and the first therefore which we have to meet, that his plays were "horrible," and immoral. The chief plays to be pilloried were "Henri Trois," Antony," "Don Juan de Marana," "Caligula," and "La Tour de Nesle." Each of these received its due share of ridicule from the wits of the rival school, the classicists. The first, in which the intrigues of the Valois court were exposed, was the subject of an epigram which made fun of the "handkerchief" incident, (which no doubt was borrowed from "Othello"):
"Messieurs et mesdames, cette pièce est morale;
Elle prouve aujourd'hui, sans faire de scandale,
Que chez un amant, lorsqu'on va le soir
On peut oublier tout... excepté son mouchoir!"[1]
Similarly, "Antony," the society drama which set the fashion in "foundling" or illegitimate heroes, and heroines fair and frail, inspired the couplet—
À croire ces MM. on ne voit dans nos rues
Que les enfants trouvés, et les femmes perdues."[2]
The author's classic tragedy-drama gave rise to the slangy word "caligulate," meaning to bore;
- ↑ "Ladies and gentlemen, this play is moral: it proves that nowadays, when meeting one's lover by night one may without scandal forget one's self,... but not one's handkerchief!" (Alluding to the fact that the Duchesse de Guise's handkerchief, left in Ruggieri's rooms where she has met St Megrin, her lover,—is found by the Duc, and, by arousing his jealousy, leads on to the tragedy.)
- ↑ "If we can believe these gentlemen (Dumas and others of the Romantics) one meets everywhere only women who are "lost" and children who are "found."
