Rambouillet, and the name "précieuse" became henceforth vested with a new and satirical meaning.

Two EXCEPTIONAL FAILURES.

Some amount of feeling against the "Précieuses Ridicules," chiefly, we may suppose, set on foot by galled jades, whose withers were not unwrung by the witty allusions of that satirical comedy, had been increased by the tone of the next of Molière's productions, "Sganarelle," a piece in which the author seems inclined to fall back upon farce; and for the first and only time in Paris a play by Molière was hissed, not entirely without reason, it would seem; for Molière had made a double mistake, in the style of the piece, for which his genius was unfitted, and in playing the chief character, that was not at all in his line. The serious comedy, that encountered so serious a mishap, and soon disappeared from the list of Molière's acting pieces, was entitled "Don Garcia of Navarre, or the Jealous Husband," and represents, not without considerable power, the ill plight of a man devoured by the "green-eyed monster.

A MAGNIFICENT MINISTER: SUCCESS. The partial failure of "Don Garcia" was followed by a complete and most brilliant success, in the next piece written by Molière; and this success is associated with the name of one who might have stood side by side with Wolsey in Johnson's poem, as an example of the vanity of human wishes, the finance minister Fouquet. That ambitious, magnificent, and most unfortunate man had been relieved from a formidable rival by the recent death of Mazarin, that strange mixture of astute cunning and worldly frivolity, who had departed from the stage of life just when his influence had begun to wane. Fouquet, rapacious and profuse, like Mazarin, had not the caution of the wily cardinal; nor did he discern in the superb young monarch whom he thought to hoodwink a tyrant determined to engross in himself all power and authority-to be himself "the state," and to be his own prime minister. A magnificent fête given by Fouquet to Louis XIV. was, according to an eminent French writer, the proximate cause of the disgrace of the aspiring minister. Like the jealous Henry VIII. in Shakespeare's play, the young king may have thought, on seeing the unbounded profusion, the splendid luxury of his host

"What piles of wealth hath he accumulated

To his own portion! and what expense by the hour Seems to flow from him! How, in the name of Thrift, Does he rake this together?"

But a deeper cause of anger was found, in the

apartment of the luckless dependant on royal favour, in the shape of a portrait of Mademoiselle de la Vallière, whom the king had already dis tinguished with his particular regard; and so angry was the jealous tyrant at the rivalry of his subject, that he would have had him arrested there and then, but for the forcible remonstrance of the queen-mother: "Quoi! au milieu d'une fête qu'il vous donne !" The necessity of maintaining appearances towards his host restrained the vindictive rage of Louis for the moment; but Fouquet was a doomed man. He was presently flung into the Bastille, accused of malversation and embezzlement of public money, and after a lengthy process condemned to banishment for life, a sentence which the sinister mercy of Louis commuted to perpetual imprisonment; and at Pignerol, nearly twenty years after his first arrest, the unhappy Fouquet was released by death from a rigorous and cruel captivity.

At the magnificent but ill-omened fête given to the king and the court by Fouquet, at his splendid estate of Vaux, was represented an admirable play of Molière's that had already won the suffrage of the Parisian public: "L'Ecole des Maris," the School for Husbands. In this play the higher aim of Molière, his intention to convey useful lessons of life by means of the stage, is followed up with admirable art. Two brothers, Ariste and Sganarelle, represent two classes of husbands. The former is wise, moderate, and just, an admirable character, consistently carried through to the end. Sganarelle, on the other hand, narrow-minded, 1 obstinate and dictatorial, is just the man who would put even duty in so disagreeable a light as to render it utterly distasteful. Each of the brothers has a young ward, and in the end the conceited pragmatical Sganarelle is grievously outwitted by his charge, Isabella, whom he tries to rule by menaces and harshness; while Leonor, the ward of Ariste, cheerfully acknowledges and duly appreciates the kindly and judicious guidance of her guardian and friend.

