Molière
is not one of these: he
is for all ages of man.
is for all ages of man.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v16 to v20 - Phi to Qui
In 1636, being then fourteen, he was sent to the Collège
de Clermont, one of the leading educational institutions of Paris, con-
ducted by the Jesuits and attended by the youth of the best families
of France. He seems to have stayed there five years, acquiring the
humanities and getting well schooled in philosophy. He may or may
not have been a pupil of Gassendi; and he may or may not have
attempted a translation of the great poem of Lucretius: many of
the legends of his life that have come down to us will not withstand
skeptical scrutiny. That he studied law is certain; and it is possible
even that he was admitted to the bar.
In the mean time he had been assured of the succession to his
father in the royal appointment; and it is more than probable that
he was in attendance on Louis XIII. , as his father's substitute, in
June 1642, when Cinq-Mars was arrested. Before the end of the next
year, however, the son of the royal upholsterer had left his paternal
home, had thrown in his lot with a group of strolling actors, and had
assumed the stage name of “Molière,” which he was to render for-
ever illustrious. The French drama was beginning its most glorious
period,— Corneille's “Cinna) and (Horace) and Le Menteur' (The
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MOLIÈRE
Liar) having followed one another in rapid succession. The influence
of the Spanish theatre was making itself felt; and even more potent
perhaps was the example set by the brisk and bustling performances
of the Italian comedians; while the robust farces of the French them-
selves lost nothing of their comic force when represented by the
broadly humorous followers of Gros Guillaume and Gautier Garguille.
At the head of the company that Molière joined was Madeleine
Béjart, a charming woman and a capable actress. For two or three
years the “Illustre Théâtre ” (as the troupe called itself) made in-
effectual efforts to get a foothold in Paris. At last, in 1646, it gave
up the fight in the capital and betook itself to the provinces, where
it remained for twelve years. The record of Molière's wanderings is
fragmentary, but it is known that in 1648 he was at Nantes, Limoges,
Bordeaux, and Toulouse; in 1650 at Narbonne; in 1653 at Lyons; in
1654 at Montpellier; in 1657 at Dijon and Avignon; and in 1658 at
Rouen. From Scarron's 'Roman Comique) we can get some idea of
the life of the vagabond comedians in those days, and of the kind
of adventure likely to befall them.
From Rouen the journey to Paris was easy; and Molière was at
last able to secure the patronage of Monsieur, the younger brother of
the young King, Louis XIV. He had left the city of his birth little
more than a raw recruit of the stage. He returned to the capital the
most accomplished comedian of his time, a dramatist whose earlier
comic plays had already met with warm popular appreciation, and a
manager surrounded by a homogeneous company of skilled comedi-
ans, all devoted to him and all having high confidence in his ability.
As a writer of plays Molière had begun modestly with farces on the
Italian model, but with a fuller flavor of humor, more like that in
the old French folk-tales. Most of these 'prentice trifles are lost,
although the author probably worked into his more mature pieces all
that was valuable in them. The strongest of the plays produced in
the provinces was 'L'Étourdi' (The Blunderer), brought out in Lyons
in 1653, and still often acted in Paris to-day after two centuries and
a half.
At this time Molière was only thirty-six, and he was unusually
well equipped for the comic drama. He had begun with a solid train-
ing in philosophy; and he had gained a thorough knowledge of the
theatre and a wide acquaintance with mankind. It is fair to assume
that through his father he had had an insight into the middle class;
that through his father's workmen he had been able to get an under-
standing of the artisan; and that through his father's royal appoint-
ment he had had opportunities of observing the courtiers. In the
course of his wanderings he had been brought in contact with the
peasants and also with the inhabitants of the provincial towns. On
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MOLIÈRE
10155
his return to the capital he was to become intimate with Boileau,
Chapelle, and other men of letters; and he was to have occasion for
closer observation of the court.
The long years of strolling in the provinces had not only trained
the company to an incomparable perfection in comedy, but had also
brought financial prosperity. The actors of the troupe owned in com-
mon rich costumes, scenery, and properties; and some of them had
severally money out at interest. Molière returned to the capital
almost a rich man; and he was able to enlarge his fortune by his
successful management in Paris. As it happened, the first appear-
ance of the company before the King, in theatre erected in the
Louvre, was almost a failure (October 24th, 1658). The play was
Corneille's Nicomède,' a tragedy; and Molière and his companions
were more at home in comedy. Moreover, Molière was natural in his
histrionic method; and the custom of the day required that tragedy
should be interpreted in toplofty fashion. At the conclusion of the
serious play, Molière, who was an easy and adroit speaker, came for-
ward with a neatly turned compliment to the King, and asked per-
mission to add to the programme one of the little farces they had
often acted in the country. This little farce was Le Docteur Amou-
reux' (The Doctor in Love), and it made the King laugh heartily.
The royal permission was given for the company to establish itself
in Paris; and Molière was at first allowed the use of a theatre in the
Petit Bourbon, where he and his companions appeared on the nights
not already reserved for the Italian comedians. There were then two
other theatres in Paris: one at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, where was
the company specially patronized by the King, and the other in the
Marais. Molière seems to have tried to establish his company as a
rival in tragedy of the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne; but he met
with no popular approval till he returned to comedy, in the acting
of which he and his comrades were really superior. In November
1658 he brought out the Étourdi,' already successful at Lyons and
elsewhere, and at once equally successful in Paris. The Étourdi) is
a long farce on the Italian model, with traditional characters, but
having a vivacity and a verve all Molière's own. It was followed by
another comic play, also already performed in the provinces,—the
Dépit Amoureux' (The Lovers' Quarrel), which became instantly as
popular as its predecessor; in a condensed form it still holds the
stage in France.
It is doubtful whether his next piece was absolutely new, or
whether it also had been tried during his wanderings outside of the
capital. It is not doubtful that this little one-act comedy was made
of richer material than any of its predecessors, and that it contained
a promise of the finer works to follow it shortly. The Précieuses
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10156
MOLIÈRE
man
Ridicules? (November 18th, 1659) was the title of the little play
(The Affected Ladies); and it was a piquant and telling satire upon
the affectations of literary culture then prevalent. Although some-
what farcical in its plot and in its details, it was truly a picture of life.
There is a legend that an aged spectator at its final performance
cried out, “Take courage, Molière, this is good comedy! And yet one
of those satirized had influence enough to have the new play inter-
dicted; but the interdiction was soon lifted, and the second perform-
ance took place a fortnight after the first. When the King returned
to Paris the play was acted before him to his great satisfaction; and
it helped to establish Molière in the royal favor, -- a point of great
importance in those days, when the King arrogated to himself all the
functions of government.
The good-will of the monarch was doubly valuable to a
like Molière, who was going to speak his mind freely on the stage
in one play after another, boldly to assault hypocrisy and vice, and
unhesitatingly to make many enemies. His next piece, however,
(Sganarelle) (May 28th, 1660), had no ulterior purpose; its object was
merely to make the spectators laugh. Molière was shrewd always in
the management of his theatre, ever ready to give his audiences an-
other play of a kind they had already approved. But a few months
after the production of Sganarelle, it looked for a little while as
though Molière might have no theatre to manage. Without notice
the theatre in the Petit Bourbon was maliciously demolished, and
the company was left without a stage on which to act. Then the
King assigned to Molière and his comrades the large theatre in
the Palais Royal which Richelieu had built for the performance of a
play of his own.
This theatre had to be repaired; and not until January 1661 was
it that Molière was able to begin his season there. His first new
play on this new stage was a failure. Don Garcie de Navarre)
(February 4th, 1661) is the dullest of Molière's works, — the one in
which he is seen to least advantage. It was a heroic comedy on the
Spanish model; and the artificial plot gave small scope to Molière's
humor or to his knowledge of his fellow-man. He took the defeat
hard; he acted the play more than once before the King; and he
ventured to revive it two years later. But the appeal was decided
against him, and he never repeated the blunder.
The earlier pieces which had pleased the Parisian public were but
humorous trifles when compared with the best of his later works;
and now with his next play he entered on a second stage of his devel-
opment as a dramatist. L'École des Maris) (The School for Hus-
bands), June 24th, 1661, was not dependent chiefly upon its intrigue
as the others had been: it was essentially a study of character,-
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MOLIÈRE
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>
a little hard, it may be, but unfailingly amusing and not without
sympathy. Not long after, Molière improvised in a fortnight's time
a comedy-ballet, Les Fâcheux (The Bores), August 17th, 1661, pre-
pared especially for the series of magnificent entertainments with
which Fouquet splendidly feasted the King at Vaux only a few
days before the downfall of the superintendent. It is told that the
King himself suggested to Molière the original of one type of bore
neglected by the author; and that this royal hint was instantly seized,
a new character being added to the play before it was next per-
formed.
Molière availed himself of his father's place as valet de chambre
tapissier of the King to keep in closer contact with the court than
would ordinarily be possible to an actor or a dramatist. He insisted
on performing the duties of the office, in spite of the protest of those
of his fellow officials who did not wish to associate with a comedian.
