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The French bourgeoisie of Paris were sufficiently quick-witted and enlightened by education to welcome great works like Le Tartuffe, Les Femmes Savantes, and Le Misanthrope, works that were perilous ventures on the popular intelligence, big vessels to launch on streams running to shallows.
The Tartuffe hove into view as an enemy's vessel; it offended, not Dieu mais les devots, as the Prince de Conde explained the cabal raised against it to the King. The Femmes Savantes is a capital instance of the uses of comedy in teaching the world to understand what ails it.
Moliere's play, Les Femmes savantes, which appeared in 1672, is one of the first indications. He was a friend and a frequent visitor at her chateau. See Maigron, Fontenelle, p. 42. The English translation of 1688 was by Glanvill. It met with the success which it deserved. It was reprinted again and again, and it was almost immediately translated into English.
In 1671 he had a terrible attack of the gout, accompanied by agonies moral and physical which filled the ladies with alarm and pity. Better in 1672, he was able to entertain company to hear Corneille read his new tragedy of "Pulchérie" in January, and Molière his new comedy, "Les Femmes Savantes," in March.
To her the role of "Henriette" was inexplicable. She consulted her husband, who replied, "'Henriette' is a little philosopheress with plenty of sense. Esperance is right to have chosen this scene from Les Femmes Savantes. Moliere's genius has never exhibited finer raillery than in this play."
We need not be like "Les Femmes Savantes" but we ought to have something to say about what we learn as well as about what we MUST do, and what our professors say or how they mark our themes. To-day I took luncheon with the Freshman Class of Radcliffe. This was my first real experience in college life, and a delightful experience it was!
On one occasion, we saw her act Henriette in Les Femmes Savantes of Moliere, and Catau La Partie de Chasse de Henri IV, an£ it was difficult to say whether most to admire the wit, and elegance, and police raillery of the woman of fashion, or the innocent gaiety, and interesting naïveté of the simple peasant girl.
They were playing together in Les Femmes savantes. He put an egg into her hand, on the stage. She couldn't get rid of it until the end of the act." On hearing the call boy's summons she went downstairs, followed by Constantin Marc. They heard the roar of the house, the mutterings of the monster, and it seemed to them that they were entering into the flaming mouth of the apocalyptic beast.
Crisp, wiser for her than he had been for himself, read the manuscript in his lonely retreat, and manfully told her that she had failed, that to remove blemishes here and there would be useless, that the piece had abundance of wit but no interest, that it was bad as a whole, that it would remind every reader of the Femmes Savantes, which, strange to say, she had never read, and that she could not sustain so close a comparison with Moliere.
My morning hopes are justly placed in Mr. Harte, and the masters he will give you; my evening ones, in the Roman ladies: pray be attentive to both. But I must hint to you, that the Roman ladies are not 'les femmes savantes, et ne vous embrasseront point pour Pamour du Grec.
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