Note 523 — Chapter XXIII

Suard, p. 134. Rotrou boasts that since he wrote for the theatre, it had become so well-regulated that respectable women might go to it with as little scruple as to the Luxembourg garden. Corneille, however, has, in general, the credit of having purified the stage; after his second piece, Clitandre, he admitted nothing licentious in his comedies. The only remain of grossness, Fontenelle observes, was that the lovers se tutoyoient; but, as he gravely goes on to remark, le tutoiement ne choque pas les bonnes mœurs; il ne choque que la politesse et la vraie galanterie, p. 91. But the last instance of this heinous offence is in Le Menteur.