hing of little
consequence allowed the farce to exhibit at times an audacity of
political or ecclesiastical criticism which transformed it into a
dramatised pamphlet. In general it chose its matter from the ludicrous
misadventures of private life: the priest, the monk, the husband,
the mother-in-law, the wife, the lover, the roguish servant are the
agents in broadly ludicrous intrigues; the young wife lords it over
her dotard husband, and makes mockery of his presumptive heirs, in
_La Cornette_ of Jean d'Abondance; in _Le Cuvier_, the husband, whose
many household duties have been scheduled, has his revenge--the list,
which he deliberately recites while his wife flounders helpless in
the great washing-tub, does not include the task of effecting her
deliverance.

Amid much that is trivial and much that is indecent, one farce stands
out pre-eminent, and may indeed be called a comedy of manners and
of character--the merry misfortunes of that learned advocate,
_Maitre Pierre Pathelin_. The date is doubtless about 1470; the author,
probably a Parisian and a member of the Basoche, is unknown. With
all his toiling and cheating, Pathelin is poor; with infinite art
and spirit he beguiles the draper of the cloth which will make himself
a coat and his faithful Guillemette a gown; when the draper, losing
no time, comes for his money and an added dinner of roast goose, behold
Maitre Pathelin is in a raging fever, raving in every dialect. Was
the purchase of his cloth a dream, or work of the devil? To add to
the worthy tradesman's ill-luck, his shepherd has stolen his wool
and eaten his sheep. The dying Pathelin unexpectedly appears in court
to defend the accused, and having previously advised his client to
affect idiocy and reply to all questions with the senseless utterance
_bee_, he triumphantly wins the case; but the tables are turned when
Master Pathelin demands his fee, and can obtain no other response
than _bee_ from the instructed shepherd. The triumph of rogue over
rogue is the only moral of the piece; it is a satire on fair dealing
and justice, and, though the morals of a farce are not to be gravely
insisted on, such morals as _Maitre Pathelin_ presents agree well
with the spirit of the age which first enjoyed this masterpiece of
caricature.

The actors in mediaeval comedy, as in the serious drama, were amateurs.
The members of the academic _puys_ were succeeded by the members of
guilds, or _confreries_, or _societes joy