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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/corneilleOOvincrich 
 
BY LEON H, VINCENT 
 
 THE BIBLIOTAPH AND OTHER 
 PEOPLE i2mo, $1.50 
 
 BRIEF STUDIES IN FRENCH SOCI- 
 ETY AND LETTERS IN THE XVII. 
 CENTURY 
 
 HOTEL DE RAMBOUILLET AND THE 
 
 PRI^CIEUSES 
 
 THE FRENCH ACADEMY 
 
 CORNEILLE 
 
 Each, i6mo, $1.00, 
 MOLIERE. In preparation. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN &. COMPANY 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
Copyright y igoi, by Leon K Vincent 
 All rights reserved 
 
To 
 DEWITT MILLER 
 
 A modern Book-Hunter of the Old School 
 
 357361 
 
CONTENTS 
 Introduction I 
 
 -4- I H- 
 
 Touth and Dramatic Beginnings , . 1 1 
 
 The Five Authors 33 
 
 -^ III+- 
 The parrel of the C\^ 63 
 
 -I. IV -*- 
 Horace, Cinna, and Polyeucte . .101 
 
 -♦. V -»- 
 Later Works 131 
 
 -H VI -*- 
 
 Corneille the Man 151 
 
 -*. VII -^ 
 Services to Literature — Conclusion , .175 
 
 Bibliographical Note > ^93 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Ji^c 
 
 =«%K 
 
 JLHERE is a well-known print 
 showing the salle du theatre of the 
 Palais Cardinal, Richelieu's magnifi- 
 cent abode, during the performance of 
 a play. The two galleries are filled 
 with sumptuously arrayed and deco- 
 rously mannered ladies and gentlemen. 
 The royal party occupy armchairs on 
 the main floor commanding an unob- 
 structed view of the stage, a luxury, 
 
 -H I H— 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 by the way, which few besides royalty 
 are privileged to enjoy. This distin- 
 guished group consists of Louis XIII, 
 Anne of Austria, the Dauphin, and 
 Gaston D'Orleans. Louis and his 
 brother, oblivious for the moment of 
 the spectacle, are holding an animated 
 conversation; though it may be that 
 this is only a device of the artist to 
 enable him to show the faces of the 
 eminent guests, since the picture is 
 sketched from a point of view directly 
 back of the royal party. Richelieu is 
 nowhere visible. It is safe, however, 
 to count upon his presence. One may 
 believe that from some advantageous 
 post the Cardinal's gaze is occasionally 
 bent upon Gaston with a look in which 
 are blended suspicion and amused 
 contempt. 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 This picture illustrates among other 
 things how fashionable the drama had 
 become. We are in the centre of the 
 great social world, and that world is 
 absorbed in the stage. Whatever the 
 play may be, one thing is certain, it 
 is the work of some poet approved of 
 society. This theatre of the Palais 
 Cardinal, with its pomp and magnifi- 
 cence, offers a striking contrast to the 
 theatre of Hotel de Bourgogne as the 
 historians describe it. 
 
 A great barren hall floored with 
 stone. A stage ill equipped and dimly 
 lighted with candles. There are at- 
 tendants whose business it is to keep 
 the candles snuffed, and who do their 
 work with little regard for what is tak- 
 ing place on the boards. That part 
 of the audience which crowds the 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 parterre does not even enjoy the hum- 
 ble luxury of seats, but must stand up 
 during the entire performance. It is 
 a motley crowd, 'merchants, artisans, 
 scriveners, clerks, students, lackeys, 
 bullies, and pickpockets/ They are 
 brutal and noisy. Conspicuous among 
 them are the king's mousquetaires, who 
 exact the privilege of entering free, 
 and who make 'un bruit d'enfer' in 
 their pleasure or disappointment. 
 
 The performance begins with a pro- 
 logue, always gross and often obscene. 
 Then follows the tragedy or tragi- 
 comedy. A farce is given at the close 
 to relieve the strain, or perhaps there 
 is a song less witty than suggestive. 
 The entertainment was not one at 
 which women could be present and at 
 the same time maintain their self-re- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 spect. Nevertheless, polished society, 
 which had so great an influence upon 
 manners and conversation in the early 
 Seventeenth Century, extended its 
 humanizing virtues to this brutal the- 
 atre. If this influence is not at first 
 easily perceived or always clearly to 
 be traced, the fact must be attributed 
 to that independence of temper which 
 is a marked characteristic of the thea- 
 tre and of theatrical life. The stage 
 is a world to itself, and a world alto- 
 gether impatient of external control. 
 
