Si8 THE DRAMA. 



the poets, too, who had succeeded at tragedies, also tried their hand at the 

 less serious style. First of all they imitated Menander and Plautus, and 

 in many cases produced works full of amusing situations and witty sayings, 

 and with dialogues in verse remarkable for their ease, not less than for 

 their animation and brilliancy. It must be allowed that the comedies of the 

 sixteenth century are not less broad in their language than the Greek and 

 Roman comedies ; but, as one of the best writers of the time, Pierre de Larivoy 

 of Champagne, remarks in one of his prologues, "If any man should bo 

 of opinion that there is an occasional departure from propriety, I beg him to 

 remember that, in order to express correctly the fashions and tendencies 

 of the present day, the acts and the words must be of corresponding wanton- 

 ness." The authors of that period composed their comedies after the models 

 which they had before their eyes, and in representing the corrupt morals of 



Fig. 391. Portrait of Robert Gamier. Fac-simile of an Engraving by Leonard Gaultier, from 

 the Series called " Chronologie collee," in the Library of II. Firmin-Didot, Paris. 



their time they did not offend either the eyes or the ears of their audience. 

 Besides, these pieces did not go nearly so far as the Italian comedies, such as 

 the Abuses of the Sienna Academy, translated into French, and Ariosto's 

 Supposes, also translated into French, and represented all over the country. 

 The Italian comedy had also come into favour since the performance at Lyons 

 of Bibiena's Calandm, which was represented there in 1548, before the court, 

 by some Italian actors, whom Catherine de' Medicis had sent for. But the 

 first Italian troupe which settled in Paris had been brought from Venice, in 

 1577, by order of King Henry III., who allowed them to give their repre- 

 sentations in the Hotel du Petit-Bourbon. This troupe became sedentary, 

 and Italian comedy, the repertory of which surpassed in licentiousness and 

 extravagance the farces of the old French drama, remained in existence in 

 Paris, almost without interruption, to the close of the seventeenth century. 



