The farce of Master Pathelin, whose author was Pierre Blanchet, is
certainly the richest jewel in the crown of the old French Theatre;
it was what inspired Moliere in several of his works. Represented
for the first time in 1480, this celebrated farce is one of the most
precious literary monuments for the study of Middle Age morality. It
is a _chef d’œuvre_ of spirit, malice, comedy, and _naivete_, in which
medicine is found in every scene, either in the simulation of disease,
with consultations, with drugs, and, most amusing of all, the eternal
ingratitude of the sick.
All the educated world knows the subject of Master Pathelin: A lawyer
without a case or client; a man living on his wits and expedients,
making dupes and yet retaining a certain degree of professional
correctness in his language and his artifices. Guillemette, his wife,
is his worthy accomplice. It is she who reproaches him with not having
more clients and his reputation of earlier days; of starving her to
death by famine. It is she who excites him by ironically saying:
“Maintenant chascun vous appelle
Partout; avocat dessoubz l’orme,
Nos robes sont plus qu’estamine
Reses.”
And Pathelin responds that he cannot get their clothing out of pawn
without redeeming or stealing it—both things out of the question, as
he has no money and will not commit a crime. It is then that the worthy
couple hit on the credit system to renew their wardrobe. It is for this
purpose he goes to a draper’s to purchase cloth to make new clothes. On
entering the shop he uses the salutation of the period, “God be with
you,” and politely inquires after the shopkeeper’s health, which to
him is very dear. Then he asks after his father’s health, telling him
he resembles his sire like an old picture. Finally, he takes sixteen
yards of fine cloth, and, telling the draper to call at his house in
the evening for his money and to eat, as Master Pathelin expresses
it, “a Rouen goose roasted,” having invited the astonished tradesman
to dine with him, the lawyer walks out with the cloth without paying.
Arriving home he relates his adventure to the delighted Guillemette,
who is overpowered with bewilderment, however, when she learns that the
draper is invited to a roast goose supper. At first it is suggested
that they borrow a tailor’s goose, but fear that the draper will not
appreciate the joke and demand his money legally induces the worthy
couple to adopt a strategem. It is very simple: Master Pathelin is
to feign insanity, or rather that maniacal form of excitation so
frequently employed even at the present day by those who seek to avoid
the consequences of crimes—an excitation principally characterized by
uncontrollable loquacity, mobility of ideas, incoherence, and pretended
illusions.
These scenes of simulation are extremely curious and interesting. As
soon as the draper enters the wife warns him not to make a noise in the
house:
“He’s lying in bed. Don’t speak!
Poor martyr! he’s been sick a week.
But the draper refuses to accept the explanation. It cannot be a week,
he says, for
“’Tis only this afternoon, you see,
Your husband bought cloth from me.”
Then the voice of the attorney is heard in the next room shouting to
his wife:
“Guillemette? Un peu d’eue rose!
Haussez moy, serrez-moy derriere!
Trut! a qui parlay. Je? L’esguiere?
A boire? Frottez moy la plante.”
Rose water in that century was employed to reanimate the strength
of sick people. Among apothecaries it was called _aqua cordialis
temperata_. Rose water was prescribed in the following cases: “_In
mortis subitis et malignis, ubicunque magnus est virium lapsus
præscribitur; quemadmodum etiam prodest a morbo convalescentibus, ad
vires instaurandas._”
Pathelin simulates hallucinations of sight, and uses all manner of
words employed by magicians in their conjurations; he asks the draper
and Guillemette to put a charm around his neck such as are used to
frighten away demons. He then, in his ravings, abuses the doctors for
their malpractice and not understanding the quality of his urine.([97])
Notwithstanding all this the draper is not convinced and demands his
money. We all know what importance was attributed to the examination of
the urine in olden times, long before any search was made for albumen,
sugar, or other morbid principles that it might contain. Charlatans
especially exploited in this field of medicine, practicing it illegally
in the country under the name of _water jugglers_ or _water judges_.
Such men still practice in Normandy and certain northern provinces of
France.
The intestinal functions had also more or less importance in the eyes
of the public, and the physician was not always consulted as when to
give physic. People sent to an apothecary and ordered a clyster with
cassia and other ingredients, according to the following formula of
the pharmacopœia: “_Cassia Pro Clysteribus. Est eadem pulpa cassiæ cum
decocto herbarum aperitirarum extracta et saccharo Thomæo condita.
