime, that " he will never own he is a physician unless they each take a stick and com- pel him by dint of blows to admit it." This drastic argument is forthwith applied, with the result that Sganarelle acknowledges a medical prowess unsuspected theretofore. His skill in the use of dog Latin, however, is insufficient to loosen a tongue tied voluntarily to pre- vent a distasteful marriage ; so the invalid he is brought to treat remains dumb until Leandre, her lover, bribes this doctor in spite of himself to introduce him into her father's house disguised as an apothecary. Leandre's presence inspires a cure so marvellous that the father prays Sganarelle to make his daughter dumb once more. " That is impossible," the rogue replies ; " all I can do is to make you deaf." Sganarelle's fame as a doctor being now firmly estab- lished, he vows medicine is " the best of all trades," 5 since, " whether we manage well or ill, we are paid just the same " ; yet his good fortune is short-lived, for while he is reaping the fruits of his skill a servant informs the master of the house that his daughter has eloped with the pseudo-apothecary. The duped parent sends for a magistrate to deal with Sganarelle, "a villain he will have punished by the law," whereupon the servant, whose plump wife Sganarelle has been making love to in a most suggestive way, exclaims with undis- guised glee, " I am afraid, Master Doctor, you will be hanged ! " The noose is cheated, however, for the elopers return MOUERE AND THE PHYSICIANS 293 to beg forgiveness, — a boon readily granted when Sganarelle's patron learns that his daughter's admirer has just inherited a fortune from an uncle. Meanwhile the worthy doctor in spite of himself, induced to pardon his wife for the trick she has played him, warns her to prepare herself "henceforth to treat a man of his consequence with great respect, for the anger of a physician is more to be dreaded than the world imagines." As a satire upon the medical faculty, this comedy is less bitter than its predecessor. Indeed, the irony is conveyed more by implication than by word of mouth, as when the father of Sganarelle's patient says to that rogue : " I have no doubt your reasoning is most excel- lent, but there is only one thing that puzzles me : the side (in the human body) of the liver and of the heart. It seems to me that you place them wrong, that the heart is on the left side and the liver on the right." " Formerly it was so," Sganarelle replies, "but we have changed all that " (nous avons changi tout cela), — a phrase which has become a French proverb.^ The source of this comedy has been traced to 2l fabliau or metrical folk tale of the middle ages, in which a peas- ant's wife avenges conjugal cruelty by assuring two ser- vants of the king in search of a doctor to heal their royal master's daughter, that her husband is a physician " who will do nothing for any one unless he is well beaten." * The inspiration of this scene, according to M. Mesnard, was the dissection of a criminal's body chronicled by The Gazette, December seventeenth, 1650, wherein the presiding doctor demonstrated that " the liver was on the left side and the spleen on the right, while the heart inclined to the right side, the majority of the organs being placed other- wise than is commonly the case." 294 MOLIERE A play by Lope de Vega, too, bears a resemblance in certain scenes to Moliere's comedy, while the title of one of our poet's early canevas. The Fagot Gatherer (Le Fagotier), indicates that the material had already ap- peared, probably in one-act form ; but whatever its source may be. The Doctor in Spite of Himself is a play fulfilling Moliere's own canon of dramatic art that " the rule of all rules is to please," — a fact well evidenced by the popularity it has retained for more than two centuries. According to figures computed to the year 1870, it had been performed at the Comedie Franpaise more times than any of Moliere's plays save The Hypocrite^ — a verdict later statistics would doubtless ratify, since, rapid in action, replete with comic situations and droll char- acters, it possesses all the requisites of " side-splitting " farce, while its characterisation entitles it to be dignified by the name of comedy. Indeed, in criticising Moliere's work, one is likely to be led by his marvellous ability as a painter of human nature into overlooking the line of demarcation between the higher and lower forms of stage humour. The Doctor in Spite of Himself was placed upon the stage of the Palais Royal August sixth, 1666, during the run of The Misanthrope ; and, being presented in conjunction with that masterpiece, it aided its receipts materially, — a fact which caused Voltaire to remark that " The Misanthrope is the work of a philosopher who wrote for enlightened people, yet found it necessary to disguise himself as a farceur in order to please the multitude." ^ When Moliere's health had improved temporarily, ' (Euvres de Moliere by Eugene Despois and Paul Mesnard. " Vie de Moliere, avec des jugements sur ses outrages. MOLIERE AND THE PHYSICIANS 295 and his long war against the pharisees had ended in triumph, he so far relented toward the medical men as to say in his preface to The Hypocrite that " medicine is a profitable art which every one reveres as one of the most excellent things we possess," — a leniency again made apparent in a petition he presented the King on behalf of " an honest doctor whose patient he had the honour of being." In this he tells Louis that if he will grant his medical friend a sinecure, he (Moliere) has been promised " thirty years of life." " Dare I demand this boon," the poet asks, " the day The Hypo- crite is resuscitated by your kindness? The first of these favours reconciles me with the devotees ; the second would accomplish the same result with the doc- tors." On another occasion, too, he betrayed kindliness, at least, toward medicine in conversation with the King. " What does your doctor do for you ? " Louis asked; " Sire," Moliere answered, " we argue together, and he prescribes remedies I never take ; therefore I get well." Moliere's health, however, did not long permit his heart to retain such conciliatory sentiments toward medi- cine ; so when Monsieur de Pourceaugnac was written to grace a royal fete held at Chambord during the au- tumn of 1669, his resentment toward the Faculty again manifested itself. In this three-act comedy ballet in prose the action is developed solely by the devices Eraste employs to prevent Julie, whom he loves, from marry- ing Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, a country lawyer to whom Oronte, her father, has promised her hand. To further his purpose, Eraste employs Sbrigani and Nerine, a couple of rogues well meriting the title of " intriguers " given them in the list of characters. 296 MOLlfiRE When the play opens, the arrival of Monsieur de Pour- ceaugnac in Paris is momentarily expected. His fate is thus foreshadowed by the speech of Nerine to Julie : Can your father be serious in thinking to force you to marry this Limoges barrister, this Monsieur de Pourceau- gnac, whom he has never seen in his life, who is coming to carry you off under our very noses ? Should three or four thousand crowns more suffice to make him reject a lover who is to your mind ? and is a young lady like you to be thrown away on a Limousin ? If he wants to marry, why does he not choose a Limousine, and leave Christians alone ? . . . We will play him so many tricks, and put such rogues upon him, that we will soon send him back to Limoges. The aspersions here cast upon Limoges have been attributed to a cold reception given Moliere when he was a strolling player, as well as to the fact that his brother-in-law, Genevieve Bejart's husband, hailed from that city. In any event, there is little malice in the attack, for Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, the Limousin, is the one sympathetic character in the comedy. A credu- lous countryman with gawky manners wishing to pass for a gentleman, he has at least the merit of being honest. The tricks whereby his life in Paris is made unbearable follow each other with whirlwind rapidity, until, accused by Nerine and an accomplice — the one simulating a Picarde, the other a Gasconne — of being the long lost husband of each, he disguises himself in female attire to escape being hanged for bigamy. Being arrested by a policeman whose venal proclivities have a decidedly modern aspect, he buys his freedom, and is glad to escape from so malevolent a city as MOLlfiRE AND THE PHYSICIANS 297 Paris, even though he returns alone to Limoges, and leaves his bride that was to be to wed a triumphant rival. The most amusing pranks played upon this trustful provincial occur, however, in the first act, when Eraste delivers him into the hands of a pair of doctors with the assurance that he is a maniacal invalid. The charac- ter of one of these medical men is thus drawn by his apothecary : He is a man who knows his profession as thoroughly as I know my catechism, and who, were his patient to die for it, would not depart one iota from the rules prescribed by the ancients. Yes, he always follows the highroad, and doesn't think it mid-day at fourteen o'clock. For all the gold in the world he would not cure a patient with other remedies than those prescribed by the Faculty. . . . He is not one of those doctors who prolong their patients' complaints, but he is expeditious, and despatches his "cases" promptly. If you must die, he is the man to help you to do it quickly. Poor Monsieur de Pourceaugnac is prescribed for by this worthy as follows : First, to cure this obdurate plethora and this luxu- riant cacochymy throughout the body, I am of opinion that he should be liberally phlebotomised ; that is to say, he should be bled frequently and copiously, first, at the basilic vein, then at the cephalic vein, and, if the dis- ease be obstinate, the vein in the forehead should be opened, with an opening so large that the thick blood may come out. At the same time he should be purged, deobstructed, and evacuated by proper, suitable purga- tives, that is, by cholagogues, melanogogues, et caetera ; for since the real source of all the evil is either a gross and feculent humour, or a black and thick vapour, which obscures, infects, and contaminates the animal spirits, it 298 MOLIERE is proper that he should afterwards take a bath of soft, clean water, with plenty of whey, to purify, by the water, the feculence of the gross humours, and to clear, by the whey, the blackness of this vapour. Should the miserable patient survive this treatment, a second doctor was ready to order " blood lettings and purgatives in odd numbers {numero deus impare gaudet)" and command a small clyster to serve as a prelude "to those judicious remedies, from which, if he is to be cured at all, he ought to receive relief." All this was but an ex- ordium to the ballet interlude danced and sung to Lully's measures, wherein the poor victim is pursued by a num- ber of doctors and apothecaries, each armed with a huge syringe: a scene by far the most suggestive in a comedy rather too indelicate for the present day, though one of the sprightliest Moliere ever penned. These continued attacks upon the Faculty brought forth a quasi-defender of the craft in Le Boulanger de Chalussay, the title of whose play, Elomire hypocondre ou les Midecins vengis^ may be translated as meaning Moliere, the Imaginary Invalid. " I believe I am ill," says Elomire, a character whose name is an anagram of Moliere, " and he who believes he is ill, is ill." After patronising the charlatans of the Pont Neuf, Elomire finally falls into the hands of three doctors whose prescriptions so terrify him that he whispers to his servant, " They make me so afraid, I think of dying," — a remark which calls forth ^ This play, which was published in 1670, has already been quoted in previous chapters for statements bearing upon Moliere's life. See pages 9, 16, 19, 86, and 290. Although purporting to avenge the doctors, they are, in reality, satirised almost as severely in thfs comedy as in Moliere's own plays. MOLIERE AND THE PHYSICIAN!>:,29,a, this timely advice : " Dream of getting welt. V ^crme day you can make a comedy of your experiencea,"' V Indeed, some two years after Chalus^ay's ^la^>fe published, Moliere wrote The Imaginary Invaiik'^iLe Malade imaginaire), a comedy in which matiy,'wnters have seen a travesty by the author upon himselfr- Moliere was too ill, however, to paint himself as an imag^jip^ry in-, valid, therefore it is more reasonable to see in his piay V final shaft aimed at the physicians who had proved so in- capable of arresting the ravages of a disease soon destined to prove fatal. Argan, our poet's hypochondriac, there exclaims : Your Moliere is an impudent fellow with his comedies, and I think he might show better taste than to put such honest men as doctors on the stage ... If I were one of them, I should be revenged for his impertinence, and if ever he fell ill, I 'd let him die without professional assistance. Whatever he might say or do, I would not order him the smallest blood letting. I 'd say to him, " Die ! die ! that will teach you, once for all, not to ridi- cule the Faculty." These lines proved an augury. The Imaginary Invalid was produced on the tenth of February, 1673, and at its fourth performance the author was seized with haemor- rhage while playing the title role, and died a few hours later, — a calamity in which the physicians saw a heavenly vengeance for the insults heaped upon them. The principal character in this, the last of Moliere's medical satires, is Argan, a hypochondriac, whose obses- sion that he is suffering from a complication of serious maladies is humoured by Beline, his designing second wife, with the hope that physic will eventually make her husband's worldly goods her heritage. The action turns JQO . moli£re upon ithe "efforts of Cleante, an enterprising lover, to frustrate Afgan's intention of marrying his daughter ^gfiliqiie to a physician's son, in which purpose the yourig man is aided and abetted by a maid-of-all-work named T6'iriQ%ie, — by far the most pert and quick-witted of the^authqf's many captivating soubrettes. , . Iri'i^c Opening scene the hypochondriac is discovered (jheoking his apothecary's accounts, and after we have listened to an enumeration of the doses of catholicon, rhubarb, cassia, and senna to which the poor man has been subjected, the wonder is that he is still alive. His chief concern, however, lies in the discovery that he is not so well as formerly, because he has not consumed as much medicine as during the previous month, — an over- sight Monsieur Purgon, his physician, must remedy. From Toinette this imaginary invalid learns he is " the milch cow" of his doctor and apothecary; and when he informs his daughter Angelique that she is to be given in marriage to a doctoral son of a doctor, the maid's impudent tongue wags freely. " What ! " she says, " with all your wealth would you marry your daughter to a doctor?" "I want a medical son-in-law," Argan replies, "so that I may have in my own household the source of all the necessary remedies, consultations, and prescriptions," — a design his entire family, with the ex- ception of his wife, conspires to frustrate. Angelique's admirer, Cleante, is smuggled into the house disguised as a music teacher to make love under Argan's very nose, but is unmasked through the naive disclosures of the latter's little daughter, Louison, whereupon Toinette comes to the rescue. Disguised as a physician, she in- gratiates herself into her master's good graces by pre- scribing new remedies, and proposes that he shall feign MOLIERE AND THE PHYSICIANS 301 death in order to discover the true feelings of his family, — a ruse conceived for the purpose of exposing Beline, a sort of female Tartuffe, who has been abetting her hus- band's folly with a view to robbing him. When this hypocrite appears, being told that her husband has just expired, she exclaims : Heaven be praised ! now I am delivered of a great load . . • what use was he when on earth ? A man burdensome to all around, — a dirty, disgusting crea- ture, ever blowing his nose, coughing, or spitting. Before she can carry out her base purpose of seizing his papers and money, the supposed dead man springs to his feet, — a resurrection which causes the false wife to flee in terror from the house. When the same stratagem is used upon Angelique, Argan learns the difference between real and assumed affection. Hearing his grief-stricken daughter swear compliance with his last wishes regarding her marriage, the overjoyed hypochondriac consents to her union with Cleante on condition that he become a physician, — a proviso modified by his brother Beralde's suggestion that Argan himself take up that profession. A ballet interlude in the shape of a mock ceremony whereby Argan is given his degree by a band of pseudo- physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries concludes the play, — a whimsical bit of humour, which, in the words of M. Raynaud, "must be considered not only as an abridgment of doctoral ceremonies, but of all those through which a candidate passes from the commence- ment of his studies until the day when he receives the doctor's cap." This famous scene was devised, according to the same authority, in Mme. de la Sabliere's salon after a 302 MOLIERE bohemian supper at which Boileau, La Fontaine, and Ninon de Lenclos were present, Boileau providing the macaronic Latin, and " two or three more or less scepti- cal doctors of Moliere's set " the technical expressions. However, to quote M. Mesnard, " one cannot believe in the preciseness of the terms in which this story is told," since Monchesnay,^ the authority from whom it is derived, places the scene in the salon of Ninon de Lenclos. The Imaginary Invalid fairly bristles with satire aimed at the Faculty. For instance, when Argan asserts that Monsieur Purgon, his doctor, has an " income of eight thousand good livres," Toinette exclaims that " he must have killed a great many men to be as rich as that." Again, in a scene wherein Dr. Diafoirus comes to intro- duce his son Thomas to Angelique, his intended bride, the illiberality of the Faculty receives many a telling thrust. " What pleases me most in him," the elder Diafoirus exclaims regarding his son's talents, " is that he follows my example by blindly accepting the opinions of the ancients without seeking to understand or listen to reason and experience regarding the pretended discov- eries of our century in respect to the circulation of the blood and other opinions of a like nature." The elder Diafoirus, too, exposes the chicanery of his craft when he exclaims that "it is easy to deal with the populace because you are responsible for your actions to none, and, provided you follow the current of the rules of your art, you need not be uneasy ; but the vexatious part of treating people of quality is that when they fall ill, they absolutely demand that their physicians cure them." Bolaana. MOLlfeRE AND THE PHYSICIANS 303 The most uncompromising attack upon medicine oc- curs, however, in a long and, it must be confessed, tedi- ous scene, in which Argan's brother, Beralde, expounds the author's own views in the following manner : Between ourselves, I consider medicine one of the greatest follies of mankind ; and to look philosophically at things, 1 do not know a more amusing mummery, nor do I see anything more ridiculous than for one man to undertake to cure another. . . . The springs of our machine are a mystery, of which, up to the present time, men have seen nothing ; since nature has placed too thick a veil before our eyes for us to know anything about it. . . . Most of the doctors have a deal of classical learning, know how to speak in good Latin, can name all the diseases in Greek, define and classify them ; but as regards curing them they know nothing at all. This sounds like a wail from Moliere's own heart. Indeed, each of his medical comedies represents a phase of his incurable malady. Love as a Doctor, so bitter in tone, was written when the disease first manifested itself. After nature had won a temporary triumph. The 'Doctor in Spite of Himself was penned to paint in a vein of pleasantry the impotence of medicine ; then continued suffering the physicians were unable to alleviate inspired those more stinging satires. Monsieur de Pourceaugnac and The Imaginary Invalid, — each an expression of the author's bitterness toward medicine. In this connection M. Larroumet speaks pertinently : Among the causes of hypochondria, stomach troubles stand pre-eminent, then extreme sensitiveness, moral pre- occupations, a life of overwork. Are not all these united in Moliere ? The hypochondriac professes either exag- gerated confidence in medicine or absolute scepticism 304 MOLIERE toward It, often commencing with the one only to finish with the other ; but, sceptical or confiding, he concerns himself greatly with medicine, reading medical works with avidity or seeking to draw doctors into conversation. After the general practitioner he must have the specialist, then the advertiser, finally the charlatan. Moliere seems to have passed through each of these different stages of the disease. To make doctors speak and behave as he does, he must have seen some of all classes, while to discourse about the medicine of his time so accurately as to call forth the admiration of Maurice Raynaud, he must have studied it at close range.* The Imaginary Invalid bears witness to the truth of this in its half credulous, half sceptical view of medicine ; for Argan is one phase of Moliere's self, Beralde another. It was written to amuse the King, but a quarrel with Lully over the musical features made it first see the stage at the Palais Royal. Lully, having obtained an operatic monopoly from his Majesty, grew arrogant and dictatorial ; so Moliere called in Charpentier, another composer, to write the ballet interludes, with the result that Louis took LuUy's part ; hence, in writing his last play, our poet experienced the proverbial ingratitude of kings. Though death was breaking his "vital chain," this comedy shows no diminution in Moliere's mastery of his art. Argan is a world character, Toinette and Beline each a familiar type, — the one of feminine craft and im- pudence, the other of heartless policy; while Purgon and the Diafoiruses, father and son, shorn of their fur- trimmed gowns, stand revealed as academic snobs such as obtain wherever doctoral caps adorn dull heads. ^ La Com'edie ie Moliere, MOLIERE AND THE PHYSICIANS 305 Again the word " farce " dies on one's lips, for although this masterful play is replete with exaggeration and droll- ery, no truer characters ever graced a comedy. Who has not known a peevish invalid ; a crafty step-mother ; or a pompous, pragmatical physician, prescribing " according to the rules " ? As a page of human life, The Imagi- nary Invalid is excelled only by The Misanthrope and The Hypocrite. As an immortal type, Argan the hypo- chondriac ranks beside Monsieur Jourdain the upstart gentleman and Harpagon the miser, — a proof that the light of Moliere's genius burned undimmed to the last. 3o6 MOLIERE XVI moli£re and his friends In the days when domestic troubles were ripening, gen- erous friendships were Moliere's solace ; long before the rupture with his wife drove him to seek an asylum at Auteuil, he had been in the habit of meeting a few con- genial spirits such as Chapelle, La Fontaine and Racine at Boileau's apartment in the rue du Colombier. More- over, such taverns as the White Sheep and the Lor- raine Cross rang to the laughter of this gathering of genius ; but Moliere was no such tippler as Chapelle, and appears to have exercised a sobering influence dur- ing more than one bohemian carouse. In all Frencli literary history there is no coterie more gifted than the one which habitually assembled under Boileau's roof; yet it was not without dissension, for Racine's friendship "was apparently a shade that follows wealth or fame." When this most classic of French dramatic poets first met Moliere, he was fresh from his religious training at Port Royal, yet he does not appear to have been well grounded in principles of moral rectitude ; after making his debut as a professional versifier by an ode on the King's marriage, he became a dramatist and played our poet a trick so scurvy that even his apologists seek excuses in vain. Moreover, while his Jansenist friends were praying for his lost soul, he was writing facetious letters to his friend the Abbe le Vasseur in mockery of the religious doings at Port Royal, — a piece of ingrati- tude quite in keeping with his treatment of Moliere. MOLIERE AND HIS FRIENDS 307 He met the manager of the Palais Royal some time previous to the year 1663 and induced him to present 'The Thebaid, his first tragedy. Furthermore, the young man was paid what we now call " advanced royalties," and there is considerable evidence indicating that Moliere edited his manuscript in order to make it suitable for the stage. Although The Thebatd was played only a few times and to small receipts, he produced Alexander., the young dramatist's next tragedy, on December fourth, 1665 ; yet when the new piece had attained a consider- able success, Racine, regardless of Moliere's kindness to an unknown author, surreptitiously placed it in re- hearsal at the Hotel de Bourgogne, and, despite the unwritten law of the day that a play until printed was the property of the troupe first presenting it, Alexander was given there on December eighteenth without warning to the management of the Palais Royal. Racine's sole excuse for this shabby behaviour was dissatisfaction with the interpretation Moliere's players had given his tragedy. In his Register La Grange says, " the troupe believing that after having treated them so badly as to have given and taught other actors his play, it owed no author's royalties to the said M. Racine, the said author's royal- ties were divided, each of the twelve actors receiving his share," — a piece of retributive justice no one can gain- say ; yet Moliere was so magnanimous as to defend his young rival's comedy The Pleaders {Les Plaideurs). " This comedy is excellent," he exclaimed, " and those who ridicule it deserve to be ridiculed themselves " ; ^ yet even to Moliere's courtesy there was a limit, for, not con- tent with taking his tragedy to the Hotel de Bourgogne, ^ Memoiressur la vie de Jean Racine by Louis Racine, the poet's son. 3o8 MOLIERE Racine made love to the Italian beauty Therese de Gorla du Pare and induced her to desert Moliere's forces during the Easter closing of his theatre (1667), — a last straw, it would seem, for thereafter Moliere severed all friendly relations with the younger poet. Indeed, about a year thereafter. The Foolish parrel; or. The Criticism of Andromacha {La Folk querelle ou la Critique cCAndro- tnaque) by one Subligny was placed upon the stage of the Palais Royal, — a play, as its title suggests, satirising Racine. To quote M. Mesnard, " as a plate of ven- geance it was not served very hot ; moreover, it was very badly cooked and without sufficient salt " ; ^ yet, as this same writer adds, " one likes to think that Moliere did not wish to wage a more wicked war." Although Racine's Alexandrines are the noblest in French dramatic poetry, his treatment of Moliere can only be described as base ; yet Boileau could not have remained his friend through life had he been so con- temptible a man as his behaviour on this occasion would indicate. This most independent critic of his day was wont to bestow his praise wherever due, his censure whenever merited ; yet despite the quarrel which sepa- rated Moliere and Racine, he retained the friendship of both poets until death had silenced their lyres. His judgment of their achievements, too, was discriminating, his friendship valiant ; for when The School for Wives was attacked so viciously by the critics for its supposed impiety, he became Moliere's defender; yet he was equally sincere in condemning his actor friend for allying himself with Tabarin.