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MOLIERE (1622-1673)
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See also:MOLIERE (1622-1673) , the nom de See also:theatre chosen, for some undiscovered See also:reason, by the See also:great See also:French dramatist See also:Jean See also:Baptiste Poquelin, and ever since substituted for his See also:family name. He was See also:born in See also:Paris, probably in See also:January 1622. The baptismal certificate which is usually, and almost with See also:absolute certainty, accepted as his is dated 15th January 1622, but it is not possible to infer that he was born on the See also:day of his christening. The exact See also:place of his See also:birth is also disputed, but it seems tolerably certain that he saw the See also:light in a See also:house of the See also:Rue St Honore. His See also:father was Jean Poquelin, an See also:upholsterer, who, in 1631, succeeded his own See also:uncle as " See also:valet tapissier de chambre du roi." The family of Poquelin came from See also:Beauvais, where for some centuries they had been prosperous tradesmen. The See also:legend of their Scotch descent seems to have been finally disproved by the researches of M. E. See also:Reverend du Mesnil. The See also:mother of Moliere was See also:Marie Cresse; and on his father 's See also:side he was connected with the family of Mazuel, musicians attached tothe See also:court of See also:France. In 1632 Moliere lost his mother; his father married again in 1633. The father possessed certain shops in the covered See also:Halle de la Foire, See also:Saint Germain See also:des Pres, and the biographers have imagined that Moliere might have received his first See also:bent towards the See also:stage from the See also:spectacles offered to the See also:holiday See also:people at the See also:fair. Of his See also:early See also:education little is known; but it is certain that his mother possessed a See also:Bible and See also:Plutarch's Lives, books which an intelligent See also:child would not fail to study. In spite of a persistent tradition, there is no reason to believe that the later education of Moliere was neglected. " Il See also:fit ses humanitez au See also:college de Clermont," says the brief See also:life of the comedian published by his friend and See also:fellow-actor, La See also:Grange, in the edition of his See also:works printed in 1682. La Grange adds that Moliere " eut l'See also:advantage de suivre M. le See also:Prince de See also:Conti clans toutes ses classes." As Conti was seven years younger than Moliere, it is not easy to understand how Moliere came to be the school contemporary of the prince. Among more serious studies the Jesuit fathers encouraged their pupils to take See also:part in ballets, and in later life Moliere was a distinguished See also:master of this sort of entertainment. According to Grimarest, the first writer who published a life of Moliere in any detail (1705), he not only acquired " his humanities," but finished his " See also:philosophy " in five years. He See also:left the College de Clermont in 1641, the See also:year when Gassendi, a great contemner of See also:Aristotle, arrived in Paris. The See also:Logic and See also:Ethics of Aristotle, with his Physics and See also:Meta-physics, were the See also:chief philosophical textbooks at the College de Clermont. But when he became the See also:pupil of Gassendi (in See also:company with Cyrano de See also:Bergerac, Chapelle, and Hesnaut), Moliere was taught to appreciate the atomic philosophy of See also:Lucretius. There seems no doubt that Moliere began, and almost or quite finished, a See also:translation of the De natura rerum. According to a See also:manuscript See also:note of Trallage, published by M. See also:Paul See also:Lacroix, the manuscript was sold by Moliere's widow to a See also:book-seller. His philosophic studies left a deep See also:mark on the See also:genius of Moliere. In the Jugement de Pluton sur See also:les deux parties des nouveaux dialogues des morts (1684), the See also:verdict is " que Moliere ne parleroit point de philosophie." To " talk philosophy " was a favourite exercise of his during his life, and his ideas are indicated with sufficient clearness in several of his plays. There seems no connexion between them and the opinions of "Moliere le Critique " in a See also:dialogue of that name, published in See also: Moliere acknowledges the See also:receipt of See also:money due to him from his deceased mother's See also:estate, and gives up his claim to succeed his father as "valet de chambre du roi." On the 28th of See also:December of the same year we learn, again from documentary evidence, that Jean Baptiste Poquelin, with See also:Joseph Bejard, Madeleine Bejard, See also:Genevieve Bejard, and others, have hired a See also:tennis-court and fitted it up as a stage for dramatic performances. The company called themselves L'Illustre Theatre, illustre being then almost a See also:slang word, freely employed by the writers of the See also:period. We now reach a very important point in the private history of Moliere, which it is necessary to discuss at some length in See also:defence of the much maligned See also:character of a great writer and a good See also:man. Moliere's connexion with the family of Bejard brought him much unhappiness. The father of this family, Joseph Bejard the See also:elder, was a needy man, with eleven See also:children at least. His wife's name was Marie Herve. The most noted of his children, companions of Moliere, were Joseph, Madeleine, Genevieve, and Armande. Of these, Madeleine was a woman of great See also:talent as an actress, and Moliere's friend, or perhaps See also:mistress, through all the years of his wanderings. Now, on the 14th of See also:February 