MOLIERE 627 has amazing rapidity, and the vivacity of M. Coquelin in Mascarille still makes L jStourdi a favourite on the stage, though it cannot be read with very much pleasure. The next piece, new in Paris, though not in the provinces, was the Depit Amoureux (first acted at Beziers, 1656). The play was not less successful than L JZtourdi. It has two parts, one an Italian imbroglio ; the other, which alone keeps the stage, is the original work of Moliere, though, of course, the idea of amantiwn ira& is as old as literature. "Nothing so good," says Mr. Saintsbury, "had yet been seen on the French stage, as the quarrels and reconciliations of the quartette of master, mistress, valet, and soubrette." Even the hostile Le Boulanger de Chalussay (Elomire Hypochondre) admits that the audience was much of this opinion " Et de tous les cotes chacun cria tout haut, C est la faire et jouer les pieces comme il faut. " The same praise was given, perhaps even more deservedly, to Les Precieuses Ridicules (18th November 1659). Doubtshave been raised as to whether this famous piece, the first true comic satire of contemporary foibles on the French stage, was a new play. La Grange calls it piece nouvelle in his Registre, but, as he enters it as the third piece nouvelle, he may only mean that, like L fitourdi, it was new to Paris. The short life of 1682, produced under La Grange s care, and probably written by Marcel the actor, says the Precieuses was "made " in 1659. There is another contro versy as to whether the ladies of the Hotel Rambouillet, or merely their bourgeoises and rustic imitators, were laughed at. Menage, in later years at least, professed to recognize an attack on the over-refinement and affectation of the original and, in most ways, honourable precieuses of the Hotel Ram bouillet. But Chapelle and Bachaumont had discovered provincial precieuses, hyper-aesthetic literary ladies, at Mont- pellier before Moliere s return to Paris ; and Furetiere, in the Roman Bourgeois (1666), found Paris full of middle- class precieuses, who had survived, or, like their modern counterparts, had thriven on ridicule. Another question is Did Moliere copy from the earlier Precieuses of the abbe de Pure 1 This charge of plagiarism is brought by Somaize, in the preface to his Veritables Precieuses. De Pure s work was a novel (1656), from which the Italian actors had put together an acting piece in their manner, that is, a thing of "gag," and improvized speeches. The reproach is interesting only because it proves how early Moliere found enemies who, like Thomas Corneille in 1659, accused him of being skilled only in farce, or, like Somaize, charged him with literary larceny. These were the stock criticisms of Moliere s opponents as long as he Lived. The success of the Precieuses Ridicules was immense ; on one famous occasion the king was a spectator, leaning against the great chair of the dying Cardinal Mazarin. The play can never cease to please while literary affectation exists, and it has a comic force of deathless energy. Yet a modern reader may spare some sympathy for the poor heroines, who do not wish, in courtship, to " begin with marriage," but prefer first to have some less formidable acquaintance with their wooers. Moliere s next piece was less important, and more purely farcical, Sganarelle ; ou le Cocu Imagin- aire (28th May 1660). The public taste preferred a work of this light nature, and Sganarelle was played every year as long as Moliere lived. The play was pirated by a man who pretended to have retained all the words in his memory. The counterfeit copy was published by Ribou, a double injury to Moliere, as, once printed, any company might act the play. With his habitual good-nature, Moliere not only allowed Ribou to publish later works of his, but actually lent money to that knave (Soulie, Recherches, p. 287). On llth October 1660 the Theatre du Petit Bourbon was demolished by the superintendent of works, without notice given to the company. The king gave Moliere the Salle du Palais Royal, but the machinery of the old theatre was maliciously destroyed. Meanwhile the older companies of the Marais and the Hotel de Bourgogne attempted to lure away Moliere s troupe, but, as La Grange declares (Registre, p. 26), "all the actors loved their chief, who united to extraordinary genius an honourable character and charming manner, which compelled them all to protest that they would never leave him, but always share his for tunes." While the new theatre was being put in order, the company played in the houses of the great, and before the king at the Louvre. In their new house (originally built by Richelieu) Moliere began to play on 20th January 1661. Moliere now gratified his rivals by a failure. Don Garde de Navarre, a heavy tragi-comedy, which had long lain among his papers, was first represented on 4th February 1661. Either Moliere was a poor actor outside comedy, or his manner was not sufficiently "stagy," and, as he says, " demoniac," for the taste of the day. His opponents were determined that he could not act in tragi-comedy, and he, in turn, burlesqued their pretentious and exaggerated manner in a later piece. In the Precieuses (sc. ix.) Moliere had already rallied " les grands comediens " of the Hotel Bourgogne. "Les autres," he makes Mascarille say about his own troupe, "sont des ignorants qui recitent comme 1 on parle, ils ne savent pas faire ronfler les vers." All this was likely to irritate the grands comediens, and their friends, who avenged themselves on that unfortunate jealous prince, Don Garcie de Navarre. The subject of this unsuccessful drama is one of many examples which show how Moliere s mind was engaged with the serious or comic aspects of jealousy, a passion which he had soon cause to know most intimately. Meantime the everyday life of the stage went on, and the doorkeeper of the Theatre St. Germain was wounded by some revellers who tried to force their way into the house (La Grange, Registre). A year later, an Italian actor was stabbed in front of Moliere s house, where he had sought to take shelter (Campardon, Nouvelles Pieces, p. 20). To these dangers actors were peculiarly subject : Moliere himself was frequently threatened by the marquises and others whose class he ridiculed on the stage, and there seems even reason to believe that there is some truth in the story of the angry marquis who rubbed the poet s head against his buttons, thereby cutting his face severely. The story comes late (1725) into his biography, but is supported by a passage in the contemporary play, Zelinde (Paris, 1663, scene viii.). Before Easter, Moliere asked for two shares in the profits of his company, one for himself, and one for his wife, if he married. That fatal step was already contemplated (La Grange). On 24th June he brought out for the first time L ficole des Maris. The general idea of the piece is as old as Menander, and Moliere was promptly accused of pilfering from the Adelphi of Terence. One of ihejicelles of the comedy is borrowed from a story as old, at least, as Boccaccio, and still amusing in a novtl by Charles de Bernard. It is significant of Moliere s talent that the grotesque and baffled paternal wooer, Sganarelle, like several other butts in Moliere s comedy, does to a certain extent win our sympathy and pity as well as our laughter. The next new piece was Les Fascheujc, a comedie- ballet, the Comedy of Bores, played before the king at Fouquet s house at Vaux le Vicomte (August 15-20, 1661). The comedians, without knowing it, were perhaps the real " fascheux " on this occasion, for Fouquet was absorbed in the schemes of his insatiable ambition (Quo non ascendam ? says his motto), and the king was organizing the arrest and fall of Fouquet, his rival in the affections of La Valliere. The author of the prologue to Les Fascheux, Pellisson, a friend of Fouquet s, was arrested along with
the superintendent of finance. Pellisson s prologue and