^ ^ Notice biographique sur Moliere. ^ On the occasion of the production of The Rascalities of Scapin. See page 352. MOLIERE AND HIS FRIENDS 309 Boileau's acquaintance with Racine dates from 1664, and, to quote Professor Crane, " it ripened into the most perfect friendship known in the annals of literary history";' yet he was equally the confidant of Moliere. Indeed, each poet found in him an ardent admirer and impartial critic; for in judging their works his acumen was singularly discriminating. Although his friendship with Racine was perhaps deeper than his regard for Moliere, when asked by the King what great writer had most honoured his reign, he did not hesitate to answer, " Moliere, sire." " I think not," Louis replied ; " but you know better than I,"*^ — at once a tribute to the judgment of Boileau and of posterity. In view of the confession of faith made in his ninth satire, it is not surprising to find Boileau so ardent an admirer of Moliere. " Nothing is beautiful but the truth," he there exclaims ; " the truth alone is lovable ! " Moreover, Brossette asserts that Boileau was the de- clared enemy of everything which offends reason, nature, or truth." ^ Where could he have found a more valiant defender of his creed than in the great apostle of dra- matic truth ? Boileau, too, showed scant mercy toward such af- fected poets as Chapelain, Quinault, and Cotin, and he held that the novels Mile, de Scudery "gave birth to each month, were artless, languishing writings seem- ingly shaped in spite of good sense,"* — a stricture upon ^ Les Hiros de roman. ' Louis Racine tells this anecdote in his Memoires, and as Moliere is awarded the palm over his father, there should be little doubt regarding its truth. ' Bolaana. * Boileau's second satire, dedicated to Moliere. 3IO MOLIERE bad taste and affectation clearly evincing a mind capable of appreciating Moliere's sane philosophy of life. Still, it was almost in spite of himself that he admired the actor poet above all other writers of his day ; for he was unable to see that the homely logic of Sganarelle was as true as the exalted philosophy of Alceste. Moreover, Moliere was too thoroughly a friend of the people to suit Boileau's taste, too disregardful of the dignity of his art for the critic to pardon his friend's persistence in con- tinuing on the stage after he had become a poet of the first magnitude. In this connection Brossette ^ tells an anecdote clearly illustrating Boileau's views. It appears that a short time before Moliere's death the two friends indulged in an amicable dispute inspired by a fear on the critic's part that Moliere was leading too strenuous a life for a man In his physical condition. After arguing with his over- worked friend upon the necessity of retiring from the stage for the sake of his health, Boileau thus adjured him : " Content yourself with writing and leave the acting to one of your comrades. This will make you more respected by the public, who will consider your actors as your supernumeraries. Moreover, the players them- selves, none too submissive to you now, will better feel your superiority," Moliere's answer shows at once the man of over- wrought nerves and the actor " whose advantage Is applause " : " Ah, my dear sir, how can you speak so 1 It is a point of honour with me not to give up." Boileau saw the futility of arguing with one so wedded ^ Boltsana. MOLIERE AND HIS FRIENDS 311 to the footlights ; his own feelings are shown in the reflections he made at the moment : A pretty point of honour, indeed, to blacken his face daily to produce the moustache of Sganarelle and give his back to all the beatings of comedy ! What, this man, in perception and true philosophical feeling the first of our time, this ingenious censor of all human follies, cherishes one greater than any he ridicules daily ! That thoroughly shows how little men amount to after all. In the republic of letters Boileau was a censorious patrician, Moliere the people's tribune ; hence the one could not understand that the hearty laughter of the pit, far more than the supercilious smile of the courtier seated on the stage, told the other that he had revealed true human nature. It was a point of honour with Moliere not to give up, because he was at once the public's idol and its slave, — an actor living for the hand claps, a poet whose Parnassus was the stage, though his muse dwelt in the surging pit. Love of the theatre was in his blood, and he could no more give up while the breath of life was in him than Boileau, the haughty critic, could have bared his back to those beatings of comedy. His actor friend was the author of The Misanthrope ; so Boileau condoned, but did not pardon him, the crime of being a farceur. He knew the depth, but failed to see the breadth, of his genius. A friend of a different cloth was Claude-Emmanuel Chapelle, the comrade of Moliere's youth. A natural son of Fran9ois Luillier, maitre des comptes, this epicurean roisterer and dilettante poet took his name from La Chapelle St. Denis, his birthplace. Being legitimised at the age of sixteen, upon his father's death in 1652 he 312 moli£re inherited a considerable fortune, whereupon he gave him- self over completely to a life of pleasure, divided about equally between society and vice. In the fashionable world he was well received, but he never sacrificed an hour of amusement for a social engagement. Once when pressed by the Due de Brissac to pay a visit to his family seat, Chapelle left Paris in company with his Grace, but happening to dine at Augers with a canon of his acquaintance, he chanced upon these words in a copy of Plutarch, " He who follows the great be- comes a slave " ; whereupon he left the duke to pursue his way alone. On another occasion, having an engage- ment to dine with the great Conde, he took a stroll before the appointed hour, and chancing upon some pall-mall players he was invited to settle a disputed point. His decision was so just that they asked him to sup with them, — an invitation which made him forget his prom- ise to the prince. " In truth, your Highness," he said in excuse, " the people who invited me to supper were worthy folk and they knew thoroughly well how to live." An incorrigible votary of Bacchus, Chapelle was locked up at the age of twenty in a correctionary prison. Bachaumont, the collaborator of his youth, forsook dis- sipation for matrimony, and astonished his friends by proclaiming that " an honest man ought to live at the door of a church and die in the sacristy " ; but Chapelle never forswore the doctrine that pleasure is the highest good. His fondness for the wine cup was indeed a source of anxiety to his friends. On one occasion Boi- leau, meeting him in the street, reproached him for this failing. " I have resolved to reform," Chapelle replied, " I feel the truth of your arguments " ; then, suggesting MOLlfiRE AND HIS FRIENDS 313 that if they entered a neighbouring tavern they might finish their talk undisturbed, the wretch filled Boileau's glass so frequently that his temperance advocacy ended in intoxication.^ Moliere's intimacy with Chapelle began when they were both students of Gassendi, the epicurean ; yet the dramatist was no such disciple of pleasure as his disso- lute comrade. Indeed their friendship was apparently due to that contrariety in taste which occasionally brings strong, opposing natures into intimate relations. In 1667 they rented an apartment together in a country house at Auteuil from one Jacques de Grou, sieur de Beaufort, where Moliere resided until he became recon- ciled to his wife,^ but Chapelle was only a periodical visi- tor. In the words of Grimarest : * The friendship they formed at college continued un- til the last moment ; yet Chapelle was not a comforting friend. He was too dissipated, and, although he loved truly, he was not capable of fulfilling those assiduous duties which awaken friendship. He had, however, an apartment in Moliere's house at Auteuil, but it was more for the purpose of making merry than for leading a serious life. " Not only a good actor, but an excellent author, Moliere took care," according to this same authority, " to cultivate philosophy," and in argument with Chapelle took the side of Descartes in opposition to Gassendi's doctrines. Although Chapelle was sincere, " this quality was often founded on false principles, from * Mimoires by Louis Racine. ' Les Points obscurs de la vie de Moliere by Jules Loiseleur. ' Fairly trustworthy as an authority for the events of Moliere's later years. 314 MOLIERE which he could not be reclaimed. Wishing to offend no one, he could not, however, resist the pleasure of speak- ing his mind or of passing a witticism at the expense of his friends." Chapelle was vain, too, being accused of boasting that he had written the best part of Moliere's phantasy, The Bores ; but their relations were not chilled thereby, and whenever he left Paris to visit friends in the country it was his pleasure to send Moliere succulent pasties baked expressly for him, — a tangible argument in favour of epicurean truth. Grimarest tells an amusing anecdote of Chapelle in his cups, which well illustrates Moliere's tact, — a quality so necessary to a theatrical manager. Chapelle, it appears, returning from Auteuil in his habitual state of intoxica- tion, insisted upon making a favourite servant, invariably accorded the privilege of riding on the seat beside him, descend and mount the footman's platform. The man, accustomed to his master's habitS;, took this command as a mere drunken caprice with the result that Chapelle be- gan to pommel him for his disobedience. The coach- man was obliged to descend and separate the belligerents, whereupon the offending servant fled, pursued by his irate master. Moliere, luckily a witness of the scene, came to the rescue and was appealed to as arbiter, Chapelle maintaining that his rascally servant had usurped a seat in his carriage, and the culprit that he had been privileged to ride with his master for fully thirty years. The poet's judgment was worthy of Solomon. " You were wrong," he told the valet, " to be disrespectful to your master ; therefore I condemn you to mount behind his carriage and ride to the end of the meadow. There you will politely beg his permission MOLIERE AND HIS FRIENDS 315 to enter the vehicle, — a boon I feel sure he will grant." " Egad, Moliere," cried Chapelle, " I am greatly obliged to you, for the affair was embarrassing. Good-bye, my dear friend ; you judge better than any man in France." Another of Moliere's friends whose vagaries must be attributed to genius was La Fontaine the fabulist, — a man whose utter indifference to the obligations and restraints of life was the distinguishing feature of his character. To his lasting credit he adhered nobly in the hour of disgrace to Fouquet, the man whose bounty he had enjoyed ; yet he was the spoiled child of Moliere's literary circle, where he was affectionately addressed as le honhomme. So absent minded that he would sit for hours at a time in a state of abstraction, he became the object of many jests ; and on one occasion Racine and Boileau bantered him so cruelly that Moliere, taking a friend into a corner, exclaimed, " Our fine wits may frisk as much as they please, but they will never efface our good fellow there ! " ^ a demonstration of prescience on the dramatist's part, since La Fontaine, next to him- self, is now considered the most original genius of that age. Boileau, however, ignored the fabulist in his criti- cisms, being doubtless unable to recognise that by adorning fable with the beauties of poetry his absent minded friend had created a new branch of literature. La Fontaine was as simple in evil as in good, and is reputed never to have told a lie in all his life ; yet in spite of this admirable quality, he was apparently with- out moral sense. Without any tangible reason except tedium, he lived apart from his wife ; and at one time Boileau and Racine, attempting a reconciliation, per- suaded him to make the journey to Chateau-Thierry, * Histoire de P Academic frarifoise depuis i6^z jusqu'a 1700 by Olivet. 3i6 MOLIERE where his wife resided, with an olive branch in his hand. Learning that she was at vespers when he arrived, the fabulist went to sup with some friends, and was passed on from house to house during the bad weather which followed, until he was obliged to return to Paris to attend a meeting of the Academy without having seen his unfor- tunate spouse. He could fill the role of boon companion, however, and apparently he was a leading spirit in the remarkable literary club which met in Boileau's apartment. In his introduction to The Loves of Psyche and Cupid {Les Amours de Psych'e et Cupidon) he has left a charming pen sketch of this coterie of geniuses : Four friends whose acquaintance began upon Par- nassus formed a kind of club which I would call an academy had their number been larger and had they possessed as much regard for the Muses as for pleasure. The first thing they did was to banish formal conversa- tion and everything that savoured of academic discussion. When they were met together, and had talked sufficiently about their amusements, if chance led them to touch upon any question of science or literature, they profited by the opportunity, yet invariably without dwelling too long on any one subject, flying off purposely to another like bees who meet divers flowers on their way. Envy, malice, or intrigue found no voice among them. They adored the works of the ancients, yet did not refuse to those of the moderns such praise as was their due, speak- ing of their own performances with modesty, and giving each other honest advice whenever one of their number chanced to be seized with the malady of the age and wrote a book, — an event which rarely happened. Admitting that Polyphide (the name under which he introduces himself) was the greatest offender in this MOLIERE AND HIS FRIENDS 317 respect. La Fontaine adds that Acante (Racine) " did not fail according to custom to propose a walk," while, " of the two friends whom I shall call Ariste and Gelaste, the first was serious without being discomforting and the other extremely gay." Ariste was Boileau, and Gelaste Moliere, until his quarrel with Racine brought " envy, malice, and intrigue " into that charmed circle, when the name Gelaste was used to indicate Chapelle.-^ Upon Moliere's retirement to his asylum at Auteuil, he, instead of Boileau, was the most serious member of the Parnassian coterie described by La Fontaine ; for, despite his quarrel with Racine, his relations with the other intellects of that charmed circle remained unaltered. Moreover, he was not per- mitted to live in his retreat unmolested, as an amusing anecdote well testifies. It appears that one day Chapelle, Boileau, and a number of Moliere 's gay friends went to Auteuil, unin- vited, boldly announcing that they had come to supper. " I would have been more pleased," said the drama- tist, "were it possible for me to keep you company, but the state of my health will not permit it. I leave to M, Chapelle the duty of entertaining you." What a picture of Alceste in his desert Moliere's words convey ! Too ill to entertain his friends, he was forced to drink his milk and leave them to carouse under the leadership of Chapelle. " Egad, I 'm a great fool," said that epicurean, " to come here every day and get drunk for the honour of Moliere ; but what provokes me most is that he believes I am obliged to do it." Moliere was right in this conjecture. At three in the 1 Notice biographique sur Moliere by Paul Mesnard. 3i8 MOLIERE morning, with the poet's wine singing in his veins, Chapelle preached a cynical sermon to his maudlin comrades : " Life is but a trifle, replete with obstacles. For thirty or forty years we lie in wait for a moment of pleasure we never meet. Our youth is tormented by wretched parents who wish us to cram our heads with a heap of nonsense. I don't care a hang whether the earth or the sun turns, whether that fool Descartes or that madman Aristotle is right. I once had a crazy teacher who told that twaddle to me over and over again and kept me for ever falling back on Epicurus. Once more, pass that philosopher by. He was the one who knew the most. No sooner are we rid of such fools than our ears are deafened with talk about a do- mestic establishment. All women are but animals, the sworn enemies of our tranquillity. Yes, egad, there is nothing in life but trouble, injustice, and misfortune." Upon hearing this discourse, one of Chapelle's drunken companions embraced him fondly and exclaimed : " You are right, my dear friend ; without the pleasure here, what should we do ? Life is a poor lot. Let us leave it, and for fear that such good friends as we may be separated, let us drown ourselves together. The river is at the door." " True," said another, " we can never choose a better time to die happy and good friends ; moreover, our death will create some noise " ; whereupon the whole melan- cholically merry company staggered to the river bank and were just entering a boat with a view to throwing them- selves into deep water, when Moliere, awakened by young Baron, his house guest, reached the water's edge with his servants in the nick of time, for some of his MOLIERE AND HIS FRIENDS 319 friends were already floundering in the Seine. Upon being dragged ashore, these wretches drew their swords and chased their rescuers back to Auteuil, where the most persistent advocate of self destruction thus admon- ished his host : " I say, my dear Moliere, you are clever. Judge if we are wrong. Weary of the troubles of this world, and in order to be better off, we resolved to enter another. The river appeared the shortest route, but those rascally servants of yours blocked it. Can we do less than chastise them ? " " How was it possible, gentlemen, for you to conceive so noble a project without letting me share it ? " Mo- liere exclaimed, after upbraiding his servants for prevent- ing the fulfilment of so praiseworthy a design. "What, you would drown yourselves without me ? I thought you were better friends of mine than that." "He's deuced right;" cried Chapelle, "we did him great injustice." Then, turning to his host, he con- tinued with drunken fervour, " Come, then, and drown yourself with us." " Softly," said Moliere, " this is not an affair to be undertaken in an unseemly manner. It is the last act of our life and it must not be lacking in dignity. If we drown ourselves at this hour, the world would be mean enough to speak ill of it ; people would surely say that we did it at night like desperate men or like a lot of drunkards ; so let us choose the moment most worthy of our action, the moment which will reflect the most honour upon ourselves. To-morrow, between eight and nine in the morning, when still fasting, we will jump head f^rst in the river before the whole world." 320 MOLlfiRE Moliere's proposition was received with unanimous approbation, one of the members of this tipsy suicide club exclaiming that " Moliere always has a hundred times more sense than the rest of us," but naturally death appeared less attractive in the cold grey light of the morrow. This famous incident, equal in its comedy to any of Moliere's own conceptions, is known as the Auteuil supper. The dialogue is taken, verbatim, from Gri- marest's account, — an abused authority, which in this instance is corroborated; for Louis Racine, in his me- moirs of his father, tells a similar story of this famous incident, which though "unbelievable," as he declares, " is thoroughly true." " Fortunately," he continues, " his father was not there," although " the wise Boileau " was one of the party and " lost his senses like the rest." Moliere's friends were not all roisterers, however. In the more serious affairs of life he turned for advice and countenance to Jacques Rohault, the Cartesian, to whom he unburdened his heart regarding his domestic trials by exclaiming so bitterly : " Yes, my dear Monsieur Rohault, I am the most unhappy of all men." This sceptic and philosopher was a fervent expounder of the doctrines of Descartes, and doubtless his influence made the poet forswear the epicurean teachings of Gassendi for the principle that " Truth requires a clear and distinct con- ception of its object, excluding all doubt " ; for in his dramatic work, so truthful in conception, so clear in treatment, Moliere reflects to a considerable degree this Cartesian postulate. Furthermore, Grimarest tells a story of a boat ride on the Seine during which Chapelle and Moliere indulged in a violent philosophical argument upon the relative merits of Gassendi and Descartes, with MOLIERE AND HIS FRIENDS 321 a Minim as arbiter, — an incident noteworthy as further evidence of Moliere's Cartesian leanings. Grimarest asserts that Rohault served as model for the philosopher in The Burgher, a Gentleman, adding that Moliere, wishing to make the likeness unmistakable, sent Baron to borrow a peculiar old hat which Rohault invariably wore. The emissary, however, by telling the purpose for which it was intended, failed to obtain the desired object, since the philosopher, in the words of the chronicler, " would have felt himself dishonoured had his head-dress appeared upon the stage." Upon another occasion Rohault played a part in no way philosophical ; yet, as the event presents Moliere in a new and favourable manner, the digression its recountal demands should be pardonable. It concerns the elder Jean Poquelin's none too scrupulous accounting as executor of his first wife's estate, and Moliere's charitableness when his father be- came involved in financial difficulties toward the close of his life. According to his mother's will, the poet inherited five thousand livres, and, before he left Paris, his father had paid him, or advanced to settle his debts, about a thou- sand livres of this amount. During the next few years he must have received additional sums ; for in April, 1651, he gave his father a written acknowledgment for the receipt of nineteen hundred and sixty-five livres, all told; while between 1660 and 1664 Poquelin senior advanced his son various sums aggregating fifteen hun- dred and twelve livres seven sous, which Moliere de- clared upon his father's death were not a debt to the estate. When all these various amounts are taken into account, it is apparent, according to M. Eudore Soulie,^ Recherches sur Moliere. 322 MOLIERE that there was an unpaid balance from his mother's estate due Moliere, at the time of his father's death, of more than fifteen hundred livres ; and in view of this state of affairs the poet's generosity toward his father appears exceedingly meritorious, for, although Jean Poquelin senior was apparently his debtor, Moliere loaned the upholsterer in 1668 the sum of ten thousand livres, without interest, for the purpose of repairing the parental house in the arcades of the market-place. Moreover, to hide his identity as benefactor, he made use of the name of his friend Jacques Rohault the phi- losopher, — a fact made apparent only after Moliere's death by his widow's discovery of the papers in the case. Jean Poquelin senior died February twenty-fifth, 1669, at the age of seventy-three, leaving a number of debts for his son to pay ; and M. Soulie maintains that during the last years of his life he was " a morose old man, and somewhat of a miser," who " rejected the offers of help his son doubtless made him on several occasions until Moliere was forced finally to hide his identity when coming to his father's assistance." This loan to Jean Poquelin senior is not the only recorded instance of Moliere's liberality, for Grimarest tells a story in which his bountifulness is made even more apparent. It appears that an actor named Mondorge, whom the poet had known in his " barn storming " days, had fallen into penury. Young Baron, restored in 1670 to his benefactor's good graces, was staying at Auteuil when this indigent comedian appeared to seek Moliere's as- sistance. Touched by the man's story of misfortune, he volunteered to act as intermediary. " It is true," said Moliere, when he had heard his MOLIERE AND HIS FRIENDS 323 friend's account of Mondorge's ill luck, " that we once played comedy together. He is a most worthy man, and I am sorry his affairs are in such a state. How much do you think I ought to give him ? " Baron, considering four pistoles sufficient to enable Mondorge to join a travelling company, finally suggested that sum, whereupon Moliere replied : " Very well, I shall give him four pistoles for my part, since you consider it sufficient, but here are twenty more I shall add for you, in order that he may realise he is indebted to you for the service I have rendered him. I also have a theatrical costume I no longer need. Give it him — the poor man may find it useful in his profession." This costume, it appears, was "almost new and had cost Moliere twenty-five hundred livres," while the man- ner in which he received his poverty stricken comrade was in keeping with this generosity ; for, once more to quote Grimarest, "he seasoned the present with the good welcome he gave Mondorge."^ Another anecdote characteristic of Moliere's generous nature is told by the same writer. An honest beggar, it appears, returned a gold piece the poet had given him by mistake. "Keep it, my friend," Moliere replied, "and here is another"; the open-handed giver adding philosophically, " where will Virtue next hide herself? " ^ Among the few detached poems left by MoHere are two animated by friendship. One, a eulogy called The Glory of the Val-de-Grace {La Gloire du Val-de-Grace), was inspired by a fresco depicting the glory of the ^ As Baron, Grimarest's informant, figures in this story, its trust- worthiness need not be seriously questioned. " Anonymiana, ou Melanges de poesies, d" eloquence, et d'erudition. 324 MOLIERE Blessed, painted by Pierre Mignard, to adorn the church of Val-de-Grace which Anne of Austria had erected in the rue St. Jacques ; the other was a sonnet written to console La Mothe le Vayer for the loss of his son. The reader will recall the painter whose work inspired the longer of these poems as the dramatist's friend in the days when he toured the provinces. Although twelve years his senior, Mignard was Moliere's life long con- fidant, and an intimate of the Bejarts as well ; for he witnessed Genevieve's marriage contract, while Made- leine chose him as an executor for her estate. A book published in 1700 speaks of Moliere as having "written The Glory of the Val-de-Grace in favour of Monsieur Mignard whose daughter he loved " ; but this young person was only sixteen when Moliere died, and prob- ably not more than eleven at the time his poem was composed, so it is needless to see in the poet's supposed affection for her another amour. Moliere, however, fer- vently pleaded her father's cause with Colbert, to whom the painter was then persona non grata, and his apotheosis of Mignard's fresco is so laudatory that he has frequently been reproached for extravagantly commending a medi- ocre work of art ; yet Boileau was equally excessive in his tribute to Moliere's verses in saying that — Of all his works the poem he wrote in praise of his friend the famous Mignard is the most regular and sus- tained in its versification. . . . This poem . . . might pass for a complete treatise on painting, for the author has made all the rules of that admirable art appear in it."