to society, concerning which the laughter of genuine
comedy tells the truth. He raised the comedy of character out of the
lower sphere of caricature, and in his greatest creations subordinated
to the highest ends of all dramatic composition the plots he so
skilfully built, and the pictures of the manners he so faithfully
reproduced.

Moliere's contemporaries and successors.

Even among the French comic dramatists of this age there must have been
many who "were not aware" that Moliere was its greatest poet. For though
he had made the true path luminous to them, their efforts were still
often of a tentative kind, and one was reviving _Pathelin_ while another
was translating the _Andria_. A more unique attempt was made in one of
the very few really modern versions of an Aristophanic comedy, which
deserves to be called an original copy--the _Plaideurs_ of Racine. The
tragic poets Quinault and Campistron likewise wrote comedies, one[122]
or more of which furnished materials to contemporary English
dramatists, as did one of the felicitous plays in which Boursault
introduced Mercury and Aesop into the theatrical _salon_.[123] Antoine
Montfleury (1640-1685), Baron and Dancourt, who were actors like
Moliere, likewise wrote comedies. But if the mantle of Moliere can be
said to have fallen upon any of his contemporaries or successors, this
honour must be ascribed to J. F. Regnard, who imitated the great master
in both themes and characters,[124] while the skilfulness of his plots,
and his gaiety of the treatment even of subjects tempting into the
by-path of sentimental comedy,[125] entitle him to be regarded as a
comic poet of original genius. With him C. R. Dufresny occasionally
collaborated.

In the next generation (that of Voltaire) comedy gradually--but only
gradually--surrendered for a time the very essence of its vitality to
the seductions of a hybrid species, which disguised its identity under
more than a single name. A. R. le Sage, who as a comic dramatist at
first followed successfully in the footsteps of Moliere, proved himself
on the stage as well as in picturesque fiction a keen observer and
inimitable satirist of human life.[126] The light texture of the playful
and elegant art of J. B. L. Gresset was shown on the stage in a
character comedy of merit;[127] and in a comedy which reveals something
of his pointed wit, A. Piron produced something like a new type of
enduring ridiculousness.[128] P. C. de Marivaux,