There is little or no warrant for the legend that Louis XIV. himself
once rebuked these contemners of the actor by inviting Molière to
share his own supper; and yet the picturesque scene has been painted
both by Ingres and by Gérome. There is no doubt, however, that Louis
XIV. did esteem Molière highly, certainly finding him most ingen-
ious in the invention of the ballets in which the young King liked to
figure, and possibly even appreciating dimly the abiding merits of the
great dramatist. Louis XIV. had many faults, but a lack of discern-
ment was not among them. It is recorded that the King once asked
Boileau who was the rarest of the literary geniuses illuminating his
reign, and that Boileau responded by naming Molière, - a little to the
monarch's surprise, it may be, but without eliciting a royal contra-
diction.
In February 1662, Molière married Armande Béjart, a younger
sister of the leading lady of the company. Molière was then forty
years of age; as author, actor, manager, he was a very busy man,
with incessant demands on his time; he had the fits of abstraction
and the occasional moodiness and melancholy which are often char-
acteristic of genius. His wife was scant twenty; she was beautiful,
charming, and fond of admiration; she became a brilliant actress;
she seems to have had rather a narrow intelligence. That such a
marriage should be happy would have been little short of a miracle.
That there were in time disagreements between husband and wife is
indisputable; and it is undeniable that Molière was intensely jealous.
No passion occurs and reoccurs in his plays more often than jealousy:
and none is more feelingly analyzed. That the most of the brutal
charges brought against the young wife are but slanders, is highly
probable. When she bore him a son, Louis XIV. accepted to be god.
father.
a
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MOLIÈRE
The first play produced by Molière after his marriage was
'L'École des Femmes) (The School for Wives), December 26th, 1662;
a companion to 'L'École des Maris,' somewhat more careless in its
structure but distinctly deeper in its insight. His enemies pretended
prudishly to be shocked at one or two of the scenes of this delicate
comedy, and even to discover in one speech a parody of a sermon.
Most wittily did the author defend himself. He brought out on the
stage (La Critique de L'École des Femmes) (The Criticism of the
School for Wives), June ist, 1663; a comedy in one act which is little
more than a conversation in a drawing-room, and in which certain
foolish characters bring forward all the charges made against the
piece, only to be answered completely by certain clever characters.
The King sided with Molière; conferring upon him a pension of a
thousand livres annually as “an excellent comic poet,” and inviting
him to appear again before the court. In a week, Molière improvised
L'Impromptu de Versailles? (The Impromptu of Versailles), October
14th, 1663, taking the spectators behind the curtain and showing them
a rehearsal of his own company, in the course of which he found
occasion to mimic the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne who had
attacked him, and to hit back sharply at others of his enemies.
For the King's pleasure once more Molière wrote the lively
comedy-ballet of Le Mariage Forcé) (The Forced Marriage), January
29th, 1964; with a farcical plot interrupted adroitly by eight dances, in
one of which the young monarch himself figured as an Egyptian.
When a series of sumptuous entertainments were given at Versailles
in the spring, Molière was again ready not only with "La Princesse
d'Élide) (May 8th, 1664), one of the less interesting of his comedies,
but also with the first three acts of Tartuffe (May 12th, 1664), the
strong five-act comedy which is perhaps his masterpiece. The some-
what sombre theme might have made (Tartuffe seem a little out of
place in so gay a festivity; but the earlier acts were frankly amusing,
and the monarch's guests found pleasure in the performance even if
they could not suspect the serious purpose of the whole work, which
is the most powerful onslaught on religious hypocrisy ever attempted
on the stage. Those whom the play assaulted were able to prevent
its being produced in Paris for several years; and Molière set out to
make friends for his work by reading it aloud in the drawing-rooms
of leading members of the court, and even by acting it again and
again at the houses of the princes of the blood.
In the mean while he returned to the attack; and in "Le Festin
de Pierre) (The Stone Guest), February 16th, 1665, he gave to the
legendary figure of Don Juan a meaning and a power not to be found
in the preceding plays on the same subject in Spanish, in Italian,
and in French. Perhaps he was attracted to the subject because
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MOLIÈRE
10159
-
the spectacular element in the story was certain to prove effective
on the stage; perhaps he thought that under cover of the spectacu-
lar he might the more easily let fy his burning shafts of irony and
satire. The supernatural element in Don Juan,' as in Hamlet'
and in Faust,' is kept subordinate to the philosophical. In Moli-
ère's hands the gallant and graceful hero is not only a type of the
eternal lover, but also a rival of lago in cynical villainy. The play
is founded upon a Spanish drama, and yet it might be called the
most original of Molière's works,- the most vigorous, the boldest.
Those who had chosen to take offense at L'École des Femmes,' and
who had been indignant at (Tartuffe,' were up in arms at once
against Don Juan. The King was besought to interdict the dan-
gerous drama; and again Louis XIV. stood Molière's friend. He
refused the interdiction, and took Molière and his company under the
royal patronage, allotting them an annual pension of six thousand
livres.
Not content with having the prudes and the hypocrites against
him, Molière now took for his target the abuses of the contemporary
practice of medicine. In a little comedy L'Amour Médecin' (Love
as a Physician), September 15th, 1665, —
- a return to his earlier and
more farcical manner, — he put on the stage five types of the doctor
of that time, suggested each of them more or less by a living prac-
titioner of the art. The author was then ill himself, worn and har-
assed, with difficulties at home and disputes abroad. Yet there was
no falling-off in the next play, Le Misanthrope) (The Misanthrope),
June 4th, 1666, which indeed French critics have generally held to
be his masterpiece, but which has never pleased the playgoing pub-
lic so much as others of his comedies. Its movement is slow, and
its action is barely adequate to sustain its five acts. In subject it
has a fundamental resemblance to (Timon of Athens,' not one of
Shakespeare's most highly esteemed plays. It is a manly protest
against the empty conventionalities of civilization, — the shams, the
gauds, the trifles, the insincerities of which modern society so often
seems to be made up. Its tone is lofty and its morality is austere.
But there is some truth in the charge that the observer and the
philosopher in Molière had got the better of the dramatist when he
wrote 'Le Misanthrope. The dramatist came promptly to the rescue
of the philosopher; and a brisk and rollicking farce, Le Médecin
malgré Lui(The Physician in Spite of Himself), August 6th, 1666, was
added to the bill to increase the drawing power of the more serious
comedy.
Like Shakespeare, Molière was an excellent man of business; and
he felt it to be his duty always to keep his company supplied with
plays of a kind already proved to be popular. So although he had
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MOLIÈRE
>
begun by imitating the lively farces of the Italians (L'Étourdi, for
example), and had then risen to the comedy of character (L'École
des Femmes'), and finally had attained to the sublime height of
(Le Misanthrope, he went back unhesitatingly to his earlier manner
again and again; and no more thought it unworthy of himself to
write frank farces like 'Le Médecin malgré Lui' after (Tartuffe than
Shakespeare did to compose the Merry Wives of Windsor) after the
Merchant of Venice. )
It was
one of these lighter plays, - not a
farce this time, but an airily comic love tale — that he next brought
forth: Le Sicilien' (The Sicilian), February 1667. Then a single
performance of “Tartuffe) took place (August 5th, 1667); but further
performances were promptly forbidden by the authorities, the King
being then with the army in Flanders. Nothing daunted, Molière
bided his time. A very free version of a comedy of Plautus, Amphi-
tryon? (January 13th, 1668), came next; followed by another broad
farce, though with a tragic suggestion if we choose so to take it,
(Georges Dandin' (July 1oth, 1668); and in rapid succession a second
comedy, more or less derived from Plautus, L'Avare' (The Miser),
September 9th, 1668. The royal permission was finally granted for
the public performance in Paris of Tartuffe (February 5th, 1669):
and that great comedy-drama achieved a triumph which endures to
this day. Like “Hamlet” in England, Tartuffe) in France is the
most effective of theatrical masterpieces, repaying the best efforts of
the best actors, and yet so dramatic in itself that it satisfies a large
audience even when done by a scratch company anywhere and any-
how. A little later in the year came one of the briskest and most
bustling of his farces, M. de Pourceaugnac) (September 17th, 1669).
Molière continued to vary his style; and no dramatist was ever
more versatile or more fertile in inventing new forms. He devised
for the court a comedy-ballet, Les Amants Magnifiques) (The Mag-
nificent Lovers), February 10th, 1670; and toward the end of the year
he brought out 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Tradesman Turned
Gentleman), October 23d, 1670; one of the best of his comedies, full
of fresh fun, and inspired by the wholesome coinmon-sense which
was always one of Molière's most marked characteristics. With Les
Fourberies de Scapin' (The Tricks of Scapin), May 24th, 1671, there
was again a return to the more primitive farce, boisterous perhaps,
but indisputably laughter-provoking. A little earlier in the year he
had collaborated with Corneille in the dialogue of Psyché) (January,
1671), Quinault writing the lyrics which Lulli set to music. And
before the twelve months were out he was ready with yet another
comedy-farce, La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas) (The Countess of Escar-
bagnas), December 20, 1671, rich with his ample knowledge of pro-
vincial characteristics.
