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There might have been some safety for her in being put on her guard against her enemy; and the king himself, who called his brother Tartuffe, did, in consequence of his discovery, use great caution and circumspection in his behavior toward him; but Marie Antoinette was of a temper as singularly forgiving as it was open: she could not bear to regard with suspicion even those of whose unfriendliness and treachery she had had proofs; and after a few days she resumed her old familiarity with the pair, as if she had no reason to distrust them, slighting on this subject the remonstrances of Mercy, who pointed out to her in vain that she was putting weapons into their hands which they would be sure to turn against herself.
Pigasov; but you may say what you like, penetrating as you are, it's hard for me to believe that you understand every one and everything. I think you are mistaken. According to your ideas, Rudin is a kind of Tartuffe. 'No, the point is, that he is not even a Tartuffe. Tartuffe at least knew what he was aiming at; but this fellow, for all his cleverness 'Well, well, what of him?
Every one knows the reply of the great Prince of Condé to Louis XIV when this monarch expressed his surprize at the clamour excited by Molière's Tartuffe, while a blasphemous farce called Scaramouche Hermite was performed without giving any scandal: "C'est parceque Scaramouche ne jouoit que le ciel et la religion, dont les dévots se soucioient beaucoup moins que d'eux-mêmes."
On his return, he finds his grandfather seemingly under the influence of Pecksniff, the hypocrite, the English Tartuffe. But that, as I have already mentioned, is only a ruse. Old Martin is deceiving Pecksniff, who in due time receives the reward of his deeds, and all ends happily for those who deserve happiness. Such is something like a bare outline of the story, with the beauty eliminated.
But the Scandinavian playwright has not a little of the great Frenchman's feeling for reality, and even more of his detestation of affectation and his hatred of sham. The creator of Tartuffe would have appreciated Pastor Manders, an incomparable prig, with self-esteem seven times heated, engrossed with appearances only and ingrained with parochial hypocrisy.
Since then, the story has been reproduced under various shapes and names: "Les Portraits de Famille," "Valsain et Florville," and, at the Theatre Francais, under the title of the "Tartuffe de Moeurs." Lately, too, the taste for the subject has revived. The Vaudeville has founded upon it a successful piece, called "Les Deux Cousins;" and there is even a melodrame at the Porte St.
"He is cousin-germain to Tartuffe, that immortal figure cast in bronze by our honest Moliere; for Moliere, my children, had honesty and patriotism for the basis of his genius." It was at that instant that Genevieve came in to say, "There's a Monsieur de la Peyrade out there, who wants to see monsieur." "To see me!" exclaimed Phellion.
"They cannot, indeed, claim the merit of being the first in France who opened the eyes of the nation; for Fenelon had taught even to Louis XIV., in his immortal 'Telemaque, the duties of a king; Racine, in his 'Germanicus, had shown the accursed nature of irresponsible despotism; Moliere, in his 'Tartuffe, had exposed the vices of priestly hypocrisy; Pascal, in his 'Provincial Letters, had revealed the wretched sophistries of the Jesuits; Bayle even, in his 'Critical Dictionary, had furnished materials for future sceptics."
And till gods and men agree together to call it by the same name the errantest Tartuffe, in science in politics or in religion, shall never kindle a spark within me, or have a worse word, or a more unkind greeting, than what he will read in the next chapter.
Did we merely take his actions into account, Tartuffe would belong to drama: it is only when we take his gestures into consideration that we find him comic. You may remember how he comes on to the stage with the words: "Laurent, lock up my hair-shirt and my scourge." He knows Dorine is listening to him, but doubtless he would say the same if she were not there.
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