1662 (for we must here leave the See also:chronological order of events), Moliere married Armande Claire Elisabeth Gresinde Bejard: His enemies at that See also:time, and a number of his biographers in our own day, have attempted to prove that Armande Bejard was not the See also:sister, but the daughter of Madeleine, and even that Moliere's wife may have been his own daughter by Madeleine Bejard. The arguments of M. Arsene See also:Houssaye in support of this abominable theory are based on reckless and ignorant confusions, and do not deserve See also:criticism. But the See also:system of M. Loiseleur is more serious, and he goes no further than the See also:idea that Madeleine was the mother of Armande. This, certainly, was the See also:opinion of tradition, an opinion based on the slanders of See also:Montfleury, a See also:rival of Moliere's, on the authority of the spiteful and See also:anonymous author of La Fameuse comedienne (1688), and on the no less libellous play, Elomire hypochondre. In 1821 tradition received a See also:shock, for Beffara then discovered Moliere's "acte de mariage," in which Armande, the See also:bride, is spoken of as the sister of Madeleine Bejard, by the same father and mother. The old See also:scandal, or part of it, was revived by M. See also:Fournier and M. See also:Bazin, but received another See also:blow in 1863. M. Soulie then discovered a legal document of the loth of See also: Madeleine, says he, had already become the mother, in 1638, of a daughter by Esprit See also:Raymond de Moirmoron, See also:comte de Modene, and See also: It must also be observed that the date of the birth of Joseph Bejard is unknown, and he may have been, and according to M. Jal (Dictionnaire critique, p. 178) must have been, a See also:minor when he was so described in the document of the loth of March 1643, while Madeleine had only passed her twenty-fifth birthday, her legal See also:majority, by two months. This view of Joseph's age is supported by Bouquet (Moliere d See also:Rouen, p. 77). M. Loiseleur's only other See also:proof is that Marie Herve gave Armande a respectable See also:dowry, and that, as we do not know whence the money came, it must have come from Madeleine. The tradition in Grimarest, which makes Madeleine behave en femme furieuse, when she heard of the See also:marriage, is based on a juster appreciation of the character of See also:women. It will be admitted, probably, that the reasons for supposing that Moliere espoused the daughter of a woman who had been his mistress (if she had been his mistress) are flimsy and inadequate. The affair of the dowry is insisted on by M. Livet (La Fameuse comedienne, reprint of 1877, p. 143). But M. Livet explains the dowry by the hypothesis that Armande was the daughter of Madeleine and the comte de Modene, which exactly contradicts the theory of M. Loiseleur, and is itself contradicted by See also:dates, at least as understood by M. Loiseleur. Such are the conjectures by which the foul calumnies of Moliere's enemies are supported in the essays of See also:modern French critics. See also:Michelet accepted the scandal apparently as a See also:buttress to his charges against Louis XIV. and Madame (Histoire de France, 1879, XV. 63, 64, 332). To return to the order of events, Moliere passed the year 1643 in playing with and helping to See also:manage the Theatre Illustre. The company acted in various tennis-courts, with very little success. Moliere was actually arrested by the tradesman who supplied candles, and the company had to See also:borrow money from one See also:Aubrey to See also:release their See also:leader from the See also:Grand See also:Chatelet (Aug. 13, 1645). The See also:process of turning a tennis-court into a theatre was somewhat expensive, even though no seats were provided in the See also:pit. The troupe was for a short time under the See also:protection of the duc d'Orleans, but his favours were not lucrative. The duc de See also:Guise, according to some verses printed in 1646, made Moliere a See also:present of his See also:cast-off See also:wardrobe. But See also:costume was not enough to draw the public to the tennis-court theatre of the Croix Noire, and empty houses at last obliged the Theatre Illustre to leave Paris at the end of 1646. "Nul See also:animal vivant n'entra dans nbtre salle," says the author of the scurrilous play on Moliere, Elomire hypochondre. But at that time some dozen travelling companies found means to exist in the provinces, and Moliere determined to play among the rural towns. The career of a strolling player is much the same at all times and in all countries. The See also:Roman comique of See also:Scarron gives a vivid picture of the adventures and misadventures, the difficulty of transport, the queer cavalcade of horses, mules, and lumbering carts that See also:drag the wardrobe and properties, the sudden See also:metamorphosis of the tennis-court, where the balls have just been rattling, into a stage, the quarrels with See also:local squires, the disturbed nights in crowded See also:country inns, all the loves and See also:wars of a troupe on the march. See also:Perrault tells us what the arrangements to the theatre were in Moliere's early time. Tapestries were hung See also:round the stage, and entrances and exits were made by struggling through the heavy curtains, which often knocked off the See also:hat of the comedian, or gave a See also:strange See also:cock to the See also:helmet of a See also:warrior or a See also:god. The See also:lights were candles See also:stuck in See also:tin sconces at the back and sides, but luxury sometimes went so far that a See also:chandelier of four candles was suspended from the roof. At intervals the candles were let down by a rope and See also:pulley, and any one within easy reach