Here, at last, the author of the _Fameuse Comédienne_ is on sure ground; for we know, on unimpeachable authority, that an "amicable" separation did actually take place between Molière and his wife. Its precise date is a matter of some uncertainty, but it must have been subsequent to the month of April 1665, when Armande presented her husband with a second child, a daughter, to whom Madeleine Béjart and the Comte de Modène stood sponsors. "If," says M. Larroumet, "we admit that the _Misanthrope_ reflects something of the poet's state of mind and of his feelings towards his wife, the separation perhaps belongs to the moment when this play was produced, in June 1666, or later, about the month of August, after the _Médecin malgré lui_." M. Larroumet sees in the circumstance that the leading feminine parts in the three plays which followed the _Médecin malgré lui_: _Mélicerte_, _Le Sicilien_, and _Amphitryon_, were allotted to Mlle. de Brie, and not to Armande--a distribution which must have been peculiarly galling to the latter, who had so long filled the most important or the most flattering rôles--a natural effect of her husband's resentment. From the moment of their rupture until their reconciliation, some five years later, husband and wife met no more, except at the theatre. Armande remained in Paris, with her mother and sister; while Molière passed most of his rare leisure at a little country-house which he rented at Auteuil, then, as now, one of the most beautiful suburbs of Paris. One day, according to the _Fameuse Comédienne_, he was sitting in his garden, musing sadly upon his lost happiness, when his friend Chapelle broke in upon his solitude, and, finding him in a more than usually despondent mood, began to reproach him with betraying a weakness which he had so often turned to ridicule upon the stage. "For my part," said he, "if I were unfortunate enough to find myself in like case to you, and that the person I loved granted favours to others, I should feel such a contempt for her as would infallibly cure me of my passion. Moreover, there is a satisfaction open to you, which would be denied you if she were only your mistress; and that vengeance which commonly takes the place of love in an outraged heart can compensate you for all the mortifications your wife occasions you, since you can at once have her shut up in a convent. This would, indeed, be a sure means of placing your mind at rest." Molière, who had listened quietly to his friend, here interrupted him to inquire whether he himself had never loved. "Yes," replied Chapelle, "I have been in love as a man of sense ought to be, but I should never have found any difficulty in following what honour prescribed; and I blush to find you in such a state of indecision in regard to this matter."