La Bruyère. See note to p

1. 16. Le quiétisme \\di% a theological doctrine, the principle of which was that 'il faut s'anéantir soi-même pour s'unir à Dieu, se tenir dans un état de contemplation passive, et regarder comme indifférent tout ce qui peut nous arriver dans cet état.' — (Bergier.) It was condemned by the Pope in 1687.

1. 28. d' Alembert (1717-83), one of the best known P'rench 'Philosophes' of the eighteenth century ; he wrote the Discours préliminaire de l' Encyclopédie, and many philosophical and scientific essays.

1. 29. Diderot (1713-84), another — and one of the most profound — of thèse ' Philosophes.' He was the chief compiler of the Encyclopédie. D'Holbach (1723-89) contributed many articles to the same work.

Page 8. 1. 5. Cest lui aussi qui, causant avec Chapelle de la philosophie de Gassendi . . . See note to p. 6, 1. 22.

1. II. 'Jérence (194 .'-158? B.C.), the celebrated Roman comic poet, and friend of the younger Scipio and of Laelius.

1. 35. Molière, dans un espace immense et jusqu au pied de ^enceinte religieuse. By ' et jusqu'au pied de l'enceinte religieuse' Sainte-Beuve alludes to the attacks which, in Tartufe, are directed against the false ' dévots,' but which were also thought to affect true piety.

Page 9. \\. n et seqq. See note to p. 4, 1. 33.

1. 29. Bourdaloue (1632-1704), a famous religious orator and Court preacher. Louis XIV is reported to hâve said of him : 'J'aime mieux ses redites que les choses nouvelles des autres.' He condemned Tartufe as containing an indirect attack on true religion under the disguise of a satire on hypocrisy. It cannot be denied that many verses in the play tend to justify that accusation.

1. 31. Baillet (i 649-1 706), a laborious and learned Jansenist priest, whose chief work, now almost forgotten, is

Jugements des Haïuuits stir les principaux oui'raqes des auteurs (1685).

PaGK 10. I. I. Le {ère Rafm . . . (1621-87), a nicniher of tlie Society of Jesii>, dcvoted tlic main part ot his life to the composition of literary and thcoloK'ical works ; of the former, one of the most prizcd is the Recevions sur la Pcétique d' Ariitote et sur les ouiTûges des poètts anciens et modernes.

1. 3. Bouhours (162^-1702), another Jesu t of délicate and fine taste, and of great measure in liis jiidginents. Some one wrote for him this epitaph : —

Ci-g'.t im bel esprit qui n'eut rien de terrestre, 11 donnait un tour fin à ce qu'il écrivait; La médisance ajoute qu'il servait

Le monde et le ciel par semestre.

1. 10. Jean- Jacques, an abbreviation often used for Jean- Jacques Rousse. lu. It must be remembercd tiiat Rou>seau condemni d the théâtre, and denounced several of the plays of Molière «ts immoral. (See his famous Lettre sur les Spectacles.)

1. 20. Jean- Baptiste Poquelin. Poquelin was Molière's real name, but he took the actor's pseudonym of Molière (see p. 1 3, 1. 8), and bas retained it for posterity.

1. 26. 'valet-de-chambre-tapissier du roi, i. e. Court upholsterer, responsible for the repair of royal furniture, &c.

Page 11. 1. 5. V hôtel de Bourgogne, the oldest regular Krench théâtre. Formerly used by the Confrères de la Passion, who performed miracle plays there, it was subsequently let to several companies of actors who produced the plays of Jodelle, Robert Garnier, Hardy, &c. In 1629 it was let to the well-known company headed by Bellerose, to whom Cardinal de Richelieu added the farcical players Gautier-Garguille, Gros-Guillaume, and Henry Legrand (called Tur'.upin).

1. 22. Le prince de Conti (1629-66), the younger brother of the ' Grand Condé ' and of Madame de Longuevilje. He was one of Molière's schoolfellows at the ' Collège de Clermont,' and became Governor of Languedoc. He was later on convertcd by his sister and at the end of his life wrote several devotional works. Sainte-Beuve alludes to one of them, the Traité de la Comédie et des Spectacles (1667).

