Into this elevated and artificial circle of society our youthful and unsophisticated poet was now thrown, with a mind not vitiated by any prepossessions of false taste, studious of nature and alive to the ridiculous. But how was the comic genius to strike at the follies of his illustrious friends—to strike, but not to wound? A provincial poet and actor to enter hostilely into the sacred precincts of these Exclusives? Tormented by his genius Molière produced Les Précieuses Ridicules, but admirably parried, in his preface, any application to them, by averring that it was aimed at their imitators—their spurious mimics in the country. The Précieuses Ridicules was acted in the presence of the assembled Hôtel de Rambouillet with immense applause. A central voice from the pit, anticipating the host of enemies and the fame of the reformer of comedy, exclaimed, "Take courage, Molière, this is true comedy." The learned Ménage was the only member of the society who had the good sense to detect the drift; he perceived the snake in the grass. "We must now," said this sensible pedant (in a remote allusion to the fate of idolatry and the introduction of Christianity) to the poetical pedant, Chapelain, "follow the counsel which St. Rémi gave to Clovis—we must burn all that we adored, and adore what we have burned." The success of the comedy was universal; the company doubled their prices; the country gentry flocked to witness the marvellous novelty, which far exposed that false taste, that romance-impertinence, and that sickly affectation which had long disturbed the quiet of families. Cervantes had not struck more adroitly at Spanish rodomontade.
At this universal reception of the Précieuses Ridicules, Molière, it is said, exclaimed—"I need no longer study Plautus and Terence, nor poach in the fragments of Menander; I have only to study the world." It may be doubtful whether the great comic satirist at that moment caught the sudden revelation of his genius, as he did subsequently in his Tartuffe, his Misanthrope, his Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and others. The Précieuses Ridicules was the germ of his more elaborate Femmes Savantes, which was not produced till after an interval of twelve years.
Molière returned to his old favourite canevas, or plots of Italian farces and novels, and Spanish comedies, which, being always at hand, furnished comedies of intrigue. L'Ecole des Maris is an inimitable model of this class.
But comedies which derive their chief interest from the ingenious mechanism of their plots, however poignant the delight of the artifice of the denouement, are somewhat like an epigram, once known, the brilliant point is blunted by repetition. This is not the fate of those representations of men's actions, passions, and manners, in the more enlarged sphere of human nature, where an eternal interest is excited, and will charm on the tenth repetition.
No! Molière had not yet discovered his true genius; he was not yet emancipated from his old seductions. A rival company was reputed to have the better actors for tragedy, and Molière resolved to compose an heroic drama on the passion of jealousy—a favourite one on which he was incessantly ruminating. Don Garcie de Navarre, ou Le Prince Jaloux, the hero personated by himself, terminated by the hisses of the audience.
The fall of the Prince Jaloux was nearly fatal to the tender reputation of the poet and the actor. The world became critical: the marquises, and the précieuses, and recently the bourgeois, who were sore from Sganarelle, ou Le Cocu Imaginaire, were up in arms; and the rival theatre maliciously raised the halloo, flattering themselves that the comic genius of their dreaded rival would be extinguished by the ludicrous convulsed hiccough to which Molière was liable in his tragic tones, but which he adroitly managed in his comic parts.
But the genius of Molière was not to be daunted by cabals, nor even injured by his own imprudence. Le Prince Jaloux was condemned in February, 1661, and the same year produced L'Ecole des Maris and Les Fâcheux. The happy genius of the poet opened on his Zoiluses a series of dramatic triumphs.
Foreign critics—Tiraboschi and Schlegel—have depreciated the Frenchman's invention, by insinuating that were all that Molière borrowed taken from him, little would remain of his own. But they were not aware of his dramatic creation, even when he appropriated the slight inventions of others; they have not distinguished the eras of the genius of Molière, and the distinct classes of his comedies. Molière had the art of amalgamating many distinct inventions of others into a single inimitable whole. Whatever might be the herbs and the reptiles thrown into the mystical caldron, the incantation of genius proved to be truly magical.
Facility and fecundity may produce inequality, but, when a man of genius works, they are imbued with a raciness which the anxious diligence of inferior minds can never yield. Shakspeare, probably, poured forth many scenes in this spirit. The multiplicity of the pieces of Molière, their different merits, and their distinct classes—all written within the space of twenty years—display, if any poet ever did, this wonder-working faculty. The truth is, that few of his comedies are finished works; he never satisfied himself, even in his most applauded productions. Necessity bound him to furnish novelties for his theatre; he rarely printed any work. Les Fâcheux, an admirable series of scenes, in three acts, and in verse, was "planned, written, rehearsed, and represented in a single fortnight." Many of his dramatic effusions were precipitated on the stage; the humorous scenes of Monsieur de Pourceaugnac were thrown out to enliven a royal fête.
This versatility and felicity of composition made everything with Molière a subject for comedy. He invented two novelties, such as the stage had never before witnessed. Instead of a grave defence from the malice of his critics, and the flying gossip of the court circle, Molière found out the art of congregating the public to The Quarrels of Authors. He dramatised his critics. In a comedy without a plot, and in scenes which seemed rather spoken than written, and with characters more real than personated, he displayed his genius by collecting whatever had been alleged to depreciate it; and La Critique de L'Ecole des Femmes is still a delightful production. This singular drama resembles the sketch-book of an artist, the croquis of portraits—the loose hints of thoughts, many of which we discover were more fully delineated in his subsequent pieces. With the same rapid conception he laid hold of his embarrassments to furnish dramatic novelties as expeditiously as the king required. Louis XIV. was himself no indifferent critic, and more than once suggested an incident or a character to his favourite poet. In L'Impromptu de Versailles, Molière appears in his own person, and in the midst of his whole company, with all the irritable impatience of a manager who had no piece ready. Amidst this green-room bustle Molière is advising, reprimanding, and imploring, his "ladies and gentlemen." The characters in this piece are, in fact, the actors themselves, who appear under their own names; and Molière himself reveals many fine touches of his own poetical character, as well as his managerial. The personal pleasantries on his own performers, and the hints for plots, and the sketches of character which the poet incidentally throws out, form a perfect dramatic novelty. Some of these he himself subsequently adopted, and others have been followed up by some dramatists without rivalling Molière. The Figaro of Beaumarchais is a descendant of the Mascarille of Molière; but the glory of rivalling Molière was reserved for our own stage. Sheridan's Critic, or a Tragedy Rehearsed, is a congenial dramatic satire with these two pieces of Molière.