MOLIERE AND a RENARDIE

Thai: for the beam of M. A.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSHY
Virginia Eddy Money '
I963

LIBRARY

Michigan State
University

 

MOLIERE AND LA RENARDIE

 

by

Virginia Eddy Molloy

A THESIS

Submitted to
the College of Arts and Letters
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Foreign Languages

1963

CONTENTS

I:\ITRODUCT IOTI O 0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 1

THE FARGES
Le Médecin malgré lui--Sganarelle--
George Dandin--Monsieur as Pourceaugnao--
La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas . . . . . . . . . 8

 

 

THE FARCH-COMEDIES OF MANNER AND INTRIGUE
Les Fourberies de Scapin--
Le Malade‘imaginaire . . . . . . . . . . . 24

 

THE COMEDIES OF INTRIGUE AND EPISODE
L'Etourdi--Le Dépit amoureux--
Amphitryon--Les Facheux . . . . . . . . . . 52

 

 

 

THE COMEDY¥BALLETS
Le Mariag§_forcé--La Princess d'Elide--
L'Amour méaecin--Mélicerte--
La Pastorale comique--Le Sicilian--
Iggs Amants magnifiques . . . . . . . . . . 45

 

 

THE COMEDIES OF CHARACTER AND MANNERS
Les Précieuses ridicules--
L}Ecole des maris--L'Eoole des femmes--
Le Bourgeoisggentilhomme--Don Juan--
Les Femmes savantes . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

 

THE HAUTES coméDIEs
TLe*Misanthrope--L'Avare--Le Tartuffe .. . . 71

COTICLUSION O O O O O O O O O O 0 O O O O O O O O 79

ii

APPENDIX A .
APPENDIX B .

APPENDIX C .

APPENDICES

iii

INTRODUCTION

The intent of this thesis is the recording
of evidence in support of the prOposition that
the renardie element is prevalent in the comedies
of Moliére, that it exists in every type of comedy
that he wrote, and that, as portrayed by Moliére,
it has new and sometimes complex aspects.

The plays herein examined are limited to the
comic because the term renardie may be associated
only with this genre, and they are grouped by type
for purposes of showing the existence of renardie
in each. As these comedies, not unlike those of
other authors, are controversial as to classifi-
cation, the listings of Félix Hemon1 have been
followed.

The term renardie is an old one. It calls
forth an image, which, in reading Moliere, comes
consistently to mind; this image is that of the
theatre mask, but the face which grins in one

direction and weeps in the other is that of

1Félix Hémon, Cours de Littérature..., VI:
Moliere, DeuiIEme Edition (Paris; Libraire

Delagrave,...)

2
Monsieur Renart. What causes thisimage?

La renarderie is defined by Larousse as "ruse,
finesse, trait de renard.”2 The authors of Eight
Centuries of French Literature:5 use the term
renardie, and describe its obvious connection with

the Roman de Renart. The direct association of the

 

term with the thirteenth-century Roman de Renart
is evident, and the continuity with which its
spirit appears and reappears in French literature
may be attributed to its humorous appeal and to

its raison d'etre, which is social in nature.

 

The appearance of the Roman de Renart was
coincidental with the rise of the bourgeoisie,
because it is the literary expression of a new
social and economic group for whom the courtly
literature had little appeal. During the late
twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, nobles
and royalty were still socially dominant, but the

middle class attained new heights of recognition

2Pierre Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire Universal
du XIXe Siecle (Paris; P. Larousse, 1875),
Tome Treiziéme, 946.

3Eight Centuries of French Literature, ed.
if F. Bradley and R. B. Michell (New York;
Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1951), p. 13,
hereafter cited as Eight Centuries.

5
and wealth. Note this description of a social
structure which varies considerably from the
feudal:

Great social changes occurred, or were

completed during this period. Serfdom

nearly disappeared, urban communities
became prosperous and powerful, com-

cerce was stimulated by the great fairs

of Champagne, commoners gained in in-

fluence; and, though outwardly maintained,

feudalism became outmoded.

The sentiments of this growing middle class
are literally expressed in the Roman de Renart
through use of ruse to circumvent the powers of
the existing social hierarchy, and by satiric
parody of existing institutions. Renart is the
hero who emerges continually triumphant by means
of eXpedient ruse. The episodes in the beast
epic are linked by the perpetual feud between
Renart, who violates all existing rules, and
Isengrin, the wolf, who represents brute strength.
Of Renart's character, one writer says:

His master quality is shrewdness, his

renardie, which enables him to triumph
over brute force, symbolized especially

4Columbia Encyclopedia, ed. William
Bridgewater and Elizabeth Sherwood
(Morningside Heights, N.Y.; Columbia
University Press, 1956), p. 1552.

4

by the wolf, Isengrin, with whom he

is engaged in an almost perpetual feud
Renart is obviously intended to stand
for the bourgeoisie struggling by 5
their wits against the powerful barons.

The tone of this satire is not bitter, but
light, even gay. Mr. Besant describes it as
follows:

As for the satire, all that the Middle
Ages venerated, all that they practiced
with faith and with love-~pilgrimages,
crusades, miracles, pious legends, ju-
dicial duels, confessions, chivalry,
all are parodied here without indigna-
tion, without violence, with a gentle
irony which is nong the less profound
for its lightness.

One might submit that renardie is an action
which erupts with a growing bourgeoisie; but that
it is motivated by a class spirit, l'esprit gaulois,

which is inherently lighthearted. Note this version

of l'esprit:

It is the quintessence of that spirit of
mockery of established institutions and
traditions which is known as l'esprit
gaulois. However the general tone...is

5Eight Centuries, p. 13.

6Walter Besant, The French Humorists from the
Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century (Boston;
R6berfs“Bros.,*1874), p. 43?

5

not particularly bitter: gaiety is the
dominant note.

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish this
renardie, or shrewdness, from l'esprit gaulois,
for on a cause-and-effect basis, both terms are
seemingly resultant of the same cause, but the
one is an outgrowth of the other, i.e., the‘gggl-
igg_of mockery of established institution (l'esprit
gaulois) must underlie the shrewd action (renardie)
which circumvents the power (established institu-
tion) which is not conquerable by direct means.
What, then, is 13 renardie? Renardie is the
use of shrewdness and wit to circumvent power. The
wit is inherent to the rogue character who so cir-
cumvents the power, but additional humor and appeal
result from its achievement. There are darts in the
wit, but they "...are wrapped in flowers; their
poison is harmless poison enough--it is administered
in wine."8 The Renart mask is the mask of the
theatre itself, but the tears are an obvious fakery
and the laughter is the laughter of ruse. Often

7Eight Centuries, p. 15.

8Besant, p. 11.

6
rude, often cruel, it outwits from a sense of need,
but never sermonizes. Related to satire, it lacks
its bitter edge. While no moralist would justify
it ethically, its appeal is universal for its
spontaneous gaiety and for the ruse and effron-
tery with which it outwits established institutions
or power.

During the years since the beast epic, Renart
has aged gracefully, for it is his nature to stay
in rapport with his age--and he is with us still,
for the very circumstance which produced him-~a
circumstance of man in his society-~13 with us yet;
nor was he in hiding when the quizzical Moliere
wrote his inimitable comedies. Scan, for a moment,
the France of Moliere's productive years. If one
begins with his establishment, with Madeleine Bejart,
of the Illustre Theatre, and ends with his death
after acting in Le Malade imaginaire, the period is
1642-1675.

In 1645, Louis XIV, the warrior Sun King,
expander of the empire, absolute monarch, patron
of the arts, inherited the throne under the

regency of his mother, Anne of Austria. With

the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the strength of

7
the Holy Roman Empire was lessened, and France
emerged as the dominant EurOpean power. With
the administrative assistance of Richelieu, Nazarin,
Fouquet and Colbert, there were centralization and
strengthening of government, reduction of the power
of nobility and Protestants, expansion of commerce,
control of the economy, and encouragement of the
arts.

We have, then, an era of prosperity, with a
growing middle class, and of great military power;
we have an age of authority, with control over
nobility, Protestants, and local government; and
a time of greatness in literature, encouraged by
the crown. What better climate for Renart?

Prosperity + control ' dissension, large or

small

Literary growth = expression of the dissen-
sion, in an atmosphere wherein Renart might well
deign to show his face, grin with glee, and grow
quite bold.

We also have a great comedian of tremendous
insight who knows peasantry, nobility, and 2223-

geoisie; Renart appears, and emboldened, reappears

again and again in the plays of Moliére.

THE FARCES

Le Médecin malgré lui-—Sganarelle--George Dandin--
Monsieur de Pourceaugnac--La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas

 

 

 

 

The use of laughter, which was beginning to emerge
from the primitive and spontaneous to the purposeful
and intellectual--as the weapon of the lower classes
against dominating institution or annoying home
tradition--was not confined to the beast epic. Its

utilization by the bourgeois in a literature which

 

began to emerge in the thirteenth century was ex-
tended to beast epic, fabliau, and farce. L'esprit
gaulois, or l'esprit bourgeois and la renardie per-
vade much of this literature. Note, for example, the
gentle irony and agility of the Villain who talked

St. Peter into a place in Paradise. .gggég and friars,
jealous husbands, religious tenets--all were made less
burdensome by wit and intrigue.

By the seventeenth century, French farce had
been influenced by the Italian. Complexity of
intrigue and more characters--the blustering soldier,
pedant, valet, parasite, etc.--along with some com-
pletely French characters-~such as the astrologer,
alchemist, pickpocket, caviller, etc.--had been

added, but gauloiserie still pervaded this farce.

 

"Cette tradition gauloise de la farce va, sous des

8

9

formes diverses, se perpétuer jusqu'a Moliére..."l
These farce characteristics pervaded even the
pastoral and the tragi-comedy. By 1650, the farce
was still popular, but its grossness had been at-
tenuated by contact with Italian culture,
préciosité,2 and the interest of Richelieu in the
theatre. Comedy of intrigue, manners and charac-
ter had been added, the intrigue was more decent,
women were represented as chaste, and the buffoon-
ery was modified. Such was the French theater when
Moliére began to write. In examining his plays for
renardie, one might logically begin with the farce,
since its literary origin was in beast epic, fabliau,
and farce.

Le Medecin malgré lui is a farce of intrigue
which ridicules the medical profession. Lucinda,
who wishes to marry Léandre in preference to father

Géronte's choice of a wealthier man, pretends a

1Félix Gaiffe, Le Hire et la Scene francaise
(Boivin et Cie, Editeurs; Paris 1951), p. 74.

2Affectation of manners and language. This
movement originated in the salon of the
Marquise de Rambouillet, who sought to imp
prove French cultural life. It was at the
height of its popularity during the second
quarter of the century, when many of the
great minds of France gathered at her H6te1
de Rambouillet.

lO
speech-loss to avoid the unwanted marriage. Upon
the failure of several different doctors to achieve
a cure, the servants bring in Sganaralla, who ”cures"
her with wine-soaked bread--and by smuggling in her
lover disguised as an apothecary. The couple for-
feit a planned elopement upon discovery of Léandre's
inheritance, and subsequently gain permission to
marry.

