_Mademoiselle Molière._--"It is an odd thing that a trifling ceremony should be capable of depriving us of all our good qualities, and that a husband and a lover should regard the same person with such different eyes." _Molière._--"What loquacity!" _Mademoiselle Molière._--"'Faith! if I were to write a play, it would be upon that subject. I would justify women in many things of which they are accused, and I would make husbands afraid of the contrast between their abrupt manners and the courtesy of lovers." Here, we are told by certain critics, the inference is unmistakable; Molière clearly foresees the fate which awaits him. In our opinion, they are wrong. In the _Impromptu de Versailles_ Molière and his wife do not, as in an ordinary play, represent fictitious characters; they appear under their own names. In these circumstances, it is surely inconceivable that the dramatist should have introduced this dialogue, if he had for one moment imagined it applicable to his own affairs! The very fact that he was so ready to jest upon such a subject seems to us a conclusive proof that up to that time, at least, Armande's conduct had given him but scant cause for uneasiness. The _Mariage forcé_ and _George Dandin_, the former produced early in the year 1664, when the difference of age and of character between Molière and his wife was no doubt beginning to produce its fatal consequences, and the latter in the summer of 1667, after their separation, of which we shall speak in due course, had actually taken place, contain more direct allusions to their author's _ménage_. Sganarelle, like Molière, had believed himself "_le plus content des hommes_," only to be roughly disillusioned when the carefully brought up Dorimène frankly avows her passion for "_toutes les choses de plaisir_"--play, visiting, assemblies, entertainments, and so forth--at the same time expressing a hope that he does not intend to be one of those inconvenient husbands who desire their wives to live "_comme des loup-garous_," since solitude drives her to despair, but that they may dwell together as a pair "_qui savent leur monde_." Angélique, in her turn, complains to George Dandin of the tyranny exercised by husbands "who wish their wives to be dead to all amusements, and to live only for them." She has no desire, she tells him, to die young, but "intends to enjoy, under his good pleasure, some of the glad days that youth has to offer her, to take advantage of the sweet liberties that the age permits her, to see a little of the _beau monde_, and to taste the pleasure of hearing her praises sung."