February. But La Grange elsewhere mentions the date as
“Shrove Tuesday,” which was, it seems, the 14th of February.
Elsewhere M. Loiseleur makes the date of the marriage a vague
day “in January.” The truth is that the marriage contract is
dated the 23rd of January 1662 (Soulié, Documents, p. 203).
Where it is so difficult to establish the date of the marriage,
a simple fact, it must be infinitely harder to discover the truth as
to the conduct of Mme Molière. The abominable assertions of the
anonymous libel, Les Intrigues de Molière et celles de sa femme;
ou la fameuse comédienne (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 Molière
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 Molière, in which
the comedian is made to tell the story of his wrongs, is plainly
a mere fiction, and is answered in Grimarest by another dialogue
between Molière and Rohault, in which Molière only complains
of a jealousy which he knows to be unfounded. It is noticed,
too, that the contemporary assailants of Molière counted him
among jealous, but not among deceived, husbands. The hideous
accusation brought by the actor Montfleury, that Molière had
married his own daughter, Louis XIV. answered by becoming
the godfather of Molière’s child. The king, indeed, was a firm
friend of the actor, and, when Molière was accused of impiety
on the production of Don Juan (1665) Louis gave him a pension.
We need not try to make Mme Molière 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 Molière
drew her portrait in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (acte iii. sc. ix.),
“elle est capricieuse, mais on souffre tout des belles.”
From 1662 onwards Molière suffered the increasing hatred of his rival actors. La Grange mentions the visit of Floridor and Montfleury to the queen mother, and their attempt to obtain equal favour, “la troupe de Molière leur donnant beaucoup de jalouzie” (Aug. 12, 1662). On the 26th of December was played for the first time the admirable École des femmes, which provoked a literary war, and caused a shower of “paper bullets of the brain.” The innocence of Agnes was called indecency; the sermon of Arnolphe was a deliberate attack on Christian mysteries. We have not the space to discuss the religious ideas of Molière; but both in L’École des femmes and in Don Juan he does display a bold contempt for the creed of “boiling chaldrons” and of physical hell. A brief list of the plays and pamphlets provoked by L’École des femmes is all we can offer in this place.
December 26, 1662.—École des femmes.
February 9, 1663.—Nouvelles nouvelles, by De Visé. Molière is accused of pilfering from Straparola.
June 1, 1663.—Molière’s own piece, Critique de l’école des femmes. In this play Molière retorts on the critics, and especially on his favourite butt, the critical marquess.
August 1663.—Zélinde, a play by De Visé, is printed. The scene is in the shop of a seller of lace, where persons of quality meet, and attack the reputation of “Élomire”—that is, Molière. He steals from the Italian, the Spanish, from Furetière’s Francion, “il lit tous les vieux bouquins,” he insults the noblesse, he insults Christianity, and so forth.
November 17, 1663.—Portrait du peintre is printed—an attack on Molière by Boursault. This piece is a detailed criticism, by several persons, of L’École des femmes. It is pronounced dull, vulgar, farcical, obscene and (what chiefly vexed Molière, who knew the danger of the accusation) impious. Perhaps the only biographical matter we gain from Boursault’s play is the interesting fact that Molière was a tennis-player. On the 4th November 1663, Molière 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 Hôtel de Bourgogne were parodied on the stage, and their art was ridiculed.
The next scenes in this comedy of comedians were:—
November 30.—The Panégyrique de l’école des femmes, by Robinet.
December 7.—Réponse à l’impromptu; ou la vengeance des marquis, by De Visé.
January 19, 1664.—L’Impromptu de l’hôtel de Condé. It is a reply by a son of Montfleury.
March 17, 1664.—La Guerre comique; ou défense de l’école des femmes.
1664.—Lettre sur les affaires du théâtre, published in Diversités galantes. by the author of Zélinde.
In all those quarrels the influence of Corneille was opposed to Molière, while his cause was espoused by Boileau, a useful ally, when “les comédiens et les auteurs, depuis le cèdre [Corneille?] jusqu’à l’hysope, sont diablement animés contre lui” (Impromptu de Versailles, sc. v.).
Molière’s next piece was Le Mariage forcé (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’Élide was acted for the first time, and the three first acts of Tartuffe were given. Molière’s natural hatred of hypocrisy had not been diminished by the charges of blasphemy which were showered on him after the École des femmes. Tartuffe made enemies everywhere. Jansenists and Jesuits, like the two marquesses in L’Impromptu de Versailles, each thought the others were aimed at. Five years passed before Molière got permission to play the whole piece in public. In the interval it was acted before Madame, Condé, the legate, and was frequently read by Molière in private houses. The Gazette of the 17th of May 1664 (a paper hostile to Molière) says that the king thought the piece inimical to religion. Louis was not at that time on good terms with the dévots, whom his amours scandalized; but, not impossibly, the queen mother (then suffering from her fatal malady) disliked the play. A most violent attack on Molière, “that demon clad in human flesh,” was written by one Pierre Roullé (Le Roy glorieux au monde, Paris, 1664). This fierce pamphlet was suppressed, but the king’s own copy, in red morocco with the royal arms, remains to testify to the bigotry of the author, who was curé of Saint Barthélemy. According to Roullé, Molière deserved to be sent through earthly to eternal fires. The play was prohibited, as we have seen, but in August 1665 the king adopted Molière’s troupe as his servants, and gave them the title of “troupe du roy.” This, however, did not cause Molière 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 familiar already on the Spanish, Italian and French stages. Molière made it a new thing: terrible and romantic in its portrait of un grand seigneur mauvais homme, modern in its suggested substitution of la humanité 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 Molière, and even in 1682 the publication of the full text was not permitted. Happily the copy of De la Regnie, the chief of the police, escaped obliterations, and gave us the full scene of Don Juan and the Beggar. The piece provoked a virulent criticism (Observations sur le festin de Pierre, 1665). It is allowed that Molière has some farcical talent, and is not unskilled as a plagiarist, but he “attacks the interests of 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 hand of Molière. The king’s reply, as has been shown, was to adopt Molière’s company as his servants, and to pension them. L’Amour médecin, a light comedy, appeared on the 22nd of September 1665. In this piece Molière, for the second time, attacked physicians. In December there was a quarrel with Racine about his play of Alexandre, which he treacherously transferred to the Hôtel 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 Molière, was more successful with the critics, with the court, and with posterity than with the public. The rival comedians called it “a new style of comedy,” and so it was. The eternal
