Chapter Andromache to Angelique of A by Brewer's Readers Handbook

as Clodio had engaged himself to Elvira of Lisbon, the testy old gentlemen agreed to the marriage of Angelina with Carlos.—Cibber: Love makes a Man (1700).

Angelique, daughter of Argan the malade imaginaire. (For the tale, see Argan.)

Angelique, the aristocratic wife of George Dandin, a French commoner. She has a liaison with a M. Clitandre, but always contrives to turn the tables on her husband. George Dandin first hears of a rendezvous from one Lubin, a foolish servant of Clitandre, and lays the affair before M. and Mde. Sotenville, his wife’s parents. The baron with George Dandin call on the lover, who denies the accusation, and George Dandin has to beg pardon. Subsequently he catches his wife and Clitandre together, and sends at once for M. and Mde. Sotenville; but Angelique, aware of their presence, pretends to denounce her lover, and even takes up a stick to beat him for the “insult offered to a virtuous wife;” so again the parents declare their daughter to be the very paragon of women. Lastly, George Dandin detects his wife and Clitandre together at night-time, and succeeds in shutting his wife out of her room; but Angelique now pretends to kill herself, and when George goes for a light to look for the body, she rushes into her room and shuts him out. At this crisis the parents arrive, when Angelique accuses her husband of being out all night in a debauch; and he is made to beg her pardon on his knees.—Molière: George Dandin (1668).