snuffed them with his fingers. A See also:flute and See also:tambour, or two fiddlers, supplied the See also:music. The highest prices were paid for seats in the dedans (cost of See also:admission fivepence); for the See also:privilege of See also:standing up in the pit twopence-See also:halfpenny was the See also:charge. The doors were opened at one o'See also:clock, the See also:curtain See also:rose at two. The nominal director of the Theatre Illustre in the provinces was Du Fresne; the most noted actors were Moliere, the Bejards, and Du Parc, called See also:Gros Rene. It is extremely difficult to follow exactly the See also:line of march of the company. They played at See also:Bordeaux, for example, but the date of this performance, when Moliere (according to See also:Montesquieu) failed in tragedy and was pelted, is variously given as 1644–1645 (Trallage), 1647 (Loiseleur), 1648–1658 (Lacroix). Perhaps the theatre prospered better elsewhere than in Paris, where the streets were barricaded in these early days of the See also:war of the See also:Fronde. We find Moliere at See also:Nantes in 1648, at Fontenay-la-Compte, and in the See also:spring of 1649 at See also:Agen, See also:Toulouse, and probably at See also:Angouleme and See also:Limoges. In January 165o they played at Narbonne, and between 165o and 1653 See also:Lyons was the headquarters of the troupe. In January 1653, or perhaps 1655, Moliere gave L'Etourdi at Lyons, the first of his finished pieces, as contrasted with the slight farces with which he generally diverted a country See also:audience. It would be interesting to have the precise date of this piece, but La Grange (1682) says that " in 1653 Moliere went to Lyons, where he gave his first See also:comedy, L'Etourdi," while in his Registre La Grange enters the year as 1655. At Lyons de See also:Brie and his wife, the famous Mlle de Brie, entered the troupe, and du Parc married the " marquise " de Gorla, better known as Mlle du Parc. The libellous author of La Fameuse comedienne reports that Moliere's See also:heart was the shuttlecock of the beautiful du Parc and de Brie, and the tradition has a persistent life. Moliere's own opinion of the ladies and men of his company may be read between the lines of his See also:Impromptu de See also:Versailles. In 1653 Prince de Conti, after many political adventures, was residing at La Grange, near See also:Pezenas, in See also:Languedoc, and See also:chance brought him into relations with his old schoolfellow Moliere. Conti had for first See also:gentleman of his See also:bed-chamber the See also:abbe See also:Daniel de Cosnac, whose See also:memoirs now throw light for a moment on the fortunes of the wandering troupe. Cosnac engaged the company " of Moliere and of La Bejart "; but another company, that of Cormier, nearly intercepted the favour of the prince. Thanks to the See also:resolution of Cosnac, Moliere was given one chance of appearing on the private theatre of La Grange. The excellence of his acting, the splendour of the costumes, and the insistence of Cosnac, and of Sarrasin, Conti's secretary, gained the day for Moliere, and a See also:pension was assigned to his company (Cosnac, Memoires, i. 128; Paris, 1852). As Cosnac proposed to pay Moliere a thousand crowns of his own money to recompense him in See also:case he was supplanted by Cormier, it is obvious that his profession had become sufficiently lucrative. In 1654, during the session of the estates of Languedoc, Moliere and his company played at See also:Montpellier. Here Moliere danced in a See also:ballet (Le Ballet des incompatibles) in which a number of men of See also:rank took part, according to the See also:fashion of the time. Moliere's own roles were those of the Poet and the Fishwife. The See also:sport of the little piece is to introduce opposite characters, dancing and singing together. Silence dances with six women, Truth with four courtiers, Money with a poet, and so forth. Whether the ballet, or any parts of it, are by Moliere, is still disputed (La Jeunesse de Moliere, suivie du ballet des incompatibles, P. L. See also:Jacob, Paris, 1858). In See also:April 1655 it is certain that the troupe was at Lyons, where they met and hospitably entertained a profligate buffoon, See also: After a later stay at Lyons, ending with a piece given for the benefit of the poor on the 27th of February 1658, Moliere passed to See also:Grenoble, returned to Lyons, and is next found in Rouen, where, we should have said, the Theatre Illustre had played in 1643 (F. Bouquet, La Troupe de Moliere d Rouen, p. 9o; Paris, 1880). At Rouen Moliere must have made or renewed the acquaintance of See also:Pierre and See also: He was at the See also:head of a company which, as La Grange, his friend and comrade, says, " sincerely loved him." He had the unlucrative patronage of a great prince to back him, and the See also:jealousy of all playwrights, and of the old theatres of the Hotel de Bourgogne and the Marais, to contend against. In this struggle we can follow him by aid of the Registre of La Grange (a brief See also:diary of receipts and payments), and by the help of notices in the rhymed See also:chronicles of Loret. The first See also:appearance of Moliere before the king was all but a failure. Nicomede, by the elder Corneille, was the piece, and we may believe that the actors of the Hotel de Bourgogne, who were present, found much to criticize. When the play was over, Moliere came forward and asked the king's permission to act " one of the little pieces with which he had been used to regale the provinces." The Docteur amoureux, one of several slight comedies admitting of much " gag," was then performed, and " diverted as much as it surprised the audience." The king commanded that the troupe should establish itself in Paris (Preface, ed. 1682). The theatre assigned to the company was a salle in the See also:Petit See also:Bourbon, in a line with the present Rue du Louvre. Some See also:Italian players already occupied the house on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays; the company of Moliere played on the other days. The first piece played in the new house (Nov. 3, 1658) was L'Etourdi. La Grange says the comedy had a great success, producing seventy pistoles for each actor. The success is admitted even by the spiteful author of Elomire hypochondre (Paris, 167o): " Je jouai l'Etourdi, qui fut une merveille." The success, however, is attributed to the farcical See also:element in the play and the acting—the See also:cuckoo-cry of Moliere's detractors. The See also:original of L'Etourdi is the Italian comedy (1629) L'Inavvertito, by See also:Nicole) See also:Barbieri detto Beltrame; Moliere pushed rather far his right to " take his own wherever he found it." Had he written nothing more original, the contemporary critic of the Festin de Pierre might have said, not untruly, that he only excelled in stealing pieces from the Italians. The piece is conventional: the stock characters of the prodigal son, the impudent valet, the old father occupy the stage. But the dialogue has amazing rapidity, and the vivacity of M. See also:Coquelin to Mascarille made L'Etourdi a favourite on the modern stage, though it cannot be read with very much See also: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'Etourdi. It has two parts, one an Italian imbroglio; the other, which alone keeps the stage, is the original See also:work of Moliere, though, of course, the idea of amantium irae is as old as literature. " Nothing so good," says Mr See also: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 c8tes chacun cria tout haut: C'est la faire et jouer les pieces comme it faut.' The same praise was given, perhaps even more deservedly, to Les Precieuses ridicules (Nov. 18, 1659). Doubts have been raised as to whether this famous piece, the first true comic See also: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'Etourdi, it was new to Paris. The short life of 1682, produced under La Grange's care, and probably written by See also:Marcel the actor, says the Precieuses was " made " in 1659. There is another controversy as to whether the ladies of the Hotel See also:Rambouillet, or merely their bourgeoises and rustic imitators, were laughed at. See also:Menage, in later years at least, professed to recognize an attack on the over-refinement and affectation of the original and, in most ways, See also:honourable precieuses of the Hotel Rambouillet. But Chapelle and See also:Bachaumont had discovered provincial precieuses, hyper-aesthetic See also:literary ladies, at Montpellier before Moliere's return to Paris; and Furetiere, in the Roman See also:bourgeois (r666), found Paris full of See also: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 ? This charge of See also: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 improvised 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 See also:farce, or, like Somaize, charged him with literary See also: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 See also:Cardinal See also:Mazarin. The play can never cease to please while literary affectation exists, and it has a comic force of deathless See also: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 imaginaire (May 28, r66o). The public See also: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 See also: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 See also:lent money to that See also:knave (Soulie, Recherches, p. 287).. On the rrth of See also:October 166o the Theatre du Petit Bourbon was demolished by the See also:superintendent of works, without See also: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 See also:united to extraordinary genius an See also:honour-able character and charming manner, which compelled them all to protest that they would never leave him, but always See also:share his fortunes." 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 the loth of January 1661. Moliere now gratified his rivals by a failure. See also:Don Garcie de See also:Navarre, a heavy tragi-comedy, which had long lain among his papers, was first represented on the 4th of 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 Von parle, ils ne savent pas faire ronfler les vers." All this was likely to irritate the grands comediens, and their See also:friends, who avenged themselves on that unfortunate jealous prince, Don Garcie de Navarre. The subject of this unsuccessful See also:drama is one of many examples which show how Moliere's mind was engaged with the serious or comic aspects of jealousy, a See also: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. 2o). 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 See also:marquis who rubbed the poet's head against his buttons, thereby cutting his See also:face severely. The story comes See also:late (1725) into his biography, but is supported by a passage in the contemporary play, Zelinde (Paris, 1663, See also:scene viii.). Before See also: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 the 24th of June he brought out for the first time L'Ecole des marls. The See also:general idea of the piece is as old as See also:Menander, and Moliere was promptly accused of pilfering from the Adelphi of See also:Terence. One of the ficelles of the comedy is borrowed from a story as old, at least, as See also:Boccaccio, and still amusing in a novel by Charles de See also:Bernard. It is significant of Moliere's talent that the See also: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 See also:laughter. The next new piece was Les Fascheux, a comedieballet, the Comedy of Bores, played before the king at See also:Fouquet's house at See also:Vaux le Vicomte (Aug. 