Moliere, the contemporary of Corneille and Racine, whose original and
real name was Jean Baptiste Poquelin, was born at Paris on the 15th
January, 1622. His father and mother were both in trade; and they
brought up their son to their own occupation. At the age of fourteen,
young Poquelin could neither read, write, nor cast accounts. But the
grandfather was very fond of him; and being himself a great lover of
plays, often took his favourite to the theatre. The natural genius of
the boy was, by this initiation, kindled into a decided taste for
dramatic entertainments: a disgust to trade was the consequence, and a
desire of that mental cultivation from which he had hitherto been
debarred. His father consented at length to his becoming a pupil of the
Jesuits at the College of Clermont. He remained there five years, and
was fortunate enough to be the class-fellow of Armand de Bourbon, Prince
de Conti, whose friendship and protection proved of signal service to
him in after-life. He studied under the celebrated Gassendi, who was so
impressed by the apparent aptitude of young Poquelin to receive
instruction, that he admitted him to the private lectures given to his
other pupils. Gassendi was in the habit of breaking a lance with two
great rivals: Aristotle, at the head of ancient, and Descartes, then at
the head of modern philosophy. By witnessing this combat, Poquelin
acquired a habit of independent reasoning, sound principles, extensive
knowledge, and that feeling of practical good sense, which was so
conspicuous not only in his most laboured, but even in his lightest
productions.
His studies under Gassendi were abruptly terminated by the following
circumstance. His father was attached to the court in the double
capacity of valet-de-chambre and tapestry-maker; and the son had the
reversion of these places. When Louis XIII. went to Narbonne in 1641,
the old man was ill, and the young one was obliged to officiate for him.
On his return to Paris, his passion for the stage, which had first led
him into the paths of literature, revived with renewed strength. The
taste of Cardinal de Richelieu for theatrical performances was
communicated to the nation at large, and a peculiar protection was
granted to dramatic poets. Many little societies were formed for acting
plays in private houses, for the amusement at least of the performers.
Poquelin collected a company of young stage-stricken heroes, who so far
exceeded all their rivals, as to earn for their establishment the
pompous title of The Illustrious Theatre. He now determined to make the
stage his profession, and changing his name, according to the usage in
such cases, adopted that of Moliere.
He disappears during the time of the civil wars, from 1648 to 1652; but
we may suppose the interval to have been passed in composing some of
those pieces which were afterwards brought before the public. When the
disturbances ceased, Moliere, in partnership with an actress of
Champagne, named La Béjard, formed a strolling company; and his first
regular piece, called L’Etourdi, or the Blunderer, was performed at
Lyons in 1653. Another company of comedians settled in that town was
deserted by the spectators in favour of these clever vagabonds; and the
principal performers of the regular establishment took the hint,
pocketed their dignity, and joined Moliere. The united company
transferred itself to Languedoc, and were retained in the service of the
Prince of Conti. During the Carnival of 1658, the troop, having resumed
their vagrant life, were playing at Grenoble. The following summer was
passed at Rouen. When so near Paris, Moliere made occasional journeys
thither, with the earnest hope of bettering his fortune in the
metropolis, where the market for talent is always brisk and open, the
competition, though severe, fair and encouraging. Once more he received
protection from his august fellow-collegian, who introduced him to
Monsieur, and ultimately to the King himself. The company appeared
before their Majesties and the court for the first time, on the 3d of
November, 1658, on a stage erected in the Hall of the Guards in the Old
Louvre. Their success was so complete that the King gave orders for
their permanent settlement in Paris, and they were allowed to act
alternately with the Italian players in the Hall of the Petit Bourbon.
In 1663 a pension of a thousand livres was granted to Moliere, and in
1665 his company was taken altogether into the King’s service.
As in the course of about fifteen years he produced more than double
that number of dramatic pieces, instead of giving, within our narrow
limits, a mere dry catalogue of titles, we shall make some more detailed
remarks on a few of those masterpieces, in different styles, which not
only raised the character of French comedy to a great height in France
itself, but in a great measure furnished the staple to some of our own
most distinguished writers.
