had in view was not the same. M. Bonnassies deals almost entirely with the administrative working of the theatre, whilst M. Despois mainly treats of the stage from a literary point of view. Molière established himself and his troupe in Paris in 1658, and we may fix upon that date as the commencement of the Comédie Française, though that title was not officially given to it until twenty-two years afterwards. Before Molière came, there were two organized French theatres in Paris, the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the Théâtre du Marais. The former originally belonged to the Confrères de la Passion, a society made up principally of the artisans of Paris, who had come together with the object of representing Les Mystères,—"Mysteries," as they were called with us. They were In the first actors in France who shaped their theatrical performances into any kind of histrionic art, and it would seem, from the letters patent they obtained from Charles VI. in 1402, that they were the first company of actors who were allowed to exact a money payment from those who went to see them. 1548, they bought a large portion of the ground belonging to the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and built a new theatre there, but in the same year they were prohibited by the Parliament from continuing to perform the Mysteries. The prohibition to continue “ ces sortes de representations" seems, forty years later, to have put an end to the theatrical performances of the Confrères de la Passion; for M. Guizot tells us (in his work, Corneille et son Temps), that they, "in possession of the exclusive privilege of providing the public with a spectacle which it could go and see by paying its money, but unable to attract attention since they had been ordered not to represent the Mysteries,-let their privivilege, and the Hôtel de Bourgogne, to actors who did not pretend to instruct the spectators, but only to amuse them." This took place in 1588. It is certain that a company of actors remained there for many years, though whether they most amused or instructed the public it is hard for us to say. What amused one age often instructs the next. M. Guizot tells us that a very small number of comedies were played at this time as compared with the tragedies. Jodelle, Ronsard, Garnier, and Hardy were the predecessors of Pierre Corneille; and from the accounts given us of their plays, the public must have been as easy to please as they were to instruct. These actors obtained from Louis XIII., quite in the early part of his reign, the privilege to style themselves La Troupe royale des Comédiens, and we find the actors of the Hôtel de Bourgogne bearing this title down to the year 1680, when they were fused with the only other then existing company. This troupe royale, or Les Grands Comédiens, as they were pleased to call themselves, had always been regarded as superior to their rivals at the Marais theatre. They held a sort of semi-official position during the reign of Louis XIII. and the early years of that of Louis XIV., and were frequently favoured with visits from the court. They received an annual pension from the king of 12,000 livres; and so great was the desire of the actors of the Théâtre du Marais to be promoted to the Hôtel de Bourgogne, that in 1643, Bellerose, the principal actor of the latter theatre, who had "de fort beaux habits," sold his place (i.e., share in the receipts of the theatre) together with his clothes to Floridor of the Marais for 20,000 livres. It was at the Hôtel de Bourgogne that the best of Corneille's plays made their first appearance, and also all Racine's plays, except the two first, and the two last, Esther and Athalie, which were not intended for the public, and were not performed publicly until under the Regency. I cannot find any authority showing that a pension was given to the Marais theatre. M. Despois says that we may conclude that it enjoyed no regular pension until after Molière's death, when his troupe and that of the Marais were joined together. M. Bonnassies, however, distinctly tells us that the pension that had been allowed to Molière's troupe was withdrawn after his death. It was through the Théâtre du Marais that Corneille first became known to the public. Mélite, a comedy, was his first play. He gave it to a company of actors at Rouen, his native town. Mondory, their chief, saw the merit of the piece, and set off to Paris to have it represented there. Mondory was not mistaken. Mélite, in spite of its want of incident, which was the general character of the plays of that day, had great success. "At the first representation," says M. Taschereau (Life of Corneille, second edition, p. 7), "the public, not seeing the usual farcical valets, parasites, doctors, and all the other characters whose office it was to provoke laughter" -the public, not finding all that they had been accustomed to, were at first uncertain whether to praise or blame, and the reception they gave the piece showed that they were not quite easy in their minds. But they soon came to