The subject of tragedy should be old, and should be connected with the fall of great tyrants and princes;[359] and in regard to the number of acts, the number of interlocutors on the stage, the _deus ex machina_, and the chorus,[360] Vauquelin merely paraphrases Horace. Comedy is defined as the imitation of an action which by common usage is accounted wicked, but which is not so wicked that there is no remedy for it; thus, for example, a man who has seduced a young girl may recompense her by taking her in marriage.[361] Hence while the actions of tragedy are "virtuous, magnificent, and grand, royal, and sumptuous," the incidents of comedy are actually and ethically of a lower grade.[362] For tragi-comedy Vauquelin has nothing but contempt. It is, in fact, a bastard form, since the tragedy with a happy ending serves a similar but more dignified purpose. Vauquelin, like Boileau and most other French critics after him, follows Aristotle at length in the description of dramatic recognitions and reversals of fortune.[363] Most of the other Aristotelian distinctions are also to be found in his work. In the _Art Poetique francois_ of Pierre de Laudun, Sieur d'Aigaliers, published in 1598, these distinctions reappear in a more or less mutilated form. In the fifth and last book of this treatise, De Laudun follows the Italian scholars, especially Scaliger and Viperano. He does not differ essentially from Scaliger in the definition of tragedy, in the division into acts and the place of the chorus, in the discussion of the characters and subjects of tragedy, and in the distinction between tragedy and comedy.[364] His conception of tragedy is in keeping with the usual Senecan ideal; it should be adorned by frequent _sentences_, allegories, similitudes, and other ornaments of poetry. The more cruel and sanguinary the tragic action is, the more excellent it will be; but at the same time, much that makes the action cruel is to be enacted only behind the stage. Like Pelletier, he objects to the introduction of all allegorical and invented characters, or even gods and goddesses, on the ground that these are not actual beings, and hence are out of keeping with the theme of tragedy, which must be real and historical. De Laudun has also something to say concerning the introduction of ghosts in the tragic action; and his discussion is peculiarly interesting when we remember that it was almost at this very time, in England, that the ghost played so important a part in the Shakespearian drama. "If the ghosts appear before the action begins," says De Laudun, "they are permissible; but if they appear during the course of the action, and speak to the actors themselves, they are entirely faulty and reprehensible." De Laudun borrowed from Scaliger the scheme of the ideal tragedy: "The first act contains the complaints; the second, the suspicions; the third, the counsels; the fourth, the menaces and preparations; the fifth, the fulfilment and effusion of blood."[365] But