L'Épreuve is a one-act play by French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 playwright Pierre de Marivaux

Pierre de Marivaux

Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux , commonly referred to as Marivaux, was a French novelist and dramatist....

presented for the first time on November 19th, 1740.

L'Épreuve is considered to be one of the finest gems of Marivaux and was often reproduced. Like in many of his plays, the untying of intrigue comes from travesty.

Characters

• Madame Argante.
• Angélique, her daughter.
• Lisette, Angélique's servant.
• Lucidor, Angélique's lover.
• Frontin, Lucidor's valet.
• Maître Blaise, young village farmer.

Plot

Lucidor, a wealthy Parisian, is in love with Angélique, a young and innocent country bourgeois. After falling ill and watching Angélique cry for him, he is convinced that she loves him as well, but he is unsure of the motives behind this love. He thus decides to put Angélique through an ordeal to test whether he is loved for his money or for himself. In the name of friendship, Lucidor offers a rich friend to be married to Angélique to see whether she would reject him for love. In fact, this rich friend is none other than Lucidor’s valet, who is dressed up in rich man’s gear only for this trick.