LEARNED LADIES, The ('Les Femmes Savantes9, one of the most readable, vivacious and often acted comedies of Moliere, was first produced 11 March 1672 and published in 1673. The theme is related to that of 'Les Pre cieuses Ridicules,' but is not the same. The at tack there was on literary pretense in a. pass ing vagary of fashionable speech; here it deals with perennial springs of affectation and ped antry. The play has a close modern counter part in Pailleron's 'Le monde oil l'on s'ennuie.) Its lively raillery at .abiding social foibles, ebullient good humor and savory common sense gave it lasting hold on the stage. It owed immediate success, however, in part to its hardly disguised portraiture of Abbe Cotin, a dikttant literateur, in the character of Trisso tin, "Thrice-fool,* as a contemporary inter prets the name, which Moliere had altered from the too-recognizable Tri-cotin. Whether Vadius, the pretentious pedant of the play, is meant for Boileau's aversion Ménage is dis puted. Ménage had at least the wit to recog nize no resemblance. Around Trissotin the whole action revolves. Indeed, Madame de Sevig-ne called the play by his name. The question is whether he shall receive the hand of the very engaging Henriette or whether it shall go with her heart to Clitandre, a fine young fellow with less affectation to learning. But, throughout, the interest is almost wholly in portrayal of character and in the satire of the literary pedantry and affectation which are developed in that contest. Henriette knows her own mind and heart, she lacks neither tact nor resource, but she is a dutiful daughter of her time, country and station. For Trissotin is her mother, Philaminte, masterful in the home and bent on forming a circle of arbiters of taste so that "none shall have wit but our selves and our friends' With her is Henri ette's aunt _Belise, a sentimental pedant bor rowed with little change from Destnaret's and her elder sister an acidulated pedant with a personal grudge against Clitandre. On the other side is her
father, Chrysale, acted by Moliere, an exceed ingly acute study of a man of good sense, good nature but weak character, starting with right impulses, but soon thinking to compromise, and discovering that he has surrendered. Ariste supports Chrysale's better judgment with commonsense, and Martine, the cook, with de licious peasant shrewdness and wit. Legend says the part was studied from Moliere's own cook who acted herself in it. Trissotin is at last tricked into revealing that he cares more for Henriette's dowry than for herself, and Clitandre wins the prize. The best remem bered scenes of the play are concerned with a sonnet 'To the Princess Urania on her Fever' and an epigram, both taken bodily from Abbe Cotin's (CEuvres published in 1663. Cotin had called himself Father of the French Enigma and had described his monogram, two C's facing one another, as °forming a circle that, in a sense hardly mys tic, indicates the circumference of the world to be filled by my works.° These two pieces, at least, have come near to fulfilling the proph ecy. Abbe Cotin is remembered for them alone. 'Les Femmes Savantes' is best edited with pertinent comment by Mesnard in Vol. IX, and by Moland in VoL XI of their editions of Moliere. There are editions with English notes by Alcie Fortier (Boston 1902) and others, and translations by H. Van Laun (Ed inburgh 1875) and C. H. Page (New York 1908).