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 See also:motto), and the king was organizing the arrest and fall of Fouquet, his rival in the affections of La Valliere. The author of the See also:prologue to Les Fascheux, See also:Pellisson, a friend of Fouquet's, was arrested with the superintendent of See also:finance. Pellisson's prologue and name were retained in the later See also:editions. In the See also:dedication to the king Moliere says that Louis suggested one scene (that of the Sportsman), and in another place he mentions that the piece was written, rehearsed, and played in a fortnight. The fundamental idea of the play, the interruptions by bores, is suggested by a satire of See also:Regnier's, and that by a satire of See also:Horace. Perhaps it may have been the acknowledged suggestions of the king which made gossips declare that Moliere habitually worked up hints and memoires given him by persons of quality (Nouvelles nouvelles, 1663). In February 1662 Moliere married Armande Bejard. The date is given thus in the Registre of La Grange: " Mardy 14, Les Visionnaires, L'Ecol des M. " Part. Visite chez Me d'Equeuilly." And on the margin he has painted a See also:blue circle—his way of recording a happy event—with the words, " mariage de M. de Moliere au sortir de la Visite." M. Loiseleur gives the date in one passage as the 29th of February; in another as the loth of February. But La Grange elsewhere mentions the date as " Shrove Tuesday," which was, it seems, the 14th of February. Elsewhere M. Loiseleue makes the date of the marriage a vague day " in January." The truth is that the marriage See also:contract is dated the 23rd of January 1662 (Soulie, Documents, p. 203). Where it is so difficult to establish the date of the marriage, a See also:simple fact, it must be infinitely harder to discover the truth as to the conduct of Mme Moliere. The abominable assertions of the anonymous See also:libel, Les Intrigues de Moliere et celles de sa femme; ou la fameuse comedienne (1688), have found their way into tradition, and are accepted by many biographers. But M. Livet and M. Bazin have proved that the alleged lovers of Mme Moliere were actually absent from France, or from the court, at the time when they are reported, in the libel, to have conquered her heart. A conversation between Chapelle and Moliere, in which the comedian is made to tell the story of his wrongs, is plainly a See also:mere fiction, and is answered in Grimarest by another dialogue between Moliere and Rohault, in which Moliere only complains of a jealousy which he knows to be unfounded. It is noticed, too, that the contemporary assailants of Moliere counted him among jealous, but not among deceived, husbands. The hideous See also:accusation brought by the actor Montfleury, that Moliere had married his own daughter, Louis XIV. answered by becoming the godfather of Moliere's child. The king, indeed, was a See also:firm friend of the actor, and, when Moliere was accused of impiety on the See also:production of Don Juan (1665) Louis gave him a pension. We need not try to make Mme Moliere a vertu, as French ladies of the theatre say, but it is certain that the charges against her are unsubstantiated. It is generally thought that Moliere See also:drew her portrait in Le Bourgeois genlilhomme (acte u1. sc. ix.), " See also:ale est capricieuse, mais on souffre tout des belles." From 1662 onwards Moliere suffered the increasing hatred of his rival actors. La Grange mentions the visit of See also:Floridor and Montfleury to the queen mother, and their See also:attempt to obtain equal favour, " la troupe de Moliere leur dormant beau-coup de jalouzie " (Aug. 12, 1662). On the 26th of December was played for the first time the admirable Ecole des femmes, which provoked a literary war, and caused a shower of " See also:paper bullets of the See also:brain." The innocence of See also:Agnes was called indecency; the See also:sermon of Arnolphe was a deliberate attack on See also:Christian mysteries. We have not the space to discuss the religious ideas of Moliere; but both in L'Ecole des femmes and in Don Juan he does display a bold contempt for the creed of " boiling chaldrons " and of See also:physical See also:hell. A brief See also:list of the plays and See also:pamphlets provoked by L'Ecole des femmes is all we can offer in this place. December 26, 1662.—Ecole des femmes. February 9, 1663.—Nouvelles nouvelles, by De Vise. Moliere is accused of pilfering from Straparola. June 1, 1663.—Moliere's own piece, Critique de l'ecole des femmes. In this play Moliere retorts on the critics, and especially on his favourite See also:butt, the See also:critical See also:marquess. See also:August 1663.—Zelinde, a play by De Vise, is printed. The scene is in the See also:shop of a seller of See also:lace, where persons of quality meet, and attack the reputation of " Elomire "—that is, Moliere. He steals from the Italian, the See also:Spanish, from Furetiere's Francion, " it lit tous Ies vieux bouquins," he insults the noblesse, he insults See also:Christianity, and so forth. November 17, 1663.—Portrait du peintre is printed—an attack on Moliere by See also:Boursault. This piece is a detailed criticism, by several persons, of L'Ecole des femmes. It is pronounced dull, vulgar, farcical, obscene and (what chiefly vexed Moliere, who knew the danger of the accusation) impious. Perhaps the only See also:biographical See also:matter we gain from Boursault's play is the interesting fact that Moliere was a tennis-player. On the 4th November 1663, Moliere replied with L'Impromptu de Versailles, a witty and merciless attack on his critics, in which Boursault was mentioned by name. The actors of the Hotel de Bourgogne were parodied on the stage, and their See also:art was ridiculed. The next scenes in this comedy of comedians were: November 3o.