M. de La Rochefoucauld. Sec note to p

Page 14. 1. 25. mademoiselle Duparc, a famous and fascinating actress who bclonged to the company of Molière till 1666, when she left it for the ' Hôtel de Bourgogne,' where she played the part of Andromaque in the recently successful tragedy of Racine.

1. 27. mademoiselle de Brie, anothcr of thc adresses of Molière's company.

Page 15. 1. 4. Pézénas, or Pézenas, a town in Languedoc where Molière stayed several times and gave a great number of représentations, owing to the protection of the Prince de Conti, his schoolfcliow, then Governor of Languedoc. Molière used to visit the barber-surgeon, Gély de Pézenas, and listen to the gossip of the folk who gathered in his shop.

1.8. Machiavel (1^69-1 ^27), thc famous Florentine statesman and political writer, author of II Principe.

1. 24. Pierre de Filliers (1648-1728), a French writer who was for twenty-three years member of the Society of Jésus. Boileau, irritated by some of his criticisms, called him the

' Matamore de Cluny ' (he had then entered thc order of Saint-Benoit).

Page 16. 1. 12. Juxerre, capital of the department of Yonne, famous for its cathedral.

1. 17. r Illustre Théâtre. Molière and his conipany had since 1645 given themselves the title of ' Illustre Théâtre.'

1. 18. Etant en Languedoc à tenir les États . . . During the sitting of the ' États du Languedoc,' froin November 1655 to February 1656, Molière gave at Pézenas a séries of représentations. A few months later, on the occasion of a new sitting of the États, he produced there the second of his comédies in verse : Le Dépit amoureux.

1. 20. Narbonne, Béziers, Montpellier. Narbonne, a city in the department of Aude, the Roman Narbo. It is situated five miles from the Mediterranean. Bez/ers, a city in the department of Hérault. It contains the noted cathedral of St. Nazairc. Montpellier, the capital of the department of Hérault, and the seat of a University.

1. 25. Sarazin (1605-54), a French writer and poet who became secretary to the Prince de Conti and amused his household by his * bons mots ' and his piquant verses, until he died, struck on the temple, it is belleved, by the Prince de Conti in a burst of anger.

I. 29. Mignard (Pierre) (1610-95), a French painter to whom we owe the portraits of many of thc grandees of the Court of Louis XIV. He contributed to the décoration of the domc of the Val-de-Grâce, and Sainte-Beuve further on (luotes the verses which Molière wrote in praise of the fresco which his friend had painted there.

1. 32. Alet, a town in the department of Aude, fifteen miles south-west of Carcassonne. It contains a ruined cathedral.

1. 33. Monsieur, duc d'Orléans. Under the Monarchy, the title Monsieur was given to the eldest brother of the king.

Page 17. 1. 3. Nicomède, one of the last great tragédies of Corneille, written in 1651. After that date the poet's genius began visibly to décline.

H. 7 et seqq. Notice that a King or Prince when denoted by ' Majesté ' has the personal pronouns relating to him ahvays in the féminine, i. e. ' elle,' ' la.' Hence the féminine pronouns used throughout this speech : ' ... de la bonté qu'elle avait eue, &c. ... Cf. the lines of the well-known fable of La Fontaine, Le Loup et l'Agneau : —

Que votre Majesté ne se mette point en colère, Mais plutôt qu'elle considère . , ,

1. 2 2. Le théâtre du Petit- Bourbon was situated opposite tlic cloistcrs of S.iiÉit-Geriuain-rAiixerrois, and on the site of thc modem Col nnadc cf thc I.ouvrc.

1. 26. la troupe du Marais. The 'Marais' is one of the oldest districts of Paris, — so named hecause of its former Jardins maraîchers, kitchc n gardens, and not from its marshes. Iii tins d'Mtrict part of the company ol the Hôtel de Bourgogne came to scttlc in 1600, and thcy soon won for thcmsclves a great réputation. In 1673, at Molière 's death, several actors of liis company joined fhose of tlie ' Marais.' A feu- ycars later ail ol thcin ieft the Marais and setllcd in the Rue des Fussés-de-Nesle (since Rue Mazarine), where they were soon joined by what remained of the ' Hôtel de Bourgogne.' In 1680 the two companies were definitely amalgamatcd by order of Louis XIV, and constituted the ' Comédie Française.'