Now Sganaralle is not a doctor at all, but a
fagot-maker. Wife Martina, angry over having been
beaten, has told the servants that he is a bril—
liant but erratic doctor who will admit his true
vocation only upon being beaten. The plot of the
play therefore rests upon the trickeries of Lucinda
and Martina, which, in turn, provoke the trickery
of Sganaralle. It is based on Lucinde's delaying
trick against a stronger force-~her father, and
that of Martina against a stronger force--her hus-
band. This irreverence for the institution of
marriage is typical of l'esprit gaulois, and this
shrewdness in circumventing a stronger force is

Is renardie. Martina, humorous in the tart candor

 

of her speech and ingenuous in her plot against
her husband, could qualify as a female Renart, but

the rogue personality which dominates the play is

11
that of Sganaralle. With adeptness, skill and
humor, he adapts to his doctoral role, gains an
immediate reputation as a doctor, and is in popu-
lar demand. His tricking of Géronte is accom-
plished with ease, and his compensation of error,

with agility:

Or, ces vapeurs, dont je vous parla, venant
a passer du cOté gauche ou est le foie, au
cOté droit ou est le coeur, 11 se trouva qua
1e poumon, que nous appelons................

Géronte
On ne peut pas mieux raisonner, sans doute.
Il n'y a qu'une seule chose qui m'a choqué;
c'ast l'endroit du foia at du coaur. 11 me
semble que vous les placez autrement qu'ils
ne sont; que le coeur est du cOté gauche, at
1e foia du cOté droit.

Sganaralle
Oui, cela était autrefois ainsi; mais nous
avons changé tout cela, at nous faisons
maintanant 1a médecine d'une méthode toute
nouvalle;

This flexibility in roguery stems from
unconcern. As a rogue character, Sganaralle cir-
cumvents the forceful Géronte from a sense of need,
but he outwits others for the pleasure he finds in

his role. It is this flexibility which distinguishes

5Moliére, Cauvres Completes an Six volumes, ed.
Emile Faguat, ed. Lutetia, Tome Troisigme
(Paris; Nelson, Editaurs,...), 446-447, hera-
aftar cited as Cauvres Completes.

12
his trickery from that of Lucinda, who is not
clever enough to resolve her situation alone,
and from that of Martina, who is seen only as the
shrewd instigator of an action which Sganaralle
must complete. Thus one finds an engaging renardie
in the characters of Martina and of Sganaralle,

with that of Sganaralle dominating the play.

Sggnarelle, ou le Cocu imaginaire is a series
of small entanglements which confuse, temporarily,
all of its characters. Gorgibus, breaking his .
promise to give daughter Célie in marriage to Lélie,
insists upon her betrothal to the wealthy young
Valera. She faints, and is assisted by bourgeois
Sganaralle; his wife, looking through a window,
thinks he is betraying her. She picks up a pic-
tura of Lélie inadvertently drOpped by Célie;
Sganaralle, upon seeing it, believes ghg is deceiv-
ing him. Lélie, rushing home in hOpas of still
marrying Célie, seas Sganaralle with the picture and
thinks he has married his own beloved. A servant
clarifies all plot confusion, Valére is found to
have already married in secret, and the young
lovers are permitted to marry.

As there is little plot, no planned intrigue,

15
and almost no character development in this one-
act play, most of the humor comes from confusion
evolving from confusion. For example, when, in the
sixteenth scene, an angry Sganaralle thinks Lélie
has been seeing his wife, and Lélie believes
Sganaralle to be married to his beloved Célie, the
dialogue is quite funny. In another situation,
the comic element stems from Sganaralle's cowardly
character. Enraged, armed, and ready to attack,
he meets Lélie:
Sganaralle, a part.

Ma colére a présent est en état d'agir;

Dessus ses grands chevaux est monté mon courage;

Et, si je la rencontre, on verra du carnage.

Oui, j'ai juré sa mort; rien ne peut l'empecher.

Ou je la trouverai, je vaux 1e dépécher.

(Tirant son épée a demi, il approcha ce Lelia.)

Lélie, se retournant.
A qui donc en vaut-on?

Sganaralle
Je n'en veux_a personna.

Lélie
Pourquoi ces armes-la?

Sganaralle
C'est un habillemant que

j'ai pris pour 18 p1u16...

The play is, as illustrated in this excerpt,

4OBuvres de Moliére, ed. M. Auger, Nouvelle
Edition, Tome Premier (Paris, Th4 Désoer,
1825), 272, hereafter cited as Oeuvres.

 

14
primarily situation comedy, with no hint of planned
intrigue. It is therefore devoid of renardie, for
Renart, though innocent in appearance, never acts

without deliberation.

Ridicule of a bumbling peasant who has married
out of his social class is the key to most of the

humor in George Dandin. He is the scapegoat of the

 

plot, and of the typical farce devices—-the mix-up
of lovers in the dark, the stick-beating, etc..
There is occasional wit from servant Claudine's
acrid personality, and from the unexpected. Again,
Lubin's personality causes what appears to be
situation comedy, but the incident is actually a
plot catalyst, used to introduce the woe-be-gone
George and to reinforce his woe:

(Having delivered a billet to Bandin's wife,
Lubin meats Dandin himself outside, unaware
that he is the husband.)

Lubin
C'est qua ja viens de parler a la maitresse
du 10gis, de la part d'un certain monsieur
qui lui fait les doux yeux; at i1 ne faut
pas qu'on sacha cela. Entendez-vous?

George Dandin

Oui.

Lubin
Voila la raison. On m'a enchargé de prendre
garde qua personne ne me vit; at ja vous prie,
au moins, de ne pas dire que vous m'ayez vu.

00......00......OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO00......

15
Le mari, 5 ca qu'ils disent, est un jaloux qui
ne veut pas qu'on fasse l'amour a sa femme; et
it ferait le diable a quatre si cela venait a
ses oreilles. Vous comprenez bien?5
Thus the play begins with laughter at George's ex-
pense.

‘In situations where the caricature of the
nobility is so heavy that it should be the object
of the laughter, the dialogue is so contrived that
one laughs at George instead, as illustrated in
the following dialogue. (George has made a just
accusation: that Clitandre has been flirting with
his Wife.)

Monsieur de Sotenville
Cela est juste, et c'est l'ordre des procédés.
Allons, mon gendre, faites satisfaction 5

monsieur.

George Dandin
Comment! Satisfaction?

Monsieur de Sotenville
Votre bonnet a la main, le premier; monsieur
est gentilhomme, et vous ne l'étes pas.

George Dandin, a part, le bonnet
a la main. J'enragel

Monsieur de Sotenville
Répétez avec moi: Monsieur..

George Dandin
Monsieur..

56Euvres Completes, Tome Quatriéme, 234.

5___;_g_., pp. 253-255.

16

So progresses the marital life of George. A pathet-
ically stupid peasant who has married the daughter
of M. and Mme Sotenville so that his children will
be "gentlemen", George spends the entire three acts
of this farce in repeated clumsy attempts to prove
to her parents that his Angelique is an unfaithful
wife. He ends in greater despair than that in
which he began, for she outwits him at every turn,
with continuous help from servants Claudine and
Lubin. When he gaggg that Angelique has received
a message from Clitandre, that noble creature de-
nies all, and the parents use his "nobility" as a
crutch for credence. When George actually see the
suspects in a rendezvous, Angelique avoids accusa-
tion by pretending great indignation at Clitandre's .
avowals of love. The final chagrin comes when
George, missing his wife, locks her out of the
house in the middle of the night. She pretends to
kill herself, he goes out to see, she slips in,
locking him out, and accuses 21E.0f drunken indis-
cretion.

Angélique's defense is that she was the victim
of money-hungry parents and a social-climbing peasant
—-that no one consulted her about the marriage.

The moral of the story would then seem to be that

17
anyone so foolish as George deserves deceit, ridicule,
and misery.

Renardie humor usually involves trickery by an
"underdog" to achieve a desired end. When Renart
attempts to take advantage of someone weaker than
himself, he is usually unsuccessful. While Angelique,
in one sense, holds this position in the play, George
Dandin would appear to hold it too, for he is con-
tinually crushed by the Sotenvilles, so that he is
caught between intrigue on one side and social rank
on the other. The plot-pattern of renardie is there-
fore lacking, as is the customary note of gaiety.

This farce goes beyond renardie, to out-and-out total

disparagement of a foolish man.

A somewhat similar situation occurs in Monsieur
de Pourceaugnac. M. de Pourceaugnac is a ludicrously-
dressed, not too bright, Limousin. Aside from his
very existence as a person~-his being what he is--
he seems to have done nothing to deserve the drub-
bing he receives in this play except to have planned
marriage. As he is the direct victim of all the
comedy in the play except that reserved for the
medical profession, the humor assumes a certain

baseness, i.e., the ridicule is so out of proportion

18
to his ”sin" that he seems victimized in a malicious
and negative manner. This imbalance of cause and
roguery, this emphasis on heavy ridicule rather than
light merriment, seem characteristic of a very prim-
itive humor rather than renardie, for Renart, who
must remain sufficiently engaging to maintain audi»
ence rapport, has no need of a bludgeon.

Oronte plans to wed his daughter to a wealthy
lawyer from Limoges, M. de Pourceaugnac. Lover
Eraste engages a NeOpolitan man-of-intrigue and the
scheming Nérine to prevent the marriage. Pretend-
ing friendship when M. de Pourceaugnac comes for
the marriage contract, NeOpolitan Sbrigani and
lover Eraste make him the butt of repeated low in-
trigue. They leave him in the care of doctors who
bleed and purge him, tell Oronte that he has an
illness which should prevent the marriage, bring in
women and children who accuse him of polygamy, dis-
guise him as a woman to get him out of town, and
make him pay bribe money to avoid being hanged for
the polygamy he did not commit. Needless to say,
Julie and Eraste marry in the end.

Nérine, early in the play, appears to provide
humor as a character, when she delivers an exag-

gerated harangue of the Limousin she has never met.

19
Actually, she is laying the groundwork for the indig-
nities to he suffered by M. de Pourceaugnac. In
another scene, Eraste, pretending that the Limousin
is an old friend, ferrets information from him,
then repeats it. The gullibility of the lawyer
from Limoges becomes the source of the humor.

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac
Le connaissez-vous aussi?

Eraste
Vraiment: si je 1e connais! Un grand gargon
bien fait.

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac
Pas des plus grands.

Eraste
Non; mais de taille bien prise.

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac
Hé! Oui.

Eraste
Qui est votre neveu?

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac
Oui.

Eraste
Fils de votre frére ou de votre soeur?

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac
Justement.

Eraste
Chanoine de l‘église de...Comment l'appelez-
vous?

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac
De Saint-Etienne.

Eraste
Le voila; je ne connais autre.

20

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, a Sbrigani.
Il dit toute la parenté.7

This dialogue produces laughter based on
Eraste's baiting of a clumsy creature. It illus-
trates the mood of this play, which seems rowdy
rather than light, probably because the humor
which dominates it is the primitive humor of direct
personal ridicule. The tricksters are not suf-
ficiently engaging to maintain audience rapport,

and renardie is rarely evident.

La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas is a pleasant con-
trast to Monsieur de Pourceaugnac. In this one-act
comedy of provincial manners, Julie and the Viscount
(Cléonte) cannot marry because their families are
feuding. Cléonte joins the ranks of the suitors
of the countess of Escarbagnas to enable them to
meet at her home, thus providing a "cover" for
their courtship. The play ends when the family
feud is settled, Cléonte announces his love for
Julie, and the countess, left with one suitor,
marries him.

