SOURCE: "The Introduction of a Regular Stage Censorship," in The Stage Controversy from Corneille to Rousseau, Publications of the Institute of French Studies, Inc., 1933, pp. 130–55.

[In the excerpt that follows, Barras describes the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church to seventeenth-century theatre.]

Led by [Jacques-Bénigne] Bossuet the Church presented, officially at least, a united front against plays [during the seventeenth century]. In the Jubilee of 1694 the condemnation of the pariah comedians was solemnly confirmed. On December 9, 1695, Guy de Sève de Rochechouart, Bishop of Arras, in accordance with the explicit policy of the Church, issued a severe Mandement, proscribing the stage in general with all its satellites—actors, playwrights and spectators. The French clergy soon became so intolerant that in 1696 a number of Parisian actors decided to carry an appeal to Rome. They accused the clergy specifically of refusing to grant them the sacraments. But the Papal authorities evidently considered their quarrel as of not enough importance to risk a conflict of opinion with French churchmen. The actors were notified that they should bring their case to the Archbishop of Paris, since the Papal court did not consider it weighty enough for a special decision. As was to be expected, the Archbishop fully upheld the action of the French clergy and again excluded comedians from the fold of the faithful. And yet a note of Monsignor Nuzzi, which accompanied the reply from Rome, stressed very clearly that the Papal authorities considered "infamous" only those comedians who acted indecently on the stage. The Archbishop apparently believed that all plays were evil and therefore that all acting was unavoidably immoral. As an example of actual persecution we may cite the case of the famous actor Rosimont, [Claude la Rose, Sieur de Rosimont], who died suddenly in 1691 and was refused regular church burial. "Rosimond … fut enterré sans Clergé, sans luminaire, et sans aucune prière, dans un endroit du Cimetière de Saint-Sulpice où l'on enterre les enfans morts sans Baptême." And in 1697 the Cardinal de Noailles refused to allow comedians to marry, since marriage was a sacrament forbidden to outcasts of the Church. Communion was constantly denied them—and this situation lasted, in a stagemad France that adored plays, until the eve of the French Revolution!

Yet the incessant attacks of the clergy upon the stage and actors seems to have had little effect upon the patrons of the theatre. Notwithstanding these thundering anathemas, or indeed, largely perhaps because of them, and of the attraction of forbidden fruit, they flocked in ever-increasing numbers to all kinds of spectacles. At this period the Comédie-Italienne was more popular—and far more im moral—than the Comédie-Française. In another respect also the Italian actors in Paris were more fortunate than their French confires—they were not excommunicated, and they suffered none of the undeserved penalties that hailed down upon their colleagues engaged in public amusement. In 1697 they were expelled, not because of the immorality of their acting, but because they had offended Mme de Maintenon.

But their exile did not in the least improve the decency of the Parisian stage. The acteurs forains, who had been drawing the crowds at the annual fairs of Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent, did not hesitate to grasp the opportunity that offered itself through the forced withdrawal of their competitors. They promptly appropriated the Italian repertory and drew an ever-growing public to their stalls. Their productions were fully as crude,—from the moral point of view,—as those of any of their predecessors.

The last decade of the seventeenth and the early years of the eighteenth century witnessed an enormous increase in popular affluence to the theatre. Among literary men, playwrights were the only ones to get any considerable monetary recompense for their labors, although they did not receive any honoraria that could be at all compared to those of the dramatists of the end of the century. The increase in material reward for the production of popular plays acted, no doubt, as a stimulus in favor of the theatre and the dramatist, especially after 1740. Yet, even before that date Le Sage, Dancourt, Regnard and Dufresny were relatively well paid for their labors, whereas lyric or epic poets had to find a patron if they wanted their work printed at all. The stage at least had an assured public and furnished an income that, although modest and uncertain, compared favorably with the absolute non-productiveness of other literary endeavors, however highly praised.

Although censorship of plays was introduced into France during this period, the theatre enjoyed greater freedom than ever before. Strangely enough, a number of daring plays like Legrand's Amour du diable, which was performed in 1708, were permitted. In 1701 the lieutenant of police of Paris was given control over all plays performed in the capital. His consent had to be obtained before they could be staged. This was the beginning of the formal and organized stage censorship which was going to become so important a factor during the entire eighteenth century. A letter of Pontchartrain to d'Argenson, who was then Lieutenant of Police, brings proof that this step was taken because the King had been informed that the Parisian comedians were acting on the stage in an indecent and revolting way. This action of the civil authorities seemed to approve fully of the stand taken by the Church.

