Molière (JEAN BAPTISTE POQUELIN, who took this stage-name for reasons not apparent, and every point in whose imperfectly known life has been the subject of elaborate disquisition) was born at Paris, probably in the Rue St Honoré, and early in the year 1622. The house is not certain, and the exact date is unknown, though it appears to have been about the middle of January. His father was Jean Poquelin, his mother Marie Cressé, and the family came from Beauvais, there being no proofs of the Scotch origin which used to be asserted. Poquelin, the father, was a substantial tradesman and valet tapissier de chambre du roi, an office combining the arrangement with the supply of furniture. The son was well educated, though the precise details of his education are very uncertain. He is supposed to have studied under the Jesuits at the Collège de Clermont, under Gassendi the philosopher, and under the regular teachers of law. He may have been called to the bar. His mother, who had some property, died when he was ten years old, and thus when he came of age he received his share of her fortune at once, becoming his own master. He declined to follow up his father's business (though it is said that he had already as his representative attended Louis XIII. on a royal progress as valet tapissier), hired a tennis-court, and embarked in theatrical affairs with the Béjart family and others, under the style and title of L'Illustre Théâtre (1643-46). This first venture lasted for over three years in Paris and failed. The company then proceeded to the provinces and had a sufficient amount of success to keep it going for twelve years, from 1646 to 1658, and to enable its manager to return triumphantly to the capital at the end of that time.
All the pains which have been spent on Molière's history have failed to elaborate any connected or detailed history of these long Wanderjahre. We hear most of the troupe at Lyons and in Languedoc; but its range must have been considerable, since it journeyed as far northwards as Rouen. The Prince de Conti (said to have been Molière's school-fellow) took it under his protection for a time, and Pézenas, near his Languedocian seat of La Grange, is one of the fixed points of Molière's biography. When, Conti having taken to Catholic Methodism, his protection failed, Molière succeeded in obtaining that of the king's brother, Philippe d'Orleans, so that his troupe became the servants of Monsieur. He was now in haste to return to Paris, where he at once received marks of royal favour, played before the king on October 24, 1658, and organised, first in the Petit Bourbon, then, on its demolition, in the Palais Royal, a regular theatre in competition with, if not in opposition to, those of the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the Marais.
During his sojourn in the provinces Molière had acquired considerable experience as a comic writer. Most of his work had been in a style not far removed from that of the old farces, and of this we have only two relics in La Jalousie du Barbouillé and Le Médecin Volant. But he had also written L'Étourdi and the Dépôt Amoureux, and it is more than probable that some of his still greater work was at least on the stocks before his return to Paris. As a theatre manager he had to give tragedy as well as comedy: he is said to have been mistaken as to his own powers of tragic acting, and he had to depend for his tragedies on others. Corneille's Nicomède, with which he opened, was not a success; and though the other great tragedian of the day, Racine, was a personal friend of Molière's, their connection as manager and author was, not at all by Molière's fault, brief and unfortunate. But he did not tarry long before showing the immense resources which he possessed in his own talent as a comic writer. Les Précieuses Ridicules, the first essay of 'la bonne comédie,' as a famous story has it, dates, as far as publication is concerned, from November 1659; and from that time to his death on February 17, 1673, no year passed without one, and few years without more than one, of the greatest achievements in their own particular line that the world has seen. Except in one respect, the history of Molière during these fourteen busy years is the history of his work as an author, an actor, and a manager. But the one exception is the most important incident of his life. In the spring of 1662 (perhaps on