—The Panegyrique de l'ecole des femmes, by Robinet. December 7.—Reponse a l'impromptu; ou la vengeance des marquis, by De Vise. January 19, 1664.—L'Impromptu de l'hOtel de See also:Conde. It is a reply by a son of Montfleury. March 17, 1664.—La Guerre comique; ou defense de l'ecole des femmes. 1664.—Lettre sur les affaires du theatre, published in Diversites galantes. by the author of Zelinde. In all those quarrels the See also:influence of Corneille was opposed to Moliere, while his cause was espoused by Boileau, a useful ally, when " les comediens et les auteurs, depuis le See also:cadre [Corneille?] jusqu'a l'hysope, sont diablement animas contre lui " (Impromptu de Versailles, sc. v.). Moliere's next piece was Le Mariage force (Feb. 15, 1664), a farce with a ballet. The comic character of the reluctant bridegroom excites contemptuous pity, as well as laughter. From the end of April till the 22nd of May the troupe was at Versailles, acting among the picturesque pleasures of that great festival of the king's. The Princesse d'Elide was acted for the first time, and the three first acts of Tartuffe were given. Moliere's natural hatred of See also:hypocrisy had not been diminished by the charges of See also:blasphemy which were showered on him after the Ecole des femmes. Tartuffe made enemies everywhere. Jansenists and See also:Jesuits, like the two marquesses in L'Impromptu de Versailles, each thought the others were aimed at. Five years passed before Moliere got permission to play the whole piece in public. In the See also:interval it was acted before Madame, Conde, the See also:legate, and was frequently read by Moliere in private houses. The See also:Gazette of the 17th of May 1664 (a paper hostile to Moliere) says that the king thought the piece inimical to See also:religion. Louis was not at that time on good terms with the devots, whom his amours scandalized; but, not impossibly, the queen mother (then suffering from her fatal malady) disliked the play. A most violent attack on Moliere, " that demon clad in human flesh," was written by one Pierre Roulle (Le See also:Roy glorieux au monde, Paris, 1664). This fierce pamphlet was suppressed, but the king's own copy, in red See also:morocco with the royal arms, remains to testify to the bigotry of the author, who was cure of Saint See also:Barthelemy. According to Roulle, Moliere deserved to be sent through earthly to eternal fires. The play was prohibited, as we have seen, but in August 1665 the king adopted Moliere's troupe as his servants, and gave them the See also:title of " troupe du roy." This, however, did not cause Moliere to relax his efforts to obtain permission for Tartuffe (or Tartufe, or Tartufle, as it was variously spelled), and his perseverance was at length successful. That his thoughts were busy with contemporary hypocrisy is proved by certain scenes in one of his greatest pieces, the Festin de Pierre, or Don Juan (Feb. 15, 1665). The legend of Don Juan was See also:familiar already on the Spanish, Italian and French stages. Moliere made it a new thing: terrible and romantic in its portrait of un grand seigneur mauvais homme, modern in its suggested substitution of la humanite for religion, comic, even among his comedies, by the mirthful character of Sganarelle. The piece filled the theatre, but was stopped, probably by authority, after Easter. It was not printed by Moliere, and even in 1682 the publication of the full See also:text was not permitted. Happily the copy of De la Regnie, the chief of the See also:police, escaped obliterations, and gave us the full scene of Don Juan and the See also:Beggar. The piece provoked a virulent criticism (Observations sur le festin de Pierre, 1665). It is allowed that Moliere has some farcical talent, and is not unskilled as a plagiarist, but he " attacks the interests of See also:Heaven," " keeps a school of infidelity," " insults the king," " corrupts virtue," " offends the queen-mother " and so , forth. Two replies were published, one of which is by some critics believed to show traces of the See also:hand of Moliere. The king's reply, as has been shown, was to adopt Moliere's company as his servants, and to pension them. L'Amour medecin, a light comedy, appeared on the 22nd of See also:September 1665. In this piece Moliere, for the second time, attacked physicians. In December there was a See also:quarrel with See also:Racine about his play of See also:Alexandre, which he treacherously transferred to the Hotel de Bourgogne. The 4th of June 1666 saw the first representation of that famous play, Le Misanthrope (ou L'Atrabiliaire amoureux, as the original second title ran). This piece, perhaps the masterpiece of Moliere, was more successful with the critics, with the court, and with posterity than with the public. The rival comedians called it " a new See also:style of comedy," and so it was. The eternal passions and sentiments of human nature, modified by the influence of the utmost refinement of See also:civilization, were the matter of the piece. The school for scandal kept by Celimene, with its hasty judgments on all characters, gave the artist a wide See also:canvas. The perpetual strife between the sensible optimism of a kindly man of the See also:world (Philinte) and the saeva indignatio of a See also:noble nature soured (Alceste) supplies the intellectual See also:action. The humours of the joyously severe Celimene and of her court, especially of that deathless minor poet Oronte, See also:supply the lighter comedy. Boileau, See also:Lessing, See also:Goethe have combined to give this piece the highest rank even among the comedies of Moliere. As to the " keys " to the characters, and the guesses about the original from whom Alceste