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Updated: June 16, 2025
Nous serons par nos lois les juges des ouvrages. Les Femmes Savantes. Vincent called on me the next day. "I have news for you," said he, "though somewhat of a lugubrious nature. Lugete Veneres Cupidinesque. You remember the Duchesse de Perpignan!" "I should think so," was my answer. "Well then," pursued Vincent, "she is no more. Her death was worthy of her life.
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.
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 Molière.
A part-song followed from eight of the best girls in the singing class, among whom was Avis, who had a remarkably sweet voice, and whose high notes were as clear as a bell. Phyllis Chambers and Marjory Gregson acted a dialogue in German, some of the most advanced French scholars gave a scene from Les Femmes Savantes, and Enid recited the famous soliloquy from Hamlet, which was much applauded.
Les Femmes Savantes had at first but little success; the piece was considered heavy; the marvellous nicety of the portraits, the correctness of the judgments, the delicacy and elegance of the dialogue, were not appreciated until later on.
Les Femmes Savantes, though produced many years subsequently, also found the originals of its characters in the same source whence Molière painted Les Précieuses Ridicules.
It is easy to understand, however, that with the herd of imitators who, in Paris and the provinces, aped the style of this famous salon, simplicity degenerated into affectation, and nobility of sentiment was replaced by an inflated effort to outstrip nature, so that the genre précieux drew down the satire, which reached its climax in the Précieuses Ridicules and Les Femmes Savantes, the former of which appeared in 1660, and the latter in 1673.
"Fortunately," said one of the young ladies, "you have not much to fear from their learning at a ball; and as dancers I don't apprehend you have much to dread from any of them, even from the beauty." "Why, scarcely," said Miss Georgiana; "I own I shall be curious to see how they will get on 'comment ces savantes se tireront d'affaire. I wonder they are not here.
"Ignorant silly women may be allowed to sneer at information and talents in their own sex, and, if they have read them, may talk of 'Les Precieuses Ridicules, and 'Les Femmes Savantes, and may borrow from Moliere all the wit they want, to support the cause of folly. But from women who are themselves distinguished for talents, such apostasy but I am speaking to my mother I forbear."
The first was Les Femmes Savantes, a comedy, in which Moliere, wishing to aim a blow at female pedantry, has, perhaps, checked, in some French women, a desire for improvement; the second was La fausse Agnes, a laughable afterpiece.
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