That day is over: whether the present taste for mingled politics and inanity is to be preferred is a question; but we may imagine how far posterity will prefer it, when we compare the many great names of those days with the "small and far between" of the present. Bluism and pedantry may be the poppies of a wheat-field, but they show the prodigality of the Ceres which produces both. We are tempted, as a last extract, to quote portions of the scene in which the learned ladies receive their favourite, Trissotin, with enthusiasm, and he recites his poetry for their delight.

"PHILAMINTE.

TRISSOTIN.

ARMANDE.

PHILAMINTE.

BÉLISE (interrompant Trissotin chaque fois
qu'il se dispose à lire).

PHILAMINTE.

TRISSOTIN.

BÉLISE.

ARMANDE.

TRISSOTIN.

BÉLISE.

ARMANDE.

PHILAMINTE.

ARMANDE.

BÉLISE.

PHILAMINTE.

BÉLISE.

TRISSOTIN.

BÉLISE.

ARMANDE.

PHILAMINTE.

ARMANDE.

PHILAMINTE.

ARMANDE.

BÉLISE.

ARMANDE.

BÉLISE.

PHILAMINTE.

ARMANDE et BÉLISE.

PHILAMINTE.

BÉLISE.

PHILAMINTE, à Trissotin.

TRISSOTIN.

This scene proceeds a long time; and at length the pedant, Vadius, enters, and Trissotin presents him to the ladies.

TRISSOTIN.

PHILAMINTE.

BÉLISE.

ARMANDE.

PHILAMINTE.

The pedants at first compliment each other extravagantly, and then quarrel extravagantly; and Vadius exclaims,—

TRISSOTIN.

VADIUS.

TRISSOTIN.

VADIUS.

TRISSOTIN.

It must be remarked that, in the favourite of these learned ladies of the stage, Trissotin, the spectators perceived the Magnus Apollo of the real ones, l'abbé Cotin; and, as the epigram Trissotin recites was really written by Cotin, there can be no doubt that Molière held up the literary productions of the man to ridicule—but it is false that he made him personally laughable. Cotin was a priest; and, when Molière made Trissotin a layman, who aspired to the hand of one of the personages, he might believe that he took all personal sting from his satire. The public fixed the name of Vadius on Menage: the latter was far too clever to allow that the cap fitted. "Is it to be borne that this man should thus make game of us?" said madame de Rambouillet to Menage, on their return from the first representation of the play. "Madame," said Menage, "the play is admirable; there is not a word to be said against it."

Molière's career was drawing to a close; he was overworked, and did not take sufficient care of his health: he despised the medicinal art such as it then existed, and rejected its remedies. "What do you do with your doctor?" asked the king, when Molière applied for a canonicate for the son of M. de Mauvillain, the physician, whose patient he said "he had the honour to be." "We converse together," he replied; "he writes prescriptions which I do not take, and I recover." A weak chest and a perpetual cough was indeed best medicated by the sober regimen and milk diet to which he long adhered; and while he adhered to it his life seemed safe. Mutual friends had interfered with success in reconciling him and his wife; and the order of his simple table being altered by her presence, he yielded to her instigations in adopting a more generous diet: his cough became worse, in consequence. 1673.
Ætat. When he brought out the "Malade Imaginaire" he was really ill; but such was his sense of duty towards his fellow comedians, that he would not be turned from his intention of acting the principal character. The play was warmly received. Though more adverse to our taste and tone than almost any of Molière's, it is impossible not to be highly amused. Sir Walter Scott well remarks, that the mixture of frugality and love of medicine in the "Malade Imaginaire" himself is truly comic: his credulity as to the efficacy of the draughts, and his resolution only to pay half-price for them—his anxious doubts of whether, in the exercise prescribed to him he is to walk across his room, or up and down—his annoyance at having taken one third less physic this month than he had done the last and his expostulation at the cost,—"C'est se moquer, il faut vivre avec les malades—si vous en usez comme cela, on ne voudra plus être malade—mettez quatre francs, s'il vous plait,"—is very comic; as is also the sober pedantry of Thomas Diafoirus, and his long orations, when he addresses his intended bride as her mother, is in the most amusing spirit of comedy. Meanwhile, as the audience laughed, the poet and actor was dying. On the fourth night he was evidently worse; Barron and others tried to dissuade him from his task. "How can I?" he replied, "There are fifty poor workmen whose bread depends on the daily receipt. I should reproach myself if I deprived them of it." It was with great difficulty however that he went through the part; and in the last entrée of the ballet, as he pronounced the word juro, he was seized by a vehement cough and convulsions, so violent that the spectators became aware that something was wrong; and the curtain failing soon after, he was carried home dying. His cough was so violent that a blood-vessel broke; and he, becoming aware of his situation, desired that a priest might be sent for. One after another was sent to, who, to the disgrace of their profession, refused the consolations of religion to a dying fellow-creature—to the greatest of their countrymen. It was long before one was found, willing to obey the summons; and, during this interval, he was suffocated by the blood that flowed from his lungs. He expired, attended only by a few friends, and by two sisters of charity, whom he was accustomed to receive in his house each year, when they came to Paris to collect alms during Lent.