 We have seen how the Marquise 
 de Rambouillet placed men of letters 
 on a footing of social equality with 
 the aristocratic world. Several years 
 elapsed, however, before the poets of 
 polite society were attracted to the 
 stage as a field for the exercise of their 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 powers. The theatre, with much that 
 appertained thereto, was held in con- 
 tempt until the time of Alexandre 
 Hardy. This fecund playwright has 
 been described as ' a Shakespeare with- 
 out the genius.' Lanson calls him a 
 carpenter rather than a writer of plays. 
 His sense of literature was small, but 
 he understood perfectly the art of dra- 
 matic construction. He wrote several 
 hundred plays, faulty as literature, but 
 admirable as stage pieces. His skill 
 in the constructive part of his art 
 attracted the attention and compelled 
 the admiration of the poets of polished 
 society. Racan, a pupil of Malherbe, 
 a frequenter of the ' blue room,' used 
 to see Hardy's plays at Hotel de Bour- 
 gogne and ask himself whether these 
 pieces which had so much dramatic 
 -I- 6-1- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 virtue could not have a little more and 
 become literature also. With this 
 thought dominant in his mind he 
 wrote the Bergeries, 'Society' was 
 fully represented when the piece was 
 given at Hotel de Bourgogne. 
 
 Other poets followed Racan's ex- 
 ample, and the social world was loyal 
 to its poets. The polish, the elegance, 
 the agreeable sophistication of the life 
 of the salon, effected a complete trans- 
 formation in the theatre, and the influ- 
 ence of a powerful minister completed 
 the work in so far as it could be done 
 without the help of a dramatic poet of 
 transcendent genius. 
 
 The precieux poets and dramatists 
 were able to give little to the national 
 stage besides refinement and polish. 
 Hardy is still regarded as the true 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 precursor of Corneille. But the dis- 
 tance between Hardy and Corneille 
 seems even greater than the distance 
 between the predecessors of Shake- 
 speare and Shakespeare. Corneille 
 came with a genius of imperious self- 
 assertive quality. It was a genius of 
 that sort which makes bitter enemies, 
 but which also wins enough applause 
 to drown the hisses. Corneille created 
 the French tragedy. His success was 
 so overwhelming that he carried all 
 before him. He was victor in spite 
 of the Academy with its Sentiments^ in 
 spite of the Cardinal himself The 
 achievement was extraordinary. ' The 
 man who derived in no sense from his 
 predecessors, who learned nothing from 
 Jodelle, nothing from Gamier, and 
 very little from Hardy, was able to 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 teach all who came after him.' He 
 inspired Racine, he inspired Moliere. 
 All French dramatic history centres in 
 Pierre Corneille. ' There is no greater 
 name in the history of our literature.' 
 
Jf ^ f^ 
 
 ^w/ORNEILLE was born in 
 Rouen, in 1606. The critics admit 
 that if one could not be born in Paris, 
 or, what amounts to the same thing, 
 come to Paris as soon as possible after 
 being born, then Rouen was a very 
 good starting-point for a poet. It was 
 a publishing centre. It had literary 
 and dramatic interests which were 
 quite its own, and in no sense a pale 
 reflection of what was done in the 
 metropolis. 'After Paris it was the 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 city where the theatre most flourished.' 
 The famous Montchrestien, 'whose 
 life and death were more tragic than his 
 tragedies,' was a Norman, though not 
 of Rouen. A society of comedians 
 similar to the 'Enfants Sans-souci' 
 of Paris had flourished there in the 
 Sixteenth Century ; they called them- 
 selves the ' Connards.' Their memory 
 was green in Corneille's time. These 
 traditions and associations had their 
 effect upon the young poet. Rouen 
 had also its Academy, the ' Puy des 
 Palinods,' which encouraged poets and 
 awarded prizes to successful practi- 
 tioners in the art. 
 
 The Corneilles were a family of the 
 ' robe.' The poet's grandfather, Pierre 
 Corneille, was at first *commis au 
 greffe' of the Parliament of Rouen 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 and then ' conseiller referendaire ' in 
 the ' chancellerie ' of the same Parlia- 
 ment. The poet's father, also a Pierre 
 Corneille, was 'maitre particulier' of 
 waters and forests in the vicomte of 
 Rouen. He was noted for his physi- 
 cal courage, and for the resolution and 
 energy with which he suppressed the 
 bands of marauders that pillaged the 
 woods of the State. 
 
 Young Pierre studied at the College 
 of the Jesuits in Rouen. He was 
 solidly grounded in Latin, and received 
 at least two prizes for skill in verse 
 composition. The prizes were books : 
 Herodian's Histories^ awarded in 1618, 
 and Panciroli's Notitia Dignitatum, 
 awarded in 1620. These interesting 
 relics of a great poet's school-days are 
 still in existence, and may be profitably 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 examined by such as maintain that the 
 men who take prizes in college never 
 take them elsewhere. 
 