perceive the superior merit of this comedy to those that had preceded it. In his Examen of Mélite Corneille says, naïvely:" Elle fut mon premier coup d'essai, et elle n'a gardé d'être dans les règles, puisque je ne savais pas alors qu'il y en eût." Now, according to M. Taschereau, Mélite was first represented in 1629, so that this avowal of Corneille's would indirectly point to a time from which we can date the commencement of his adhesion to the laws of the three unities, and their general acceptance by French playwrights. In the Bibliothèque des Théâtres, published in 1784, we are told that the rule confining the action of a play to twenty-four hours was first observed in the Sophonisbe of Mairet, which was played in 1629. M. Guizot, however, is of opinion that Jodelle, who died in 1573, was the first who had the idea of introducing into France the laws of the three unities. It is certain that he was the first to compose tragedies, which took the Greeks as a model, and borrowed from them the prologue and chorus. SainteBeuve, in one of his Essays on Corneille, speaking of the time between the first representations of Mélite and of the period Corneille really got his literary education. He came in contact with the talented men and poets of the age. He became acquainted with the rules which were agitating the brains of those in Paris who wrote plays, and of which he had known nothing when he was at Rouen-whether, for instance, a play should or should not be begun and continued in the same place, whether it should or should not be comprised in the twenty-four hours. "The learned and the pedantic," says Sainte-Beuve, "were waging war against the lawless and the ignorant. Mairet was in favour of adopting the rules; Claveret was against it. Rotrou did not trouble himself much about it. Scudéry strongly denounced them." The upshct was that the rules were adopted, Corneille had to follow them; and after him Racine, and every other French play writer, greatly to the injury of French dramatic literature.1 The Théâtre du Marais had a speciality for bringing out plays that were then of a new kind, plays that were called pièces à grand spectacle, or pièces de machines. They were a kind of opera, in which music was played in the interludes. The Abbé Boyer, whose name is now forgotten, was the first who introduced these plays. plays. Some of them, especially Les Amours de Jupiter et de Sémélé, which seems to have been brought out in 1666 with surprising splendour, produced a great effect. It is very probable that these tragi-comedies and pastoralcomedies of Boyer did much to create in the mind of the king that love for musical performances and mythological operas which Lulli and Quinault, a few 1 I must here quote a remark made by Sainte-Beuve upon this subject. He says that if Corneille had come before the Academy and Richelieu, in the place of Alexandre Hardy for instance, "il n'y eût pas traîné après lui le bagage des règles, mille scrupules lourds et puérils, mille petits empêchements à un plus large et vaste essor." It is very gratifying to find a Frenchman of so eminently critical a mind as Sainte-Beuve denouncing boldly the laws of the three unities as a “bagage years later, laboured so hard to gratify. M. Despois mentions the king's coming to the Marais, presque avec toute sa cour, to admire "Les machines presque divines, The Abbé got his loyer, which lived longer at any rate than his verses. He was received into the Academy, where he remained for thirty years. His reward died with him, but his verses had died long before him. Boyer was not the only manufacturer of these plays. Others followed him. Thomas Corneille, the brother of the great poet, and De Visé, are the most important names. The two frequently wrote their plays together. De Visé also brought out the Mercure Galant, a newspaper which was for a certain portion of the aristocracy of the time a recognised literary authority. It pandered to the taste of the rich and idle loungers. It upheld that class of literature which we may best term précieux, to which Boileau and Molière had so strong a dislike. And with regard to plays, it did not fail to speak for or against an author according as he was or was not one of its own partisans. This paper undoubtedly had an influence at the time upon the theatres and upon the actors. Being the only published account of what was taking place, it was more or less believed. The courtiers of the day were not generally men of much critical acumen. They conceived themselves to be seated on high places which others were unfit to approach. And they were jealous with many fears of unduly familiar observations from without. Those who know anything of the French theatre will understand how violent was the offence given by Molière to gentlemen of this class. In fact, from the time when he first ridiculed those who aped the affectation of the Hôtel Rambouillet down to the day of his death, he was hated by the greater part of the beaux esprits of the time. or common jester, who did his business. rather well; to others, he