A Short History of French Literature

incidents of actual life, in such a manner as at once to hold the mirror up to nature and to convey lessons of morality and conduct, we must allow Moliere the rank of the greatest comic writer of all the world. _Castigat ridendo mores_ is a motto which no one challenges with such a certainty of victory as he. Although the number and the diversity of Moliere's works were well calculated to encourage imitators, it was some time before the imitators appeared. Unlike Racine, whose method was at once caught up, Moliere saw during his lifetime no one who could even pretend to be a rival. Those who are now classed as being in some degree of his time were for the most part in their cradles when his masterpieces were being acted. Regnard, the best of them, was born two years after the appearance of _Le Depit Amoureux_ and only three years before the appearance of _Les Precieuses Ridicules_. Baron was his pupil and adoring disciple. Dufresny was but just of age, and Dancourt but ten years old, at his death. Brueys and Palaprat (the Beaumont and Fletcher, _mutatis mutandis_, of the French stage) did not make up their curious association till long after that event, at the date of which Le Sage was five years old. Quinault, Boursault, and Montfleury alone were in active rivalry with him, and though none of them was destitute of merit, the merit of none of them was in the least comparable to his. He owed this advantage, for such it was, to his relatively early death and to the wonderfully short space of time in which his masterpieces were produced. Moliere is identified with the age of Louis XIV., yet _Les Precieuses Ridicules_ was written years after the king's nominal accession, and even after his actual assumption of the reins of government from the hands of Mazarin, while _Le Malade Imaginaire_ was acted by its dying author more than forty years before the great king's reign ended. [Sidenote: Contemporaries of Moliere.] The three authors just mentioned as actually contemporary with Moliere require no very lengthy notice. Quinault may almost be said to have founded a new literary school (in which none of his pupils has surpassed him) by the excellence of his operas. Of these _Armida_ is held the best. His comedies proper are not quite so good as his operas, but much better than his tragedies. One of them, _L'Amant Indiscret_, supplied Newcastle and Dryden with hints to eke out _L'Etourdi_, and most of them show a considerable command of comic situation, if not of comic expression. Montfleury, whose real name was Antoine Jacob, was, like Moliere, an actor. He belonged to the old or rival company of the Hotel de Bourgogne, and was born in 1640. He wrote sixteen comedies, partly on contemporary subjects and partly adaptations of Spanish originals. The two best are _La Femme Juge et Partie_ and _La Fille Capitaine_. They belong to an older style of comedy than Moliere's, being both extravagant and coarse, but there is considerable _vis comica_ in them. Boursault, who was born in 1638 and died in 1701, had still more merit, though he too was an enemy of Moliere. His _Mercure Galant_ is his principal play, besides which _Esope a la Cour_, _Esope a la Ville_, and _Phaeton_ may be mentioned. He was decidedly popular both as a man and a writer. Vanbrugh imitated more than one of his plays. In all these comedies a certain smack of the pre-Molieresque fancy for _Comedies des Chansons_ and other _tours de force_ may be perceived. Besides these three writers others of Moliere's own contemporaries wrote comedies with more or less success. La Fontaine himself was a dramatist, though his dramas do not approach his other work in excellence. Thomas Corneille wrote comedies, but none of importance; and Campistron attained a certain amount of success in comic as in tragic drama. No one of these, however, approached the authors of the younger generation who have been mentioned. [Sidenote: The School of Moliere-Regnard.] Jean Francois Regnard, the second of French comic dramatists in general estimation (though it is doubtful whether any single piece of his equals _Turcaret_), was born at Paris in 1656, and lived a curious life. He was heir to considerable wealth and increased it, singular to say, by gambling. He had also a mania for travelling, and when he was only two-and-twenty was captured by an Algerian corsair and enslaved. After some adventures of a rather dubious character he was ransomed, but continued to travel for some years. At last he returned to France, bought several lucrative offices and an estate in the country, and lived partly there and partly at Paris, writing comedies and indulging largely in the pleasures of the table. He died at his chateau of Grillon in 1710, apparently of a fit of indigestion; but various legends are current about the exact cause of his death. He wrote twenty-three plays (including one tragedy of no value) and collaborated with Dufresny in four others. Many of these pieces were comic operas. At least a dozen were represented by the 'Maison de Moliere.' The best of them are _Le Joueur_, _Le Distrait_, _Les Menechmes_, _Le Legataire_, the first and the last named being his principal titles to fame. Regnard trod as closely as he could in the steps of Moliere. He was destitute of that great dramatist's grasp of character and moral earnestness; but he is a thoroughly lively writer, and well merited the retort of Boileau (by no means a lenient critic, especially to the young men who succeeded his old friend), when some one charged Regnard with mediocrity, 'Il n'est pas mediocrement gai.' Baron the actor was born in 1643 and died in 1729, after having long been the leading star of the French stage. He wrote, though it is sometimes said that he was aided by others, seven comedies. One of these, _L'Andrienne_, is a clever adaptation of Terence, and another, _L'Homme aux Bonnes Fortunes_, has