However, division of opinion was manifest even in the ranks of the clergy, and this notwithstanding the authority of Bossuet. The magnificent tradition of Richelieu lingered on and instigated many a churchman to open mutiny against the intolerance of his colleagues. Some of the most noteworthy paladins of the stage arose from among the secular abbés, whom one would expect to have been cowed by Bossuet's overbearing influence.

In 1695 Claude Boyer, an abbé and in addition a member of the French Academy, published a tragedy, Judith. In his preface the author defended Biblical dramas. He claimed that it was fully possible to reconcile these plays with the views of the Church on the theatre, provided that one had the ability to produce a truly Christian play. Boyer asserts that if others have failed, it was because of their lack of talent, their ignorance of art, their sterility of invention—and above all, because of their lack of feeling for matters pertaining to religion. This explains the genesis of Judith, for Boyer felt that he was the exception to the rule and had succeeded. His play was quite successful in its day, although entirely forgotten now. He attempts to defend comedians, and urges them to produce Biblical plays and thus prove their own worth; in fact, his preface shows that he was willing to permit all plays, provided they were decent. Soon, however, there appeared an anonymous Réponse à la préface de la tragédie de Judith, which tried to refute Boyer with the usual arguments against the theatre.

Pierre Le Brun, the official spokesman for the Archbishop of Paris, delivered a sermon at the Church of Saint-Magloire toward the end of 1695, taking as his text Boyer's Judith. The title of his sermon, which was first published in 1731, was: "S'il y a lieu d'approuver que les Pièces de Théâtre soient tirées de l'Ecriture Sainte." His thesis is that one cannot display upon the stage holy scenes without corrupting them. In spirit the two are irreconcilable.

Another clerical defender of the stage issued a volume during the same year, 1695. The Abbé Pierre de Villiers, who later evolved into one of the most liberal churchmen in the stage controversy, published an interesting work: Traité de la satire, où l'on examine comment on doit reprendre son prochain et comment la satire peut servir à cet usage. He claimed that the comedy owes its origin to the zeal which has always existed in attacks against evils. Although the author blames the contemporaneous theatre for its pernicious spirit, he sanctions the use of the comedy to correct certain vices.

A still more liberal-minded clergyman, the Abbé Morvan de Bellegarde, favored the stage in his Lettres curieuses de Littérature et de Morale. His volume appeared in 1702 at The Hague, and in 1707 at Amsterdam. This writer admitted the imperfections of the stage of his day, but claimed that they were remediable….

Etienne Souciet, a Jesuit, published an article in the Mémoires de Trévoux for July and August, 1709, in which he gives his opinion of the moral effect of the tragedy. His basic thought is that "the Tragedy must serve morality." It must try to correct in the spectator whatever vices he may have, by causing him to be horrified at the results of the same vices on the stage, and by making him fear for himself the same punishment which he has witnessed in the play. The spectator must be made to realize that the vice which has just been chastised is the very one of which he himself is guilty. Souciet also discusses the theoretical and technical aspects of the tragedy, reducing the number of good subjects to five or six, all of which have been treated by the Greeks. His general attitude is evidently favorable to the theatre.

In 1711 the abbé Pierre de Villiers published a poem lauding the opera and other spectacles. He had himself recently composed a musical comedy, so that it is only natural that he favored this species of entertainment. The Abbé Jean Terrasson, in a discussion of the drama, contained in his Dissertation critique sur l'Iliade, which was published in Paris in 1715, lauds the theatre in no uncertain terms. His defense of the stage is based upon the theory that most people can be made better morally by attending plays, and not through hearing sermons. He admits that the priest performs a higher type of service for humanity than the comedian, but claims that the latter fits into a certain niche which the former cannot reach. Terrasson calls morality "the very Soul and Genius" of the drama. He views love in the same light as that in which partisans of the theatre considered plays in general, that is, he claims that in itself it is indifferent, but may become good or bad, depending upon the use which is made of it.

