This comedy, by Jacques Grevin, a medical poet, born at Clermont, was
written in the sixteenth century. This physician, from his earliest
youth, was enamored with the daughter of one of his confreres, Charles
Etienne; she was a noted beauty, but preferred another doctor, Jean
Liebaut, the author of “La Maison Rustique,” to our poet. In order to
console himself for the loss of his sweetheart, Grevin commenced to
write rhymes, and even surpassed Jodelle, the author of “Cleopatra and
Dido,” by his fecundity. He followed Marguerite de France, wife of the
Duke of Savoy, to whom he was family physician, to Turin, and died
there in 1570.
He left several plays in verse, the principal one of which was “La
Tresoriere,” an adulterous comedy relating to the intrigue of a
financier’s wife. It is only of medical interest inasmuch as it alludes
to syphilis, which at the time this play was written prevailed in
Europe almost as an epidemic, and as a study of the morals of the epoch
is not without interest to the syphilographer. The author, probably
owing to his early disappointment in love, had but a poor opinion of
the virtue of the women in his century, and makes many odd comparisons,
as, for instance:
“Woman, ’tis often been said,
Resembles a church lamp bright,
That hangs on the altar overhead,
And outshines the candles at night;
She sheds an equal light on all,
But without her light, no shadows fall.”
He was no believer in the morality of the aristocratic classes, and
alludes to the laxity of social rules and the spread of syphilis in the
following lines:
“Aussi la femme a beau changer
Un familier a l’etranger,
L’etranger au premier venu,
Toujours son cas est maintenu
En son entier, si d’aventure
Elle n’y mele quelqu’ ordure.”
The reference to the syphilis is here found in the two last lines; if
she has a love affair, there is ordure in the result. The allusion in
other passages is much more apparent, but too impolite for an English
rendering.
Let us now turn to another curious old French play,