^ Moliere's verses are well turned and graceful, it is true, yet the modern critic will be inclined to find these words ^ Recreations litteraires by Cizeron Rival. M0LI£RE and his friends 325 of praise quite as excessive as the apotheosis they extol. As an evidence, however, of the warmth and sincerity of Moliere's friendship for Mignard, The Glory of the Val- de-Grace is worthy of sincere commendation ; and the same may be said of the sonnet inscribed to La Mothe le Vayer. This sceptic and philosopher was Moliere's senior by some thirty-four years ; the son whose death inspired his pathetic lines, a churchman and writer of nearly his own age ; and although his friendship for the father must have been rather in the nature of veneration, there is a tragic note in his poem which is almost prophetic; for only a few weeks later the man who so touchingly expressed paternal grief lost his own first born. This occurred in 1664, long before the quarrel with his wife and his retire- ment to Auteuil; but the affecting sonnet to La Mothe le Vayer, written before death and domestic misery had saddened his own life, shows that he possessed " the noble heart and beautiful mind" he attributes to his friend's dead son. In 1667, at the time of his retirement to Auteuil, Mo- liere became so ill that he was obliged to leave the stage for two months; but the quiet of a suburban village so restored his health that soon he was able to interfere in a quarrel wherein a choleric gardener was endeavouring to break the head of his master's son-in-law. Aided by his friends, the contumacious menial was locked in Moliere's own room by the poet, whereupon the affair was made a case at law, Moliere's name appearing, together with the details of the rumpus, in a Jurisdiction seigneuriale, dated August twenty-first and twenty-second, 1667.^ * Les Points obscurs de la vie de Moliere by Jules Loiseleur. Piece justificative communicated by M. Parent de Rosan. 326 MOLIERE The apartment Moliere rented in the Sieur de Beaufort's house at Auteuil for fout* hundred livres a year was, ac- cording to M. Loiseleur/ "extremely simple." Situated on the ground floor, it comprised a kitchen, a dining- room, and a bedroom, together with two attic rooms on the second floor. Moliere possessed the right of " walk- ing in the park," while for twenty icus a year additional rent he secured a bedroom in which to lodge his friends. In these modest quarters the poet dwelt during the years he remained separated from his wife, being visited from time to time by his manyintimates, among whom remains to be mentioned Bernier, a former schoolmate who paid him a visit at Auteuil after returning from a long sojourn in the dominions of the Great Mogul. The poet's household was in keeping with the modesty of his apartments. At the time of his death he was served by three domestics, — a cook, Renee Vannier, known as La Forest, Catherine Lemoyne, a housemaid, and Proven9al, a manservant. The name of Moliere's cook apparently remained a fixture, for one Louise Lefebvre, called La Forest, died in 1668, while Renee Vannier, her successor, received the same sobriquet. One of these geniuses of the spit is the La Forest to whom Moliere is reputed to have read his comedies with the assurance that her verdict would be sustained by the "gallery gods." Brossette, in recounting the anecdote, adds that " she had sufficient literary acumen not to con- found Brecourt's work with Moliere's," while, according to Grimarest, she accompanied her master to the theatre and evidently performed some trifling services there, for La Grange records a payment to her of three livres. Her laughter, too, welled heartily on the occasion when ^ Les Points obscurs de la vie de Moliere. MOLIERE AND HIS FRIENDS 327 the dramatist, acting the part of Sancho Panza, was forced by the perversity of the ass upon which he was mounted to make his entrance before his cue. Indeed, La Forest must have served as a model for Moliere's pert servant characters, such as Dorine in ^6 Hypocrite and Toinette in 'The Imaginary Invalid. Grimarest states that the valet Proven9al once received a kick from his master after having put on a stocking wrong side out, this writer adding that Moliere " was the most exacting man in the world in the matter of being served," since " a window opened or closed a moment before he had ordered it threw him into a convulsion," all of which proves that his nerves were easily excited, — a characteristic of most great artists. As Proven9al is reputed to have used a translation Moliere had made of Lucretius as curling papers for his master's wig, the kick seems amply justified.^ Indeed, much in the way of irritability may be pardoned a man of Moliere's many occupations, for no one filling the varied roles of actor, manager, and play writer could long maintain an equable temper. In answer to reproaches made by Chapelle upon his preoccupation, these heartfelt words are put into the poet's mouth by Grimarest : Ah, my dear sir, you are really amusing. For you it is easy to devise this mode of life. You are isolated from everything ; so you can, if you wish, think a fort- night over one witticism, without any one troubling you, and then go, well warmed with wine, to tell it everywhere ^ M. Monval in Lettres au Mercure sur Moliere quotes Tralage as saying that this manuscript was offered to a publisher by the poet's widow, who refused it on the ground that it was " too much opposed to the immortality of the soul." If this be so, it could not have been burnt by the valet. 328 MOLlfiRE at the expense of your friends, for you have nothing else to do. But if, like me, you were busy striving to please the King ; if you had forty or fifty unreasonable people to support and direct, a theatre to maintain, and plays to write in order to ensure your reputation, on my word, you would not think of laughing, nor would you pay so much attention to your witticisms and jests, which, believe me, do not hinder you from making many enemies. Moliere was a dreamer who cared little for society, — "a contemplator," as Boileau called him, who preferred the companionship of a few intimates to the attentions of the many. Those whom he esteemed remained attached to him through life ; for he who defined friendship with such conviction in The Misanthrope counted among his associates the most brilliant men and women of his day, — such as the great Conde, the Marechal de Vivonne, Madame de la Sabliere, and Ninon de Lenclos, whom Moliere considered " the person of the great world upon whom humour made the quickest impression." He repaid all the dinners he received, but his function in society was apparently to observe ; for De Vize, in his comedy of Zilinde, makes a shopkeeper say of him : Elomire did not speak a word. I found him lean- ing on ray counter in the attitude of a man who dreams. His eyes were glued upon two or three persons of quality who were bargaining for laces, and he appeared attentive to their conversation ; for the movement of his eyes in- dicated that he was searching the depths of their souls for the things they did not say : I believe, however, he had a memorandum book and that, hidden by his cloak, he wrote down, unseen, the most pertinent things they said. During the visits paid by his troupe to the houses of great nobles, Moliere studied the manners and ways MOLlfiRE AND HIS FRIENDS 329 of the company he entertained, but, as M. Larroumet exclaims : " That did not suffice. He must know his models in a more friendly and freer way; so he accepted their invitations." ^ The author of Z'elinde makes one of his characters in- vite Moliere to meet " three or four sorry jesters," with the assurance that he " will not leave without the ma- terial for three or four comedies." Indeed Moliere's habitual attitude in society was that of an observer, — a quality early made apparent by the stories told of his doings in Maitre Gely's barber-shop at Pezenas. In The Criticism of The School for Wives he paints this pen picture of his own social diffidence : You know the man and his natural laziness in sus- taining a conversation. Celimene invited him to supper as a fine wit, yet never did he appear so embarrassed and stupid as among a dozen persons to whom she had lauded him and who stared at him as one who could not have been made of the same clay as themselves. They all thought he was there to regale the company with witti- cisms ; that each word falling from his lips must be un- usual ; that he ought to compose an impromptu upon everything said, and never ask for a drink except with an epigram ; but he deceived them cruelly with his silence. Moliere was too sincere to pose. Only to such life long friends as Chapelle, Mignard, Rohault, and Boileau did he unburden his heart. Once more to quote M. Larroumet, "In his treatment of his enemies, his rivals, his patrons, the men of rank, the King, we see a man honest and upright, yet compliant and cautious," — a man of the world, in short, skilfully using his knowledge * La Comidie de Moliere. 330 MOLIERE of human nature to win success in his chosen career, — a man too relentless in his hatred of imposture to tem- porise with hypocrites, too sincere to play the courtier, save as a means to gather material for his " ridiculous likenesses." For his morality and his views of life, one must turn to his plays. His subjective writings have already been dwelt upon, and he has been viewed as courtier and poet militant. In the comedies now to be considered he wrote objectively from material he had collected while playing the silent part of contemplator. THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 331 XVII THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS If a literary play is one in which the quality of the dialogue transcends the human interest of the story, a histrionic play is one befitting the stage, or, in the par- lance of the dramatic profession, " a good acting piece." With rare exceptions, Moliere's comedies are histrionic ; hence the use of this word as a specific term demands some explanation. Although slavishly transalpine in The Blunderer, it will be remembered that Moliere became truly Gallic in Les Prhieuses ridicules and militant in The Hypocrite ; while, from time to time, as a courtier's stratagem to win the King's regard, he brought forth various trifling skits upon society. The comedies of his later years, however, neither militant nor obsequious in tone, abound in life- like characters and amusing situations. Penned at a time when Moliere had exhausted his enthusiasm in futile attacks upon the vices of his day, these plays, Gallic in quality, Italian or even classic in conception, depict such failings as avarice and social ambition in a manner intended to call forth laughter rather than ill- will. Essentially eclectic in treatment, they are, above all, stage plays, conceived primarily to amuse an audi- ence. With the exception of Les Prhieuses ridicules. The Hypocrite, The Misanthrope, and two of the militant satires directed against medicine, they are, of all Moliere's 332 MOLIERE pieces, those most frequently seen to-day upon the French stage ; therefore the word " histrionic " is no misnomer. Were it not for their perennial ability to hold an audience, the majority of these histrionic comedies might readily be classed among the Gallic plays. I^he Miser, for instance, and 'J!he Burgher, a Gentleman., are certainly aa national in tone as Sganarelle, yet, being penned during the later years of Moliere's life, they are so thoroughly marked by the sure touch of a master craftsman that the term " histrionic " seems more fitting to distinguish this, the period when Moliere, worldly wise, experienced as a manager, and less zealous as a crusader, was content to write plays well calculated to fill the coffers of his theatre. In other words, the histrionic comedies are the work of a mature man glad to exchange a battered lance for a keen-pointed rapier, — a man, in short, who had learned the futility of tilting at windmills. His genius had not waned, but his zeaJ was tempered by experience. Only against the doctors did he ride in battle array, and even then in a way so half-hearted that death itself seemed no longer an enemy, but a friend he wished to meet. No TartufFe nor Alceste graces this histrionic period, but, on the other hand, there is no Don Garcia of Navarre. Chronologically such comedy ballets as 'The Magni^cent Lovers and Psyche belong to it, but these are essentially court plays ; moreover, the King suggested the topic for the one, while both Quinault and Corneille collaborated with Moliere upon the other; so our poet is scarcely responsible for their failure to hold a modern audience. Moliere's medical satires, too, though mili- tant in tone, are so histrionic in treatment that they might readily be classed among the comedies of the later period THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 333 The first play, however, to be considered, principally from the stage point of view, is Amphitryon, a three-act comedy in verse based upon Plautus's Amphitruo. The Latin farce upon which Moliere's play founds itself is a ludicrous recountal of the visit of Jupiter to Alcmene in the guise of her lover Amphitryon. Moliere's version is less vulgar in treatment and far better in construction than its model ; yet palpably an imitation and dealing with a mythical subject, it affords a poor example of the author's surpassing gift of truthful portraiture. The characters are Greek gods and fabulous mortals, but even when painting these mythological beings Moliere could not entirely stifle his love of truth. Am- phitryon's servant Sosie, and the latter's wife, Cleanthis, are quite as much of the soil of France as Sganarelle, the doctor in spite of himself, and Martine, his helpmate. From the modern point of view, Amphitryon would make a better opera bouffe than comedy; but Moliere, like Plautus, wrote for the taste of his time, and, to quote Bayle, " there are subtleties and pranks in his Amphitryon which far surpass the raillery of its Latin prototype," This writer places Amphitryon among Moliere 's best plays,^ — a judgment modern critics will be likely to challenge; still, though the subject is mythological and borrowed from a classic source, the play is a pleasing phantasy which conserves the wit of Latin comedy while charming by the luxuriance and gaiety of its language. The sparkling quality oi Amphitryon is enhanced by the varied metre of its verses. Here, for the first time, Moliere discards the iambic hexameters of French dramatic poetry for vers litres, or lines of unequal meas- ure, while the stately couplet gives place to a varied * Dictionnaire historique et critique, 1697. 334 MOLIERE rhyme scheme. Had this freedom from classic despot- ism been declared in The Hypocrite or The Misanthrope Moliere would merit scant approval for his temerity; but in Amphitryon, a phantasy resembling in many ways the ballet interludes which had graced his previous com- edies, this assertion of poetic license passes for de- lightful bravado. The French Alexandrine, gliding upon its classic course like a mighty river of harmony, possesses a rhythmical grandeur with which no dramatic verse, except the Greek, can vie. In the use of this superb measure, so Latin in spirit that in English its majestic rhythm becomes mere resonance, Moliere is inferior to Racine, not only because comedy lends itself less easily than tragedy to a metre so melodious, but because his sparkling genius demanded a form of expression at once crisp and succinct; even In his versified plays his characters speak the ordinary language of man. In such comedies as The Misanthrope, high thoughts are embodied and pure emotions are rhythmically ex- pressed ; but imagery is almost entirely lacking. Moliere, chafing in poetic harness, longed for a more laconic me- dium with which to colour his truthful portraits of mankind. Until his day verse had been the sole form permissible for both tragedy and comedy, yet defying the canons of French dramatic art, he forsook the rhythmical form of expression so frequently, that of his thirty-three existing plays only fourteen are in verse. Moliere was a master of metrical technic, but his thoughts came freely and directly without the circumlocutory metaphors and similes which constitute poetic imagery. Only in this failure to embellish his noblest sentiments with vivid figures of speech is he inferior to Shake- THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 335 speare in the province of comedy. In fecundity, as M. Coquelin has so happily said, he is the great English- man's equal; in veracity, his superior. Moliere was a naturalist ; his genius lay, above all else, in telling the plain truth about mankind, — prose was its normal ve- hicle. As a poet he has been surpassed, but never as a writer of concise, vigorous, and truthful prose dialogue, — a dialogue so expressive of human thoughts and human emotions that his characters are still as lifelike as on the day they were drawn. The verses of Amphitryon which inspired this digres- sion are at once so delicate and spirited that to many an Anglo-Saxon their free measure will appear a far more suitable form for comedy than the classic metre, — that is to say, for comedy in a light vein. However, Moliere demonstrated a true poetic insight by writing The Hypo- crite and The Misanthrope in Alexandrines. In such stately comedies vers libres would have been out of harmony, , Amphitryon was first played at the Palais Royal on January thirteenth, 1668, and Roederer^ sees in Jupiter's replacement of Amphitryon as Alcmene's husband a travesty upon Monsieur de Montespan, who at the time was indulging in outbursts of jealous rage against his monarch for estranging his wife's affections. It is difficult to believe, however, that Moliere was authorised by Louis to speak ex cathedra upon so delicate a matter, the more so, because, according to M. Mesnard, the details of the Montespan affair were then only whispered at court. When Moliere next wrote, he wisely forsook verse and Olympian characters for prose and the every-day people ^ Memoir e pour servir a I' histoire de la soci'et'e plie en France. 33^ MOLlfeRE he painted so inimitably. Never has he shown a more certain grasp of stage requirements than in George Dandin ; or. The Abashed Husband {George Dandin ou le Mart confondu) — a comedy so swift in action, so clever in situation, and so terse in dialogue that it might justly serve as a model for all modern writers of stage humour. In its story of the successful efforts of an unfaithful wife to hoodwink her husband, vice rather than virtue is tri- umphant ; yet it teaches a moral lesson nevertheless. George Dandin, the duped husband, is a rich peasant proprietor, who has been inspired by a reverence for rank to marry Angelique, the daughter of an impecunious nobleman. His marital troubles are due to his wife's contempt for a husband beneath her in birth, — a con- tempt shared by her parents. Because a distasteful marriage with a man inferior to her in both birth and intellect has so dulled her moral nature that she can see no possible deliverance from her hateful thrall save in transgression, Angelique gives her heart to a man of her own caste and tricks her dull helpmate without compunction. Vice is made to triumph in the person of this wife, in order that Moliere may point the moral that a man who marries above his station is a fool worthy only of con- tempt, — a truth thus made apparent by poor George Dandin himself in the opening speech of the play : A wife who is born a lady is a strange creature ! and what a speaking lesson my marriage is to every peasant who tries to better his place in the world by tying him- self, like me, to a nobleman's family. Nobility is well enough, and certainly worth respecting, but the things that go with it are so bad that I wish I had never rubbed against it. To my cost, I 've grown wise on that score, THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 337 and now know the ways of the nobility when they wish to make us enter their families. We don't count in the bargain ; it is what we have that they marry ; and, rich as I am, I should have done far better to have married like a good honest peasant than to have taken a wife who holds herself better than I am, feels ashamed to bear my name, and thinks that, with all my money, I have n't paid dear enough for the honour of being her husband. George Dandin ! George Dandin ! you have done the most foolish thing in the world. , . . In spite of his wealth, George Dandin is of the soil. When convinced of his wife's misconduct, he would have beaten her had she been a peasant; but, overawed by her superior birth, he contents himself with mildly de- nouncing her behaviour to her parents. " I tell you I am much dissatisfied with my marriage ! " he exclaims. " What ! " answers his nobly born mother-in-law, " can you speak thus of a marriage from which you have de- rived such great advantages ? " " The bargain has not been a bad one for you," the peasant son-in-law retorts, " for my money has stopped pretty large gaps in the run-down state of your affairs ; but what have I got by it, pray, except in making my name longer ? Instead of being George Dandin, I have gained, through you, the title of Monsieur de la Dandiniere." The spirited plot of this play is too intricate to be recounted in full. Suffice it to say that George Dandin is continually baffled in his efforts to convince his wife's parents of their daughter's misconduct, until, overhearing a confession of love made by her to a young nobleman named Clitandre, he locks his door against her, only to be duped by a ruse of feigned suicide. When he comes forth in his night shirt with a lighted candle to search 338 MOLIERE for his wife's body, she slips past him in the dark, and, entering the house, bolts the door. Mistress now of the situation, Angelique denounces him to her parents as a drunken brute who has maltreated her ; whereupon the poor man is forced by his father-in-law to kneel in his unclad state and beg forgiveness of a wife whom he knows by her own confession to be false, — a situation which brings the comedy to a close. Written to grace a Versailles fete, George Dandin was first played at court in July, 1668, but in construction as well as in characterisation it is a histrionic masterpiece. Some of its situations occur in a story by Boccaccio, and were used by Moliere in his one-act farce, 'The Jealousy of Smutty Face ; yet the author's masterly portraiture ac- quits him of the charge of plagiarism. George Dandin is so true to life that he must have been a patron of Maitre Gely's barber shop at Pezenas, while the origi- nals of the Baron and Baroness de Sotenville, his parents- in-law, were doubtless decayed gentlefolks of the Prince de Conti's court. The tricks Angelique plays upon her husband are farcical, yet this story of a parvenu's marriage with a woman of rank is so thoroughly human that this play, although absurd in plot, is nevertheless a comedy of manners of our own as well as of Moliere's day. If an impecunious nobleman marries his daughter to a peasant proprietor, or his son to an American heiress, the moral result is the same ; for, whatever temporary pranks love may play with social conditions, marriage will not level all ranks, nor can it be made an object of barter without courting consequences such as befell poor George Dandin in his marriage of convenience. Avarice, "the good old-gentlemanly vice," as Byron THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 339 calls it, is the text of Moliere's next dramatic homily ; and in the almost tragic fervour of his words this same preacher skirts the sublime heights he attained in his ser- mons against hypocrisy and worldliness ; for The Miser {UAvare), a prose comedy in five acts with cupidity as its theme, ranks next in point of earnestness to The Mis- anthrope and The Hypocrite. Being serious in theme, and from a comedy point of view pure in treatment, it takes perforce a high place among its author's plays. The plot is borrowed mainly from the Aulularia of Plautus ; while, for the various incidents, so many sources have been drawn upon that, according to Riccoboni, The Miser does not contain four original scenes ; ^ yet it is idle to ask who has depicted these before. The same models have been used, but the same picture has never been painted ; for although the details are borrowed, in the ensemble Moliere's sure touch is ever apparent. Indeed, the name Harpagon has become a household word. Moliere's miser is a man whose avarice "sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root, than summer- seeming lust," — in short, a lickpenny, who, in the words of his son's valet, is "of all mortals the hardest and most close-fisted" ; a man willing to bestow "praise, esteem, kind words, and friendship, but never money." He belongs to the bourgeoisie, — a class whose thrift when carried to excess becomes the vice of avarice. He has a daughter, Elise by name , and a son who borrows money at usurious rates from Jewish money-lenders. Valere, a young man who has introduced himself into the household in the capacity of steward, is in love with Elise; while Cleante, the prodigal son, has fallen a victim to the charms of Mariane, a penniless young * Observations sur la comidie et sur U genie de Mo Hire, 1736. 