Dying thus, without the last ceremonies of the catholic religion, and, consequently, without having renounced his profession, Harley, archbishop of Paris, refused the rites of sepulture to the revered remains. Harley was a man of vehement, vindictive temper. His life had been so dissolute that he died the victim of his debaucheries—this was the very man to presume on his station, and to insult all France by staining her history with an act of intolerance.[45] Molière's wife was with him at his death; and probably at the moment was truly grieved by his loss—at least she felt bitterly the clerical outrage. "What," she cried, "refuse burial to one who deserves that altars should be erected to him!" She hastened to Versailles, accompanied by the curate of Auteuil, to throw herself at the king's feet, and implore his interference. She conducted herself with considerable indiscretion, by speaking the truth to royal ears; telling the king, that if "her husband was a criminal, his crimes had been authorised by his majesty himself." Louis might have forgiven the too great frankness of the unhappy widow—but her companion, the curate, rendered him altogether indisposed to give ear; when, instead of simply urging the request for which he came, he seized this opportunity of trying to exculpate himself from a charge of jansenism. The king, irritated by this mal à propos, dismissed both supplicants abruptly; merely saying, that the affair depended on the archbishop of Paris. Nevertheless he at the same time gave private directions to Harley to take off his interdiction. The curate of the parish, however, in a servile and insolent spirit, refused to attend the funeral; and it was agreed that the body should not be presented in church, but simply conveyed to the grave, accompanied by two ecclesiastics. How deeply does one mourn the prejudice that caused the survivors to submit to this series of outrages; and the manners of the times that prevented their choosing some spot more holy than a parish churchyard, since it would be consecrated solely to Molière; and, disdaining clerical intolerance, bear him in triumph to the grave over which bigotry could have no control.

How far such an act was impossible at that time, when religious disputes and persecutions raged highly, is demonstrated by the conduct of the mob on the day of his funeral. Excited by some low and bigotted priests, a crowd of the vilest populace assembled before Molière's door, ready to insult the humble procession. The widow was alarmed—she was advised to throw a quantity of silver among the crowd: nearly a thousand francs, thus distributed, changed at once the intentions of the rioters; and they accompanied the funeral respectfully, and in silence. 1673. The body was carried, on the evening of the 21st of February, to the cemetery of St. Joseph, Rue Mont Martre, followed by two priests, and about a hundred persons, either friends or acquaintances of the deceased, each bearing a torch. No funeral chaunt or prayer honoured the interment; but it must have been difficult in the hearts of attached friends or upright men to suppress the indignation such a vain attempt at contumely naturally excited.