 At eighteen Comeille was, as we 
 would say, admitted to the bar. He 
 purchased two offices, one on the 
 bench of waters and forests and the 
 other in the administration of marine. 
 For twenty years this was his work ; 
 and he devoted himself thereto with 
 scrupulous exactitude. He was 
 studying dramatic composition in his 
 leisure moments, to be sure, but he 
 was first of all a man of affairs. This 
 is a noteworthy characteristic of the 
 great poets. With few exceptions 
 they have been able and willing to do 
 their share in bearing the homely and 
 practical responsibilities of life. They 
 have not sought immunity because 
 -H4 H- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 they were gifted. As a rule, only the 
 small poets plead poetry as an excuse 
 for not working. This principle or 
 rule does not suffer in the least because 
 we know that Corneille was not happy 
 in the conduct of practical affairs. 
 Fontenelle says that Corneille had no 
 taste for the law, and that he was not 
 successful in it All the more credit- 
 able to him are those twenty years of 
 uncongenial legal work. In later years 
 the poet's aversion to affairs increased ; 
 the mere word business was sufficient, 
 says Fontenelle, to bring terror to his 
 soul. 
 
 He made his dramatic beginning 
 at the age of twenty-three, with a piece 
 called MHitCy ou les fausses lettres^ a 
 comedy in five acts and in verse. 
 The distinguished actor Mondory 
 ^15-1- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 happened to be in Rouen. Mondory's 
 experience was no doubt that of most 
 influential actors and managers ; aspir- 
 ing dramatic poets brought him their 
 plays to read and to approve. His 
 experience may have been like that 
 of a modem actor of whom I have 
 heard. ' These young men bring me 
 plays/ he said, ' and if I refuse to see 
 them they leave the manuscript on the 
 doorstep.' 
 
 Milite easily passed the ordeal of 
 a reading. It was produced at the 
 Theatre de Marais in Paris in 1633, 
 and enjoyed a marked success. ' This 
 piece was my beginning,' said Cor- 
 neille in after years, 'and it was not 
 according to the rules, because I did not 
 then know that there were any. I had 
 for guide only a little common-sense, 
 — I- 16 +- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 together with the example of the late 
 Hardy, whose vein was more copious 
 than polished, and of some moderns 
 who had commenced to produce, and 
 who were no more regular than he.' 
 Much of the success of the play must 
 be attributed to the youth of its author, 
 and to the fact that he was blessedly 
 ignorant of the arbitrary laws of the 
 art. As yet the fear of the dramatic 
 pedagogues was not before his eyes. 
 
 Two or three remarkable facts about 
 this play deserve comment. It was 
 one of the first pieces to produce 
 legitimately comic effects without the 
 buffoonery of valets, servants, 'capi- 
 tans,' and doctors. Corneille prided 
 himself upon this. He was an inno- 
 vator and took pleasure in the improve- 
 ments which he had made. The idea 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 that Corneille was the Father of 
 French Tragedy is so firmly rooted in 
 our minds as to make us forgetful of 
 his services to the other branches of 
 dramatic art ; and it is with something 
 of an effort that we comprehend the 
 statement of the critic who speaks of 
 Corneille as the forerunner of Moliere. 
 ' This work, MHite^ made a revolution 
 in the drama for which Moliere has 
 had the honor because his talent 
 brought it out with great splendor.' 
 Corneille may be said to have shown 
 Moliere the path which true comedy 
 must take. 
 
 Another remarkable fact : the 
 comedy of Melite is a document which 
 must be studied if one would know 
 how the great social world of that day 
 talked. Roederer calls Melite an 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 ' authentic monument of the habitual 
 language of the best society.' Where 
 did Corneille so master the tongue as 
 to be able to produce this piece at 
 the age of twenty-three ? Brunetiere 
 affirms that Corneille wrote all his life 
 with a view to being acceptable to the 
 precieuses.^ The distinguished and 
 learned critic does not mean that this 
 was Corneille's sole object in dramatic 
 composition, or even his chief object, 
 but that it was an object. 
 
 For a moment we have difficulty in 
 readjusting our ideas to this new con- 
 ception. We find ourselves entertain- 
 ing a repugnance to the thought that 
 the greater poetry can be the product 
 of any inspiration short of the highest. 
 
