NICOLE.
CLE. Sir, I would not ask anybody to come instead of me to make you a
request which I have long wished to make. The matter interests me too
much for me not to do it myself. Allow me to tell you then, without
further words, that the honour of becoming your son-in-law is a favour
I earnestly solicit, and one which I beseech you to grant me.
MR. JOUR. Before I give you an answer, Sir, I beg you to tell me if
you are a nobleman.
CLE. Sir, most people would answer that question without any
hesitation whatever. The word is easily spoken; a title is generally
adopted without scruple, and present custom seems to sanction the
theft. For my part, however, I must confess that I look upon any kind
of imposture as unworthy of an honest man. I think it base to hide
what heaven has made us, to adorn ourselves before the world with a
title, and to wish to pass for what we are not. I am the son of
parents who have filled honourable offices. I have acquitted myself
with honour in the army, where I served for six years, and I am rich
enough to hold a tolerable position in the world; but for all this, I
will not assume a name that others might think I could pretend to in
my position, and I tell you openly that I cannot be reckoned a
nobleman.
MR. JOUR. Shake hands, then, my daughter is no wife for you.
CLE. How! May I know...?
MR. JOUR. You are not a nobleman, therefore you shall not have my
daughter.
MRS. JOUR. What is it you mean by your nobleman? Are we ourselves
descended from St. Louis?
MR. JOUR. Be silent, wife; I see what you are driving at.
MRS. JOUR. Are we not both descended from good, simple tradesmen?
MR. JOUR. Is not that a wicked slander?
MRS. JOUR. Was not your father a tradesman as well as mine?
MR. JOUR. Plague take the woman! She has never done with that. If your
father was a tradesman, so much the worse for him; as for mine, it is
only ill-informed people who say so, and all I have to tell you is
that I will have a gentleman for my son-in-law.
MRS. JOUR. Your daughter must have a husband who suits her; and it is
better for her to marry an honest man, rich and handsome, than a
deformed and beggarly gentleman.
NIC. That's quite true. We have the son of the squire in our village,
who is the most awkwardly built and stupid noodle that I have ever
seen in my life.
MR. JOUR. (_to_ NICOLE). Hold your tongue, will you? and mind
your own business. I have wealth enough and to spare for my daughter.
I only wish for honours, and I will have her a marchioness.
MRS. JOUR. A marchioness?
MR. JOUR. Yes, a marchioness.
MRS. JOUR. alas! God forbid.
MR. JOUR. It's a thing that I'm determined upon.
MRS. JOUR. I will never consent to it. Marriages between people who
are not of the same rank are always subject to the most serious
inconveniences. I do not wish to have a son-in-law who would have it
in his power to reproach my daughter with her parentage; nor that she
should have children who would be ashamed to call me their
grandmother. If she came to see me with the equipage of a grand lady,
and failed through inadvertency to salute some of the neighbours,
people would not fail to say a thousand ill-natured things. "Just
see," they would say, "our lady the marchioness, who is so puffed up
now, she is Mr. Jourdain's daughter; she was only too pleased, when a
child, to play at my lady with us. She has not always been so exalted
as now, and her two grandfathers sold cloth near St. Innocents' Gate.
They have laid a great deal of money by for their children, for which,
may be, they are now paying dearly in the other world, for one does
not generally become so rich by honest means." I do not wish to give
occasion for such gossip, and I desire to meet with a man who, to cut
it short, will be grateful to me for my daughter, and to whom I can
say, "Sit down there, son-in-law, and dine with me."
MR. JOUR. How all these feelings show a narrow mind, satisfied to live
for ever in a low condition of life. Let me have no more replies; my
daughter shall be a marchioness in spite of everybody, and if you
provoke me too much, I will make her a duchess.