On the very next day Monsieur de Molière received official notice from the Paris authorities, banning all further performances of The Precious Ladies Ridiculed.

“Hangmen!” Monsieur de Molière muttered, lowering himself into an armchair. “Who could have done it?”

Yes, indeed, who could have done it? No one knows. It was said that the ban had been obtained by some eminent and influential habitué of salons of the type of Madame de Rambouillet’s. In any event, we must give the precious ones their just due: they answered Molière’s blow with their own powerful one.

When he recovered some of his composure, Molière began to think of what could be done and where he might turn to save the play. There was but a single person in France who could save the situation. He alone could protect Molière in this nasty situation. But, alas, as if in spite, this person was away from Paris at the time.

Then my hero decided, first of all, to send his play to this person for examination. And he immediately drew up a letter in his mind, defending the play:

“Your Majesty! This is an obvious misunderstanding! The Precious Ladies is nothing but a gay comedy. Your Majesty, with your exceptional taste and subtle discernment, will unquestionably permit the performance of this amusing trifle!” The play was sent to the King. In addition, the enterprising director of the Petit Bourbon undertook a series of other actions. There was a conference with Madeleine; the alarmed troupe ran this way and that; Molière went somewhere to make inquiries and to bow; and, on returning, he decided to resort to yet another method of bringing his play back to life.

This method has long been familiar to playwrights: under powerful pressure, the author deliberately mutilates his work. It is an extreme method! Thus a lizard, caught by its tail, breaks off the tail and escapes. For every lizard realizes that it is better to live without a tail than to lose its life altogether.

Molière felt, with good reason, that the King’s censors did not know that changes in the work could not alter its essential meaning a single iota or weaken its undesirable impact upon the viewer.

What Molière broke off was not the tail, but the beginning of the play, deleting an opening scene; he also went over other places in the play, spoiling them as best he could. The opening scene was necessary, and its removal weakened the play, but changed nothing in its central theme. This scene had evidently indicated that Cathos and Magdelon were Parisiennes, and the author’s aim was to reassure the censors by stressing that the two young ladies were provincials who had recently come to Paris. While the cunning comedian was slyly mutilating his play, all Paris was agog. The only topic of conversation both in the city and for dozens of lieues around it was The Precious Ladies Ridiculed. Fame knocked at Monsieur de Molière’s door, taking the shape, in the first place, of a certain literary gentleman named Somaize. The latter stormed in the salons, trying to prove that Molière was simply a plagiarist, in addition to being an empty and superficial farceur. And others agreed with him.

“He stole it all from Abbé de Pure!” some writers were shouting in the salons.

“No, no!” argued others. “The plot and characters of this farce were stolen from the Italians!”

News of the ban added oil to the flames. Everybody wanted to see the play which ridiculed people of the highest circles, habitués of salons. While the Parisians were excitedly discussing the news, a bookseller, Guillaume de Luynes, came to the theater and humbly requested a copy of the play, which request was denied. In short, everyone was striving in his own direction, and ultimately, Molière’s wily machinations brought results.

He found patrons among the powerful, cleverly hinted that he would seek the protection of the King, and two weeks later the comedy was admitted to performance, but with revisions.

The company was jubilant, and Madeleine whispered a single phrase into Molière’s ear:

“Double the admission!”

The practical Madeleine was right. The theater’s unerring barometer—the box office—indicated storm. The second performance was given on December 2, and that evening the theater, which usually took in approximately four hundred livres an evening, brought in one thousand and four hundred livres. And this continued. Molière began to present The Precious Ladies in combination with Corneille or Scarron plays, and each time to full houses.

The feuilletonist Jean Loret, wrote in his verse Gazette that the play was trivial and cheap, but admittedly very funny:

I thought I’d surely split my sides

With laughter loud and jolly!

For thirty sous—admission price—

I laughed for ten pistole!

The bookseller and publisher de Luynes finally achieved his goal. In some mysterious manner he managed to obtain a copy of the manuscript of The Precious Ladies, and he informed Molière that he was about to publish the play. The latter had no choice but to agree. He wrote an introduction, which opened with the words: “It is strange indeed that people are published against their will!” In reality, of course, there was nothing unpleasant in the fact that the play was being published, especially since the introduction gave the author an opportunity to express some of his ideas concerning The Precious Ladies.

The precious ones, said Molière, need not take offense at the play, for it depicted merely their ridiculous imitators. Everything good in this world usually provokes foolish aping. And so on in the same vein. Besides, Molière modestly asserted that he had stayed within the bounds of honest and permitted satire in composing the play.

It is not likely that Molière convinced anyone with his introduction. There were people in Paris who commented that satire, as every literate person knew, could indeed be honest. But they doubted that there was a single man in the world who could submit to the authorities a sample of permissible satire. However, we must leave it to Molière to defend himself as best he can. This is essential for him, for, quite obviously, he had drawn to himself a good deal of close attention since the premiere of The Precious Ladies. And, whether he wanted it or not, he continued to write in a manner which made sure that this attention did not slacken.