Among many persons of taste and judgment, the Misantrope has borne the
character of being the most finished of all Moliere’s pieces; of
combining the most powerful efforts of united genius and art. The
subject is single, and the unities are exactly observed. The principal
person of the drama is strongly conceived, and brought out with the
boldest strokes of the master’s pencil: it is throughout uniform, and in
strict keeping. The subordinate persons are equally well drawn, and
fitted for their business in the scene, so as to throw an artist-like
light upon the chief figure. The scenes and incidents are so contrived
and conducted as to diversify the main character, and set it in various
points of view. The sentiments are strong and nervous as well as proper;
and the good sense with which the piece is fraught, proves that the
bustle and dissipation of the court and the theatre had not obliterated
the lessons of the college, or the lectures of Gassendi. The title of
the play will at once bring to the mind of an Englishman our own Timon
of Athens; but there are scarcely any other points of resemblance. The
ancient and the modern Man-hater had little in common: the Athenian was
the victim of personal ill-treatment; having suffered by excess of
good-nature and credulity, he runs into the other extreme of suspicion
and revenge. Moliere’s Man-hater owes his character to the severity of
virtue, which can give no quarter to the vices of mankind; to that
sincerity which disdains indiscriminate complaisance, and the
prostitution of the language of friendship to the flattery of fools and
knaves. Wycherley, in his Plain Dealer, has given the French Misantrope
an English dress. Manly is a character of humour, speaking and acting
from a peculiar bias of temper and inclination; but the coarseness of
the _plain dealing_ is not to be tolerated, and what Manly _does_ goes
near to counteract the moral effect of what he _says_.
By way of contrasting the various talents of the author, than whom none
better understood human nature in its various ramifications, or copied
more skilfully every shade and gradation of manners, we may just mention
the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, exhibiting the folly and affectation of a cit
turned man of fashion. If the moral of the Misantrope be pure, the wit
of the Bourgeois is terse and diverting.
In several of his comedies he has treated medicine and its professors
not only with freedom but severity; it was, however, perverted medicine
only, and its quack professors that were the subjects of his ridicule.
The respectable members of the faculty could be no more affected by the
satire, nor displeased by what they could not fear, than a true prophet
by the punishment of imposture. Those who are acquainted with the
history of the science will recollect the state of it at Paris in
Moliere’s time, and the character of the physicians. Their whole
employment was confined to searching after visionary specifics, and
experimental trickery in chemistry. The cause of a disease was never
inquired after, nor the symptoms regarded; but hypothetical jargon and
random prescription were thrown like dust into the eyes of the patient,
to the exclusion of a practice founded on science and observation. Thus
medicine became a pest instead of a remedy; and this state of things
justified the chastisement inflicted.
Les Précieuses Ridicules is a comedy intended to reprove a vain,
fantastical, and preposterous humour prevailing very much about that
time in France. It had the desired effect, and conduced materially
towards rooting out a taste in manners so unreasonable and ridiculous.
Tartuffe, or The Impostor, has occasionally, and even recently,
sometimes to the disturbance of the public peace in France, given great
offence not only to those who felt the justice, and winced under the
severity of the satire; but to others, who suspected that a blow was
aimed at religion, under the mask of an attack upon hypocrisy. But its
intrinsic merit, the truth of the drawing, and the justness of the
colouring, have secured patrons for it among persons of unquestionable
sense, virtue, learning, and taste; and it has always triumphed over the
violence of opposition. Cibber, a vamper of other men’s plays, has
borrowed from it his favourite Nonjuror, and applied it to the purposes
of a political party. On this adaptation has been grafted a more modern
attack on the Methodists, under the title of The Hypocrite. But however
great may be the merit of this celebrated drama, it cannot boast of
entire originality. Machiavelli left behind him three comedies, the
fruits of a statesman’s leisure hours. In all three, the author has
exhibited the hand of a master; he has painted mankind in the spirit of
truth, and unmasked falsehood and hypocrisy in a tone of profound
contempt. Two monks, a brother Timothy and a brother Alberico, are
represented with too much wit and keenness of sarcasm to have been
overlooked by Moliere in his working up of the third specimen. The first
three acts of the Tartuffe were played for the first time at court
before the piece was finished. Masques of pomp, magnificence and
panegyric, such as usually furnish out the amusement of royal saloons,
are forgotten as soon as they have served the purpose of the moment: but
masterpieces like that now in question perpetuate their own renown, and
leave a lasting memorial of what is supposed to be a phenomenon, a
princely taste for genuine wit.
