less successful than L'Etourdi. It has two parts, one an Italian imbroglio; the other, which alone keeps the stage, is the original work of Moliére, though, of course, the idea of amanlium irae is as old as literature. “ Nothing so good, ” says Mr 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 cotés chacun cria tout haut: C'est la faire et jouer les pieces commeil faut.' ” The same praise was given, perhaps even more deservedly, to Les Précieuses ridicules (Nov. 18, 1659). Doubts have been raised as to whether this famous piece, the first true comic 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 Marcel the actor, says the Précieuses 'was “ made ” in 1659. There is another controversy as to whether the ladies of the Hotel Rambouillet, or merely their bourgeois es and rustic imitators, were laughed at. Ménage, in later years at least, professed to recognize an attack on the over-refinement and affectation of the original and, in most ways, honourable précieuses of the Hotel Rambouillet. But Chapelle and Bachaumont had discovered provincial précieuses, hyper-aesthetic literary ladies, at Montpellier before Moliére's return to Paris; and Furetiére, in the Roman bourgeois (1666), found Paris full of middle-class précieuses, who had survived, or, like their modern counterparts, had thriven on ridicule. Another question is: Did Moliére copy from the earlier Précieuses of the abbé de Pure? This charge of plagiarism is brought by Somaize, in the preface to his Vérilables précieuses. 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 farce, or, like Somaize, charged him with literary larceny. These were the stock criticisms of Moliere's opponents as long as he lived. The success of the Précieuses ridicules was immense; on one famous occasion the king was a spectator, leaning against the great chair of the dying Cardinal Mazarin. The play can never cease to please while literary affectation exists, and it has a comic force of deathless 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. Moliére's next piece was less important, and more purely farcical, S ganarelle; on le cocu imaginaire (May 28, 1660). The public taste preferred a work of this light nature, and S garlarelle was played every year as long as Moliére 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 double injury to Moliére, as, once printed, any company might act the play. With his habitual good-nature, Moliére not only allowed Ribou to publish later works of his, but actually lent money to that knave (Soulié, Recherches, p. 287).

On the 11th of October 1660 the Theatre du Petit Bourbon was demolished by the superintendent of works, without notice given to the company. The king gave Moliére 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 Moliére's troupe, but, as La Grange declares (Regislre, p. 26), “ all the actors loved their chief, who united to extraordinary genius an honourable character and charming manner, which compelled them all to protest that they would never leave him, but always 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) Moliére began to play on the 2oth of January 1661. Moliere now gratified his rivals by a failure. Don Garcie de Navarre, a heavy tragi-comedy, which had long lain among his papers, was first represented on the 4th of February 1661. Either Moliére 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 Préeieuses (sc. ix.) Moliére had already rallied “ les grands comédiens ” of the Hotel Bourgogne. “Les autres, ” he makes Mascarille say about his own troupe, “sont des ignorantsqui récitent comme 1'on parle, ils ne savent pas faire roniier les vers.” All this was likely to irritate the grands comédiens, and their friends, who avenged themselves on that unfortunate jealous prince, Don Garcie de Navarre. The subject of this unsuccessful drama is one of many examples which show how Moliére's mind was engaged with the serious or comic aspects of jealousy, a passion which he had soon cause to know most intimately. Meantime the everyday life of the stage went on, and the doorkeeper of the Théatre St Germain was wounded by some revellers who tried to force their way into the house (La Grange, Regislre). A year later, an Italian actor was stabbed in front of Moliére's house, where he had sought to take shelter (Campardon, Nouvelles pieces, p. 20) To these dangers actors were peculiarly subject: Moliére 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 marquis who rubbed the poet's head against his buttons, thereby cutting his face severely. The story comes late (1725) into his biography, but is supported by a passage in the contemporary play, Zéliude (Paris, 1663, scene viii.). Before Easter, Moliére 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'Eeole des maris. The general idea of the piece is as old as Menander, and Moliere was promptly accused of pilfering from the Adelphi of Terence. One of the jicelles of the comedy is borrowed from a story as old, at least, as Boccaccio, and still amusing in a novel by Charles de Bernard. It is significant of Moliére's talent that the grotesque and baffied 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 laughter. The next new piece was Les Fascheux, a come die ballet, the Comedy of Bores, played before the king at Fouquet's house at 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 aseemiam? says his motto), and the king was organizing the arrest and fall of F ouquet, his rival in the affections of La Valliére. The authorof the prologue to Les Fascheux, Pellisson, a friend of Fouquet's, was arrested with the superintendent of finance. Pellisson's prologue and name were retained in the later editions. In the dedication to the king Moliére 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 Régnier's, and that by a satire of Horace. Perhaps it may have been the acknowledged suggestions of the king which made gossips declare that Moliére habitually worked up hints and mérnolres given him by persons of quality (Nouvelles nouvelles, 1663).

In February 1662 Moliére married Armande Béjard. The date is given thus in the Registre of La Grange: “ Mardy 14, Les Visionnaires, L'Ecol des M.

And on the margin he has painted a blue circle-his way of recording a happy event—with the words, “ mariage de M. de Moliére au sortir de la Visite.” M. Loiseleur gives the date in one passage as the 29th of February; in another as the 2oth of