340 MOLIERE lady of the neighbourhood. Harpagon, however, up- sets the plans of these lovers by promising Elise's hand to a rich man named Anselme and by avowing his in- tention to marry Mariane himself. Few stronger themes for a dramatic story exist than the rivalry of a father and son, — a theme developed so seriously by Moliere in The Miser that the play at moments, ceasing to be a comedy, becomes a drama; as, for instance, when Cleante, learning that, besides being a rival, his father is the usurer who is lending him money through a Jew at exorbitant interest rates, thus tears the fifth command- ment in shreds : Do you not blush to dishonour your station by the trade you are engaged in ; to sacrifice glory and reputa- tion to the insatiable desire of piling crown upon crown, and to surpass, in matters of interest, the most infamous tricks that ever were invented by the most notorious usurers ? . . . Which, think you, is the more criminal, — he who buys money of which he is in need, or he who steals money for which he has no use ? Undismayed by this arraignment and regardless of his son's passion, Harpagon, aided by a femme ^intrigue named Frosine, prepares to wed Mariane himself. The scene wherein the miser instructs his household regard- ing their duties at the betrothal supper is by far the most humorous in the play : Come here, all of you, and let me give you your orders for this evening and assign to each his task! Approach, Dame Claude ; I '11 begin with you. Good ! I see you bear your arms [her broom] in hand. Your duty will be to make everything clean and tidy, but take especial care not to rub the furniture too hard for fear of wearing it out. Moreover, I appoint you during the THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 341 supper to the management of the bottles, and if one is lost or anything broken, I shall look to you for it, and shall take it out of your wages. . . . You, Brindavoine, and you, La Merluche, are to rinse the glasses and serve out the wine, but only when any of the company are thirsty, and not like those rascally lackeys who go and press people and put it into their heads to drink when they don't wish to. Wait till you have been asked more than once, — and always remember to serve plenty of water. The most comical character in the play is Maitre Jacques, a factotum playing the dual role of cook and coachman in Harpagon's niggardly household. When- ever he is addressed in a capacity opposed to the cos- tume he is wearing, he solemnly changes his coachman's livery for a cook's smock, or vice versa, — a bit of by- play which invariably keeps an audience in roars of laughter. When asked by his master for the world's opinion of him, Maitre Jacques truthfully paints Har- pagon's character, even though his candour costs him a thrashing : Sir, since you will have it, I tell you frankly that you are laughed at everywhere ; that you are the object of hundreds of gibes ; for people are never so happy as when putting you on the rack and telling tales of your stinginess. One neighbour says you have private alma- nacs printed, in which you double the ember-days and vigils in order to profit by the extra fasts your house- hold must observe ; another, that you have a quarrel always ready to pick with your servants at " boxing " time, or when they are leaving, so that you may have a pretext for giving them nothing. One man says that you once swore out a warrant against a neighbour's cat for having eaten the scraps of a leg of mutton ; and still another that you were caught one night stealing your 342 MOLIERE own horses' oats, and that your coachman — my prede- cessor — gave you I don't know how many blows, in the dark, with a bludgeon, about which you never ven- tured to say anything. In short, — shall I tell you? — I can go nowhere without hearing you hauled over the coals. You are the laughing-stock of the whole neigh- bourhood, and you are never spoken of except as a miser, an extortioner, and a niggardly skinflint. Fearful that robbers may enter his house, Harpagon buries in his garden a casket containing ten thousand livres, and when his son's valet discovers its hiding- place, the prodigal purloins this treasure as a means for bringing his father to terms. But the charm of this play does not lie in its somewhat stilted plot. Harpa- gon is the personification of greed, painted by a master hand. Take, for instance, these lines spoken when he discovers the loss of his buried treasure, — a speech fairly Balzacian in its sordid frenzy : Stop thief! stop thief! Hold the assassin ! stop the murderer ! Justice, great Heaven ! I am undone, assas- sinated ! They have cut my throat ! They 've stolen my money ! Who can have done it? What has become of him ? Where is he ? — where is he hiding ? What can I do to find him ? Where shall I run ? where shall I not run? Is he here? Is he there? Who 's that? Stop ! [He clutches himself by the arm.] Give back my money, you scoundrel! — It is myself! my mind 's distraught — I know not where I am, nor what I do. Alas ! my poor money ! my poor money ! my dear friend ! thou hast been taken from me ; and since thou art gone, I have lost my sole support, my consolation, my joy ; all is ended, I have nothing left to keep me in this world. Without thee, it is impossible to live. All is over; I have no more strength; I am dying; I am dead ; I am buried. Will no one raise me from the dead THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 343 by giving me back my beloved money, or by telling me who has taken it ? Eh ! what 's that you say ? Nobody spoke. There 's no one here ! The one who robbed me must have carefully spied out the hour, and chosen the very time when I was talking to my rascally son. Come — I will seek justice. I '11 have my whole house put upon the rack — maids, valets, son, daughter — and myself. I see them all assembled there! I suspect them all ; each looks to me like a thief. What are they talking about down there ? About the thief who robbed me? What noise is that up there? Is it my thief? For Heaven's sake, if you have any news of him, tell me, I pray you ! Is he hidden there amongst you ? They all stare at me and laugh. You will see that they had a share in the theft. Quick, policemen, archers, provosts, judges ! racks, gallows, and hangmen ! I '11 hang the whole lot of them, and if I don't recover my money, I '11 then hang myself. Because of its disregard of the dramatic canon that a play in five acts must be written in verse — a contempt for the rules Moliere had already evinced in Don Juan — The Miser, when first presented on the stage of the Palais Royal, September ninth, 1668,^ called forth con- siderable protest from contemporary critics. A modern censor will feel more inclined, however, to take exception to the baseness of its picture of a man's degraded love of wealth and a son's undutifulness than to quibble over Aristotelian principles ; for commanding as is the realis- tic strength of this play, one turns with a certain sense of relief from Harpagon the miser to Monsieur Jourdain the socially ambitious tradesman, whose desire to pass ^ Grimarest places the first production in January, 1668, while Vol- taire arbitrarily selects the year 1667 ; but La Grange makes no mention of The Miser until Sunday, September ninth, 1668, when he announces its first production as a new piece (^piece nouvelle de M, de Moliere'). 344 MOLIERE the portals of society inspires the title of The Burgher, a Gentleman {Le Bourgeois gentilhomme). Here, at least, is a character meriting one's sympathy, — a character truer, too, than its predecessor to the life of our day, for the miser of Moliere's time has become a Wall-Street magnate, whereas the social climber is found wherever organised society exists. A retired shopkeeper, ignorant of the ways of the world. Monsieur Jourdain resolves to bridge the gulf separating him from the nobly born. His desire to receive social recognition is an obsession, yet his endeav- ours to acquire fine clothes and manners are so compla- cent and sincere that, laughable though he be, he is, nevertheless, a genuine human being, made lovable by his beaming simplicity. Finding low born manners a bar to the fulfilment of his ambition. Monsieur Jourdain, much to the disgust of his worthy wife and outspoken maid-of-all-work, resolves to educate himself The first two acts are devoted to his efforts in this direction as well as to the quarrels of his various professors of music, dancing, fencing, and phi- losophy for ascendency over their " milch cow," as Ma- dame Jourdain calls her lord ; yet the only tangible progress Monsieur Jourdain makes in the acquirement of knowledge is to learn that all which is not verse is prose. Discovering to his great delight that when he asks for his slippers he is speaking prose, he thus com- municates this knowledge to his wife : Monsieur Jourdain Do you know what you are talking at this moment ? Madame Jourdain I know I am talking good sense, and that you ought to change your manner of living. THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 345 Monsieur Jourdain I don't mean that. I mean, do you know what the words are that you are saying ? Madame Jourdain They are sensible words, and that 's more than I can say of your conduct. Monsieur Jourdain I don't mean that. I ask you, what I am now saying to you at the present moment, what is it ? Madame Jourdain Stuff and nonsense. Monsieur Jourdain It 's prose, you ignorant woman ! Madame Jourdain Prose ? Monsieur Jourdain Yes, prose. All that is prose is not verse, and all that is not verse is prose. There ! That 's what one learns by study. To further his passion for entering society, Monsieur Jourdain allows himself to become the dupe of Dorante, an unscrupulous nobleman whom he lends vast sums of money, even permitting him the use of his house for the purpose of carrying on an intrigue with a marchioness named Dorimene. Assured by this chevalier d'industrie that Dorimene views his own attentions with no unfa- vourable eye. Monsieur Jourdain lavishes presents upon her, for which Dorante, of course, takes the credit ; and, having induced his better half to spend an evening out, the deluded man regales the noble marchioness with a sumptuous banquet, brought to an untimely end by the 346 MOLlfeRE appearance of Madame Jourdain in the role of outraged wife. The love plot is merely accessary to Monsieur Jour- dain's ambitions, but it serves to inspire an incident whereby that worthy bourgeois's obsession is made the excuse for the ballet which concludes the play. Cleonte, an estimable young man, is in love with Monsieur Jour- dain's daughter Lucile,^ and when he demands her hand, her father asks him if he is a gentleman. He repUes thus: Sir, in answering that question most people show slight hesitation ; the word is easily spoken. Litde scruple is shown in the assumption of that name, and present custom seems to authorise the theft ; yet, for my part, I confess my feelings on this point are a little more delicate. I maintain that all imposture is unworthy of an honest man, and that it is cowardice to disguise what Heaven has made, and deck ourselves for the eyes of the world with a stolen title, or to wish to pass for what one is not. I am born of parents who doubtless have filled honourable posts. I have acquitted myself creditably as a soldier by six years of service, and I am sufficiently well-to-do to maintain a middling rank in society; yet notwithstanding all this, I shall not assume a name which others in my place might think they had a right to bear ; therefore I shall tell you frankly that I am not a gentleman. Many a modern young man might emulate this modesty with credit to himself; many a designing mother, too, might well study the homely philosophy which Madame Jourdain propounds in support of Cleonte's suit : * The reader will recall the scene between Cleonte and his valet Covielle, quoted on page 1 5 1 , in which Cleonte, picturing the charms of his lady-love, in reality draws a portrait of Armande Bejart, who played the role of Lucile. THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 347 Alliances with people above one's station are subject to grievous drawbacks. I wish no son-in-law of mine to be able to reproach my daughter with her parents, or to have children ashamed to call me grandmother. Deaf, however, to this sound reasoning. Monsieur Jourdain refuses Cleonte on the ground that he is not a gentleman, whereupon Covielle, the discarded lover's valet, concocts a scheme to further his master's cause. Disguised as an emissary of the son of the Grand Turk, as the Sultan was then called, Covielle tells Monsieur Jourdain that his imperial highness has conceived an attachment for his daughter, Lucile, and that in order to raise him to a rank befitting such an alliance, he has resolved upon making him a Mamamouchi. Cleonte appearing disguised as a Turk and accompanied by a band of mummers. Monsieur Jourdain is duly invested with the imaginary dignity of Mamamouchi and a cos- tume befitting his rank. When let into the secret of her husband's crowning folly, Madame Jourdain consents to the union of her daughter with the Sultan's fictitious heir, while Dorante, who has used his middle class dupe for the purpose of winning Dorimene, is rewarded by that lady's hand. The first three acts of this delightful play are in the spirit of pure comedy, but the other two fall to the level of farce, — a descent, however, for which Moliere is blameless. The advent in Paris of a Turkish ambas- sador had created such a sensation at court that upon his departure the King commanded Moliere to write a comedy^ introducing a Turkish ballet, for which Lully was ^ According to Bruzen de la Martiniere, Colbert suggested to the King the subject of a Turkish farce for the purpose of ridiculing the disdainful Turkish envoy. 348 MOLlfeRE ordered to compose the music, and a certain Chevalier d'Arvieux, who had spent some time in the Orient, to provide local colour. When played before Louis at Chambord in October, 1670, I'he Burgher, a Gentleman was, according to Gri- marest, " a failure " ; for " the King said nothing about it at supper, and the courtiers tore it to pieces," with the result that " the mortified author took to his room for a period of five days." When the play was regiven, the King broke his discouraging silence by telling Moliere that " he had never written a more amusing play," yet, as the comedy was repeated at court within two, instead of five, days after its first representation, Grimarest's anec- dote must be accepted with considerable caution, the more so because, according to the official gazette, the new piece was played four times within eight days. There are reasons, however, for crediting the dis- pleasure of the courtiers. Moliere's villain, Dorante, a well-born sharper, who uses his social position as a means for relieving a shopkeeping lover of station of his money, is of their caste, while the pretensions of people of quality are made the object of an irony so delicious that 'The Burgher^ a Gentleman stands pre-eminent among Moli- ere's satirical plays. Indeed, despite its farcical denoue- ment, it is a comedy of manners so true to humanity that Monsieur Jourdain has become the universally accepted portrait of the parvenu. Social ambition being a folly, not a vice, this simple shopkeeper, befuddled with love for rank, whose inborn impulse it is to rub his hands obsequiously and scrape to persons of quality, represents a type quite different from George Dandin, the slowly thinking peasant. " Is not this bourgeois infatuated with nobility the most arrant THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 349 fool, the most perfect booby we know ? " asks M. Paul Mesnard ; yet Monsieur Jourdain's infatuation is, after all, a weakness most of us have experienced to a more or less degree, — the very weakness, indeed, upon which all aristocracies are based. In spite of the fact that certain scenes have been traced to Aristophanes, Cervantes, Rotrou, and others. The Burgher, a Gentleman remains one of Moliere's truest and most original creations. A one-act corollary of this play is La Comtesse iEscar- hagnas. Here the social climber appears as a foolish provincial lady, who, after two months spent in Paris, apes the manners of the court and the intellectual lan- guishments of the pricieuses. In love with a viscount, who, like Dorante, makes use of her credulity to further his suit for another's hand, the countess flirts meantime with a provincial counsellor and a tax-gatherer, because, as she wisely says, " it is unwise to leave one lover master of the field, lest his love go to sleep through too much confidence and the lack of rivalry." Her provin- cial admirers are " humoured, in case she might wish to make use of them," — a wise proceeding, since, losing the tax-gatherer through her absurd pretensions, the Comtesse d'Escarbagnas takes the advice of the viscount whose tool she has been, and marries the counsellor, " to spite the whole world." This little comedy, so slight in construction, was intended merely to serve as an intro- duction for a court ballet given at St. Germain on December second, 1 67 1 , yet it is a charming conceit, — a sheet from Moliere's note-book of country manners made when he sojourned at the Prince de Conti's court ; a simple pencil sketch, as it were, of provincial follies drawn so deftly that, though farcical in form and slender 350 MOLlfiRE in outline, it is a picture of actual life, and therefore comedy. Being the manager of a popular theatre, Moliere was tempted during the later years of his life to dress old scenes and characters in new clothes. Forced to fill his theatre, like Shakespeare, he studied the necessities of the stage, — an exigency which makes l^he Rascalities of Scapin {Les Fourberies de Scapin), his next piece, thor- oughly praiseworthy from a stage point of view ; yet in reverting to Italian imbroglio, the false art of his youth, Moliere here sacrificed upon the altar of his public both characterisation and atmosphere, the very elements which make his plays so peerless. In Scapin, the character whose knavery gives this farce its title, we have the rogue of Italian mummery, proud of his lies and trickery, — in short, the Mascarille of Moliere's youth. Indeed, the rascalities Scapin employs on behalf of two young Neapolitan gentlemen are strongly reminiscent of those invented by the valet of Lelie the blunderer to aid his master. In this instance there are two young men, each opposed by an irate father in his endeavours to wed a young woman who, unknown to either, happens to be the very person most expedient for him to marry. One of these. Octave by name, having wedded his inamorata during his father's absence, becomes so terrified at the prospect of parental ire that he has recourse to Scapin, the valet of his friend Leandre, a resourceful rascal " endowed by Heaven with a fine genius for all those happy expedients of wit, those gallantries to which the vulgar give the name of knavery." " I may say without vanity," declares this new Mas- carille, " that no man has ever been more clever than I in managing all the springs of intrigue." Needing money to THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 351 compass his knavery, this rascal resolves to filch from the parents of his young employers. Accordingly, he tells Geronte, father of Leandre, that his son, enticed aboard the galley of a young Turk to dine and wine, has been carried out to sea and held for a ransom, which he, Scapin, has been charged to collect. Astonished by this prepos- terous demand, Geronte repeats, at intervals, during Scapin's recital of his son's predicament, the words, " What the devil did he intend to do in that galley ? " {^e diable allait-il faire dans cette galtre ?) — a phrase in whole or in part more widely quoted, perhaps, than any in the French language. Indeed, Geronte's bewilderment is so intense that throughout Scapin's arguments he constantly reiterates this question, until the rogue has obtained the needed money. This famous scene occurs almost in its entirety in 'The Tricked Pedant (Le P'edant jou'e) of Cyrano de Bergerac, and although M. Louis Moland* cites an Italian scenario which may have inspired both playwriters, the phrase qu' allait-il faire dans cette galere, occurring in the earlier play, is circumstantial evidence, at least, that Moliere helped himself to Cyrano's product, — an act he justifies by the assertion of his right " to take possession of his property wherever found." ^ In this instance he possesses himself of the "property" of Terence as well as that of Cyrano de Bergerac ; while in placing a character in a gunny sack to be beaten ' Moliere et la com'edie italienne, 1867. ' // m'' est per mis de reprendre mon Hen oti je le trouve, are words ascribed to Moliere by Grimarest ; and this phraseology has led certain commentators to suggest the possibility of a youthful collaboration which inspired Moliere to refurbish a scene he had once contributed to Cyrano's play. 352 MOLIERE soundly by Scapin under the pretence of defending him from a horde of imaginary bravos, he cements, as Boileau has suggested, an unholy alliance between Tabarin^ and the classic drama. Although The Rascalities of Scapin is distinctly a play of action, it is, despite deft touches from Moliere's brush, little more than an Italian imbroglio, — in other words, a farce of " three or four surprises, two or three disguises, combats and tumults." First presented on the stage of the Palais Royal, May twenty-fourth, 1 67 1 , it still holds a place in the repertory of the Comedie Fran^aise, — an honour due to histri- onic rather than literary valiie ; for in spite of its " side- splitting " qualities one is tempted to agree with Boileau and pronounce it unworthy of the great creator of char- acter comedy. Indeed, as if aware that Scapin's rascalities were un- becoming his genius, Moliere returned to his own in 'The Learned Women {Les Femmes savantes), a five-act comedy in verse, produced at the Palais Royal, March eleventh, 1672. In this, the last of his plays save The Imaginary Invalid, Moliere almost reaches his highest level ; for only in its lack of a commanding character, such as Alceste or TartufFe, and in a corresponding in- tensity of purpose, is this play inferior to his two great masterpieces. Its verse is more polished, its comedy purer, perhaps, than any he ever wrote. Only in vigour does it fail to rival his greatest work ; for as a satire upon ^ Tabarin was a famous mountebank of the Pont Neuf, and is sup- posed to have originated this scene. It was a more or less common farce situation, however, in Moliere's day, and probably formed the subject of a canevas entided Gorgibus dans le sac played by Moliere's strolling com- pany and presumably composed by its manager. THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 353 society from the pen of a moralist who felt " he could do nothing better than attack the follies of his time with ridiculous likenesses," The Learned Women stands but a step below the The Misanthrope and The Hypocrite. In writing this comedy Moliere once more employed material he had used in former plays ; for his blue stock- ings — so ridiculous in their craving for knowledge — suggest Cathos and Magdelon, the pr'ecieuses of his first great comedy ; while Trissotin, a literary Pecksniff, and Vadius, his pedantic friend, are reminiscent of the poets Lysidas and Du Croisy of The Criticism of The School for Wives and of The Versailles Impromptu, respectively. The Learned Women, however, is written in a key so different that it cannot be called a replica. It satirises the assumptions of fashionable wits and the mawkish sentimentality of culture seeking women; yet there is no vivacious Mascarille to deck himself in borrowed plu- mage, no purely farcical situation. Indeed, Moliere's desire is manifestly to preach a sermon upon the text that woman was created to play a domestic role in life. His play is written with such fidelity to nature that, shorn of their seventeenth century garments, his strong minded blue stockings might readily pass for " new women " ; yet in outlining their characters he has followed the changing fashions of his own time. The pr'ecieuse was rapidly becoming an encyclop'ediste, the cult of verbiage giving place to a boudoir sciolism, — a better- ment, perhaps, in intention ; yet in this feminine pursuit of knowledge the domestic virtues were stifling. Against this dangerous tendency Moliere preached his last ser- mon, choosing, to illustrate his text, an upper middle class family whose feminine members are beset with a craving for culture. Chrysale, a hon bourgeois, as Moliere 23 354 MOLlfiRE calls him, is the henpecked husband of an imperious wife named Philaminte, the despotic ruler of a femi- nine realm whose lawgiver is Vaugelas the grammarian. Queen Philaminte's subjects are Armande, her feline daughter, and her sister-in-law, an absurd spinster named Belise, who imagines herself beloved of all men. Tris- sotin, a fashionable poet, is prime minister of this domain of culture. Its peace is marred, however, by sensible Henriette, the youngest daughter of Philaminte. This worthy representative of true womanhood is loved by Clitandre, a commendable young man of fashion, whose affections are claimed by Armande as well as by her spinster aunt Belise. This much loved hero is supported in his suit for Henriette's hand by her father, until that gentleman has the temerity to broach the matter to his wife. Bent upon marrying Henriette to Trissotin the poet, Philaminte routs her husband so completely that he capitulates unconditionally; yet, fortunately for the course of true love, this browbeaten paterfamilias has a brother named Ariste, a counterpart of his sensible namesake in l!he School for Husbands, of Cleante in The Hypocrite, and of Philinte in The Misanthrope. Knowing that Tris- sotin's sole desire is to wed his niece's fortune, Ariste plays him a pious trick. The rhymester is told that Chrysale has been ruined financially and his daughter consequently made penniless, whereupon he withdraws his suit and hastily takes to flight, leaving the field to Clitandre. The real charm of this play, however, lies in its mas- terful characterisation, since the plot is merely a frame for a faithfully outlined sketch of seventeenth century manners. Indeed, Moliere pursues the follies of strong THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 355 mindedness through scene after scene with an irony so ruthless that it is difficult to believe that domineering Philaminte, cat-like Armande, and fatuous Belise, each so obsessed with a mania for culture, are not apostles of Browning, Ibsen, or Maeterlinck. Chrysale, too, the meek, long-suffering husband, is a perennial type, and Martine, the maid-of-all-work, discharged by Philaminte because she murders the language of Vaugelas, has many a modern Irish counterpart, ready to take corresponding liberties with the King's English. The most caustic satire of this play is found in the scene where Trissotin, the fortune-hunting poet, declaims a precious sonnet of his own to the three learned women. Called Tricotin in the original draft of the play, this Trissotin, whose name has been interpreted as the equivalent of trots fois sot (three times stupid), is an unmistakable portrait to the life of the Abbe Cotin, an Academician of the day, whose success with rondeaux, madrigals, and enigmas had led him to arrogate unto himself the title of " Father of French epigram." In order that his shaft might not be aimed amiss, Moliere inserted some of Cotin's own verses in this scene, — a piece of malice difficult to countenance. Moreover, Trissotin's pedantic friend Vadius is presumably a por- trait of Menage, a famous pedant of the ruelles. For a time this bel esprit and savant extol each other's productions to the rapturous sighs of their dupes and the manifest disgust of rational Henriette ; then Vadius, unaware that the poem Trissotin vaunts is composed by him, attacks it unmercifully, meantime demanding at- tention for a ballad of his own. This is Trissotin's cue to abuse balladry, whereupon the two sciolists exhaust their respective vocabularies in violent recrimination. 