MOLIERE.
At the town of Pezénas they still show an elbow-chair of Molière's (as at Montpelier they show the gown of Rabelais,) in which the poet, it is said, ensconced in a corner of a barber's shop, would sit for the hour together, silently watching the air, gestures, and grimaces of the village politicians, who, in those days, before coffee-houses were introduced into France, used to congregate in this place of resort. The fruits of this study may be easily discerned in those original draughts of character from the middling and lower classes with which his pieces everywhere abound.
Molière's celebrated farce of Les Précieuses Ridicules; a piece in only one act, but which, by its inimitable satire, effected such a revolution in the literary taste of his countrymen, as has been accomplished by few works of a more imposing form—may be considered as the basis of the dramatic glory of Molière, and the dawn of good comedy in France. The satire aimed at a coterie of wits who set themselves up as arbiters of taste and fashion, and was welcomed with enthusiastic applause, most of them being present at the first exhibition, to behold the fine fabric, which they had been so painfully constructing, brought to the ground by a single blow. "And these follies," said Ménage to Chapelin, "which you and I see so finely criticised here, are what we have been so long admiring. We must go home and burn our idols." "Courage, Molière," cried an old man from the pit; "this is genuine comedy." The price of the seats was doubled from the time of the second representation. Nor were the effects of the satire merely transitory. It converted an epithet of praise into one of reproach; and a femme precieuse, a style precieux, a ton precieux, once so much admired, have ever since been used only to signify the most ridiculous affectation. There was, in truth, however, quite as much luck as merit, in this success of Molière; whose production exhibits no finer raillery, or better sustained dialogue, than are to be found in many of his subsequent pieces. It assured him, however, of his own strength, and disclosed to him the mode in which he should best hit the popular taste. "I have no occasion to study Plautus or Terence any longer," said he, "I must henceforth, study the world." The world accordingly was his study; and the exquisite models of character which it furnished him, will last as long as it shall endure.
Though an habitual valetudinarian, Molière relied almost wholly on the temperance of his diet for the reestablishment of his health. "What use do you make of your physician?" said the king to him one day. "We chat together, Sire," said the poet. "He gives me his prescriptions; I never follow them; and so I get well."
In Molière's time, the profession of a comedian was but lightly esteemed in France at this period. Molière experienced the inconveniences resulting from this circumstance, even after his splendid literary career had given him undoubted claims to consideration. Most of our readers no doubt, are acquainted with the anecdote of Belloc, an agreeable poet of the court, who, on hearing one of the servants in the royal household refuse to aid the author of the Tartuffe in making the king's bed, courteously requested "the poet to accept his services for that purpose." Madame Campan's anecdote of a similar courtesy, on the part of Louis the Fourteenth, is also well known; who, when several of these functionaries refused to sit at table with the comedian, kindly invited him to sit down with him, and, calling in some of his principal courtiers, remarked that "he had requested the pleasure of Molière's company at his own table, as it was not thought quite good enough for his officers." This rebuke had the desired effect.
Molière died in 1673, he had been long affected by a pulmonary complaint, and it was only by severe temperance that he was enabled to preserve even a moderate degree of health. At the commencement of the year, his malady sensibly increased. At this very season, he composed his Malade Imaginaire; the most whimsical, and perhaps the most amusing of the compositions, in which he has indulged his raillery against the faculty. On the 17th of February, being the day appointed for its fourth representation, his friends would have dissuaded him from appearing, in consequence of his increasing indisposition. But he persisted in his design, alleging "that more than fifty poor individuals depended for their daily bread on its performance." His life fell a sacrifice to his benevolence. The exertions which he was compelled to make in playing the principal part of Argan aggravated his distemper, and as he was repeating the word juro, in the concluding ceremony, he fell into a convulsion, which he vainly endeavoured to disguise from the spectators under a forced smile. He was immediately carried to his house, in the Rue de Richelieu, now No. 34. A violent fit of coughing, on his arrival, occasioned the rupture of a blood-vessel; and seeing his end approaching, he sent for two ecclesiastics of the parish of St. Eustace, to which he belonged, to administer to him the last offices of religion. But these worthy persons having refused their assistance, before a third, who had been sent for, could arrive, Molière, suffocated with the effusion of blood, had expired in the arms of his family.
Molière died soon after entering upon his fifty-second year. He is represented to have been somewhat above the middle stature, and well proportioned; his features large, his complexion dark, and his black, bushy eye-brows so flexible, as to admit of his giving an infinitely comic expression to his physiognomy. He was the best actor of his own generation, and by his counsels, formed the celebrated Baron, the best of the succeeding. He played all the range of his own characters, from Alceste to Sganarelle; though he seems to have been peculiarly fitted for broad comedy.
He produced all his pieces, amounting to thirty, in the short space of fifteen years. He was in the habit of reading these to an old female domestic, by the name of La Forêt; on whose unsophisticated judgment he greatly relied. On one occasion when he attempted to impose upon her the production of a brother author, she plainly told him that he had never written it. Sir Walter Scott may have had this habit of Molière's in his mind, when he introduced a similar expedient into his "Chronicles of the Canongate." For the same reason, our poet used to request the comedians to bring their children with them, when he recited to them a new play. The peculiar advantage of this humble criticism, in dramatic compositions, is obvious. Alfieri himself, as he informs us, did not disdain to resort to it.
Molière was naturally of a reserved and taciturn temper; insomuch that his friend Boileau used to call him the Contemplateur. Strangers who had expected to recognise in his conversation the sallies of wit which distinguished his dramas, went away disappointed. The same thing is related of La Fontaine. The truth is, that Molière went into society as a spectator, not as an actor; he found there the studies for the characters, which he was to transport upon the stage; and he occupied himself with observing them. The dreamer, La Fontaine, lived too in a world of his own creation. His friend, Madame de la Sablière, paid to him this untranslateable compliment; "En vérité, mon cher La Fontaine, vous seriez bien bête, si vous n'aviez pas tant d'esprit." These unseasonable reveries brought him, it may be imagined, into many whimsical adventures. The great Corneille, too, was distinguished by the same apathy. A gentleman dined at the same table with him for six months, without suspecting the author of the "Cid."