 * Brunetiere: Manuely p. 132. 
 -1.194- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 If Brunetiere had asked us to believe 
 that such plays as Milite, la Galerie 
 du Palais^ la Suivante^ and la Place 
 Roy ale were written for the precieuses, 
 and that the mighty tragedies were for 
 an audience greater than could be 
 brought together in any one city or 
 in any one decade, we should be pre- 
 pared to admit the justice of the re- 
 mark. Our critic is thorough-going, 
 however; he does not qualify. Cor- 
 neille, with all his universality and 
 depth, was at the same time local, and, 
 if you will, fashionable. ' In Horace^ 
 Cinna^ and Rodogune^ where he mingles 
 politics and gallantry, you are not to 
 imagine that he imitates Justin, Seneca, 
 or Livy; the manners are those of his 
 own time, and the characters are taken 
 from models who have posed for him/ 
 
 ^20h- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 We become reconciled to the 
 thought after a little. It would be 
 absurd to suppose that men who write 
 for the stage do not always have the 
 audience in mind. They who write 
 without the constraint of an imaginary 
 audience will produce plays which can 
 be read and which cannot be heard. 
 Why, then, should Corneille be ex- 
 cepted, he who had so perfect a com- 
 mand of the technique of the drama, 
 and some of whose plays hold the 
 stage to this day ? Brunetiere would 
 have us believe that Emilie in Cinna 
 and Cleopatre in Rodogune are not 
 cold studies from the antique, but a 
 living and splendid reality, none other 
 than the Duchesse de Chevreuse. We 
 can the better understand the critic's 
 position by keeping in mind that 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 under the head of precieuses he in- 
 cludes the most eminent and cultivated 
 women of that time. 
 
 Corneille would have been greatly 
 and uncomfortably surprised could he 
 have been told that modern criticism 
 would come to this conclusion. Lan- 
 son denies that the poet has succeeded 
 in catching the spirit of antiquity in a 
 marked degree. The characters in the 
 plays are labelled as of this nationality 
 or that, but it comes to the same thing 
 in the end ; ' all are Frenchmen, con- 
 temporaries of the poet, and good sub- 
 jects of Louis XIIL' ^ Lanson adds 
 that what the drama of Corneille 
 thereby loses in historic color it gains 
 in intense actuality. The poet gives 
 
 ^ Lanson : Corneille , p. i68. 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 us 'a faithful and striking picture of 
 the France of Richelieu, of that aris- 
 tocratic class which inaugurated the 
 absolute monarchy and a social world.' 
 According to this critic, the tragedies 
 of Corneille are in large degree only 
 the history of his own times. 
 
 The poet himself was quite con- 
 vinced that he made his Romans talk, 
 think, and act like Romans, and not 
 at all like Frenchmen of the Seven- 
 teenth Century. Most dramatists have 
 similar delusions about their work. 
 No doubt one poet comes a little 
 nearer to the classic ideal than another, 
 but can any man feel certain that his 
 stage Romans and stage Greeks bear 
 more than a faint resemblance to the 
 heroes of antiquity ? Must they not 
 of necessity be of the poet's own time. 
 
' ^^ — « .tl ^ g y 
 
 CORNEILLE 
 
 and own country? I am not sure 
 that the absurdity of dressing the char- 
 acters in costume contemporaneous 
 with that of actors and spectators was 
 not without its compensations. At all 
 events, the mind of the spectator was 
 not diverted from the play itself, and 
 from the delivery of the lines, to the 
 thought of how queer the antique cos- 
 tume was, and how ineffably absurd 
 the average actor appears in a short 
 tunic and a makeshift toga and ' look- 
 ing as if he had forgotten his collar.' 
 What a triumph of acting must that 
 have been when Mrs. Yates played 
 Cleopatra in a hoopskirt. We should 
 not wish to return to so strange a 
 conception of how a part should be 
 dressed. The public of to-day would 
 not tolerate Cleopatra in a tailor-made 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 gown for the first act and an evening 
 gown for the fifth act. Yet grotesque 
 as the custom was, so long as it pre- 
 vailed, and actors and actresses went 
 on the stage in their every-day clothes, 
 and no one thought it out of the way, 
 it had its advantages. 
 
 After all, these great poetic creations 
 do not make their appeal to the heart 
 from generation to generation by 
 means of archseology. If the play of 
 Julius Casar depended for its vitality 
 on the fact that Shakespeare had 
 summed up the latest discoveries con- 
 cerning Roman life and manners, that 
 play would long since have gone the 
 way of a hundred others and been for- 
 gotten. Where the dramatic poets of 
 the first rank show their power is in the 
 creation of types which all men can 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 understand, types which are not of a 
 single age or country, but universal. 
 Shakespeare was characteristically 
 English, but Shakespeare was none the 
 less for all nations and for all time. 
 Corneille may have written his trage- 
 dies with Hotel de Rambouillet in 
 mind, but above the local and the 
 fashionable were the human and the 
 universal elements. It is by virtue of 
 these that he lives. 
 