3S6 MOLIERE until Vadius leaves angrily, with the avowed threat of annihilating Trissotin with his pen. This scene gave preciosity its coup de grace. The Trissotins have long been dead and buried. Moliere, however, lives, a worthy champion ot simplicity and truth. Each of his characters depicts some fundamental human quality; each is a perennial type. In giving the scenes he borrowed a clearer atmosphere and by painting the characters he copied from others with simple yet forcible colours, he rose invariably superior to his models. Plautus and Terence imitated the Greeks ; but these Latin poets depicted only a part of the manners of Rome. Moliere painted not only the vices and follies common to all ages and all countries, but the characteristics of his own people so truthfully that his comedies are a history of the manners, fashions, and tastes of his century. Many attempts have been made to liken him to Shakespeare; yet such comparisons, if not odious, are at best idle. Shakespeare wrote tragedy and romantic comedy ; Moliere, naturalistic comedy and farce. Liv- ing in an age when his countrymen sought adventures on many seas and brought to the shores of their native isle tales of wild exploits, Shakespeare found his subjects in the heroic history of England and Rome, in a fanciful Italy, or an imaginary Greece and Bohemia; whereas Moliere, living in a polished and prescribed age occupied with its own achievements, painted the people of that age, not merely as a dramatic artist engaged in providing the stage with marketable plays, but as a highly minded philosopher who felt it his duty to expose the vices of society. The one was -an idealist, writing, unhampered, in an age of adventure ; the other, a realist fettered by three dramatic unities. " Moliere was a caged eagle," THE HISTRIONIC PLAYS 357 M. Henri Merou of the French consular service once said to the present writer ; " had he been free, there are no heights to which his genius might not have flown." Instead of soaring as his fancy willed, the great French- man was condemned to beat his wings against his Aris- totelian bars. Two men so diametrically different in temperament and opportunity as Shakespeare and Mo- liere are not to be compared or classed as rivals. Each reflects the spirit of an age and the traditions of a race; each, in his way, is an incomparable genius, to whom all the subsequent dramatists of the world have been indebted for inspiration and light. 358 M0LI£RE XVIII DEATH That propensity toward affection with which the author of 'The Famous Comedienne says Moliere was born, is made so apparent in his writings that it is idle to believe the years he spent in retirement at Auteuil were other than years of anguish. According to his wife's libeller, he enjoyed his greatest pleasure at his country house, " where he had placed his daughter " ; and there he doubtless amused himself in educating the child as he had the mother, though profiting, let it be hoped, by experience. Madeleine-Esprit was a child of two at the time Moliere sought asylum in the suburbs, and surely the role of Louison in The Imaginary Invalid was inspired by her; for this child's part is written with a tender- ness and fidelity inconceivable had not children plucked the poet's gown " to share the good man's smile." Moreover his sonnet to La Mothe le Vayer betrays a knowledge of paternal love too profound to have been imagined. Finally, in the verses of Psyche written by Moliere, he exclaims that the harsh fatalities which remove for ever persons dear to us bear "cruelties to crush out hearts," beside which "envy's poison and the shafts of hatred" are minor trials to one "whose sovereign is reason." DEATH J59 At the time these last lines were penned Moliere had lived apart from Armande Bejart about four years, and if reason was his sovereign he proved a most unheedful subject; for while he was thus proclaiming her sover- eignty he was apparently seeking a reconciliation with his capricious wife. Psyche was played during the car* nival of 1671, and Armande Bejart fell ill at this time, — a circumstance which may have inspired a spirit of forgiveness in her husband's heart. As their third child ^ was born in September of thp following year, Moliere's reunion with his wife surely occurred no later than the end of 1671. Grimarest, however, places this event ten months before the first pro- duction of The Imaginary Invalid, — an assertion which would make the time of its occurrence some time in April, 1672. He is manifestly in error, for in addition to the tangible proof presented by the birth of Moliere's last child, the circumstantial evidence may be cited of Boi- leau's assertion that the poet left him to correct alone some verses in the first act of The Learned Women while he (Moliere) " went out a moment with his wife." ^ As this play was produced in March, 1672, there was ap- parently little need at that time for the intervention of those friends who, according to Grimarest, endeavoured to adjust the relations of this ill assorted couple, or rather "to make them live together more agreeably." Since Boileau and Mignard's little daughter stood sponsors for the child born after the reunion, the critic and the I?* ... painter were apparently those most mstrumental in bring- ing that desirable event to pass. One account, however, 1 Pierre-Jean-Baptiste-Armand, who survived his birth but a few weeks. * MSS. de Brossette. 36o MOLIERE makes the Marquis de Jonsac the peacemaker, and the reconciliation a matter of theatrical policy purely, since it appears that — Moliere, with the intention of offering his wife the role of Angelique in The Imaginary Invalid, and know- ing how much the sweetness of her voice would add to the j^xpression of its natural sentiments, had conceived this part in a way sufficiently pleasing to make the actress to whom it was given applauded from beginning to end. Jonsac made Mme. Moliere appreciate the value of such consideration on the part of an ill treated husband. Possibly this motive touched her slightly, but the hope of pleasing the public in a part written for her made her decide. The reconciliation took place the same evening.^ This story makes the restoration of domestic harmony occur upon the completion of The Imaginary Invalid, — a case impossible unless there had been another rupture after the birth of the last Moliere child. The only indi- cation that such a breach took place is to be found in the story told by the author of The Famous Comedienne regard- ing a love affair between Armande Bejart and Baron, the young actor who left Moliere's company in 1666 because that very lady boxed his ears. Baron had been touring the provinces with a travel- ling company, but shortly after the Easter closing of the Palais Royal in 1670, having been urged by Moliere * Extrait des MSmoires de Mme. Gu'erin veuve de Moliere, published by the Abbe d'Allainval in 1822 (Collection des m'emoires dramatiques). These memoirs are, in the main, a compilation from The Famous Comldienne, and this anecdote is avowedly taken from that work ; but according to M. Paul Mesnard there is no edition of The Famous Comidienne in which it occurs. DEATH 361 to rejoin his forces, he became a member of the " King's Troupe, entitled to a full share of the receipts," ^ while Mile. Beauval of the provincial organisation with which this young actor had travelled, and, according to Robinet, " an actress of royal discrimination," was received in the company, together with her husband. The interesting feature of the second advent of Mo- liere's protege as a member of the Palais Royal forces lies, however, in his friendship with the poet. The following account by Grimarest of their relations may be taken as coming from the young comedian's own lips: The absence of Baron had caused Moliere much suffering ; for the education of this young man amused him in his moments of leisure. His family trials in- creased daily ; he could not always work or seek distrac- tion among his friends ; moreover, he disliked numbers and constraint, and had nothing to amuse him or deaden his suffering. Having succeeded in acquiring a reputa- tion as a man of good intellect, his saddest thought was that he was so open to reproach because his household was not more peaceful and better conducted ; therefore he viewed Baron's return in the light of a domestic di- version which made it possible for him to lead more satisfactorily a tranquil life in conformity with his health and principles, and free from extraneous family pomp or even from those friends whose inopportune presence so often robs life of its most agreeable moments. Baron, apparently no less desirous than Moliere of renewing their former relations, returned to Paris imme- diately upon the receipt of his benefactor's invitation, and on the day of his arrival the poet went to the Porte St. Victor to meet him ; but " country air and travelling had * Registre de la Grange. 362 MOLIERE so jaded and disfigured " the young actor that Moliere let him pass in the throng without recognition, though upon returning home, much disappointed, was rejoiced to find him already there. After recounting how Baron, having left his purse " at the last inn at which he slept," was too anxious to see Moliere to return in quest of it, and how delighted the poet was to find his protege so "grateful and so touched," Grimarest goes on to say that " Moliere resumed the same care he had taken of him from the beginning, and one can imagine with what solicitude he set to work to train him in manners as well as in his profession." Baron lived with Moliere at Auteuil, retaining his benefactor's friendship until the latter's death. The story the author of The Famous Comedienne tells of the young actor's intrigue with Moliere's wife places him in a light almost too ignoble ; for, as M. Mesnard exclaims, " on the word of a cowardly pamphleteer, shall he be considered capable of such abominable ingratitude ? " ' The base conduct imputed to Baron was supposedly brought about by his appearance with Armande Bejart in Pysche during the carnival of 1671, when she played the title role and he Cupid. According to the oft quoted scandal monger : Thejoint praises they received forced them to examine each other with more attention and even with some de- gree of pleasure. He was the first to break the silence by paying her a compliment regarding the good fortune that had befallen him in being chosen to represent her lover, observing meantime that he owed the approval of the public to this lucky chance, and that it was not difficult to play the part of a person whose feelings one could so well understand. La Moliere replied that the ' Notice biographique sur Moliere. DEATH 2^2 praises bestowed on a man like himself were the reward of merit, and that she had no share in them ; but that gallantry on the part of one who was reputed to have had so many successes in love did not surprise her, for he must be as accomplished an actor outside the theatre as upon the stage. Baron, to whom such reproaches were not displeasing, told her that he had indeed some acquaintances that one might call bonnes fortunes, but that he was prepared to sacrifice all for her, since he would set more value on the smallest of her favours than on any which the ladies who had smiled upon him were able to bestow ; whereupon he mentioned their names, with a discretion which was natural to him. To abbreviate an unpleasant story, Armande was so pleased with this debonair love-making that she consented to a continuation of their respective roles off the stage, but Baron proved so faithless an admirer that the intrigue was of short duration. Since the hero of this unsavoury romance is reputed to have pictured himself in the title role of his comedy, U Homme a bonnes fortunes, the name of which is untranslatable, unless it be called 'The Lady Killer, and as La Bruyere paints him under the name of Roscius as a conceited jackanapes, he was perhaps ca- pable of this " abominable ingratitude " toward his ben- efactor ; yet that such an amour could have been carried on under Moliere's jealous eyes while Baron remained his friend is scarcely conceivable ; hence the story of the intrigue, together with an even baser insinuation regarding the young man's relations with the poet, may be dismissed as the unproved slander of a coward. Moliere's questionable wife may be left for the mo- ment to her capricious ways, while the centre of the family stage is taken by her more sympathetic sister 364 MOLlfiRE Madeleine. In The Versailles Impromptu the elder Be- jart is clearly drawn by the poet himself. "You will represent," he tells her, "one of those women who, because they do not make love, believe that everything else is permitted them " ; and throughout his skit Mad- eleine's positive and intelligent character is distinctly drawn. Rallying Moliere with the frankness their long intimacy warrants, she advises him upon the construc- tion of his play and encourages him boldly to meet the attacks of his enemies, filling, in short, the role she played throughout his life ; for, to quote M. Gustave Larroumet, " Madeleine, entire, is in The Versailles Im- promptu, — her frank way of speaking, the soundness of her practical mind, her bantering good humour, and the enlightened affection she bore Moliere." * Since the romantic storm of their early days an equable friendship had arisen between Madeleine and the poet, wherein she appears in the light of a protector, comrade, and adviser. Among the theatrical jealousies and bickerings of the thirty years of their intimacy, not a single discordant note in character is recorded, save her wise opposition to Moliere's marriage. Originally the star of the organisation, she accepted principal roles or minor parts with equanimity, now playing Dorine in The Hypocrite, now a gypsy or a jaded nymph, finally retiring without a protest or a murmur from the stage she had graced so long. After the production of Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, in 1669, she played her accustomed parts no more ; and in the January following she lost her aged mother, Marie Herve, upon whose grave in the parish cemetery of St. Paul she erected a tomb " with the desire," as the epi- * La Comiiie de Moliere. DEATH 365 taph stated, "of showing, even after death, a few marks of the gratitude she felt for her friendship and the care she had always taken of her." Upon the second anni- versary of Marie Herve's death Madeleine drew her will, calling to her bedside for the purpose her attorneys, who pronounced her " ill of body, but sound in mind, memory, and judgment." " Commending her soul to her Creator," she ordered that her body be interred in the church of St. Paul " in the place where her family had the right of burial." Founding in perpetuity for the repose of her soul two weekly requiem masses, she endowed five paupers, to be chosen by her sisters, each with a daily income of five sous in honour of the five wounds of our Saviour; then, bequeathing to her brother Louis and her two sisters, Genevieve and Armande, an income of four hundred livres each, she constituted the latter a residuary legatee in trust of the remainder of her estate for the benefit of Moliere's daughter and his "children yet to be born." A month later (February fourteenth, 1672), she drew a codicil to this will for the purpose of giving Armande more freedom in the care of the residuary estate, and, still sound of mind, she ordered it read aloud ; whereupon she dictated a few slight corrections, though at that time barely able to trace her signature, since "sight and strength had failed her." Three days later the end came. Madeleine died with a fortitude so marked that Robinet in his rhymed gazette exclaimed that she " acted well the part each mortal plays before the Fates, being a good Christian as well as a good actress." Her death was tragic, too, for not a single member of her family graced her bedside, — through no fault of theirs, however, since the Palais Royal players 366 MOLIERE had been commanded to Versailles. Moliere's name figures in the burial act ; therefore he paid his last respects to the woman who might have made him an ideal help- mate had his eyes not been blinded by her wayward sister's charms. During the long tramp from the church of St. Germain I'Auxerrois, where the funeral service was held, to the cemetery of St. Paul, he had ample time to look back- ward through the years to the hours when he trudged behind an ox cart while the friend whose mortal part he followed lightened the journey with her hopeful smile. The victim of a fatal disease, he knew he must soon be borne to his own last resting-place. Domestic trials weighed heavily upon him, glowing youth no longer spurred him on to mount "ambition's ladder," the King's favour was waning ; the Academy, too, had scorned him, for no actor who blackened his face daily, no impious author such as he, might sit among the Immortals.^ Beset by enemies, his health irrevocably lost, he awaited death with a heart overborne by grief. Of the rash company who had signed the contract of " The Illustrious Theatre" with him on June thirtieth, 1643, Madeleine was the last, save her sister Genevieve. Of the little band of strollers who had followed him through France, Joseph Bejart, Gros Rene, and the beautiful Du Pare were dead, while Louis Bejart had retired with a pension ; so the De Bries and Genevieve Bejart alone remained members of his company. His parents were ^ A hundred years after his death, his bust was placed in the room where the Academicians met, with an inscription reading : " Nothing was lacldng in his glory, he was lacking in ours." DEATH 367 dead ; his sister Marie-Madeleine and his brothers had played no real part in his life. Overcome by the cares of his triple profession, he made it "a point of honour not to give up," yet " the thirst of praise " was quenched, the fever of battle no longer burned in his veins. In the words of M. Larroumet, " He buried his youth and his happiness that day. Death had marked him for his own, and walked by his side. In a year to a day, his hour would come." ^ The dead woman had discovered his genius. Her will proves the affection she bore him. The inventory of her effects shows her frugal character. She lived in a two-room apartment on the fourth floor of a house at the corner of the rue St. Thomas du Louvre and the rue St. Honore, — "a family phalanstery," since her mother, her sisters, her brothers, and Moliere himself dwelt there at various times. Her furniture was simple, her ward- robe contained only necessary wearing apparel ; and al- though her estate was considerable, she left little plate and fewer jewels ; only in her theatrical costuming is extravagance perceptible, for here the instincts of an artist appear. Moreover, she left no debts. She paid an early tribute to the frailty of her sex, but her life thereafter proves her to have been a woman of exceptional talent and merit. The wiles of a young sister beguiled away the man she served so faithfully, yet she alone inspired and developed his genius. She lived to see the reconciliation between Moliere and his wife, — it is to be hoped she played a generous part in bringing it to pass. Born just seven months after Madeleine Bejart's death, Moliere's third child died within a few days ; but in * La Comidte de Moliere. 368 MOLIERE Pierre-Jean-Baptiste-Armand, the name with which he was christened, there is evidence that during the last year of his life the poet dwelt in comparative amity with his wife. Grimarest tells us that to make " the union more perfect," Moliere gave up the use of milk and returned to meat, — "a change in diet which redoubled his cough and the inflammation of his lungs " ; certainly a striking evi- dence of his desire to make full amends for the bitterness of the past. Furthermore, he left his Auteuil retreat and went to live in the rue Richelieu, in a style to suit his wife's extravagant and worldly tastes.* There this ill mated couple dwelt in a sumptuous apartment of fourteen rooms adorned with rare tapestries and objects of art. The inventory of Moliere's effects published by M. Eudore Soulie* shows the costly nature of the furnishings, — the paintings and Oriental rugs, the clocks made by Raillard and Gavelle, the plate and jewels ; while a bat- terie de cuisine, complete in every detail, indicates that although the poet had been converted to the principles of Descartes, his tastes remained true to the epicureanism of his youth. Like most artists, he loved luxury, and as a collector of objets de vertu, betrayed the taste one would expect of a man whose friends were the great poets and painters of his day. To quote Grimarest once more, " in gratifying himself he spared no expense " ; and although his income has been estimated at thirty thou- sand livres, the estate he left at his death barely exceeded one year's revenue, — a further proof that he should * La Maison mortuaire de Moliere by Auguste Vitu is a volume devoted entirely to the &cts relating to the site of Moliere's last residence and the details regarding it. ' Recberches lur Moliere. DEATH 369 have married frugal Madeleine Bejart instead of her extravagant sister.* In youth an epicurean, in maturity a stoic, Moliere's philosophy was the resu,lt of experience. Having ac- cepted readily the love, pleasure, and glory life had given, he made resignation a shelter for his cares, and in the companionship of men of kindred tastes sought a solace to mellow the bitterness of his heart. Chapelle, a scoffer, and La Mothe le Vayer, a sceptic, were among his friends ; yet deep within him was a veneration for established in- stitutions, a reverence for the church no philosophy could stifle. His reconciliation with his wife was a tribute to the conventions ; middle class antecedents prevented him from ever becoming a true sceptic, for although his con- victions were those of a man of the world living in an atmosphere of doubt, faith was inherent. Gentle to women and manly to men, he was a gentleman in the broad sense ; for there is no evidence to indicate that he was either mean, a coward, or dishonest, and much to prove he was both affectionate and brave. As an epicurean he took what the Fates laid at his door until the offering was a cup of sorrow ; as a stoic he drank the bitter draught; but in his last hour he vainly sought a priest, ^ M. Eudore Soulie (Reeiercbes sur Moliire) makes the following calculation of Moliere's estate from the inventory taken after the poet's death : Personal effects, furniture, clothes, plate, etc. . 1 8,000 livres Due to the succession, including the 10,000 livres reclaimed by the widow from the Poquelin estate 15,000 " Total 43.000 " Less debts amounting to about . . . 3,000 " Net assets 40,000 " «4 370 M0LI£RE dying, as he had lived, a Christian at heart, a martyr to intolerance. The end came suddenly, yet nature had given ample warning. La Grange records that on account of M oliere's health the theatre was closed from the ninth to the twelfth of August, 1672. His illness had become an atrophy, and his friends tried in vain to induce him to retire from the stage. " I make it a point of honour not to give up," he told Boileau a little before his death, and rather than listen to good counsel he hurled defiance at disease. His enemies had satirised him as a hypochon- driac ; so he, the victim of an incurable malady, placed upon his stage an imaginary invalid, — " burdensome to all around," — and with sardonic humour referred to that " impertinent fellow Moliere " as a man who " will prove far wiser than your doctors, for he will never de- mand their help." " If I were a physician," says the hypochondriac of his play, " I would be revenged for Moliere's impudence by letting him die without succour," — an eerie prophecy, since scarcely were these words uttered upon the stage than the doctors were avenged. Barred from the St. Germain fetes by the intrigues of Lully, 'the Imaginary Invalid was produced at the Palais Royal on the tenth of February, 1673, while the troupe of the Hotel de Bourgogne was playing Racine's Mith- ridates before the ungrateful King. During the fourth performance of Moliere's play (February seventeenth) its author was seized with a convulsion and died almost within the hour. The story of his tragic end has been told by Grimarest with a terseness and pathos hard to excel.^ ^ Baron, from whom this much challenged biographer learned his facts, was with Moliere at the time of his death ; therefore Grimarest' s account of this event may be accepted with considerable reliance. DEATH 371 It appears that on the day he died * the inflammation in his lungs annoyed him more than usual ; so, sending for his wife, he told her in Baron's presence : " So long as pain and pleasure have been equally present in my life, I had thought myself happy ; but now," he protested, " I am overwhelmed with troubles and have not a moment either of enjoyment or rest. I see plainly that I must give up the struggle. I cannot hold out against the pains and worries which leave me without an instant's peace " ; then, pondering a moment, he added, " How much a man suffers before he dies ! " His wife and Baron implored him with tears in their eyes not to act that day ; but his point of honour proved unalterable. " What can I do ? " he exclaimed. " There are fifty poor workpeople who live on their day's wage ; what would they do if there were no performance ? " It would have been easy for a man of his means to indemnify these poor labourers for the loss of a day's pay, yet Moliere's heart was apparently set upon dying in harness, since, unmindful of the protests of his wife and Baron, he sent for the actors of his company. Telling them that his health was worse that day, he warned them that he "would not play unless all was in readiness punctually at four o'clock." At the hour set the candles were lighted and the cur- tain drawn ; but Moliere played his part with difficulty, half the audience perceiving that in pronouncing the word juro, in the mock ceremony which concludes the play, a convulsion had seized him. That fantastic ballet became indeed a dance of death ; for while his sham ^ Grimarest says " on the day of the third performance of The Imagi- nary Invalid," although Moliere died on the day of the fourth perform- ance, — an error probably due to Baron's defective memory. 