I. 33. Les imbroglios italiens, plays in which the plot remains for a long time confused, but bccomcs suddenly deared up owing to the occurrence of an uncxpected event.

1. 35. Mascarille, an adroit, ingénions, unscrupulous valet who appears in three of Moiière's plays: L'Étourdi, Le Dépit amoureux, and Zfj Précieuses ridicules.

1. 39. r Epidique, the slave in one of the comédies of Plautus (Epidicusj who out of dévotion to the son of his master plays ail sorts of tricks on the latter.

Chrysale. Chrysalus, another character of Plautus. Cf. note to p. 19, 1. 27.

Page 18. 1. i. Un fils de Villon. Villon (1431-84) was a poet who led an adventurous life. He was once imprisoned and condemned to be hanged and owed liis escapeto the influence of the poet Charles d'Orléans. His ballads hâve made him famous. Boileau says of him in the Art Poétique : — Villon sut le premier, dans ces siècles grossiers, Débrouiller l'art confus de nos vieux romanciers. 1. 14. Les Précieuses ridicules. The name of Précieuses was given, in the middie of the seventeenth century, to a class of fashionable ladies who were refined in their ways, displayed a great taste for honest and décent litcrature, and who made their ' salons ' the rendezvous of the young writers, poets, and gentlemen of their time. The Précieuses w-ere not ' ridicules ' at first — in fact they were useful in bringing into French literature and French ways more poiiteness and more decency. But the 'préciosité' soon fell into affectation and pedantry, and it is of thèse extravagant Précieuses that Molière draws a picture in this third play of his. He takes

up the subject again later and leads another attack against pedantry in Les Femmes savantes.

I. 19. le bégneulisme bel-esprit, pedantic affectation of intelligence and wit.

1. 20. ce petit goût d^alcô-ve . . . The ' Précieuses ' used to receive their literary acquaintances in their bedrooms, so that their 'alcôves' soon became the rendezvous of smail literary courts, in which the most pedantic style and manncrs prevailed. Hence the expressions : ' style d'alcôve,' ' goût d'alcôve,' &c. . . .

I. 32. Segrais (1624-1701), a poet who frequented the 'salons ' and the poiite sociely of his time ; he was secretary to Mlle de Montpensier till 1671, and then to Madame de La Fayette; he is said to hâve assisted in the writing of La Princesse {le Clèves, one of Madame du La Fayette's best novels; he is admired chiefly for his 'églogues,' some of which are really little masterpieces of simplicity and literary skill.

Page 19. 1. 15. Scarron (1610-60), the greatest of French burlesque poets, whose chief poem, Le Virgile travesti, enjoyed when it appearcd an immense and to some extent undeserved success : —

On ne vit plus en vers que pointes triviales; Le Parnasse parla le langage des Halles . . .

says Boileau in his ylrt Poétique (Ch. I). His masterpiece is Le Roman comique, the most important and the best of ail the French comical novels in the seventeenth century. Scarron was the husband of Françoise d'Aubigné, the future jNLidame de Maintenon, who was to be the second wife of Louis XIV.

1. iS, Lucinde, the daughter of Sganarelle in INIolière's V Amour Médecin.

1. 20. Panurge, a famous character in Rabelais' History of Gargantua and Pantagruel. He is the greatest single création of Rabelais.

1. 26. Gorgibus, an old 'bourgeois' in Les Précieuses ridicules. His nièce and daughter torment him by their aesthetic vagaries.

1. 27, Chrysale, a good stupid 'bourgeois,' the husband of Philaminte in Les Femmes savantes.

1. 30. Pangloss, an obstinately optimistic philosopher in Voltaire's Candide.

1. 31. Gringoire, a character in Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris.

1. 32. J/cfJte, thc principal character in IMolicrc's comcdy Le Misanthrope, a disagrccablc but upriglit man wlio scorns thc civilities of iifc and thc shams oi socicty.