was See also:drawn, they are as valueless as other contemporary tattle. A briefer See also:summary must be given of the remaining years of the life of Moliere. The attractions of Le Misanthrope were reinforced (Aug. 6) by those of the Medecin malgre lui, an amusing farce founded on an old See also:fabliau. In December the court and the comedians went to St Germain, where, among other diversions, the pieces called Melicerte, La Pastorale comique (of which Moliere is said to have destroyed the MS.) and the charming little piece Le Sicilien were performed. A See also:cold and fatigue seem to have injured the See also:health of Moliere, and we now hear of the consumptive tendency which was cruelly ridiculed in Elomire hypochondre. Moliere was doubtless obliged to see too much of the distracted or pedantic physicians of an age when See also:medicine was the battlefield of tradition, superstition, and nascent chemical See also:science. On the 17th of April 1667 Robinet, the rhyming gazetteer, says that the life of Moliere was thought to be in danger. On the loth of June, however, he played in Le Sicilien before the See also:town. In the earlier months of 1667 Louis XIV. was with the See also:army in See also:Flanders. There were embassies sent from the comedy to the See also:camp, and on the 5th of August it was apparent that Moliere had overcome the royal scruples. Tartuffe was played, but See also:Lamoignon stopped it after the first See also:night. La Grange and La Torilliere hastened to the camp, and got the king's promise that he would reconsider the matter on his return. Moliere's next piece (See also:Jan. 13, 1668) was See also:Amphitryon, a See also:free—a very free—See also:adaptation from See also:Plautus, who then seems to have engaged his See also:attention; for not long afterwards he again borrowed from the See also:ancient writer in L'Avare. There is a controversy as to whether Amphitryon was meant to ridicule M. de See also:Montespan, the See also:husband of the new mistress of Louis XIV. Michelet has a See also:kind of romance based on this probably groundless hypothesis. The king still saw the piece occasionally, after he had purged himself and forsworn See also:sack under Mme de See also:Maintenon, and probably neither he nor that devout See also:lady detected any See also:personal references in the coarse and witty comedy. As usual, Moliere was accused of plagiarizing, this time from See also:Rotrou, who had also imitated Plautus. The next play was the immortal See also:George Dandin (See also:July 1o), first played at a festival at Versailles. Probably the piece was a rapid See also:palimpsest on the ground of one of his old farces, but the addition of these typical members of a See also:county family, the De Sotenville, raises the work from farce to satiric comedy. The story is borrowed from Boccaccio, but is of unknown age, and always new—See also:Adolphus Crosbie in The Small House at Allington being a kind of modern George Dandin. Though the sad fortunes of this See also:peasant with social ambition do not fail to make us pity him somewhat, it is being too refined to regard George Dandin as a comedy with a concealed tragic intention. Moliere must have been at work on L'Avare before George Dandin appeared, for the new comedy after Plautus was first acted on the 9th of September. There is a tradition that the piece almost failed; but, if unpopular in the first year of its production, it certainly gained favour before the death of its author. M. de Pourceaugnac (See also:Sept. 17, 1669) was first acted at See also:Chambord, for the amusement of the king. It is a rattling farce. The physicians, as usual, See also:bore the brunt of Moliere's raillery, some of which is still applicable. Earlier in 1669 (Feb. 5) Tartuffe was played at last, with extraordinary success. Les Amants magnifiques, a comedy-ballet, was acted first at St Germain(Feb. ro, r67o). The king might have been expected to See also:dance in the ballet, but from Racine's See also:Britannicus (Dec. 13, 1669) the majestical monarch learned that See also:Nero was blamed for exhibitions of this kind, and he did not wish to out-Nero Nero. See also:Astrology this time took the place of medicine as a butt, but the satire has become obsolete, except, perhaps, in See also:Turkey, where astrology is still a See also:power. The Bourgeois gentilhomme, too familiar to require See also:analysis, was first played on the 23rd of October 1770. The lively Fourberies de Scapin " saw the footlights" (if footlights there were) on the 24th of May 167r, and on the 7th of May we read in La Grange, " les Repetitions de Spsyche ont commance." La Grange says the theatre was newly decorated and fitted with See also:machines. A " See also:concert of twelve violins" was also provided, the company being resolute to have every-thing handsome about them. New singers were introduced, who did not refuse to sing unmasked on the stage. See also:Quinault composed the words for the music, which was by Lulli; Moliere and Pierre Corneille collaborated in the dialogue of this magnificent See also:opera, the name of which (See also:Psyche) La Grange eventually learned how to spell.. The Comtesse d'Escarbagnas (Feb. 2, 1672) was another piece for the amusement of the court, and made part of an entertainment called Le Ballet des ballets. In this play, a study of provincial See also:manners, Moliere attacked the financiers of the time in the See also:person of M. Harpin. The comedy has little importance compared with Les Femmes savantes (Feb. 1r), a severer Precieuses, in which are satirized the vanity and affectation of sciolists, pedants and the women who admire them. The satire is never out of date, and finds its modern See also:form in Le Monde on l'on s'ennuie, by M. See also:Pailleron. On the 17th of