372 MOLIERE physicians, apothecaries, and surgeons grimaced and pirouetted in mockery of those so powerless to arrest the ebbing of his life, Moliere's last struggle began. It was a point of honour not to give up, so when he saw that the audience had noticed his agony, " he forced a smile and with a superhuman effort held life in his body until the curtain fell." Tottering then to Baron's dressing-room, he asked characteristically what the public thought of the piece. His friend assured him that " his works were always immensely successful when known, and that the more they were played, the more they were liked " ; then noticing Moliere's appearance, he remarked that he seemed worse. *' It is true," the poet answered, " I am dying of cold." Touching his hands. Baron found them frozen and warmed them in his muff,* while he sent for his friend's sedan. When the chair came, he accompanied him home, " fearful lest some mishap might befall him between the Palais Royal and the rue Richelieu." Upon reaching his friend's apartment, Baron advised Moliere to take some of the beef broth his wife kept ready for her own use, — " no one," as Grimarest says, " being more regardful of personal comfort than she." "My wife's soups are like brandy," the poet replied; " you know all the ingredients she puts in them." Ask- ing for some Parmesan cheese which La Forest brought, he ate it and was assisted to his bed; then, sending to his wife for a pillow filled with a drug "she had promised would make him sleep," he remarked : " Any- thing which does not enter the body I take willingly, but the remedies which must be swallowed alarm me. I wish nothing to rob me of the little life I have left." ^ An ardde at that time carried by men of &shion. DEATH 373 Seized a moment later with a fit of coughing, he asked for a light, and Baron, seeing he had a haemorrhage, betrayed such alarm that Moliere assured him he need have no fear, as "he had already seen far more. Still," the dying man added, "go call my wife." Two nuns were with him at the time, " of the kind who were wont to come to Paris during Lent to ask for char- ity." He had given them a lodging in his house, and from them he received such " spiritual comfort as might have been expected from their charity," ^ while, in the words of Grimarest, "all the sentiments of a good Christian were manifested to them, together with the resignation he owed to the will of God." Suffocated at last by the blood pouring from his mouth, he drew his final breath in the arms of those two good women. When his wife and Baron reached the room, he was dead. The petition presented the archbishop of Paris by the poet's widow for permission to bury her husband in con- secrated ground adds to Grimarest's account of Moliere's death the fact that he sent to the parish church of St. Eustache for a priest. When two ecclesiastics had in turn refused to confess him, his brother-in-law, Jean Aubry,'* found a churchman sufficiently liberal to shrive a come- dian; but he arrived too late to administer the last sacraments. Moliere, however, in the words of the ' As Moliere's half-sister, Catherine Foquelin, as well as a cousin of his mother's, was a nun, M. Soulie {Recherches sur Moliiri) hints that one of these relations, at least, may have been at the poet's deathbed. This suggestion is refuted by M. Loiseleur (L« Points ob scars de la vie de Moliere) so far as regards Moliere's sister, with the contention that being a nun of the Couvent des Visitandines, the cloistral rules of that order would have rendered her visit to Paris impossible. ' The husband of Genevieve Bejart and the son of Leonard Aubry the pavier, who endorsed a loan of the ill-starred "Illustrious Theatre." 374 MOLlfiRE petition, " died with the feelings of a good Christian manifested in the presence of two nuns and of a gentle- man named M. Couthon,' in whose arms he expired." La Grange also testifies to the dramatist's Christian death. " Immediately after the play was over," says the preface of 1682, " Moliere went home, and no sooner was he in bed than the cough which troubled him perpetually became violent. The efforts he made to suppress it were so great that he burst a vein in the lungs, and, finding himself in that condition, turned all his thoughts to Heaven." Furthermore, Moliere's wife states ex- plicitly in her petition to the archbishop that her husband had been shrived at Easter by M. Bernard, a priest of the parish of St. Germain, — certainly sufficient evidence to prove that in spite of his liberal views and hatred of bigots Moliere was no unbeliever. As actors refusing to abandon their profession were denied the right of communion, together with cyprians, usurers, and sorcerers, the priest who confessed Moliere at Easter did so in disobedience to the canons of the church. According to Bossuet,^ " those who played comedy were deprived of the sacraments, while if an actor failed to renounce his calling, his place at the Holy Table was among ' the public sinners,' and a Christian burial was denied him." Regarding Moliere's death, the great preacher exclaimed : Posterity will perhaps know the end of this actor poet who while playing his Imaginary Invalid, or his Physician by Force {Midecin par force), was stricken with the last ^ Grimarest fails to mention this M. Couthon ; but Baron, his inform- ant, probably wished it to appear that he alone attended the poet in his last hour. ' Maximes et r'efiexions sur la comedie. DEATH 375 attack of the malady from which he died a few hours later, going from the laughter of the stage, where he uttered almost his last sigh, to the tribunal of Him who said : " Woe unto you that laugh now ! for ye shall mourn and weep." Such intolerance presents the story of Moliere's tragic burial in a comprehensible light. " As soon as he was dead," says Grimarest, " Baron went to St. Germain to inform the King, who was touched by the news and deigned to show it," — apparently a wise procedure, since there was need of Louis' good graces; the vicar of St. Eustache having refused to perform the burial rites because of the dead man's profession. The widow addressed a petition to Harlay de Champvalon, arch- bishop of Paris, in which she set forth that the priests of the parish had refused to obey the call of a dying man who had received the sacrament at Easter, and begged that a dispensation should be accorded for his burial in the church of St. Eustache ; but this plea on behalf of the author of The Hypocrite would doubtless have fallen on deaf ears, had not the King plainly shown his wish. Mme. Moliere, it appears, doubtful of the result of her petition, went to St, Germain, and throwing herself at the feet of Louis, complained of " the insult given to the memory of her husband." " In telling the King," says Cizeron Rival,^ " that if her husband was a criminal his crimes were authorised by his Majesty himself, she paid her court badly." Moreover, she had the addi- tional misfortune of taking with her the vicar of Auteuil " for the purpose of testifying to the good habits of the deceased." Instead of speaking in behalf of Moliere, this churchman inopportunely attempted to clear himself ^ Recreations litterairts. 376 MOLIERE of a charge of Jansenism, — a thoughtless bit of egotism which so angered the King that he dismissed La Moliere by telling her that the matter depended entirely upon the ministration of the archbishop. It is difficult to believe that a woman of her worldly experience could have been so tactless. Indeed, in an- other version of the affair,* Louis is reported to have referred her to the archbishop without this apparent brusqueness. Moreover, the prelate was informed that he must proceed " in a manner calculated to avoid disturb- ance and scandal," whereupon the interdiction was re- voked on condition that the " burial should take place without pomp or noise." According to still another account of the affair,^ Louis, upon refusal of the vicar of St. Eustache to bury Moliere in consecrated ground, asked to what depth it was consecrated, and learning that it was so to a depth of four feet, replied : " Very well, bury him at six feet and let there be no more dispute about it." Whatever the truth regarding these various versions of Mme. Moliere's efforts to obtain Christian burial for her husband, a line in Boileau's Seventh Epistle in which he speaks of his dead friend as having been buried in " a bit of earth obtained by supplication," indicates that Louis was appealed to in the matter ; for the spirit in which Moliere was accorded a burial in consecrated ground shows that the archbishop, if left to his own devices, would have sustained the vicar of St. Eustache. In finally authorising the interment his Grace ordered * Note by Brossette to Verse nineteen of Boileau's Seventh Epistle ((Euvres ie M. Boileau Despreaax, 1716). ' Quoted by M. Mesnard (^Notice biographique') from Le Musie det Monuments fmnfau by Alexandre Lenoir. DEATH 377 that it be accompanied by " no pomp, with only two officiating priests, and that it must be performed after dark, unaccompanied by any service either in the parish of St. Eustache or elsewhere." Owing to this unseemly controversy, the burial did not take place until four days after Moliere's death. On February twenty-first, 1673, at nine o'clock in the evening, the cortege started on its silent journey to the cemetery of St. Joseph, a dependency of the parish of St. Eustache. Bent upon creating a disturbance, a mob had gathered before the dead man's house in the rue Richelieu, and, according to Grimarest, Moliere's widow, acting upon the advice of friends, threw a hundred pistoles in gold from her window to mollify the rioters, imploring them meanwhile in a few touching words to pray for her husband's soul. By the light of a hundred torches the solemn proces- sion moved in silence to the burial ground. To divest it of the taint of stagecraft, the wooden coffin, carried by four bearers, was covered with the pall of the up- holsterer's guild. Three priests * accompanied the re- mains, six acolytes bore lighted candles in silver sticks, ^ These details of Moliere's funeral are taken from a letter (ap- parently anonymous) addressed to Monsieur Boyvin, pritre docteur en tbiologie, published in 1850 by Benjamin Fillon in his Considerations his- toriques et artistiques sur les monnaies de France. M. Mesnard {Notice biografhiqut sur Moliire) remarks that the letter, although not signed, is sealed with a wax seal and has every appearance of being authentic. In the matter of the three priests, however, there is a slight discrepancy in this account with the one given by Brossette in his note to Boileau's Seventh Epistle ( (Euvres de M. Boileau Despriause), wherein he states that the ceremony was performed by " two priests, who accompanied the remains without chanting," — a statement which coincides exactly with the archbishop's proscripdons. 378 MOLlfeRE and a number of lackeys flaming torches. As the body was carried through the rue Montmartre, Grimarest asserts that some one asked a woman in the crowd the name of the dead man. " It 's that Moliere," she re- plied derisively ; whereat another cried out : " Wretch, he is certainly monsieur to you ! " When the cemetery was finally reached, Moliere was buried in silence at "the foot of the cross," ^ to the light of flaming torches held by devoted friends. Thus, for the crime of having been an actor, this great Frenchman was hounded to his grave, while Armande Bejart, remorseful for the wrong she had done him, exclaimed far arid wide : " What ! a sepulture is denied a man worthy of altars ? " ** This tardily repentant wife married an actor named Guerin and outlived her noted husband twenty-seven years ; Esprit- Madeleine, the poet's one surviving child, married a widower named Montalant, many years her senior, and died without issue ; so Moliere's race is extinct. Soon after his death Lully, his ungrateful collaborator in ballets for the court, obtained, for the opera, the theatre in the Palais Royal ; in consequence his comrades were forced to set up their trestles once more in a tennis-court. In the rue Guenegaud his widow and those of his actors who had not deserted to ^ In 1792 what were thought to be the remains of Moliere and La Fontaine were exhumed from the cemetery of St. Joseph; in 1799 they were placed by Alexandre Lenoir in his Museum of French Monuments at the Convent of the Petits Augustins ; in 1 8 1 7 they were entombed in the cemetery of Pere La Chaise ; while in 1875 the mausoleums of these great Frenchmen were both restored ; but M. Mesnard (^Notice bio- graphi'qui) is of the opinion that they are both cenotaphs. * Note by Brossette to Boileau's Seventh Epistle {(Euvres de M. Boileau Despriaux). " What ! A sepulture is denied a man worthy of altars I DEATH 379 the Hotel de Bourgogne continued to play the pieces of the master with indifferent success, until forced by financial losses to unite with the comedians of the Theatre du Marais ; then the Theatre Guenegaud became the sole rival of the Hotel de Bourgogne. In 1680 Louis XIV, grown austere from advancing years and the influence of Madame de Maintenon, decided that one theatre was sufficient for the amusement of the citizens of Paris ; so by royal decree the compa- nies of the Hotel de Bourgogne and the Theatre Guene- gaud were amalgamated. Thus united, the national French theatre, save for a short disruption during the Revolution, has existed to our day. In recognition of its greatest founder, it is known as the House of Moliere ; for no other age, and no other country, has brought forth a claimant worthy of the throne of comedy Moliere left vacant. *3. P. 33. P. 63. APPENDIX FRENCH ORIGINALS OF VERSES TRANSLATED IN TEXT Ton Hercule tnourant te va rendre immortel ; Au ciel, comme en la terre, il publiera ta gloirc, Et laissant ici-bas un temple a ta memoire, Son bucher servira pour te faire un autel. Verses by Madeleine Bejart in dedication to Rotrou^s Hercule Mourant. Deja, dans la troupe royale Beauchateau, devenu plus vain, S'impatiente s'il n'etale Le present qu'il a de ta main. La Bejart, Beys et Moliere, Brillants de pareille lumiere, M'en paroissent plus orgueilleux ; Et depuis cette gloire extreme, Je n'ose plus m'approcher d'eux Si ta rare bonte ne me pare de meme. From anonymous collection of poetry printed in 16^6. Mascarille . . . Ce qui me donne un depit nonpareil, C'est qu'ici votre amour etrangement s'oublie ; Pres de Clelie, il est ainsi que la bouillie. Qui par un trop grand feu s'enfle, croit jusqu'aux bords, Et de tous les cotes se repand au dehors. 382 APPENDIX LIlie Pourroit-on se forcer a plus de retenue ? Je ne I'ai presque point encore entretenue. Mascarille Oui, mais ce n'est pas tout que de ne parler pas : Par vos gestes, durant un moment de repas, Vous avez aux soupfons donne plus de matiere, Que d'autres ne feroient dans une annee entiere. Lelie Et comment done ? Mascarille Comment ? chacun a pu le voir. A table, ou Trufaldin I'oblige de se seoir, Vous n'avez toujours fait qu'avoir les yeux sur elle. Rouge, tout interdit, jouant de la prunelle. Sans prendre jamais garde a ce qu'on vous servoit, Vous n'aviez point de soif qu'alors qu'elle buvoit, £t dans ses propres mains vous saisissant du verre, Sans le vouloir rincer, sans rien jeter a terre, Vous buviez sur son reste, et montriez d'affecter Le cote qu'a sa bouche elle avoit su porter. UEtourdi, Acte IV, scene iv. P. 74- P. 83. Avide observateur, qui voulez tout savoir, Des anes de Gignac c'est ici I'abreuvoir. Histoire des peregrinations de Moliere dans le Languedoc par Emmanuel Raymond. Marquise, si mon visage A quelques traits un peu vieux, Souvenez-vous qu'a mon age Vous ne vaudrez guere mieux, etc. Poesies diverses by Pierre Carneille. ORIGINALS OF VERSES IN TEXT 383 P. 87. Cet illustre comedien, Atteignit de son art I'agreable maniere. II fut le maitre de Moliere Et la nature fut le sien. ^atrain printed beneath a portrait of Scaramouche by Vermeulen. P. 87. P. 90. P. 112. P. 120. . . . Par exemple, filomire Veut se rendre parfait dans I'art de faire rire ; Que fait-il, le matois, dans ce hardy dessein ? Chez le grand Scaramouche, 11 va soir et matin. La, le miroir en main et ce grand homme en face, II n'est contorsion, posture ny grimace Que ce grand ecolier du plus grand des boufFons Ne fasse et ne refasse en cent et cent fa^ons. Elomire hypocondre by Boulanger de Chalussay. Que faut-il encor que je die ? Les violons, la comedie. Muse historique^ April /p, i6^g. Mascarille Oh, oh ! je n'y prenois pas garde: Tandis que, sans songer a mal, je vous regarde, Votre ceil en tapinois me derobe mon coeur Au voleur, au voleur, au voleur, au voleur ! Les Precieuses ridicules, scene ix. La Femme de Sganarelle Voila de nos maris le precede commun : Ce qui leur est permis leur devient importun. Dans les commencements ce sont toutes merveilles ; lis temoignent pour nous des ardeurs non pareilles ; Mais les traitres bientot se lassent de nos feux. 384 APPENDIX £t portent autre part ce qu'ils doivent chez eux. Ah ! que j'ai de depit que la loi n'autorise A changer de mari comme on fait de chemise ! Sganarelle, ou U Cocu imaginaire^ scene v. P. iz8. 132. P- 134. P. 138. Savoir PEcole des marisy Charme a present de tout Paris, Piece nouvelle et fort prisee Que sieur Molier a composee, Sujet si riant et si beau, Qu'il fallut qu'a Fontainebleau Cette troupe, ayant la pratique Du serieux et du comique. Pour Reines et Roi contenter L'allat encor representer. Loret in Muse histtrique. Une Naiade Facheux, retirez-vous, ou s'il faut qu'il vous voie. Que ce soit seulement pour exciter sa joie. Les Facheux: Prologue. Nous avons change de methode : Jodelet n'est plus a la mode, Et maintenant il ne faut pas Quitter la nature d'un pas. Letter of La Fontaine to Maucroix. Voila I'histoire ; que t'en semble ? Crois-tu pas qu'un homme avise Voit par la qu'il n'est pas aise D'accorder trois femmes ensemble ? Fais-en done ton profit; surtout Tiens-toi neutre, et, tout plein d'Homere, Dis-toi bien qu'en vain I'homme espere ORIGINALS OF VERSES IN TEXT 385 Pouvoir venir jamais a bout De ce qu'un grand dieu n'a su faire. Letter of Chapelle to Moliere. 139. Ariste ... II nous faut en riant instruire la jeunesse, Reprendre ses defauts avec grande douceur, Et du nom de vertu ne lui point faire peur. Mes soins pour Leonor ont suivi ces maximes : Des moindres libertes je n'ai point fait des crimes, A ses jeunes desirs j'ai toujours consenti, Et je ne m'en suis point, grace au Ciel, repenti. J'ai soufFert qu'elle ait vu les belles compagnies, Les divertissements, les bals, les comedies ; Ce sont choses, pour moi, que je tiens de tout temps Fort propres a former I'esprit des jeunes gens ; Et I'ecole du monde, en I'air dont il faut vivre Instruit mieux, a mon gre, que ne fait aucun livre. Elle aime a depenser en habits, linge et nceuds : Que voulez-vous ? Je tache a contenter ses vceux ; Et ce sont des plaisirs qu'on peut, dans nos families, Lorsque Ton a du bien, permettre aux jeunes filles. Un ordre paternel I'oblige a m'epouser; Mais mon dessein n'est pas de la tyranniser. Je sais bien que nos ans ne se rapportent guere, Et je laisse a son choix liberte tout entiere. Si quatre mille ecus de rente bien venants, Une grande tendresse et des soins complaisants Peuvent, a son avis, pour un tel mariage, Reparer entre nous I'inegalite d'age, Elle peut m'epouser; sinon, choisir ailleurs. L'Ecole des maris, Acte I, scene ii. P. 153. Done Elvire L'hymen ne peut nous joindre, et j'abhorre des noeuds Qui deviendroient sans doute un enfer pour tous deux. Don Garde de Navarre, Acte I, scene i. 25 386 APPENDIX p. 158. Arnolfhe £pouser une sotte est pour n'etre sot. Je crois, en bon chretien, votre moitie fort sage ; Mais une femme habile est un mauvais presage; Et je sais ce qu'il coute a de certaines gens Pour avoir pris les leurs avec trop de talens. Moi, j'irois me charger d'une spirituelle Qui ne parleroit rien que cercle et que ruelle, Qui de prose et de vers feroit de doux ecrits, Et que visiteroient marquis et beaux esprits, Tandis que, sous le nom du mari de Madame, Je serois comme un saint que pas un ne reclame ? Non, non, je ne veux point d'un esprit qui soit haut ; Et femme qui compose en sait plus qu'il ne faut. Je pretends que la mienne, en clartes peu sublime, Meme ne sache pas ce que c'est qu'une rime ; Et s'il faut qu'avec elle on joue au corbillon Et qu'on vienne a lui dire a son tour: " Qu'y met-on ? " Je veux qu'elle reponde : " Une tarte a la creme" ; En un mot, qu'elle soit d'une ignorance extreme ; Et c'est assez pour elle, a vous en bien parler, De savoir prier Dieu, m'aimer, coudre et filer. L'Ecole desfemmes, Acte I, scene i. P. 159. P. 161. Arnolphe Dans un petit convent, loin de toute pratique, Je la fis elever selon ma politique ; C'est-a-dire ordonnant quels soins on emploiroit Pour la rendre idiote autant qu'il se pourroit. Dieu merci, le succes a suivi mon attente ; Et grande, je I'ai vue a tel point innocente. Que j'ai beni le Ciel d'avoir trouve mon fait, Pour me faire une femme au gre de mon souhait. L'Ecole desfemmesy Acte I, scene i. Arnolphe Pourquoi ne m'aimer pas, Madame I'impudente? p. i6i ORIGINALS OF VERSES IN TEXT 387 Agnes Mon Dieu, ce n'est pas moi que vous devez blamer : Que ne vous etes-vous, comme lui, fait aimer ? Je ne vous en ai pas empeche, que je pense. Arnolphe Je m'y suis efForce de toute ma puissance ; Mais les soins que j'ai pris, je les ai perdus tous. AgnIs Vraiment, il en sait done la-dessus plus que vous ; Car a se faire aimer il n'a point eu de peine. U Ecole des femmes^ Acte V, scene iv. Arnolphe Ecoute seulement ce soupir amoureux, Vois ce regard mourant, contemple ma personne, Et quitte ce morveux et I'amour qu'il te donne. C'est quelque sort qu'il faut qu'il ait jete sur toi, Et tu seras cent fois plus heureuse avec moi. Ta forte passion est d'etre brave et leste : Tu le seras toujours, va, je te le proteste ; Sans cesse, nuit et jour, je te caresserai, Je te bouchonnerai, baiserai, mangerai ; Tout comme tu voudras, tu pourras te conduire : Je ne m'explique point, et cela, c'est tout dire. {Apart.) Jusqu'oii la passion peut-elle faire aller! Enfin a mon amour rien ne pent s'egaler : Quelle preuve veux-tu que je t'en donne, ingrate ? Me veux-tu voir pleurer ? Veux-tu que je me batte ? Veux-tu que je m'arrache un cote de cheveux ? Veux-tu que je me tue ? Oui, dis si tu le veux : Je suis tout pret, cruelle, a te prouver ma flamme. U Ecole des femmes, Acte V, scene iv. P. 164 Chrysalde Vous pensez vous moquer; mais, a ne vous rien feindre, Dans le monde je vois cent choses plus a craindre 388 APPENDIX Et dont je me ferois un bien plus grand malheur Que de cet accident qui vous fait tant de peur. Pensez-vous qu'a choisir de deux choses prescrites, Je n'aimasse pas mieux etre ce que vous dites, Que de me voir rnari de ces femmes de bien, Dont la mauvaise humeur fait un proces sur rien, Ces dragons de vertu, ces honnetes diablesses, Se retranchant toujours sur leurs sages prouesses, Qui, pour un petit tort qu'elles ne nous font pas, Prennent droit de traiter les gens de haut en bas, Et veulent, sur le pied de nous etre fideles. Que nous soyons tenus a tout endurer d'elles ? Encore un coup, compere, apprenez qu'en effet Le cocuage n'est que ce que I'on le fait, Qu'on peut souhaiter pour de certaines causes, Et qu'il a ses plaisirs comme les autres choses. L'Ecole des femmes, Acte IV, scene viii. P- '64. Alain La femme est en efFet le potage de I'homme ; Et quand un horn me voit d'autres hommes parfois Qui veulent dans sa sdupe aller tremper leurs doigts, II en montre aussitot une colere extreme. L'Ecole des femmes, Acte II, scene iii. P. 165. P. 165. Arnolphe Je sais les tours ruses et les subfiles trames Dont pour nous en planter, savent user les femmes, Et comme on est dupe par leurs dexterites. L'Ecole des femmes, Acte I, scene i. Arnolphe Quoi ? j'aurai dirige son education Avec tant de tendresse et de precaution, Je I'aurai fait passer chez moi des son enfance, Et j'en aurai cheri la plus tendre esperance ; Mon coeur aura bati sur ses attraits naissans Et cru la mitonner pour moi durant treize ans. ORIGINALS OF VERSES IN TEXT 389 Afin qu'un jeune fou dont elle s'amourache Me la vienne enlever jusque sur la moustache, Lorsqu'elle est avec moi mariee a demi ! Non, parbleu ! non, parbleu ! L'Ecole des femmes, Acte IV, scene i. Arnolphe Ce mot et ce regard desarme ma colere, Et produit un retour de tendresse et de coeur. Qui de son action m'efFace la noirceur. Chose etrange d'aimer, et que pour ces traitresses Les hommes soient sujets a de telles foiblesses ! Tout le monde connoit leur imperfection : Ce n'est qu'extravagance et qu'indiscretion ; Leur esprit est mechant, et leur ame fragile ; II n'est rien de plus foible et de plus imbecile, Rien de plus infidele : et malgre tout cela, Dans le monde on fait tout pour ces animaux-la. He bien ! faisons la paix. Va, petite traitresse, Je te pardonne tout et te rends ma tendresse. Considere par la I'amour que j'ai pour toi, Et me voyant si bon, en revanche aime-moi. L'Ecole de$ femmes^ Acte V, scene iv. P- '^7- in Maxime Loin ces etudes d'oeillades, Ces eaux, ces blancs, ces pommades, Et mille ingredients qui font des teints fleuris : A I'honneur, tous les jours, ce sont drogues mortelles ; Et les soins de paroitre belles Se prennent peu pour les maris. IV Maxime Sous sa coifFe, en sortant, comme I'honneur I'ordonne, II faut que de ses yeux elle etoufFe les coups ; Car, pour bien plaire a son epoux, Elle ne doit plaire a personne. L'Ecole desfemmes, Acte III, scene ii. 390 APPENDIX P. 169. Piece qu'en plusieurs lieux on fronde, Mais ou pourtant va tant de monde, Que jamais sujet important Pour le voir n'en attira tant. Loret in Muse historique. P. 169. Laisse gronder tes envieux: lis ont beau crier en tous lieux Qu'en vain tu charmes le vulgaire, Que tes vers n'ont rien de plaisant ; Si tu ne savois un peu moins plaire, Tu ne leur deplairois pas tant. Boileau : Stanzas to Moliere. P. 184. Mais les grands princes n'aiment gueres Que les compliments qui sont courts ; Et le notre surtout a bien d'autres affaires Que d'ecouter tous vos discours. La louange et I'encens n'est pas ce qui le touche ; Des que vous ouvrirez la bouche Pour lui parler de grace et de bienfait, II comprendra d'abord ce que vous voudrez dire, £t se mettant doucement a sourire D'un air qui sur les coeurs fait un charmant effet, II passera comme un trait, Et cela vous doit suffire : Voila votre compliment fait. Remerctment au Rot. P. 203. DORINE Mais il est devenu comme un homme hebete Depuis que de TartufFe on le voit entete ; II I'appelle son frere, et I'aime dans son ame Cent fois plus qu'il ne fait mere, fils, fille, et femme. C'est de tous ses secrets I'unique confident, Et de ses actions le directeur prudent ; II le choie, il I'embrasse; et pour une maitresse ORIGINALS OF VERSES IN TEXT 391 On ne sauroit, je pense, avoir plus de tendresse : A table, au plus haut bout il veut qu'il soit assis ; Avec joie il I'y voit manger autant que six ; Les bons morceaux de tout, il faut qu'on les lui cede ; Et, s'il vient a roter, il lui dit : " Dieu vous aide." Enfin il en est fou ; c'est son tout, son heros ; II 1' admire a tous coups, le cite a tous propos ; Ses moindres actions lui semblent des miracles, Et tous les mots qu'il dit sont pour lui des oracles. Lui, qui connoit sa dupe, et qui veut en jouir, Par cent dehors fardes a I'art de I'eblouir ; Son cagotisme en tire a toute heure des sommes. Et prend droit de gloser sur tous tant que nous sommes. Le Tartuffe, Acte L scene ii. P. 205. Orgon Mon frere, vous seriez charme de le connoitre ; Et vos ravissements ne prendroient point de fin. C'est un homme ... qui ... ha ! ... un homme ... un homme enfin Qui suit bien ses lemons, goute une paix profonde, Et comme du fumier regarde tout le monde. Qui, je deviens tout autre avec son entretien ; II m'enseigne a n'avoir affection pour rien ; De toutes amities il detache mon ame ; Et je verrois mourir frere, enfants, mere, et femme. Que je m'en soucierois autant que de cela. Cleante Les sentiments humains, mon frere, que voila ! Orgon Ah ! si vous aviez vu comme j'en fis rencontre, Vous auriez pris pour lui I'amitie que je montre. Chaque jour a I'eglise il venoit, d'un air doux. Tout vis-a-vis de moi se mettre a deux genoux. II attiroit les yeux de I'assemblee entiere Par I'ardeur dont au ciel il poussoit sa priere ; 39^ APPENDIX II faisoit des soupirs, de grands elancements, Et baisoit humblement la terre a tous moments : Et lorsque je sortois, il me devan^oit vite Pour m'aller, a la porte, ofFrir de I'eau benite. Instruit par son garden, qui dans tout I'imitoit, Et de son indigence, et de ce qu'il etoit, Je lui faisois des dons ; mais, avec modestie, II me vouloit toujours en rendre