was a scoffer sneering at the Almighty, telling the world that devout people were hypo crites, and saying all evil things of doctors and their trade. It is rather surprising that so deep a critic as Augustus William Schlegel should call Molière a buffoon. Those who study Schlegel's lecture upon the French comedy are driven to conclude that he did not understand Molière, and that he had no appreciation of his humour. To Schlegel, Molière's wit and exquisite sense of the ridiculous were idle nonsense, or buffoonery. When about to speak of l'École des Femmes, the Tartuffe, the Misanthrope, and the Femmes Savantes, he says that he "must expressly state in the outset that he leaves the separate beauties of language and versification altogether to the decision of native critics," and that "these merits can only be subordinate requisites." This doctrine is quite inadmissible. An attentive reader of Molière perceives that his power of charming by mere language is very great. And this is perhaps nowhere more strongly shown than in the Précieuses Ridicules, and in Les Fâcheux, neither of which comedies. Schlegel mentions. The easy banter and tart replies put into verse in Les Fâcheux are very striking. Or, to take an instance of the ridiculous, an intellect must be inexpressibly dull not to laugh over "Belle Marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d'amour," and all that follows, in the Bourgeois Gentilhomme. But from the general spirit of Schlegel's remarks, we gather that he would deem all this transposition of words fit only for an Italian clown improvising on the stage, and altogether out of place in a written comedy meant to hold a respectable place in literature. When we think of Thomas Corneille putting the Festin de Pierre into verse, so that it might appear on the stage without hurting the feelings of the religious, or Corneille congratulating himself in his preface that he had "adouci certaines expressions qui avaient blessé les scru tirades against Molière, Bossuet saying of him, "Woe unto you that laugh, for ye shall weep ;" and when we call to mind the fury excited against him by the early representations of the Tartuffe, we can form an idea how deep was the jealousy and the bigoted hatred against a man using such a weapon as Molière possessed in his unequalled wit against the hypocrisy, quackery, and affectation of those around him! Taking his private life in connection with the time in which he lived, we have to acknowledge that it did him honour. All his dealings with his own troupe show him to have been an honest man endowed with a strong sense of duty, and they show also that his comrades trusted him. It must be said in justice to Louis XIV. that he appreciated the genius of Molière when his courtiers had failed to do so; and that had it not been for the protection that he afforded, the satirist would in all probability have fallen a prey to his enemies. If Molière had lived in the last years of the reign of Louis XIV., when the stage was controlled by corrupt petits-maîtres, then called the Gentilshommes de la Chambre, the Tartuffe would probably not have been allowed to make its appearance at all-and certainly would not have been reproduced under the king's sanction after the strong opposition by which it was at first hounded from the stage. If Molière had lived in those latter days, strong measures would have been taken, and probably with authority from the then weakened king, to quell and stifle the greatest literary genius that France has yet produced. Most of us have seen the often quoted story about Louis asking Boileau who was the greatest writer that had honoured France during his reign, and Boileau's reply, "Sire, c'est Molière," and then Louis' answer, “Je ne le croyais pas, mais vous vous y connaissez mieux que moi." It has been remarked with regard to France that her theatre has had its greatest freedom and its best independence under despotic governments. When Molière's Tartuffe came out Louis yet come under the influence of his confessor, nor of Madame de Maintenon. The priests had not yet scared him, nor hypocrisy got the better of him. Lashes intended for charlatans therefore fell harmless on him. He could do what he liked and be answerable to no human being. His conscience did not tell him that there was any harm in exposing the vices of a false-faced knave; and he allowed the Tartuffe to appear on the stage.1 The protection and support that Louis gave to the literary men of his age was one of the best features in his character. He had not that same strong belief in the allimportance of letters that Richelieu had. He had little idea that literature could be made a flaming sword, or that it was on its way to upset his empire and his family. He wished to have literary men about him. He liked them to fawn upon him and write his praises; and he in his turn was willing to give them a consideration for their work. As a fact, the king was a friend to Molière. I have mentioned two theatres in Paris, the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the