Much confusion has been caused by a wrong posting on youtube. The description and all the reviews here are of a different film, a very early Linder (before ever the character of "Max" was established and before Linder wrote his own material) called Vive la vie de garçon (Troubles of a Grass Widower in the English language version) dating from 1908. It is a mild but very conventional comedy. The film was remade by Linder in 1912 as Max reprend sa liberté (Max and the Fowl in English although it may also have sometimes been titled Troubles of a Grasswidower). There is at least one correctly titled copy now on youtube.
It is still not a wonderful but it is more "Max" and more quirky. First of all it is not a neglected wife in this version but a disliked wife whom Max has married solely for her money and it is he who forces an argument on her that ceases her to leave. We do not see any of the routine business of the struggling bachelor that comes in the early film but just a bizarre scene where Max tries to kill a chicken by shooting it which leads to some quite surreal havoc! The wife does not return spontaneously at this point but Max writes to her, pleading with her to return not so much because he is alone and helpless but because he is alone and POOR and the wife has closed her bank account to him. But there is then a further rather savage twist. The wife does duly hurry back but, in the meantime, Max has had news of an inheritance and no longer needs her or her money so just kicks her out again.......
So it is really a rather dark, cynical comedy which could be regarded as a realistic (and machistic) correction by Max of the early conventional sentimental piece.
I have suggested in my review of Max and the Doctoresse (1914) that this film too may have been a more "virile" anti-feminist version of an earlier film of 1907 in which Max may also have played. Max was a formidable talent but not altogether a nice character.....