Every one who knew Molière loved him. He was generous, charitable, and warm-hearted. His sense of duty towards his company induced him to remain an actor, when his leaving the stage would have opened the door to honours eagerly sought after and highly esteemed by the first men of the day. It was deliberated, to elect him a member of the French academy. The academicians felt that they should be honoured by such a member, and wished him to give up acting low comedy; without which they fancied that the dignity of the academy would be degraded. Boileau tried to persuade his friend to renounce the stage, Molière refused: he said, he was attached to it by a point of honour. "What honour?" cried Boileau, "that of painting your face, and making a fool of yourself?" Molière felt that by honour he was engaged to give all the support he could to a company whose existence (as it was afterwards proved) depended on his exertions: and besides, his point of honour might mean a steady adherence to the despised stage; so that the slur of his secession might not be added to the ignominy already heaped upon it. He had a delicacy of feeling that went beyond Boileau—that of shrinking from insulting his fellow actors by seceding from among them, and of choosing to show to the world that he thought it no dishonour to exercise his talent for its amusement. In his heart, indeed, he knew the annoyances attached to his calling; when a young man came to ask him to facilitate his going on the stage, and Molière, inquiring who he was, learnt that his father was an advocate in good practice, on which he represented forcibly the evils that attend the life of an actor. "I advise you," he continued, "to adopt your father's profession—ours will not suit you; it is the last resource of those who have nothing better, or who are too idle to work. Besides, you will deeply pain your relations. I always regret the sorrow I occasioned mine; and would not do so could I begin again. You think perhaps that we have our pleasures; but you deceive yourself. Apparently we are sought after by the great; it is true, we are the ministers of their amusement—but there is nothing so sad as being the slaves of their caprice. The rest of the world look on us as the refuse of mankind, and despise us accordingly." Chapelle came in while this argument was going on; and, taking the opposite side, exclaimed: "Do you love pleasure? then be sure you will have more in six months as an actor than in six years at the bar." But Molière's earnest and well-founded arguments were more powerful than the persuasions of his volatile friend.

In every point of view Molière's disposition and actions demand our love and veneration. He was generous to a high degree—undeviating in his friendship; charitable to all in need. His sense of Barron's talent and friendless position caused him to adopt him as a son; and he taught him the art in which both as a comic and tragic actor Barron afterwards excelled. One day the young man told him of a poor stroller who wanted some small sum to assist him in joining his company—Molière learnt that it was Mondorge, who had formerly been a comrade of his own; he asked Barron, how much he wished to give; the other replied, four pistoles. "Give him," said Moliere, "four pistoles from me—and here are twenty to give from yourself." His charities were on all sides very considerable; and his hand was never shut to the poor. Getting into a carriage one day, he gave a piece of money to a mendicant standing by; the man ran after the carriage, and stopt it, "You have made a mistake, sir," he cried out, "You have given me a louis d'or." "And here is another, to reward your honesty," replied Molière; and, as the carriage drove off, he exclaimed, "Where will virtue next take shelter" (où la vertu va-t-elle se nicher!), showing that he generalised even this simple incident, and took it home to his mind as characteristic of human nature. The biographer, Grimarest—who by no means favours him, and dilates on anecdotes till he turns them into romance—says, that he was very irritable, and that his love of order was so great that he was exceedingly discomposed by any want of neatness or exactitude in his domestic arrangements. That ill health and the various annoyances he suffered as manager of a theatre, may have tended to render him irritable, is possible; but there are many anecdotes that display sweetness of disposition and great gentleness of mind and manner. Boileau, who was an excellent mimic, amused Louis XIV. one day by taking off all the principal actors—the king insisted that he should include Molière, who was present; and afterwards asked him, What he thought of the imitation? "We cannot judge of our own likeness," replied Molière; but if he has succeeded as well with me as with the others, it must needs be admirable. One day La Fontaine having drawn on himself an unusual share of raillery by his abstraction and absence of mind, Molière felt that the joke was being carried too far—"Laissons-le," he said, "nous n'effacerons jamais le bon-homme,"—the name bestowed on La Fontaine by his friends. We cannot help considering also in the same light, that of a heart true to the touch of a nature, which "makes the whole world kin," his habit of reading his pieces, before they were acted, to his old housekeeper, La Forêt. From the dulness or vivacity which her face expressed as he read, he judged whether the audience would yawn or applaud his scenes as acted. That she was a sensible old woman cannot be doubted; as when a play, by another author, was read to her as written by her master, she shook her head, and told Molière that he was cheating her.

