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The twelve years spent by Arlequin with the comte de Valcourt form the hidden temporal foundation of the play’s final reversal. They begin in poverty in Bergame, continue through an unusually close friendship, and culminate in an inheritance whose legitimacy is tested when Valcourt’s son, Cléante, appears in Paris. The period therefore links personal loyalty, migration, concealed identity, and the moral question of who truly owns inherited wealth.

Origin in Bergame

Arlequin recalls that he was poor and living with Nisida’s mother in a small apartment in Bergame when the French nobleman comte de Valcourt settled in the town and bought the house. Valcourt allowed the family to remain in their apartment and developed an immediate friendship with Arlequin. The relationship was not initially organized around money: Arlequin describes himself as an honnête homme before he was recognized among the wealthy, while the wealthy reserved the public name of respectable people for themselves.

Within six months, Valcourt had become unable to do without Arlequin’s company. Their association thus grew from neighborly protection into dependence and sustained intimacy. The twelve-year duration is important because the inheritance rests not on a brief favor but on a long personal bond that Arlequin experienced as genuine friendship and that Valcourt ultimately rewarded with complete confidence.

The Valcourt Household and Its Hidden Heir

During this period, Arlequin learned that Valcourt had secretly married in France and had a son who was six months old. Valcourt had left his wife half of his fortune for her and for the child, but he had never wanted to hear about the son. The concealed marriage and rejected child create the legal and emotional ambiguity that later surrounds the estate.

Arlequin remained with Valcourt for twelve years. By the time of the play’s revelation, eleven years had passed since Valcourt’s death, and Valcourt had made Arlequin heir to all the property he had brought to Italie. The temporal sequence gives the inheritance a double character: it is the result of a long friendship, yet it also preserves the consequences of Valcourt’s refusal to acknowledge his son.

From Wealth to Paris

Arlequin remembers that poverty had once coincided with happiness, while wealth brought grief. After becoming rich, he lost Nisida’s mother and his two sons. These deaths made him reject his homeland, realize his assets, and move to Paris with Nisida, who was then no more than six years old.

The fortune continued to shape the family long after Valcourt’s death. Arlequin invested the money, and over ten years his funds had approximately doubled, producing an income of sixty thousand livres for Nisida. The twelve years with Valcourt therefore extend beyond their original setting: they generate the wealth that determines Arlequin’s fear for his daughter, his proposed marriage between Nisida and the marquis d’Yrville, and the apparent social distance separating Nisida from the poor Cléante.

Reinterpretation Through Cléante

The past becomes decisive when Cléante confesses that he has loved Nisida for more than a year and entered Arlequin’s household as a secretary because poverty prevented him from openly seeking her. He explains that an old friend of his father was about to help him obtain permission to visit his father when news arrived that the comte de Valcourt had died in Italie and left his entire fortune to a stranger.

When Cléante names the comte de Valcourt as his father and says that he possesses proof, the twelve-year friendship is suddenly reclassified. Arlequin recognizes Cléante as the son of his benefactor. The inheritance that had seemed securely his is revealed as property connected to a neglected heir, and the long past with Valcourt becomes the cause of an immediate ethical obligation.

Moral Consequences

Cléante argues that he has no legal claim because his father’s marriage was never declared. Arlequin nevertheless refuses to let the law settle the matter. He declares that his heart tells him the fortune is not his and rejects the possibility of remaining rich while the son of his benefactor is poor. He offers to return everything, asking only that Cléante ensure Nisida the means to live.

The twelve-year period thus measures more than elapsed time. It records the depth of Arlequin’s debt to Valcourt and explains why gratitude outweighs legal advantage. It also prepares the final exchange: Cléante accepts the fortune only to place it at Nisida’s feet, while Arlequin’s material sacrifice makes Cléante’s marriage proposal morally compelling. In the conclusion, Arlequin cannot give Cléante to Nérine according to his earlier plans, but he doubles the dowry intended for her and keeps her as the family’s close friend. The inheritance created through twelve years of friendship is consequently converted into a new family arrangement, confirming the play’s final valuation of honesty, paternal duty, and reciprocal generosity over possession alone.