Tartarin be manacled to Bonivard's chain, thus making the two stories seem for a moment to coincide, and you will get a very amusing scene, one of the most amusing that Daudet's imagination has pictured.[1] Numerous incidents of the mock-heroic style, if analysed, would reveal the same elements. The transposition from the ancient to the modern—always a laughable one—draws its inspiration from the same idea.
Labiche has made use of this method in every shape and form. Sometimes he begins by building up the series separately, and then delights in making them interfere with one another: he takes an independent group—a wedding-party, for instance—and throws them into altogether unconnected surroundings, into which certain coincidences allow of their being foisted for the time being. Sometimes he keeps one and the same set of characters right through the play, but contrives that certain of these characters have something to conceal—have, in fact, a secret understanding on the point—in short, play a smaller comedy within the principal one: at one moment, one of the
- ↑ Tartarin sur les Alpes, by Daudet.
