The reconciliation between Molière and Armande was in all likelihood facilitated by a serious illness with which the latter was seized in the early autumn of 1671, during the run of _Psyché_. Under such circumstances the most legitimate grievances are apt to be forgotten, and it must have needed but very little persuasion on the part of their common friends to induce Molière, with all his love for his wife revived at the sight of her suffering, to hasten her convalescence by an assurance of his full forgiveness. In the following February, Madeleine Béjart died, leaving the bulk of her property to Armande, and, towards the middle of that year, Molière removed from the Place du Palais-Royal, where he had lived for so long with the Béjarts and Mlle. de Brie, to a large house in the Rue de Richelieu, near the Académie des Peintres, which he furnished very sumptuously. Here, on September 15, Armande gave birth to her third child--a son--baptized as Pierre Jean Baptiste Armand on October 1, Boileau-Puimorin, brother of Boileau-Despréaux, and Mlle. Mignard, daughter of the celebrated painter, acting as sponsors. The little boy, however, only survived this ceremony a few days, thus preceding his illustrious father to the grave by rather less than four months. The reconciliation with his wife, indeed, in itself so happy, was destined to prove fatal to Molière, and was undoubtedly one of the causes of his premature death. For some years, the poet had suffered from a chest affection, very possibly due to frequent exposure during his provincial tours. In the winter of 1665-1666, we learn from Robinet that he had had an illness which all but terminated fatally, and in the spring of 1667 he was again "_tout proche d'entrer dans la bière_," was absent from the theatre for two months, and was compelled to restrict himself to a milk diet, and speak as little as possible when not on the stage. The retired life he had led during his breach with Armande had, of course, favoured the adoption of this regimen, and under it his health had so much improved that, believing himself cured, and unwilling to impose on his wife the cheerless society of a valetudinarian, he abandoned his abstemious habits, entertained largely, and, in short, resumed his former mode of life. The result was a rapid aggravation of his complaint; his nights were sleepless, he was racked by a terrible cough, and, at the beginning of the year 1673, it became evident that his days were numbered. In this condition, by the irony of Fate, it fell to him to represent the folly of a man in perfect health who, imagining himself the victim of all manner of fell diseases, is ready to submit to any and every remedy that may be suggested to him,--that is to say, the exact counterpart of his own state. On February 10, the _Malade imaginaire_, a happy conception in the composition of which the author had doubtless contrived to find some relief from his sufferings, both of