The intrigue in this pleasant little play--

Julie and Cléonte's use of the countess' home as

 

Vfieuvres Completes, Tome Cinquieme, 50-51.

 

21
a place of rendezvous-~is used as a device to dis-
play, through the characters and their writings, a
gentle mockery of provincial manners. The super~
cilious vanity of the Countess of Escarbagnas—-who,
just returned from a trip to Paris, affects a total
knowledge of any subject of discourse-—is projected
with a whimsical humor which is accentuated by her
placement in the midst of other provincial types
and by the sometimes deliberate stupidity of her
much-berated servants. The innocuousness of
Criquet's replies in this dialogue, for example, is
sufficiently heavy with deliberation and lack of
respect to create an image by itself:

La Comtesse
0a étiez-vous, donc, petit coquin?

Criquet
Dans la rue, madame.

La Comtesse
Et pourquoi dans la rue?

Criquet
Vous m'avez dit d'aller 15 dehors.

La Comtesse
Vous etes un petit impertinent, mon ami; et
vous devez savoir que 15 dehors, en termes
de personnes de qualité, veut dire
1'antichambre.............................

86euvres Completes, Tome Sixieme, 125.

 

22
Julie, too, plays upon the countess' vanity,
as in this scene where one of her sons has just
been introduced:

Julie
Qui dirait que madame eut un si grand enfant!

La Comtesse

Hélasl quand je 1e fis, j'étais si jeune, que

je me jouais avec une poupée.

Other provincial types are met in the home of
the countess. Acquaintance with M. Tibaudier is
achieved primarily through his earnest verse of un-
equal stanza, and his billet to the countess, written
in a kind of labored preciéux style, while M. Harpin,
Angouleme tax collector, is portrayed as an in-
sensitive egoist who charges into a play perfrom—
ance and publicly berates the countess.

One must conclude that the renardie spirit of
this play is primarily that of the author, as,
using a trick as the raison d'etre, Moliere achieves

a series of animated "portraits" whose juxtaposi-

tion reinforces the happy mockery of certain pro-

vincial types.

Of this group, only Le Médecin malgré lui,

9OEuvres Completes, Tome Sixieme, 143-144.

23
with its rogue characters Sganarelle and Martina,
has typical renardie action, unless one wishes to

include La Comtesse d'Escarbggnas, in which the

 

renardie spirit is primarily that of the author.

§ganarelle lacks all elements of this type of

 

humor, while the mood of both George Dandin and

 

Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, is more fourbe (cheat-
ing deceitful, knavish) than ruse, the one for
lack of typical plot pattern, and the other for

its imbalance of cause and roguery.

THE FARCT-COMEDIES OF MANNER AND INTRIGUE

Les Fourberies de Scapin-~Le Malade imaginaire

Having found little renardie in the straight
farces, we shall examine the "heavier" farces of
manner and intrigue--those which verge on comedy--
for the very word "intrigue" hints at renardie.

Les Fourberies de Scapin, true to its title,
is the story of the rogue Scapin, and his scapineries.

No challenge is too great for Scapin. Unmind—
ful of moral principle, but loyal to any cause which
takes his fancy, Scapin engages in perpetual and
joyous roguery for the sake of roguery. Incredibly
fluent and as incredibly quick-witted, he achieves
audience rapport and audience empathy with his
audacious spontaneity and blithe spirit.

The situation in which he acts is complex.
Argante and Géronte have left their sons Octave
and Léandre in the care of valets Sylvestre and Scapin
while they make an extended trip. Octave has mar-
ried Hyacinthe, whom he has found, accompanied by
an old nurse, at the side of her dying mother. He
dreads his father's return because Argante has
betrothed him to the daughter of Géronte, who is
being brought from Torente. Léandre has fallen in

24

25
love with an Egyptian named Zerbinette. Because
both young men are badly in need of money, Octave,
for the expenses of married life, and Léandre, for
the purchase of Zerbinette from her Turkish captors,
Scapin, using various stratagems, extorts money
from both fathers for the young men. Zerbinette
is found, by means of a bracelet, to be Argante's
daughter who was kidnapped as a child, and Hyacinthe
learns that the miserly Géronte is her father. Thus
all ends well, and Scapin is forgiven.

Scapin excels in roguery because he is a master
showman. When Scapin takes up a cause-~such as
Octave's--no simple request will do: he wants to be
begged on bended knee. When he himself has offended
Léandre, he manipulates the conversation to a point
where Léandre has offended 23m. With Argante, he uses
a planned impertinence:

Argante
Cela m'aurait donné plus de facilité a rompre
ce mariage.

Scapin
Rompre ce mariage?

Argante
Oui.

Scapin
Vous ne 1e romprez point.

Argante
Je ne 1e romprai point?

26

II 1 Scapin
on.

When this conversational maneuver fails and he
decides to extort money from the fathers for Léandre
and Octave, he invents and masterfully enacts some
original and fantastic tales. To Argante, who wishes
to annul his son's marriage, he pretends that
Hyacinthe's non-existent brother, an able swords-
man, will consent to such an annulment only in ex-
change for funds to join the army. Scapin increases
his demands to the point of refusal, persuades, and
asks for more.

The scenes with Géronte are doubly funny in
their display of scapinerie, and in their mockery
of Geronte's miserly nature. Géronte has been told
that his son is held for ransom on a Turkish galley.
Géronte successively:

1. Wants Scapin to take his son's place.

2. wants him to sell his old clothes to

raise the money, which he has in his
purse all the time.

3. takes out the purse and "forgets'to
give it to Scapin.

This exaggerated miserliness serves only as stimulus

to Scapin, for, by dint of provocation, it inspires

 

1Cauvres Completes, Tome Sixieme, 54-55.

27
him to greater performance. Note his use of the
melodramatic in this passage:

Géronte
Maia que diable allait-il faire a cette galére?

Scapin
Oh! que de paroles perduesl Laissez 1a cette
galére, et songer que le temps presse, et que
vous courez risque de perdre votre fils.
Hélas! mon pauvre maitrel peut-étre que je
ne te verrai de ma vie, et qu'é l'heure que
je parle, on t'emméne esclave en Algier. Nbis
1e ciel me sera témoin que j'ai fait pour toi,
tout ce que j'ai pu; et que, si tu manques a
etre racheté, il n'en faut accuser que le peu
d'amitié d'un pére.

Géronte
Attends, Scapin, je m'en vais quérir cette
somme.

Scapin

Dépechez donc vite, monsieur; je tremble que
l'heure ne sonne.

Géronte 2
N’est-ce pas quatre cents ecus que to dis?

The placement of scapinerie and miserliness in the

 

same dialogue serves, by contrast, to underscore
Scapin's dexterity. He maintains this character to
the finish, when he attains forgiveness for his
escapades by pretending to have been mortally
wounded by a falling hammer. Thus endeth the tale

of Scapin, personification of Renart.

536euvres Completes, Tome Sixiéme, 74-75

28

Of the most poignant of the Moliére comedies,
Maurice Rat makes this comment:

...il accumule, dans Le Malade imaginaire,

les traits les plus violents et les plus

comiques, non seulement gontre les médecins,

mais contre la médecine.
Félix Hémon classifies it as one of the "farces
plus approfondies”4. These moods of violence and
profundity, by their very presence would seem to
eliminate the probability of a dominance of renardie
in the play. Holiére's imaginary invalid has become
so obsessed with his non-existent illness and daily
medical attention that he lives for nothing else,
and will force his daughter to marry a dolt because
he is a doctor. Argan is comic because of the ex-
tremity of his hypochondriacal and dogmatic pursuit
of things medicinal; but he is pathetic in his
obsession, and in his gullibility to the shameless
encouragement of his malady by his wife and doctors.

This characterization of Argan, together with the

heavy satirization of doctors (at its best in the

3Theatre Choisi de Moliére, ed. Maurice Rat
TParis; Garnier Fréres, 1954), p. 596, here-
after cited as Théatre Choisi.

 

 

4‘F'élix Hémon, Cours de Litterature, VI,
Noliére, DeuxiemegEdition (Paris; Librairie

Delagrave,...), 13.

29
delineation of Thomas Diafoirus), helps to create
a mood which is a mixture of the comic with the
bitter and the profound.

Argan, the imaginary invalid, thinks he cannot
exist without continuous care by two doctors and an
apothecary. His illness is encouraged by second
wife Béline, who is waiting to inherit his money.
She wants daughters Angelique and Louison put into
convents (the better to feather her nest), and he
wants Angelique to marry the oafish son of Dr.
Diafoirus, to assure himself of free medical care.

Servant Toinette arranges a fake death scene
to prove Béline's "love". She proves it by ex-
pressing her gratitude at his death, while daughter
Angelique and her lover Cléante mourn. The after-
math of this action is that Argan is persuaded to
study medicine himself, and Angelique is allowed
to marry the man of her choice.

The force and impact of this play are partly
due to the uneXpected renardie which exists through-

out in the character of Toinette. Less joyous and
more acrimonious than Scapin, she is almost his female

counterpart.5 She delights in heckling the stronger

5Note that her technique and dialogue with Argan
in act 1, scene 5 is almost a duplication of
that between Scapin and Argante in the sixth
scene of Les Fourberies.

SO
force--Argan--and she is ingenious in her manipu-
lation of his "death" scene in order to expose Béline's
hypocrisy. She is equally clever in her impersonation
of a doctor for the purpose of disillusioning Argan
with doctors Diafoirus and Purgon. Note the author-

ity with which she plays this role:

Toinette
Qui est votre médecin?

Argan
Monsieur Purgon.

Toinette

Cet homme-la n'est point écrit sur mes
tablettes entre les grands médecins. De
quoi dit-i1 que vous etes malade?

Argan
Il dit que c'est du foie, et d'autres disent
que c'est de la rate.

Toinette
Ce sont tous des ignorants. C'est du poumon
que vous etes malade.6
Thus Toinette, in a play where the humor ranges

from the pathetic to the bitter, adds the comic imper-

tinence and agility which characterize renardie.

Of the two "heavier" farces of manners and
intrigue, the renardie characters are similar in

personality; but Les Fourberies is consistently

 

6OBuvres Completes, Tome Sixiéme, 683.

 

31
light in mood and is dominated by the Renart char-
acter Scapin, while Le Malade imaginaire is some-
times bitterly satirical, with comic relief pro—

vided by the scapinerie or renardie of Toinette.

 

THE COMEDIES OF INTRIGUE AND EPISODE

L'Etourdi--Le Dépit amoureux--Amphitryon--
Lgs Facheux

 

 

 

Comedy, as a type of drama, has more plot and
character deve10pment than farce. Whether or not
these dramatic characteristics will affect the
presence and form of the renardie element is yet
to be seen.

L'Etourdi is the story of the headless Lélie,
who manages to "put his foot in his mouth" at every
turn, even when it is to his own detriment. It is
probably even more the story of the knavish valet
Mascarille, whose schemes to help his young master
are continually and unerringly foiled by l'étourdi
--Lélie himself.

Lélie and Léandre are both in love with a
young Egyptian named Célie, who has been left with
old Trufaldin as loan-security. Both young men
are being urged by their respective fathers to marry
Hippolyte. Lélie's valet Mascarille devises nine
different schemes for obtaining Célie for his master,
but Lélie unwittingly thwarts him at every turn.

