These

Fléchier's eloquent funeral oration on her daughter.* insipid affectations, which French critics are fond of imputing to an Italian influence, savor quite as much of the Spanish cultismo, as of the concetti of the former nation, and may be yet more fairly referred to the same false principles of taste, which distinguished the French Pleiades of the sixteenth century, and the more ancient compositions of their Provençal ancestors. Dictionaries were compiled, and treatises written illustrative of this precious vocabulary; all were desirous of being initiated into the mysteries of so elegant a science, even such men as Corneille and Bossuet did not disdain to frequent the saloons where it was studied; the spirit of imitation, more active in France than in other countries, took possession of the provinces; every village had its coterie of précieuses, after the fashion of the capital; and a false taste and criticism threatened to infect the very sources of pure and healthful lit

erature.

It was against this fashionable corruption that Molière aimed his wit, in the little satire of the Précieuses Ridicules'; in which the valets of two noblemen are represented as aping their masters' tone of conversation, for the purpose of imposing on two young ladies fresh from the provinces, and great admirers of the new style. The absurdity of these affectations is still more strongly relieved, by the contemptuous incredulity of the father and servant, who do not comprehend a word of them. By this process Molière succeeded both in exposing and degrading these absurd pretensions; as he showed how opposite they were to common sense, and how easily they were to be acquired by the most vulgar minds. The success was such, as might have been anticipated on an appeal to popular feeling, where nature must always triumph over the arts of affectation. The piece was welcomed with enthusiastic applause, and the disciples of the Hôtel Rambouillet, most of whom were present at the first exhibition, beheld the fine fabric, which they had been so painfully constructing, brought to the ground by a single blow. And these follies,' said Ménage to Chapelain, which you and I see so finely criticized here, are

*How comes Laharpe to fall into the error of supposing that Fléchier referred to Madame Montausier, by this epithet of Arthénice? The bishop's style in this passage is as unequivocal as usual. See Cours de Littérature, &c. tome vi. p. 167.

Nor

what we have been so long admiring. We must go home and burn our idols.' 6 Courage, Molière,' cried an old man from the pit; this is genuine comedy.' The price of the seats was doubled from the time of the second representation. were the effects of the satire merely transitory. It converted an epithet of praise into one of reproach; and a femme précieuse, a style précieux, a ton précieux, once so much admired, have ever since been used only to signify the most ridiculous affectation.

There was, in truth, however, quite as much luck as merit, in this success of Molière; whose production exhibits no finer raillery, or better sustained dialogue, than are to be found in many of his subsequent pieces. It assured him, however, of his own strength, and disclosed to him the mode in which he should best hit the popular taste. 'I have no occasion to study Plautus or Terence any longer,' said he; 'I must, henceforth, study the world.' The world accordingly was his study; and the exquisite models of character which it furnished him, will last as long as it shall endure.

In 1660 he brought out the excellent comedy of the Ecole des Maris; and, in the course of the same month, that of the Fâcheux, in three acts; composed, learned, and performed within the brief space of a fortnight; an expedition evincing the dexterity of the manager, no less than that of the author. This piece was written at the request of Fouquet, superintendent of finances to Louis the Fourteenth, for the magnificent fête at Vaux, given by him to that monarch, and lavishly celebrated in the memoirs of the period, and with yet more elegance in a poetical epistle of La Fontaine to his friend De Maucroix. This minister had been entrusted with the principal care of the finances under Cardinal Mazarine, and had been continued in the same office by Louis the Fourteenth, on his own assumption of the government. The monarch, however, alarmed at the growing dilapidations of the revenue, requested from the superintendent an exposé of its actual condition, which, on receiving, he privately communicated to Colbert, the rival and successor of Fouquet. The latter, whose ordinary expenditure far exceeded that of any other subject in the kingdom, and who, in addition to immense sums occasionally lost at play, and daily squandered on his debaucheries, is said to have distributed in pensions more than four millions of livres annually, thought it would be an easy matter VOL. XXVII.-NO. 61.

49

to impose on a young and inexperienced prince, who had hitherto shown himself more devoted to pleasure than business; and accordingly gave in false returns, exaggerating the expenses, and diminishing the actual receipts of the treasury. The detection of this peculation determined Louis to take the first occasion of dismissing his powerful minister; but his ruin was precipitated and completed by the discovery of an indiscreet passion for Madame de la Vallière, whose fascinating graces were then beginning to acquire for her that ascendency over the youthful monarch, which has since condemned her name to such unfortunate celebrity. The portrait of this lady, seen in the apartments of the favorite, on the occasion to which we have adverted, so incensed Louis, that he would have had him arrested on the spot, but for the seasonable intervention of the queen mother, who reminded him that Fouquet was his host. It was for this fête at Vaux, whose palace and ample domains, covering the extent of three villages, had cost their proprietor the sum, almost incredible for that period, of eighteen million livres, that Fouquet put in requisition all the various talents of the capital, the dexterity of its artists, and the invention of its finest poets. He was particularly lavish in his preparations for the dramatic portion of the entertainment. Le Brun passed for a while, from his victories of Alexander, to paint the theatrical decorations; Torelli was employed to contrive the machinery; Pelisson furnished the prologue, much admired in its day; and Molière his comedy of the Fâcheux.

