destined to prove fatal to Molière, and was undoubtedly one of the
causes of his premature death. For some years, the poet had suffered
from a chest affection, very possibly due to frequent exposure during
his provincial tours. In the winter of 1665-1666, we learn from Robinet
that he had had an illness which all but terminated fatally, and in the
spring of 1667 he was again "_tout proche d'entrer dans la bière_," was
absent from the theatre for two months, and was compelled to restrict
himself to a milk diet, and speak as little as possible when not on the
stage. The retired life he had led during his breach with Armande had,
of course, favoured the adoption of this regimen, and under it his
health had so much improved that, believing himself cured, and unwilling
to impose on his wife the cheerless society of a valetudinarian, he
abandoned his abstemious habits, entertained largely, and, in short,
resumed his former mode of life. The result was a rapid aggravation of
his complaint; his nights were sleepless, he was racked by a terrible
cough, and, at the beginning of the year 1673, it became evident that
his days were numbered. In this condition, by the irony of Fate, it fell
to him to represent the folly of a man in perfect health who, imagining
himself the victim of all manner of fell diseases, is ready to submit to
any and every remedy that may be suggested to him,--that is to say, the
exact counterpart of his own state. On February 10, the _Malade
imaginaire_, a happy conception in the composition of which the author
had doubtless contrived to find some relief from his sufferings, both of
body and mind--for there is some reason to believe that his relations
with his wife were again becoming strained--was produced at the
Palais-Royal, and played for three nights to crowded houses. On the
morning of the fourth performance, February 17,[30] Molière was so weak
that Armande and Baron united in urging him not to play, but their
efforts were unavailing. "How," he asked, "can I refuse to appear when
so many persons' bread depends upon it? I should reproach myself for the
distress I might cause them, as I have sufficient strength to prevent
it." This speech is often quoted as a proof of Molière's consideration
for others, but though the great writer's unselfishness and generosity
are happily beyond dispute, it would appear more probable that his plea
was merely an excuse for disregarding the advice of his wife and friend,
as he was sufficiently well off to have been able to compensate those
who would have suffered by the temporary closing of the theatre without
any very serious inconvenience.[31] No; Molière knew that his end was
near, and, like the brave man he was, he preferred to die in harness,
rather than, by taking to his bed, prolong his sufferings a few days
longer.
Accordingly, when the play began at four o'clock, he again appeared in
the high-backed arm-chair of the imaginary invalid, and acted the part
with as much whimsical humour as on the three previous occasions, though
it was obvious to those on the stage that every speech and movement cost
him a terrible effort; and in the burlesque ceremony where Argan takes
the oath as a new doctor, swearing to adhere to the remedies prescribed
by antiquity and to ignore modern discovery, he was seized with a
convulsion, which he endeavoured vainly to disguise by forcing a laugh.
When the curtain fell, he made his way to Baron's dressing-room and
complained that he was "perishing of cold." A chair was obtained, and
the dying man conveyed to his home, where he was put to bed. Feeling
that his last hour was at hand, he asked for the consolations of
religion, and Armande and Baron hurried off to Saint-Eustache, where,
however, the two priests in attendance, learning who it was who required
their help, declined to leave the church. The next priest applied to had
a better sense of his duty, and consented to administer the Sacraments.
But, in the meanwhile, much precious time had been wasted, and when he
reached the house, Molière had no further need of his services. He had
died at ten o'clock, in the arms of two Sisters of Charity, to whom he
had long given shelter during their Lenten visits to Paris, and who had
but that day arrived in the capital.
Notwithstanding the assistance of these two nuns, and the fact that a
priest had been summoned to his death-bed, Molière was none the less
regarded as having died without the consolations of religion, and M.
Merlin, the curé of Saint-Eustache, refused ecclesiastical burial to his
remains.
Armande at once addressed a petition to the Archbishop of Paris, Harlay
de Chanvalon, explaining the circumstances of the case, and laying
stress upon the fact of her husband having communicated at the previous
Easter. It has been stated that the archbishop's reply was an absolute
refusal. This is incorrect; he confined himself to referring the
petition to an official whose duty it was to inquire into such matters.