The protests of this minority of dissidents among the clergy prove that the anathema of the stage was not generally accepted, even among churchmen. Conclusive testimony that ecclesiastics attended the theatre is found in the decree issued in 1704 by the Bishop of Toulon, Monsignor de Chalucet, who threatened the priests of his diocese with excommunication if they further patronized the stage:

Et nous défendons à tous Prêtres, Bénéficiers et Ecclésiastiques de ce Diocèse ou y résidant, d'assister aux Bals, Opéras ou Comédies, à peine d'excommunication encouruë ipso facto.

On the other hand, there can be no doubt that the vast majority of the French clergy followed Bossuet's lead against the stage and against his victim Father Caffaro. The famous quarrel of 1694 awakened echoes for several years to come, and even the mere enumeration of the pamphlets, satires, and controversial writings which carried on the debate, would soon become tiresome. Yet their very number indicates how living an issue the theatre problem remained, and with what tragic earnestness it was approached by both attackers and defenders.

Among the clergymen who fully sympathized with Bossuet one may cite Pierre Bardou, Prior of La Voux, who toward the end of 1694 issued an Epître sur la Condamnation du Théâtre. He was an ardent admirer of Racine, but nevertheless he condemned the theatre. His epistle, which is addressed to this great author of tragedies, consists of about 150 lines of verse. Although Bardou praises Athalie and Esther and approves of Biblical dramas in general, he inveighs against the love-themes and pagan pomp which characterize plays. In his opinion, since Racine has renounced the theatre, it is really dead. He compares Racine's Biblical dramas to the sermons of Bourdaloue:

Des poèmes si beaux, chaque fois qu'on les joue,
Exercent sur nos coeurs les droits de Bourdaloüe.

A comparison with Bourdaloue seemed to him the highest praise he could give to Racine.

A curious document was penned in Latin by an obscure priest, L. Soucanye, in 1694, as a eulogy of Bossuet's answer to Caffaro. The title of his poem is very interesting. It is as follows: Illustrissimo Ecclesiae Principi Jacobo Benigno Bossuet, Meldensium episcopo, artis comicae aequissimo nuper Judici. In Pestem Theatralem Carmen. The author acclaims Bossuet as the heavenly-appointed avenger through whose labors the theatre will be destroyed. A maze of classic mythology, which must have been distasteful to Bossuet personally, adorns his rhetoric. Needless to say, this poem influenced very few peopie.

Ambroise Lalouette, a French priest, published anonymously at Orléans in 1697 a book entitled: Histoire et Abrégé des ouvrages latins, italiens et françois, pour et contre la comédie et l'opéra. His volume, which was printed with the approbation of the authorities, also appeared in the same year with the following caption: Histoire de la comédie et de l'opéra où l'on prouve qu'on ne peut y aller sans péché. The latter title clearly indicates the views of the author on the stage. Lalouette summarizes the church doctrine regarding the theatre, basing it upon Scripture, the Church Councils, and the Fathers. Among the limited number of works which he discusses are those of del Monaco and Ottonelli,—both of whom were Italian priests,—Nicole, the Prince de Conti, d'Aubignac and Caffaro. He also summarizes several of the replies which the famous letter of the Theatin priest evoked. Concerning Caffaro, he asserts that this author quotes only the passages of the Church Fathers which denounce plays on account of their idolatry. Like the Archbishop of Paris, he misinterprets the answer received in Rome by the deputation of French comedians in 1696 concerning the attitude of the Church towards actors. His conclusion is, of course, that attending a play is a mortal sin.

The end of the seventeenth century witnessed many sermons which attacked the theatre. Among the priests who denounced the stage from the pulpit were Colombière, LeJeune, Girouet, Cheminais, Soanen, Le Brun and Bourdaloue. They were echoing the official severity of the Church toward plays. To defend the theatre openly at this period was attended with great risks, for not only was the clergy opposed to plays, but the king had also withdrawn his favor. People admitted that the Church was right in condemning the stage, but nevertheless they continued attending plays in great numbers. The partisans of the drama had to be content with a discreet voicing of their opinions. Thus, La Bruyère, in his famous Caractères, says that plays could be useful if their bad features were eliminated, for one can see on the stage such striking examples of virtue that they must have a good effect upon the individuals who compose the audience.

