edly excited more scandal by interdiction than it
would have done by representation. The king's good sense and judgment at
last prevailed over the terrors of the truly devout and the resentment of
hypocrites. He had just seen an impious piece of buffoonery played.
"I should very much like to know," said he to the Prince of Conde, who
stood up for Moliere, an old fellow-student of his brother's, the Prince
of Conti's, "why people who are so greatly scandalized at Moliere's
comedy say nothing about _Scaramouche?_" "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.

Whilst waiting for permission to have _Tartufe_ played, Moliere had
brought out _le Medecin malgre lui, Amphitryon, Georges Dandin,_ and
_l'Avare,_ lavishing freely upon them the inexhaustible resources of his
genius, which was ever ready to supply the wants of kingly and princely
entertainments. _Monsieur de Pourceaugnac_ was played for the first time
at Chambord, on the 6th of October, 1669; a year afterwards, on the same
stage, appeared _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,_ with the interludes and music
of Lulli. The piece was a direct attack upon one of the most frequent
absurdities of his day; many of the courtiers felt in their hearts that
they were attacked; there was a burst of wrath at the first
representation, by which the king had not appeared to be struck. Moliere
thought it was all over with him. Louis XIV. desired to see the piece a
second time. "You have never written anything yet which has amused me so
much; your comedy is excellent," said he to the poet; the court was at
once seized with a fit of admiration.

The king had lavished his benefits upon Moliere, who had an hereditary
post near him as groom-of-the-chamber; he had given him a pension of
seven thousand livres, and the license of the king's theatre; he had been
pleased to stand godfather to one of his children, to whom the Duchess of
Orleans was godmother; he had protected him against the superciliousness
of certain servants of his bedchamber, but all the monarch's puissance
and constant favors could not obliterate public prejudice, and give the
comedian whom they saw every day on