A word on criticism--Molière estimated by Bossuet, by
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and by Bourdaloue--An anonymous
libel--Critics of the seventeenth and nineteenth
centuries--M. François de Salignac de la Motte de
Fénelon--Origin of the word _Tartuffe_--M. Taschereau and M.
Étienne
Man proposes and God disposes. We ended our last chapter with the
intention of going back to political events; but, behold, since we have
been talking of criticism, we are seized with the desire to dedicate
a whole short chapter to the worthy goddess. There will, however,
be no hatred nor recrimination in it. We are only incited with the
desire to wander aside for a brief space, and to place before our
readers opinions which are either unknown to them or else forgotten.
The following, for instance, was written about Molière's comedies
generally:--
"We must, then, make allowances for the impieties and
infamous doings with which Molière's comedies are packed, as
honestly meant; or we may not put on a level with the pieces
of to-day those of an author who has declined, as it were,
before our very eyes and who even yet fills all our theatres
with the coarsest jokes which ever contaminated Christian
ears. Think, whether you would be so bold, nowadays, as
openly to defend pieces wherein virtue and piety are always
ridiculed, corruption ever excused and always treated as a
joke.
"Posterity may, perhaps, see entire oblivion cover the
works of that poet-actor, who, whilst acting his _Malade
imaginaire_, was attacked by the last agonies of the disease
of which he died a few hours later, passing away from the
jesting of the stage, amidst which he breathed almost his
last sigh, to the tribunal of One who said, '_Woe to ye who
laugh, for ye shall weep'!_"
By whom do you suppose this diatribe against one whom modern criticism
styles _the great moralist_ was written? By some Geoffroy or Charles
Maurice of the day? Indeed! well you are wrong: it was by the eagle
of Meaux, M. de Bossuet.[1] Now listen to what is said about _Georges
Dandin_:
"See how, to multiply his jokes, this man disturbs the
whole order of society! With what scandals does he upheave
the most sacred relations on which it is founded! How he
turns to ridicule the venerable rights of fathers over
their children, of husbands over their wives, masters over
their servants! He makes one laugh; true, but he is all
the more to be blamed for compelling, by his invincible
charm, even wise persons to listen to his sneers, which
ought only to rouse their indignation. I have heard it
said that he attacks vices; but I would far rather people
compared those which he attacks with those he favours. Which
is the criminal? A peasant who is fool enough to marry a
young lady, or a wife who tries to bring dishonour upon her
husband? What can we think of a piece when the pit applauds
infidelity, lies, impudence, and laughs at the stupidity of
the punished rustic."
By whom was that criticism penned? Doubtless by some intolerant
priest, or fanatical prelate? By no means. It was by the author of
the _Confessions_ and of the _Nouvelle Héloïse_, by Jean-Jacques
Rousseau![2] Perhaps the _Misanthrope_, at any rate, may find favour
with the critics. It is surely admitted, is it not, that this play is a
masterpiece? Let us see what the unctuous Bourdaloue says about it, in
his _Lettre à l'Académie Française._ It is short, but to the point.
"Another fault in Molière that many clever people forgive in
him, but which I have not allowed myself to forgive, is that
he makes vice fascinating and virtue ridiculously rigid and
odious!"
Let us pass on to _l'Avare,_ and return to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
"It is a great vice to be a miser and to lend upon usury,
said the Genevan philosopher, but is it not a still greater
for a son to rob his father, to be wanting in respect to
him, to insult him with innumerable reproaches and, when the
annoyed father curses him, to answer in a bantering way,
'_Qu'il n'a que faire de ses dons._' 'I have no use for
your gifts.' If the joke is a good one, is it, therefore,
any the less deserving of censure? And is not a piece which
makes the audience like an insolent son a bad school for
manners?"[3]
Let us take a sample from an anonymous critic: _Don Juan_ and
_Tartuffe_, this time; then, after that, we will return to a well-known
name, to a poet still cutting his milk teeth and to a golden-mouthed
orator. We will begin by the anonymous writer. Note that the precept of
Horace was still in vogue at this time: _Sugar the rim of the cup to
make the drink less bitter!_
"I hope," said the critic, "that Molière will receive these
observations the more willingly because passion and interest have no
share in them: I have no desire to hurt him, but only to be of use to
him."
