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 Moliére. The abominable assertions of the anonymous libel, Les I ntrigues de M oliere et celles de sa femme; ou la fameuse comedienne (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 Moliére 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 Moliere, 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 Moliére and Rohault, in which Moliére only complains of a jealousy which he knows to be unfounded. It is noticed, too, that the contemporary assailants of Moliére counted him among jealous, but not among deceived, husbands. The hideous accusation brought by the actor Montfleury, that Moliére had married his own daughter, Louis XIV. answered by becoming the godfather of Moliére's child. The king, indeed, was a firm friend of the actor, and, when Moliére was accused of impiety on the production of Don Juan (1665) Louis gave him a pension. We need not try to make Mme Moliére 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 Moliére drew her portrait in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (acte 111. sc. ix.), “ elle est capricieuse, mais on souffre tout des belies.” From 1662 onwards Moliere 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 Moliére leur donnant beaucoup de jalouzie ” (Aug. 12, 1662). On the 26 th of December was played for the first time the admirable Ecole 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 Moliere; but both in L'Ecole 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'Ecole des femmes is all we can offer in this place.
December 26, 1662.-Ecole des femmes.
February 9, 1663.-Nou'velles nouoelles, by De Visé. Moliére is accused of pilfering from Straparola.
June I, 1663.-Moliére's own piece, Critique de l'éeole des femmes. In this play Moliére 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 “ Elomire "-that is, Moliére. He steals from the Italian, the Spanish, from F uretiére'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 Moliere by Boursault. This piece is a detailed criticism, by several persons, of L'Ecole des femmes. It is pronounced dull, vulgar, farcical, obscene and (what chiefly vexed Moliere, who knew the danger of the accusation) impious. Perhaps the only biographical matter we gain from Boursault's play is the interesting fact that Moliere was a tennis-player. On the 4th November 1663, Moliére 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 H6tel de Bourgogne were parodied on the stage, and their art was ridiculed.
The next scenes in this comedy of comedians were:- November 3o.-The Panégyrique tk l'école des femmes, by Robinet.
December 7.-Répanse d Fimpromptu; on la vengeance des marquis, by De Visé.
January 19, 1664.-L'Impromptu de l'h6tel de Condé. It is a reply by a. son of Montfleury.
March 17, 1664.-La Guerre comique; on défense de l'école des femmes. 1664.-Lettre sur les afaires du thédtre, published in Diversités galantes. bv the author of Zétinde.
In all those quarrels the influence of Corneille was opposed to Moliére, while his cause was espoused by Boileau, a useful ally, when “les comédiens et les auteurs, depuis le cédre [Corneille?] jusqu'a l'hysope, sont disablement animés contre lui ” (Impromptu de Versailles, sc. v.). .
Moliere's next piece was Le Mariage force (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'Elide was acted for the first time, and the three first acts of Tartu jfe were given. Moliére's natural hatred of hypocrisy had not been diminished by the charges of blasphemy which were showered on him after the Ecole des femmes. Tartuje made enemies everywhere. Iansenists and jesuits, like the two marquesses in L'Impromptu de Versailles, each thought the others were aimed at. Five years passed before Moliére 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 Moliére in private houses. The Gazette of the 17th of May 1664 (a paper hostile to Moliére) says that the king thought the piece inimical to religion. Louis was not at that time on good terms with the déoots, whom his amours scandalized; but, not impossibly, the queen mother (then suffering from her fatal malady) disliked the play. A most violent attack on Moliére, “ that demon clad in human liesh, ” 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, Moliére deserved to be sent through earthly to eternal fires. The play was prohibited, as we have seen, but in August 1665 the king adopted Moliére's troupe as his servants, and gave them the title of “ troupe du roy.” This, however, did not cause Moliére to relax his efforts to obtain permission for Tartuje (or Tartufe, or T artufle, 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. Moliére 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 Moliére, 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 obliteration's, and gave us the full scene of Don Iuan and the Beggar. The piece provoked a. virulent criticism (Observations sur le festin de Pierre, 1665). It is allowed that Moliére 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 Moliére. The king's reply, as has been shown, was to adopt Moliére'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 Moliére, 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 Hotel de Bourgogne. The 4th of June 1666 saw the first representation of that famous play, Le Misanthrope (ou L'/ltrabiliaire amoureux, as the original second title ran). This piece, perhaps the masterpiece of Moliére, 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