perplexed and hesitating, the old man discovers that
a large sum in notes has been abstracted from his hoard. Ergaste had
secured them as an alleviation in case of the worst, and had placed them
in the hands of Isabelle. She promises to return them, if Geronte will
make Ergaste his heir and her husband. In his anxiety for his money,
Geronte consents to everything, and allows the will to stand.

Nothing, La Harpe tells us, ever made a French audience laugh so
heartily as the scene of the will. Falbaire, one of the _poetes
negliges_ of the eighteenth century, says, in a note to his drama, "The
Monks of Japan," that the Jesuits furnished Regnard with the idea of
this scene. In 1626, the reverend fathers, by precisely the same
stratagem employed by Crispin, obtained possession of the estate of a M.
d'Ancier of Besancon, who died suddenly and intestate. It is proper to
add that M. Falbaire's drama was written against the Jesuits.

There are two other plays, out of some twenty that Regnard published,
which will repay a reader: "Les Menechmes," imitated from Plautus, like
Shakspeare's Dromios, and "Democrite,"[G] which reminds one a little of
Moliere's "Amphitryon." Both are distinguished for that perpetual
gayety, the most pleasing of all qualities, which is the characteristic
of their author. It seems impossible for him to be dull; he never nods;
his bow, such as it is, is always strung. It is remarkable that his
comic scenes, although crammed with fun, never run down into farce; nor
does he find it necessary to eke out his wit with buffoonery. He had an
instinctive taste which preserved him from coarseness; although he wrote
a century and a half ago, there is less of the low and indelicate than
in the plays we see posted at the doors of our theatres. The French of
the time of Louis XIV. must have been a much more refined people than
the contemporary English. At least, Thalia in Paris was a vestal,
compared with her tawdry, indecent, and drunken London sister. One is
ashamed to be seen reading the unblushing profligacy of Wycherley,
Cibber, Vanbrugh, and Congreve.

We must admit that Regnard's mantle of decorum is not without a rent. In
the "Legataire," as in the "Malade Imaginaire," may be found a good deal
of pleasantry on the first of the three principal remedies of the
physicians of the period, as mentioned by Moliere in his burlesque
Latin:--

"Clysterium donare,
Postea purgare,
Ensuita seignare."

I