ABSTRACT
Molière was of respectable parentage. For several generations his family had been traders in Paris, and were so well esteemed, that various members had held the places of juge and consul in the city of Paris; situations of sufficient importance, on some occasions, to cause those who filled them to be raised to the rank of nobles. The youth grew discontented as he grew older. The drama enlightened him as to the necessity of acquiring knowledge, and to the beauty of intellectual refinement: he became melancholy, and, questioned by his father, admitted his distaste for trade, and his earnest desire to receive a liberal education. Poquelin thought that his son’s ruin must inevitably ensue: the grandfather was again the boy’s ally; he gained his point, and was sent as an out-student to the college of Clermont, afterwards of Louis-le-Grand, which was under the direction of the jesuits, and one of the best in Paris.