considerable merit in point of writing and of that stage adaptability which few writers who have not been themselves actors have known how to master. Charles Riviere Dufresny, a descendant of 'La Belle Jardiniere,' one of Henri IV.'s village loves, was born in 1648 and died in 1724. He was a great favourite of Louis XIV. and a kind of universal genius, devoting himself by turns to almost every branch of literature and of the arts. He was, however, incurably desultory, and was besides a man of disorderly life. His comedies were numerous and full of wit and knowledge of the world, but somewhat destitute of finish. Besides those in which Regnard collaborated he was the author of eleven pieces, of which _L'Esprit de Contradiction_, _Le Double Veuvage_, _La Coquette de Village_, and _La Reconciliation Normande_ are perhaps the best. Florent Carton Dancourt was born in 1661 and died in 1725. He too was a favourite of Louis XIV., but, unlike Dufresny, he was an actor as well as an author. Towards the end of his days, having made a moderate fortune, he betook himself to a country life and to the practice of religious duties. His _theatre_ is considerable, extending to twelve volumes. The great peculiarity of his comedies is that they deal almost exclusively with the middle class. _Les Bourgeoises de Qualite_ and _Le Chevalier a la Mode_, perhaps also _Le Galant Jardinier_ and _Les Trois Cousines_, deserve mention. The collaboration of Brueys and Palaprat resulted in the modern version of the famous mediaeval farce, _L'Avocat Pathelin_, and in an excellent piece of the Moliere-Regnard type, _Le Grondeur_. Some other plays of less merit were written by the friends, while each is responsible for two independent pieces. Both were Provencals, David Augustin de Brueys having been born at Aix in 1640, Jean Palaprat at Toulouse ten years later. Brueys, who, as an abbe converted by Bossuet and engaged actively in propagating his new faith, had some difficulty in appearing publicly as a dramatic author, is understood to have had the chief share in the composition of the joint dramas. [Sidenote: Characteristics of Molieresque Comedy.] The general characteristics of this remarkable comedy are not hard to define. Based as it was, after Moliere had once set the example, on the direct study of the actual facts of society and human nature, it could not fail to appeal to universal sympathy in a very different degree from the artificial tragedy which accompanied it. It was, moreover, far less trammelled by rules than the sister variety of drama. Unities did not press very heavily on the comic dramatist; his choice and number of characters, his licence of action on the stage, and so forth, were unlimited; he could write in prose or verse at his pleasure, and, if he chose verse, he was bound to a much less monotonous kind of it than his tragic brother. Consequently the majority of the objections which lie against the masterpieces of Corneille and Racine, and which make the work of their imitators almost unreadable, leave Moliere and his followers unscathed. One drawback only remained, the drawback already commented on in the case of tragedy, and admitted by French critics themselves in some such terms as that Shakespeare took individuals, Moliere took types. The advantage of the latter method for enforcing a moral lesson is evident; its literary disadvantages are evident likewise. It leads to an ignoring of the complexity of human nature and to an unnatural prominence of the 'ruling passion.' The highest dramatic triumphs of single character in comedy, Falstaff, Rosalind, Beatrice, become impossible. As it has been remarked, the very titles of these plays, _Le Misanthrope_, _Le Joueur_, _Le Grondeur_, show their defects. No man is a mere misanthrope, a mere gambler, a mere grumbler; and the dramatist who approaches comedy from the side of Moliere is but too apt to forget the fact in his anxiety to enforce his moral and deepen the strokes of his general type. FOOTNOTES: [233] Ed. Stengel. 5 vols. Marburg, 1884. Cf. Rigal, _Alexandre Hardy_. Paris, 1889. [234] This singular work has been published in vol. 8 of the _Ancien Theatre Francais_ in the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne. It consists of two parts (or, as the author calls them, days), and fills some two hundred pages. The traditions of the classical drama are thrown to the winds in it, and the liberty of action, the abundance of personages, the bustle and liveliness of the presentation are almost equal to those of the contemporary English theatre. [235] Ed. Viollet-le-Duc. Also in a convenient selection of his best plays, by L. de Ronchaud. Paris, 1882. [236] It is pretty generally known that Richelieu himself (besides other dramatic work) composed the whole, or nearly the whole, of a play _Mirame_, which he had sumptuously performed, and which was fathered by Desmarest. It possessed no merit. [237] Ed. Marty-Laveaux. 12 vols. Paris, 1862-67. [238] Ed. Mesnard. 8 vols. Paris, 1867. [239] The work of (or attributed to) this singular and obscure person has been edited by M. G. Aventin in 2 vols, of the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne (Paris, 1858). The name was certainly assumed, and the date and history of the bearer are quite uncertain. The third decade of the seventeenth century seems to have been his most flourishing time. He was the most remarkable of a class of charlatans, others of whom bore the names of Gaultier-Garguille, Gros-Guillaume, etc., and the work which goes under his name is typical of a large mass of _facetiae_. It consists of dialogues between Tabarin and his master, of farcical adventures in which figure Rodomont (the typical hero of romance) and Isabelle (the typical heroine), etc., etc. [240] These will be found in the dramatic collection of the Bibliotheque Elzevirienne already cited, as well as other pieces, of which the most