However, Armande, dreading an unfavourable answer, determined to seek
the intervention of the King, and, accompanied by the curé of Auteuil, a
liberal-minded ecclesiastic and a personal friend of Molière, she set
off for Saint-Germain, where the Court then was. Even her enemies are
compelled to admit that, in these trying circumstances, she showed both
dignity and courage. "If," she exclaimed, when the King demurred to
granting her request, "if my husband was a criminal, his crimes were
authorised by your Majesty in person." This was certainly true, though
to remind his Majesty of the fact was hardly calculated to further her
cause, nor did the curé of Auteuil improve matters by embarking on a
theological argument, apparently with the view of anticipating an attack
upon his orthodoxy by his more bigoted brethren. Nevertheless, Louis
XIV., though obviously much annoyed at such outspokenness, behaved with
that tact which is one of his best claims to our respect. He dismissed
the widow and the curé, telling them that the matter was one which
concerned the archbishop and not himself; but, at the same time, he
wrote to the prelate, bidding him "take steps to avoid _éclat_ and
scandal."
The archbishop, as became a good courtier, bowed to the royal commands,
but, in order to save appearances, compromised the matter. He permitted
"the curé of Saint-Eustache to give ecclesiastical burial to the body of
the deceased in the cemetery of the parish, on condition, nevertheless,
that it should take place without any ostentation, with two priests
only, and after dusk had fallen; that there should be no solemn service
on his behalf, either in the said parish of Saint-Eustache or even in
any church of the regular clergy, and that our present permission shall
be without prejudice to the rules of the ritual of our Church, which we
desire shall be observed according to their form and tenor."[32]
* * * * *
Much has been written on the refusal of the curé of Saint-Eustache to
accord Molière Christian burial, and on the conditions imposed by the
Archbishop of Paris after the official intervention of the king; and the
bigotry and inhumanity of both priest and prelate have been denounced in
scathing terms. But the majority of those who have treated of the
incident were better acquainted with the theatre than the Sorbonne, for,
though the souvenirs of _Tartuffe_ and _Don Juan_ no doubt counted for
much in the matter, Harlay de Chanvalon and his subordinate were, after
all, only putting into force a rule of the Church which had existed for
centuries, though in recent times it had, happily, been more honoured in
the breach than the observance. As, however, the question is of great
interest, and one, also, to which we shall have occasion to return more
than once in the course of the present volume, it may be as well for us
to give here a brief sketch of the doctrine of the Church in regard to
the actor.
The hostility of the Christian Church to the theatre may be traced back
to very early times. The Fathers of the Church--Tertullian,
Saint-Cyprian, Saint-Chrysostome, and others--had been unsparing in
their condemnation of the actor,[33] whilst Saint-Salvien, a priest of
the fourth century, went so far as to declare that "comedy was worse
than blasphemy, theft, homicide, and all other crimes, and that the
spectator was the accomplice of the performer." Nor was this hostility
by any means confined to treatises and sermons. The Council of Elvira,
in 305, enacted that no actor was to be received into the Church unless
he had solemnly engaged to renounce his profession; if he failed to keep
his promise, he was to be immediately excommunicated. At the Council of
Arles, held five years later, all circus-performers and actors were
excluded from the Sacraments, so long as they exercised their
profession; and the third Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) denied them
baptism or absolution. Henceforth, the Church regarded actors as beyond
her pale, and, imitating the severity of the Roman Law, placed them on
the same footing as prostitutes. She refused them baptism; she refused
them absolution; she refused to marry them; she refused to accept them
as sponsors at the baptism of the children of their relatives and
friends; she refused them the Holy Communion, in public or in private,
in life or on their death-beds; finally, she refused them even Christian
burial.
Extravagantly severe as all these canons may, at first sight, appear,
they were none the less perfectly logical. It was indeed only natural
that the early Church should insist that actors who desired to
participate in her Sacraments should forthwith abjure their profession,
when we pause to consider the exceedingly licentious character of the
Roman theatre and the powerful influence it exercised in perpetuating
the memory of Paganism. It is to be remarked, however, that the censures
pronounced against the actor emanated not from any Pope or ecumenical
council, but from provincial synods, and when, in process of time,
Paganism disappeared and practically the whole of civilised Europe
became Christian, they naturally ceased to be enforced--though they were
never formally abrogated--in every country, save one. The exception was
France, where the old anathemas remained in force, as a natural
consequence of the independent attitude adopted by the French clergy
towards the Holy See.
