In those days, as in those of our Elizabeth, the king and courtiers took parts in the ballets.[39] These _comédie-ballets_ were of singular framework; comedies, in three acts, broad almost to farce, were interspersed with dances: to this custom, to the three act pieces that thus came into vogue, we owe some of the best of Molière's plays; when, emancipated from the necessity of verse and five acts, he could give full play to his sense of the ridiculous, and talent for comic situation; and when, unshackled by rhyme, he threw the whole force of his dry comic humour into the dialogue, and by a single word, a single expression, stamp and immortalise a folly, holding it up for ever to the ridicule it deserved. This seizing as it were on the bared inner kernel of some fashionable vanity, and giving it its true and undisguised name and definition, often shocked ears polite. They called that "vulgar," which was only stripping selfishness or ignorance of its cloak, and bringing home to the hearts of the lowly-born the fact, that the follies of the great are akin to their own: the people laughed to find the courtier of the same flesh and blood; but the courtier drew up, and said, that it was vulgar to present him _en dishabille_ to the commonalty. "Let them rail," said Boileau, to the poet, whose genius he so fully appreciated, "let them exclaim against you because your scenes are agreeable to the vulgar. If you pleased less how much better pleased would your censurers be!" "Le Mariage Forcé" was the first of these comédies ballets. [Sidenote: 1664. Ætat. 42.] The king danced as an Egyptian in the interludes while in the more intellectual part of the performance Molière delighted the audience as "Sganarelle"--the unfortunate man, who with such rough courtesy is obliged to take a lady for better or for worse; a plot, founded on the last English adventure of the count de Grammont, who, when leaving this country, was followed by the brothers of _la belle_ Hamilton, who, with their hands on the pummels of their swords, asked him if he had not forgotten something left behind. "True," said the count, "I forgot to marry your sister and instantly went back to repair his lapse of memory, by making her countess de Grammont." The dialogue of this play is exceedingly amusing; the metaphysical or learned pedants, whom Sganarelle consults, are admirable and witty specimens of advisers, who will only give counsel in their own way, in language understood only by themselves. The "Amants Magnifiques" followed; it was written in the course of a few days: it is now considered the most feeble of Molière's plays; but it suited the occasion, and by a number of delicate and witty impersonations of the manners of the times, lost to us now, it became the greatest ornament of a succession of festivals; which under the name of "Plaisirs de l'Ile enchantée," were got up in honour of mademoiselle de Vallière; and, being prepared by various men of talent, gave the