Plot resolution begins when an old gypsy who

raised Célie introduces young Egyptian Andre, who

52

33

has known the young girl before, and wishes to
marry her. Her recognition, by an old woman, as
the gypsy who kidnapped Célie in her infancy, helps
establish Célie's identity as the daughter of
Trufaldin (Zanobio Huberti), and that of André as
his long-lost son Horace. All is thus resolved with-
out Mascarille's schemes, with Horace wed to Lélie's
sister, Lélie to Célie, and Léandre to Hippolyte.

Mascarille's qualifications as a rogue charac-
ter of the Renart type are somewhat debatable. His
spirit is willing, for he has a reputation as a con-
niver and his schemes are ingenious. On one occa-
sion, having heard that rival lover Léandre has
ransomed Célie, he pretends to have been abused by
his master in order to secure employment with
Léandre. He then takes Léandre's token ring to
call for Célie, intending to hide her for Lélie.

L'étourdi, unaware, stops the sale and ruins the

 

plot by sending a letter to Trufaldin stating that
the captive is really the daughter of a Spanish
nobleman. One is inclined to think that these
failures occur because hascarille does not confide
in Lélie--until the fourth act, when Lélie does

everything wrong in a scene in which he has been

carefully rehearsed.

34

Repetition of this type of sequence comprises
the plot of the play, and the final solution is
accidental, rather than by any solution of
Mascarille's. Thus, while appearing clever in
his scheming, he seems somewhat unwise in never
forewarning his master, and lacking in sufficient
agility to avoid being thwarted in his roguery.

Mascarille keeps audience sympathy in spite
of the unethical aspect of many of his schemes,
probably because the object of his scheming is
assistance for a young lover, and for the repeti-
tiousness of his failure; but the engaging wit and

joie-de-vivre of a Scapin are not here, nor the

 

ability to circumvent any issue at any time. Hence
Mascarille, though a fourbe character, seems in-
capable of the fourberies of a Scapin, or of the

scapineries of a Renart.

In Le Dépit amoureux, Mascarille reverses and
assumes the étourdi role. Although the framework of
this verse-play consists of three planned decep-
tions, their ensuing complications, and their reso-
lution, there is no single character of the Renart

type.

Valére and Eraste, in this five-act comedy,

55
are both in love with Lucile, whose ”brother",
Ascagne, is really a girl. (Father Albert, need-
ing a son to secure an inheritance, had adOpted a
son when Ascagne {Dorothea} was born, leaving the
daughter with another family.) Upon the death of
the adopted son in infancy, the mother, unbeknownst
to Albert, substituted her daughter for the deceased
boy-child. Ascagne, seeing sister Lucile courted
by Valera and Eraste, falls in love with Valére;
she impersonates Lucile by night, and her courtship
with Valera ends in secret marriage. Complications
involving both fathers, the courtship of Eraste and
Lucile, and the parallel courtship of servants
Gros-René and Marinette then result from Valére's
belief that he has married Lucile. Plot clari-
fication is achieved after confidante Frosine's
research has resulted in the finding of a letter
written by the deceased mother, and all couples
are happily reunited.

The first of three acts of deception is by
Albert, who has conspired in order to inherit; he,
in turn, has been deluded by his wife; daughter
Ascagne, ensnared by this dual duplicity and unaware
of her origins, adds to the intrigue by masquerad-

ing as Lucile by night. None of these is inherently

36
a rogue character, however, nor is either valet.
Mascarille is a cowardly slap-stick comic whose
bungling "help" causes further complication, while
Gros-Hené, the possessor of an earthy and sometimes
humorous common sense, is a declared pacifist.

One cannot, however, ignore the fact that
Ascagne, who does not normally engage in duplicity
of action, does so in order to ensnare the object
of her affections. She says:

Je voulois que Lucile aimat son entretien;

Je blamois ses rigueurs; et les blamai si bien,

Que moi-meme j'entrai, sans pouvoir m'en défendre,
Lens tous les sentiments qu'elle ne pouvoit prendre.

.OOOCCOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO00.0.0.0...

Enfin, ma chere, enfin, l'amour que j'eus pour lui
Se voulut expliquer, mais sous le nom d'autrui.
Dans ma bouche, une nuit, cet amant trOp aimable
Crut rencontrer Lucile a ses voeux favorable,

Et je sus ménager si bien cet entretien1

Que du déguisement i1 ne reconnut rien.

Whereupon Frosine, surprised exclaims:

Pestel les grands talens que votre esprit posséde!
Dirait-on qu'elle y touche, avec as mine froide?

Inspired by love, she is clever enough to fool Valera
by day and by night, and to delay Lucile when, angry
with Eraste, she expresses her intention of pursuing

Valére. This role is played with skill and grace

 

lOBuvres, Tome Premier, 150—151.

21bid., p. 132.

37
until the very end, even after the problem of her
origins has been resolved, as shown in this passage
where Ascagne and Valere are about to duel in de-
fense of Lucile's honor.
Ascagne

Et, dans cette aventure ou chacun m'interésse,

Vous allez voir plutdt éclater ma foiblesse,

Connoftre que le ciel qui dispose de nous,

He me fit pas un coeur pour tenir contre vous,

De finir 1e destin du frére de Lucile.5

It is not, however, Ascagne's deception which
solves the problem, but Frosine's research. While
Ascagne wears the Henart mask for a while, the
renardie is temporary rather than inherent to her
nature. While plot resolution and some of the play's
humor evolve from her ruse, she is serious, rather
than humorous, in disposition, and neither the basic

plot nor the comedy stem from the sly scheming or

spirited personality of a Scapin.

In Amphitryon, wherein Jupiter and Mercury

 

perform dual impersonations of mortals, Moliére
achieves the expression of an inverse renardie
through Mercury.

Jupiter, having fallen in love with Alcméne,

 

EOeuvres, Tome Premier, 195.

38
whose husband Amphitryon commands King Créon's
Grecian trOOps at Télébe, instigates a morally
questionable plot to which Mercury adds a spon-
taneous--if surface-~acceptability.

Sosie, sent at night by Amphitryon with news
of victory, is met at the door by himself (Mercury),
who guards the home portals while Amphitryon (Jupiter)
makes love to Alcméne. Frightened and confused, he
returns the same day with Amphitryon himself. Both
men have understandable difficulties with their
wives, which are further complicated by the reap-
pearance of Jupiter and Mercury. Jupiter clari-
fies all at a dinner, and tells the couple they will
have a son Hercules, whose feats will be known

hrough all the universe.

The renardie in this play is inverse because
the deception is performed by gods, and the deceived
are both mortal and helpless. It is even more in—
verse because the deception is completely immoral.
While the acts of Renart are frequently unethical,
Henart maintains audience rapport because he uti—
lizes ingenuity in the circumvention of the power
of brute strength and because he does so with humor
and impertinence. One portion of this formula is

applicable to Amphitryon, but in a completely

39
inverse manner, because the deception has as its
target the disruption of a happy marriage and
the humiliation of an esteemed and heroic man who
is defending his country. Egth ingenuity and force
are aligned in Opposition to an idealistic situa-
tion which would not appear to have need of dis-
ruption, even by a god. Yet this trickery is
achieved with an air so engagingly merry that it
maintains audience rapport, and might hence be
termed renardie.

If one were to further speculate on the pos-
sibility of Renart intention on the part of the
author, the possibilities become even more broad.
For example, if one were to consider Jupiter as
symbolical of Louis XIV, one migat find it con-
ceivable that Moliére was using a weapon of the
lower classes-~laughter brought about by trickery--
as an indirect means of making royal immorality
more acceptable to the public at large.

The mythological characterization of this
play helps to clothe the impact of its immorality,
but so, too, does the hilarity which results from
the mischievous nature of Mercury. Mercury in-
trigues at Jupiter's command, but he elaborates

his intrigue for pure love of mischief. Ordered

40
to impersonate Sosie, and uninterested in sleeping
with Sosie‘s wife Cléanthis,4 he deliberately pro-
vokes her to outraged anger. Bored while standing
around, he insults Amphitryon, knowing that Sosie
will bear the brunt of his wrath; when Jupiter, as
Amphitryon, has issued dinner invitations, poor
hungry Sosie is deliberately barred. This blasé
delight in roguery and repartée is typical of a
Scapin or a Toinette, as illustrated in this passage:

Sosie

Laissons aux deux Amphitryons

Faire éclater des jalousies;

Et, parmi leurs contentions,

Faisons en bonne paix vivre les deux Sosies.

Mercure
Non, c'est assez d'un seul, et je suis obstiné
A ne point souffrir de partage.

Sosie
Du pas devant sur moi tu prendras l'avantage;
Je serai 1e cadet, et tu seras l'ainé.

Mercure
Non: un frére incommode, et n'est pas de mon
gout; et je veux Gtre fils unique.

Sosie
O Ebeur barbare et tyrannique!
Suffre qu'au moins je sois ton ombre.

4This act may, in the mind of the author,
have seemed justifiable only for Kings
and/or gods. '

41

Mercure
Point du tout.5

fioliére has taken a god, who controls and
drubs a mortal throughout the play, and so en-
dowed him with comic rogue appeal that he emerges

with full audience rapport.

The love interest, in Les Facheug, is used as
a frame for the display of different types of boring
extremists of seventeenth-century France, most of
whom are yet with us in the twentieth.

Eraste, in love with Orphise, has trouble see-
ing her because of the disapproval of guardian Ebmis,
and continuous interruption by "bores". Lhmis,
having learned that Eraste will secretly visit his
niece, waits to ambush him. A group led by Eraste's
valet, unknown to Eraste, attacks Damis, and Eraste
goes to his defense. Grateful for the chivalrous
act which has saved his life, he consents to the
marriage.

One meets, in sequence, the effusive boor who
noisily interrupts a play while intruding on a pri-

vate party, the composer-choreographer who sings,

5OEuvres Completes, Tome Quatriéme, 214.

42

dances, and re-sings, while seeking praise, and
the outraged acquaintance who wants Eraste to take
up a cause in a manner which is against the law.
They are followed in the second act by the piguet
player who details each hand and play, two friends
quarreling over the merits of jealousy in love, and
the "horse-and-hunt" enthusiast whose rules have been
violated by an oaf. Next on display are the pedant
who is outraged by current poor spelling, and the
would-be economist who wants political assistance
in securing ports on every coast of France.

As there is no intrigue, little plot, and no
rogue character in this drawing-room comedy of char-

acter, there is no renardie.

There is evidence of a greatly modified renardie
in the comedies of intrigue. In La Dépit amoureux,
Dorothée, inspired by love to assume a role not
native to her personality, thoroughly complicates
a plot which someone else resolves. Fourbe
Mascarille, in L'Etourdi, plays the role of a man
whose enthusiasm surpasses his ability, while L§§_
Facheux is a satirization of seventeenth—century
manners. Only in gmphitryon, where the renardie is
performed by god rather than mortal, is one eXposed

to a spirit worthy of a Scapin.