une partie. C'est trap, me disoit-il, c'est trap de la meitie ; ye ne merite pas de vous faire pit'i'e. Et quand je refusois de le vouloir reprendre, Aux pauvres, a mes yeux, il alloit le repandre. Enfin le Ciel chez moi me le fit retirer Et depuis ce temps-la tout semble y prosperer. Je vols qu'il reprend tout, et qu'a ma femme meme II prend pour mon honneur, un interet extreme ; II m'avertit des gens qui lui font les yeux doux, Et plus que moi six fois il s'en montre jaloux. Mais vous ne croiriez point jusqu'oii monte son zele : II s'impute a peche la moindre bagatelle ; Un rien presque suffit pour le scandaliser, Jusque-la qu'il se vint I'autre jour accuser D 'avoir pris une puce en faisant sa priere, Et de I'avoir tuee avec trop de colere. Le Tartuffe^ Acte I, scene y. P- ^°6- Cl£ante II est de faux devots que de faux braves : Et, comme on ne voit pas qu'ou I'honneur les conduit Les vrais braves soient ceux qui font beaucoup de bruit, Les bons et vrais devots, qu'on doit suivre a la trace, Ne sont pas ceux aussi qui font tant de grimace. Le Tartuffe, Acte I, scene v. P. 206. Orgon Enfin, ma fiUe, il faut payer d'obeissance ; Et montrer pour mon choix entiere deference Le Tartuffie, Acte II, scene ii. ORIGINALS OF VERSES IN TEXT 393 Mariane Un pere, je I'avoue, a sur nous tant d'empire, Que je n'ai jamais eu la force de rien dire. Le Tartuffe^ Acte II, scene iii. '* Mariane Je ne vous reponds pas des volontes d'un pere ; Mais je ne serai point a d'autre qu'a Valere. Le Tartuffe, Acte II, scene iv. Tartuffe Laurent, serrez ma haire avec ma discipline, Et priez que toujours le ciel vous illumine. Si Ton vient pour me voir, je vais aux prisonniers, Des aumones que j'ai, partager les deniers. Le Tartuffe, Acte III, scene ii. P- ^°^- Elmire Pour moi, je crois qu'au ciel tendent tous vos soupirs, Et que rien ici-bas n'arrete vos desirs. Tartuffe L'amour qui nous attache aux beautes eternelles N'etouffe pas en nous l'amour des temporelles : Nos sens facilement peuvent etre charmes Des ouvrages parfaits que le ciel a formes Ses attraits reflechis brillent dans vos pareilles ; Mais il etale en vous ses plus rares merveilles : II a sur votre face epanche des beautes Dont les yeux sont surpris, et les caeurs transportes ; Et je n'ai pu vous voir, parfaite creature. Sans admirer en vous I'auteur de la nature, Et d'une ardente amour sentir mon coeur atteint, Au plus beau des portraits oii lui-meme il s'est peint. D'abord j'apprehendai que cette ardeur secrete Ne fut du noir esprit une surprise adroite; Et meme a fuir vos yeux mon cceur se resolut, 394 APPENDIX Vous croyant un obstacle a faire mon salut. Mais enfin je connus, o beaute tout aimable. Que cette passion peut n'etre point coupable. Que je puis I'ajuster avecque la pudeur, Et c'est ce qui m'y fait abandonner mon coeur. Ce m'est, je le confesse, une audace bien grande Que d'oser de ce coeur vous adresser I'ofFrande ; Mais j'attends en mes voeux tout de votre bonte, Et rien des vains efforts de mon infirmite. En vous est mon espoir, mon bien, ma quietude ; De vous depend ma peine ou ma beatitude ; Et je vais etre enfin, par votre seul arret, Heureux, si vous voulez ; malheureux, s'il vous plait. Elmire La declaration est tout a fait galante ; Mais elle est, a vrai dire, un peu bien surprenante. Vous deviez, ce me semble, armer mieux votre sein, Et raisonner un peu sur un pareil dessein. Un devot comme vous, et que partout on nomme . . Tartuffe Ah ! pour etre devot, je n'en suis pas moins homme : Et, lorsqu'on vient a voir vos celestes appas, Un coeur se laisse prendre, et ne raisonne pas. Je sais qu'un tel discours de moi paroit etrange : Mais, madame, apres tout, je ne suis pas un ange ; Et, si vous condamnez I'aveu que je vous fais, Vous devez vous en prendre a vos charmants attraits Des que j'en vis briller la splendeur plus qu'humaine, De mon interieur vous futes souveraine ; De vos regards divins I'ineffable douceur For^a la resistance oi s'obstinoit mon coeur ; Elle surmonta tout, jeunes, prieres, larmes, Et tourna tous mes voeux du cote de vos charmes. Mes yeux et mes soupirs vous I'ont dit mille fois ; Et, pour mieux m'expliquer, j 'emploie ici la voix. Que si vous contemplez, d'une ame un peu benigne, ORIGINALS OF VERSES IN TEXT 395 Les tribulations de votre esclave indigne; S' il faut que vos bont& veuillent me consoler, Et jusqu'a mon neant daignent se ravaler, J'aurai toujours pour vous, 6 suave merveille, Une devotion a nulle autre pareille, Votre honneur avec moi ne court point de hasard, Et n'a nulle disgrace a craindre de ma part. Tous ces galants de cour, dont les femmes sont folles, Sont bruyants dans leurs faits et vains dans leurs paroles ; De leurs progres sans cesse on les voit se targuer; lis n'ont point de faveurs qu'ils n'aillent divulger ; Et leur langue indiscrete, en qui I'on se confie, Deshonore I'autel ou leur coeur sacrifie. Mais les gens comme nous brulent d'un feu discret, Avec qui, pour toujours, on est sur du secret. Le soin que nous prenons de notre renommee Repond de toute chose a la personne aimee ; Et c'est en nous qu'on trouve, acceptant notre coeur, De I'amour sans scandale, et du plaisir sans peur. Le Tartuffe^ Acte III, scene iii. ^- ^"* Tartuffe. Qui, mon frere, je suis un mechant, un coupable, Un malheureux pecheur, tout plein d'iniquite, Le plus grand scelerat qui jamais ait ete. Chaque instant de ma vie est charge de souillures ; Elle n'est qu'un amas de crimes et d'ordures ; Et je vols que le ciel, pour ma punition. Me veut mortifier en cette occasion. De quelque grand forfait qu'on me puisse reprendre, Je n'ai garde d'avoir I'orgueil de m'en defendre. Croyez ce qu'on vous dit, armez votre courroux, Et comme un criminel chassez-moi de chez vous; Je ne saurois avoir tant de honte en partage. Que je n'en aie encore merite davantage. Le Tartuffe, Acte III, scene vi. 396 APPENDIX ^•"2- L' Exempt Nous vivons sous un prince ennemi de la fraude, Un prince dent les yeux se font jour dans les coeurs, Et que ne peut tromper tout I'art des imposteurs. D'un fin discernement sa grande ame pourvue Sur les choses toujours jette une droite vue ; Chez elle jamais rien ne surprend trop d'acces, Et sa ferme raison ne tombe en nul exces. II donne aux gens de bien une gloire immortelle ; Mais sans aveuglement il fait briiler ce zele, Et I'amour pour les vrais ne ferme point son coeur A tout ce que les faux doivent donner d'horreur. Le Tartuffe^ Acte V, scene derniere. P. 213. P. 216. Tartuffe Je puis vous dissiper ces craintes ridicules, Madame, et je sais I'art de lever les scrupules. Le ciel defend, de vrai, certains contentements ; Mais on trouve avec lui des accommodements. Selon divers besoins, il est une science D'etendre les liens de notre conscience, Et de rectifier le mal de Taction Avec la purete de notre intention. De ces secrets, madame, on saura vous instruire; Vous n'avez seulement qu'a vous laisser conduire. Contentez mon desir, et n'ayez point d'effroi ; Je vous reponds de tout, et prends le mal sur moi. Le Tartuffe^ Acte IV, scene v. Cleante Que ces francs charlatans, que ces devots de place, De qui la sacrilege et trompeuse grimace, Abuse impunement, et se joue, a leur gre De ce qu'ont les mortels de plus saint et sacre ; Ces gens qui, par une ame a I'interet soumise. Font de devotion metier et marchandise, Et veulent acheter credit et dignites. Le Tartuffe^ Acte I, scene v. ORIGINALS OF VERSES IN TEXT 397 Alceste Non, je ne puis soufFrir cette Idche methode Qu'afFectent la plupart de vos gens a la mode ; Et je ne hais rien tant que les contorsions De tous ces grands faiseurs de protestations, Ces afFables donneurs d'embrassades frivoles, Ces obligeants diseurs d 'inutiles paroles. Qui de civilites avec tous font combat, Et traitent du meme air I'honnete homme et le fat. Quel avantage a-t-on qu'un homme vous caresse, Vous jure amitie, foi, zele, estime, tendresse, Et vous fasse de vous un eloge eclatant, Lorsque au premier faquin il court en faire autant ? Non, non, il n'est point d'ame un peu bien situee Qui veuille d'une estime ainsi prostituee ; Et la plus glorieuse a des regals peu chers, Des qu'on voit qu'on nous mele avec tout I'univers : Sur quelque preference une estime se fonde, Et c'est n'estimer rien qu'estimer tout le monde. Puisque vous y donnez, dans ces vices du temps, Morbleu ! vous n'etes pas pour etre de mes gens ; Je refuse d'un coeur la vaste complaisance Qui ne fait de merite aucune difference ; Je veux qu'on me distingue ; et, pour le trancher net, L'ami du genie humain n'est point du tout mon fait. Le Misanthrope^ Acte I, scene i. ■ 59- Alceste Non : elle est generale, et je hais tous les hommes : Les uns, parce qu'ils sont mechants et malfaisants, Et les autres, pour etre aux mechants complaisants, Et n'avoir pas pour eux ces haines vigoureuses Que doit donner le vice aux ames vertueuses. Tetebleu ! ce me sont de mortelles blessures, De voir qu'avec le vice on garde des mesures ; 398 APPENDIX Et parfois il me prend des mouvements soudains De fuir dans un desert I'approche des humains. Philinte Mon Dieu, des mceurs du temps mettons-nous moins en peine, Et faisons un peu grace a la nature humaine; Ne I'examinons point dans la grande rigueur, Et voyons ses defauts avec quelque douceur. II faut, parmi le monde, une vertu traitable ; A force de sagesse, on peut etre blamable ; La parfaite raison fuit toute extremite, Et veut que I'on soit sage avec sobriete. Cette grande roideur des vertues des vieux ages Heurte trop notre siecle et les communs usages ; Elle veut aux mortals trop de perfection : II faut flechir au temps sans obstination; Et c'est une folie a nulle autre seconde De vouloir se meler de corriger le monde. Le Misanthrop , Acte I, scene i. P- 260 Philinte Mais cette rectitude Que vous voulez en tout avec exactitude, Cette pleine droiture, oia vous vous renfermez, La trouvez-vous ici dans ce que vous aimez ? Je m'etonne, pour moi, qu'etant, comme il le semble, Vous et le genre humain si fort brouilles ensemble, Malgre tout ce qui peut vous le rendre odieux, Vous avez pris chez lui ce qui charme vos yeux ; Et ce qui me surprend encore davantage, C'est cet etrange choix oii votre coeur s'engage. La sincere filiante a du penchant pour vous, La prude Arsinoe vous voit d'un oeil fort doux ; Cependant a leurs voeux votre ame se refuse, Tandis qu'en ses liens Celimene I'amuse, De qui I'humeur coquette et I'esprit medisant Semble si fort donner dans les mceurs d'a present. D'oii vient que, leur portant une haine mortelle. ORIGINALS OF VERSES IN TEXT 399 Vous pouvez bien soufFrir ce qu'en tient^ettc, belle? '° Ne sont-ce plus defauts dans un objet ^' dp'ux ? Ne les voyez-vous pas ? ou les exci^sez-^bus ? Alceste ' ^^ -' -V ;^^ ■'" '' ' Non, 1' amour que je sens pour cette jpnne veuve Ne ferme point mes yeux aux defaut^ qtfon lui treuve, Et je suis, quelque ardeur qu'elle m'ait pu dinner, Le premier a les voir, comme a les condanini??.."," ' ; ; ,' '=, Mais, avec tout cela, quoi que je puisse faife,, ' ■; - V ■' Je confesse mon foible ; elle a I'art de me plaire : ' ' ' J'ai beau voir ses defauts, et j'ai beau I'en blamer. En depit qu'on en ait, elle se fait aimer ; Sa grace est la plus forte ; et sans doute ma flamme De ces vices du temps pourra purger son ame. Le Misanthrope, Acte I, scene i. ^* *"'• Alceste II est vrai : ma raison me le dit chaque jour; Mais la raison n'est pas ce qui regie I'amour. Le Misanthrope, Acte I, scene i. *• *°^' Alceste Si le Roi m'avoit donne Paris, sa grand'ville, Et qu'il me fallut quitter L'amour de ma mie, Je dirois au roi Henri : " Reprenez votre Paris : J'aime mieux ma mie, au gue ! J'aime mieux ma mie." Le Misanthrope, Acte I, scene ii. P. 263- Alceste J'en pourrois, par malheur, faire d'aussl mechants; Mais je me garderois de les montrer aux gens. Le Misanthrope, Acte I, scene ii. 4od;;.;;, APPENDIX F. 2S3.' =%"«•/ ,;,. . C&IMENE Des amants /que je fais me rendez-vous coupable ? Puis-je emc^sepher les gens de me trouver aimable ? ; , . ;Et iarsque pour me voir ils font de doux efforts, ; / ; oCoisTJe prendre un baton pour les mettre dehors ? ,- . ,^ " " ' Alceste Non, qX n'es.t' pas, Madame, un baton qu'il faut prendre, y r ;Maig;Un''qcfeur k leur vceux moins facile et moins tendre. . Je sais que vos appas vous suivent en tous lieux ; iVlais votre accueil retient ceux qu'attirent vos yeux; Et sa douceur ofFerte a qui vous rend les armes Acheve sur les coeurs I'ouvrage de vos charmes. Le Misanthrope^ Acte II, scene i. P- *^+- Alceste Mais moi, que vous blamez de trop de jalousie, Qu'ai-je de plus qu'eux tous, Madame, je vous prie ? Celimene Le bonheur de savoir que vous ^tes aime. Le Misanthrope, Acte II, scene i. P- ^'54- Alceste Morbleu ! faut-il que je vous aime ? Ah ! si de vos mains je rattrape mon cceur, Je benirai le Ciel de ce rare bonheur ! Je ne le cele pas, je fais tout mon possible A rompre de ce cceur I'attachement terrible ; Mais mes plus grands efforts n'ont rien fait jusqu'ici. £t c'est pour mes peches que je vous aime ainsi. Le Misanthrope, Acte II, scene i. 5- Celimene O I'ennuyeux conteur! Jamais on ne le voit sortir du grand seigneur ; Dans le brillant commerce il se mele sans cesse. ORIGINALS OF VERSES IN TEXT 401 Et ne cite jamais que due, prince, ou princesse : La qualite I'entete ; et tous ses entretiens Ne sont que de chevaux, d'equipage et de chiens ; II tutaye en parlant ceux du plus haut etage, Et le nom de Monsieur est chez lui hors d'usage. Le Misanthrope^ Acte II, scene iv. ^' ^^5- Clitandre Mais le jeune Cleon, chez qui vont aujourd'hui Nos plus honnetes gens, que dites-vous de lui ? Celimene Que de son cuisinier il s'est fait un merite, Et que c'est a sa table a qui Ton rend visite. Le Misanthrope^ Acte II, scene iv. * 5* Alceste Allons, ferme, poussez, mes bons amis de cour ; Vous n'en epargnez point, et chacun a son tour : Cependant aucun d'eux a vos yeux ne se montre, Qu'on ne vous voie, en hate, aller a sa rencontre, Lui presenter la main, et d'un baiser ilatteur Appuyer les serments d'etre son serviteur, Le Misanthrope^ Acte II, scene iv. Eliante L'amour, pour I'ordinaire, est peu fait a ces lois, Et I'on voit les amants vanter toujours leur choix ; Jamais leur passion n'y voit rien de blamable, Et dans I'objet aime tout leur devient aimable : lis comptent les defauts pour des perfections, Et savent y donner de favorables noms. La pale est aux jasmins en blancheur comparable ; La noire a faire peur, une brune adorable ; La maigre a de la taille et de la liberte ; La grasse est dans son port pleine de majeste ; La malpropre sur soi, de peu d'attraits chargee, Est mise sous le nom de beaute negligee ; 26 P. 266, 402 APPENDIX La geante paroit une deesse aux yeux ; La naine, un abrege des merveilles des cieux ; L'orgueilleuse a le cceur digne d'une couronne ; La fourbe a de Tesprit ; la sotte est toute bonne ; La trop grande parleuse est d'agreable humeur ; £t la muette garde une honnete pudeur. C'est ainsi qu'un amant dont I'ardeur est extreme Aime jusqu'aux defauts des personnes qu'il aime. Le Misanthrope, Acte II, scene iv. ^- ^^7- CelimIne Oui, oui, franche grimace : Dans I'ame elle est du monde, et ses soins tentent tout Pour accrocher quelqu'un, sans en venir a bout. Elle ne sauroit voir qu'avec un oeil d'envie Les amants declares dont une autre est suivie ; £t son triste merite, abandonne de tous, Contre le siecle aveugle est toujours en courroux. Elle tache a couvrir d'un faux voile de prude Ce que chez elle on voit d'afFreuse solitude; Et pour sauver I'honneur de ses foibles appas, Elle attache du crime au pouvoir qu'ils n'ont pas. Cependant un amant plairoit fort a la dame, Et meme pour Alceste, elle a tendresse d'ame. . . . Le Misanthrope, Acte III, scene iii. ^- ^*^7- CiLIMENE Madame, on pent, je crois, louer et blamer tout, Et chacun a raison, suivant Page ou le gout. II est une saison pour la galanterie ; II en est une aussi propre a la pruderie. On peut, par politique, en prendre le parti, Quand de nos jeunes ans I'eclat est amorti : Cela sert a couvrir de facheuses disgraces. Je ne dis pas qu'un jour je ne suive vos traces : L'age amenera tout, et ce n'est pas le temps, Madame, comme on salt, d'etre prude a vingt ans. Le Misanthrope, Acte III, scene iv. ORIGINAL OF VERSES IN TEXT 403 P. 269. Alceste Ciel ! rien de plus cruel peut-il 6tre invente ? Et jamais cceur fut-il de la sorte traite ? Quoi ? d'un juste courroux je suis emu centre elle, C'est moi qui me viens plaindre, et c'est moi qu'on querelle ! On pousse ma douleur et mes soup^ons a bout. On me laisse tout croire, on fait gloire de tout ; Et cependant mon coeur est encore assez lache Pour ne pouvoir briser la chaine qui I'attache, Et pour ne pas s'armer d'un genereux mepris Contre I'ingrat objet dont il est trop epris ! Ah ! que vous savez bien ici, contre moi-meme, Perfide, vous servir de ma foiblesse extreme, Et menager pour vous I'exces prodigieux De ce fatal amour ne de vos traitres yeux ! Defendez-vous au moins d'un crime qui m'accable, Et cessez d'afFecter d'etre envers moi coupable ; Rendez-moi, s'il se peut, ce billet innocent : A vous preter les mains, ma tendresse consent ; Efforcez-vous ici de paroitre fidele, Et je m'efForcerai, moi, de vous croire telle. CfeLIMENE Allez, vous etes fou, dans vos transports jaloux, Et ne meritez pas I'amour qu'on a pour vous. Je voudrois bien savoir qui pourroit me contraindre A descendre pour vous aux bassesses de feindre, Et pourquoi, si mon cceur penchoit d'autre cote, Je ne le dirois pas avec sincerite. Quoi ? de mes sentiments I'obligeante assurance Contre tous vos soup9ons ne prend pas ma defense ? Aupres d'un tel garant, sont-ils de quelque poids ? N'est-ce pas m'outrager que d'ecouter leur voix ? Et puisque notre coeur fait un effort extreme Lorsqu'il peut se resoudre a confesser qu'il aime, 404 APPENDIX Puisque I'honneur du sexe, ennemi de nos feux, S'oppose fortement a de pareils aveux, L'amant qui voit pour lui franchir un tel obstacle Doit-il impunement douter de cet oracle ? Et n'est-il pas coupable en ne s'assurant pas A ce qu'on ne dit point qu'apres de grands combats ? AUez, de tels soup^ons meritent ma colere, Et vous ne valez pas que Ton vous considere : Je suis sotte, et veux mal a ma simplicite De conserver encor pour vous quelque bonte ; Je devrois autre part attacher mon estime, Et vous faire un sujet de plainte legitime. Alcestb Ah ! traitresse, mon foible est etrange pour vous ! Vous me trompez sans doute avec des mots si doux ; Mais il n'importe, il faut suivre ma destinee : A votre foi mon ame est toute abandonee ; Je veux voir, jusqu'au bout, quel sera votre ccEur, Et si de me trahir il aura la noirceur. CtLIMENE Non, vous ne m'aimez point comme il faut que I'on aime. Alceste Ah ! rien n'est comparable a mon amour extreme ; Et dans I'ardeur qu'il a de se montrer a tous, II va jusqu'a former des souhaits centre vous. Oui, je voudrais qu'aucun ne vous trouvat aimable, Que vous fussiez reduite en un sort miserable. Que le Ciel, en naissant, ne vous eut donne rien, Que vous n'eussiez ni rang, ni naissance, ni bien, Afin que de mon coeur I'eclatant sacrifice Vous put d'un pareil sort reparer I'mjustice, Et que j'eusse la joie et la gloire, en ce jour, De vous voir tenir tout des mains de mon amour. p. 271. p. 272. ORIGINALS OF VERSES IN TEXT 405 C£limIne C'est me vouloir du bien d'une etrange maniere ! Me preserve le Ciel que vous ayez matiere . . . ! Le Misanthrope^ Acte IV, scene iii. Alceste II semble que le sort, quelque soin que je prenne. Ait jure d'empecher que je vous entretienne ; Mais pour en triompher, soufFrez a mon amour De vous revoir, Madame, avant la fin du jour. Le Misanthrope^ Acte IV, scene iv. C£limene Oui, vous pouvez tout dire : Vous en etes en droit, lorsque vous vous plaindrez, Et de me reprocher tout ce que vous voudrez. J'ai tort, je le confesse, et mon ame confuse Ne cherche a vous payer d'aucune vaine excuse. J'ai des autres ici meprisd le courroux, Mais je tombe d'accord de mon crime envers vous. Votre ressentiment, sans doute, est raisonnable : Je sais combien je dois vous paroitre coupable. Que toute chose dit que j'ai pu vous trahir, Et qu'enfin vous avez sujet de me hair. Faites-le, j'y consens. Alceste He ! le puis-je, traitresse ? Puis-je ainsi triompher de toute ma tendresse ? Et quoique avec ardeur je veuille vous hair, Trouve-je un coeur en moi tout pret a m'obeir ? (Ji Eliante et Philinte.~) Vous voyez ce que pent une indigne tendresse, Et je vous fais tous deux temoins de ma foiblesse. Mais, a vous dire vrai, ce n'est pas encor tout, Et vous allez me voir la pousser jusqu'au bout, Montrer que c'est a tort que sages on nous nomme. 4o6 APPENDIX Et que dans tous les coeurs il est toujours de rhomme. Oui, je veux bien, perfide, oublier vos forfaits ; J'en saurai, dans mon ame, excuser tous les traits, Et me les couvrirai du nom d'une foiblesse Ou le vice du temps porte votre jeunesse, Pourvu que votre coeur veuille donner les mains Au dessein que j'ai fait de fuir tous les humains, Et que dans mon desert, ou j'ai fait voeu de vivre, Vous soyez, sans tarder, resolue a me suivre : C'est par la seulement que, dans tous les esprits, Vous pouvez reparer le mal de vos ecrits, Et qu'apres cet eclat, qu'un noble coeur abhorre, II peut m'etre permis de vous aimer encore. C£limsne Moi, renoncer au monde avant que de vieillir, Et dans votre desert aller m'ensevelir ! Alceste Et s'il faut qu'a mes feux votre flamme reponde. Que vous doit importer tout le reste du monde ? Vos desirs avec moi ne sont-ils pas contents ? C^LIMENE La solitude efFraye une ame de vingt ans : Je ne sens point la mienne assez grande, assez forte. Pour me resoudre a prendre un dessein de la sorte. Si le don de ma main peut contenter vos voeux, Je pourrai me resoudre a serrer de tels ncEuds ; Et I'hymen . . . Alceste Non : mon coeur a present vous deteste, Et ce refus lui seul fait plus que tout le reste. Puisque vous n'etes point, en des liens si doux. Pour trouver tout en moi, comme moi tout en vous, AUez, je vous refuse, et ce sensible outrage De vos indignes fers pour jamais me degage. Le Misanthrope, Acte V, scene derniere. ORIGINALS OF VERSES IN TEXT 407 *74' Alceste Puissiez-vous, pour gouter de vrais contentements, L'un pour I'autre a jamais garder ces sentiments ! Trahi de toutes parts, accable d'injustices, Je vais sortir d'un gouffre ou triomphent les vices, Et chercher sur la terre un endroit ecarte Ou d'etre homme d'honneur on ait la liberte. Le Misanthrope, Acte V, scene derniere. P. 284. AfFecter un air pedantesque, Cracher du grec et du latin, Longue perruque, habit grotesque, De la fourrure et du satin. Tout cela reuni fait presque Ce qu'on appelle un medecin. Les Medecins au temps de Moliere, Maurice Raynaud, page 81. CHRONOLOGY 1615, October 6 . . Joseph Bejart marries Marie Herv^. 161 7 Catherine de Vivonne establishes the H8tel de Ram- bouillet. 1618, January 8 . . Madeleine Bejart born. Recorded in parish of St. Paul. 1621, February 22 . Marriage contract between Jean Poquelin and Marie Cress^. " April 27 . . . Jean Poquelin and Marie Cresse married in St. Eustache church. 1622, January I S . . Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (Moliire), eldest son of Jean Poquelin and Marie Cresse, baptised in St. Eustache church. 1626, April 13 . . . Death of Molifere's paternal grandfather, Jean Poquelin. " Moliire's friend, Claude Emmanuel Chapelle, bom. 1629 First meetings of Academicians at the home of Conrart. 1631, April 2 . . . Nicolas Poquelin resigns position of valet de chambre tapissier at court to his elder brother Jean, Moliire's father. 1632, May II . . . Burial of Molifere's mother, aged thirty-one. 1633, January 19-31 Inventory made of the Poquelin family effects on account of the death of Moli^re's mother. " May 30 . . . Moliire's father marries Catherine Fleurette. " September 30 . MoliJre's father buys house under arcades of market place near St. Eustache church. J635 Molifere probably entered Jesuit College at Clermont. " November i . Birth of Boileau, surnamed Despreaux. « " 12 . Death of Catherine Fleurette. « Rotrou publishes, in the dedication to his The Dying Hercules (ffercule mourant), some verses by Madeleine Bejart. 1637, March 29 . . Reversion of ofSce of vaiet de chambre tapissier settled on Moliere. 16,8 Death of Molifere's maternal grandfather, Louis Cress^. " July II . . . Franfoise, illegitimate child of Esprit de Remond de Mod^ne and Madeleine Bejart, baptised. She was bom on the third of July. ,g-g Richelieu builds theatre in the Palais Cardinal, afterward known as Palais Royal. " December 21 . Jean Racine bom, at La Ferte-Milon. 4IO CHRONOLOGY 1641, February . . The epicurean philosopher Gassendi, after an absence of about seven years, returns to Paris ; Moli^re becomes his pupil. 1642 Journey of Louis XIII to Narbonne, where (May 12) Cinq Mars and De Thou are arrested for plotting Richelieu's death. Possible presence of Moliire in King's suite as valet de. chambre tapissier. Death of Cardinal Richelieu. Moli^re receives from his father the sum of 630 livres on account of his mother's estate and renounces his right of succession to the of&ce of Royal Upholsterer. Marie Herve, widow of Joseph Bijart, takes proceedings to abandon right of husband's inheritance. Signing of the contract establishing " The Illustrious Theatre." MoU^re signs lease with Noel Gallois, the teimis master, for the Mestayers' Tennis-court. The Fair of the Pardon at Rouen opened, Molitre being there with the members of " The Illustrious Theatre." The members sign contract for alterations to their Paris house. The members sign obligation to pay Leonard Aubry 200 livres for pavement in front of their theatre. " The Illustrious Theatre " probably opened. " The Illustrious Theatre " receives the right to style itself " The Company of His Royal Highness " (Troupe en- tretenue par son Altesse Soyale), the Duke of Orleans. Jean-Baptiste Poquelin for the first time signs his name " Molifere," in contract with the ballet-master Daniel MoUet. Debt drives " The Illustrious Theatre " from their play- house and they rent another tennis-court. The Black Cross, in the rue des Barr^s. Opening of the Black Cross play-house. Moli^re arrested for debt and imprisoned in the Grand Chatelet. Moliire again imprisoned in the Grand Chatelet. Moli^re released under bond. Leonard Aubry, who paved the street in front of the Mestayers' Tennis-court, goes upon Moliire's bond. Five of the members of " The Illustrious Theatre " sign the obligation to indemnify Aubry. 1645, Autumn (or Spring of 1646). Moli^re leaves Paris and begins his theatrical career in the country. 1646, December 24 . Moliire's father gives the pavier Leonard Aubry his note for 300 livres. 1647, August-September " Comedians of the Duke of Epemon" at Albi. " December 4 1643, January 6 . " June 10 . . . " 30 . . . " September 12 " October 23 " November 3 , " December 28 1644, January i . . June 28 December 19 1645, January 8 " July . . August 2-4 5 • 13 • CHRONOLOGY 411 1647, October . . 1648, April 23 " May 17 . . '• " 18 . . 1650, January 16 . 1651, April 14 . . " Autumn (or 1652 1653, February 19 « March . . " September . 