As a comic actor Molière had great merit: he played broad farcical parts; and a description of his style is handed down to us both by his enemies and friends. Montfleuri (the son of the actor), in his satire, says,——

No doubt, though a caricature, there is truth in this picture. We still see in his portraits the wig, thickly crowned with laurels; and theatrical historians have mentioned the sort of catching of the breath—exaggerated in the verses above quoted into a hoquet, or hiccough,—which he had acquired by his endeavour to moderate the rapidity of his articulation. The newspapers of the day, in giving an account of him when he died, describe him as "actor from head to foot: he seemed to have many voices—for all spoke in him; and by a step, a smile, a trick of the eye, or a motion of the head, he said more in a moment than words could express in an hour." "He was," we find written in another newspaper, "neither too fat nor too thin; he was rather above the middle height, and carried himself well—he walked gravely, with a very serious manner; his nose was thick; his mouth large, his complexion dark; his eyebrows black and strongly marked, and the way in which he moved them gave great comic expression to his countenance." He acted well also, because, in addition to his genius, his heart was in all he did; and he wrote well from the same cause. He had that enthusiasm for his art which marks the man of genius. He did not begin to write till thirty-four—but the style of his productions, founded on a knowledge of mankind and of life, necessitates a longer apprenticeship than any other. When he did write it was with facility and speed. The whole of his comedies—each rising in excellence—were composed during the space of fourteen years; and Boileau addresses him as——

But although when having conceived the project of a play his labour was light, his life, like that of all great authors, was spent in study—the study of mankind. Boileau called him the contemplator. He was silent and abstracted in company—he listened, and felt; and carried away a knowledge that displayed itself afterwards in his conception of character, in his perception of the ridiculous, in his portraitures of the human heart. Perhaps nothing proves more the original and innate bent of genius than the fact, that Molière was a comic writer. His sense of the ridiculous being intuitive, forced him to a species of composition, which, by choice, he would have exchanged for tragic and pathetic dramas: but he could only idealise in one view of life; his imagination was tame when it tried to soar to the sublime, or to touch by tenderness. Of course he has not escaped criticism even in the pieces in which his genius is most displayed. Voltaire says that his farce is too broad, and his serious pieces want interest; and that he almost always failed in the dénouement of his plots. The latter portion of this remark is truer than the former; though there is foundation for the whole. Voltaire, like Boileau, was bitten by the then Gallic mania for classical (i.e. in modern literature, imitative instead of original) productions. Boileau too often considers that Molière sacrificed good taste to the multitude when he made his audience laugh. Boileau's poetry is arid, with all its wit; and he had no feeling for humour: his very sarcasms, full of point and epigram as they are, turn entirely on manner; he seldom praises or blames the higher portions of composition. Schlegel, in his bigotted dislike for all things French, by no means does Molière justice[46]; and many of his criticisms are quite false. As, for instance, that on the "Avare;" where he says, that no miser at once hides a treasure and lends money on usury. Any one who consults the history of our celebrated English misers of the last century will find that they, without exception, united the characters of misers and money-lenders.

It has been mentioned that Molière did not succeed in the serious, the sentimental, the fanciful. Voltaire mentions his little one-act piece of "L'Amour Peintre" as the only one of the sort that has grace and spirit. This slight sketch is evidently the groundwork of the "Barber of Seville;" it contains the same characters and the same situations in a more contracted space.