Oportet autem illas herbas adhibere recentes, parumque decoquere, alias
viribus aperitivis omnio privantur; siccæ autem per se carent virtute
illa aperitiva._”
In the “Revue Historique” of Angers we find a document bearing on the
private life of Cardinal Richelieu; it has for its title: “Things
furnished for the person of His Most Eminent Highness, the Cardinal
Duke Richelieu during the year 1635, by Perdreau, apothecary to his
Excellency.” During the one year the Cardinal had used seventy-five
clysters and twenty-seven cassia boluses, without counting other
laxative medicines and bottles of tisane, his purgative bill amounting
to 1401 livres and 14 sous. It is evident that Richelieu was a badly
constipated Cardinal.
It was a fine period for apothecaries, and we might add that Moliere
did them considerable harm.
Let us return to Master Pathelin. He was allowed a short breathing
spell for Guillemette, fought off the obdurate creditor by making him
leave the room a few moments while her husband used the bedpan.
But this respite is of short duration; the draper soon returns to
demand his cloth back or his money, although the wife declares her
husband “is dying in frenzy.” Then commences another scene of maniacal
simulation in this wonderful psychological play. In his pretended
delirium, Pathelin indulges in Limousin _patois_, Flemish, Lower
Breton; his words grow unintelligible and incoherent in order to
convince the draper of his insanity.
“Mere de Diou, la coronade,
Par fie, y m’en voul anar,
Or renague biou, outre mar,
Ventre de Diou, zen diet gigone,
Castuy carrible, et res ne donne.”
Let us pass from a wild Flemish harangue, that possesses but little
interest even to those understanding the dialects.
The psychic symptoms, which dominate in the simulated delirium of
Master Pathelin, are especially incoherent in language with mobility
of ideas. The author of this fine comedy had evidently observed
the progressive instability of thought among certain maniacs, the
impossibility of fixing their attention, the too rapid succession of
ideas without order; in fact, that absolute incoördination, a kind of
cerebral automatism, which is the announcement of the breaking-down
of intellectual faculties and the prelude of absolute dementia. In
his ravings, Pathelin descants on the _Mal de Saint Garbot_, or,
more properly speaking, Garbold; this was dysentery, although such a
scholar as Genin translates it as meaning hemorrhoids. Saint Garbold
who was Bishop of Bayeux in the seventh century, was driven out from
his episcopal chair by his diocesans, and, in order to be avenged, sent
them dysentery.
We may remark, in this connection, that during the Middle Ages many
maladies were called after the Saints, whose aid they invoked in given
diseases; _Saint Ladre_ or _Lazare_, for leprosy; _Saint Roch_, for
the plague; _Saint Quentin_, for dropsy; _Saint Leu_, _Saint Loupt_,
_Saint Mathelin_, _Saint Jehan_, _Saint Nazaire_, _Saint Victor_, for
epilepsy, fever, deafness, madness, etc.
The _mal Saint Andreux_, _mal Saint Antoine_, _mal Saint Firmin_, _mal
Saint Genevieve_, _mal Saint Germain_, _mal Saint Messaut_, _mal Saint
Verain_, designated erysipelas, scurvy, etc. Drunkenness was called the
_mal Saint Martin_.
Syphilis naturally had its patron Saint; in fact, it was known as _mal
Saint homme Job_, _Saint Merais_, _Saint Laurant_, _mal Saint Eupheme_,
etc. In fact, all diseases had as an attachment the name of one or more
Saints, at whose shrine the afflicted might implore aid.
But to return to Master Pathelin: After numerous tirades he finishes
by acknowledging his deceit to the draper. This is an epitome of the
farce of Master Pierre Pathelin, a medical study that had an immense
run in the fifteenth century and remains a valuable document regarding
French morality in the Middle Ages, as interesting to the student of
psychology as to the Theatre. Some years after this (1490) the sequel
to Master Pathelin appeared, called the “Last Will of Pathelin,” which
is also full of strange medical conceits appertaining to the age in
which it was written. In this piece, Pathelin, after years of fraud
and deceit, really becomes ill and sends for the lawyer and priest,
abandoning the doctor to a certain extent. In his will he leaves all
his ailments to different religious orders and charitable institutions,
as, for instance, one _item_ of his will reads as follows:
“Au quatre convens aussi,
Cordeliers, Carmes, Augustins,
Jacobins, soient ors, on Soient ens,
Je leur laisse tous bons lopins,
A tous chopineurs et y vrongnes,
Notre vueil que je leur laisse
Toutes goutes, crampes et rongnes,
Au poing, au coste, a la fesse,” etc.
But enough of Master Pathelin. Let us now turn to the consideration of
another curious farce.