[89] At that time there was a regular theatre for puppet-shows, founded by Pierre dʼAttelin, better known as Brioché. [90] In 1670 Corneille and Racine had each a tragedy, _Bérénice_, represented; _Pénélope_, a tragedy of the Abbé Genest, was played in 1684. [91] One of those busybodies is said to have been a certain M. Manse, engineer of the waterworks of Chantilly, the seat of the Condés; and he pretended to have chiefly organised the festival given by the Prince de Condé, a son of the great Condé and the father of La Bruyèreʼs pupil, the Duke de Bourbon, to the Dauphin, the son of Louis XIV., at Chantilly during the month of August 1688. This entertainment lasted eight days; hence the necessity of a theatre. [92] The “hunt on the water” took place on the sixth day of the festival, when some living deer and other animals were thrown alive into a large lake, which the ladies, in boats, tried to catch by means of ropes, and which, when caught, were set at liberty. [93] On the first day of the feast a splendid “collation” was given by the Prince to the Dauphin, at the cross-way of “La Table,” amidst a temple of verdure erected for the occasion. Any meal taken between the dinner and supper hours, or any festive repast, was called in Louis XIV.ʼs time a _collation_. [94] “Another wonderful _collation_ given in the Labyrinth of Chantilly,” says a note of La Bruyère. An engraving still exists of the table, its decorations and ornaments. [95] This compliment to the Prince de Condé only appeared for the first time in the fourth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1689, when the whole court was still talking about the entertainment. [96] This is said to be a hit at the partisans of Quinault, who could see no charms in anything except in his operas. [97] In the original, _esprit fort_, which sometimes meant “a man who does not care for the opinions of the world,” and sometimes “a freethinker.” [98] La Bruyère puts in a note: “A rebellion was the ordinary ending of tragedies.” [99] Some commentators think this is an allusion to the tragedies of Quinault, but they were already buried in oblivion when he died in 1688: it seems rather to refer to those of Jean Galbert de Campistron (1656-1713), who, during ten years, from 1683 to 1693, produced almost yearly a tragedy, none of which have come down to posterity. [100] Molière often put peasants on the stage; but he never made of them, nor of intoxicated persons, his principal characters: the “sick person” is said to be a hit at Argan in Molièreʼs _Le Malade imaginaire_. See also page 21, § 38. [101] This is an allusion to the actor Baronʼs _LʼHomme à bonnes fortunes_ (1686) and the _Débauché_ (1690); this latter comedy, acted before the court the very year the above paragraph first appeared, was a complete failure, and has never been printed. Intoxicated people were often represented on the stage in La Bruyèreʼs time.