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MOLIÈRE
10161
He was coming now to the close of his career; and he rose again
to the level of high comedy in "Les Femmes Savantes) (The Learned
Ladies), March uth, 1672, which disputes with “Tartuffe,' 'Don Juan,'
and 'Le Misanthrope, the honor of being considered his finest and
sanest work. In its theme, this, the last of his great plays, is very
like the Précieuses Ridicules,' in which he first revealed the power
of social satire; affectation of every sort was abhorrent to him always
affectation and insincerity and hypocrisy. When he beheld these
things his scorn burned hot within him, and he delighted in scourg-
ing them.
The last months of Molière's life were saddened by the death
of his old companion and sister-in-law, Madeleine Béjart, and by the
death of his only son. His health, never strong, became feebler; and
in the summer of 1672 the theatre had to be closed unexpectedly
more than once, because Molière was not well enough to act. And
yet through all these trials he kept his good-humor and his gentle
serenity, although he — like most other great humorists — was essen-
tially melancholy. It was under these conditions that he wrote his
last play, Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), February
Toth, 1673. He himsel of course, was the imaginary invalid, being
then worn out with his own illness. The fourth performance of the
new play took place on the 17th; and Molière was seized with a fit
of coughing on the stage, and burst a blood-vessel. They conveyed
him to his own house in the Rue de Richelieu, on the site of the
building now numbered 38 and 40; and here he died “not more than
half an hour or three quarters after the bursting of the said vessel,
so his faithful friend and fellow actor, Lagrange, recorded in the
register or private diary, which is an invaluable document for the
details of Molière's life.
The bitter hostility which had long delayed the performance of
(Tartuffe,' and which had unceasingly pursued Molière during the
last years of his life, not shrinking from obtrusion into his family
relations, was not relaxed after his death. Permission for Christian
burial was at first denied. It is told that the widow threw herself at
the King's feet and implored a royal mandate, overruling the ecclesi-
astical authorities. At last the funeral was authorized; and it took
place on the evening of the fourth day. The procession was very
simple, the priests not intoning the usual psalms. The interment took
place in the cemetery which was behind the chapel of St. Joseph,
in the Rue de Montmartre.
The inventory taken after his demise gives the list of Molière's
stage costumes and of the books that composed his library. Among
these was a Bible, a Plutarch, a Montaigne (but no Rabelais, oddly
enough), a Terence (but no Plautus), a Lucian, a Horace, a Juvenal,
XVII-636
## p. 10162 (#590) ##########################################
10162
MOLIÈRE
and two hundred and forty volumes of unnamed French, Italian, and
Spanish plays. He left a fortune of about forty thousand livres.
Four years after his death his widow married an obscure actor named
Guérin. The only child of Molière to survive him was a daughter,
who married a M. de Montalant, and who died without issue in 1723,
half a century after her illustrious father.
Molière was only fifty-one when he died, and all of his more
important plays had been written during the final fourteen years of
his life. He had served a long apprenticeship in the provinces, mas-
tering all the mysteries of his art, and heaping up a store of obser-
vations of human nature; and after his return to Paris, his genius
ripened swiftly. While the novelists have often flowered late in life,
the dramatists have usually begun young; but Molière was forty-two
when he wrote “Tartuffe,' forty-three when he followed it with Don
Juan,' forty-four when he produced Le Misanthrope, forty-eight
when he brought forth (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,' and fifty when
he made fun of the Femmes Savantes. ' Perhaps a part of the
deeper insight and the wider vision of these plays, when compared
with those of all other comic dramatists, is due to the relative matur-
ity of Molière when he composed them. The personal and poetic
burlesques of Aristophanes do not belong in the same category; and
the belauded comedies of Menander are lost to us. Some of the
comic plays of Plautus and of Terence survive for purposes of com-
parison, - as a result of which the best criticism of to-day is in
accord with La Fontaine's declaration on the morrow of Molière's
death, that the great French comic dramatist had surpassed both of
the great Latin comic dramatists.
For us who speak English, and who hold Shakespeare as a stand-
ard by which the men of every other language must be measured,
it is impossible not to set the author of Hamlet' over against
the author of Tartuffe. In many ways the two men were alike.
Dramatists, they were both actors, Shakespeare being probably not
prominent in that profession, while Molière certainly excelled all his
contemporaries. They were both managers; and both of them were
shrewd men of affairs, governing their private fortunes with skill.
Legend relates that Shakespeare wrote the Merry Wives of Wind-
sor) on a hint of Queen Elizabeth's, and that Molière augmented the
Fâcheux' on a hint of King Louis's. Each of them kept the most
of his plays in manuscript while he was alive; and after they were
dead, the plays of each were published by the pious care of survir-
ing comrades. They were both of them surpassingly original; and
yet neither often took the trouble to invent a plot, preferring to
adopt this ready-made, more or less, and rather to expend his strength
upon the analysis of emotion and the creation of character. Some of
|
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10163
(
these resemblances are merely fortuitous; but some also are strangely
significant.
To push the comparison too far would be unfair to Molière; for
Shakespeare is the master mind of all literature. He soared to
heights, and he explored depths, and he had a range, to which
Molière could not pretend. His is the spirit of soul-searching tragedy,
of romantic comedy, of dramatic history; and in no one of these is
Molière his rival. But in the comedy of real life, he is not Molière's
rival. In every variety of the comic drama Molière is unequaled, -
in farce, in the comedy of situation, in the comedy of character, and
in the comedy which is almost stiffened into drama, yet without
ceasing to be comedy. Shakespeare is the greatest of dramatists, no
doubt, but Molière is indubitably the greatest of comic dramatists.
In sheer comic force the Frenchman is stronger than the English-
man, or at least more abundant; and also in the compelling power of
humor. The influence of Shakespeare upon the comedy of the nine-
teenth century is almost negligible; for Musset seems to be the only
modern poet who has modeled his plays upon (As You Like It) and
(Twelfth Night. ' The influence of Molière upon the comedy of the
nineteenth century is overwhelming; and the author of the Demi-
Monde,' the authors of the Gendre de M. Poirier,' the author of the
(Doll's House, and the author of the Second Mrs. Tanqueray,' are
all followers of the author of "Tartuffe' and 'Les Femmes Savantes. '
It is to be said also that Shakespeare, though essentially an
Englishman, is in a wide sense cosmopolitan and universal; he rises
superior to race and to time. Molière, on the other hand, despite his
philosophical grasp of human nature, is typically French. He has the
robust humor of Rabelais, and Montaigne's genial common-sense, and
Voltaire's eagerness to abolish frauds. He has his full share of Gal-
lic salt; and he inherits also the Latin tradition of reserve, of order,
and of symmetry. He was able to unite humor and truth, - fun and
an exact observation of life, - satire and sincerity sustained by pity.
Like Rabelais and like Montaigne, Molière is a moralist; he has an
ethical code of his own; the total effect of his plays is wholesome.
He is on the side of the angels, although he recognizes the existence
of many an evil demon. Like Shakespeare, he can pierce almost
to the centre of things, even if his penetration is not so profound as
Shakespeare's. The moral is never tagged to the end or paraded or
vaunted; but he is a shallow student who cannot discover the ethical
richness of the soil in which Molière's plays were grown.
Certain authors there are that we outgrow as we wax in years
and in wisdom. There are books that we once liked, and that now
remain behind us as milestones marking the road traveled. Though
we came up to them with pleasure, yet without regret we leave them
## p. 10164 (#592) ##########################################
10164
MOLIÈRE
in the distance. We have not tarried with them long, and unless we
turn back we never pass them again.
Molière is not one of these: he
is for all ages of man. In youth we may enjoy him unthinkingly,
amused by his comic invention, his drollery, his frank fun. As we
grow older his charm over us grows also; and we see the finer qual-
ities of his work,- his insight into human motives, and his marvel-
ous skill in exhibiting these on the stage. And in old age we may
refresh ourselves once again with his unfailing and unfading humor,
and with the true wisdom which underlies it. At one time the
(Bourgeois Gentilhomme may please us, and at another 'Le Misan-
thrope'; but at all times a man who takes interest in the comedy of
human endeavor may find in Molière what he needs.
Frauder Mathers
PEACE-MAKING, RECONCILIATION, AND ROBBERY
From L'Avare)
ARPAGON
a
H
[The scene is the house of Harpagon, the miser of the play; Master Jacques
is undertaking to reconcile Harpagon to his son Cléante, who has greatly
offended his father by obstinacy as a rival for the hand of Marianne. The
son and father are on opposite sides of the stage, paying no attention to each
other. ]
not an abominable thing to see
son who
does not shrink from becoming the rival of his father?
And is it not his bounden duty to refrain from interfering
with my love ?
Jacques-- You are quite right: stop here, and let me go and
speak to him.
Cléante [to Master Jacques, who comes near him]– Very well:
if he wants to make you a judge between us, I have no objec-
tion. I care little who it is, and I don't mind referring our quar-
rel to you.
Jacques — You do me great honor.
Cléante — I am in love with a young girl who returns my
affection, and who receives kindly the offer of my heart; but my
father takes it into his head to disturb our love by asking her in
marriage for himself.
