Molière began in The Pretentious Young Ladies
to paint men and women as they are; to make living characters
and existing manners the ground-work of his plays. From that
time he abandoned all imitation of Italian or Spanish imbroglios
and intrigues.
There is no doubt that aristocratic society attempted, about
the latter years of the reign of Louis XIII, to amend the coarse
and licentious expressions, which, during the civil wars had
been introduced into literature as well as into manners. It was
praiseworthy of some high-born ladies in Parisian society to
endeavour to refine the language and the mind. But there was
a very great difference between the influence these ladies exercised
from 1620 until 1640, and what took place in 1658, the year when
Molière returned to Paris. The Hôtel de Rambouillet,
and the aristocratic drawing-rooms, had then done their work,
and done it well; but they were succeeded by a clique which cared
only for what was nicely said, or rather what was out of the
common. Instead of using an elegant and refined diction, they
employed only a pretentious and conceitedly affected style, which
became highly ridiculous; instead of improving the national idiom
they completely spoilt it. Where formerly D'Urfe, Malherve, Racan,
Balzac,
and Voiture reigned, Chapelain, Scudéry, Ménage,
and the Abbé Cotin, "the father of the French Riddle,"
ruled in their stead. Moreover, every lady in Paris, as well
as in the provinces, no matter what her education was, held her
drawing-room, where nothing was heard but a ridiculous, exaggerated,
and what was worse, a borrowed phraseology. The novels of Mdlle.
de Scudéry became the text-book of the précieux
and the précieuses, for such was the name given
to these gentlemen and ladies who set up for wits, and thought
they displayed exquisite taste, refined ideas, fastidious judgment,
and consummate and critical discrimination, whilst they only
uttered vapid and blatant nonsense. What other language can be
used when we find that they called the sun l'aimable éclairant
le plus beau du monde, lépoux de la nature, and that
when speaking of an old gentleman with grey hair, they said,
not as a joke, but seriously, il a des quittances d'amour.
A few of their expressions, however, are employed even at the
present time, such as, châtier son style, to correct
one's style; dépenser une heure, to spend an hour;
revêtir ses penseés d'expressions nobles,
to clothe one's thoughts in noble expressions, etc...
Though the précieux and précieuses had
been several times attacked before, it remained for Molière
to give them their death blow, and after the performance of his
comedy the name became a term of ridicule and contumely. What
enhanced the bitterness of the attack was the difference between
Molière's natural style and the affected tone of the would-be
elegants he brought upon the stage.
This comedy, in prose, was first acted in Paris, at the Théâtre
du Petit Bourbon, on the 18th of November, 1659, and met with
great success. Through the influence of some noble précieux
and précieuses it was forbidden until the 2nd of
December, when the concourse of spectators was so great that
it had to be performed twice a day, that the prices of nearly
all the places were raised, and that it ran for four months together.
It has been said that our author owed perhaps the first idea
of this play to a scarcely-known work, le Cercle des Femmes,
ou le Secret du Lit Nuptial; entretiens comiques, written
by a long-forgotten author, Samuel Chapuzeau, in which a servant,
dressed in his master's clothes, is well received by a certain
lady who had rejected the master. But as the witty dialogue is
the principal merit in Molière's play, it is really of
no great consequence who first suggested the primary idea.
The piece, though played in 1659, was only printed on the
29th of January, 1660, by Guillaume de Luyne, a bookseller in
Paris, with a preface by Molière, which we give here below:
"A strange thing it is,
that People should be put in print against their Will. I know
nothing so unjust, and should pardon any other Violence much
sooner than that.
Not that I hear intend to personate
the bashful Author, and out of a point of Honour undervalue my
Comedy. I should very unseasonably disoblige all the People of
Paris, should I accuse them of having applauded a foolish Thing:
as the Public is the absolute Judge of such sort of Works, it
would be Impertinence in me to contradict it; and even if I should
have had the worst Opinion in the World of my Pretentious
Young Ladies before they appeared upon the Stage, I must
now believe them of some Value, since so many People agree to
speak in their behalf. But as great part of the Pleasure it gave
depends upon the Action and Tone of the Voice, it behooved me,
not to let them be deprived of those Ornaments; and that success
they had in representation, was, I thought, sufficiently favorable
for me to stop there. I was, I say, determined, to let them only
be seen by Candlelight, that I might give no room for any one
to use the Proverb [1]; nor was I
willing they should leap from theTheatre de Bourbon into the
Galerie du Palais [2]. Notwithstanding,
I have been unable to avoid it, and am fallen under the Misfortune
of seeing a surreptitious Copy of my Play in the Hands of the
Booksellers, together with a Privilege, knavishly obtained, for
printing it. I cried out in vain, O Times! O Manners! They showed
me that there was a Necessity for me to be in print, or have
a Law-suit; and the last evil is even worse than the first. Fate
therefore must be submitted to, and I must consent to a Thing,
which they would not fail to do without me.
Lord, the strange Perplexity
of sending a book abroad! and what an awkward Figure an Author
makes the first time he appears in print! Had they allowed me
time, I should have thought it over better, and have taken all
those Precautions with the Gentleman Authors, who are now my
Brethren, commonly make use of upon the like Occasions. Besides,
some noble Lord, whom I should have chosen, in spite of his Teeth,
to be the Patron of my Work, and whose Generosity I should have
excited by an Epistle Dedicatory very elegantly composed, I should
have endeavoured to make a fine and learned Preface; nor do I
want books which would have supplied me with all that can be
said in a scholarly Manner upon Tragedy and Comedy; the Etymology
of them both, their Origin, their Definition, and so forth. I
should likewise have spoken to my friends, who to recommend my
Performance, would not have refused me Verses, either in French
or Latin. I have even some that would have praised me in Greek,
and Nobody is ignorant, that a Commendation in Greek is of marvelous
efficacy at the Beginning of a Book. But I am sent Abroad without
giving me time to look about me; and I can't so much as obtain
the Liberty of speaking two words, to justify my Intention, as
to the subject of this Comedy. I would willingly have shown that
it is confined throughout within the Bounds of allowable and
decent Satire, that Things the most excellent are liable to be
mimicked by wretched Apes, who deserve to be ridiculed; that
these absurd Imitations of what is most perfect, have been at
all times the Subject of Comedy; and that, for the same Reason,
that the truly Learned and truly Brave never yet thought fit
to be offended at the Doctor or the Captain in a Comedy, no more
than Judges, Princes, and Kings at seeing Trivelin [3],
or any other upon the Stage, ridiculously act the Judge, th Prince,
or King; so the true Précieuses would be in
the wrong to be angry, when the pretentious Ones are exposed,
who imitate them awkwardly. In a Word, as I said, I am not allowed
breathing time; Mr. de Luyne is going to bind me up this Instant:
. . . let it be so, since the Fates ordain it."
MOLIÈRE
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