LES FACHEUX; MOLIÈRE'S MARRIAGE. Another comedy,noticeable as having been written for a fête given by Fouquet to the king, was entitled "Les Fâcheux," the bores, and gives some portraits of that Protean class of humanity. La Fontaine, the fabulist, in a poetical epistle, describes this production wittily enough, as giving the go-by to Terence and Plautus, and marking the commencement of an epoch when it will not be allowed to deviate a foot's breadth from nature. If Les Facheux" had no other merit, it would be valuable for having given a rebuke to the absurd practice

fghting duels for trivial causes. A man of isur and of approved bravery is represented as wing that higher and more difficult form of rage that consists in refusing the hasty chalof a bot-headed opponent. Edicts of sucwww.ve kings had failed to check this sanguinary Ay, and a choleric word or a caustic jest was en.ugh to set nobles and gentles cutting each the throats; but when the practice was turned ndicule, it fell into disfavour, and the number fish duels was considerably lessened.

Strange it was that this man, whose calm clear were so quick to see, and whose ready pen chronicle with such graphic power, the esses of the brilliant society around him, ad himself have been a "warning example de of the most deplorable forms of weaknessang illustration of Portia's "wise saw," that it meer to teach twenty (in Molière's case we tread thousands) what were good to be se than to be one of the twenty to follow his teaching. If there was one thing Molière st be supposed to have known thoroughly, it the character of women, whom he could sound the lowest note to the top of their compass; at a phase of the feminine heart and mind is presented in his comedies. And yet, like his Aleste in the Misanthrope," he was led to fra, and made to suffer tortures at the hands fa woman altogether unable to understand his tam to her, and utterly unworthy of him. est pour mes péchés que je vous aime ainsi,” poor, bewildered, honest-hearted Alceste to Camperturbable and irresistible flirt, Célimène ; - certainly Molière might well have employed same language towards the fascinating but inded and frivolous actress of his troupe, Ade Gresinde Béjart, whom he followed tha doting attachment and devotion for which red himself, and whom in an evil hour he de his wife.

Mademoiselle Molière, as she continued to be

-for the title "Madame" was then only arded to ladies of high degree, and its assumpay the wives of citizens had caused no little ng among the well-born,-Mademoiselle Are caused her husband many a sleepless t, and by her incurable frivolity and ravenous petite for admiration, gave her husband the ravest reasons for dissatisfaction. At times, én en almost to desperation by her ill conduct, he

t of adopting rigorous measures, such as Cutting up his recalcitrant wife until she should ea to behave herself; but his feelings were too ast for his reason." Her presence makes me get all my resolutions," he said to his friend

...

Chapelle, who had been remonstrating with him on his infatuation: "the very first word she says to me in her own defence leaves me so convinced my suspicions were unfounded, that I ask her pardon for having been so credulous. . . . If you knew what I suffer, you would pity me. My passion has reached such a point, that it actually takes her part against myself." Truly it may be said of Molière, that he loved "not wisely, but too well."

It was on the 20th of February, 1662, that the marriage took place, from which he hoped for a life's happiness; and never was an affectionate, warm-hearted man more cruelly deceived in his expectations; for his wife, Armande Béjart, was a thorn in his side to the end of his days.

MOLIÈRE AT COURT.

A new era now begins in the life of the author and actor; a brilliant period during which triumphs followed each other quickly, and works destined to be looked on as masterpieces of comedy were produced with marvellous rapidity. Besides the King, the Dowager-Queen Henrietta Maria of England, the Duke of Orleans, brother to the King, and his charming young English wife, Henrietta, the daughter of Charles I., had been present at the famous representation of the "Ecole des Maris" at Vaux; and Louis, though Boileau afterwards told him that he did not understand poetry, had yet sufficient discernment to see the deeper meaning in Molière's work, was delighted with the play, suggested a new character for the 'Fâcheux," in the person of the hunting bore, and from that time took the poet under his especial protection. The office of valet-upholsterer to the king, which we have seen was to a certain extent hereditary in the Poquelin family, now fell to the poet, by the death of his brother, Jean Poquelin, who had held it for some years. Molière dropped the tapissier, and was called "Valet de Chambre du Roi"'-an office, it would appear, somewhat analogous to that which at a later period Miss Burney held with worthy snuff-taking Queen Charlotte. One of Molière's duties was to help in making the king's bed. By virtue of his office Molière had a place at the table of the king's gentlemen-in-waiting. They, however, thought their dignity compromised in sitting down with a play-actor; whereupon their master, the king, gave them a practical lesson, which showed that he could do a sensible thing in a gracious manner. On rising one morning, Louis summoned Molière, ordered that the "en cas de nuit," a collation always kept ready in case his Majesty were hungry in the night-time, should be served up,

sat down to table with the poet, and helping him to a chicken's wing, took another for himself. Then, the doors were thrown open, and the privileged courtiers admitted to the "petit lever," saw with astonishment the spectacle of the king sitting at breakfast with the actor. "You see me occupied in making Molière eat," said Louis. "My officers don't think him good company enough for them." This was quite enough; from that time forth Molière was overwhelmed with invitations, and had no need to come to the messtable of his colleagues, who were above writing or acting comedies.

THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES.

The next dramatic work of the poet, "L'Ecole des Femmes," the School for Wives, is in many respects an advance on the School for Husbands. The piece is a satire on the folly of keeping women in ignorance, and depriving them of education, and of social intercourse, under the idea that ignorance and innocence are synonymous, and

that Satan will not enter the chamber of the mind that he finds swept and garnished and empty. "Epouser une sotte est pour n'être point sot," "To marry a fool is the way not to be made a fool of," is the maxim of Arnolphe, who, like Sganarelle of the School for Husbands, in the general features of his character, is drawn with a much finer pencil. He fancies that he makes himself safe by surrounding himself with stupid servants; and that by bringing up his ward, Agnes, whom he intends to make his wife, in utter ignorance, he will attach her wholly and solely to himself, and be her lord and master in the fullest sense of the term. But he is sorely deceived. The womanly instinct of Agnes tells her that Arnolphe is a noodle, and will probably be a tyrant. Her natural good sense and healthy impulses to a certain extent supply the place of the training that has been denied her; and with consummate skill the writer has developed the character. The apparently inane and silly Agnes of the first act, bound to her guardian by a sort of mechanical attachment, looking out for him when he is expected home, and as the servant Georgette declares, fancying that every horse, mule, or ass that appears in sight must be he, gradually changes as she becomes conscious of her position, and understands the feeling that makes her draw a comparison, or rather a contrast, between Arnolphe and her admirer Horace; and Arnolphe himself, at first a mere dictatorial crochety noodle, is roused first into admiration, and finally to a sense of mortification and rage, as he sees the character of Agnes asserting itself with her

womanhood, in spite of his narrow precautions and mean devices. The obvious and healthy moral of the piece is a protest against the fashionable "inferior animal" theory with regard to women. Nor was it inappropriate in a time like that of Louis XIV., when marriages were arranged" with such sublime indifference to the feelings of one of the parties chiefly interested, that the anecdote recorded of a fashionable lady of the period is scarcely an exaggeration, Mademoiselle," said this affectionate parent to her daughter, an ingenue fresh from a convent-school, you are to be married next week." "O Madame,

"

if I might venture to ask, to whom?" wistfully observes the young lady. "Comment, Mademoiselle, est-ce que cela vous regarde?" "Pray Miss, is that any business of yours?" is the rejoinder.

The Ecole des Femmes" was too new and original to escape cominent; and too many felt themselves unpleasantly touched to permit the comment to be entirely laudatory. A strong clique was formed against Molière, and the cry of undue licence was raised. His work was declared to have offended against the proprieties, and his portraits were said to be far too much like certain originals. But Molière did not lack defenders. "Let the envious growl," wrote De la Croix, in some spirited verses in praise of the "School for Wives ;""let them snarl everywhere that your lines only charm the vulgar, and are destitute of wit. If you had pleased others a little less, you would not have displeased them so much." The author himself defended his work with exquisite skill and commendable good temper in the "Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes," a charming little one-act piece, in which the "School for Wives" is analysed by a fashionable company. Three detractors appear to pull the play to pieces; they are the fashionable poet Lysidas, a very proper lady indeed, Climene, and a very fop of a marquis, all embroidery and affectation. On the other hand, a sensible man, Dorante, and two ladies, Uranie and Elise, judiciously defend the piece. The marquis, the be ribanded and belaced coxcomb, whose dignity has been ruffled by the crowd that flocked to see this piece, declares it "Detestable, to the last degree detestable-what you call perfectly detestable;' and on being asked his reason, sapiently declares, "Oh, it's detestable, simply because it is detestable." Lysidas, the poetaster, has some pedantic jargon about the "rules" which he declares to have been disregarded in the "School for Wives" When the protasis," he says, the epitasis and the peripateia- but Dorante interrupts him. protesting against being drowned in this flood of learning. "Don't you think," he somewhat sar

cast, ally observes, "it be quite as well to say 'the opment of the subject' as the 'protasis '-the progress of the plot' as the 'epitasis,'—and the wing incident' as the 'peripateia'?" The vit, judgment, and good sense displayed in this unpreteni.ng little protest against hypercriticism

are excellent.