Les Fâcheux was the first piece in which dancing was so connected with
the dramatic action, as to fill up the intervals without breaking the
thread of the story.
Le Mariage Forcé was borrowed from Rabelais, to whom both Moliere and La
Fontaine were deeply indebted. The Aristotelian and Pyrrhonian
philosophy, as travestied by modern doctors, furnishes occasion for
lively satire and clever buffoonery. The horror with which Pancrace
calls down the vengeance of heaven on him who should dare to say the
_form_ of a hat, instead of the _figure_ of a hat, is a pleasant parody
on the unintelligible absurdities of the schools. According to
Marphurius, philosophy commands us to suspend our judgment, and to speak
of every thing with uncertainty; not to say _I am come_, but, _I think
that I am come_.
La Princesse d’Elide, though not one of Moliere’s happiest efforts,
deserves notice on account of its contributing to the festivities of the
court, by an adaptation of ingenious allegories to the manners and
events of the time. This satire was aimed at the illusion of Judicial
Astrology, after which many princes of the period were running mad; and
in particular Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, father of the Duchess of
Burgundy, who kept an astrologer about his person even after his
abdication. The dramatic antiquary may find some amusement in comparing
the fêtes of the French court with the masques of Ben Jonson, Davenant,
and others, exhibited before our James I. and Charles I.; but here the
interest ends. It is sufficient to remark, that the masques of the
English court owed their power of pleasing to the ingenuity of the
machinist and the flattery of the poet. The little dramas performed
before the royal family of France tickled the ears of the audience by
the pungency of their wit and ridicule.
The Miser has been pretty closely translated, for the version is little
more, by Henry Fielding; but not so happily as he himself seems to have
imagined.
The subject of that excellent comedy, Les Femmes Savantes, in which the
ridicule is kept within reasonable bounds, and female faults and virtues
are painted with a proper gradation of colouring, where what the
painters call a _medium tint_ harmonizes the extremes of light and
shade, was taken up by Goldoni with that coarse and abrupt pencilling of
black and white, which has always been the vice of the Italian stage. It
has indeed been advanced as a reproach to Moliere, that he too often
charged his comic pictures with the extravagance of caricature: but if
we compare even the most farcical of his scenes with the speaking
pantomimes and half-improvisations of Italy, we must pronounce him a
model of delicacy and classical propriety.
His last comedy was Le Malade Imaginaire. It was acted for the fourth
time on the 17th February, 1673. The principal character represented is
that of a sick man, who, to carry on a purpose of the plot, pretends to
be dead. This part was played by Moliere himself. The popular story was,
that when he was to discover that it was only a feint, he could neither
speak nor get up, being actually dead. The wits and epigrammatists made
the most of the occurrence; those who could not write good French,
treated it with bad Latin. But unluckily for the stability of their
conceits, they were not built on the foundation of truth. Though very
ill, and obviously in much pain, he was able to finish the play. He went
home, and was put to bed: his cough increased violently; a vessel burst
in his lungs, and he was suffocated with blood in about half an hour
after. He was only in his fifty-second year when this event took place.
The King was extremely affected at this sudden loss, by which, as
Johnson said of Garrick, the gaiety of nations was eclipsed; and as a
strong mark of his regard, he prevailed with the archbishop of Paris to
allow of his being interred in consecrated ground. Nothing short of so
absolute a King’s interposition could have effected this; for,
independently of the general sentence of excommunication then in force
against scenic performers, Moliere had drawn upon himself the resentment
of the ecclesiastics in particular, by exposing the hypocrites of their
cloth, as well as the bigots among the laity. Those who ridicule folly
and knavery in all orders of men must expect to be treated as Moliere
was, and to have the foolish and knavish of all orders for enemies.