THE COHEDY—BALLETS

Le Mariage forcé—-La Princess d'Elide--
L'Amour médecin--Méli€erte--La Pastorale comique--
Le Sicilien-—Les Amants magnifiques

 

 

 

 

 

 

In seeking the renardie element in the comedy-
ballets--all command plays written for fates given
by Louis XIV--one must immediately disallow Mélicerte,

and La Pastorale comique. The unfinished Mélicerte

 

 

is a heroic pastoral. Piquant in places, it is a
love story with no scheming by any character, and
hence without renardie. La Pastorale comique, a
brief ballet on love, is of a similar mood. Of the
remaining five, there is one in which one views the
results of a ruse without ever seeing the action
itself, two which contain a cooperative renardie
effort, and two in which one finds Renart-type court
jesters who are not fools at all, but who are pos-
sessed of infinitely more wisdom than that generally

accredited to a person of this type.

The coquette Dorimene, in Le Mariage forcé,
could conceivably have been develOped into a female
rogue character. The entire focus of both play and
ballet, however, is on satirization of an aging
Sganarelle who realizes, too late to escape a mar-
riage contract, the mistress Doriméne is a coquette

43

44

for whom the sole purpose of marriage is escape from
paternal liens. As there is no real develOpment of
Doriméne as a character, one could scarcely substan-
tiate complete analysis. One does, however, through
Moliére's use of a technique later masterfully devel-
oped by James Joyce, have a partial image of Doriméne
and of her action, which is gleaned through the
words of others. One knows that she is artful
enough to have used ruse against a stronger force,
her father, and against a weaker one, Sganarelle.
Then, too, it is €§EL£3£§ééiwho insists that a
reluctant Sganaralle fulfill the terms of the mar-
riage contract. A consideration from this point
of view leads one to conclude that, while Doriméne
has used ruse to escape the stronger force, she

-er abe3f0/HCG.KLT
needs thia~same force to deliver the coup deggrace.
One has, finally, an image of artifice, used in con-
junction with strength, to victimize an aging fool.
The deceit traditionally associated with renardie

is there, but the customary plot-pattern has been

shifted.

The most obvious trickery in L'Amour médecin
is performed by Clitandre disguised as a physician.

Sganarelle, father of his "intendedfl,will give

45
his daughter anything of her asking--except that
which she most wants: marriage. He wishes to keep
his wealth and his daughter for himself. Under the
careful tutelage of servant Lisette, Lucinda becomes
"ill”. When four physicians disagree over diagnosis
and treatment, lover Clitandre disguises himself as
a doctor, diagnoses the illness as one of fantasy
involving marriage, and urges Sganaralle to humor
the fantasy. Sganarelle subsequently signs the
marriage contract, and the couple leaves.

Clitandre is sufficiently adept to propose to
Lucinda with her father in the room, and, by using
a negative approach to marriage in conjunction with
a prOposed remedy, to m he of Sganarelle a willing
accomplice to his own undoing.

Note the smoothness with which he leads up to
the idea of marriage through medical diagnosis--
thus appealing to Sganarelle's concern for his "111"
daughter-~and the skill with which he plags upon
Sganarelle's Opposition to the idea of marriage:

Sganarelle, a Clitandre
Eh bien! notre malade? Elle me semble un peu

plus gaie.

Clitandre
C'est que j'ai déja fait agir sur elle un de
ces remédes que mon art m'enseigne. Comme
l'esprit a grand empire sur le corps, et que

46

c'est de lui, bien souvent, que procedent les
maladies, ma coutume est de courir a guerir les
esprits, avant que de venir aux corps. J'ai
donc observe ses regards, les traits de son
visage, et les lignes de ses deux mains; at,
par la science que le ciel m'a donnée, j'ai
reconnu que c'était de l'eSprit qu'elle était
malade, et que tout son mal ne venait que d'une
imagination déréglée, d'un désir déprivé de
vouloir etre mariée. Pour moi, je ne vois rien
de plus extravagant et de plus ridicule que
cette envie qu'on a du mariage.

Sganaralle, a part
Voila un habile hommel

Clitandre
Et j'ai eu, et aurai pour lui, toute ma vie,
une aversion effroyable.

Sganaralle, a part
Voila un grand médecinl

Clitandre
Maia, comme i1 faut flatter l'imagination des
malades, et que j'ai vu en elle de l'alienation
d'esprit, et meme qu'il y avait du péril a
ne lui pas donner un prompt secours, je l'ai
prise par son faible, et lui ai dit que j'étais
venu ici pour vous la demander en mariage.1

.0000...O...00....OOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOC0......

Although Clitandre demonstrates skill in action,

it is Lisette who is the rogue behind the action,

and therefore the instigator of the plot. It is she

who masterminds the scheme from the beginning, and

it is she who remains ready to intercede and smooth

over any little difficulty which may arise. She

declares, with authority, both her willingness and

lOeuvres Completes, Tome Troisiéme, 284-285.

47
her ability to resort to intrigue to solve the problem:
Allez, encore un coup, je veux servir votre
passion; je prends, dés a present, sur moi, tout
le soin de ses intéréts, at vous verrez que je ?
8818 des détourSOOO000......OOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOd
It is interesting to note that Lucinda has not con-
fided in Lisette because she believed her situation
to be hopeless--i.e., that she has been unaware of
Lisette's talents. One might therefore assume that
Lisette does not, like Scapin or Toinette, practice
habitual roguery for the pure joy of being mis-
chievous, but, that when her indignation and loyalty
are aroused-~whan father Sganaralle becomes "un
vilain homme"--she takes over with complete effi-
ciency to protect her charge and "servir votre
passion". She states her position early in the play:
Par ma foi, voila un vilain homme; at je vous
avoua que j'aurais un plaisir extreme a lui
jouer quelque tour. mais d'ou vient donc
madame, que jusqu'ici vous m'avez cache votre
mal?
It is thus evident that, while the actual en-
actment of the plot is achieved through her partner-

ship with Clitandre, it is Lisette who has master-

minded the whole. Her irreverence for the tyranny

 

gfiauvres Completes, Tome Troisiéme, 257.

 

51mm, p. 256.

48

of paternal authority is typical of l'esprit gaulois,

 

but her quick-witted and piquant humor and her ef-
ficient strategy in the solution of the dilemma of
the hapless Lucinda are typical of renardie. It is
therefore Lisette in whom culminates la renardie of

the play.

Again, in la Sicilian ou l'Amour peintre, there
is a collaboration of talents. Le Sicilian is Don
Padre, who jealously guards the young Grecian Isidore,
whom he has freed from slavery for the purpose of
matrimony. Frenchman Adraste, (l'amour_peintre), is
hopelessly in love with Isidore, and unable to get
near her, except by posing as a portrait painter.
After several fruitless attempts, Adrasta and valet
Hali attain Isidore's release by the substitution
of a veiled young slave.

Now Hali is mischievous in nature, and takes
pride in his skill in intrigue, as shown in this

statement:

Le courroux du point d'honneur me prend; il ne
sera pas dit qu'on triumphe de mon adresse; ma
qualité de fourbe s'indigne de tous ces obstacles,
at je pretends fairs éclater les talents que

j'ai eus du ciel.

4Oeuvres Completes, Tome Quatrieme, 82.

 

49

Although he seems never to run out of ideas, he
appears to lack the efficiency of a Lisette, for
he customarily tries one plan after the other in
a haphazard manner, convinced of eventual success.
He says:

Laissez-moi faire seulement. J'en essayerai

tant de toutes les maniéres, que quelque chose

enfin nous pourra réussir.
While willing, even eager, to be a fourbe, he lacks
the Spontaneous flexibility of Scapin or Toinette,
or the poise in artifice of a Renart, who can weep
convincing tears while laughing within. On one
occasion, for example, he takes a troupe of slave
musicians to the home of Don Padre, hoping to get
employment there. The song, alternating love-verses
to Isidore with appeals for employment, is so ob-
vious that the jealous Don Padre evicts the group.
Hali than loses his temper and gives himself com-
pletely away when he shouts:

Eh bien! oui, mon maitre l'adore. Il n'a

point de plus grand desire que de lui montrer

son amour; at, si egle y consent, il la
prendra pour femma.

 

5Oeuvres Completes, Tome Quatriéme, 82.

61bido’ p. 90-910

50
It appears, at this point, as though Hali is an
étourdi who does more harm than good. It is
Adraste who substitutes himself for a portrait—
painter friend, and gains admission to the house,
and it is Adraste who makes loquacious, double-
entante conversation while posing his charming
subject. It is also he who plans the substitution
of the Egyptian for Isidore, but it is Bali who,
posing as a Spanish nobleman, calls upon Don Padre
and gives his master an Opportunity to speak to
Isidore more freely. iali and Adraste therefore
combine their talents to outwit the forceful Don
Padre, achieving a partnership renardie, which, in

all probability, neither could have achieved alone.

A court jester who does more than jest helps
resolve an apparently insolvable love quadrangle in
Les Amants magnifigues. In the plot nucleus, the
noble and courageous General Sostrate, too modest
to declare his love for the beautiful princess
Eriphile, is asked to intercede for two rival
princes who vie for her hand.

A love-idyl set in the valley of Tempé during
the Pythian games, this comedy-ballet is filled with

gaiety and love poetry, marivaudage, light satire

51

and mild fourberie.

 

The fourberie is provided by pedantic astrol-

 

oger Anaxarque, in whose predictions the queen
mother believes, and the princess and court jester
do not. A bribable schemer, he "fakes" an appear-
ance of Venus, who announces that the princess'
husband-to-be will be named from the heavens. His
plan includes a subsequent staged attack and rescue
of the queen, from which prince Iphicrate--best in
bribery--will emerge a hero. The plot is inter-
rupted by an act of God when General Sostrate, after
rescuing the queen from a wild boar, marries the
princess to whom he had never intended to declare
his love.

Lacking sense of humor or sense of honor,
Anaxarque is more fourbe than fox, and is out-maneu-
vered by Clitidas and an act of God. A perceptive
observer of the human race and the possessor of a
penetrating humanity and wit, court jester Clitidas
attempts to resolve the love quadrangle by telling
the princess of General Sostrate's love for her.
His adaptability and wit are especially evident in
the scene with the haug ty princess. Note that he

changes his tack three different times in a single

dialogue:

52

Eriphila
Comment, moureuxl Quelle témérité est la
sienna! C'est un extravagant que je ne verrai
de ma via.

Clitidas
De quoi vous plaignez-vous madame?

Eriphile
Avoir l'audace de m'aimerl at, de plus, avoir
l'audace de le dire!

Clitidas
Ce n'est pas vous, madame, dont il est amoureux.

Eriphile
Ce n'est pas moi?

Clitidas
Non, madame; il vous respecte trOp pour cela,
ct est trop sage pour y penser.

Eriphile
Et de qui donc, Clitidas?

Clitidas
D'una de vos filles, la jeune Arsinoé.

Eriphile
A-t—elle tant d'appas, qu'il n'ait trouva qu'elle
digne de son amour?

Clitidas
Il l'aime épardument, at vous conjure d'honorer
sa flamme de votre protection.

Eriphile
Moi?

Clitidas
Non, non, madame. Je vois que la chose na vous
plait pas. Votre colére m'a obligé a prendre
ce detour; et, pour vous dige la vérité, c'est
vous qu'il aime éperdument.

7Oauvres Completes, Tome Cinquiéme, 155-157.

 

53
Clitidas is thus sufficiently adroit to not only
make the general's love known to the princess, but,
by the momentary arousal of her jealousy, to make
the princess aware of her own feeling for the general.
Although the final plot resolution is by act of God,
and one may not, therefore, credit Clitidas with its
achievement, one may safely credit him with serving

as its catalytic agent. As such, he is lovable.