## p. 10165 (#593) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10165
He says
Jacques -- He certainly is wrong.
Cléante — Is it not shameful for a man of his age to think of
marrying ? I ask you if it is right for him to fall in love ? and
ought he not now to leave that to younger men ?
Jacques — You are quite right: he is not serious; let me speak
a a word or two to him. [To Harpagon. ] Really, your son is not
so extravagant as you think, and is amenable to reason.
that he is conscious of the respect he owes you, and that he only
got angry in the heat of the moment. He will willingly submit
to all you wish if you will only promise to treat him more kindly
than you do, and will give him in marriage a person to his
taste.
Harpagon - Ah! tell him, Master Jacques, that he will ob-
tain everything from me on those terms; and that, except Mari-
anne, I leave him free to choose for his wife whomsoever he
pleases.
Jacques — Leave that to me. [To Clćante. ] Really, your father
is not so unreasonable as you make him out to me; and he tells
me that it is your violence which irritated him. He only objects
to your way of doing things, and is quite ready to grant you
all you want, provided you will use gentle means, and will give
him the deference, respect, and submission that a son owes to his
father.
Cléante — Ah, Master Jacques! you can assure him that if he
grants me Marianne, he will always find me the most submiss-
ive of men, and that I shall never do anything contrary to his
pleasure.
Jacques [to Harpagon]— It's all right: he consents to what
you say.
Harpagon — Nothing could be better.
Jacques [to Cléante] - It's all settled: he is satisfied with your
promises.
Cléante - Heaven be praised!
Jacques — Gentlemen, you have nothing to do but to talk
quietly over the matter together; you are agreed now: and yet
you were on the point of quarreling through want of understand-
ing each other.
Cléante — My poor Jacques, I shall be obliged to you all my
life.
Jacques - Don't mention it, sir,
## p. 10166 (#594) ##########################################
10166
MOLIÈRE
Harpagon - You have given me great pleasure, Master
Jacques, and deserve a reward. [Feels in his pocket. Jacques
holds out his hand, but Harpagon only pulls out his handkerchief,
and says :) Go; I will remember it, I promise you.
Jacques — I thank you kindly, sir.
[Exit.
Cléante - I beg your pardon, father, for having been angry.
Harpagon -- It is nothing.
Cléante I assure you that I feel very sorry about it.
Harpagon — I am very happy to see you reasonable again.
Cléante How very kind of you so soon to forget my fault!
Harpagon - One easily forgets the faults of children when
they return to their duty.
Cléante — What! you are not angry with me for my extrava-
gant behavior ?
Harpagon — By your submission and respectful conduct you
compel me to forget my anger.
Cléante- I assure you, father, I shall forever keep in heart
the remembrance of all your kindness.
Harpagon - And I promise you that in future you will obtain
all you like from me.
Cléante - Oh, father! I ask nothing more: it is sufficient for
me that you give me Marianne.
Harpagon - What ?
Cléante — I say, father, that I am only too thankful already
for what you have done; and that when you give me Marianne
you give me everything.
Harpagon — Who talks of giving you Marianne ?
Cléante - You, father.
Harpagon-I?
Cléante — Yes.
Harpagon — What! is it not you who promised to give her
up?
Cléante - I! give her up?
Harpagon — Yes.
Cléante — Certainly not. "
- '
Harpagon — Did you not give up all pretensions to her ?
Cléante — On the contrary, I am more determined than ever
to have her.
Harpagon — What, scoundrel! again?
-
Cléante — Nothing can make me change my mind.
## p. 10167 (#595) ##########################################
MOLIERE
10167
Harpagon — Let me get at you again, wretch!
Cléante - You can do as you please.
Harpagon - I forbid you ever to come within my sight.
Cléante — As you like.
Harpagon —I abandon you.
Cléante — Abandon me.
Harpagon - I disown you.
Cléante - Disown me.
Harpagon - I disinherit you.
Cléante - As you will.
Harpagon - I give you my curse.
Cléante - I want none of your gifts.
[The next scene shows Cléante without Harpagon; La Flèche is just leaving
the garden with a casket, and calls to Cleante. )
La Flèche - Ah, sir, you are just in the nick of time! Quick!
follow me. .
Cléante What is the matter?
La Flèche Follow me, I say. We are saved.
Cléante — How ?
La Flèche Here is all you want.
Cléante - What ?
La Flèche — I have watched for this all day.
Cléante - What is it?
La Flèche — Your father's treasure that I have got hold of.
Cléante - How did you manage it ?
La Flèche -I will tell you all about it. Let us be off. I can
hear him calling out.
[Exeunt.
Harpagon [ from the garden, rushing in without his hat]-
Thieves! thieves! assassins! murder! Justice, just heavens! I
am undone; I am murdered; they have cut my throat; they have
stolen my money! Who can it be? What has become of him?
Where is he? Where is he hiding himself ? What shall I do to
find him ? Where shall I run ? Where shall I not run ? Is he
not here ? — Who is this? Stop! [To himself, taking hold of his
own arm. ] Give me back my money, wretch! — Ah! it is myself.
— My mind is wandering, and I know not where I am, who I am,
and what I am doing. Alas! my poor money! my poor money!
my dearest friend, they have bereaved me of thee; and since
thou art gone, I have lost my support, my consolation, and my
-
## p. 10168 (#596) ##########################################
10168
MOLIÈRE
joy. All is ended for me, and I have nothing more to do in
the world! Without thee it is impossible for me to live. It is
all over with me; I can bear it no longer. I am dying; I am
dead; I am buried. Is there nobody who will call me from
the dead, by restoring my dear money to me, or by telling
me who has taken it? Ah! what is it you say ?
It is no one.
Whoever has committed the deed must have watched carefully
for his opportunity, and must have chosen the very moment
when I was talking with my miscreant of a son. I must go. I
will demand justice, and have the whole of my house put to
the torture,- my maids and my valets, my son, my daughter,
and myself too. What a crowd of people are assembled here!
Every one seems to be my thief.
I see
one who does not
rouse suspicion in me. Ha! what are they speaking of there?
Of him who stole my money? What noise is that up yonder?
Is it my thief who is there? For pity's sake, if you know any-
thing of my thief, I beseech you to tell me. Is he hiding there
among you ? They all look at me and laugh. We shall see that
they all have a share in the robbery. Quick! magistrates, police,
provosts, judges, racks, gibbets, and executioners. I will hang
everybody; and if I do not find my money, I will hang myself
afterwards.
Translation by Charles Heron Wall.
no
ALCESTE ACCUSES CÉLIMÈNE
From "The Misanthrope)
LCESTE
A
-Oh, heaven! may I control my just anger!
Célimène [aside]— Ah! [To Alceste. ] What is this new
trouble I see you in? what mean those deep sighs and those
dark looks you cast upon me ?
Alceste - That all the wickedness a soul is capable of can in
nothing be compared to your perfidy; that fate, devils, and in-
censed Heaven never produced anything so worthless as yourself.
Célimène — These are pretty speeches, which I certainly ad-
mire.
Alceste - Ah! no more jesting; this is not a time for laughter.
Rather let the blush of shame cover your face; you have cause,
for your treachery is known. So the presentiments of my heart
## p. 10169 (#597) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10169
were true; its alarms were but too well founded, and those fre-
quent suspicions which were thought odious were true guides to
what my eyes have now seen. Yes, in spite of all your skill in
dissimulation, Heaven hinted to me what I had to fear. But do
not think that I shall bear this insult unavenged. I know that
it is not in our power to govern our inclinations; that love is
always spontaneous; that we cannot enter a heart by force, and
that every heart is free to name its conqueror.
I would not com-
plain, therefore, if you had from the first spoken to me without
dissembling; for although you would have crushed within me the
very springs of my life, I should have blamed my fate alone for
it. But to think that my love was encouraged by you! It is such
a treacherous, such a perfidious action, that no punishment seems
too great for it. After such an outrage, fear everything from
me: I am no longer master of myself; anger has conquered me.
Pierced to the heart by the cruel blow with which you kill
me, my senses are not overswayed by reason. I yield myself up
to a just revenge, and I cannot answer for what I may do.
Célimène — What can have called forth such an insult ? Have
you lost all sense and judgment ? Pray speak!
Alceste — Yes, when on seeing you I drank in the poison which
is killing me; yes, when like a fool I thought I had found some
sincerity in those treacherous charms that have deceived me.
Célimène - Of what treachery are you complaining ?
Alceste -- Ah! false heart, how well you feign ignorance! But
I will leave you no loop-hole of escape! Look at your own
handwriting; this letter is sufficient to confound you; against such
evidence you can have nothing to answer.
Célimène — So this is the cause of your strange outburst.
Alceste — And you do not blush at the sight?
Célimène — There is no occasion for me to blush.
Alceste -- What! will you add audacity to your deceit ? Will
you disown this letter because it is not signed ?
Célimène — Why should I disown it, when it is mine?
Alceste — And you can look at it without being ashamed of
the crime of which it shows you to be guilty towards me ?
Célimène — You are in truth a most foolish man.