In order to protect themselves against the encroachments of the Popes,
and to resist the changes which they were incessantly striving to
introduce into the discipline of the Church, the French bishops laid the
foundations of Gallicanism, by declaring immutable all the canons
promulgated by the early councils up to the eighth century which had
passed into the customs of the Church of France. The adoption of these
canons was a very serious matter for the theatrical profession in
France, for among them was that of the Council of Arles, already
mentioned, which expressly excluded the actor from the Sacraments, so
long as he followed his calling. However, it was clearly understood that
the penalties pronounced should not be applied to the regular actor, but
only to mountebanks and other persons whose performances might serve to
recall those of Paganism; and indeed down to the time of the
Reformation, when the Catholic clergy, unwilling to show less austerity
than those of the Reformed faith, began to proscribe severely all kinds
of amusements, even these seem to have been treated with great
indulgence.[34]
In 1624, the bigoted Jean de Gondy, Archbishop of Paris, declared in a
pastoral letter that actors ought to be deprived of the Sacraments and
ecclesiastical burial, and stigmatized their profession as "infamous
and one unworthy of a Christian." Nevertheless, until the latter part of
the seventeenth century, thanks in a great measure, no doubt, to the
patronage bestowed on the stage by Richelieu and Mazarin, in practice
the greatest tolerance prevailed, and the clergy accorded to the actor
the same treatment as to all other good Catholics. Thus, on January 6,
1654, we find Molière appearing as godfather at a church at Montpellier,
and, in 1670 and again in 1672, discharging the same duty at churches in
Paris, while his marriage, in February 1662, at Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois,
was celebrated without the least difficulty being raised.
Strange as it may appear, it was the protection accorded the theatre,
and the extreme indulgence shown to all connected with it, by a great
party in the Church itself that was directly responsible for the
termination of this happy state of affairs and the violent reaction, of
which the conduct of Harlay de Chanvalon and the curé of Saint-Eustache
towards Molière was but the beginning.
For some time, the Jesuits seem to have regarded the theatre with
disfavour; but towards the middle of the seventeenth century, perceiving
that it might very readily be made to serve as a vehicle for the
propagation of their own ideas, their attitude changed, and they not
only permitted all who came under their influence to attend the play,
but even encouraged the pupils in their colleges to perform theological
comedies, in which their enemies, the Jansenists, were held up to
ridicule. This, naturally, had the effect of exasperating the zealots of
Port-Royal and their numerous adherents, who, always hostile to the
drama, quickly became bitterly antagonistic and required but very
slight provocation to declare open war.
This provocation was not long in coming. In 1665, the clever but
eccentric playwright Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, the author of _Les
Visionnaires_, having passed "_à la devotion la plus outrée_," espoused
the cause of the Jesuits, and, believing that he had received a call
from Heaven to combat the heretics--that is to say, the Jansenists--made
a violent attack upon them. The Jansenists replied by the pen of their
famous publicist, Nicole, who stigmatized those who wrote for the
theatre as "public poisoners, not of bodies, but of souls." Racine,
believing his honour touched, joined in the fray and ridiculed the
bigotry of Port-Royal. Nicole rejoined with a _Traité de la Comédie_,
wherein, relying on the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, he
condemned not only dramatic authors, but those who interpreted them.
"The playhouse," said he, "is a school of Vice. The profession of an
actor is an employment unworthy of a Christian," and much more to the
same effect. Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, formerly a generous
patron of the drama and of Molière, but now, for some time past, a
Jansenist of the most advanced type, published a similar work, and gave
it as his opinion that a troupe of actors was "a troupe of devils," and
to amuse oneself at the play was to "delight the demon." So the war went
on.
