the capital. Great was the glory of the strolling actor; though he excited the hatred of a large number belonging to the first families in France, even those who were most pointedly ridiculed acknowledged the force of his genius and the general truthfulness of his satire. For example, it is related that when M. Ménage, who was a prominent member of the coterie, was leaving the theatre, after hearing Les Précieuses for the first time, he expressed his own recantation in the words of Clovis, when he became a convert to Christianity, and told the assembled Franks they must now burn the idols they had hitherto adored. "Monsieur, nous approu vions, vous et moi, toutes les sottises qui viennent d'être, critiquées si finement et avec tant de bon sens; mais pour me servir de ce que saint Remi dit à Clovis, il nous faudra brûler ce que nous avons adoré, et adorer ce que nous avons brulé."* No wonder that Molière himself was rejoiced; but, far from assuming any new airs, he continued as modest as ever. The chief effect of his success on himself was to satisfy him that his forte lay in satirizing the follies, extravagances, and vices of the day. His own remark was, that it was not necessary for him any longer to study Plautus and Terence, or to patch up fragments from Ménandre.t But the greatest misfortunes of Molière commenced with his greatest glory. No one affords a more striking and painful illustration of the adage, that unalloyed happiness is not the lot of man. Molière had, now, abundance of money as well as fame; but he wanted what he prized more than either, the love of his young wife, which he had the painful consciousness of being given to another. We here approach a most disagreeable episode in the life of Molière; but a part, at least, of the truth must be told, in order to satisfy the requirements of biography. While the poet was travelling in the country, he formed a liaison with Madeleine Béjart, an actress of his company, to whom we have already alluded. This does not seem to have lasted long. Soon again the susceptible poet formed another attachment, of which the object was Mademoiselle Duparc, who failed to return it. This caused him great grief. Mademoiselle de Brie, then in • Histoire du Théâtre Français, par les frères Parfait. "Je n'ai plus que faire d'étudier Plaute et Terence, ni d'épulcher des fragments de Ménandre."-Louandre, vol. i., p. 188. the prime of youth and beauty, readily understood his situation, and she lost no time in trying whether tenderness and friendship could not heal the wounds of love. She, too, belonged to the stage. When Molière came to Lyons, she was a member of another company; but, being a lady of education and intelligence, it was only necessary for her to read one of his pieces, or converse with him, in order to feel assured that he was no ordinary director. Accordingly, she lost no time in offering him her services, nor did he hesitate to accept them. By degrees she brought him to confide his grief to her. In a short time all need for sympathy on his part had passed away. But one day Molière appeared before her as sad as ever: "What does this mean?" said she. "Are you indeed relapsing again?" His reply was, that all her care had been useless; for that the malady, instead of leaving him, had only changed its form; and that he now required a physician who should save him from the wounds she herself had inflicted. Her response was equally witty and appropriate. "These wounds," said she, "will not hurt you; for they have been more fatal to myself than to you." This was the simple truth. It had been well for Molière that he had continued faithful to this lady; for, though an actress, she was a faithful and virtuous woman. There is no doubt that he married her; but it is equally certain that he was not long married, when he formed new attachments. He was all the more to blame for this, because all his biographers bear testimony to her high personal attractions. Thus, she is described by Bazin, as "tall, slender, and graceful; noble in her carriage, and natural in all her attitudes, with something particularly delicate in her face and features, which rendered her most fitting for the part of an ingénue. Her eyes possessed a peculiar charm, derived from their mingled expression of candor and tenderness. She was more intelligent than witty, and had not a shadow of coquetry." No actress of her time was more popular than Mademoiselle de Brie; but her popularity never made her haughty, or weaned her affections in the least from Molière. Even after he abandoned her, she still continued to love and admire him; nay, after his death, her chief pleasure was to personate the heroines he thought most of himself. Her favorite character was that of Agnès in the Ecole des Femmes. On one occasion, when sixty years of age, she yielded this character to a young actress, more suitable, she thought, than herself, to personate a heroine of sixteen. But the pit refused to accept the change; the greatest uproar prevailed, until the favorite had to be sent for; and next day the following verses appeared in the Mercure: "Il faut qu'elle ait été charmante The worst sin that Molière ever committed was to abandon a woman like this. Nor was retribution slow in reaching him for it; for the girl of sixteen years old, whom he had undertaken to educate himself, brought scandal and disgrace upon him. Armande Béjart, the sister of his former mistress, was twenty years his junior when he married her. The relationship alone would have been a cause of scandal; but it was even alleged that Armande was his own daughter, by Madeleine Béjart. Montfleury, an actor of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, wrote a pamphlet to prove the charge, and went so far as to present it to Louis XIV., in the form of a petition. The infamous attempt failed, however; it is to the glory of le Grand Monarque that, in order to give the most emphatic proof of his regarding the whole story as a slander, he became sponsor himself for Molière's first child by Armande, in conjunction with his sisterin-law, Henrietta of