Good! so much for the sugaring the rim of the cup; the absinthe is to
come, and, after the absinthe, the dregs. Let us continue:
"We have no grudge against him personally, but we object
to his atheism; we are not envious of his gain or of his
reputation; it is for no private reasons, but on behalf of
all right-thinking people; and he must not take it amiss if
we openly defend the interests of God, which he so openly
attacks, or because a Christian sorrowfully testifies when
he sees the theatre in rebellion against the Church, comedy
in arms against the Gospel, a comedian who makes game of
mysteries and fun of all that is most sacred and holy in
religion!
"It is true that there are some fine passages in Molière's
works, and I should be very sorry to rob him of the
admiration he has earned. It must be admitted that, if
he succeeds but ill in comedy, he has some talent in
farce; and, although he has neither the witty skill of
Gauthier-Garguille, nor the impromptu touches of Turlupin,
nor the power of Capitan, nor the naïveté of Jodelet, nor
the retort of Gros-Guillaume, nor the science of Docteur, he
does not fail to please at times, and to amuse in his own
way. He speaks French passably well; he translates Italian
fairly, and does not err deeply in copying other authors;
but he does not pretend to have the gift of invention or
a genius for poetry. Things that make one laugh when said
often look silly on paper, and we might compare his comedies
with those women who look perfect frights in undress, but
who manage to please when they are dressed up, or with
those tiny figures which, having left off their high-heeled
shoes, look only half-sized. At the same time, we must not
deny that Molière is either very unfortunate or very clever
in managing to pass off his false coin successfully, and
to dupe the whole of Paris with his poor pieces. Those, in
short, are the best and most favourable things we can say
for Molière.
"If that author had set forth only affected
characterisations, and had stuck entirely to doublets and
large frills, he would not have brought upon himself any
public censure and he would not have roused the indignation
of every religious-minded person. But who can stand the
boldness of a farce-writer who makes jokes at religion, who
upholds a school of libertinism, and who treats the majesty
of God as the plaything of a stage-manager or a call-boy.
To do so would be to betray the cause of religion openly at
a time when its glory is publicly attacked and when faith
is exposed to the insults of a buffoon who trades on its
mysteries and profanes its holy things; who confounds and
upsets the very foundations of religion in the heart of
the Louvre, in the home of a Christian prince, before wise
magistrates zealous in God's cause, holding up to derision
numberless good pastors as no better than Tartuffes! And
this under the reign of the greatest, the most religious
monarch in the world, whilst that gracious prince is
exerting every effort to uphold the religion that Molière
labours to destroy! The king destroys temples of heresy,
whilst Molière is raising altars to atheism, and the more
the prince's virtue strives to establish in the hearts of
his subjects the worship of the true God, by the example
of his own acts, so much the more does Molière's libertine
humour try to ruin faith in people's minds by the license of
his works.
"Surely it must be confessed that Molière himself is a
finished Tartuffe, a veritable hypocrite! If the true object
of comedy is to correct men's faults while amusing them,
Molière's plan is to send them laughing to perdition. Like
those snakes the poison of whose deadly bite sends a false
gleam of pleasure across the face of its victim, it is an
instrument of the devil; it turns both heaven and hell to
ridicule; it traduces religion, under the name of hypocrisy;
it lays the blame on God, and brags of its impious doings
before the whole world! After spreading through people's
minds deadly poisons which stifle modesty and shame, after
taking care to teach women to become coquettes and giving
girls dangerous counsel, after producing schools notoriously
impure, and establishing others for licentiousness--then,
when it has shocked all religious feeling, and caused all
right-minded people to look askance at it, it composes its
_Tartuffe_ with the idea of making pious people appear
ridiculous and hypocritical. It is indeed all very well for
Molière to talk of religion, with which he had little to do,
and of which he knew neither the practice nor the theory.