The Ritual of Auch, printed in Paris in the year 1701, presents an interesting commentary upon the attitude of local church authorities toward the theatre. It expressly refuses ecclesiastical burial "to those who, known as public sinners, die without giving proofs of real repentance; among these are Comedians, Farce-players and others of this category." Chalucet, Bishop of Toulon, was even more severe the next year, for his Ordonnance of March 5, 1702 "commands Confessors, under penalty of suspense, to refuse absolution to the Faithful who scorning his 'Mandement,' shall have attended these plays."

Esprit Fléchier, the famous Archbishop of Nîmes, issued a Mandement against plays on September 8, 1708. He had found some merit in Caffaro's letter of 1694, although he had not been quite sure that it was right to spread such doctrines among the masses. However, as he grew older, he must have become more severe, for his Mandement of 1708 shows that he thinks plays are opposed to the spirit of Christianity and morality, and that he has previously warned his flock against the dangers of the theatre.

The opinion of the Jesuits about the stage seems to have been divided. One of them, Etienne Souciet, had shown great toleration for the theatre in the Mémoires de Trévoux of 1709; but another, Father Courbeville, issued in 1713 a French translation of Jeremy Collier's violent attack against the English stage. The original title, which had been A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage, Together with the Sense of Antiquity upon this Argument, was now transformed by Father Courbeville into La Critique du Théâtre Anglois, comparé au Théâtre d'Athènes, de Rome et de France et l'Opinion des auteurs tant profanes que sacrez, touchant les Spectacles. In his preface the translator gives the correct title of the English work. He admits that the French theatre is not as bad as the English, but nevertheless he desires its total suppression, which explains why he has translated Collier's book. What he especially objects to in plays is the ever-present love theme. What the English clergyman had objected to in the stage of his own country was the obscenity of its language, its impiety, the attacks upon the clergy, and the immorality of contemporaneous plays. Courbeville had hoped to demonstrate to the French public how immoral plays in general are; but the net result of his volume was that everyone saw clearly that the English stage, as described by Collier, was much more immoral than the French. In spite of which, the English author had tacitly admitted that he believed in the utility of plays, while Courbeville condemned them completely. The number of people attending the French theatre was not lessened by this book.

Jean Frain du Tremblay, a little-known priest who in 1685, in his Conversations morales sur les Jeux et les Divertissements, had denounced amusements in general, continued the attack in 1713 when his Discours sur l'origine de la poésie appeared in Paris. He believed that both the theatre and actors were incorrigibly wicked and that therefore nothing could be done about the matter except to abstain from attending plays.

Fénelon, Bossuet's opponent in many a theological debate, agreed with him on the condemnation of the stage. He treats the theatre very harshly in his Lettre à M. Dacier, secrétaire perpétuel de l'Académie Française, sur les Occupations de l'Académie, written in 1714. Fénelon protests especially against love in tragedies, although granting that it is possible to perfect them. He finds many defects in Molière, while admitting him to be a great writer of comedies. Among the great comedian's faults, one of the most unpardonable, in the opinion of Fénelon, is that Molière has made vice attractive and virtue odious. Surely the Archbishop of Cambrai has judged the great master of comedy too severely!

…..

Among the laymen there was one group, that of the playwrights themselves, which, of course, staunchly defended the stage. In 1697, three years after the beginning of the Bossuet-Caffaro conflict, Boursault carried on his protheatre warfare by publishing an open letter to Monseigneur Harlay de Champvallon, Archbishop of Paris, "touchant une Lettre ou Dissertation en faveur de la Comédie." The author expresses his regret at not being well enough acquainted with the Archbishop to pay him a personal visit in order to expound his cause and to provide him with an explanation of the Caffaro incident. He assumes full blame for the printing of Caffaro's letter in the 1694 edition of his own plays, although he does not mention the Theatin priest by name. Strange as it may seem, while Caffaro had been punished quite severely, the real culprit did not suffer in the least.

Boursault claims that while composing a comedy in one of the French provinces, he obtained absolution from a country priest, but only upon condition that he consult someone more learned who would be able to decide whether or not he could have his plays performed without compromising the future of his soul. As a result, the dramatist applied to his regular confessor as soon as he reached Paris, sending him several of his plays and begging him to examine them carefully, as it was a question of his peace of mind and perhaps of the salvation of his soul. He admits that he committed a serious mistake in publishing Caffaro's answer without his knowledge or consent. His excuse, which is very weak, is that he wanted to influence the public by showing his readers that the Church Fathers and Councils forbade only indecent plays.