Alceste — What! you face thus calmly this all-convincing
proof?
de Clermont, one of the leading educational institutions of Paris, con-
ducted by the Jesuits and attended by the youth of the best families
of France. He seems to have stayed there five years, acquiring the
humanities and getting well schooled in philosophy. He may or may
not have been a pupil of Gassendi; and he may or may not have
attempted a translation of the great poem of Lucretius: many of
the legends of his life that have come down to us will not withstand
skeptical scrutiny. That he studied law is certain; and it is possible
even that he was admitted to the bar.
In the mean time he had been assured of the succession to his
father in the royal appointment; and it is more than probable that
he was in attendance on Louis XIII. , as his father's substitute, in
June 1642, when Cinq-Mars was arrested. Before the end of the next
year, however, the son of the royal upholsterer had left his paternal
home, had thrown in his lot with a group of strolling actors, and had
assumed the stage name of “Molière,” which he was to render for-
ever illustrious. The French drama was beginning its most glorious
period,— Corneille's “Cinna) and (Horace) and Le Menteur' (The
## p. 10154 (#582) ##########################################
10154
MOLIÈRE
Liar) having followed one another in rapid succession. The influence
of the Spanish theatre was making itself felt; and even more potent
perhaps was the example set by the brisk and bustling performances
of the Italian comedians; while the robust farces of the French them-
selves lost nothing of their comic force when represented by the
broadly humorous followers of Gros Guillaume and Gautier Garguille.
At the head of the company that Molière joined was Madeleine
Béjart, a charming woman and a capable actress. For two or three
years the “Illustre Théâtre ” (as the troupe called itself) made in-
effectual efforts to get a foothold in Paris. At last, in 1646, it gave
up the fight in the capital and betook itself to the provinces, where
it remained for twelve years. The record of Molière's wanderings is
fragmentary, but it is known that in 1648 he was at Nantes, Limoges,
Bordeaux, and Toulouse; in 1650 at Narbonne; in 1653 at Lyons; in
1654 at Montpellier; in 1657 at Dijon and Avignon; and in 1658 at
Rouen. From Scarron's 'Roman Comique) we can get some idea of
the life of the vagabond comedians in those days, and of the kind
of adventure likely to befall them.
From Rouen the journey to Paris was easy; and Molière was at
last able to secure the patronage of Monsieur, the younger brother of
the young King, Louis XIV. He had left the city of his birth little
more than a raw recruit of the stage. He returned to the capital the
most accomplished comedian of his time, a dramatist whose earlier
comic plays had already met with warm popular appreciation, and a
manager surrounded by a homogeneous company of skilled comedi-
ans, all devoted to him and all having high confidence in his ability.
As a writer of plays Molière had begun modestly with farces on the
Italian model, but with a fuller flavor of humor, more like that in
the old French folk-tales. Most of these 'prentice trifles are lost,
although the author probably worked into his more mature pieces all
that was valuable in them. The strongest of the plays produced in
the provinces was 'L'Étourdi' (The Blunderer), brought out in Lyons
in 1653, and still often acted in Paris to-day after two centuries and
a half.
At this time Molière was only thirty-six, and he was unusually
well equipped for the comic drama. He had begun with a solid train-
ing in philosophy; and he had gained a thorough knowledge of the
theatre and a wide acquaintance with mankind. It is fair to assume
that through his father he had had an insight into the middle class;
that through his father's workmen he had been able to get an under-
standing of the artisan; and that through his father's royal appoint-
ment he had had opportunities of observing the courtiers. In the
course of his wanderings he had been brought in contact with the
peasants and also with the inhabitants of the provincial towns. On
## p. 10155 (#583) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10155
his return to the capital he was to become intimate with Boileau,
Chapelle, and other men of letters; and he was to have occasion for
closer observation of the court.
The long years of strolling in the provinces had not only trained
the company to an incomparable perfection in comedy, but had also
brought financial prosperity. The actors of the troupe owned in com-
mon rich costumes, scenery, and properties; and some of them had
severally money out at interest. Molière returned to the capital
almost a rich man; and he was able to enlarge his fortune by his
successful management in Paris. As it happened, the first appear-
ance of the company before the King, in theatre erected in the
Louvre, was almost a failure (October 24th, 1658). The play was
Corneille's Nicomède,' a tragedy; and Molière and his companions
were more at home in comedy. Moreover, Molière was natural in his
histrionic method; and the custom of the day required that tragedy
should be interpreted in toplofty fashion. At the conclusion of the
serious play, Molière, who was an easy and adroit speaker, came for-
ward with a neatly turned compliment to the King, and asked per-
mission to add to the programme one of the little farces they had
often acted in the country. This little farce was Le Docteur Amou-
reux' (The Doctor in Love), and it made the King laugh heartily.
The royal permission was given for the company to establish itself
in Paris; and Molière was at first allowed the use of a theatre in the
Petit Bourbon, where he and his companions appeared on the nights
not already reserved for the Italian comedians. There were then two
other theatres in Paris: one at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, where was
the company specially patronized by the King, and the other in the
Marais. Molière seems to have tried to establish his company as a
rival in tragedy of the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne; but he met
with no popular approval till he returned to comedy, in the acting
of which he and his comrades were really superior. In November
1658 he brought out the Étourdi,' already successful at Lyons and
elsewhere, and at once equally successful in Paris. The Étourdi) is
a long farce on the Italian model, with traditional characters, but
having a vivacity and a verve all Molière's own. It was followed by
another comic play, also already performed in the provinces,—the
Dépit Amoureux' (The Lovers' Quarrel), which became instantly as
popular as its predecessor; in a condensed form it still holds the
stage in France.
It is doubtful whether his next piece was absolutely new, or
whether it also had been tried during his wanderings outside of the
capital. It is not doubtful that this little one-act comedy was made
of richer material than any of its predecessors, and that it contained
a promise of the finer works to follow it shortly. The Précieuses
## p. 10156 (#584) ##########################################
10156
MOLIÈRE
man
Ridicules? (November 18th, 1659) was the title of the little play
(The Affected Ladies); and it was a piquant and telling satire upon
the affectations of literary culture then prevalent. Although some-
what farcical in its plot and in its details, it was truly a picture of life.
There is a legend that an aged spectator at its final performance
cried out, “Take courage, Molière, this is good comedy! And yet one
of those satirized had influence enough to have the new play inter-
dicted; but the interdiction was soon lifted, and the second perform-
ance took place a fortnight after the first. When the King returned
to Paris the play was acted before him to his great satisfaction; and
it helped to establish Molière in the royal favor, -- a point of great
importance in those days, when the King arrogated to himself all the
functions of government.
The good-will of the monarch was doubly valuable to a
like Molière, who was going to speak his mind freely on the stage
in one play after another, boldly to assault hypocrisy and vice, and
unhesitatingly to make many enemies. His next piece, however,
(Sganarelle) (May 28th, 1660), had no ulterior purpose; its object was
merely to make the spectators laugh. Molière was shrewd always in
the management of his theatre, ever ready to give his audiences an-
other play of a kind they had already approved. But a few months
after the production of Sganarelle, it looked for a little while as
though Molière might have no theatre to manage. Without notice
the theatre in the Petit Bourbon was maliciously demolished, and
the company was left without a stage on which to act. Then the
King assigned to Molière and his comrades the large theatre in
the Palais Royal which Richelieu had built for the performance of a
play of his own.
This theatre had to be repaired; and not until January 1661 was
it that Molière was able to begin his season there. His first new
play on this new stage was a failure. Don Garcie de Navarre)
(February 4th, 1661) is the dullest of Molière's works, — the one in
which he is seen to least advantage. It was a heroic comedy on the
Spanish model; and the artificial plot gave small scope to Molière's
humor or to his knowledge of his fellow-man. He took the defeat
hard; he acted the play more than once before the King; and he
ventured to revive it two years later. But the appeal was decided
against him, and he never repeated the blunder.
The earlier pieces which had pleased the Parisian public were but
humorous trifles when compared with the best of his later works;
and now with his next play he entered on a second stage of his devel-
opment as a dramatist. L'École des Maris) (The School for Hus-
bands), June 24th, 1661, was not dependent chiefly upon its intrigue
as the others had been: it was essentially a study of character,-
## p. 10157 (#585) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10157
>
a little hard, it may be, but unfailingly amusing and not without
sympathy. Not long after, Molière improvised in a fortnight's time
a comedy-ballet, Les Fâcheux (The Bores), August 17th, 1661, pre-
pared especially for the series of magnificent entertainments with
which Fouquet splendidly feasted the King at Vaux only a few
days before the downfall of the superintendent. It is told that the
King himself suggested to Molière the original of one type of bore
neglected by the author; and that this royal hint was instantly seized,
a new character being added to the play before it was next per-
formed.
Molière availed himself of his father's place as valet de chambre
tapissier of the King to keep in closer contact with the court than
would ordinarily be possible to an actor or a dramatist. He insisted
on performing the duties of the office, in spite of the protest of those
of his fellow officials who did not wish to associate with a comedian.