"His avarice contributes not a little to the incitement of
his animus against religion; he is aware that forbidden
things excite desire, and he openly sacrifices all the
duties of piety to his own interests; it is that which makes
him lay bold hands on the sanctuary, and he has no shame in
wearing out the patience of a great queen who is continually
striving to reform or to suppress his works.
"Augustus put a clown to death for sneering at Jupiter, and
forbade women to be present at his comedies, which were
more decent than were those of Molière. Theodosius flung
to the wild beasts those scoffers who turned religious
ceremonies into derision, and yet even their acts did not
approach Molière's violent outbursts against religion. He
should pause and consider the extreme danger of playing
with God; that impiety never remains unpunished; and that
if it escapes the fires of this earth it cannot escape
those of the next world. No one should abuse the kindness
of a great prince, nor the piety of a religious queen at
whose expense he lives and whose feelings he glories in
outraging. It is known that he boasts loudly that he means
to play his _Tartuffe_ in one way or another, and that the
displeasure the great queen has signified at this has not
made any impression upon him, nor put any limits to his
insolence. But if he had any shadow of modesty left would he
not be sorry to be the butt of all good people, to pass for
a libertine in the minds of preachers, to hear every tongue
animated by the Holy Spirit publicly condemn his blasphemy?
Finally, I do not think that I shall be putting forth too
bold a judgment in stating that no man, however ignorant in
matters of faith, knowing the content of that play, could
maintain that Molière, _in the capacity of its author_, is
worthy to participate in the Sacraments, or that he should
receive absolution without a public separation, or that he
is even fit to enter churches, after the anathemas that the
council have fulminated against authors of imprudent and
sacrilegious spectacles!"
Do you not observe, dear reader, that this anonymous libel, addressed
to King Louis XIV. in order to prevent the performance of _Tartuffe_,
is very similar to the petition addressed to King Charles X. in order
to hinder the performance of _Henri III._? except that the author or
authors of that seventeenth century libel had the modesty to preserve
their anonymity, whilst the illustrious Academicians of the nineteenth
boldly signed their names: Viennet, Lemercier, Arnault, Étienne
Jay, Jouy and Onésime Leroy. M. Onésime Leroy was not a member of
the Academy, but he was very anxious to be one! Why he is not is a
question I defy any one to answer. These insults were at any rate from
contemporaries and can be understood; but Bossuet, who wrote ten years
after the death of Molière; Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who wrote eighty
years after the production of _Tartuffe_; and Bourdaloue and Fénelon
... Ah! I must really tell you what Fénelon thought of the author of
the _Précieuses ridicules._ After the Eagle of Meaux, let us have the
Swan of Cambrai! There are no fiercer creatures when they are angered
than woolly fleeced sheep or white-plumed birds!
"Although Molière thought rightly he often expressed himself
badly; he made use of the most strained and unnatural
phrases. Terence said in four or five words, and with the
most exquisite simplicity, what it took Molière a multitude
of metaphors approaching to nonsense to say. _I much prefer
his prose to his poetry._ For example, _l'Avare_ is less
badly written than the plays which are in verse; but, taken
altogether, it seems to me, that even in his prose, he does
not speak in simple enough language to express all passions."
Remark that this was written twenty years after the death of Molière,
and that Fénelon, the author of _Télémaque_, in speaking to the
Academy, which applauded with those noddings of the head which
did not hinder their naps, boldly declared that the author of the
_Misanthrope_, of _Tartuffe_ and of the _Femmes Savants_ did not
know how to write in verse. O my dear Monsieur François de Salignac
de la Motte de Fénelon, if I but had here a certain criticism that
Charles Fourier wrote upon your _Télémaque_, how I should entertain
my reader! In the meantime, the man whom seventeenth and eighteenth
century criticism, whom ecclesiastics and philosophers, Bossuet and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, treated as heretical, a corrupter and an
abomination; who, according to the anonymous writer of the letter to
the king, _spoke French passably well_; who, according to Fénelon _did
not know how to write in verse_--that man, in the nineteenth century,
is considered a great moralist, a stern corrector of manners, an
inimitable writer!
