rast it
was betwixt the state of the actor and the fictitious character which
he represented. Moliere was disguising his real and, as it proved, his
dying agonies, in order to give utterance and interest to the feigned
or fancied complaints of Le Malade Imaginaire, and repressing the
voice of mortal sufferance to affect that of an imaginary
hypochondriac. At length, on arriving at the concluding interlude, in
which, assenting to the oath administered to him as the candidate for
medical honors in the mock ceremonial, by which he engages to
administer the remedies prescribed by the ancients, whether right or
wrong, and never to use any other than those approved by the college,
as Moliere, in the character of Argan, replied, "Juro," the faculty
had a full and fatal revenge. The wheel was broken at the cistern--he
had fallen in a convulsive fit. The entertainment was hurried to a
conclusion, and Moliere was carried home. His cough returned with
violence, and he was found to have burst a blood-vessel. A priest was
sent for, and two scrupulous ecclesiastics of Saint Eustace's parish
distinguished themselves by refusing to administer the last
consolations to a player and the author of "Tartuffe." A third, of
better principles, came too late; Moliere was insensible, and choked
by the quantity of blood which he could not discharge. Two poor
Sisters of Charity who had often experienced his bounty, supported him
as he expired.

Bigotry persecuted to the grave the lifeless reliques of the man of
genius. Harlai, Archbishop of Paris, who himself died of the
consequences of a course of continued debauchery, thought it necessary
to show himself as intolerantly strict in form as he was licentious in
practice. He forbade the burial of a comedian's remains. Madame
Moliere went to throw herself at the feet of Louis XIV., but with
impolitic temerity her petition stated, that if her deceased husband
had been criminal in composing and acting dramatic pieces, his
majesty, at whose command and for whose amusement he had done so, must
be criminal also. This argument, though in itself unanswerable, was
too bluntly stated to be favorably received; Louis dismissed the
suppliant with the indifferent answer, that the matter depended on the
Archbishop of Paris. The king, however, sent private orders to Harlai
to revoke the interdict against the decent burial of the man, whose
talents during his lifetime his majesty had delighted to honor. The
funera