A muddle-brained nobleman, the Duc de la Fealade, conceiving himself caricatured in the ng marquis, was coarse enough to attempt jer tal violence on the offending poet; for which, a said, the king rated him soundly, promising Yare a continuance of his royal protection, and

razing him to gibbet foplings and pedants to as heart's content. It was at the especial desire the king that Moliere, finding envious tongues at alenced by the "Critique," wrote a second

in the same vein. It was called "L'Imprompia de Versailles," and represented a rehearsal at which Moliere and his company discuss various wita of dramatic writing and acting. “The abuse is is a pill one can swallow," observed Molière, trationsly; but one can't chew it without ying a wry face." The rival company of actors the Hotel de Bourgogne joined their "most et vaces" to the outcry against the innovator; ta general shout of ridicule put them to silence.

FAVOUR OF LOUIS XIV.

The position Molière had achieved in the regard caltosideration of the king is proved by the

that Louis himself did not disdain to be goder to the poet's eldest child; and the Duchess Ureans was godmother. This was in 1661, to A year belong two of the minor pieces of Xare, written to order, for representation at al Sites, interspersed with ballet scenes or &ertisements, introduced by royal command, ad which must have sorely tried the patience of the dramatist. The king himself did not disdain 3 take the part of one of the dancers; but was led tinue the somewhat derogatory amuseset by a not unapt allusion in the "Britannicus" f kane, where the great tragic poet censures a man Emperor, who, forgetting the dignity of sara office, exhibits himself in ignoble guise to

bjets in the public arena. The two pieces ¤ question are “Le Marriage Forcé,” or marriage espasion, a humorous farce; and "La Prinens d'Elide," a graceful comedy, adapted from

anish, in which the disdain of a haughty pra, the heroine, is overcome by the stratagem of fegning indifference; by which the proud ty is piqued first into interest, then into insertion of her power, and finally into hearty The Spanish original has also been

made the subject of a German play, entitled "Donna Diana.” A capital character is that of the Fool, who prefers the practical to the ideal in life; and, like the boy in Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth, would give any amount of warlike glory that may be coming to him, for "a pot of ale and safety." "For my part," says this matter-of-fact gentleman, "I would rather live two days in the world, than a thousand years in history." To those who twit him with the exceeding speed wherewith he effected his retreat from a wild boar, this philosopher coolly replies, "It might not be heroic to run, but it was perfection of good sense."

MOLIÈRE'S MASTERPIECE, LE TARTUFFE. Majora canamus. This same year is associated with the beginning of the work always considered the masterpiece of Molière, the immortal "Tartuffe." In this play the author had undertaken a very difficult and delicate task; that of exposing the hypocrisy of those dangerous impostors who would make use of the outward forms of piety and religion to advance their fortunes in the world,whose vindictive malice is the more to be feared in that they fight with weapons which in themselves command respect. Of such men there were but too many at the court of Louis XIV.; and the time was to come when the king himself would give ear to the false teachers on whose tongues the words "les intérêts du ciel" were a formula under which they worked out their own evil designs of bigotry, intolerance, and pride. "Estimer le fantôme autant que la personne, et la fausse monnaie à l'égal de la bonne”—the confounding of appearance with reality, the circulation of the false coinage of cant, for the true metal of honest striving after virtue in life and action-fanaticism and hypocrisy quoting Scripture for a purpose, and pursuing vile and selfish ends under the cloak 'of holiness-such was the vice that Molière dared to drag into the daylight in this his greatest work.

