Next February (1662) Moliere, aged forty, was married to the actress Armande Bejart, whose age was half his own--a disastrous union, which caused him inexpressible anxiety and unhappiness. In _L'Ecole des Femmes_ of the same year he is wiser than he had shown himself in actual life. Arnolphe would train a model wife from childhood by the method of jealous seclusion and in infantile ignorance; but love, in the person of young Horace, finds out a way. There is pathos in the anguish of Arnolphe; yet it is not the order of nature that middle-aged folks should practise perverting arts upon innocent affections. The charming Agnes belongs of right to Horace, and the over-wise, and therefore foolish, Arnolphe must quit the scene with his despairing cry. Some matter of offence was found by the devout in Moliere's play; it was the opening of a long campaign; the _precieuses_, the dainty gentle-folk, the critical disciples of Aristotle, the rival comedians, were up in arms. Moliere for the occasion ignored the devout; upon the others he made brilliant reprisals in _La Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes_ (1663) and _L'Impromptu de Versailles_ (1663). Among those who war against nature and human happiness, not the least dangerous foe is the religious hypocrite. On May 12, 1664, Moliere presented before the King the first three acts of his great character-comedy _Tartufe_. Instantly Anne of Austria and the King's confessor, now Archbishop of Paris, set to work; the public performance of "The Hypocrite" was inhibited; a savage pamphlet was directed against its author by the cure of Saint-Barthelemy. Private representations, however, were given; _Tartufe_, in five acts, was played in November in presence of the great Conde. In 1665 Moliere's company was named the servants of the King; two years later a verbal permission was granted for the public performance of the play. It appeared under the title of _L'Imposteur_; the victory seemed won, when again, and without delay, the blow fell; by order of the President, M. de Lamoignon, the theatre was closed. Moliere bore up courageously. The King was besieging Lille; Moliere despatched two of his comrades to the camp, declaring that if the Tartufes of France should carry all before them he must cease to write. The King was friendly, but the Archbishop fulminated threats of excommunication against any one who should even read the play. At length in 1669, when circumstances were more favourable, Louis XIV. granted the desired permission; in its proper name Moliere's play obtained complete freedom. Bourdaloue might still pronounce condemnation; Bossuet might draw terrible morals from the author's sudden death; an actor, armed with the sword of the comic spirit, had proved victorious. And yet the theologians were not wholly wrong; the tendency of Moliere's teaching, like that of Rabelais and like that of Montaigne, is to detach morals from religion, to vindicate whatever is natural, to regard good sense and