 The question is still unanswered, 
 and I do not recall that any attempt has 
 been made to answer it : Where did 
 Corneille master the language of that 
 charming and sophisticated Parisian 
 society so as to be able to reproduce it 
 in his play ? He had had no oppor- 
 tunity of visiting the great houses 
 of Paris ; and, if the boy was like the 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 man, he was awkward, brusque, and 
 at times sullen. These are not quali- 
 ties to help one on in society. Nev- 
 ertheless, we are asked to believe that 
 Melite represents the language and the 
 fashions of polite society in 1630. 
 Lemaitre is constrained to admit that 
 if this be true, as is quite possible, the 
 conversation of polite society must 
 often have been ' bizarre.' 
 
 Instead of following up the success 
 of Milite with another piece in the 
 same vein, Corneille produced in 1632 
 a tragi-comedy entitled Clitandre^ ou 
 I ^innocence delivree. It was a roman- 
 tic drama, stuffed with incidents and 
 involved to the point of confusion. 
 It failed, and Corneille returned to his 
 earlier manner and wrote la Veuve^ ou 
 le traitre trahi^ la Galerie du Pa- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 lais (1633), la Suivante (1634), and 
 la Place Roy ale (1635). 
 
 The original edition of la Veuve 
 contains a number of poetical tributes 
 from various dramatic contemporaries. 
 This was the custom, and it hardly 
 needs the apology which Taschereau 
 has seen fit to make for it in Corneille's 
 behalf There are not less than twenty, 
 six of these complimentary poems. 
 The first is from Scudery, who bids the 
 stars retire because the sun has risen, 
 and who is florid in celebrating ' La 
 beaute de la Veuve, et Tesprit de Cor- 
 neille.' 
 
 Another is fi-om Mairet, who 
 addresses Comeille as the first of the 
 beaux esprits to revive in his writings 
 the genius of Plautus and of Terence. 
 This was a stock allusion. A success- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 ful comic writer was always compared 
 with those ancient dramatists. 
 
 There were tributes from Rotrou 
 and Du Ryer. Also from Bois-Robert 
 and Claveret. Bois-Robert is brief but 
 most partial in his address to the ' Belle 
 Veuve adoree/ Claveret writes both 
 an epigram and a madrigal. These 
 little verses may be read with profit 
 when we come to study the attitude 
 of Bois-Robert, Scudery, Mairet, and 
 Claveret towards Corneille some three 
 years later. With the exception of 
 Rotrou, the five men here named 
 as contributing to the poetic eulogy 
 became the bitterest of Corneille's 
 enemies. Claveret in particular was 
 brutal in his personal attacks. 
 
 In the Galerie du Palais Corneille 
 for the first time dispensed with the 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 traditional nurse, a part that was inva- 
 riably played by a man made up to 
 represent a ridiculous old woman. He 
 also put upon the stage a scene with 
 which every spectator was perfectly 
 familiar, namely, the gallery of the 
 Palais, with the shops of a bookseller, 
 a haberdasher, and a dealer in linens 
 and silks. Marty-Laveaux comments 
 on the attractiveness of the device for 
 the average theatre-goer. It is no less 
 potent to-day, and is undoubtedly a 
 legitimate effect. But it was the fore- 
 runner of a type of realism truly bar- 
 barous. We have seen the idea 
 pushed to the last degree of absurdity 
 at the present time, and the public in 
 spasms of delight over a stage sawmill 
 or a real load of hay. The success of 
 the Galerie du Palais was not due to 
 
4 ^ ^ ^tgg i jIV 
 
 CORNEILLE 
 
 the inoffensive realism of the stage set- 
 ting, but to the sparkling dialogue and 
 the interesting situations. The play 
 had a more favorable reception than 
 anything else Corneille wrote up to 
 the time of the Cid. 
 
 The young poet was now sufH- 
 ciently celebrated to attract the notice 
 of Richelieu. He was presented to 
 the Cardinal. A number of interesting 
 events followed upon this introduction. 
 They can be the better understood if 
 we have clearly in mind Richelieu's 
 attitude toward the theatre and his 
 immense influence as a patron of dra- 
 matic art. 
 
 "SI- 
 
II 
 
 T 
 
 xMxHE Cardinal's interest in the 
 theatre is well known. It was not 
 alone his avocation, his hobby, but 
 something more: it was his passion. 
 Every moment that could be spared 
 from politics was given to the stage. 
 A taste for dramatic entertainment 
 was generally diffused at this time. 
 The public was unconsciously get- 
 ting ready for Corneille, Moliere, and 
 Racine, and the Cardinal was as 
 unconsciously helping the public in 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 the work of preparation. Love of the 
 theatre ' tyrannized ' to such a degree 
 that although there were two compa- 
 nies of players in Paris, one at Hotel 
 de Bourgogne and one at the Marais, 
 Richelieu felt the need of yet a third, 
 and created the troupe of the Palais- 
 Cardinal. 
 
 The Palais-Cardinal, that magnifi- 
 cent residence which the great Minis- 
 ter built for himself when he found 
 the Petit-Luxembourg ' unworthy ' of 
 his expanding puissance, was begun 
 in 1629 and finished in 1636. The 
 salle de spectacle was at the right as 
 one entered the court of the Palais. 
 The ambition of the Cardinal and the 
 skill of the architect Le Mercier had 
 united to make this theatre the ' most 
 admirable in Europe.' Sauval says 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 that unfortunately it was small, but its 
 happy proportions, together with the 
 skill of Jean le Maire, the decorator, 
 produced the needed effect of ampli- 
 tude. 
 
 Plays and ballets were given here. 
 For example, in January, 1636, Riche- 
 lieu entertained the Queen, Gaston, 
 due d'Orleans, Mademoiselle, the 
 Prince and Princesse de Conde, the 
 Comtesse de Soissons, the Duchesse de 
 Lorraine, and the entire court, with a 
 representation of la Cleoriste by Baro. 
 After the play there was a ballet with 
 an unusual novelty introduced : the 
 dancers served a collation to the 
 guests. 
 
 When the Due de Parme was in 
 Paris, during February of that same 
 year, Richelieu received him at his 
 -+35-^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 palace and had played for his benefit 
 the Aspasie by Desmarests de Saint- 
 Sorlin. Music was rendered between 
 the acts; the play was followed by 
 a ballet, and the ballet by a supper. 
 The entertainment lasted three hours. 
 Pleasures such as these required 
 more than ordinary taste and skill. 
 The audience was critical, and the 
 host even more so. Richelieu was 
 not a poet or even a good prose 
 writer, though he is credited with what 
 few people possessed in those days, 
 a sense of orthography. But it was a 
 time when all men wrote, and all wo- 
 men read, poetry. The poetry may 
 not have been always of a high or- 
 der, but technically it was admirable. 
 There were more people who under- 
 stood the theory and practice of the 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 art than could be got together any- 
 where at the present day. And the 
 Cardinal must be supposed to have 
 had a measure of taste in that about 
 which all cultivated people knew 
 something. He was not too busy to 
 write an occasional stanza or scene, 
 and never too busy to dispute with 
 his poets as to the way in which their 
 verses ought to be written. 
 
 In 1641 Mirame was presented in 
 the large theatre of the Palais-Cardi- 
 nal. Mirame was Richelieu's favorite 
 work. He lavished money upon the 
 production. Mechanical effects of a 
 sort to which the public was little 
 used were attempted; the sun and 
 the moon were shown in the act of 
 rising, and ships passed to and fro 
 on the distant sea. The Abbe de 
 ^37^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 MaroUes, who was present, did not 
 find these novelties particularly enter- 
 taining. He held to the doctrine, as 
 sound as it is old-fashioned, that the 
 success of a play depends upon the 
 recitation of the parts by good actors, 
 the inventive ability of the poet, and 
 beautiful verses. ' All else is but use- 
 less embarrassment.' 
 
 No one was deceived as to the Car- 
 dinal's relation to Mirame. The re- 
 puted author was Desmarests, but that 
 display of intense solicitude on the 
 Cardinal's part was unquestionably 
 paternal. He showed the liveliest 
 satisfaction when certain passages 
 were delivered. At times he was 
 seen quieting the spectators immedi- 
 ately about him, lest they should fail 
 to comprehend the beauty of the 
 ^38^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 lines. When the applause was to his 
 mind, he showed himself in the front 
 of his box, smiling and evidently flat- 
 tered. These are the airs of a dramatic 
 author responding to the demands of 
 an audience eager for a glimpse of 
 him to whom they owe so much plea- 
 sure. A poet by profession, by gift, 
 who finds himself writing plays with 
 such a collaborator, is not in an alto- 
 gether enviable position. 
 