Théâtre du Marais. There had been a third called the Hôtel du Petit Bourbon, the site of which is at present covered by a portion of the Louvre. Here Louis allowed Molière to establish himself when he first brought his company to Paris. The Italian company was already in possession of this theatre, and Molière, by the king's grace, was permitted to play on alternate days with them, paying the Italians 1,500 livres a year for the concession. He was also I The following notice as to the representatious of the Tartuffe is taken from an interesting work, "Molière et sa Troupe," par H. A. Soleirol. "Le Tartuffe, le 5 août 1667, suspendu après la première représentation; repris le 5 fevrier, 1669, très grand succès et grande colère du clergé; les trois premiers actes de cette pièce avaient été joués à Versailles le 12 mai, 1664, à Fontainebleau le 3 juillet suivant, à Villers-Cotterets le 24 septembre de la même année; enfin la pièc entière avait été donnée au Rainey, le 2 novembre, 1664, chez M. le Prince, le 9 novembre, 1665, et à Chantilly, le 20 sep allowed to take for himself and his fellow-actors, the title of the Troupe de Monsieur,-Monsieur being the king's brother. Monsieur on his part granted them "the honour of his protection," and 300 livres a year to each actor,-as to which La Grange adds a note in the margin of his register, "Nota, que les 300 livres n'ont point été payées!" This was in 1658. In 1665 the king wished that Molière and his company should be his own servants. So he called them La Troupe du Roi, and accorded them 6,000 livres pension, which was increased in March 1671 to 7,000 livres, where it remained. In October 1660, Molière had been driven away from the Salle du Petit Bourbon, without notice, as it was intended to pull the building down to finish the colonnade of the Louvre. He was three months before he could find a new theatre. Then the king granted him the Salle du Palais Royal, a large room which Richelieu had caused to be built for the representation of Mirame,-a tragedy of which he himself had written a portion. Voltaire remarks that this theatre was as badly constructed as the piece for which it was built. However that may be, it had to be considerably repaired before Molière's troupe could find a lodging there. On the 20th of January, 1661, he got possession of the room, and there remained until his death. The Italian company who had shared the Petit Bourbon with him, now shared the Palais Royal; and during Molière's lifetime the two got on together in perfect harmony. After his death small troubles arose, mainly from the jealousy that the French actors bore to the Italians. I have already spoken of three French theatres. We learn from M. Despois and from M. Bonnassies how these were fused into that one theatrical institution which has become so well known to the world as the Comédie Française. From the year 1658, when Molière went to the Petit Bourbon down to the time of his death, there were three companies of French actors in Paris:-those at the Hôtel de and the Troupe de Molière at the Petit Bourbon. The reader will do well to bear in mind that La Troupe royale was the title given to the actors at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and that it was Molière's troupe who were allowed to call themselves La Troupe du Roi. Shortly after Molière's death, in 1673, the two latter-named companies were joined at the Hôtel Guénégaud, and the new theatre was known as the Théâtre Guénégaud. Then in 1680, by order of the king, the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the Hôtel Guénégaud were merged into one, which came to be called the Comédie Française. As we have before said, it was not until that date that the Comédie Française Française was officially established. Eight years afterwards, when the troupe was regularly settled in the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain des-Prés, they caused to be engraved and put outside their new building the following inscription: "Hôtel Des Comédiens Ordinaires Du Roy Entretenus Par Sa Majesté. MDCLXXXVIII.” That the special comedy of which Molière was the father owed its origin to the Italian comedy there can be no doubt. The Italian comedy was introduced into France by Catherine de Medicis, who from her youth, says Brantôme, "aimait fort à voir jouer des comédies, et même celles des Zanni et des Pantalons, et y riait tout son saoûl comme un autre." The Italian comedy is of much older date than the French. Even during the first half of the seventeenth century, nearly all the French comedy writers took their plots from the Italians. Whatever drollery their plays may have had was Italian drollery, and whatever faults the Italians had fallen into the French repeated. Various Italian companies came over into France, and played either in Paris or in the provinces. M. Moland and M. Despois both tell us that under Henri III. there was, according to the chronicler L'Estoile, an Italian company at the Petit Bourbon "who took four sous a head from all the French who wished to go and see them |