St Valentine's day, perhaps earlier or later, for the exact date, like almost everything else in this history, is disputed) Molière married Armande Claire Elisabeth Grésinde Béjart, an actress in his own company, probably about nineteen years old, and the youngest member of the above-mentioned family of Béjart, whereof two other sisters, Madeleine and Geneviève, and one brother, Joseph, had been members of the Illustre Théâtre. On this marriage scandal, both at the time and since, has exhausted itself. It was and still is, in the teeth not indeed of positive evidence, but of something nearly approaching thereto, maintained that Madeleine Béjart and Molière were not only comrades but lovers, that Armande was not Madeleine's sister but her daughter, even that Molière himself (this crowning calumny was, it seems, started by the jealousy of Montfleury, a rival actor and playwright) was the father of his wife. Not content with this imputation, later scandal asserted that Madame, or, as the time called her, Mademoiselle Molière, was unfaithful to her husband, and contemporary satire asserted that he was at any rate very jealous of her. Of this last there is, both from internal and external evidence, too much probability; of the graver charge there is as in the other case no evidence, while such evidence as there is is against it. It may be said before going further that Molière was during his whole life at Paris the butt of vehement animosities, professional and other; that before his death (1670) a sort of play, Élémire Hypochondre (Élémire = Molière), appeared, written by a certain Le Boulanger de Chalussay, with intent to take revenge for Molière's jests on doctors, which contains much spiteful tittle-tattle; and that long afterwards, in 1688, a venomous libel on his widow, entitled La Fameuse Comédienne, threw some mud at him in order to throw more on her. A kind of Molière-legend also sprang up, composed of stories such as the famous but apparently impossible tale of the en-cas de nuit or cold collation which Louis XIV. shared with Molière in order to overcome the prejudice of his aristocratic valets de chambre, that of the old woman to whom he is supposed to have read his plays, that (better grounded than the others) of the marquis who, angry at the actor's satire, rubbed Molière's head against the sharp buttons of his own coat in a feigned embrace, and so forth. Such authentic documents as we have show us a man well-to-do, though not above his work, well thought of by good judges, and living well. In August 1665 the king adopted Molière's troupe as his own servants. In 1667 symptoms of lung disease showed themselves in him, but were for the time checked. On the 17th February 1672 Madeleine Béjart, his comrade of thirty years, if nothing more, died. On the same day next year, after the seventh representation of his last play (see below), Molière died in his own house in the Rue de Richelieu of haemorrhage from the bursting of a blood-vessel, having struggled through, as no imaginary sick man, the title-part. He was buried, despite the frowns of the church on his profession and himself, in the churchyard of St Joseph, with maimed but not inconsiderable ceremony. But the exact tomb has not been identified. In person he is said to have had a good figure, but not a handsome face. His character would appear to have been extremely generous and amiable, though he seems to have certainly suffered from jealousy, and most probably from hypochondria. Nor is there discoverable in his work, or in anything reported of him, the least excuse for the accusations of irreligion which were brought against him, partly by private malice, partly as retaliation for the terrible attack on religious hypocrisy in Tartuffe, and for the misunderstood irony of Don Juan. The first-named piece was delayed five years before it could be completely played, and Don Juan was stopped and subjected to excisions. Part of Molière's ill-fame in this respect was no doubt due to his earlier associations with Gassendi and to his fondness for that teacher's favourite classic, Lucretius, whose poem Molière himself is said to have translated as a whole.
The dates and titles of Molière's plays are as follows: L'Étourdi, Le Dépit Amoureux (1658; in the provinces two years earlier); Les Précieuses Ridicules (1659); Sganarelle (1660); Don Garcie de Navarre (1661); L'École des Maris, Les Fâcheux, L'École des Femmes (1662); La Critique de l'École des Femmes, Impromptu de Versailles (1663); Le Mariage Forcé, La Princesse d'Élide, Tartuffe (partially, 1664); Le Festin de Pierre [Don Juan], L'Amour Médecin (1665); Le Misanthrope, Le Médecin Malgré Lui, Métiercer, Le Sicilien (1666); Tartuffe (fully, but stopped after first night, 1667); Amphitryon, George Dandin, L'Avare (1668); Tartuffe (at last fully), Monsieur de Pourcaugnac (1669); Les Amants Magnifiques, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1671); Les Fourberies de Scapin (1671); La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas, Les Femmes Savantes (1672); Le Malade Imaginaire (1673). To this must be added part of Psyché (1671) in collaboration with Quinault and Corneille, the two farces above referred to (which are almost certainly his), attributed to him on the authority of J. B. Rousseau, a few arrangements of court masques, and some miscellaneous poems, the only important one being a copy of verses on Mignard's fresco-work at the church of Val de Grâce.