 When Corneille was presented to 
 the Cardinal, it was not that he might 
 receive the congratulations and the 
 ' God-speed ' of the minister, but for 
 a purpose which looked rather more 
 to the glory of the statesman than to 
 the glory of the poet. Richelieu in- 
 vited Corneille to become one of a sort 
 of dramatic commission or bureau. 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 The function of this bureau was to 
 write plays under the Cardinal's su- 
 pervision. There were already four 
 members, — Colletet, Bois - Robert, ^ 
 I'Estoile, and Rotrou ; Corneille made 
 the fifth. It is believed that the 
 Cardinal furnished the plan; the poets 
 did the actual work. They are 
 known in literary history as the 'Five 
 Authors.' The bureau was also a 
 time-saving device. Each of the 
 poets was assigned an act in the play, 
 and given a month in which to com- 
 plete it. Thus the entire play was 
 composed in thirty days. One mar- 
 vels that unity of effect and style 
 could be expected of work done in 
 this extraordinary fashion. Collabo- 
 ration is always a mystery, but we 
 have grown accustomed to the idea 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 o{ two persons working together on a 
 novel or a play ; it requires an effort 
 of mind to conceive how so intricate 
 a literary form as a five-act drama, a 
 form which requires the nicest possi- 
 ble relation between the parts, could 
 have been wrought with such speed, 
 and by so many persons each of 
 marked individuality. 
 
 In 1634 the five authors composed 
 the piece entitled the Comedie des 
 T'uileries, Corneille was assigned the 
 third act, so often the important and 
 critical act of a drama. He saw in it 
 possibilities which had escaped the 
 Cardinal's eye. This is not surpris- 
 ing; for while Corneille was not as 
 yet the 'grand' Corneille, he was a 
 dramatic author by instinct as well as 
 by considerable practice. His natu- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 ral medium of expression was the 
 dramatic. He ventured to change 
 the Cardinal's plan as he believed for 
 the better, and received that famous 
 reproof: '' II faut avoir de V esprit de 
 suited The Cardinal has been ridi- 
 culed for this criticism, and unjustly. 
 ' When five poets undertake to sink 
 their individualities to a given end, one 
 of them must not step out of line.' 
 
 From this incident may be dated 
 the beginning of the Cardinal's antag- 
 onism to Corneille. As yet it ex- 
 pressed itself negatively, by allowing 
 the poet to withdraw from the com- 
 mission, and by stopping, as was just, 
 the pension which was paid him for 
 work done in collaboration with his 
 Eminence. Taschereau, a historian 
 but little given to eulogizing Riche- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 lieu, quotes with approval Pellisson's 
 remark that the Cardinal was 'very 
 generous toward the five collabora- 
 tors. In addition to the ordinary pen- 
 sion which each received, he lavished 
 favors upon those who succeeded ac- 
 cording to his desire : ' as when he 
 gave CoUetet sixty pistoles for six 
 verses describing the 'carre d'eau,' 
 and told the poet that the king was 
 not rich enough to pay for the rest. 
 CoUetet wrote some witty lines in re- 
 sponse, expressing a readiness to sell 
 all his literary work on the same 
 terms : — 
 
 ^Armand, qui pour six vers m* a donne six cents 
 
 livres 
 ^e ne puis-je a ce pris te vendre tous mes 
 
 livres ! ' 
 
 Corneille was not of those who 
 
4 ^ ^ ^Jt ^ ^^ 
 
 CORNEILLE 
 
 obtained additional favors. He paid 
 the penalty of not being docile under 
 the strictures of the most influential 
 dramatic critic of the Seventeenth 
 Century. He went back to his home 
 in Rouen, and wrote Medee and the 
 Illusion comique. The former was not 
 wholly a success, owing to the long 
 declamations with which it was filled ; 
 nevertheless, it marked a step in the 
 right direction, and announced the 
 Corneille of the Cid and of Polyeucte. 
 The Illusion comique^ which its au- 
 thor pronounced a ' strange monster,' 
 delighted the public. It is a piece in 
 the Spanish style, but has no proto- 
 type so far as is known. It is come- 
 die heroique, and may be accounted 
 one of the best illustrations of Cor- 
 neille's versatility. The character of 
 -»-44-i- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 the Capitan Matamore was new to 
 the public, or at least new in come- 
 dies of this elevated type. The brag- 
 gadocio had been hitherto confined to 
 farces and low comedy. 
 
 About this time Corneille's atten- 
 tion was turned to the study of the 
 great national hero of Spain, out of 
 which study was fashioned the play 
 that was to make him famous. 
 
 There lived in Rouen an old gen- 
 tleman who in earlier years had been 
 secretary to Marie de Medicis. He 
 was a Monsieur de Chalon. Cor- 
 neille went to see him one day, and 
 the old gentleman said : ' Monsieur, 
 the type of drama which you have 
 taken up will secure for you only a 
 transient glory. But you will find 
 subjects in the Spanish which, treated 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 according to our taste and by powers 
 such as yours, will produce great ef- 
 fects. Learn Spanish ; it is easy. I 
 will help you until you are in a posi- 
 tion to read by yourself and to trans- 
 late some passages from Guillen de 
 Castro.' He placed the book in 
 Corneille's hands, the story runs. 
 ' The world is much indebted to that 
 Monsieur de Chalon,' says Jules Le- 
 maitre. From his advice and the 
 study and work consequent upon it, 
 came that masterpiece of the classic 
 French drama, the Cid. It was pro- 
 duced at the Theatre de Marais to- 
 wards the close of the year 1636. 
 From this moment opened a new and 
 brilliant chapter in the history of the 
 stage, and Comeille, only thirty years 
 of age, began to know as he had not 
 -1-464- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 known before, the glory and the un- 
 happiness of success. 
 