1654, February 22 " August 18 . " December 5 it u 165s, February 7 . « .. ,8 . The "Comedians of the Duke of fipemon" at Carcas- sonne. . " The Sieur Morlierre [«V], one of the comedians of the troupe of the Sieur Dufresne " appears before the civic authorities of Nantes, humbly to beg permission to erect a stage and present comedies. . Dufresne confers with the city authorities of Nantes about a play to be given for the benefit of the town hospital. . The play given. Dufresne, Du Pare, Marie Herve, and Madeleine B^jart sponsors at the baptism of Reveil- lon's daughter. . Molifere signs his name in Narbonne as " Jean-Baptiste- Poquelin, valet de chambre du roi." . Giovanni Battista Lully (LuUi), a Florentine composer and violinist, joins Royal French Orchestra. Soon thereafter appointed Director of Music to Louis XIV. . Moli^re in Paris in connection with the settlement of his mother's estate. Receives 1965 livres. Winter of 1651-52). Moli^re meets Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy at Carcassonne. . Claude Emmanuel Chapelle, natural son of Franfois Luillier, maitre des comptes, but legitimised at age of sixteen, inherits fortune through death of father. . Moliire present in Lyons at wedding of Gros-Rene (Du Pare) and Marquise de Gorla. . Probable first performance of The Blunderer {L'£tourdi) at Lyons. (See pages 45-49-) . Molifere's first professional appearance before the Prince de Conti at La Grange-des-Pres. For three years thereafter Moli^re's company linown as " The Come- dians of the Prince de Conti." . The Prince de Conti marries Anna Martinozzi, Mazarin's niece, and is appointed governor of Guienne. . Ragueneau a candle snuffer at a Lyons play-house. . He dies there. . The poet Sarrasin dies at Pezenas. Molifere is considered by the Prince de Conti for the position of secretary left vacant by Sarrasin's death, but Moliire declines. . Opening of the States {jStais) of Montpellier. MoliJire's troupe summoned there. . During session of the States at Montpellier presentation of Tie Ballet of the Incomfatibles {Le Ballet des Incompatibles). . Antoine Baralier, tax-gatherer at Montelimart, acknowl- edges an indebtedness to Madeleine Bejart (acting as the troupe's treasurer) of 3200 livres. 412 CHRONOLOGY 1655, March 14 . . The States of Languedoc close at Montpellier. Moliire's troupe receives 8000 livres for a four months' stay. " April I . , . Madeleine Bejart lends the province of Languedoc the sum of 10,000 livres. " Moli&re and Charles Coypeau d'Assoucy pass three months together at Lyons. 1655-56, Winter . . At a session of the States held at P^zenas, the authorities pay Moliire's company 6000 livres for its services. 1656, February 22 . The States of Languedoc adjourned. The Prince de Conti is converted to Jansenism by the Bishop of Aleth. " Joseph Bejart receives 1500 livres for a genealogy of the provincial nobility of Languedoc, which he has written. " Chapelle and Bachaumont journey through Languedoc. " The Abbe de Pure publishes a novel: The Prkieuse ; or, The Mystery of the Alcove (La Prkieuse ou le mystire de la ruelle). He also writes a comedy on a similar topic which is presented by the Italians at the Hotel du Petit Bourbon. " December 12 . The Love Tiff (Le Dlpit amour eux) performed for the first time at B^ziers. 1657, May 15 . . . The Prince de Conti writes from Lyons to the Abb^ Ciron : " . . . there are comedians here who formerly bore my name. I have forbidden them to use it longer. . . ." 1658, February . . Moli^re at Grenoble. " April 30 . . . MoliJre at Rouen. " August . . . Moli^re makes frequent trips to Paris to secure protec- tion of Monsieur, the King's brother. " October 24 . . Moliire plays for the first time before the King, in the Guard room of the Old Louvre : Comeille's Nicomedes (Nicomide) and The Doctor in Love (Le Docteur amoureux). Address of Moliire to the King in the presence of the Comedians of the Hotel de Bour- gogne. The King's decree makes Moli^re's company La Troupe de Monsieur, frire unique du roi. " November 2 . Monsieur's Comedians appear in public at the Hotel du Petit Bourbon. 1659, April 16 . . . Moli^re opens the theatrical season with T^e Love Tiff at the chateau of Chilly-Mazarin. " July .... The Italians leave for Italy, and Moliire is in sole possession of the Hotel du Petit Bourbon. " November 7 . Maria Theresa affianced to Louis XIV. " " 18 . First performance of Z« Prlcieuses ridicules, at the Hotel du Petit Bourbon, preceded by Cinna. Moli- fere in the r61e of Mascarille. CHRONOLOGY 413 1660, May 7 . . . " 28 . . . " June 7 . . . " " 9 . , . " July and August " October 6 . . " " TT « " 26 . 1661 , January 20 . (( February 4 . March 9 . . April I . . it June 24 . . (( July II . . « " 13 • • it August 17 . (1 1662 September 5 .January 9 . tt " 23 • tt February 20 u May 8 . . (( July . . . Moli^re produces a comedy by M. Gilbert: Tie True and the False Pricieuse (La Vraye et fausse pricieuse). First performance of Sganarelle ; or. The Imaginary Cuckold {^Sganarelle ou le cocu imaginaire), at the Petit Bourbon. Moli^re in the role of Sganarelle. The King meets the Infanta Maria Theresa at frontier. The King's marriage at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the bishop of Bayonne officiating. King at Vincennes. Moliire plays before him three times. Death of Scarron. M. de Ratabon, Superintendent of the King's buildings, begins to destroy the Hotel du Petit Bourbon without warning to Moli^re. The King gives MoliJre the theatre in the Palais Royal. Moliere presents The Blunderer and Les Pricieuses ridi- cules at the Louvre before the dying Mazarin. Moli^re's renovated theatre at the Palais Royal opened with The Lo^e Tiff^xA Sganarelle. First performance, at the Palais Royal, of Don Garcia de Navarre ; or. The Jealous Prince (Don Garcie de Na- varre, ou le Prince jaloux). Moliere in the role of Don Garcia. Mazarin dies at Vincennes. Moliere receives a double share in the net receipts of his troupe. First performance, at the Palais Royal, of The School for Husbands (L'Mcole des maris). Moliere in the role of Sganarelle. The School for Husbands given at Vaux-le-Vicomte dur- ing a f Ste offered by Fouquet to the Queen of England, Monsieur and Madame. The School for Husbands performed before the King at Fontainebleau. First performance of The Bores (Les F&cheux) before the King, at Vaux-le-Vicomte, just before Fouquet's downfall. Moliere in several minor parts. Fouquet arrested at Nantes by d'Artagnan. The Italians begin again to alternate with Moliere at the Palais Royal. Marriage contract concluded between Moliere and Armande Bejart. Moliire and Armande Bejart married at St. Germain I'Auxerrois. Moliire's troupe commanded by the King to St. Germain- en-Laye. Stay eleven days. They are again commanded by the King to St. Germain- 414 i662, December 26 1663, January 6 . " March 17 . " June I . . " October 18 . « " 19 . 1664, January 17 - (( (( (I fi 19 29 February 15 28 May 7 . . " " 12 . . " June s . . " "20 . . " August 4 . " September 25 " November 10 " •' 14 " " 29 CHRONOLOGY en-Laye and stay the whole month. The troupe receives 14,000 livres. First performance of The School for Wives (V&cole des femmes). Moliere in the role of Arnolphe. TTie School for Wives performed at the Louvre. Moliire's name appears for the first time on the King's pension list. He receives 1000 livres. First performance of 77ie Criticism of the School for Wives (La Critique de Vlcole des femmes). Probable first performance of The Versailles Impromptu {V Impromptu de Versailles). Moliere in the role of Moliere. Boursault's play TTie Portrait of the Painter [Le Portrait dupeinire) given for the first time at the Hdtel de Bourgogne. M. de Brecourt's The Great Booby of a Son as Foolish as his Father (Le Grand henlt de fits aussi sot que son pire) is first performed at the home of M. Le Tellier. Louis, Molifere's eldest son, born. 7y4« Forced Marriage (Le Mariage forcl) presented in Anne of Austria's apartment at the Louvre. Moliire in the role of Sganarelle. First (public) performance of The Forced Marriage at the Palais RoyaL Baptism of Moliere's son Louis, the King as godfather. Beginning of a series of f 8tes at Versailles, called " The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle " (Les Plaisirs de ttle enchantie). On the second day, first performance of" The Princess of Elis " (LaPrincesse d'£lide) with Moliere in the role of Moron. (The sixth day of " The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle.") First performance of the first three acts of The Hypo- crite (Le Tartuffe). Moliire in the role of Orgon. The troupe of Mme. Raisin performs at the Palais Royal. The acting of young Baron so pleases Moliere that he takes him into his household and troupe. First performance, by Molifere's troupe at the Palais Royal, of Racine's first tragedy. La Thlbdide. The King permits Moliere to read The Hypocrite before Cardinal Chigi, the papal legate, at Fontainebleau. The King permits the three acts of The Hypocrite to be played at Villers-Cotterets before the Due d'OrWans and members of the royal family. Louis, Moliere's son, dies. La Grange begins to replace Moliere as orateur of the troupe. The whole (five acts) of T%e Hypocrite probably CHRONOLOGY 415 1664 1665, February 15 . " June 13 . . . " August 4 . , " " 14 . , " September 15 « •« 22 " December 4 . « " 18 . 1666, June 4 . . " August 6 . " December 2 1667, February 14 for the first time, before the Prince de Cond^ at Raincy. Moli^re, Racine, La Fontaine, and Chapelle meet three times t, 73, 79, 80, 167, 215. Conti, the Prince of, the comedians of, 65-83. Coquelin, Constant, on Molifere, 276, 277, 335. Cormier, 66. Corneille, xviii, xix, xx, I, 30, 46, 59. 82, 85, 88, 179, 198, 332. Cosnac, Abb6 Daniel de, 66, 67. Cotin, Abb^ 355. Couthon, 374. Crane, T. F., xvii-xxv, 308. Cressd, Marie, 3-6. Criticism of the School for Wives, The, 169-173, 329. Critique de V Ecole desfemmes. La, see Criticism of the School for Wives. Croisac, 81, 89. Croisy, Du, an actor in Moli^re's company, 89, 194; a character in The Criticism of the School for Wives, 177; a character in Les Prdcieuses ridicules, 107, 114. Croisy, du. Mile., 81. Cupidity, 78. D Dandin, George, first performance, 198; a histrionic play, 199, 336- 338, 348; reference to Armande B^jart, 238. Ddpit amoureux, Le, see Love Tiff, The. Descartes, 313, 318, 320, 368. Desden con el desden. El, see Scorn •with Scorn. Despois, Eugene, xii, xiii, 294 note '. Desurlis, Catherine, 27. Docteur amoureux, Le, see Physi- cian in Love, The. Doctor in Spite of Himself, The, motive of, 53; a histrionic play, 57 ; as a medical satire, 279, 291- 294, 303- Dolt, The, 60. Don Garcia of Navarre y or, The Jealous Prince, 122, 123, 124, 153- Don Garcie de Navarre ou le Prince jaloux, see Don Garcia of Nch varre ; or. The Jealous Prince. Don Juan ; or. The Feast of Stone, first produced, 224; source, 224; and Shakespeare, 225 ; a picture of the old regime, 225-230 ; ridi- culing medicine, 283, 284 ; dis- regard of dramatic canon, 343. Don Juan, ou le festin de pierre, see Don Juanj or. The Feast of Stone. Donnay, Maurice, 257. Dottor bacchettone, II, see Hypo- critical Doctor, The. Dufort, Martin-Melchoir, 72, 73. Dufresne, Charles, 24, 41, 42, 47, 48, 81, 89. Dumas, Alexandre,^/r, 257. Echegaray, 257. Ecole des femmes, L', see School for Wives, The. 440 INDEX £cole des maris, L', see School for Husbands, The. Eguisd, L', see Bfejart, Louis^ £lomire hypocondre, see Elomire Hypochondriac. £lomire Hypochondriac, a satire on Molifere by Le Boulanger de Chalussay, 19, 87, 290 note^, 298. Epernon, Duke of, as patron of Molifere, 36-49. Eraste, 57, 78. Esprit, Madeleine, daughter of Molifere, 358, 378. Espy, Del', 89, 90, 181. Estang, Cyprien Ragueneau de 1', 45, 46, 48. Etourdi, L', ou les Contretemps, see Blunderer, The; or, The Mis- haps. FAcheux, Les, see Bores, The. Fagot Gatherer, The, 52, 294. Fagotier, Le, see Fagot Gatherer, The. Fail, Noel du, 82. Fameuse comedienne, La, see Fa- mous Comedienne, The. Famous Comedienne, The, an attack upon Madame de Molifere, 19, 20, 141, ISO, 239-242, 249, 360, 362, 363- Farce, The, at the beginning of Molifere's career, 50, 51. Favori, Le, see Favourite, The. Favourite, The, 190. Femmes savantes, Les, see Learned Women, The. Ffoelon, I. Feuillade, Due de la, 174. Fillon, Benjamin, 377. Fiurelli, Tiberio, see Scaramouche. Flying Physician, The, 52, 53, 58, 119, 279. Fontaine, La, I, 302, 306, 315-317, 378 note 1- Foolish Quarrel, The; or. The Criti- cism of Androtnachus, 308. Forced Marriage, The, 55, 119, 189, i97> 235, 237. 254. Forest, La, 326, 327. Fouquet, xxv, 129-133, 315. Fourberies de Scapin, Les, see Ras- calities of Scapin, The. Fournier, tdouard, 140, 143, 153. Galibert, M., 74, 75, 78 note». Gallois, J.-L. le, see Grimarest. Gassendi, as teacher of Moli&re, 15. Gassot, Philibert, 89. Gaultier-Garguille, 8. Gelosi, the, troupe of Italian come- dians, 60. Gdly, Maitre, 75, 76. G&in, 150. Gioannelli, Bonvicino, 218. Gloire du Val-de-GrAce, La, see Glory of the Val-de-Grdce, The, Glory of the Val-de-Grdce, The, 323-325- Gorgibus dans le sac, see Gorgibus in the Bag. Gorgibus in the Bag, 52. Goudouli, 69. Grimarest, Life of Molifere by, xii, xxii, 9, 17, 19, 45, 67, 105, 106, 136, 142, 243, 248, 313, 314, 320, 322, 323, 326, 327, 359, 361, 362, 368, 371-375. 377. 378. Gros Guillaume, 8, 10. Gros-Rend, see Pare, du; a char- acter in The Love Tiff, 78. Gros-Reni : A School-boy, 52. Gros-Reni : icolier, see Gros-RenS i a School-boy. Gr OS-Rend 's Jealousy, 5 2. Groto, Luigi, 60. Gudnegaud, Theatre, 379. Guerin, the second husband of Madame de Molifere, 19, 378. Guiche, Comte de, 240, 241, 251,275. Guillot-Gorju, 8, 10, 115, 279. INDEX 441 H Hamlet, resemblance of Alceste to, 276. Hauptmann, Gerhardt, 257. Hermite, Francjois Tristan 1', 24. , Jean-Baptiste Tristan I', 21, 24, 47- Hervd, Marie, mother of the Bdjarts, 21, 27, 41, 141, 143, 147, 148, 364. Hervieu, Paul, 257. Hesnault, early acquaintance of, with Molifere, 15. Hippolyte, 60, 61, 62. Homme d, bonnes fortunes, L\ 363- H8tel de Bourgogne, famed come- dians of, 8, 10 ; description of, 11 ; afterpieces at, 50, 52; Molifere's rivals at, 97, 155, 157, 179; Ra- cine and, 307 ; amalgamation with the Thfeitre Gudnegaud, 379. du Petit Bourbon, connection of Molifere with, 11, 12, 52, 86; Moli^re's d€but at, 87; in sole possession, 91 ; 95, 106. Houssaye, Arsfene, 138. Hubert, 194, 232, 233. Hypocrite, The, distinguishes Moli- fere's period of aggression, 56; first public production, 98 ; use of material from Don Garcia of Navarre, 124; performed in " The Pleasures of the En- chanted Isle," 196, 197 note ; knight-errantry in, 202 ; plot, 202- 212 ; the Jesuits, the Jansenists, and, 212-215, 223; compared with The Misanthrope, 255; re- ceipts from, 275 ; its run, 294 ; treatment of the physicians, 295; humanity in, 305 ; La Forest portrayed in, 327; classic des- potism, 334; poetic insight in, 335 ; and The Miser, 339; and The Learned Women, 353. Hypocrite, The, an Italian comedy by Pietro Aretino, 218. Hypocritical Doctor, The, as a source of The Hypocrite, 218. I Ibsen, 257. " Illustrious Theatre, The," organ- isation of, 26; members, 27, 28; installed in Paris, 31 ; the end of, 34 ; 67. Imaginary Invalid, The, a his- trionic play, 57; as a comedy ballet, 198; presented at the Palais Royal, 199, 370; a mili- tant comedy, 199 ; a medical sat- ire, 279, 299-305 ; model for pert servant in, 327 ; one of its char- acters inspired by Molifere's daughter, 358 ; means of reunion between Molifere and his wife, 360; Molifere stricken with last illness while playing in, 374. Imposteur, V, see Impostor, The. Impostor, The, substituted as title of The Hypocrite, 222. Impromptu de Versailles, L\ see Versailles Impromptu, The. Inavvertito, L', see Dolt, The. Interesse, V, see Cupidity. Ipocrito, L\ by Pietro Aretino, see Hypocrite, The. J Jal, M. A., xiii, 141. falousie du barbouilU, La, see fealousy of Smutty Face, The. falousie du Gros-Rend, La, see Gros-Hend's fealousy. Jansenists, and Jesuits, 212-216. Jardins, Mile, des, 190. fealousy of Smutty Face, The, 52, S8, 338- Jesuits, and Jansenists, 212-216. f ocular Nights, The, 162. Jodelet, an actor in Molifere's com- pany, 89, 114. , Vicomte de, a character in Les Precieuses ridicules, 115. 442 INDEX Jonsac, Marquis de, 360. Jusserand, J. J., xiv. La Grange, xii, 45, 46, 88, 89, 95, 99, 106, 136, 147, ISO, 157, 175 note, 190, 194, 231, 307, 326, 370, 374- La Grange, in Les Pricieuses Ridi- cules, 107, 114. Larroumet, Gustave, on Molifere, xiii, 200, 232, 256, 329, 364. Lauzun, Comte de, 240, 241. Ldandre, 61, 62. Learned Women, The, a histrionic play, t,T, 353-356; and Don Garcia of Navarre, 124; Boileau and, 359. Ldlie, 60, 61, 62. Lessing, 218. Lestang, see Estang, Cyprien Rague- neau de I'. Liar, The, 59. Limoges, 44. Li vet, Ch. L., 203 note. Loiseleur, Jules, 73 note, 143, 148, 154, 325 note, 326, 373 notei. Loret, on Moli&re, xjii, go ; on The School for Husbands, 128; on The School for Wives, 168. Louis XIII, Molifere in the suite of, 17, 18; 59. Louis XIV, xvii, i, 86, 92, 94, 100, 124, 130-134. 146, 155. 156, 175 note, 184, 185, 198, 199, 200, 215, 219, 222, 223, 254, 309, 335, 347. 370, 37S, 376, 379- Love as a Doctor, as a comedy ballet, 197; a militant comedy, 199, 254, 255 ; a satire on the physicians, 279, 285-290, 303. Love Tiff, The, representing the Italian period, 58, 79 ; subjective- ness in, 78 ; first performance in Paris, 88 ; played before Louis XIV, 90 ; termination of run, 92, 94; played at the Palais Royal, 121. Lucretius, influence of, upon Mo- lifere, 16, 266. Lully, Giovanni Battista, 190 note ^, 198, 254, 304, 370, 378. Lyons, 45, 46, 48, 59, 60, 64, 6j, 70, 74- M Macette, a source of The Hypocrite, 218. Magnificent Lovers, The, 198, 199, 332. Magnon, Jean, 36. Maintenon, Madame de, 379. Mattre d'icole,Le, see School-master, The. Malingre, Magdale, 27. Mansfield, Richard, xxv, 62. Mantzius, Karl, Moliire and his Times by, xiii, 71. Marais, Thditre du, 89, 379. Mareschal, Andr^, 27, 37. Mariage ford, Le, see Forced Mar- riage, The. Martinifere, Bruzen de la, xiii, 174 note", 347 note. Martinozzi, Anna, 65. Mascarille, the character of, 53, 54, 55. 57, 61, 62, 78, 107, 108, no, 119. Mazarin, 65, 78, 79, 82, 91, 100, 124, 200. Midecin malgrd lui, Le, see Doctor in Spite of Himself , The. Midecin volant, Le, see Flying Physician, The. Medico volante, II, 53. Milicerte, 197, 199, 244. Mdnage, 355. Menander, 82. Menoux, Mile., 47. Menteur, Le, xx. Meredith, George, 120. M^rou, Henri, 357. Mesnard, Paul, a biographer of INDEX 443 Moli^re, xii, xiii, 29, 36, 72 note \ 123, 175 note, 214, 242, 246,276, 293, 294, 302, 308, 317 note, 335, 360, 377, 378. Mignard, Nicolas, 70. , Pierre, 70, 82, 324, 325, 329. Misanthrope, The, containing pas- sage from Lucretius, 16; distin- guishing Moli^re's period of ag- gression, 56, 57 ; inspiration, 124; subjectivity, 166, 255, 277; trav- esty of the Due de Montausier, i88 ; and The Hypocrite, 212 ; reference to Armande Bdjart, 238 ; the greatest of French comedies, 255; characters, 256, 257; sum- mary, 257-274; first presented, 274 ; subjectiveness, 277 ; Voltaire on, 294 ; and The Imaginary In- valid, 305 ; popularity to-day, 331; classic despotism in, 334; showing poetic insight, 335 ; and The Miser, 339 ; and The Learned Women, 353. Miser, The, a histrionic play, 57, 332 ; plot, 339-343- MithridaUs, 370. Modfene, Baron de, 20, 23, 24, 31, 32, 47. 143- Moland, Louis, La Vie de J.-B. Molilre, by, xiii, 88, 187 ; on Don Juanj or. The Feast of Stone, 225 ; on The Tricked Pedant, 351. Molifere, Jean-Baptiste, place among French writers of, I ; birth of, 2 ; parentage of, 3-7; early life of, 6-18; at the college of Clermont, 12-14; as pupil of Gassendi, 15, 16 ; as student of law, 16 ; in the suite of Louis XIII, 17, 18 ; asso- ciation with Madeleine Bdjart, 19-48; beginning of theatrical career, 25 ; ddbut at " The Illus- trious Theatre," 25-34; a strolling player, with "The Comedians of the Duke of Epemon," 35-49 ; as z. farceur, 50-64 ; period of Italian influence, 52-55, 58-64; second, or Gallic, period, 55 ; third, or obsequious, period, 55, 56 ; fourth, or period of aggression, 56 ; social standing, 69 ; fifth, or histrionic, period, 56, 331-357; the creator of French comedy, 59 ; under the patronage of the Prince of Conti, 65-80; Parisian success, 84-100 ; first appearance at court, 85, 86 ; installed at the Palais Royal, 121; secure in the royal favour, 134 ; marriage with Armande B^jart, 147; marital experience, 155-177 ; as a courtier, 181-20 1 ; the poet miUtant, 202-230; health breaks down, 223, 245 ; theatrical and domestic life, 231-253 ; personal- ity, 245, 246, 247, 323, 327, 328, 329 ; compared with Shakespeare, 253. 356, 3S7 ; Louis, eldest son, born, 240; personal experience in The Misanthrope, 277; warfare against the physicians, 279-305; friends, 306-330; as a naturalist, 334; Madeleine-Esprit, daughter, 358, 373 ; third child, Pierre- Jean-Baptiste-Armand, 359 note^, 368 ; reunion with wife, 359, 360 ; death, 365, 366, 370-374; his philosophy, 369. Moli&re, Mile., see Armande Bdjart. Molina, Tirso de, as a source of Don Juan J or. The Feast of Stone, 224 ; as a source of Love as a Doctor, 255. Monchesnay, 302. Mondorge, 322, 323. Montaigne and Molilre, 82, 1 17, 1 18. Montalant, husband of Madeleine- Esprit, 378. Montausier, Due de, 188, 278. Montespan, 335. Montfleury, 142, 146, 179. Monval, Georges, xiii,xxiii, 81 note, 248 note, 327 note. 444 INDEX N Nantes, 41. Neufvillenaine, 93. Nicomedes, 85. Nouvelle des Hypocrites, La, see Novel of the Hypocrites, The. Novel of the Hypocrites, The, as a source of The Hypocrite^ 218. O Octave, 350. Orgemont, D'll. Orgon, in The Hypocrite, 202-211, 216. Orlando Furioso, 193. Oronte, in The Misanthrope, 262, 263-268, 271, 272, 295. Orsino, 274. Orvidtan, L', 9. Palais Royal, theatre, 121, 122. Pandolfe, 60. Pare, Du, and Molifere, 41, 43, 47, 54, 81, 89, 93, 19s, 232; his wife and Molifere, 43, 44, 65, 67, 78, 81, 89, 137, 19s, 196; his wife and Corneille, 82 ; and Racine, 308. Parfaict, the Brothers, xiii. Pascal, xviii, i, 213. Pedant joui, Le, see Tricked Pe- dant, The. Perfefixe, Hardouin de, 222, 223. Perrault, xiii, 26. Physician in Love, The, 52, 86, 87, 279. Physicians, the, attacked by Moli^re in Love as a Doctor, 279, 285- 291, 303 ; in The Doctor in Spite of Himself, 279, 291-294, 303 ; in Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, 279, 295-298, 303 ; in The Imaginary Invalid, 279, 298-305 ; in The Plying Physician, 279; in The Physician in Love, 279. Piacevoli notte, see Jocular Nights, The. Pinel, George, 26, 27. Plaideurs, Les, see Pleaders, The. Plautus, 60, 62, 82, 117, 333, 339. Pleaders, The, 307. Poisson, Mile., 81, 246. Pons, Abbd de, as original of Tar- tuff e, 215. Pont-Neuf, 8. Poquelin, Catherine, half-sister of Moli&re, 373 note ^. Poquelin, Jean, 3-6, 34, 35, 84, 321, 322. Portrait, The; or. Harlequin Horned by Opinion, 121. Portrait du peintre, ou la Contre- critique de VEcole des femmes, see Portrait of the Painter, The; or. The Counter-Criticism of the School for Wives. Portrait of the Painter, The; or. The Counter-Criticism of the School for Wives, 174, 175, 177. Pourceaugnac, Monsieur de, written to revenge treatment at Limoges, 45 ; occasion of, 198 ; as a medical satire, 279, 295-298, 303. Precaution inutile. La, see Useless Precaution, The. PrJcieuses ridicules, Les, represent- ing Moli&re's Gallic period, 55; first true dramatic picture of triv- ial occurrences of French life, 59; country ladies in, 78; first per- formance in Paris, 92-95, 99, 100; derivation of title, 101-106; construction, 107-112; first per- formance, 113-115; a dramatic landmark, 117; the standard of truth, 120; the result of observa- tion, 128. Princess d^£lide. La, see Princess ofElis, The. Princess ofElis, The, 191, 192. Pseudolus, 62. INDEX 445 Psyche 198, 199, 332, 359, 362. Pure, Abbd de, 106, 115. Quinault, collaborates with Molifere, 198, 332. Rabel, Germain, 34. Rabelais, 55, 82. Racine, xix, i, 50, 141, 200, 215, 306, 307-317, 334> 370. Ragueneau, Marie, 45, 46, 89. Rambouillet, Marquise de, 101-104 113, 114. Rascalities of Scapin, The, as a histrionic play, n, 350-352. Ratabon, 95. Raymond, Emmanuel, see Gali- bert, M. Raynaud, on the Faculty of Medi- cine of Paris, 281, 282. R^aux, Tall6mant des, author of Historieties, xiii, 20. Rebelhon, Pierre, 41. Regnier, 218. Riccoboni, Louis, 120. Rice, Mr. Wallace, xv. Richelieu, Abb^ de, 239, 240, 241. Richelieu, Cardinal, 25, tj, 96. Ritratto owero Arlechino cornuto peropinione, II, see Portrait, The; or. Harlequin Horned by Opinion. Robinet, xiii, 179, 183, 361. Rochefoucauld, La, xviii, i. Rochelle, Mile., 68. Roederer, 105, 106, 335. Rohault, Jacques, 248, 320, 321, 329. Roman comique, Le, see Comic Romance. Roquette, as original of TartufEe, 214. Ros6, Catherine du, see Brie, MUe. de. Rostand, Edmond, 11, 45, 46 note^ Rouen, 29, 30, 80, 82. Roulld, Pierre, 219. Sainte-Beuve, 66, note \ 180, 203. Saint-Simon, 187, 188. Sancho Fanza, Moli^re in part of, 327. Sardou, 257. Sarrasin, 66, 79, 105. Sauval, 87. Scaramouche, relations with Moli- fere as Moli&re's teacher, 11, 12; in // Medico volante, 53 ; origin of stage name, 54, 86, 155. Scarron, Comic Romance by, 38-41, 95. 153. 162. School for Husbands, The, Gallic point of view in, 55; Sganarelle in, 119; construction, 126, 127; Molifere's first pure comedy, 127 ; as a subjective play, 128, 139, 157 ; compared with The School for Wives, 1 13 ; Voltaire on the denouement of, 162. School for Wives, The, Gallic character of, 55; a biographical document, i j 5-180 , 235, 237 ; the hypocrites and, 222 ; Racine and, 308. School-master, The, 52. Scorn with Scorn, 192. Scuddry, Madeleine de, a competi- tor of Madame de Rambouillet, 104, 105 ; and Les Pricieuses Ridicules, 107, 112; on George Dandin, 198. Secchi, Nicol6, 78, 79. Segrais, 80, 116. Sganarelle, character of, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 119, 126, 157, 226, 229, 255, 283; in The Misanthrope, 255; in The Doctor in Spite of Himself, 291-293, 333 ; 309. Sganarelle, ou le Cocu imaginaire. 446 INDEX see Sganarelle; or, The Imagi- nary Cockold. Sganarellej or, The Imaginary Cockold, 93, 94, 115, 119, 1 20, 121, 332- Shakespeare, Moli&re and, xx, xxi, 154, 191.277,356.357- Shelley, 154. Sicilian, The; or, Love as a Painter, 197, 198. Sitilien, ou P Amour peintre, Le, see Sicilian, The; or. Love as a Painter. Souli6, Eudore, xiii, 5, 141 note', 321 note 1, 322, 368, 369, 373. Straparola, 162. Strindberg, 257. Subligny, 308. Sndermann, 257. Tabarin, 308, 352 note *. Tartuffe, Le, see Hypocrite, The. Taschereau, Jules, 76 note \ Terence, 82, 117, 128. Thackeray, 185. Theatre du Marais, 11, 84, 379. Thibaide, La, see Thebaid, The. Thebaid, The, 50, 307. Thorillifere, La, 156, 195. Three Rival Doctors, The, 52. Tricked Pedant, The, source of The Rascalities of Scapin, 351. Trois docteurs rivaux, Les, see Three Rival Doctors, The. TroUope, Henry M., The Life of Moliire by, xiii. True and the False Pricieuse, The, ' 116. Trufaldin, 61, 62, 63. Turlupin, 8. U Useless Precaution, The, 162. Varlet, Charles, see La Grange. Vasseur, Abbd le, 306. Vauselle, see Hermite, Jean-Bap- tiste Tristan 1'. Vayer, La Mothe le, sonnet to, by MoliSre, 324, 325, 358; charac- ter, 369. Vega, Lope de, as a source from which Molifere drew, 128, 294. Versailles Impromptu, The, xxv, 55. 17s, 179, 189, 235, 2S7, 364- Vienne, 48. Vinot, xii, 89, 106. Vitu, Auguste, 368. Viz^, De, xiii, 168, 173, 174, 179, 188, 328. Voltaire, on Moli&re, i ; on Don Garcia, 122, 123; on The School for Husbands, 125 ; on The School for Wives, 162, 163. Vraye et fausse pricieuse. La, see True and the False Pricieuse, The. W Williams, H. Noel, 239. Zilinde, De Vizf s comedy of, 328, 329.