The attacks of Nicole and the Prince de Conti were not without their
effect; they aroused the zeal of all who disliked the theatre and
believed it prejudicial to morality; and a regular campaign was
organised. All unconsciously, Molière himself forged a terrible weapon
for the enemies of his profession. The production of _Tartuffe_ aroused
a perfect storm of indignation among all sections of the clergy; Jesuit
and Jansenist united in denouncing the play, its author, and his
calling. A curé of Paris, one Père Roullé, demanded that the writer,
"this demon clothed with flesh and habited as a man, the most notorious
blasphemer and libertine that has appeared for centuries past, should be
delivered to the flames, the forerunners of those of hell;" Bourdaloue
preached against it; Bossuet declared the works of the poet to be a
tissue of buffooneries, blasphemies, infamies, and obscenities; and
Hardouin de Péréfixe, the then Archbishop of Paris, issued an order
forbidding people "to represent, read or hear _Tartuffe_ recited under
pain of excommunication."
All the old prejudices of the Church against the theatre awoke with
redoubled force. All the old anathemas against the hapless actor, which
had been allowed to slumber for centuries, were dug up by industrious
theologians, and the clergy waited eagerly for opportunities of applying
them. In 1671, Floridor, the famous tragedian of the Hôtel de Bourgogne,
fell dangerously ill and sent for the curé of Saint-Eustache to give him
absolution. The curé flatly refused, save on condition that the actor
would engage, in the event of his recovery, never again to set foot on
the stage. Floridor gave the required promise; nevertheless, when he
died, he was buried without ecclesiastical rites. Molière himself, as we
have just seen, was the next victim of priestly intolerance.
* * * * *
The funeral took place on February 21, at nine o'clock in the evening,
in conformity with the orders of Chanvalon. By that hour, an immense
crowd had gathered in front of the house, drawn thither, no doubt,
merely by curiosity. Armande, however, "unable to penetrate its
intention," became much alarmed, fearing that the enemies of her husband
were organising a riot, and that some indignity to his remains was
intended. She accordingly determined to endeavour to appease it, and
going to a window, threw out handfuls of silver to the amount of one
thousand livres, "at the same time, imploring the assembled people to
give their prayers to her husband, in terms so touching that there was
not one among those persons who did not pray to God with all his heart."
The body of Molière was not taken into the church, but conveyed direct
to the cemetery of Saint-Joseph; the coffin, covered by a large pall,
being preceded by two priests and six _enfants bleus_ carrying lighted
tapers in silver sconces, and followed by a considerable number of
people, many of whom bore torches. Among the mourners were Boileau, La
Fontaine, Chapelle, and the players of the Palais-Royal.
When the cortège reached the cemetery, which was situated in the Rue
Montmartre, a long delay occurred, as the gate was closed and the keys
had been forgotten. While awaiting their arrival, the mourners were able
to read, by the light of the blazing torches, a placard posted on the
wall, which bore the following verses:--
"Il est passé ce Molière
Du Théâtre à la bière;
Le pauvre homme a fait un faux bond;
Et ce tant renommé bouffon
N'a jamais su si bien faire
Le _Malade imaginaire_
Qu'il a fait la mort pour tout de bon."
At last, the keys arrived, and the ceremony was concluded without
further incident. Molière was interred in the middle of the cemetery, at
the foot of the cross. Not a word was spoken over his grave.[35]
Above the last resting-place of her husband Armande placed a large
tombstone, which was still to be seen in 1745, when the brothers
Parfaict published their _Histoire du Théâtre Français_. "This stone,"
writes Titon du Tillet, "is cracked down the middle, which was
occasioned by a very noble and very remarkable action on the part of his
widow. Two or three years after Molière's death, there was a very severe
winter, and she ordered to be conveyed to the cemetery a hundred loads
of wood, which were burned on her husband's tomb, to warm all the poor
of the quarter; the great heat of the fire caused this stone to crack in
two."
* * * * *
It is, as we have said elsewhere, an exceedingly difficult task to
arrive at a definite conclusion in regard to the conduct of Armande.
That she was the abandoned woman that the _Fameuse Comédienne_ and the
writers who follow it have depicted her we entirely decline to believe.
If she had been, is it conceivable that Molière would have lived with
her so long, or that, once having broken with her, he would ever have
been brought to consent to a reconciliation? On the other hand, to
pretend that she was an irreproachable wife seems as hazardous as to
affirm her misconduct. There is no smoke without fire, and the
separation between her and her husband--a separation lasting for five
years--is a highly suspicious circumstance. Its immediate cause may, of
course, have been merely incompatibility of temper--for the account of
the matter given by the _Fameuse Comédienne_ is utterly unreliable--but,
at the same time, it may very well have been occasioned by a far graver
reason. On the whole, the wisest course would appear to be to adopt a
middle position, and, while refusing to accept the statements of her
detractors, to be equally diffident about associating ourselves with the
somewhat violent reaction in the lady's favour which has set in within
recent years.