This piece, the hint for which may have been suggested by Horace's ninth satire, Ibam forte via Sacrâ, is an amusing caricature of the various bores, that infest society, rendered the more vexatious by their intervention at the very moment when a young lover is hastening to the place of assignation with his mistress. Louis the Fourteenth, after the performance, seeing his master of the hunts near him, M. Soyecour, a personage remarkably absent, and inordinately devoted to the pleasures of the chase, pointed him out to Molière as an original, whom he had omitted to bring upon his canvass. The poet took the hint, and, the following day, produced an excelÎent scene, where this Nimrod is made to go through the technics of his art; in which he had himself, with great complaisance, instructed the mischievous satirist, who had drawn him into a conversation for that very purpose, on the preceding evening.

This play was the origin of the comédie-ballet, afterwards so popular in France. The residence at Vaux brought Molière more intimately in contact with the king and the court than he had before been; and from this time may be dated the particular encouragement which he ever after received from this prince, and which effectually enabled him to triumph over the malice of his enemies. A few days after this magnificent entertainment, Fouquet was thrown into prison, where he was suffered to languish the remainder of his days; which,' says the historian from whom we have gathered these details, 'he terminated in sentiments of the most sincere piety.' A termination by no means uncommon in France, with that class of persons, of either sex, respectively, who have had the misfortune to survive their fortune or their beauty.

6

*

In February, 1662, Molière formed a matrimonial connexion with Mademoiselle Béjart; a young comedian of his company, who had been educated under his own eye, and whose wit and captivating graces had effectually ensnared the poet's heart; but for which he was destined to perform doleful penance the remainder of his life. The disparity of their ages, for the lady was hardly seventeen, might have afforded in itself a sufficient objection; and he had no reason to flatter himself that she would remain uninfected by the pernicious example of the society, in which she had been educated, and of which he himself was not altogether an immaculate member. In his excellent comedy of the Ecole des Femmes, brought forward the same year, the story turns upon the absurdity of an old man's educating a young female, for the purpose, at some future time, of marrying her; which wise plan is defeated by the unseasonable apparition of a young lover, who, in five minutes, undoes what it had cost the veteran so many years to contrive. The pertinency of this moral to the poet's own situation shows how much easier it is to talk wisely, than to

act so.

This comedy, popular as it was on its representation, brought upon the head of its author a pitiless pelting of parody, satire, and even slander, from those of his own craft who were jealous of his unprecedented success, and from those literary petits-maîtres who still smarted with the stripes inflicted on

* Histoire de la Vie, &c. de La Fontaine, par M. Walckenaer. Paris, 1824.

them, in some of his previous performances. One of this latter class, incensed at the applauses bestowed upon the piece on the night of its first representation, indignantly exclaimed, Ris donc, parterre; ris donc ! Laugh then, pit, if you will '; and immediately quitted the theatre.

Molière was not slow in avenging himself of these interested criticisms, by means of a little piece, entitled La Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes; in which he brings forward the various objections made to his comedy, and ridicules them with unsparing severity. These objections appear to have been chiefly of a verbal nature. A few such familiar phrases, as Tarte à la crême, Enfans par l'oreille, &c., gave particular offence to the purists of that day, and, in the prudish spirit of French criticism, have since been condemned by Voltaire and Laharpe as unworthy of comedy. One of the personages, introduced into the Critique, is a marquis, who, when repeatedly interrogated as to the nature of his objections to the comedy, has no other answer to make, than by his eternal Tarte à la crême. The Duc de Feuillade, a coxcomb of little brains, but great pretension, was the person generally supposed to be here intended. The peer, unequal to an encounter of wits with his antagonist, resorted to a coarser remedy. Meeting Molière one day in the gallery at Versailles, he advanced as if to embrace him; a civility which the great lords of that day occasionally condescended to bestow upon their inferiors. As the unsuspecting poet inclined himself to receive the salute, the duke seizing his head between his hands, rubbed it briskly against the buttons of his coat, repeating at the same time, Tarte à la crême, Monsieur; tarte à la crême. The king, on receiving intelligence of this affront, was highly indignant at it, and reprimanded the duke with great asperity. He, at the same time, encouraged Molière to defend himself with his own weapons; a privilege of which he speedily availed himself, in a caustic little satire in one act, entitled the Impromptu de Versailles. The marquis,' he says in this piece, 'is now-a-days the droll (le plaisant) of the comedy. And as our ancestors always introduced a jester to furnish mirth for the audience, so we must have recourse to some ridiculous marquis to divert them.'

It is obvious that Molère could never have maintained this independent attitude, if he had not been protected by the royal favor. Indeed, Louis was constant in giving him this pro