CHAPTER VI.

CONTINUATION OF MORAL REACTION.

TARTUFFE, 1664

1669.- REAL TARTUFFES. WHY TARTUFFE IS NOT YET A QUIETIST.

THE devotee caught in the comic act by the man of the world, the churchman excommunicated by the dramatist-this is the meaning and aim of the Tartuffe.*

The grand moral question, put by Plato in his Athenian Tartuffe (the Euthyphron), "Can there be sanctity without justice?" this question so clear in itself, but so skilfully obscured by casuists, was again put forward in open daylight. The theatre reestablished religious morality †, which had been so endangered in the churches.

*The appearance of the Tartuffe, and the conquest of Flanders, mark the literary and political apogee of the age of Louis XIV. France, which till then represents the modern principle, turns afterwards against it, attacks Holland, and thus prepares the way for the alliance of Holland and England, that is to say, the greatness of England and her own ruin.

† A freethinker, Saint Evremond, writes to his friend, “I have just read Tartuffe ... if I am saved, I shall owe my salvation to him. Devotion is so reasonable in the mouth of Cléante, that it makes me renounce all my philosophy; and false devotees are so well described, that the shame of their likeness will induce them to abandon hypocrisy. Holy piety, how much good you will confer on the world!" A letter quoted in the edition of Mr. Aimé-Martin (1837), vol. iii. p. 125.

The author of the Tartuffe chose his subject, not in society in general, but in a more limited space, in the family circle, the fire-side, the holy of holies of modern life. This dramatist, this impious being, was, of all men in the world, the one who had most at heart the religion of the family, though he had no family himself. He was both tender and melancholy, and sometimes, in speaking of himself and his domestic griefs, he would utter this grave but characteristic sentence: "I ought to have foreseen that one thing made me unfit for family society; which is my austerity."*

The Tartuffe, that grand and sublime picture, is very simple in its outline. Had it been more complicated it had been less popular. Mental restriction and the direction of intention, which every body had laughed at since the "Provincial letters," were sufficient matter for Molière. He did not venture to bring the new doctrine of mysticism on the stage, being as yet too little known, or too dangerous.

Had he employed the jargon of Desmarets, and the earlier quietists, and put into the mouth of Tartuffe their mystic tendernesses, the result would have been the same as that of his ridiculous sonnet in the Misanthrope- the pit would have wondered what it

meant.

* See his life by Grimarest, the ingenious notice of Mr. Génin (the French Plutarch), and the important work by Mr. E. Noël "On the Biography of Molière, founded on his Comedies” (in the press).

The evening before the first representation of Tartuffe, Molière read the piece to Ninon; "and to pay him back in his own coin, she related to him a similar adventure she had had with a wretch of that species, whose portrait she drew in such lively and natural colours, that if the piece had not been composed, he said, he never would have undertaken it."

What, then, could be wanting to this master-piece, this drama of such profound conception and powerful execution? Nothing, certainly, but what was excluded by the state of religion at that time, and by the customs of our theatre.

Still one thing was wanting, which was impossible to be shown in so short a drama (though in fact it constitutes the real essence of the characters), I mean the preparatory management, the long windings by which he makes his approaches, his patience in stratagems, and his gradual fascination.

Every thing is strongly told, but rather abruptly. This man, received into the house out of charity, this low rogue, this glutton who eats as much as six, this red-eared villain - how did he grow bold so suddenly, and aspire so high? A declaration of love from such a man to such a lady, from an intended son-in-law to his future mother-in-law, still astonishes when we read it. On the stage, perhaps, we countenance it more easily.

Elmira, when the holy man makes this surprising avowal to her face, is by no means prepared to listen

to him. A real Tartuffe would have acted in a very different manner: he would have quietly sat down humble and patient, and waited for the favourable moment. If, for instance, Elmira had experienced the indiscretions and fickleness of those worldly lovers whom Tartuffe mentions, then, indeed, when she was worn out by these trials, and become weak, weary, and dispirited, he might have accosted her; then, perhaps, she would have allowed him to say, in the smooth quietist jargon, many things that she cannot listen to at the moment when Molière presents her before us.

Mademoiselle Bourignon, in her curious Life, which well deserves another edition, relates what danger she was in through a saint of this species. I shall let her speak for herself. But first you must know that the pious damsel, who had just become an heiress, was thinking about laying out her wealth in endowing convents, and in other similar acts of piety.

"Being, one day, in the streets of Lille, I met a man whom I did not know, who said to me as he passed, You will not do what you wish; you will do what you do not wish. Two days after the same man came to my house and said, 'What did you think of me?' That you were either a fool or a prophet,' replied I. Neither,' said he; I am a poor fellow from a village near Douai, and my name is Jean de St. Saulieu; I have no other thought but that of charity. I lived first of all with a hermit, but

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now I have my curé, Mr. Roussel, for a director. I teach poor children to read. The sweetest-the most charitable act you could do would be to collect all the little female orphans; they have become so numerous since the wars! The convents are rich enough.' He spoke for three hours together with much unction.

"I inquired about him of the curé, his director, who assured me that he was a person of a truly apostolical zeal. (We should observe that the curé had tried at first to catch this rich heiress for his own nephew; the nephew not succeeding, he employed one of his own creatures.) Saint Saulieu frequently repeated his visits, speaking divinely of spiritual things. I could not understand how a man without any preparatory study could speak in so sublime a manner of the divine mysteries. I believed him to be really inspired by the Holy Ghost. He said himself that he was dead to nature. He had been a soldier, and had returned from the wars as chaste as a child. By dint of abstinence he had lost the taste of food, and could no longer distinguish wine from beer! He passed the greater part of his time on his knees in the churches. He was seen to walk in the street with a modest air and downcast eyes, never looking at any thing, as if he had been alone in the world. He visited the poor and sick, giving away all he possessed. In winter time, if he saw a poor man without a garment, he would draw him aside, take off his own coat, and give it him. My