"Tartuffe, or The Impostor" (1664)

Tartuffe, or The Impostor by Jean-Baptiste Molière

Molière’s comedy "Tartuffe" became the playwright’s most scandalous work. The author dared to subject the vices of the nobility and clergy to fierce criticism, provoking furious outrage during a court celebration at Versailles. 

Working within the traditions of classicism while incorporating elements of intellectual comedy, Molière presented the high-ranking audience with a thoroughly inappropriate plot.  Tartuffe, a real knave and saint, enters the house of a respectable rich bourgeois and demonstrates the triumph of meanness, perfidy and hypocrisy. Molière was immediately accused of vile slander, insulting the church and religion.

A few years later, the playwright introduced a revised version of the play. In the home of the wealthy Orgon appears a pleasant young man named Tartuffe. The master of the house is delighted, for his new friend is such a modest, trustworthy, naive, God-fearing, and intelligent young man. The ecstatic Orgon accuses his family of envying Tartuffe and declares them great sinners. The true nature of the young man becomes apparent when the shortsighted Orgon foolishly signs over his house and fortune to him. In the comedy’s finale, the traditional savior—in the form of a just king—punishes the criminal and restores Orgon’s lost wealth.

The main feature of Tartuffe's character is hypocrisy. Beneath the mask of holiness and humility lies a calculating, overbearing, and vindictive man. His religious hypocrisy and brilliant oratorical skills enable him to infiltrate a wealthy household, whose master - fearing divine punishment and swayed by the impostor's arguments - is prepared to reveal all his secrets, give away his beloved daughter's hand in marriage, and make Tartuffe the sole heir to his vast fortune. Tartuffe feels no shame for his vileness and freely displays his vices.

With fanatical enthusiasm, Orgon surrenders himself to exalted religious feelings and, following his charlatan mentor's example, begins to scorn human values.

A crucial philosophical question emerges: what drives the serious and not unintelligent Orgon to become victim of this farcical predicament? The virtuous family father blindly and fervently believes in Tartuffe's authority due to the rigid, archaic mindset of a bourgeois raised in patriarchal traditions. In the comedy, the voices of reason defending common sense are Cleante and the King, who embody the triumph of Molière's moral vision.

French medieval law is considered a model of feudal law in Western Europe. Despite the country's political unification, religious-spiritual unity, and the establishment of absolutism, French law remained a conglomerate of numerous legal systems until the French Revolution of 1789. These systems were applicable either to specific groups of individuals or to particular, often small territories.
Seventeenth-century France serves as a classic example of how state interests prevailed over moral and ethical considerations. The rise of absolutism and the consolidation of state power in the hands of the monarch became evident across many spheres of public life, including even marriage and family relations.

The inviolability and unquestionable authority of the Catholic faith were, to a certain degree, undermined by the presence of the Protestant Huguenot movement in France, which had been legally recognized by the 1598 Edict of Nantes. The coexistence of two state-sanctioned religions weakened the dominance of Catholicism. Different segments of society responded to this evident crisis of the Catholic faith in their own ways.

The Catholic Church, the Jesuits, and the nobility sought to spark a "Catholic revival," employing methods such as religious charity. For this purpose, the aristocratic "The Company of the Blessed Sacrament" (French Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement ) was established, which fought against irreligion and declining piety by any means necessary. It formed a network of new religious organizations whose activities aimed to create familial conflicts—such as manipulating relatives to secure wills or property deeds from household heads.

Molière’s play Tartuffe reflected the realities of its era. Tartuffe is a composite character embodying members of the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrement. The impending marriage between Tartuffe and Mariane, Orgon’s daughter, forms the central plot of the play.
In the 17th-century France, marital relations became increasingly formalized. Marriage transitioned into a civil status act, a process initiated by the Ordonnance de Blois, which required priests to maintain official marriage registries. Additionally, parental or guardian consent became mandatory for marriage. Mariane, though wishing to wed another, could not defy her father’s decision to ally their family with Tartuffe. As a dowry, Orgon legally deeds his house to Tartuffe.

Under the customary laws of Paris, a donor irrevocably relinquished gifted property immediately upon transfer. Tartuffe thus became the legal owner of Orgon’s home, and by the next morning, a bailiff arrived with an eviction order for the former owners. The bailiff’s swift action stemmed from the fact that his position operated under a purchased state patent—an investment requiring rapid cost recovery. Cases like these promised  good reward.

The play also incorporates a criminal-legal dimension: Orgon’s household contained a chest of papers that testified to high treason committed by his friend Argas. Orgon foolishly revealed this secret to Tartuffe, who then exploited the papers. There is also a criminal aspect to the play: in Orgon's house was kept a chest of papers that testified to high treason committed by his friend Argas. 

In mid-17th century France, crimes against the monarchy fell under the king’s exclusive jurisdiction and were punishable by death. By safeguarding such documents, Orgon could have been arrested as an accomplice to treason. Yet when a royal officer arrives, he announces that the king—a foe to falsehood and bastion of justice—had long suspected the informant’s true nature: under the name of "Tartuffe" lurked a notorious swindler with countless crimes to his name. 

Invoking his sovereign authority, the king nullifies the deed of gift for Orgon’s house and pardons him for unwitting involvement in treason. The king’s ability to annul the deed of gift raises questions. Traditionally, French monarchs avoided interfering in private-law contracts, which fell under the jurisdiction of judicial bodies. But Molière, as a court playwright, needed to emphasize the king’s justice.