Similar to our Shakspeare, Molière held up a faithful mirror to nature; and there is scarcely a trait or a speech in any of his pieces that does not charm the reader as the echo of reality. It is a question, how far Molière individualised general observations, or placed copies of real persons in his canvass. All writers of fiction must ground their pictures on their knowledge of life; and comic writers (comedy deriving so much of its excellence from slight but individual traits) are led more entirely into plagiarisms from nature. Sir Walter Scott is an instance of this, and could point out the original of almost all his comic characters. This may be carried too far; and the question is, to what extent Molière sinned against good taste and good feeling in holding up well-known persons to public ridicule. We have mentioned the story of his having paid M. de Soyecourt a visit, for the purpose of transferring his conversation to the stage, for the amusement of the king on the following day. This was hardly fair; while, on the other hand, he had full right to the count de Soissons naïve annunciation of the discovery that he had been speaking prose all his life, and putting it into M. Jourdain's mouth; and also to the anecdote we have related concerning Louis XIV. and the bishop of Rhodes, which he introduced into the "Tartuffe." Nor was it his fault that the name of Tartuffe became fixed on the bishop of Autun, as several allusions in madame de Sévigné's letters testify. There is, however, a difference to be drawn between the cap fitting after it is made, and its being made to fit. And in Trissotin, in the "Femmes Savantes," where the works of the abbé Cotin were held up to ridicule, we are apt to think that he went beyond good taste in his personality. The effect was melancholy. Cotin had long suffered from Boileau's attacks; but this last public one from Molière completely overwhelmed him, and he fell into a state of melancholy that soon after caused death. "Sad effect," writes Voltaire, "of a liberty more dangerous than useful; and which does not so much inspire good taste as it flatters the malice of men. Good poems are the best satires that can be levelled against bad poets; and Molière and Boileau need not, in addition, have had recourse to insult."

Molière died on the 17th of February, 1673, aged fifty-one. His friends deeply mourned his loss, and many epitaphs were written in his honour. By degrees France became aware of the honour the country received from having given birth to such a man. The academicians of the eighteenth century endeavoured to atone for the folly of their predecessors. The bust of Molière was placed in their hall, with an appropriate inscription by Saurin:—

In 1769, his eulogy was made the subject of a prize. It was gained by Chamfort; and, on the day of its public recital, two Poquelins were hunted out from their obscurity, and an honourable place assigned them among the audience; and there they sat, living epigrams on the bigotry which in former days expunged Molière's name from their genealogical tree.

His remains, unhonoured at first, were destined to several mutations during the revolution. A stone is at present erected to their honour, in the cemetery of Père la Chaise; but it may be considered a cenotaph, as there is every reason to doubt the identity of the remains placed beneath.

His troop of comedians did not long survive him. The theatre had been shut on his death, and not reopened till a fortnight after; when his widow, in contempt of decency, filled a part. She became manager; but was speedily deserted by the best actors, and soon after the use of the theatre was transferred to Lulli. Madame Molière applied to the king, and obtained the use of another; but within a few years this company no longer existed: amalgamated at first with that of the Marais, and soon after with that of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, there remained only one company of actors in France, called the king's troop. Molière's widow soon after married Guerin, an actor; her career was not reputable: frivolity and misconduct long deprived her of the public esteem. She continued to act till the 14th October, 1694, when she retired from the stage with a pension of 1000 livres. From this time she partly redeemed past errors by leading a perfectly respectable life till she died, 30th November, 1700. Of Molière's three children one only survived, a daughter. She was placed in a convent by her mother; but, resisting her wish to take the veil, she returned home. A grown up daughter interfered with madame Guerin's arrangements; and Molière's orphan child was unhappy and neglected. Unable to induce her mother to make any arrangement for her marriage, she allowed herself to be carried off by M. Claude Rachel, sieur de Montalant, a widower with four children, and forty-nine years of age. Her mother was soon reconciled; and they all together went to live at Argenton. Madame de Montalant died in 1723, at the age of fifty-seven. She had no children; and not only does the posterity of Molière no longer exist, but even the many descendants of his numerous brothers and sisters have left no trace—and the family of Poquelin is extinct.