For posterity, however, Molière is nothing if not a comic dramatist; and the enormous majority of competent suffrages—a majority increasing as years go on—puts him at the very head of all writers of his own particular class. In France he is called a poet; but, though he could manage verse well enough when he chose to write in it, he is almost always best in prose, and his work possesses few, if any, of the more distinguishing and essential qualities of poetry. It is as a dramatist of manners—who more and more adjusted his art to the direct purpose of satirising and, if possible, reforming folly and vice, and who almost alone of all writers that have done this never sacrificed the art to the purpose—that he is absolutely unrivalled. Romantic or poetical comedy, like that of Shakespeare and Calderon, he hardly ever tried (almost the sole successful play in it being Don Juan), and it is not very probable that he would have frequently succeeded in it. The time made it impossible for him to be poetical like Aristophanes in subject, and his own genius did not incline him to be fancifully creative like Aristophanes in form. But in the sphere defined above he has no superior, and is very unlikely ever to have an equal. He gradually confined himself to it more and more closely, and always with the result of improvement. Nothing is more instructive than to compare Les Précieuses Ridicules, which is almost his first play, with Les Femmes Savantes, which is almost his last. They are so closely connected in subject that the later play has sometimes been called an expanded recast of the earlier. But the improvement in treatment is immense. Amusing as Les Précieuses Ridicules is, it is not much more than farce of the very best sort. Les Femmes Savantes is comedy of the highest kind, the result of exact observation of life informed by intimate knowledge of character, and clothed with the most accomplished phrase. Molière has sometimes been reproached with a leaning towards farce up to the last—exemplified not merely in such avowedly lighter plays as Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and the two satires on the provincial gentry, Monsieur de Pourcaugnac and La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas, but in passages of his more serious pieces. The objection shows a wholly erroneous conception of comedy itself, and may be said to argue deficiency of humour in one direction. But the merely farcical side predominates, as undoubtedly as naturally in the earlier plays, the serious in the later. It is not till L'École des Femmes, perhaps not till Le Misanthrope, that the full genius of the author appears; and these two, with Tartuffe, Le Festin de Pierre, Les Femmes Savantes, Le Malade Imaginaire, and perhaps the admirable Bourgeois Gentilhomme as an example of the lower kind, may be said to be Molière's masterpieces. But from the Dépit Amoureux onward no play of his, not even the slightest, is without touches of his admirable wit, his astonishing observation, his supreme power over his own language, his masterly satire. It can hardly be said that any class of men or any prominent trait of mankind is spared by this satire, but undoubtedly three subjects—the vanity and levity of women, the frivolity of the nobles, and the pedantic professionalism of the learned classes, especially of medical men, have the largest share of Molière's lash. He has been accused of taking too low a view of human nature, but this again seems to come from a mistake in appreciating the conditions of his work. He also was and is accused of plagiarism; and it is quite true that in his early pieces especially he avails himself of existing canvas for his own embroidery freely. The best defence of the practice is the boldest: that any man who can embroider like Molière does only too well to requisition canvas where and to what extent he likes. Of another, a subtler, and a less easily refuted observation—that, admirable as his criticism of humanity in general is, his characters tend too much to types, and are lacking in the individuality which Dante and Shakespeare give—we have no room to speak fully. Indeed, much more space than can be here afforded would be insufficient to discuss even most briefly the various aspects of his genius. We must content ourselves with saying that of all French writers he is that one whose reputation stands highest by the combined suffrage of his own countrymen and of foreigners, that at his best he keeps the stage with perfect ease and success after two hundred years, and that he is almost everywhere delightful in the study for his wonderful truth to nature and his not less wonderful expertise in art.
As hinted above, the bibliography of Molière is very voluminous. The first complete edition of his work was edited in 1682 by his friends and comrades, La Grange and Vinot. The last, and by far the best, complete as to text, with life, lexicon, bibliography, &c., is that of Despois and Mesnard in the series of Les Grands Écrivains Français (13 vols. 1873-96). The bulk of recent work on Molière (for ten years there existed a special periodical called the Moliériste) has not been fully digested into any Life. That of Taschereau, though old, is perhaps still the best, but the completest is the German Life of Mahrenholtz (Heilbronn, 1881). M. Loiseleur's Points Obscur de la Vie de Molière has been a great centre of discussion, and an excellent collection of studies will be found in M. Larroumet's La Comédie de Molière. The Life prefixed to the above-named Grands Écrivains edition may be regarded as a complete digest of the whole subject; as to which it is improbable that any new facts will now be found, every source having long since been ransacked. There are excellent editions by Anatole France in the 'Collection Lemerre' (7 vols. 1876-91), with notes by G. Monval in the 'Bibliothèque des Bibliophiles' (8 vols. 1882). There is a special Bibliographie Molièrsque (1875); and there are translations by Van Laun (1875-77) and Heron Wall (1876-77).