[735] La Bruyère is very careful to add again in a note: “False piety.”
[736] Again our author adds “false piety,” in a footnote.
[737] Tartuffe, in the comedy of that name (act iii.), obtains from Orgon a deed of gift of all his property, to the detriment of his son and his second wife. This was against the French law, which obliged a man to leave a certain part of his goods, called la légitime (see page [95], § 71), to his wife and children; but this law did not apply to cousins, nephews, and nieces.
[738] Orgon, the patron of Tartuffe, has a son and a daughter.
[739] See Tartuffe, act v. scene 7.
[740] The original has ne trouve pas jour; the French noun has become antiquated in this sense.
[741] According to some commentators, Zelia was intended for the wife of de Pontchartrain, the contrôleur-général of the finances; but they seem to forget that La Bruyère was his friend and under some obligations to him.
[742] In this and the following paragraph the author adds again in a note, “pretended piety.”
[743] Already in the first edition of the “Characters” (1687), La Bruyère gave in the above paragraph his opinion about the danger of compelling the courtiers to become pious.
[744] Favier, a dancer at the opera, was also the dancing-master of the Duke de Bourbon, the pupil of La Bruyère. The anthems of Paolo Lorenzani, the music-master of Ann of Austria (1601-1666), were published in 1693.