There is little or no warrant for the legend that Louis XIV. himself
once rebuked these contemners of the actor by inviting Molière to
share his own supper; and yet the picturesque scene has been painted
both by Ingres and by Gérome. There is no doubt, however, that Louis
XIV. did esteem Molière highly, certainly finding him most ingen-
ious in the invention of the ballets in which the young King liked to
figure, and possibly even appreciating dimly the abiding merits of the
great dramatist. Louis XIV. had many faults, but a lack of discern-
ment was not among them. It is recorded that the King once asked
Boileau who was the rarest of the literary geniuses illuminating his
reign, and that Boileau responded by naming Molière, - a little to the
monarch's surprise, it may be, but without eliciting a royal contra-
diction.
In February 1662, Molière married Armande Béjart, a younger
sister of the leading lady of the company. Molière was then forty
years of age; as author, actor, manager, he was a very busy man,
with incessant demands on his time; he had the fits of abstraction
and the occasional moodiness and melancholy which are often char-
acteristic of genius. His wife was scant twenty; she was beautiful,
charming, and fond of admiration; she became a brilliant actress;
she seems to have had rather a narrow intelligence. That such a
marriage should be happy would have been little short of a miracle.
That there were in time disagreements between husband and wife is
indisputable; and it is undeniable that Molière was intensely jealous.
No passion occurs and reoccurs in his plays more often than jealousy:
and none is more feelingly analyzed. That the most of the brutal
charges brought against the young wife are but slanders, is highly
probable. When she bore him a son, Louis XIV. accepted to be god.
father.
a
## p. 10158 (#586) ##########################################
10158
MOLIÈRE
The first play produced by Molière after his marriage was
'L'École des Femmes) (The School for Wives), December 26th, 1662;
a companion to 'L'École des Maris,' somewhat more careless in its
structure but distinctly deeper in its insight. His enemies pretended
prudishly to be shocked at one or two of the scenes of this delicate
comedy, and even to discover in one speech a parody of a sermon.
Most wittily did the author defend himself. He brought out on the
stage (La Critique de L'École des Femmes) (The Criticism of the
School for Wives), June ist, 1663; a comedy in one act which is little
more than a conversation in a drawing-room, and in which certain
foolish characters bring forward all the charges made against the
piece, only to be answered completely by certain clever characters.
The King sided with Molière; conferring upon him a pension of a
thousand livres annually as “an excellent comic poet,” and inviting
him to appear again before the court. In a week, Molière improvised
L'Impromptu de Versailles? (The Impromptu of Versailles), October
14th, 1663, taking the spectators behind the curtain and showing them
a rehearsal of his own company, in the course of which he found
occasion to mimic the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne who had
attacked him, and to hit back sharply at others of his enemies.
For the King's pleasure once more Molière wrote the lively
comedy-ballet of Le Mariage Forcé) (The Forced Marriage), January
29th, 1964; with a farcical plot interrupted adroitly by eight dances, in
one of which the young monarch himself figured as an Egyptian.
When a series of sumptuous entertainments were given at Versailles
in the spring, Molière was again ready not only with "La Princesse
d'Élide) (May 8th, 1664), one of the less interesting of his comedies,
but also with the first three acts of Tartuffe (May 12th, 1664), the
strong five-act comedy which is perhaps his masterpiece. The some-
what sombre theme might have made (Tartuffe seem a little out of
place in so gay a festivity; but the earlier acts were frankly amusing,
and the monarch's guests found pleasure in the performance even if
they could not suspect the serious purpose of the whole work, which
is the most powerful onslaught on religious hypocrisy ever attempted
on the stage. Those whom the play assaulted were able to prevent
its being produced in Paris for several years; and Molière set out to
make friends for his work by reading it aloud in the drawing-rooms
of leading members of the court, and even by acting it again and
again at the houses of the princes of the blood.
In the mean while he returned to the attack; and in "Le Festin
de Pierre) (The Stone Guest), February 16th, 1665, he gave to the
legendary figure of Don Juan a meaning and a power not to be found
in the preceding plays on the same subject in Spanish, in Italian,
and in French. Perhaps he was attracted to the subject because
## p. 10159 (#587) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10159
-
the spectacular element in the story was certain to prove effective
on the stage; perhaps he thought that under cover of the spectacu-
lar he might the more easily let fy his burning shafts of irony and
satire. The supernatural element in Don Juan,' as in Hamlet'
and in Faust,' is kept subordinate to the philosophical. In Moli-
ère's hands the gallant and graceful hero is not only a type of the
eternal lover, but also a rival of lago in cynical villainy. The play
is founded upon a Spanish drama, and yet it might be called the
most original of Molière's works,- the most vigorous, the boldest.
Those who had chosen to take offense at L'École des Femmes,' and
who had been indignant at (Tartuffe,' were up in arms at once
against Don Juan. The King was besought to interdict the dan-
gerous drama; and again Louis XIV. stood Molière's friend. He
refused the interdiction, and took Molière and his company under the
royal patronage, allotting them an annual pension of six thousand
livres.
Not content with having the prudes and the hypocrites against
him, Molière now took for his target the abuses of the contemporary
practice of medicine. In a little comedy L'Amour Médecin' (Love
as a Physician), September 15th, 1665, —
- a return to his earlier and
more farcical manner, — he put on the stage five types of the doctor
of that time, suggested each of them more or less by a living prac-
titioner of the art. The author was then ill himself, worn and har-
assed, with difficulties at home and disputes abroad. Yet there was
no falling-off in the next play, Le Misanthrope) (The Misanthrope),
June 4th, 1666, which indeed French critics have generally held to
be his masterpiece, but which has never pleased the playgoing pub-
lic so much as others of his comedies. Its movement is slow, and
its action is barely adequate to sustain its five acts. In subject it
has a fundamental resemblance to (Timon of Athens,' not one of
Shakespeare's most highly esteemed plays. It is a manly protest
against the empty conventionalities of civilization, — the shams, the
gauds, the trifles, the insincerities of which modern society so often
seems to be made up. Its tone is lofty and its morality is austere.
But there is some truth in the charge that the observer and the
philosopher in Molière had got the better of the dramatist when he
wrote 'Le Misanthrope. The dramatist came promptly to the rescue
of the philosopher; and a brisk and rollicking farce, Le Médecin
malgré Lui(The Physician in Spite of Himself), August 6th, 1666, was
added to the bill to increase the drawing power of the more serious
comedy.
Like Shakespeare, Molière was an excellent man of business; and
he felt it to be his duty always to keep his company supplied with
plays of a kind already proved to be popular. So although he had
## p. 10160 (#588) ##########################################
1016о
MOLIÈRE
>
begun by imitating the lively farces of the Italians (L'Étourdi, for
example), and had then risen to the comedy of character (L'École
des Femmes'), and finally had attained to the sublime height of
(Le Misanthrope, he went back unhesitatingly to his earlier manner
again and again; and no more thought it unworthy of himself to
write frank farces like 'Le Médecin malgré Lui' after (Tartuffe than
Shakespeare did to compose the Merry Wives of Windsor) after the
Merchant of Venice. )
It was
one of these lighter plays, - not a
farce this time, but an airily comic love tale — that he next brought
forth: Le Sicilien' (The Sicilian), February 1667. Then a single
performance of “Tartuffe) took place (August 5th, 1667); but further
performances were promptly forbidden by the authorities, the King
being then with the army in Flanders. Nothing daunted, Molière
bided his time. A very free version of a comedy of Plautus, Amphi-
tryon? (January 13th, 1668), came next; followed by another broad
farce, though with a tragic suggestion if we choose so to take it,
(Georges Dandin' (July 1oth, 1668); and in rapid succession a second
comedy, more or less derived from Plautus, L'Avare' (The Miser),
September 9th, 1668. The royal permission was finally granted for
the public performance in Paris of Tartuffe (February 5th, 1669):
and that great comedy-drama achieved a triumph which endures to
this day. Like “Hamlet” in England, Tartuffe) in France is the
most effective of theatrical masterpieces, repaying the best efforts of
the best actors, and yet so dramatic in itself that it satisfies a large
audience even when done by a scratch company anywhere and any-
how. A little later in the year came one of the briskest and most
bustling of his farces, M. de Pourceaugnac) (September 17th, 1669).
Molière continued to vary his style; and no dramatist was ever
more versatile or more fertile in inventing new forms. He devised
for the court a comedy-ballet, Les Amants Magnifiques) (The Mag-
nificent Lovers), February 10th, 1670; and toward the end of the year
he brought out 'Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Tradesman Turned
Gentleman), October 23d, 1670; one of the best of his comedies, full
of fresh fun, and inspired by the wholesome coinmon-sense which
was always one of Molière's most marked characteristics. With Les
Fourberies de Scapin' (The Tricks of Scapin), May 24th, 1671, there
was again a return to the more primitive farce, boisterous perhaps,
but indisputably laughter-provoking. A little earlier in the year he
had collaborated with Corneille in the dialogue of Psyché) (January,
1671), Quinault writing the lyrics which Lulli set to music. And
before the twelve months were out he was ready with yet another
comedy-farce, La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas) (The Countess of Escar-
bagnas), December 20, 1671, rich with his ample knowledge of pro-
vincial characteristics.