February Madeleine Bejard died, and was buried at St Paul. She did not go long before her old friend or See also:lover Moliere. His Manage force, founded, perhaps, on a famous anecdote of See also:Gramont, was played on the 18th of July. On the 7th of August La Grange notes that Moliere was indisposed, and there was no comedy. Moliere's son died on the 11th of October. On the 22nd of November the preparations for the Malade imaginaire were begun. On the See also:roth of February 1673 the piece was acted for the first time. What occurred on the 17th of February we translate from the Registre of La Grange: " This same day, about ten o'clock at night, after the comedy, Monsieur de Moliere died in his house, Rue de Richelieu. He had played the part of the said Malade, suffering much from cold and inflammation, which caused a violent ccugh. In the violence of the cough he burst a See also:vessel in his See also:body, and did not live more than half" an See also:hour or three-quarters after the bursting of the vessel. His body is buried at St Joseph's, See also:parish of St Eustache. There is a gravestone raised about a See also:foot above the ground." Moliere's funeral is thus described in a See also:letter, said to be by an eyewitness, discovered by M. See also:Benjamin Fillon: " Tuesday, 21st February, about nine in the evening, was buried
Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere, tapissier valet de chambre, and a famous actor. There was no procession, except three ecclesiastics; four priests bore the body in a wooden bier covered with a See also:pall, six children in blue carried candles in See also:silver holders, and there were lackeys with burning torches of See also:wax. The body . . . was taken to St Joseph's See also:churchyard, and buried at the foot of the See also:cross. There was a great See also:crowd, and some twelve See also:hundred livres were distributed among the poor. The See also:archbishop had given orders that Moliere should be interred without any ceremony, and had even forbidden the See also:clergy of the See also:diocese to do any service for him. Nevertheless a number of masses were commanded to be said for the deceased."
When an attempt was made to exhume the body of Moliere in 1792, the wrong See also:tomb appears to have been opened. Unknown is the See also:grave of Moliere.
Moliere, according to Mlle See also:Poisson, who had seen him in her extreme youth, was " neither too stout nor too thin, tall rather than short; he had a noble See also:carriage, a good See also:leg, walked slowly, and had a very serious expression. His See also:nose was thick, his mouth large with thick lips, his complexion See also: The See also:charm of his conversation is attested by the names of his friends, who were all the wits of the age, and the greater their genius the greater their love of Moliere. As an actor, friends and enemies agreed in recognizing him as most successful in comedy. His ideas of tragic declamation were in advance of his time, for he set his face against the prevalent See also:habit of ranting. His private character was remarkable for gentleness, probity, generosity and delicacy, qualities attested not only by anecdotes but by the evidence of documents. He is probably the greatest of all comic writers within the limits of social and refined, as distinguished from romantic, comedy like that of See also:Shakespeare, and political comedy like that of See also:Aristophanes. He has the See also:humour which is but a sense of the true value of life, and noW takes the form of the most vivacious wit and the keenest observation, now of See also:melancholy and pity and wonder at the fortunes of mortal men. In the literature of France his is the greatest name, and in the literature of the modern drama the greatest after that of Shakespeare. Besides his contemplative genius he possessed an unerring knowledge of the theatre, the knowledge of a great actor and a great manager, and hence his plays can never cease to hold the stage, and to charm, if possible, even more in the performance than in the See also:reading. The best biography of Moliere on a level with the latest researches into his life is that in vol. x. of his works in Grands ecrivains de la France (See also:Eugene Despois and Paul Mesnard). The next best is probably that of M. Taschereau, prefixed to an edition of his works (fEuvres completes, Paris, 1863). To this may be added Jules Loiseleur's Les Points obscurs de la See also:vie de Moliere (Paris, 1877). We have seen that M. Loiseleur is not always accurate, but he is laborious. For other books it is enough to recommend the excellent Bibliographie molieresque of M. Paul Lacroix (1875), which is an all but faultless See also:guide. The best edition of Moliere's works for the purposes of the student is that published in Les Grands ecrivains de la France (See also:Hachette, Paris, 1874-1882). It contains reprints of many contemporary tracts, and, with the Registre of La Grange, and the Collection molieresque of M. Lacroix, is the chief source of the facts stated in this notice, in cases where the rarity of documents has prevented the writer from studying them in the original texts. Another valuable authority is the Recherches sur Moliere et sur sa famille of Ed. Soulie (1863). Lotheisen's Moliere, sein Leben and See also:seine Werke (Frankfurt, 188o), is a respect-able See also:German compilation. Le Molieriste (Tresse, Paris, ed. by M. Georges Monval) was a monthly serial, containing notes on Moliere and his plays, by a number of contributors. The essays, See also:biographies, plays and poems on Moliere are extremely numerous. The best guide to these is the indispensable Bibliographic of M. Lacroix. (A. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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