The Pretentious Young Ladies

The Pretentious Young Ladies [with accents]

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pretentious Young Ladies, by Moliere #10 in our series by Moliere
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Title: The Pretentious Young Ladies
Author: Moliere
Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6562] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on December 28, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LES PR��CIEUSES RIDICULES:
COM��DIE EN UN ACTE.
1659.
* * * * *
THE PRETENTIOUS YOUNG LADIES:
A COMEDY IN ONE ACT.
(THE ORIGINAL IN PROSE.) 1659.

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
Moli��re began in The Pretentious Young Ladies to paint men and women as they are; to make living characters and existing manners the ground-work of his plays. From that time he abandoned all imitation of Italian or Spanish imbroglios and intrigues.
There is no doubt that aristocratic society attempted, about the latter years of the reign of Louis XIII., to amend the coarse and licentious expressions, which, during the civil wars had been introduced into literature as well as into manners. It was praiseworthy of some high-born ladies in Parisian society to endeavour to refine the language and the mind. But there was a very great difference between the influence these ladies exercised from 1620 until 1640, and what took place in 1658, the year when Moli��re returned to Paris. The H?tel de Rambouillet, and the aristocratic drawing-rooms, had then done their work, and done it well; but they were succeeded by a clique which cared only for what was nicely said, or rather what was out of the common. Instead of using an elegant and refined diction, they employed only a pretentious and conceitedly affected style, which became highly ridiculous; instead of improving the national idiom they completely spoilt it. Where formerly D'Urfe, Malherbe, Racan, Balzac, and Voiture reigned, Chapelain, Scud��ry, M��nage, and the Abb�� Cotin, "the father of the French Riddle," ruled in their stead. Moreover, every lady in Paris, as well as in the provinces, no matter what her education was, held her drawing-room, where nothing was heard but a ridiculous, exaggerated, and what was worse, a borrowed phraseology. The novels of Mdlle. de Scud��ry became the text-book of the _pr��cieux_ and the _pr��cieuses_, for such was the name given to these gentlemen and ladies who set up for wits, and thought they displayed exquisite taste, refined ideas, fastidious judgment, and consummate and critical discrimination, whilst they only uttered vapid and blatant nonsense. What other language can be used when we find that they called the sun _l'aimable ��clairant le plus beau du monde, l'epoux de la nature_, and that when speaking of an old gentleman with grey hair, they said, not as a joke, but seriously, _il a des quittances d'amour_. A few of their expressions, however, are employed even at the present time, such as, _chatier son style_; to correct one's style; _d��penser une heure_, to spend an hour; _rev��tir ses pens��es d'expressions nobles_, to clothe one's thoughts in noble expressions, etc.
Though the _pr��cieux and pr��cieuses_ had been several times attacked before, it remained for Moli��re to give them their death blow, and after the performance of his comedy the name became a term of ridicule and contumely. What enhanced the bitterness of the attack was the difference between Moli��re's natural style and the affected tone of the would-be elegants he brought upon the stage.
This comedy, in prose, was first acted at Paris, at the Th��atre du Petit Bourbon, on the 18th of November, 1659, and met with great success. Through the influence of some noble _pr��cieux_ and _pr��cieuses_ it was forbidden until the 2d of December, when the concourse of spectators was so great that it had to be performed twice a day, that the prices of nearly all the places were raised (See Note 7, page xxv.), and that it ran for four months together. We have referred in our prefatory memoir of Moli��re to some of