La Princess d'Elide is in many ways similar to,

 

if less developed than, Les Amants mggnifigues. The
setting is again a Grecian £§E§: to which King Iphitas
hopes to attract the most valiant princes from near
and far, that his daughter may fall in love; but

the princess is a beautiful and disdainful huntress
who scorns submission to love as a cowardly act.
Prince Euryale of Ithaca, intrigued by the unattain-
able, gains her 1ove by duplicating her role and
pretending a total disinterest in love.

Jester Moron is the only rogue character in the
play. While he does not plan the strategy used by
the prince, his help in its implementation is so
great that it probably would not have been achieved
without him. An adept go-betwean, he helps estab-
lish the image of a haughty prince who is disin-

terested in love, and he sustains the prince when

54
he is tempted to step out of his chosen role. His
strategy is performed with such adaptness and his
humor is so beguiling that one could term it renardie.
One thus finds a diversified but frequently

evident renardie in the comedy-ballets of Moliére.

THE COKEDIES OF CLARACTER AND MANNERS

Les Précieuses ridicules-~L'Ecole des maria--
L'Ecole des femmes—-Le Bourgeois gentilhomme--
Don Juan--Lengemmes savantes

 

 

Les Précieuses ridicules, a comedy in one act
and seventeen scenes, was presented at the Petit
Bourbon in 1659. The setting is the Paris house of
Gorgibus, who has brought his daughter Magdelon and
niece Cathos from the provinces for a visit. They,

smitten with préciosité,1 and incensed by the non-

 

gallant approach to courtship of the young men

La Grange and Du Croisy, have dismissed them with
scorn. Gorgibus, having intended marriage arrange-
ments, is very annoyed. The young gentlemen gain
revenge by sending their valets, disguised, res-
pectively, as marquis and valet, to court in the
true précieux manner. The play ends when La Grange

and Du Croisy strip the valets of their borrowed

1The précieux movement had Spread throughout
the provinces, and reached the point of the
ridiculous in the salons of the imitators of
Madame de Rambouillat. Current salons were
those of Mlle de Scudéry, Mme Aragonais, Mlle
l'Héritier. After this play, which aroused

a lively storm of criticism and defense, the
Préciaux of Paris changed their name to the
Illustres, and the précieux movement grad-
ually died out.

 

55

56

finery in the presence of two indignant young ladies.

The theme of this play, a comedy of manners, is
satirization of the précieux movement. The mood of
light satire, established in the introduction with
Moliére‘s innocent commentary on authors, is main-
tained throughout. Little barbs of humor, aimed
with the most nonchalant of grins, fly throughout
the play, and their aim is the extremist imitators
of Madame de Rambouillet. The device upon which
this humor rests is the revenge-trick of La Grange
and Du Croisy. Their plan at first appears to have

been inspired by gauloiserie, because it is a

 

revenge trick. La Grange expresses his outrage in
this passage:
Du Croisy
11 me semble que vous prenez la chose fort
a coeur.
La Grange

Sans doute, je l'y prends, et de telle facon
que je me veux venger de cette impertinence2

.0.00....COCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...

La Grange also plots against the strength of a
social movement. This is renardie. Outraged and
affronted, sufficiently perceptive to see the social

cause of his discomfiture, he will Oppose the manner

ZThéétre Choisi, p. 7.

57
through caricature which "pourra leur apprendre
a connaitre un peu leur monde".3 He says, in the
same speech:

Je connais ce qui nous a fait mépriser. L'air
précieux:n'a pas seulement infecté Paris, 11
s'est aussi répandu dans les provinces, et nos
donzelles ridicules ont humé leur bonne part

Je vois ce qu'il faut atre pour en etre bien4

reQuOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO00.0.0.0...0.00.00.00.00.
He does not, however, play the Renart role himself.
He enlists the aid of Mascarille and Jodelet:

J'ai un certain valet, nommé mascarille, qui
passe, au sentiment de beaucoup de gens, pour
une maniere de bel esprit; car 11 n'y a rien
a meilleur marché qui s'est mis dans la téte
de vouloir faire l'homme de condition. 11 se
pique ordinairement de galanterie et de vers,
et dédaigne les autres valets jusqu'a les
appeler brutaux.

La Grange, then, plots 9 renardie action against a
social force, using Mascarille and Jodelet in its
implementation. This trickery is then used as a

framework for a complete mockery of préciosité--

 

of its artificiality, its devious language, its
madrigals and portraits, the egoism of its adherents--
all are parodied without a note of rancor, and with

an air of innocuous and spontaneous fun. Moliére

3Théatre Choisi, pp. 7-8.

 

4Ibid., p. 8.
5nu¢,p.s.

53
thus entertains his audience at the expense of

preciosité, using a trick as the basis of the plot.

 

The humor, in L'Ecole des maris, is not so

 

airily gay as that in Les Précieuses ridicules.

 

This is probably because Isabelle, in the Renart
role, is calculating and quick—witted, but lacking
in the spontaneous sense of humor of a Hercury or
a Mascarille.

Sisters Isabelle and Léonor have been left in
the care of brothers Sganarelle and Ariste, to marry
or to give in marriage, as discretion may indicate.
Ariste, some twenty years older, and apparently wiser,
than Sganarelle, has raised his charge with a kind of
gentle permissiveness and trust, and will not force
an unwanted betrothal. Sganaralle, inflexible and
opinionated, has raised Isabelle in accordance with
his own very severe dicta. He intends to marry her
in eight days. She, desperate, utilizes Sganaralle
himself in a series of involved trickeries in order
to marry the man of her choice, Valére. The plot
of the play therefore rests on the force and extreme-
ness of Sganarelle's character, as it is the cause
of all intrigue. In one situation, for example,

Isabelle, aware of Valére's interest in her and

59
desperate in the face of her approaching marriage
to Sganaralle, seeks to relay her sentiments to
Valére. Pretending indignation at Valére's in-
terest in her, she sends Sganaralle himself, with
a deceptively emphatic message:

Valére
Qui vous a dit que j'ai pour elle l'fime atteinte?

Sganarelle
Des gens a qui l'on peut donner quelque credit.

Valére
Mais encore?
Sganarelle
Elle-meme.
Valére
Elle?
Sganarelle

Elle, Est-ce assez dit?
Comme une fille honnéte, et qui m'aime d'enfance,
Elle vient de m'en faire entiére confidence,

Et, de plus, m'a charge de vous donner avis

Que, depuis que par vous tous ses pas sont suivis,
Son coeur, qu'avec excés votre poursuite outrage,
N'a que trOp de vos yeux entendu le langage;

Que vos secrets désirs lui sont assez connus,

Et que c'est vous donner des soucis superflus

De vouloir davantaqe expliquer une flamme

Qui choque l'amiti que me garde son ame.6

Later, pretending to have received a love-note, she
sends Sganaralle to return it unopened, that her

honor may not be tarnished. Its content is a plea

for help:

6Theatre Choisi, p. 58.

60

Cette lettre vous surprendra sans doute, et
l'on peut trouver bien hardis pour moi, et

le dessein de vous l'écrire, et la maniére

de vous la faire tenir; mais je me vois dans
un état a ne plus garder de mesure. La juste
horreur d'un mariage dont je suis menacée dans
six jours me fait hasarder toutes choses; et,
dans la resolution de m'en affranchir par
quelque voie que ce soit, j'ai cru que je
devais plutOt vous choisir que le désespoir 7

0.0.0.0...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Again, in scene 9, Isabelle uses duplicity for a
purpose, when she tells Valére of her love while
pretending loyalty to Sganarelle:

Isabelle
Mais, en l'état ou sont mes destinées,
De telles libertés doivent m'étre données;
Et je puis, sans rougir, faire un aveu si doux
A celui que déja je regarde en epoux.

Sganarelle
Oui, ma pauvre fanfan, pounonne de mon amel
Isabelle
Qu'il songe donc, de grace, a me prouver sa
flammel
Sganarelle

Oui, tiens, baise ma main.

Isabelle
Que sans plus de soupirs
Il conclue un hymen qui fair tous mes désirs,
Et re oive en ce lieu la foi que je lui donne
De n' couter jamais les voeux d'autre personne.
(Elle fait semblant d'embrasser Sganarelle, et
donne as main 5 baiser a Valera.)

7Thé§tre Choisi, pp.62-63.

8Ibido , pp. 71‘720

61

The successful culmination of Isabella's maneu-
vers occurs when, toward the end, she pretends to
shut herself in her room while her sister, pur-
portedly in love with Valére, goes to avow her love
in Isabella's voice. Sganarelle, gleeful over the
presumed deception to his brother's charge, helps
to deceive himself by aiding in the marriage of his
own "intended" to Valére. So ends a renardie action
which, more calculating than spontaneous, has been

both skillful and successful.

The general point of L'Ecole des femmes is
satirization of some of the very strict rules for
women and wives of the day, and most especially the
school which was confusing ignorance with stupidity
and education with deception, as does Arnolphe. He,
an extremist advocate of this school of thought, is
the force which stimulates the esprit gaulois and
the renardie, because it arises from his extremism.

The play Opens with Arnolphe's announcement
that he will marry the young and enchantingly naive
Agnes. He has had her convent-raised in ignorance
in the belief that this precaution will assure in-
nocence on her part and dominance on his, thus pre—

venting his ever becoming a cuckold. (A peasant

62

woman, unable to provide for the child, had en-
trusted her to Arnolphe's care at the age of four.)
Horace, son of Arnolphe's good friend Oronte, has
met and fallen in love with Agnes. Plot intrigue
is based on the fact that Arnolphe, unknown to
Horace, has changed his name to H. de la Souche.
He is a willing confidant of Horace, who relates,
step-by-step, his efforts to court the girl, who
is a virtual prisoner of M. de la Souche. Love
conquers all when it is found that Agnes is the
long-lost daughter of Arnolphe's friend's brother-
in-law, and has already been betrothed to Horace.

The major deception of the play has been at-
tempted by the extremist who presumably controls
the situation. Arnolphe takes gross advantage of
young Horace by pretending sympathy when he confides
in him. Having thus attained advance knowledge of
Horace's planned night-rescue of Agnes, he lays an
ambush and, still feigning friendship, takes the
"escaped" Agnes off for "protection". His role is
a fourbe one, performed by master rather than servant.

There is a renardie spirit, and an esprit
gaulois, which develop as a reaction to this fourbe
aspect of Arnolphe's character. The esprit gaulois

is frequently demonstrated by wily servants Alain

63
and Georgette. Apparently lacking in devotion for
Arnolphe, but subject to his bribery, they are often
deliberately stupid about his orders. On one occa-
sion, having been asked to bodily evict Horace should
he reappear, they innocently demonstrate on Arnolphe.
Agnes, enchantingly and maddeningly honest in her
conversations with Arnolphe, is not lacking in l'esprit

de Renart. Having been ordered to throw stones at

 

Horace should he appear again, she does so--with love
note attached. It is also interesting to observe
that she has somehow, in spite of Arnolphe's orders,
learned to write, as revealed by Horace in this con-
versation with Arnolphe:

Horace

OOOOCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

D'une telle action n'étes-vous pas surpris?
L'amour sait-il pas l'art d'aiguiser les esprits?
Et peut-on me nier que ses flammes puissantes

Ne fassent dans un coeur des choses étonnantes?
Que dites-vous du tour et de ce mot d'écrit?9

Agnes‘ little deceptions, as evidenced by her
letter, spring from her inherent kind-hearted nature,
from her love, and from Arnolphe's unyielding nature.
She maintains complete audience rapport because of this

character contrast. Though plot solution does not occur

9Theatre Choisi, p. 152.