Among the reasons which, according to Boursault, justify the theatre are: (I) the stage is necessary in order to amuse the public, (II) the Fathers blamed only the pagan elements in plays and (III) even Popes have attended performances of plays. He praises Corneille, Racine and especially Molière. Boursault stresses the utility of the stage as an effective weapon for correcting vices and asserts that it is a moral institution. He further points out that as a result of the weak arguments alleged against plays during the commotion caused by the publication of Caffaro's letter, theatres are more crowded than ever. The reasons for which the Church Fathers and Councils condemned the stage no longer exist. As proof of the innocence of the contemporaneous theatre, he sends to the Archbishop one of his own comedies for examination. The dramatist closes his letter with an explanation of how he himself is preaching morality in all his plays.

Caffaro's letter, in the meanwhile, had become internationally known. It was utilized in London, in an English translation, as a kind of preface to a play written in English in 1698 by Motteux, a French refugee. The title of this work was as follows: Beauty in distress. A tragedy … with a discourse of lawfulness and unlawfulness of plays, lately written in French by the learned Father Caffaro, Divinity professor at Paris. England was at this time in the throes of a great struggle over the theatre, induced to a great extent by the preacher Jeremy Collier, who with great vigor had justly denounced the iniquity of the contemporaneous English stage. Curiously enough, Motteux claims to have had the same conscientious scruples as Boursault, and to have requested advice of an English clergyman, who sent him Caffaro's letter.

On the other hand, to further his campaign of propaganda against the stage in England, Jeremy Collier translated into English and published in London in 1699 the volume which Bossuet had written against plays and actors. The English title was Maxims and Reflections on Plays.

In France also, literary men had given their support to Boursault and Caffaro. A very compromising defender of their cause was François Gacon, the "Poète sans Fard," whose satiric rapier was wielded too frequently and against too many different persons and causes, to remain at all effective. In 1694 he published anonymously a reply in verse, an Epître, to Bossuet. It was inserted two years later in his volume of satires, Le Poète sans Fard, ou discours satiriques en vers, with a new title, Satire à Mgr. Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Evêque de Meaux, sur son livre touchant la Comédie. Gacon claims that invincible obstacles block the church's desire to abolish plays. The idleness of the court will always maintain the theatre, and if people were deprived of this innocent pleasure they would perhaps find another which would be worse. Besides, as long as great prelates live in ostentatious luxury and vie in feasts with princes, in vain will they urge penitence and declaim against plays, for the public will scoff at them. Before the church can successfully do away with the theatre, the higher clergy must mend its ways. Gacon is probably attacking the renowned Archbishop of Paris. This onslaught, of course, begs the question entirely, for it merely answers one attack with another. The author's satirical style is well exemplified in the last four lines of his poem:

C'est ainsi, Grand Prélat, que le peuple raisonne
Et fait une leçon aux docteurs de Sorbonne:
Pour imposer silence, il faudroit réformer
Nombre d'autres abus que je n'ose rimer.

Gacon also mercilessly attacked Pégurier and Lelevel in 1694 in short poems, which were republished in 1696.

An anonymous volume, that may possibly have been the work of a priest, Noël Varet, appeared in 1698: Caractères tirés de l'Ecriture Sainte et appliqués aux moeurs de ce siècle. The author turns the tables on the censors and preachers by proclaiming his gratitude to the comedians for their effective help in combating the evils of the day, which they expose to ridicule on the boards. He remarks seriously,—or perhaps ironically,—that actors are powerful helpers and aids for weak and powerless preachers.

Beside this defense by a Catholic, we may place one by a Protestant. Under the name of Theodore Parrhase, J. Le Clerc, one of Bayle's friends, published in 1699 a work in two volumes called Parrhasiana ou Pensées diverses sur des Matières de Critique, d'Histoire, de Morale et de Politique. He seems to approve of plays in a rather lukewarm fashion; he quotes Aristotle's definition of the tragedy and claims that although moral plays are possible, dramatists write only in order to please. Le Clerc asserts that when morality is found in a tragedy, its purpose, from the viewpoint of the dramatist, appears usually to be an embellishment of the subject and a means of winning the favor of the audience rather than of calming the passions. For comedies the author has nothing good to say, being of the opinion that their originators seek only "to amuse the public and to gain a reputation and money by amusing it."