## p. 10161 (#589) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10161
He was coming now to the close of his career; and he rose again
to the level of high comedy in "Les Femmes Savantes) (The Learned
Ladies), March uth, 1672, which disputes with “Tartuffe,' 'Don Juan,'
and 'Le Misanthrope, the honor of being considered his finest and
sanest work. In its theme, this, the last of his great plays, is very
like the Précieuses Ridicules,' in which he first revealed the power
of social satire; affectation of every sort was abhorrent to him always
affectation and insincerity and hypocrisy. When he beheld these
things his scorn burned hot within him, and he delighted in scourg-
ing them.
The last months of Molière's life were saddened by the death
of his old companion and sister-in-law, Madeleine Béjart, and by the
death of his only son. His health, never strong, became feebler; and
in the summer of 1672 the theatre had to be closed unexpectedly
more than once, because Molière was not well enough to act. And
yet through all these trials he kept his good-humor and his gentle
serenity, although he — like most other great humorists — was essen-
tially melancholy. It was under these conditions that he wrote his
last play, Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), February
Toth, 1673. He himsel of course, was the imaginary invalid, being
then worn out with his own illness. The fourth performance of the
new play took place on the 17th; and Molière was seized with a fit
of coughing on the stage, and burst a blood-vessel. They conveyed
him to his own house in the Rue de Richelieu, on the site of the
building now numbered 38 and 40; and here he died “not more than
half an hour or three quarters after the bursting of the said vessel,
so his faithful friend and fellow actor, Lagrange, recorded in the
register or private diary, which is an invaluable document for the
details of Molière's life.
The bitter hostility which had long delayed the performance of
(Tartuffe,' and which had unceasingly pursued Molière during the
last years of his life, not shrinking from obtrusion into his family
relations, was not relaxed after his death. Permission for Christian
burial was at first denied. It is told that the widow threw herself at
the King's feet and implored a royal mandate, overruling the ecclesi-
astical authorities. At last the funeral was authorized; and it took
place on the evening of the fourth day. The procession was very
simple, the priests not intoning the usual psalms. The interment took
place in the cemetery which was behind the chapel of St. Joseph,
in the Rue de Montmartre.
The inventory taken after his demise gives the list of Molière's
stage costumes and of the books that composed his library. Among
these was a Bible, a Plutarch, a Montaigne (but no Rabelais, oddly
enough), a Terence (but no Plautus), a Lucian, a Horace, a Juvenal,
XVII-636
## p. 10162 (#590) ##########################################
10162
MOLIÈRE
and two hundred and forty volumes of unnamed French, Italian, and
Spanish plays. He left a fortune of about forty thousand livres.
Four years after his death his widow married an obscure actor named
Guérin. The only child of Molière to survive him was a daughter,
who married a M. de Montalant, and who died without issue in 1723,
half a century after her illustrious father.
Molière was only fifty-one when he died, and all of his more
important plays had been written during the final fourteen years of
his life. He had served a long apprenticeship in the provinces, mas-
tering all the mysteries of his art, and heaping up a store of obser-
vations of human nature; and after his return to Paris, his genius
ripened swiftly. While the novelists have often flowered late in life,
the dramatists have usually begun young; but Molière was forty-two
when he wrote “Tartuffe,' forty-three when he followed it with Don
Juan,' forty-four when he produced Le Misanthrope, forty-eight
when he brought forth (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,' and fifty when
he made fun of the Femmes Savantes. ' Perhaps a part of the
deeper insight and the wider vision of these plays, when compared
with those of all other comic dramatists, is due to the relative matur-
ity of Molière when he composed them. The personal and poetic
burlesques of Aristophanes do not belong in the same category; and
the belauded comedies of Menander are lost to us. Some of the
comic plays of Plautus and of Terence survive for purposes of com-
parison, - as a result of which the best criticism of to-day is in
accord with La Fontaine's declaration on the morrow of Molière's
death, that the great French comic dramatist had surpassed both of
the great Latin comic dramatists.
For us who speak English, and who hold Shakespeare as a stand-
ard by which the men of every other language must be measured,
it is impossible not to set the author of Hamlet' over against
the author of Tartuffe. In many ways the two men were alike.
Dramatists, they were both actors, Shakespeare being probably not
prominent in that profession, while Molière certainly excelled all his
contemporaries. They were both managers; and both of them were
shrewd men of affairs, governing their private fortunes with skill.
Legend relates that Shakespeare wrote the Merry Wives of Wind-
sor) on a hint of Queen Elizabeth's, and that Molière augmented the
Fâcheux' on a hint of King Louis's. Each of them kept the most
of his plays in manuscript while he was alive; and after they were
dead, the plays of each were published by the pious care of survir-
ing comrades. They were both of them surpassingly original; and
yet neither often took the trouble to invent a plot, preferring to
adopt this ready-made, more or less, and rather to expend his strength
upon the analysis of emotion and the creation of character. Some of
|
## p. 10163 (#591) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10163
(
these resemblances are merely fortuitous; but some also are strangely
significant.
To push the comparison too far would be unfair to Molière; for
Shakespeare is the master mind of all literature. He soared to
heights, and he explored depths, and he had a range, to which
Molière could not pretend. His is the spirit of soul-searching tragedy,
of romantic comedy, of dramatic history; and in no one of these is
Molière his rival. But in the comedy of real life, he is not Molière's
rival. In every variety of the comic drama Molière is unequaled, -
in farce, in the comedy of situation, in the comedy of character, and
in the comedy which is almost stiffened into drama, yet without
ceasing to be comedy. Shakespeare is the greatest of dramatists, no
doubt, but Molière is indubitably the greatest of comic dramatists.
In sheer comic force the Frenchman is stronger than the English-
man, or at least more abundant; and also in the compelling power of
humor. The influence of Shakespeare upon the comedy of the nine-
teenth century is almost negligible; for Musset seems to be the only
modern poet who has modeled his plays upon (As You Like It) and
(Twelfth Night. ' The influence of Molière upon the comedy of the
nineteenth century is overwhelming; and the author of the Demi-
Monde,' the authors of the Gendre de M. Poirier,' the author of the
(Doll's House, and the author of the Second Mrs. Tanqueray,' are
all followers of the author of "Tartuffe' and 'Les Femmes Savantes. '
It is to be said also that Shakespeare, though essentially an
Englishman, is in a wide sense cosmopolitan and universal; he rises
superior to race and to time. Molière, on the other hand, despite his
philosophical grasp of human nature, is typically French. He has the
robust humor of Rabelais, and Montaigne's genial common-sense, and
Voltaire's eagerness to abolish frauds. He has his full share of Gal-
lic salt; and he inherits also the Latin tradition of reserve, of order,
and of symmetry. He was able to unite humor and truth, - fun and
an exact observation of life, - satire and sincerity sustained by pity.
Like Rabelais and like Montaigne, Molière is a moralist; he has an
ethical code of his own; the total effect of his plays is wholesome.
He is on the side of the angels, although he recognizes the existence
of many an evil demon. Like Shakespeare, he can pierce almost
to the centre of things, even if his penetration is not so profound as
Shakespeare's. The moral is never tagged to the end or paraded or
vaunted; but he is a shallow student who cannot discover the ethical
richness of the soil in which Molière's plays were grown.
Certain authors there are that we outgrow as we wax in years
and in wisdom. There are books that we once liked, and that now
remain behind us as milestones marking the road traveled. Though
we came up to them with pleasure, yet without regret we leave them
## p. 10164 (#592) ##########################################
10164
MOLIÈRE
in the distance. We have not tarried with them long, and unless we
turn back we never pass them again.
Molière is not one of these: he
is for all ages of man. In youth we may enjoy him unthinkingly,
amused by his comic invention, his drollery, his frank fun. As we
grow older his charm over us grows also; and we see the finer qual-
ities of his work,- his insight into human motives, and his marvel-
ous skill in exhibiting these on the stage. And in old age we may
refresh ourselves once again with his unfailing and unfading humor,
and with the true wisdom which underlies it. At one time the
(Bourgeois Gentilhomme may please us, and at another 'Le Misan-
thrope'; but at all times a man who takes interest in the comedy of
human endeavor may find in Molière what he needs.
Frauder Mathers
PEACE-MAKING, RECONCILIATION, AND ROBBERY
From L'Avare)
ARPAGON
a
H
[The scene is the house of Harpagon, the miser of the play; Master Jacques
is undertaking to reconcile Harpagon to his son Cléante, who has greatly
offended his father by obstinacy as a rival for the hand of Marianne. The
son and father are on opposite sides of the stage, paying no attention to each
other. ]
not an abominable thing to see
son who
does not shrink from becoming the rival of his father?
And is it not his bounden duty to refrain from interfering
with my love ?
Jacques-- You are quite right: stop here, and let me go and
speak to him.
Cléante [to Master Jacques, who comes near him]– Very well:
if he wants to make you a judge between us, I have no objec-
tion. I care little who it is, and I don't mind referring our quar-
rel to you.
Jacques — You do me great honor.
Cléante — I am in love with a young girl who returns my
affection, and who receives kindly the offer of my heart; but my
father takes it into his head to disturb our love by asking her in
marriage for himself.