The first three acts were written early in 1664, and first played in May of that year; and so startling was the effect, and so many were the remonstrances addressed to the king himself, on what was considered by the Tartuffes of the day the unwarrantable licence of the writer, that Louis thought it best to avoid scandal by prohibiting the piece, which was accordingly "shelved" for a time. In another piece, "Le Festin de Pierre,' the plot of which was afterwards used for the book of Mozart's "Don Giovanni," Molière takes occasion to speak his mind against the hypocrites who moved heaven and earth theatrical exposure they feared.

to prevent the "At the present

day," says Don Juan, the cynical vicious hero of the "Festin de Pierre," "the profession of a hypocrite has marvellous advantages. It is an art whose imposture is always respected; and though it may be found out, no one dares say anything against it. All other vices of mankind are exposed to censure, and every one has full licence to attack them boldly; but hypocrisy is a privileged vice, whose hand shuts every one's mouth, and which therefore enjoys a sovereign impunity." But in the same year the piece was privately played before the king and several of the royal family at the Prince de Conde's. Louis had far too much discernment not to see through the selfishness that animated the violent faction against the piece and its author. Gradually the interdiction was removed, after several appeals by the author to the prince, and the opponents of the piece had the mortification to find, when the "Tartuffe" was at length represented in public, in 1667, that the delay, and the difficulties they had thrown in the way, had only made the Parisians more eager than ever to see it. "Tartuffe," or the "Impostor," brings before us a group of thoroughly lifelike personages. There is the cheat himself, supple, wary, and sanctimonious; sour and starched of aspect towards the dependants such as Dorine, on whom he thinks he can easily make an impression; but assuming an appearance of pious resignation and unmerited suffering in the presence of his patron, Orgon, whom he dupes most egregiously. "Il faudra donc que je me mortifie," is his pious ejaculation, when he is called upon to accept the nomination as heir to all his patron's property; the son of Orgon, Damis, having been disinherited through his means. To Elmire, the cool-headed and sensible wife of Orgon, he appears in a different character. Here he seems to know that all his art will be required to "make the worse appear the better reason," and pours his poisoned sophistries into her ear with the subtlety of Belial himself. All was false and hollow, for his thoughts were low." And when his disguise will avail him no longer, but he stands detested for what he is, he flings it off as a man would drop a cloak, and stands forth in his true colours, brazen, vindictive, and a reprobate. Then at the very last, when justice has overtaken him, and he is to be carried off to prison, he accepts his fate without a word, like the astute rascal he is. He has played his miserable game to the end, has lost it, and has doubtless too often contemplated the penalty, to be surprised into outcry when it comes. The other characters are drawn with wonderful skill and truth. There is Madame Pernelle, the old mother of Orgon, opinionated and obstinate,

a thick-and-thin supporter of Tartuffe, her partizanship sharpened by the difficulty she finds in replying to the scornful remonstrances with which her injudicious praise of her hero is met by those about her. There is Orgon, the dupe, so infatuated with the shameless impostor, who speaks of him in private as un homine à mener par le nez," a man to be led by the nose, that the coarsest imposture of Tartuffe is received by him with admiring and unquestioning belief; this same Orgon, too, most characteristically declaring, when at last he has been convinced of his error by the evidence of his own eyes and ears, that he will henceforth and for ever be the implacable foe of "tous les gens de bien "-thus falling, as such unreasoning people always do, from one extreme into the other. Then there are Elmire, the sensible wife of Orgon, quiet, self-possessed, with woman's wit sufficiently sharp to cut through the meshes of Tartuffe's net of falsehood, without any unnecessary excitement or demonstration of anger; Damis, the son of Orgon, rash and impetuous, proposing to counteract Tartuffe's schemes of vengeance by cutting off that astute gentleman's ears; Valère and Marianne, the two lovers, who quarrel and make friends as lovers always have done and always will do; Dorine, the sharp. loquacious attendant, who, hating and despising Tartuffe, takes a pleasure in shocking the oily knave's sensibilities; and last, not least, Cléante, Orgon's brother-in-law, with his honest, manly good sense, and his quiet but eloquent protest against the shallow pretenders who would build up a reputation and a fortune for themselves on a foundation of vain words. No wonder the hypocrites fought tooth and nail against the represen tation of the play. Never had the mirror been held up to nature with better effect; never had scorn beheld her own image more completely.

THE MISANTHROPE.

Before this play had been permitted to rouse the laughter and admiration of the capital, Molière's reputation had been increased by other works, and his influence established by new tokens of the king's favour. Molière's company was now called the "troupe du roi," and the poet and his chief actors were pensioned. It was also understood that whoever showed any superciliousness or scorn with regard to Molière stood a good chance of incurring the displeasure of his master; and the court of Louis XIV. was not so unlike other courts of all times and countries as to fail in courtesy and offers of service to one whom the monarch had distinguished by his especial notice. It was under very favourable circumstances that "Le