before, it remained for Moliere 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 Moliere'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 Theatre du Petit
Bourbon, on the 18th of November, 1659, and met with great success.
Through the influence of some noble _precieux_ and _precieuses_ 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 Moliere to some of the legendary anecdotes connected with this play.

It has also been said that our author owed perhaps the first idea of
this play to a scarcely-known work, _le Cercle des Femmes, ou le Secret
du Lit Nuptial; entretiens comiques_, written by a long-forgotten
author, Samuel Chapuzeau, in which a servant, dressed in his master's
clothes, is well received by a certain lady who had rejected the master.
But as the witty dialogue is the principal merit in Moliere's play, it
is really of no great consequence who first suggested the primary idea.

The piece, though played in 1659, was only printed on the 29th of
January, 1660, by Guillaume de Luyne, a bookseller in Paris, with a
preface by Moliere, which we give here below:

A strange thing it is, that People should be put in print against their
Will. I know nothing so unjust, and should pardon any other Violence
much sooner than that.