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He knew the tent and its capabilities, having seen it figure on various occasions, comices agricoles, banquets de pompiers, at village fêtes generally, and said it could be arranged quite well. We discussed many programmes, but finally accepted whatever M. Claretie would give an act of "Les Plaideurs," and two or three of "Bérénice," with Mme. Bartet, who is charming in that rôle.
One whole scene is almost translated from the Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes. Fidelia is Shakspeare's Viola stolen, and marred in the stealing; and the Widow Blackacre, beyond comparison Wycherley's best comic character, is the Countess in Racine's Plaideurs, talking the jargon of English instead of that of French chicane.
La Peyrade had, to be sure, mentioned an unforeseen and inexplicable difficulty by which all the efforts of the Comtesse du Bruel had been paralyzed; but Thuillier did not take comfort in the explanation; and on certain days, when the disappointment became acute, he was very near saying with Chicaneau in Les Plaideurs, "Return my money."
The performance began with the third act of "Les Plaideurs," played with extraordinary entrain. There were roars of laughter all through the salle, or tent none more amused than the band of schoolboys, and their youthful enjoyment was quite contagious. People turned to look at them, and it was evident that, if they didn't see, they heard, as they never missed a point probably knew it all by heart.
But it was not until two years later that the University's dramatic history may be said to have begun with the two Commencement plays, the Adelphi of Terence, given in Latin under the direction of Professor Charles M. Gayley, '74, and Racine's Les Plaideurs, in French, under Assistant Professor Paul R. de Pont of the Department of French.
The digressions, with which he has endeavoured to enliven the monotony of his subject, are sometimes very far-fetched. He has scarcely finished his exordium, when he goes back to the third day of the creation, and then passes on to the deluge. This reminds one of the Mock Advocate in the Plaideurs of Racine, who, having to defend the cause of a dog that had robbed the pantry, begins,
The original belongs to the kind which the Spaniards call Comedias de Figuron: it also has undoubtedly been spoiled by Scarron, The worst of the matter is, that his exaggerations are trifling without being amusing. Racine hit upon a very different plan of imitation from that which was then followed, in his Plaideurs, of which the idea is derived from Aristophanes.
Adam, he said, was most assuredly the first who had committed this sin, and Cain the next; then, following the advice given by the listener, in the Plaideurs, "Passons au deluge, je vous prie;" he went on to mention the particular propriety of Noah's family on this point; and then continued, "Now observe, what did God shew the greatest dislike to? What was it that Jesus was never even accused of?
He had just brought out Les Plaideurs, which had been requested of him by his friends and partly composed during the dinners they frequently had together. "I put into it only a few barbarous law-terms which I might have picked up during a lawsuit and which neither I nor my judges ever really heard or understood."
Read the speech of Chicanneau in the Plaideurs: here we find lawsuits within lawsuits, and the mechanism works faster and faster Racine produces in us this feeling of increasing acceleration by crowding his law terms ever closer together until the lawsuit over a truss of hay costs the plaintiff the best part of his fortune.
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