Plato, in his Athenian Tartuffe (the Euthyphron), put this grand moral question, "Can there be sanctity without justice?" This question, so clear in itself but so skilfully obscured by casuists, was again put forward in open daylight. The Theatre re-established religious morality which had been so endangered in the Churches.
The author of the Tartuffe chose his subject, not in society in general, but in a more limited space, in the family circle, the fireside, the holy of holies of modern life. This dramatist, this impious being was, of all men in the world, the one who had most at heart the religion of the family, though he had no family himself. He was both tender and melancholy, and sometimes, in speaking of himself and his domestic griefs, he would utter this grave but characteristic sentence: "I ought to have foreseen that one thing made me unfit for family society; which is my austerity."
The Tartuffe, that grand and sublime picture, is very simple in its outline. Had it been more complicated it had been less popular. Mental restriction and the direction of intention, which everybody had laughed at since the "Provincial Letters," were sufficient matter for Molière. He did not venture to bring the new doctrine of mysticism on the stage, being as yet too little known or too dangerous.
Had he employed the jargon of Desmarets and the earlier quietists, and put into the mouth of Tartuffe their mystic tendernesses, the result would have been the same as that of his ridiculous sonnet in the Misanthrope—the pit would have wondered what it meant.
The evening before the first representation of Tartuffe, Molière read the piece to Ninon; "and to pay him back in his own coin, she related to him a similar adventure she had had with a wretch of that species, whose portrait she drew in such lively and natural colours, that if the piece had not been composed, he said he never would have undertaken it."
What, then, could be wanting to this master-piece, this drama of such profound conception and powerful execution? Nothing, certainly, but what was excluded by the state of religion at that time, and by the customs of our theatre.
Still one thing was wanting, which was impossible to be shown in so short a drama (though, in fact, it constitutes the real essence of the characters), I mean the preparatory management, the long windings by which he makes his approaches, his patience in stratagems, and his gradual fascination.
Everything is strongly told, but rather abruptly. This man, received into the house out of charity—this low rogue, this glutton who eats as much as six, this red-eared villain—how did he grow bold so suddenly and aspire so high? A declaration of love from such a man to such a lady, from an intended son-in-law to his future mother-in-law, still astonishes when we read it. On the stage, perhaps, we countenance it more easily.
Elmira, when the holy man makes this surprising avowal to her face is by no means prepared to listen to him. A real Tartuffe would have acted in a very different manner: he would have quietly sat down, humble and patient, and waited for the favourable moment. If, for instance, Elmira had experienced the indiscretions and fickleness of those worldly lovers whom Tartuffe mentions, then, indeed, when she was worn out by these trials, and become weak, weary, and dispirited, he might have accosted her; then perhaps she would have allowed him to say, in the smooth quietist jargon, many things that she cannot listen to at the moment when Molière presents her before us.
Mademoiselle Bourignon, in her curious Life, which well deserves another edition, relates what danger she was in through a saint of this species. I shall let her speak for herself. But first you must know that the pious damsel, who had just become an heiress, was thinking about laying out her wealth in endowing convents, and in other similar acts of piety.