The comedy of this school was less a pure imitation of classic models, but it was also on the whole less interesting, and cannot be described as original, since it took freely from the Italians. Every one of the nine surviving plays of Pierre Larivey (1540?-1611?) has an Italian original. He was descended from the family of the Giunti, printers at Florence and Venice.[102] His father had settled at Troyes, and had translated his name into L’Arrivé, which was again corrupted into Larivey. Pierre was a copious translator from his father’s native language. The nine comedies he left are adaptations as well as translations. He subjected his originals to the revision which the English playwright has so often applied to French plays, but it was not for the purpose of forcing them to become decent. Through Larivey much of the common matter of comedy was handed on to Molière, who may also have owed his predecessor something on the side of the technical skill. It is, however, mainly on this ground that they belong to French literature. The comedy of the later sixteenth century is on the whole unimportant. It cannot be said to have had any particular character of its own. One piece has indeed some promise and considerable merit of execution. This is the _Reconnue_ of Belleau.[103] [SN: La Reconnue.] The story has the merit of being drawn from the real life of the time. A young lady named Henriette has been placed while a child in a religious house at Poitiers. She has no vocation, and escapes from the convent to become a Huguenot. In the storm of the city by the king’s army she is made prize by a certain Captain Rodomont, whom (a pleasing touch of the manners of the age) she fully recognises as her lawful master. The captain is a very honest man, who is well disposed to marry his captive. But he is summoned away to take part in the recovery of Havre from the English, and leaves her, having always “treated her as a sister,” in charge of an old lawyer in Paris. At this point the play begins. The old lawyer falls in love with Henriette, and thereby arouses the jealousy of his wife. To quiet her he arranges to marry Henriette to his clerk, Jehan, who is likely to prove a complacent husband. He tells Henriette that the captain has been killed at Havre. In the meantime we learn that a certain young advocate has fallen in love with Henriette. She, who would willingly marry either the captain or the advocate--for she is a downright though honest young person--nevertheless resigns herself to marry Jehan, seeing that the captain is dead, and she dare not go home. At this crisis the captain turns up enriched by booty, and immediately afterwards Henriette’s father. The “recognition” gives its name to the play. Henriette is married to the advocate. The captain is consoled with the promise of another wife, and all ends happily. Here are the elements of a very lively play, and one can imagine what Lope de Vega or Dekker would have made of them.