ominent part, a part which it
may be observed retained its prominence at least till the time of
Moliere. Of the farces dealing with conjugal matters, one of the most
decent, and perhaps the most amusing of all, is the _Farce du Cuvier_,
which has nothing to do with the story under the same title which may be
found (possibly taken from Apuleius) in Boccaccio, and in the Fabliaux.
In the farce a hen-pecked husband is obliged by his wife to accept a
long list of duties which he is to perform. Soon afterwards she by
accident falls into the washing-tub, and to all her cries for help he
replies 'cela n'est point a mon rollet' (schedule). Not a few also are
directed against the clergy, and these as a rule are the most licentious
of all. It is, however, rare to find any one which is not more or less
amusing; and students of Moliere in particular will find analogies and
resemblances of the most striking kind to many of his motives. It is,
indeed, pretty certain that these pieces did not go out of fashion until
Moliere's own time. The titles of some of the early and now lost pieces
which his company for so many years played in the provinces are
immediately suggestive of the old farces to any one who knows the
latter. The farce was moreover a very far-reaching kind of composition.
As a rule the satire which it contains is directed against classes, such
as women, the clergy, pedants, and so forth, who had nothing directly to
do with politics, and it is thus, more or less directly, the ancestor of
the comedy of manners. It is never, properly speaking, political, even
indirect allusions to politics being excluded from it. It relies wholly
upon domestic and personal interests. Not a few farces, such as that of
which we have given a sketch, turn upon the same subject as the _Repues
Franches_ attributed to Villon, and deal with the ingenious methods
adopted by persons who hang loose upon society for securing their daily
bread. Others attack the fertile subject of domestic service, and
furnish not a few parallels to Swift's _Directions_. Every now and then
however we come across a farce, or at least a piece bearing the title,
in which a more allegorical style of treatment is attempted. Such is the
farce of _Folle Bobance_, in which the tendency of various classes to
loose and light living is satirised amusingly enough. A gentleman, a
merchant, a farmer, are all caught by the seductive offers of Folle
Bobance, and are not long before they r