1. 33. 5fr«/>r (1625-88), French traveller and philosopher; he visited Syria, Egypt, and India, stayed twelve years in the States of the 'Grand Mogul,' and wrote several deeply-interesting descriptions of them.

Hesnault (1615 ?-i682), one of the P>ench epicurean poets of the seventcenth century. He wrote a famous sonnet against the all-powerful mini-^ter Colbert.

1. 39. Chaptlle (1626-86), anoiher disciple of Gassendi. Boileau, Molière, and Racine esteenied his judgments, and liked to consiilt him on their works. He used to answer them with frankness. A^ked wliat he thought of Bérénice, the nevv play ol Racine, he criticized it in thèse two verbes : —

Marion pleure, Marion crie, Marion veut qu'on la n)arie.

Once he criticized a verse of the Lutrin with such candour that Boileau refused to continue the reading of his poem.

Page 12. 1. 8. mademoiselle de Lenclos et madame de La Sablière. See notes to p. 6, 1. 34.

1. 20. Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-55), a bright and clever writer whose name bas latcly been brou^^ht into prominence by the masterpiece of Edmond Rostand. He wrote a tragedy, Agrippme ; the Unes to which Sainte-Beuve alludes are the folio wing : —

Séjan : Ces enfants de l'effroi,

Ces beaux riens qu'on adore, et sans savoir pourquoi ; Ces altérés du sang des bêtes qu'on assomme, Ces dieux que l'homme a faits et qui n'ont point fait

l'homme.

Des plus fermes états ce fantasque soutien, Va, va, Terentius, qui les craint ne craint rien . . .

His comedy, Le Pédant joué (1654), is full of liveiy and humorous passages ; Molière borrowed from it the famous scène of the Fourberies de Scapin in which Géronte repeats the words : ' Eh ! Qu'allait-il faire dans cette galère } '

I. 29. les écoliers sont faisants, le. obliging, generous to one another. Cf. ' Je puis dire que mon père fut l'homme le plus obligeant, le mieux faisant et le plus généreux qui ait paru à la cour.' — Saint-Simon.

1. 36. l'exécution de Cinq-Mars et de De Thou. Cinq-Mars and De Thou had plotted against the great Cardinal-Minister Richelieu. During the siège of Narbonne (1642) it was discovered that Cinq-Mars had secretly made a treaty with Spain ; the treaty was laid before the king, and the two friends were executed at once.

Page 13. 1. 2. les tréteaux du Pont-Neuf. 'Tréteaux' means boards placed across trestles, and used as an occasional stage. The Pont-Neuf is the bridge Connecting the banks

122 IROIS rORTRMlS I.It TKRAIRES

of tlie Seine witli the 'lie de la Cité,' thc isle on which Notre-Dame stands. It was in thc niiddle of the sevcntcenth ccntuiy the newcst bridge in Paris (hence ils name), and was a rcndezvous for itinérant hawkcrs and vagrant cntertainers. On thèse 'tréteaux' Italian farces werc actcd, in which ' Scaramouche ' was the typical biiffoon. Thèse farces had grcat vogue in France till the niiildie of thc sevcntcenth century, and INIolièrc began by iinitating tlicm.

I. 5. Jacques and Louis Btjart, two actors who reinained in Molicre's conipany, the former till his death (1659), the iattcr till 1670. Madeleine Béjart was their elder, and Armande their younger sister. Armandc Béjart was to become Molière's wife in 1662. (See p. 35, \. 11 et seqq.., and note of Sainte-Beuve on Armande Béjart's identity.)

1. 18. le duc d'Epernou (1554-1642), one of the supporters of Henri III against thc ' Ligue' He submitted to Henri IV and had a share in the Regency of Marie de Médicis which foUowed thc king's assassination, He died at the âge of eighty-eight.

/(• prince de Conti. See note to p. 1 1, 1. 22.

1. 19. d'AssQucy (1605-79), a poet who looked upon himself as being one of the first writers of his tinie, but who received his real rank in the sarcastic epigrams of Boileau :-

Le, plus mauvais plaisant eut des approbateurs

Et, jusqu'à d'Assoucy, tout trouva des lecteurs.