England, Duchess of Orleans. Of the many acts of kindness and friendship done by Louis XIV. to the literary men of his time, this was perhaps the most magnanimous; but it could not prevent Amande from being guilty of the most scandalous conduct as the wife of Molière. It was impossible for the poet himself to be ignorant of her conduct, for many years before their separation. Even now, it was she who separated from him, under pretence of being offended at some allusion to her amours. When his friend Chapelle came to console him, telling him that he was well rid of so false a woman, his reply was: "Shall I tell you all I have suffered since our separation? My heart is torn by regrets. I seek everywhere excuses for Armande's faults; and I find a thousand. I consider her youth and the temptations that surround her. I enter into her interests-I pity, and can no longer blame. I absolve her, in short, and hate myself for having been able to leave her. I affirm it-there is but one kind of love-it is that which I have described to you. Oh! my dear friend, everything in this world is associated in my heart with Armande. Nothing can console me for her absence; and if I were to behold her at this moment, my emotion, my delight, would deprive me of reflection. I should no longer have eyes for her defects, but only for her charming and agreeable qualities." We shall not trouble our readers, on the present occasion, with any account of the different intrigues in which it was publicly known Mme. Molière was engaged, for they would occupy a large part of our paper by themselves. The many injured husbands whom Molière ridiculed in his comedies had ample satisfaction when they heard of his own misfortunes, for the worst of them had hardly been more imposed upon than himself. Several of his comedies are either wholly founded on intrigues of this kind, or have a direct bearing upon them-such as Sgnarelle, ou Le Cocu Imaginaire, L'Ecole des Femmes, La Critique des L'Ecole des Femmes, Le Mariage Forcé and George Dandin. But to return to Les Précieuses Ridicules. This famous piece was translated, or, rather, imitated by Shadwell, the McFleenoe of Dryden, under the title of Bury-Fair, which, though little known now, was well received at the time of its publication. Molière's next production was the Cocu Imaginaire, first performed in 1660. This was not so successful as either of his two former pieces, although it was played before large houses, night after night, for six weeks, Don Garcie, ou Le Prince Jaloux, was somewhat similar to the Cocu, but more serious in its tone, and, whenever * In several of his plays, Molière alludes, but too plainly, to his own misfortunes. It is the portrait of the faithless and seductive Armande we have in scene 9, act III., of the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, where Cléante, begs Corielle to say all he can think of against Lucile, in order to fortify his resolution against any residue of his love that might yet plead her cause.' "Crielle Puis que cela, va comme cela, je vois bien que vouz avez enire de l'aimer tonjours. Clinte-Moi! jaimerais mieux mourir, et je vais la hair autant que je l'aimée. Corielle-Le moyen si vous la trouvez si parfaite?" He makes Arnolphe speak still more plainly in the Ecole des Femmes, thus: "Après vingt ans, et plus de méditation Pour me conduire en tout avec précaution, No one acquainted with the circumstances can doubt that it is to the ingratitude of Armande he alludes, in that passage, in the same scene in which Arnolphe (himself) discovers that he has lost Agnès (Armande), and that she loves Horace : Molière attempted to be grave, he signally failed. It was so on this occasion. But his next piece, L'Ecole de Maris, made amends for all, for it received the unanimous applause of all Paris. When Fouquet, Minister of Finance to Louis XIV., gave his celebrated entertainment to his royal master, it was this play he had selected for the occasion, and it elicited the admiration of all. It was at the same entertainment Les Fûscheux was first produced, and those who read it will agree that it was worthy of the occasion for which it was expressly written. Without being indelicate or vicious, it deals intimately with vice. There are various detached scenes, in which a lover, having an assignation with his mistress, is constantly interrupted, and prevented from seeing her by persons who, having nothing to do themselves, must needs annoy others. But never did bores afford more genuine amusement. His next work is L'Ecole des Femmesthe best comedy he had yet written. This, too, was immediately translated. The "Country Wife" of Wycherly is, however, but a poor imitation of the original. Molière's hero had been an intriguer in his youth; he therefore flattered himself that he was fully acquainted with all the wiles of womanhood. In order to avoid the misfortunes then so common among his neighbors, he resolves to marry his own ward, a young girl who seems as innocent as an angel, and who, to all appearance, would never look at any of the ruder sex but her guardian. She knows enough, however, to persuade him that she is devoted to him, but, while he is indulging in visions of future bliss, she finds occasion to unite herself to one more suited to her age. Although the public were delighted with the piece, the critics were loud and bitter in their censures, charging the author with outraging both the French language and the cause of morality. We know of no finer piece of criticism than Molière's defence of L'Ecole des Femmes. "In this," says M. Taschereau," he had the good fortune to escape the most dangerous fault of an author writing upon his own compositions, and to exhibit wit where others would only have shown vanity and self-conceit." It was on the same occasion that Boileau, the French Horace, said: "Let the envious exclaim against thee, because thy scenes are agreeable to all the vulgar; if thou wert less acquainted with the art of pleasing, thou wouldst be able to please even thy censors." Every succeeding piece, while it increased his popularity, also in |