## p. 10165 (#593) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10165
He says
Jacques -- He certainly is wrong.
Cléante — Is it not shameful for a man of his age to think of
marrying ? I ask you if it is right for him to fall in love ? and
ought he not now to leave that to younger men ?
Jacques — You are quite right: he is not serious; let me speak
a a word or two to him. [To Harpagon. ] Really, your son is not
so extravagant as you think, and is amenable to reason.
that he is conscious of the respect he owes you, and that he only
got angry in the heat of the moment. He will willingly submit
to all you wish if you will only promise to treat him more kindly
than you do, and will give him in marriage a person to his
taste.
Harpagon - Ah! tell him, Master Jacques, that he will ob-
tain everything from me on those terms; and that, except Mari-
anne, I leave him free to choose for his wife whomsoever he
pleases.
Jacques — Leave that to me. [To Clćante. ] Really, your father
is not so unreasonable as you make him out to me; and he tells
me that it is your violence which irritated him. He only objects
to your way of doing things, and is quite ready to grant you
all you want, provided you will use gentle means, and will give
him the deference, respect, and submission that a son owes to his
father.
Cléante — Ah, Master Jacques! you can assure him that if he
grants me Marianne, he will always find me the most submiss-
ive of men, and that I shall never do anything contrary to his
pleasure.
Jacques [to Harpagon]— It's all right: he consents to what
you say.
Harpagon — Nothing could be better.
Jacques [to Cléante] - It's all settled: he is satisfied with your
promises.
Cléante - Heaven be praised!
Jacques — Gentlemen, you have nothing to do but to talk
quietly over the matter together; you are agreed now: and yet
you were on the point of quarreling through want of understand-
ing each other.
Cléante — My poor Jacques, I shall be obliged to you all my
life.
Jacques - Don't mention it, sir,
## p. 10166 (#594) ##########################################
10166
MOLIÈRE
Harpagon - You have given me great pleasure, Master
Jacques, and deserve a reward. [Feels in his pocket. Jacques
holds out his hand, but Harpagon only pulls out his handkerchief,
and says :) Go; I will remember it, I promise you.
Jacques — I thank you kindly, sir.
[Exit.
Cléante - I beg your pardon, father, for having been angry.
Harpagon -- It is nothing.
Cléante I assure you that I feel very sorry about it.
Harpagon — I am very happy to see you reasonable again.
Cléante How very kind of you so soon to forget my fault!
Harpagon - One easily forgets the faults of children when
they return to their duty.
Cléante — What! you are not angry with me for my extrava-
gant behavior ?
Harpagon — By your submission and respectful conduct you
compel me to forget my anger.
Cléante- I assure you, father, I shall forever keep in heart
the remembrance of all your kindness.
Harpagon - And I promise you that in future you will obtain
all you like from me.
Cléante - Oh, father! I ask nothing more: it is sufficient for
me that you give me Marianne.
Harpagon - What ?
Cléante — I say, father, that I am only too thankful already
for what you have done; and that when you give me Marianne
you give me everything.
Harpagon — Who talks of giving you Marianne ?
Cléante - You, father.
Harpagon-I?
Cléante — Yes.
Harpagon — What! is it not you who promised to give her
up?
Cléante - I! give her up?
Harpagon — Yes.
Cléante — Certainly not. "
- '
Harpagon — Did you not give up all pretensions to her ?
Cléante — On the contrary, I am more determined than ever
to have her.
Harpagon — What, scoundrel! again?
-
Cléante — Nothing can make me change my mind.
## p. 10167 (#595) ##########################################
MOLIERE
10167
Harpagon — Let me get at you again, wretch!
Cléante - You can do as you please.
Harpagon - I forbid you ever to come within my sight.
Cléante — As you like.
Harpagon —I abandon you.
Cléante — Abandon me.
Harpagon - I disown you.
Cléante - Disown me.
Harpagon - I disinherit you.
Cléante - As you will.
Harpagon - I give you my curse.
Cléante - I want none of your gifts.
[The next scene shows Cléante without Harpagon; La Flèche is just leaving
the garden with a casket, and calls to Cleante. )
La Flèche - Ah, sir, you are just in the nick of time! Quick!
follow me. .
Cléante What is the matter?
La Flèche Follow me, I say. We are saved.
Cléante — How ?
La Flèche Here is all you want.
Cléante - What ?
La Flèche — I have watched for this all day.
Cléante - What is it?
La Flèche — Your father's treasure that I have got hold of.
Cléante - How did you manage it ?
La Flèche -I will tell you all about it. Let us be off. I can
hear him calling out.
[Exeunt.
Harpagon [ from the garden, rushing in without his hat]-
Thieves! thieves! assassins! murder! Justice, just heavens! I
am undone; I am murdered; they have cut my throat; they have
stolen my money! Who can it be? What has become of him?
Where is he? Where is he hiding himself ? What shall I do to
find him ? Where shall I run ? Where shall I not run ? Is he
not here ? — Who is this? Stop! [To himself, taking hold of his
own arm. ] Give me back my money, wretch! — Ah! it is myself.
— My mind is wandering, and I know not where I am, who I am,
and what I am doing. Alas! my poor money! my poor money!
my dearest friend, they have bereaved me of thee; and since
thou art gone, I have lost my support, my consolation, and my
-
## p. 10168 (#596) ##########################################
10168
MOLIÈRE
joy. All is ended for me, and I have nothing more to do in
the world! Without thee it is impossible for me to live. It is
all over with me; I can bear it no longer. I am dying; I am
dead; I am buried. Is there nobody who will call me from
the dead, by restoring my dear money to me, or by telling
me who has taken it? Ah! what is it you say ?
It is no one.
Whoever has committed the deed must have watched carefully
for his opportunity, and must have chosen the very moment
when I was talking with my miscreant of a son. I must go. I
will demand justice, and have the whole of my house put to
the torture,- my maids and my valets, my son, my daughter,
and myself too. What a crowd of people are assembled here!
Every one seems to be my thief.
I see
one who does not
rouse suspicion in me. Ha! what are they speaking of there?
Of him who stole my money? What noise is that up yonder?
Is it my thief who is there? For pity's sake, if you know any-
thing of my thief, I beseech you to tell me. Is he hiding there
among you ? They all look at me and laugh. We shall see that
they all have a share in the robbery. Quick! magistrates, police,
provosts, judges, racks, gibbets, and executioners. I will hang
everybody; and if I do not find my money, I will hang myself
afterwards.
Translation by Charles Heron Wall.
no
ALCESTE ACCUSES CÉLIMÈNE
From "The Misanthrope)
LCESTE
A
-Oh, heaven! may I control my just anger!
Célimène [aside]— Ah! [To Alceste. ] What is this new
trouble I see you in? what mean those deep sighs and those
dark looks you cast upon me ?
Alceste - That all the wickedness a soul is capable of can in
nothing be compared to your perfidy; that fate, devils, and in-
censed Heaven never produced anything so worthless as yourself.
Célimène — These are pretty speeches, which I certainly ad-
mire.
Alceste - Ah! no more jesting; this is not a time for laughter.
Rather let the blush of shame cover your face; you have cause,
for your treachery is known. So the presentiments of my heart
## p. 10169 (#597) ##########################################
MOLIÈRE
10169
were true; its alarms were but too well founded, and those fre-
quent suspicions which were thought odious were true guides to
what my eyes have now seen. Yes, in spite of all your skill in
dissimulation, Heaven hinted to me what I had to fear. But do
not think that I shall bear this insult unavenged. I know that
it is not in our power to govern our inclinations; that love is
always spontaneous; that we cannot enter a heart by force, and
that every heart is free to name its conqueror.
I would not com-
plain, therefore, if you had from the first spoken to me without
dissembling; for although you would have crushed within me the
very springs of my life, I should have blamed my fate alone for
it. But to think that my love was encouraged by you! It is such
a treacherous, such a perfidious action, that no punishment seems
too great for it. After such an outrage, fear everything from
me: I am no longer master of myself; anger has conquered me.
Pierced to the heart by the cruel blow with which you kill
me, my senses are not overswayed by reason. I yield myself up
to a just revenge, and I cannot answer for what I may do.
Célimène — What can have called forth such an insult ? Have
you lost all sense and judgment ? Pray speak!
Alceste — Yes, when on seeing you I drank in the poison which
is killing me; yes, when like a fool I thought I had found some
sincerity in those treacherous charms that have deceived me.
Célimène - Of what treachery are you complaining ?
Alceste -- Ah! false heart, how well you feign ignorance! But
I will leave you no loop-hole of escape! Look at your own
handwriting; this letter is sufficient to confound you; against such
evidence you can have nothing to answer.
Célimène — So this is the cause of your strange outburst.
Alceste — And you do not blush at the sight?
Célimène — There is no occasion for me to blush.
Alceste -- What! will you add audacity to your deceit ? Will
you disown this letter because it is not signed ?
Célimène — Why should I disown it, when it is mine?
Alceste — And you can look at it without being ashamed of
the crime of which it shows you to be guilty towards me ?
Célimène — You are in truth a most foolish man.
Alceste — What! you face thus calmly this all-convincing
proof?
