FARCE DU GENTILHOMME, LISON, NAUDET, ET LA DEMOISELLE

     Most farces take their subjects from marital disputes, and this farce uses wife swapping as the basis of the joke on matrimony. A nobleman is having an affair with Naudet's wife, and to distract Naudet from their lovemaking the nobleman orders him to do a series of tasks, one of which is to deliver a letter to his wife. Naudet does so, revealing their spouses' infidelity, and promising to do to the noblewoman what the nobleman is currently doing to Naudet's wife. It reminds me of one of the stories in Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron, where two couples swap wives for years without issue. This complicates the primary fear of the medieval man, being a cuckhold. If both men are out gallavanting with the other's wife, the sexual superiority inherent in the act of cuckholding is neutralized. As Naudet says at the end of the play to the nobleman, that if the nobleman doesn't pretend to be Naudet, Naudet won't pretend to be the nobleman. In this way, neither man can be cuckholded because there is no sense of superiority.