Page 20. 1. 3. Jean- Jacques. Sec note to p. 10, 1. 10, 1.4. Fable (TEi^lanthie (1755-94), a poct uhosc literary carccr was too soon brought to an end by his rcvohitionary zcal. He becamc the sccretary of Danton, was a représentative of Paris in the Convention, and belonged to the weilknown ' Comité de Sahit PiibUc' Accuscd ol liaving falsified some officiai accounts for ^4.000, hc was behcaded on the 5tli of Aprii, 1794, thc very day whcn Danton and Camille Desmoulins themselvcs went to thescaflold.

He gained his poctical famé by one single play, Le Philinte de Molière, ou la suite du Misanthrope, which was produced at the Théâtre Français in 1790. His Philinte, very différent froin that of INIohère, is purely selfish ; and the aim of the play — a very dramatic and very moral one — is to make him the dupe of his own selfishness,

1. 14. celles de Térence, supposées écrites par Scipion. Scipio Africanus ÎNlinor — the Scipio whotook Carthage — was a patron of Terence, and is said to hâve collaborated in some of the latter's plays.

1. 18. les fêtes de Faux . . . Thèse fêtes were given in honour of Louis XIV by the superintcndent of finances Fouquet, in the beautiful castle which he had had built at Vaux. He was shortly aftcrwards accuscd of pcculation and disgraced ; La Fontaine, one of his faithful friends, thcn wrotc a pétition to the king in his favour, in the form of one of his most exquisite and tender poems : VÉlégie aux Nymphes de Vaux ; in this clegy La Fontaine gives Fouquet the pseudonym of Oronte,

1. 25. Jodelet, a famous comic actor who played at the Marais and at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. He cxcelled in the coarse jokes of Scarron's style, which went out of fashion when IVIolière appeared.

1. 30. piquet, a French game of cards, of which one of the ' Fâcheux ' (bores) gives a lengthy description ; another, a little later on, describes the hunting scène, the origin of which Sainte-Beuve cxplains in the subséquent lines,

1. 38. Boileau, in his Second Satire (1664), asked Molière where he found his rhymes : -

Rare et fameux esprit, dont la fertile veine Ignore en écrivant le travail et la peine . . . Dans les combats d'esprit savant maître d'escrime, Enseigne-moi, Molière, où tu trouves la rime . . .

Page 21. 1. 4. Régnier. See note to p. 5, 1. 22.

1. 5. D' Aubignc (1550-1630), the author of a véhément satire in which he describes the lUs which rcligious struggles had brought upon France. Sainte-Beuve has elsi where characterized d'Aubigné in thèse words : ' Juvénal du xvi« siècle, âpre, austère, inexorable, hér;sbé d'hyperboles étincelant de beauté, rachetant une rudesse grossière par une sublime énergie . . .'

1. 6. un pli dans le vers, an irregularity in the rhythm of the verse.

1. 7. rhiatus. A ' hiatus ' is the clashing of the vowel ending a word with the vowel that begins a word immediately following, condemncd by the huvs ot French prosody.

duc de Saint-Simon. The Duke of Saint-Simon (1675-1755) wrote memoirs of great hi>torical value and of fascinating interest on the reign of Louis XIV. Sainte-Beuve writes about him : ' Saint-Simon est le plus grand peintre de son siècle, de ce siècle de Louis XIV dans son entier épanouissement ... Si quelqu'un a rendu possible de repeupler en idée Versailles, et de le repeupler sans ennui, c'est lui . . . Au sortir de sa lecture, lorsqu'on ouvre un livre d'histoire ou même de mémoires, on court risque de trouver tout maigre et pâle, et pauvre . . . Les peintres de cette sorte sont rares, et il n'y a même eu jusqu'ici, à ce degré de verve et d'ampleur, qu'un Saint-Simon.'

1. 9. Juger (1772-1829), the author of a commentary on the Works 01 Molière which enjoyed some esteem when published, but Is generally very superficial. I. 1 2. La loi de Boileau is : —

Que toujours dans vos vers le sens coupant les mots Suspende l'hémistiche, en marque le repos.

