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She felt perplexed about making a selection. She had seen only three pieces: Robert le Diable in the capital, Le Jeune Mari at Rouen, and another at Falaise which was very funny, and which was called La Brouette du Vinaigrier. Finally, Bouvard suggested to her the great scene of Tartuffe in the second act. Pécuchet thought an explanation was desirable: "You must know that Tartuffe "
"The reason of that," answered the prince, "is, that Scaramouche makes fun of heaven and religion, about which those gentry do not care, and that Moliere makes fun of their own selves, which they cannot brook." The prince might have added that all the blows in Tartuffe, a masterpiece of shrewdness, force, and fearless and deep wrath, struck home at hypocrisy.
"It struck me," continued the King, "that some such thing was indispensable as a counterbalance in the vast machinery of my government, and I shall ever be the friend and supporter, not of Tartuffes, but of the 'Tartuffe, as long as I live." "And Boileau, Sire?" I continued; "what place among your favourites does he fill?"
The first thing the count did was to congratulate Soradaci on having been placed in the same cell as myself, and on being so soon about to regain his liberty. His air of speechless confusion made me want to laugh. I took no more trouble about him, for I had thrown off the mask of Tartuffe which I had found terribly inconvenient all the time I had worn it for the rascal's sake.
Don Quixote is said to have annihilated chivalry; Tartuffe dealt a blow at the pretensions of the Church; and the Marriage of Figaro at those of the old noblesse. It is possible that Bleak House gave some impulse to law reform, and Vanity Fair has relieved us of a good deal of snobbery. But no novel before or since ever created a political party and provided them with a new programme.
A little self-consciousness of hypocrisy is a corrupting thing, much of it completely incompatible with the most successful careerism. Tartuffe is always applauded by the world when he plays Hamlet, if he really believes in himself as Hamlet. And, as all he has to do, if he is at all talented, is to look into his glass and see himself in the part, he carries it off very well.
There is in Italy no more comedy than tragedy; and here again we stand foremost. The only species of comedy peculiar to Italy is harlequinade. A valet, at once a knave, a glutton, and a coward; an old griping, amorous dupe of a guardian, compose the whole strength of these pieces. I hope you will allow that Tartuffe, and the Misanthrope, require a little more genius than such compositions."
Eve and her serpent seem to me a pretty little case of symbolical adultery; you must suppress the Psalms of David, inspired by the highly adulterous love affairs of that Louis XIV. of Judah; you must make a bonfire of Mithridate, le Tartuffe, l'Ecole des Femmes, Phedre, Andromaque, le Mariage de Figaro, Dante's Inferno, Petrarch's Sonnets, all the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the romances of the Middle Ages, the History of France, and of Rome, etc., etc.
"It struck me," continued the King, "that some such thing was indispensable as a counterbalance in the vast machinery of my government, and I shall ever be the friend and supporter, not of Tartuffes, but of the 'Tartuffe, as long as I live." "And Boileau, Sire?" I continued; "what place among your favourites does he fill?"
The Italian troupe was requested to perform at the Comédie Française on the occasion of the benefit of which I have spoken, and we were to give one act of Maria Stuart, When we arrived at the theatre to commence our rehearsal the company was in the act of rehearsing a scene from Tartuffe which was to form part of the programme on the same occasion.
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