Yet more: men who, in their turn, write letters to the descendant
of Louis XIV., in order to stop the heretics, corrupters of morals,
abominable men of the nineteenth century from having their works
played, grovel on their knees before the illustrious dead; they search
his works for the slenderest motives he might have had or did not
have, in writing them; they poke about to discover what he could have
meant by such and such a thing, when he was merely giving to the world
the fruits of such inspiration as only genius possesses; they even
indulge in profound researches concerning the man who furnished the
type for _Tartuffe_ and into the circumstances which gave him the name
of _Tartuffe_ (so admirably appropriate to that personage, that it has
become not only the name of a man, but the name of _men._)
"We have pointed out where Molière got his model; it now
remains to us to discuss the origin of the title of his
play. To trace the derivation of a word might seem going
into unnecessary detail in any other case; _but nothing
which concerns the masterpiece of our stage should be
devoid of interest._ Several commentators, among others
Bret, have contended that Molière, busy over the work he
was meditating, one day happened to be at the house of the
Papal Nuncio where many saintly persons were gathered. A
truffle-seller came to the door and the smell of his wares
wafted in, whereupon the sanctimonious contrite expression
on the faces of the courtiers of the ambassador of Rome lit
up with animation, 'TARTUFOLI, _Signor Nunzio!_ TARTUFOLI!'
they exclaimed, pointing out the best to him. According to
this version, it was the word _tartufoli_, pronounced with
earthly sensuality by the lips of mystics, which suggested
to Molière the name of his impostor. We were the first to
dispute that fable and we quote below the opinion of one
of the most distinguished of literary men, who did us the
honour of adopting our opinion.
"In the time of Molière, the word _truffer_ was generally
used for tromper (_i.e._ to deceive), from which the word
_truffe_ was taken, a word eminently suitable to the kind of
eatable it describes, because of the difficulty there is in
finding it. Now, it is quite certain that, formerly, people
used the words _truffe_ and _tartuffe_ indiscriminately,
for we find it in an old French translation of the treatise
by Platina, entitled _De konestâ voluptate_, printed in
Paris in 1505, and quoted by le Duchat, in his edition of
Méntage's _Dictionnaire Étymologique._ One of the chapters
in Book IX. of this treatise is entitled, _Des truffes ou
tartuffes_, and as le Duchat and other etymologists look
upon the word _truffe_ as derived from _truffer_, it is
probable that people said _tartuffe_ for _truffe_ in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, just as they could
equally say _tartuffer_ for _truffer_."
That is by M. Taschereau, whose opinion, let us hasten to say, is
worth nothing in the letter to Charles X., but which is of great
weight in the fine study he has published upon Molière. But here is
what M. Étienne says, the author of _Deux Gendres,_ a comedy made in
collaboration with Shakespeare and the Jesuit Conaxa:
"The word _truffes_, says M. Étienne, of the French Academy,
comes, then, from _tartufferie_, and perhaps it is not
because they are difficult to find that this name was given
them but because they are a powerful means of seduction, and
the object of seduction is deception. Thus, in accordance
with an ancient tradition, great dinner-parties, which
exercise to-day such a profound influence in affairs of
State, should be composed of Tartuffes. There are many more
irrational derivations than this."
Really, my critical friend, or, rather, my enemy--would it not be
better if you were a little less flattering to the dead and a little
more tolerant towards the living? You would not then have on your
conscience the suicide of Escousse, and of Lebras, the drowning of Gros
and the _suspension_ of _Antony._
[1] _Maximes et Réflexions sur la comédie._
[2] _Lettre à d'Alembert sur les spectacles._
[3] _Lettre à d'Alembert stir les spectacles._