64
as the aftermath of her strategy, its spirit is one

of renardie.

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, true to its title,

 

ridicules a member of the nouveau riche Who seeks
to imitate the aristocracy. The mood is one of
airily prancing gaiety, which is probably enhanced

by the musical-ballet intermedes. M. Jourdain, in

 

this prose comedy-ballet, romps through five acts of
music lessons, dancing lessons, fencing lessons, and
wife-scoldings. He unwittingly finances Count Dorant's
courtship of a marquise, believing him to be acting

as his own intermediary. Having refused to permit

his daughter to marry anything less than a marquis,

he is tricked by her lover's valet, who disguises

lover Cléonte as the son of a visiting Turkish "great"
in order to achieve the marriage.

M. Jourdain meets his downfall through two kinds
of intrigue: the fourbe deception of Count Dorant,
who cleverly persuades him to finance his courtship
of the marquise, and the valet's disguising of lover
Cléonte as the son of a Turkish potentate. In the
third act, M. Jourdain has angrily refused to let
his daughter marry Cléonte:

Voila bien les sentiments d'un petit esprit,

65

de vouloir demeurer toujours dans la bassesse.
He me repliquez pas davantage: ma fille sera
marquise, en depit de tout le monde; et, si
vous me mettez en colere, je la ferai duchesse.10

Covielle, sympathetic to his master's predicament, then
plans his deception:

Covielle
Il s'est fait depuis peu une certaine mascarade
qui vient 1e mieux du monde ici, et que je pré-
tends faire entrer dans une bourle que je veux
faire a notre ridicule. Tout cela sent un peu
sa comedie; mais, avec lui, on peut hasarder
toute chose; il n'y faut point chercher tant de
fagons, et il est homme a y jouer son r616 a
merveille et 5 donner aisement dans toutes les
fariboles qu'on s'avisera de lui dire. J'ai
les acteurs, j'ai les habits tout préts;
laissez-moi faire seulement.

The successful enactment of this subterfuge concludes
the play.

All paths of wit in this play lead to a very
funny picture of someone trying to be something that

he is not. The renardie, though a minor portion of

 

the picture, is artful because the audience laughs
with a clear conscience. Since no one could con-
ceivably be so ox-like as the exaggerated M. Jourdain,
one laughs at a character and not a person, and one

laughs a carefree laugh.

loThéatre Choisi, p. 478.

 

111b1d., p. 479.

66

Don Juan is a five-act comedy of character, in
which most action develops from the very complex
character of Don Juan. Completely unscrupulous in
love, to the extent of "marrying" several different
women, he escapes all punishment so long as he is
true to his own rather diabolical self. When, in
an effort to make people think he has reformed, he
deliberately plans to become a hypocrite, heaven
intervenes,and he meets his end.

Beyond an occasional bit of farce humor, most
of the play's comedy deve10ps from the characters
of Don Juan and his servant Sganarelle. Don Juan,
occasionally kind-hearted, sometimes heroic, is
generally so avowedly wicked as to be unbelievable.
Hence a kind of inverse and incredulous humor springs
from the wickedness itself. Sganarelle, inherently
somewhat less than brave, is rather emphatic about
his moral beliefs, but lacks the consistency of
fortitude and reasoning power necessary to their
sustenance in the face of Don Juan's maliciously
wicked personality. He repeatedly lectures his
master on moral principle, but so clumsily as to be-
come funny in the process. Speaking of proof of the
existence of God, Sganarelle begins in a serious vein;

then, flustered by Don Juan's unruffled indifference

67
to his reasoning, he becomes confused, excited-~and
ridiculous. This mockery of religious explanation
is non-serious in vein, and it evokes the laughter
of ridicule by subtly indirect means. It is there-
fore satirical.

The méchant trickeries of Don Juan are per-
formed against a stronger force--society, but most
frequently do harm to a character less powerful or
less clever than Don Juan. They are thus not apt
to engage or to hold audience rapport. The most
supreme trick of all--that of the statue who comes
to dinner and issues a fateful return invitation--
is an act of the heavens. In addition, it is a
single, ironical blow, rather than contrived wit

or intrigue. One could scarcely label it renardie.

Les Femmes savantes is a far more "heavy" comedy
than the others in this group; more time is devoted
to character development, some in a rather serious vein,
and there is consequently less time for incidental
humor. Barring an occasional bit of this incidental
comedy, which has no essential connection with char-
acter or plot, and which serves to lighten the mood,

all humor is aimed at the femmes savantes,12 the

lZThe femmes savantes, probably an outgrowth of

68
grammarian Ménagefl-I5 and orécieux Abbe Cotin.14

The femmes savantes themselves are made to look

 

ridiculous through the exaressed ideas of the
mother and of her daughter Armande, who wishes to
marry philosophy, leaving the "low amusements"15

of love and marriage to the coarse and vulgar.
These ideas, although seriously expressed, are
sufficiently exaggerated to evoke, in the audience,
a feeling of ridicule. This feeling of the ridicu-
lous which has already been established is then
built into even further exaggeration--and hence a
lighter vein--when so simale a thing as a lackey's
falling off a chair is stretched into a discourse
on gravity. This lightly mocking, sometimes sharply

satiric, ridicule is made more hilarious by the

the précieuses, were reputed to be more inter-
ested in culture, with emphasis on the scien-
tific, than in the accepted feminine role of
marriage and homemaking.

 

lsGrammarian Menage, associated with Hesdames
de Sévigné and de Lafayette, signed his
writing gEgidius henagius; he was noted in
some circles for pedantic erudition and pla-
giarism, and is represented in this play by
Vadius.

14Abbe Cotin, Trissotin in this play, engaged
in a war of epigrams with Menage. One group
of verse he entitled la Menagerie.

15Theatre Choisi, p. 522.

69
asperity of Philaminte, the nagging wife, and of
servant Martine, both of whom are typical of gaulois
farce.
The setting of this five-act verse-comedy is

the Paris home of bourgeois Chrysale. His wife

 

Philaminte and daughter Armande, femmes savantes,
play in opposition to daughter Henriette, who cares
naught for science nor epigram, but does want to
marry Clitandre. Mother Philaminte, determined to
betroth Henriette to the pedantic Trissotin, is
thwarted by Uncle Ariste, who exposes him as more
interested in money than in Henriette or culture.

The renard element is introduced by Uncle Ariste.
Sympathetic, from the beginning, to the plight of the
young lovers, he has pledged his assistance early in
the play: "J'employerai toute chose a servir vos
amours."16 Recognizing that father Chrysale lacks
sufficient moral courage to uphold the defense of
Henriette against her mother, he quietly plans an
expose of Trissotin. With all central characters
present, with the marriage contract about to be signed,
delivery is made of "fake” messages indicating loss

of a court suit, with resultant costs, and loss of all

16Théatre Choisi, p. 580.

70
financial assets through bankruptcy. The "ardent"
Trissotin disappears, and Clitandre marries Henriette.
Ariste, a level-headed and reasonable man, is
not a typical rogue character, nor is he comic. He
does, however, make quiet use of an effective ruse
in order to achieve a desired end. He is Renart,

refined.

It is apparent that the renardie element, in the
comedies of manner and intrigue, has been refined and
further varied. With the exception of Covielle, in
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, it is no longer represented
by a quick-witted rogue. In Les Précieuses_ridicules,
the ruse is performed by Mascarille and Jodelet, but
the planning has been done by La Grange. There is
no longer a wily female servant planning to save her
innocent mistress from a dreadful fate. Agnes and
Isabella attempt their own scheming, and Isabelle
succeeds. Ariste, in Les chmes savantes, is a reason-
able and level-headed man who uses ruse as a last re-
sort. What, then, will one find in the hautes

comedies?

THE HAUTES COMéDIEs

 

Le Misanthrope--L'Avare--Le Tartuffe

 

Tartuffe, ou l'Imposteur is a kind of comic
Pilgrims' Progress, wherein Fourbe Hypocrisy, in
alliance with Blind Stupidity, battle Rash YOuth,

l'Esprit Gaulois, Common Sense, Overly Meek, Chivalry,

 

and Artfully Sensible. The character development is
greater, and the mood is more serious than one finds
in the majority of the Moilére plays. There is a
parallel minimizing 0f farce device, but fourberie,
esprit gaulois and renardie are both present and
important to the characterization.

Father Orgon is so taken in by Tartuffe's too~
humble mien that he not only makes him a member of
his household, but is willing to sacrifice family,
wealth, and word of honor to keep him happy. Plot
solution is achieved through a staged performance
by Artfully Sensible wife Elmira, and an act of the
king.

Servant Dorine could probably have played the
renardie role in this play. Observant and quick-
witted, she immediately defines the hypocrisy of
Tartuffe, as well as the strengths and weaknesses
of other members of the household. When she learns
that Orgon will actually break his word and make

71

72
daughter Mariana wed Tartuffe rather than Valére,
she tries:
pretending it's a joke

lecturing him on the unfortunate
probable results of such a marriage

making caustic remarks about what she
would do in a similar situation.

 

When these verbal attacks fail to produce results,
she plans her campaign. Mariana is to stall for
time by pretended illness, invention of omen dreams,
and, as a last resort, outright refusal to acquiesce;
she herself will enlist the aid of stepmother Elmira,
while Valera is to secure the aid of friends in hold-
ing Orgon to his word.

Spirited, witty, perceptive and clever, Dorine
plays an important role in her delineation of char-
acter of others. She may be capable of solving the
family problems, but it is Elmire who does so. Cog-
nizant of the fact that Orgon is "blind" and "deaf"
to the acts and words of anyone except Tartuffe, and
that only direct evidence will suffice to awaken him,
she resolves to secure a re-enactment of Tartuffe's
declarations of love. She states her plan, to which
Orgon consents, and Dorine objects:

L'erreur trop longtemps dure,
Et c'est trop condamner ma bouche d'imposture.

73

Il faut que, par plaisir, et sans aller plus loin,
De tout ce qu'on vous dit je vous fasse témoin.

Orgon
Soit. Je vous prends au mot. Nous verrons
votre adresse,
Et comment vous pourrez remplir cette promesse.

Elmira
Faites-le-moi venir.

Dorine
Son esprit est ruse,
Et peut-étre 5 surprendre il sera malaise.

Elmira
Non; on est aisement dupé par ce qu'on aime,

Et l'amour-prOpre engage a se tromper soi-meme.1

So plans Elmira, and, with Orgon hidden under the

table, she achieves a full expose of Tartuffe's mon—

strous hypocrisy:

and,

Tartuffe
Je puis vous dissiper ces craintes ridicules,
Kadame, et je sais l'art de lever les scrupules.
Le ciel defend, de vrai, certaine contentements;
Mais on trouva avec lui des accommodements.

0..0.0.0.0...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...OOOOOOOOOOO...
again:

Vous ates assurée ici d'un plain secret,

Et 1e mal n'est jamais que dans l'éclat qu'on
fait.

Le scandale du monde est ce qui fait l'offense,
Et ca n'est pas pécher que pécher en silence.

lTheatre Choisi, pp. 229-250.

2Ibid., p. 234.

