"See how, to multiply his jokes, this man disturbs the whole order of society! With what scandals does he upheave the most sacred relations on which it is founded! How he turns to ridicule the venerable rights of fathers over their children, of husbands over their wives, masters over their servants! He makes one laugh; true, but he is all the more to be blamed for compelling, by his invincible charm, even wise persons to listen to his sneers, which ought only to rouse their indignation. I have heard it said that he attacks vices; but I would far rather people compared those which he attacks with those he favours. Which is the criminal? A peasant who is fool enough to marry a young lady, or a wife who tries to bring dishonour upon her husband? What can we think of a piece when the pit applauds infidelity, lies, impudence, and laughs at the stupidity of the punished rustic." By whom was that criticism penned? Doubtless by some intolerant priest, or fanatical prelate? By no means. It was by the author of the _Confessions_ and of the _Nouvelle Héloïse_, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau![2] Perhaps the _Misanthrope_, at any rate, may find favour with the critics. It is surely admitted, is it not, that this play is a masterpiece? Let us see what the unctuous Bourdaloue says about it, in his _Lettre à l'Académie Française._ It is short, but to the point. "Another fault in Molière that many clever people forgive in him, but which I have not allowed myself to forgive, is that he makes vice fascinating and virtue ridiculously rigid and odious!" Let us pass on to _l'Avare,_ and return to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. "It is a great vice to be a miser and to lend upon usury, said the Genevan philosopher, but is it not a still greater for a son to rob his father, to be wanting in respect to him, to insult him with innumerable reproaches and, when the annoyed father curses him, to answer in a bantering way, '_Qu'il n'a que faire de ses dons._' 'I have no use for your gifts.' If the joke is a good one, is it, therefore, any the less deserving of censure? And is not a piece which makes the audience like an insolent son a bad school for manners?"[3] Let us take a sample from an anonymous critic: _Don Juan_ and _Tartuffe_, this time; then, after that, we will return to a well-known name, to a poet still cutting his milk teeth and to a golden-mouthed orator. We will begin by the anonymous writer. Note that the precept of Horace was still in vogue at this time: _Sugar the rim of the cup to make the drink less bitter!_ "I hope," said the critic, "that Molière will receive these observations the more willingly because passion and interest have no share in them: I have no desire to hurt him, but only to be of use to him." Good! so much for the sugaring the rim of the cup; the absinthe is to come, and, after the absinthe, the dregs. Let us continue: