The theatre was the temple of youth, of love, and of feasting. Away with the dull old people! Providence created them only to pay the bills.
"Fuyez d'ici, sombre vieillesse,—
Car en amour les vieillards ne sont bons
Qu'à payer les violons."
Did gentlemen of a certain age go to the theatre in the seventeenth century? expend their money to see themselves abused and ridiculed? Did they laugh at these indignities and enjoy them? We might wonder, if we did not know that Frenchmen never grow old, so long as they have an eye left for ogling or a leg to caper with.
Molière took these old inhabitants of the stage into his service, and injected new life into their veins. He gave them the foibles, the follies, and the vices he saw about him, and made them speak in a new language of unrivalled wit, humor, and mirth. But his genius was shackled by the artificial conventions of the theatre, which did not allow him time or space to fully develop a character. A grand comic creation like Falstaff was impossible. He introduces a single propensity of mankind, exhibits it in all its relations to society, shows it to us on every side; but it remains only a trait of character, although we see it in half a dozen different lights. Tartuffe is the one exception; in him, hypocrisy hides covetousness and lust; and Tartuffe is Molière's masterpiece. But in most of his comedies he displays rather a knowledge of the world than a knowledge of human nature. In his walk he has no equal at home or abroad; but his walk is not the highest. We feel that something is wanting, and yet we can hardly extol him too highly. He brought comedy into close relation with every-day life; he is the father of the modern French stage, which has gradually cast off the old conventional personages. The French dramatists of to-day are not men of genius like Molière, but, in their airy, sparkling plays, they represent the freaks, follies, and fancies of society so exquisitely that nothing remains to be desired. They furnish the model and the materials for the theatre of all other nations.
When Regnard came before the public, the stage remained as Molière had left it The only new personage was the Marquis, first introduced in the "Mère Coquette," by Quinault, the sweet and smooth writer of operas,—of whom it was said, that he had boned (désossé) the French language. The Marquis is the ancestor of our Fop,—
"Loose in morals and in manners vain,
In conversation frivolous, in dress extreme,"—
who in turn has become antiquated and tiresome. Regnard's only original character is the Gambler; in his other comedies he made use of the old, familiar masks, and won success by his keen sense of the ridiculous, his wit, and his unceasing jollity and fun. His Crispins and Scapins are perfect. What impudent, worthless, amusing rogues! To keep inside of the law is their only rule of right. "Honesty is a fool, and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman." They came of an ancient race, these Crispins and Scapins, that had flourished in Italy and in Spain since Plautus and Terence brought them over from Greece. They found their way to France, and even reached England in their migration, following in the train of Charles II. when he returned from exile, and during a short life on that side of the Channel added drunkenness and brutality to their gayer vices. The character was true to Nature in Athens or in Rome, where men of talent might often be bound to devote their brains to the service of those who owned their bodies, and by their condition as slaves were released from all obligations of honor or of honesty. In the seventeenth century it might pass in France; for the line between gentle and simple was so sharply drawn that ladies of rank saw no greater impropriety in disrobing before their footmen than before their dogs. But the progress of liberty or of égalité blotted out the valets of comedy. Even in Regnard's time the inconsistencies of the character were noticed. Jasmin, in the "Sérénade," utters revolutionary doctrine:—"How can an honorable valet devote himself to the interests of a penniless master? We grow tricky in waiting upon such fellows. They scold us; sometimes they beat us. We have more wit than they. We support them; we are obliged to invent, for their benefit, all sorts of knavery, in which they are always ready to take a share; and, withal, they are the masters, and we the servants. It is not just. Hereafter I mean to scheme for myself, and become a master in my turn."
Scapin has joined his brother pagans beyond the Styx; but Lisette blooms in evergreen youth. This young French person's theory of woman's rights is different from the one which obtains in New England; nor does she trouble herself at all to seek for woman's mission. She found it years ago. It is to deceive a man. She is satisfied with her condition, and with the old mental and moral attributes of her sex. When Crispin disguises himself in her clothes, he exclaims,—
"L'addresse et l'artifice ont passé dans mon cœur;
Qu'on a sous cet habit et d'esprit et de ruse—
Rien n'est si trompeur qu'animal porte-jupe."
This animal is as clever and as cunning in Paris to-day as when Crispin felt the inspiration of the petticoats.