3Ibid., pp. 254—255.

74
This exposure is the climax of the play, and it is
achieved through the artful poise and sublety of
Elmira. The planning and performance of the ruse
has, in this play, been transferred from a spirited

and loquacious servant to a quietly effective mistress.

We have seen, in Tartuffe, a refinement and vari-

 

ation on renardie in the person of Elmira. A new and

fascinating aspect is evident in Le Misanthr0pg. This

 

renardie varies from the original in humor and in re-
sult. Céliméne utilizes her wit and humor to cir-
cumvent the prudishness of a stronger force: society.
She cleverly manipulates peOple in general, using

tart portraiture in combination with quick-witted
gaiety. The end result is defeat, rather than vic-
tory, although the reader is left with an impression
of an unconquerabla Céliméne.

A pOpular young widow courted by many, Céliméne
amuses one and all with feminine grace and clever
portraiture of social notables. She skillfully avoids
commitment to any one suitor, and answers direct accu-
sation with subtle change of issue. When,for example,
an outraged Alceste complains about her being at home
to one and all:

C'ast pour me quereller donc, 5 ce que je voi

75
Que vous avez voulu me ramener chez moi?4
Later, she turns Alceste's argument to her own favor:

Céliméne
Mais de tout l'univers vous devenez jaloux.

Alceste
C'est que tout l'univers est bien recu de vous.

Célimane

C'est ca qui doit rasseoir votre ame effarouchée,

Puisque ma complaisance est sur tous épanchée,

Et vous auriez plus lieu de vous en offenser,

Si vous me la voyiez sur seul ramasser.

When Alceste confronts her with a letter written
by her, purportedly to Oronte, she suggests that it
may have been to a woman, and acts offended at his
distrust of her. Her defeat--with her current group
of friends and suitors—-occurs when Clitandre pro-
duces a letter, this time undeniably authentic, which
satirizes each of them, including Alceste.

Typical renardie characteristics are inherent
to Célimane. She delights in trickery, and performs
it with grace, with ease, and with humor. She has
no Specific goal, such as the circumlocution of one,
single instance of tyranny. Hers is a more intangible

war against the ridiculous in man and his society.

While momentarily nonplussed by the discovery of her

‘4Théatre Choisi, p. 274.

 

5
Ibid., p.275.

76
latter, one feels that she has, simultaneously, scored
a certain victory with her "portraits"; and that, like

Henart, she will not for long remain quiescent.

Scheming and trickery are rampant in L'Avare.
With everything in the play geared to displaying the
character of a ludicrous Harpagon who values money
more than life, family, or love, much of the conniving
has a connection with money. Most of the rest is
concerned with love difficulties deriving, like the
first, from the character of Harpagon. Cléante tries,
unsuccessfully, to borrow money without his father's
knowledge; servant La Fléche steals Harpagon's buried
treasure to assist Cléante; for purpose of revenge,
Maitre Jacques deliberately accuses Valera of a crime
he didn't commit, and cleverly tricks Harpagon into
describing the location and container of the treasure.
Harpagon, to determine his son's feelings concerning
Mariana, deliberately sugéests that he might permit
their marriage.

The only one of these schemers who seems suffi-
ciently quick-witted for the renart role is Frosine.
Having originally made clever arrangements for the
marriage of the aging Harpagon to the young and

innocent Mariana, in hepes of a fee, she becomes

77
sympathetic to the plight of Cléante and Mariana,
who are in love. She here reveals her willingness
to help:

Cléante

Frosine, ma pauvre Frosine, voudrais-tn nous
servir?

Frosine
Par ma foi, faut-il 1e demander? je le voudrais
de tout mon coeur. Vous savez que, de mon
natural, je suis assez humaine. Le ciel ne m'a
point fait l'ame da bronze, et je n'ai que trop
de tendresse 5 rendre de petits services, quand

je vois des gens qui s'entr'aiment en tout bien
et en tout honneur. Que pourrions nous faire

Q

a ceci?6

Then, knowing that no reasoning will sway Harpagon,

she plans to find an impersonator of a rich marquise
who will fall madly in love with Harpagon. Frosine

is thus prepared to use trickery to circumvent a
stronger force, but the probability of her success
remains speculative, as plot solution is by set of God.
While her renart characteristics are evident, the
frequency of her success may be determined only in

the mind of the reader.

One finds, in the hautes comedies, a renardie

characteristic of that seen before in the persons

5Théatre Choisi, p. 384.

78
of servant Dorine (Tartuffe) and go-between Frosine

(ngzggg). In Céliméne (Le Misanthrope), who, using

 

wit and humor to satirize social mannerisms, earns a
questionable and temporary defeat, and in Elmira
(Tartuffe), who, with artful poise and subtlety,
achieves a re-enactment of a love-declaration, one
sees new variations on an old theme. Célimene is
the only Moliére heroine who utilizes her cleverness
to maintain a rank of suitors, and as a kind of social
defiance; his other heroines are usually Oppressed
by a single person, such as a parent, and each utilizes
indirect means to achieve a love-goal. Elmira is his
only heroine who, in a wifely role, uses play-acting
to make her spouse aware of his folly.

Moliére, in developing his greatest comedies,
did not ignore the renardie aspect of the Gallic
spirit...he utilized and developed it.

0.0.0.0...

CONCLUSION

The intent of this thesis has been the record-
ing of evidence in support of the proposition that
the renardie element is prevalent in the comedies
of Moliére, that it exists in every typg_of comedy
that he wrote, and that, as portrayed by Moliére,
it has new and sometimes complex aspects. Renardie
has been described as the expression of a social
reaction, an outgrowth of l'esprit_gaulois. It has
been defined as the use of wit and intrigue to cir-
cumvent the power of established institutions. The
mood of the expression, while often satirical, is
gay.

A character strictly confinable to the renardie
role would be a member of the lower classes; he would
successfully outwit a representative or representa-
tion of a domineering institution or manner, and he
.would maintain audience rapport through humorous
appeal and the quick-wittedness of his thought and
action. One finds, in the plays analyzed here, that
only six (Sganaralle, Les Facheux, Mélicerte, Lg
Pastorale comiqge, Le Mariage forcé, Don Juan) con-
tain no character who is not at least partially of
this description. There are three others to Which

79

80
it would be difficult to apply the term. There is

deceit in George Bandin, but its only discernible

 

goal is ridicule of a man who has married out of

his social class, and vengeance of a wife who is

a victim of an arranged marriage. There is no plot
resolution. The object of the deceit in Monsieur de

Pourceaugnac would appear to be circumvention of

 

parental authority, and this object is achieved.
One loses sight of the objective throughout the play,
however, for it is buried in a complex series of
intrigue designed to ridicule a Limousin. There is
mild deception in La Comtessed'Escarbagpas, but its
sole use is that of a device for the display of pro-
vincial manners. All of the other plays contain two
or more of the above-described criteria for renardie.
If one outlines the remainder of these plays
according to these criteria, one finds that the
scheming, with the exception of that in Le Dépit
amoureux and La Princess d'Elide, is turned against
a controlling force, social institution, or manner.
It is not always, as in the Roman de Renart, repre-

sentative of the bourgeoisie. A servant, or a mem-

 

ber of the lower classes does the plotting in six

of the plays,1 the planning and enactment of the

1Appendix A

81

deception is by other than servants in seven,2 and
there is co-operative effort between master and ser-
vant in five.3

Moliére did not, then, ignore the gauloiserie
-—or its frequent companion and aftermath, renardie
--which were traditional in his century, for both
are evident even in the hautes comedies. It would
be illogical to assume that he simply erased from
his mind the literary and social inheritance of time
and place. This observer of life-~of peasant, b333-
gggig, and noble--this master of theatre--of acting,
directing and writing--gave to the renardie the
scope and depth which resulted from this observation
and talent of expression. His addition of the breath
of human life to his caricature-symbol of the dominant
institution or manner (Tartuffe), his replacement of
Renart with an Agnes or a Toinette, do not obliterate
the pattern of, or the public empathy for, la renardie.

This pattern, this renardie image, could con-
ceivably be extended to include the author himself.
His masterful and recurrent use of the most innocuous-

looking dialogue and situation to ridicule-~and thus

2Appendix B
5Appendix C

82
undermine--a current manner or custom may not be
ignored. Whether he produced his plays as a medium
of social commentary, or whether he utilized the
society and manners of his time for good theatre,
Moliére does make social commentary. Mr. Gaiffe
tells us:

...les ordinaires victimes du rire moliéresque

sont judicieusement choisies parmi les gens

que le spectateur moyen n'aime point, parce

qu'il les craint, ne peut les comprendre on

se sent dépassé par eux.

Paternal authority, artificiality of manner, pedantry,
and hypocrisy are all exposed to a laughter based on
ruse. While the specific intent of the author may
not be known, the renardie pattern is there.

There is an image which, in reading Moliére,
comes consistently to mind: this image is that of
the theatre mask, but the face which grins in one
direction and weeps in the other is that of Monsieur
Renart. The image merges with that of the author,
for the psychological complexity, the depth and

warmth of humor that are Moliere's are unforgettably

his own; but it is yet distinguishable as renardie.

4Gaiffe, p. 115.

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Besant, Walter. The French Humorists from the
Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century. Boston;
Roberts Bros., 1874.

 

 

Boileau—Despréaux. Satires, Edition Critique,
ed. Albert Cahen. Paris; Librairie E. Droz,
11-19, 59-61, 1952.

 

Bradley, Robert Foster, Robert Bell Michell, ed.
Eight Centuries of French Literature. New
York; Appleton-Century-Crofts Inc., 1951.

Bray, Rene. Moliére,_Homme de Theatre. Paris;
Mercure de France, 1954.

 

Chapman, Percy Addison. The Spirit of Moliere.
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Gaiffe, Félix. Le Hire et la Scene FranQaise.
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La Grange. Le Registre de la Grange, ed. Bert
Edward Ybung, Grace Philputt Young. Paris;
Librairie E. Droz, 1947.

Grimarest. La Vie de Moliére, ed. Georges
Mongrédien. Paris; Michel Brient, 1955.

 

Hémon, Felix. Cours de Litterature a L'Usage des
givers Examens. Vol VI. Paris; Librairie
Delagrave, .

 

Lewis, D. B. Wyndham. The Comic Mask. New York;
Howard-McCann, 1959.

 

Moliére. Eight Plays by Moliere, ed. M. Bishop.
New York; Modern Library, 1957.

Moliére. Le Misanthrope and L'Avare, ed. William
F. Giese. New York; Scott, Foresman and Co.,

1901.

Moliére. fieuvres Completes en Six Volumes, ed.‘
Emile Faguat, Charles Sarolea, Tome Troisieme-
Sixieme. Paris; Nelson Editeurs, .

90

91

Moliére. 6Buvres de Moliére, ed. M. Auger Tome
Premier, Tome Second. Paris; Th. Désoer, 1825.

 

Moliere. Theatre Choisi de Moliére, ed. Maurice
Rat. Paris; Garnier Fréres, 1954.

Moore, W. G. Moliere: A New Criticism. Oxford;
Clarendon Press, 1949.

Sainte-Beuve. Nouveaux Lundis, Tome Cinquiéme.
Paris; Michel Lgvy Fréres, 1872, 257-280.

Saintsbury, George. A Short History of French
Literature. New York; Clarendon Press, 1897.

 

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