Whatever may have been Armande's sins or shortcomings, however, we
should, in justice to her, remember that the responsibility for
Molière's unhappiness did not rest entirely with her. If she was
selfish, vain, and frivolous, greedy for pleasure, and impatient of
contradiction, Molière possessed the nervousness and irritability so
frequently associated with genius in a very marked degree, and which, in
his case, were aggravated by ill-health and overwork. The servant of a
public ever exacting and eager for novelties, the strain to which he was
subjected, always very great, must, at times, have been well-nigh
unbearable; for we must remember that he was not only a dramatist, but
an actor, not only an actor, but a manager. The financial affairs of the
troupe, it is true, were in the capable hands of La Grange; but Molière
made himself responsible for its efficiency, and though the _Impromptu
de Versailles_ no doubt conveys an exaggerated idea of his difficulties
in this direction, they were probably considerable. The jealousy between
the two principal actresses, Armande and Mlle. de Brie, must have been
alone a fruitful source of trouble. In these circumstances, it is not
difficult to understand that the little trials of domestic life, which
in the majority of men arouse but a passing feeling of annoyance,
should have presented themselves to him as intolerable vexations, and
that the sudden gusts of passion in which, we are told, he was wont to
indulge on the most trifling provocation, should have widened the breach
between himself and Armande, whose narrow mind was incapable of
comprehending that in such outbursts men of her husband's temperament
oft-times seek relief for long weeks of mental strain and anxiety. Add
to all this the fact that Molière was of an excessively jealous
disposition, and it becomes obvious that the marriage was doomed to
failure from the very first; in fact, the only thing to occasion
surprise is that the inevitable rupture did not take place at a much
earlier date, and that it was ever healed.
* * * * *
Molière, as we have seen, had been buried on February 21, and three days
later the theatre of the Palais-Royal reopened with a performance of the
_Misanthrope_, Armande playing Célimène. Her conduct in thus resuming
her place in the company so soon after her husband's death was commented
upon very unfavourably;[36] but it would appear to have been dictated by
stern necessity. In the face of the formidable competition of the Hôtel
de Bourgogne, the troupe of Molière, already terribly weakened by the
death of its chief, could not possibly have afforded to lose its leading
actress for even a brief period; and Armande, therefore, decided to
sacrifice her own feelings to the interests of her colleagues.
Indeed, as matters stood, the continued existence of the "Comédiens du
Roi" as a separate company was soon in imminent peril. During the Easter
recess, the Hôtel de Bourgogne intrigued vigorously against them, with
the result that four of the best players, with Baron at their head,
resigned their places and passed over to the older theatre; while,
shortly afterwards, Lulli obtained the king's permission to make the
theatre of the Palais-Royal the home of French opera, and the
unfortunate _Moliéristes_ found themselves without a stage to act upon.
This was a crushing blow; and when, very reluctantly, the troupe had
made overtures to their old rivals in the Rue Mauconseil, with a view to
an amalgamation, and had been met by a curt refusal, the position seemed
almost desperate.
Well indeed was it for Armande and her colleagues that they numbered
among them, in the person of La Grange, one of the shrewdest and most
capable men of business who ever trod the boards of a theatre. Born,
about 1640, at Amiens, of respectable Picard stock, La Grange, after two
or three years' experience in the provinces as a strolling player,
joined his fortunes to those of Molière; and, in May 1659, on the death
of Joseph Béjart, stepped into his shoes as the _jeune premier_ of the
troupe. As an actor, he appears to have been altogether admirable, the
type of the perfect lover, as understood in those days, and, according
to the anonymous author of the _Entretiens galants_, to see him play
with Armande in such a piece as the _Malade imaginaire_ was a sight not
easily forgotten: "Their acting continues still, even when their part is
concluded; they are never useless on the stage; they play almost as
well when they listen as when they speak. Their glances are never
wasted; their eyes do not wander round the boxes; they know that the
theatre is full, but they speak and act as if they see only those who
are concerned in their rôle and action."