Et la mienne saura te faire voir ton maître.
VADIUS.
Je te défie en vers, en prose, grec et latin.
TRISSOTIN.
Eh bien! nous nous verrons seul à seul chez Barbin."
It must be remarked that, in the favourite of these learned ladies of the stage, Trissotin, the spectators perceived the Magnus Apollo of the real ones, l'abbé Cotin; and, as the epigram Trissotin recites was really written by Cotin, there can be no doubt that Molière held up the literary productions of the man to ridicule—but it is false that he made him personally laughable. Cotin was a priest; and, when Molière made Trissotin a layman, who aspired to the hand of one of the personages, he might believe that he took all personal sting from his satire. The public fixed the name of Vadius on Menage: the latter was far too clever to allow that the cap fitted. "Is it to be borne that this man should thus make game of us?" said madame de Rambouillet to Menage, on their return from the first representation of the play. "Madame," said Menage, "the play is admirable; there is not a word to be said against it."
Molière's career was drawing to a close; he was overworked, and did not take sufficient care of his health: he despised the medicinal art such as it then existed, and rejected its remedies. "What do you do with your doctor?" asked the king, when Molière applied for a canonicate for the son of M. de Mauvillain, the physician, whose patient he said "he had the honour to be." "We converse together," he replied; "he writes prescriptions which I do not take, and I recover." A weak chest and a perpetual cough was indeed best medicated by the sober regimen and milk diet to which he long adhered; and while he adhered to it his life seemed safe. Mutual friends had interfered with success in reconciling him and his wife; and the order of his simple table being altered by her presence, he yielded to her instigations in adopting a more generous diet: his cough became worse, in consequence. 1673.
Ætat. When he brought out the "Malade Imaginaire" he was really ill; but such was his sense of duty towards his fellow comedians, that he would not be turned from his intention of acting the principal character. The play was warmly received. Though more adverse to our taste and tone than almost any of Molière's, it is impossible not to be highly amused. Sir Walter Scott well remarks, that the mixture of frugality and love of medicine in the "Malade Imaginaire" himself is truly comic: his credulity as to the efficacy of the draughts, and his resolution only to pay half-price for them—his anxious doubts of whether, in the exercise prescribed to him he is to walk across his room, or up and down—his annoyance at having taken one third less physic this month than he had done the last and his expostulation at the cost,—"C'est se moquer, il faut vivre avec les malades—si vous en usez comme cela, on ne voudra plus être malade—mettez quatre francs, s'il vous plait,"—is very comic; as is also the sober pedantry of Thomas Diafoirus, and his long orations, when he addresses his intended bride as her mother, is in the most amusing spirit of comedy. Meanwhile, as the audience laughed, the poet and actor was dying. On the fourth night he was evidently worse; Barron and others tried to dissuade him from his task. "How can I?" he replied, "There are fifty poor workmen whose bread depends on the daily receipt. I should reproach myself if I deprived them of it." It was with great difficulty however that he went through the part; and in the last entrée of the ballet, as he pronounced the word juro, he was seized by a vehement cough and convulsions, so violent that the spectators became aware that something was wrong; and the curtain failing soon after, he was carried home dying. His cough was so violent that a blood-vessel broke; and he, becoming aware of his situation, desired that a priest might be sent for. One after another was sent to, who, to the disgrace of their profession, refused the consolations of religion to a dying fellow-creature—to the greatest of their countrymen. It was long before one was found, willing to obey the summons; and, during this interval, he was suffocated by the blood that flowed from his lungs. He expired, attended only by a few friends, and by two sisters of charity, whom he was accustomed to receive in his house each year, when they came to Paris to collect alms during Lent.
Dying thus, without the last ceremonies of the catholic religion, and, consequently, without having renounced his profession, Harley, archbishop of Paris, refused the rites of sepulture to the revered remains. Harley was a man of vehement, vindictive temper. His life had been so dissolute that he died the victim of his debaucheries—this was the very man to presume on his station, and to insult all France by staining her history with an act of intolerance.[45] Molière's wife was with him at his death; and probably at the moment was truly grieved by his loss—at least she felt bitterly the clerical outrage. "What," she cried, "refuse burial to one who deserves that altars should be erected to him!" She hastened to Versailles, accompanied by the curate of Auteuil, to throw herself at the king's feet, and implore his interference. She conducted herself with considerable indiscretion, by speaking the truth to royal ears; telling the king, that if "her husband was a criminal, his crimes had been authorised by his majesty himself." Louis might have forgiven the too great frankness of the unhappy widow—but her companion, the curate, rendered him altogether indisposed to give ear; when, instead of simply urging the request for which he came, he seized this opportunity of trying to exculpate himself from a charge of jansenism. The king, irritated by this mal à propos, dismissed both supplicants abruptly; merely saying, that the affair depended on the archbishop of Paris. Nevertheless he at the same time gave private directions to Harley to take off his interdiction. The curate of the parish, however, in a servile and insolent spirit, refused to attend the funeral; and it was agreed that the body should not be presented in church, but simply conveyed to the grave, accompanied by two ecclesiastics. How deeply does one mourn the prejudice that caused the survivors to submit to this series of outrages; and the manners of the times that prevented their choosing some spot more holy than a parish churchyard, since it would be consecrated solely to Molière; and, disdaining clerical intolerance, bear him in triumph to the grave over which bigotry could have no control.
How far such an act was impossible at that time, when religious disputes and persecutions raged highly, is demonstrated by the conduct of the mob on the day of his funeral. Excited by some low and bigotted priests, a crowd of the vilest populace assembled before Molière's door, ready to insult the humble procession. The widow was alarmed—she was advised to throw a quantity of silver among the crowd: nearly a thousand francs, thus distributed, changed at once the intentions of the rioters; and they accompanied the funeral respectfully, and in silence. 1673. The body was carried, on the evening of the 21st of February, to the cemetery of St. Joseph, Rue Mont Martre, followed by two priests, and about a hundred persons, either friends or acquaintances of the deceased, each bearing a torch. No funeral chaunt or prayer honoured the interment; but it must have been difficult in the hearts of attached friends or upright men to suppress the indignation such a vain attempt at contumely naturally excited.