1. 18. Fénelon (1651-1715), the famous ecclesiastic, author of the Télémaque and other tasteful writings. Fénelon did not appreciate Molière's style at its fuU value ; he said of it : ' La versification l'a gêné, et il a mieux réussi dans V Amphitryon, où il a pris la liberté de faire des vers irréguliers. INÎais, en général, il me para'.t, jusque dans sa prose, ne parler point assez simplement pour exprimer toutes les passions.'

1. 34. Brossette (1671-1743), a friend of Boileau, who coUected ail the détails relating to the latter's life and works, and published them with a gênerai édition of the works of Boileau in 17 16.

Page 22. 1. 5. Sainte-Beuve hère makes a comparison between the style of Fénelon and his priestly robe.

I. I 6. Rien lie mét'ictdeux en lui et qui sente routeur de cabinet. This is cxplaincd by the lincs (hat follow : —

' Hc does net write his works, hc acts thcni,'&c. I. 20. des rapsodes, Jongleurs ou pèlerins de ta Passion . . . Itinérant players who acted farcical comédies or religions scènes— the latter being gcncrally bon-oM'cd from the Passion of Christ.

Page 23. 1, 22. L^ 5r«jr/Y (1645-96), the author of Les Caractères de Théophraste, traduits du grec, aiec les caractères ou les mœurs de ce siècle (1688), a vivid picture of the manners of his time. What charajtcrizes his style is his constant endeavourto findoutthe inost accurateand pictnresqiie terms to express his ideas. Hcnce the epithet ' meticuloiis ' applied to La Bruyère. Sainte-Benve says elseuhcre that the latter ' était d'une génération plus jeune que celle des purs écrivains du .xvii^ siècle; venu le dernier, il avait à renchérir un peu il sa manière, à s'efforcer . . .'

Page 24. 1. 2. les boutiques de la galerie du Palais. The Gallery of the Palais de Justice had long been a meeting-place for lawyers, writers, idle folk,&c. ... ; it was surrounded with shops, mostly booksellers' and habcrdashers'. Corneille had made thèse people's doings the subject of one of his first comédies, La Galerie du Palais ou V Amie rivale (1633). The picture was a faithful one, as sonie contcmporary's lines on the recently successful play attest : —

Ici faisant semblant d'acheter devant tous Des gants, des éventails, du ruban, des dentelles, Les adroits courtisans se donnent rendez- vous Et pour se faire aimer galantisent les belles. 1. 3. aux chandelles, by the light of the candies, which were then, of course, exclusively used for the illumination of théâtres.

1. 4. cT après un passage de la préface des Fâcheux. The passage referred to is : ' ... Le temps viendra de faire imprimer mes remarques sur les pièces que j'aurai faites, et je ne désespère pas de faire voir un jour, en grand auteur, que je puis citer Aristote et Horace.' Aristotle and Horace were the two great authorities who were constantiy qiioted by the French ' Classical School' in order to justity their rules and laws.

1. 38. André Chénier (1762-94) was born at Constantinople ; most of his works are imitations or adaptations of ancient Greek poems ; his early death — he was beheaded on the 7th Thermidor, two days before Robespierre's fail —

did not allow him to realize his youthful promise. Sainte* Beuve says that Chénier is ' le plus grand classique français en vers depuis Corneille et Boileau,' and 'l'un des maUres de la poésie française au xviii« siècle.'

Page 25. 1. 12. Riccoboni (i<^74-i753), an Italian writer who published translations of Molière's plays, and sonie Obseruattons on the comedy and the ^enius cf Molière (1756).

1. 15. Cailhava (1731-1813), a French dramatist who had a sincère adiniration for Molière. Hewrote some interesting Études sur Molière (802).

1. 31. Jean-Baptiste Rousseau (1670-1741), a French lyrical poet who cnjoyed in his time a great réputation. He was considcred till the end of the eighteenth century as the ' king of French lyrical poets,' but his famé has greatly suffered from the new poetical conceptions and ideals introduced by the ' Romantic School.'

1. 32. D'Oifvet (1682-1768) was a Jesuit till 1713; he thenceforth devotedhis life exclusively to literature. Voltaire was one of his pupils.