Every one was already thinking of departure, when on Monday, May 12th, Molière presented the first act of Tartuffe.
The connivance of the King appears well established. Father Rapin relates that the "sect of the Dévots" had, since the time of Mazarin, rendered itself so insupportable by its indiscreet advice, that the King, "in order to ridicule them, had permitted Molière to represent them on the stage." The Dévots had seen the blow coming, and did their best to avoid it; the annals of the Compagnie du Saint Sacrement affirm this.[161] They report that there was "strong talk" in the séance of April 17th, in the attempt to accomplish the suppression of the wicked comedy Tartuffe.
Each member of the Compagnie charged himself to speak to any friends who had credit at Court, "begging aid in preventing its representation." The effort was vain. Tartuffe was acted. The spectators divined without difficulty whom Molière had in view, and the Dévots heard with emotion this openly significant expression of contempt of religious forms, in less than one week after the Princesse d'Elide had thrown its weight upon the side of questionable morals.
From the point of view of a general principle, the two pieces naturally followed each other; they were two chapters of the same gospel. The King had the air of being about to pass to the enemy and of uniting himself with the Libertins. The Cabal made a desperate effort and Tartuffe was forbidden; at the same time no one imagined that the battle was terminated.
An extraordinary agitation around the King might have been seen during the weeks which followed the fêtes of Versailles. The Court at once departed for Fontainebleau; the two parties disputed the entire summer over the young monarch.
Louis himself had skirmished with both. The King felt at the same time a personal revolt against the constraints of the Church, and the need of a politic catholicity which would sustain the practices of religion for State reasons, because he could not do without their aid. These two fashions of thinking can easily be accommodated together, and the King was in train to learn how to do this. After a little delay, the conciliation between the two points of view was completed in his mind.
While waiting, he lived in the midst of floods of tears. The summer was a very troubled one.
Such events held the attention of Paris, but the poor Mademoiselle, forgotten in the Château d'Eu, fretted so much that at length her pride was conquered. "Upon the news of the pregnancy of the Queen," says the Mémoires, "I decided to write, dreaming that perhaps the King wished to be besought," and she abased herself to do this. She at first expressed the hope that the child might be a son. "I exaggerated with good faith the desire which I had, and I showed the grief I felt in being forced to remain so long without the honour of seeing him [the King]. I said everything I could to oblige him to permit me to return."
She wrote at the same time to Colbert, who was considered the powerful man of the ministry:
Eu, March 23, 1664.