During his life, Paris and the court were stirred up and inflamed
against the dramatist; and on more than one occasion, he must have
fallen a sacrifice to the indignation of the clergy, had he not been
protected by the King. The friend of his life did not desert him when he
was dead; but procured for his insensible remains that decent respect,
which all nations have consented to pay, as a tribute even to
themselves.
Voltaire characterizes Moliere as the best comic poet of any nation; and
treats the posthumous hostility which made a difficulty about his burial
as a reproach both to France and to the Catholic religion. Professing to
have reperused the comedians of antiquity for the purpose of comparison,
he gives it as his judgment, that the French dramatist is entitled to
the preference. He grounds this decision on the art and regularity of
the modern theatre, contrasted with the unconnected scenes of the
ancients, their weak intrigues, and the strange practice of declaring by
the mouths of the actors, in cold and unnatural monologues, what they
had done and what they intended to do. He concludes by saying that
Moliere did for comedy what Corneille had done for tragedy; and that the
French were superior on this ground to all the people upon earth. A
country possessing such a comic drama as ours, throughout the course of
about two centuries, with Much ado about Nothing at one end of the list,
and The School for Scandal at the other, will be inclined to demur to
this broad national assumption: but we, in our turn, must in candour
confess, that though the chronological precedence of Shakspeare, Jonson,
Fletcher, Massinger, and Ford, had established a glorious stage for us
before Moliere was born, or while he was yet in petticoats; yet our most
eminent comic writers in the reigns of William III., Anne, and George
I., drank deep and often from the abundant source of French comedy. But
Moliere’s influence was most beneficially exerted in reclaiming his
countrymen from a fondness for such Italian conceits as ringing the
changes upon _odours_ and _ardours_, &c., to which authors like Scudery,
Voiture, and Balzac had given an ephemeral fashion. Boileau and Moliere
principally contributed to arm the French against the invasion from
beyond the Alps, of such madrigal-writers as Marini, Achillini, and
Préti.
It is not true that Moliere, when he commenced his career, found the
theatre absolutely destitute of good comedies. Corneille had already
produced Le Menteur, a piece combining character with intrigue, imported
from the Spanish stage. Moliere had produced only two of his most
esteemed plays, when the public was gratified with La Mère Coquette of
Quinault, than which few pieces were more happy either in point of
character or intrigue. But if Corneille be the first legitimate model
for tragedy, Moliere was so for comedy. The general shaping of his
plots, the connexion of his scenes, his dramatic consistency and
propriety were attempted to be copied by succeeding writers: but who
could compete with him in wit and spirit? His well-directed attacks did
more than any thing to rescue the public from the impertinence of
subaltern courtiers affecting airs of importance; from the affectation
of conceited, and the pedantry of learned, ladies; from the quackery of
professional costume and barbarous Latin on the part of the medical
tribe. Moliere was the legislator of conventional proprieties. That
period might well be called the Augustan age of France, which saw the
tragedies of Corneille and Racine; the comedies of Moliere; the birth of
modern music in the symphonies of Lulli; the pulpit eloquence of Bossuet
and Bourdaloüe. Louis XIV. was the hearer and the patron of all these;
and his taste was duly appreciated and adopted by the accomplished
Madame, by a Condé, a Turenne, and a Colbert, followed by a long train
of eminent men in every department of the state and of society.
Little has come down to us respecting Moliere’s personal history or
habits, excepting that his marriage was not among the happy or
creditable events of his life. So little did he in his own case weigh
the evils of disproportioned age, however sarcastically he might imagine
them in fictitious scenes, that he took for his partner the daughter of
La Béjard, the associate of his strolling career. If his choice were a
fault, it carried its punishment along with it. He was very jealous, and
the young lady was an accomplished coquette. The bickerings of married
life were the frequent and successful topics of his comedies; and his
enemies asserted, that in drawing such scenes, he possessed the
advantage of painting from the life. Of that ridicule which had so often
set the theatre in a roar, he was himself the serious subject, the
repentant and writhing victim.
Fuller accounts of Moliere are to be found prefixed to the best editions
of his works: we may mention those of Joly, Petitot, and Auger. An
article of considerable length, by the last-named author, is devoted to
our poet in the Biographie Universelle.
[Illustration: Scene from Les Précieuses Ridicules.]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by I. W. Cook._