Baudot de Juilly, an employee of the department of finance, dared to condemn the current practice of denouncing all pleasures without exception. In his Dialogues entre MM. Patru et d'Ablancourt sur les plaisirs, published in Paris in 1700, he approves the theatre as an institution. His volume was suppressed by the authorities soon after it appeared in print.

A decided stand in favor of the stage was taken in 1706 by Chavigni de Saint-Martin, who published his encomium in Brussels, where he could not be so easily reached by irate French prelates: Le Triomphe de la Comédie, ou Réponse à la critique des Prélats de France. He dedicated his work to the Duke of Bavaria, whom he acclaims as a patron of plays. The author tells us that he has written this volume "in order to enlighten the public concerning the injustices which are being disseminated against the theatre." He claims that it is manifestly unfair to condemn the stage of today upon the pretext of its origin. Likewise, it is not right to bring into the limelight the personal affairs of actors, for their lives are not more immoral than those of merchants. He stresses the fact that comedians have never been excommunicated by any ecumenical council. The contemporaneous stage is moral, for it blames vice and always punishes it. As for the arousing of passions, the theatre is no worse than the Bible, for passages like the description of Cain's fury against Abel abound in Scripture. Finally, he asserts that on account of their utility, plays are performed in institutions of learning. His general thesis is that the theatre is a necessary and useful relaxation in civilized countries.

A more weighty defense, though not a very long one, was furnished by Nicolas Boileau, then at the height of his European reputation as a legislator in Parnassus. In 1707 he engaged in polemics over the stage with Massillon and Jacques Losme de Monchesnay, who had been a playwright, but who, like Racine, had become "converted." Monchesnay had written for the Théâtre Italien of Gherardi several plays, such as La Cause des Femmes, 1687; Mezetin, grand Sophi de Perse, 1689; Le Phénix, ou la Femme fidèle, 1691, which obtained great success; Les Souhaits, 1693. Soon after, he recognized the essential frivolity and sinfulness of his literary occupations and "burned what he had adored." He called his plays the aberrations of his youth, and his devotional scruples incited him to decry any form of acting or singing as infected with diabolical propensities. At this time he became one of Boileau's admirers and visited him frequently, though the satirist is said not to have had any particular friendship for him. "Il semble que cet homme-là soit embarrassé de son mérite et du mien," he is reputed to have remarked. Monchesnay sent him a fiery dissertation wherein he announced a paradox which later was to be developed by J.-J. Rousseau, namely, that Molière and his plays had been the principal factor in "la corruption des moeurs."

Against him Boileau made the same point which Chavigni de Saint-Martin had brought out the preceding year. In discussing the morality of the stage, one should disassociate the question of the private lives and personal affairs of comedians from the question of the inherent morality of the plays they perform. Boileau admits that certain plays are immoral, but he does not concede that, for that reason, all performances should be indiscriminately banned….

…..

It has been pointed out previously that the detractors of the stage were found among Protestants as well as among Catholics. One of the principal Protestant theologians, Jean de la Placette, sometimes called "le Nicole protestant," attacked plays in a section of his Réflexions chrétiennes sur divers sujets (1707), entitled De l'Usage que nous devons faire de notre temps. He sets forth the entire group of the known religious and moral objections to prove that the stage is not a justified pastime for the Christian.

At this point it seems appropriate to take stock of the progress of the theatre quarrel and to summarize briefly the period that terminates about 1715, for the death of Louis XIV is really the historical line of demarcation between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the realm of French thought. During the course of the seventeenth century the opponents and partisans of the stage based their arguments chiefly upon theological grounds—Scripture, the opinions of the Church Fathers and the decisions of the early Church Councils. Each party interprets specific utterances of the Fathers from its own point of view. Tertullian is the principal ecclesiastical authority cited against plays, and St. Thomas is quoted most frequently for the opposite side.

Those who favored the theatre claimed that Scripture does not specifically condemn plays, and that the Church Fathers and early Councils denounced only the contemporaneous stage, chiefly on account of its obscenity and idolatry, and that neither of these factors could be found in the French drama of the seventeenth century. The opponents of the theatre cited numerous local Rituals which condemned plays, but the friends of the stage countered by asserting that neither the Pope nor any ecumenical Council had ever forbidden plays in general. Toward the end of the period which we have been discussing, the partisans of the theatre begin to urge more strongly the utility of plays. This clearly foreshadows the reasoning of the eighteenth century.