 The Cid was mounted with un- 
 usual care. Mondory had realized 
 its immense superiority to all other 
 pieces, and had prepared himself for 
 a triumph. The costumes, the stage- 
 setting, all the equipments, were as 
 perfect as they could be made. These 
 things, which are now regarded as le- 
 gitimate and even indispensable, were 
 afterwards used to point arguments 
 against Corneille. He was not only 
 told that his play belonged in the cat- 
 egory of poetical compositions ' which 
 are more indebted to those who speak 
 the lines than to the poets who have 
 written them,' but he was also re- 
 proached for the generous assistance 
 rendered by the stage carpenter. 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Only at long intervals does the 
 public have the privilege of witness- 
 ing the first production of a mas- 
 terpiece, and even then the public 
 cannot know how extraordinary the 
 privilege is. A great work of art can 
 hardly be appreciated by contempo- 
 raries, and especially is this true if the 
 work be dramatic. A play is the 
 strangest of the art forms ; to be suc- 
 cessful, it must possess those superfi- 
 cial qualities which take the eye and 
 have the price, and to be classic, it 
 must have those qualities which lie 
 beneath the surface and which only 
 the next generation, and the next 
 after that, can understand at their full 
 value. 
 
 In order to appreciate the Cid as it 
 was appreciated at the time of its first 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 production, one ought to read a half- 
 hundred plays by Corneille's immedi- 
 ate predecessors. After a course of 
 those tragedies and tragi-comedies in 
 which the French dramatic instinct 
 was struggling toward perfection of 
 form and clarity of expression, the 
 reader would be in a measure pre- 
 pared to understand how the superb 
 energy of thought and matchless 
 beauty of diction appealed to an au- 
 dience comprehending them for the 
 first time. 
 
 The Cid is not only a capital story 
 dramatically told in spirited verse, but 
 it is also a picture of heroic life and 
 manners. It portrays the struggle 
 between passion and filial duty. Chi- 
 mene, the heroine of the play, loves 
 and is loved by Don Rodrigue, after- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 wards known as the 'Cid.' He has 
 not the splendid ancestry of which 
 another suitor, Don Sanche, is able to 
 boast, but he has youth and courage. 
 His house is famed for its warriors, 
 and his aged father was in his day a 
 marvel of valor. It is the girl's wish 
 and secret prayer that her father, the 
 stately Comte de Gormas, may ap- 
 prove her choice, or rather that he | 
 may choose for her and as she would 
 choose for herself In that charming 
 scene between Chimene and her gou- 
 vernante, the reader learns that the 
 Comte de Gormas looks with satis- 
 faction upon the prospect of an alli- 
 ance between his daughter and Don 
 Rodrigue. 
 
 The Comte is aspirant for the 
 honor of governor to the Prince of 
 -H50+- 
 
 i 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Castile. To his chagrin, the office is 
 conferred upon Don Diegue, father of 
 Don Rodrigue. They talk together, 
 and in a moment of irritation the 
 Comte de Gormas strikes the old 
 man. To avenge the insult, young 
 Don Rodrigue challenges Don Gor- 
 mas and kills him in a duel. In so 
 doing he avenges the honor of his 
 house, but he robs the state of its 
 greatest warrior, for Comte de Gor- 
 mas was held to be invincible. He 
 also becomes the murderer of his 
 betrothed's father, and Chimene de- 
 mands his life in expiation of the 
 crime. 
 
 The interest of this play centres In 
 the struggle which goes on in Chi- 
 mene's heart. The girl's love for Don 
 Rodrigue as a lover contends with 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 her hatred of him as the slayer of her 
 father. For the moment hatred seems 
 to triumph. Chimene is superb in 
 her implacability. The measure of 
 her love is the intensity of her ardor 
 for the punishment of the murderer. 
 Don Rodrigue is none the less her 
 ideal of manhood, youth, and chival- 
 ric grace at the moment she implores 
 the king for vengeance. And the 
 question continually arises whether 
 Chimene, who loathes Don Rodrigue 
 as a murderer, would not have de- 
 spised him as a coward had he failed 
 in the piety due his own father. 
 
 Don Rodrigue justifies the hopes 
 centred in him as a possible de- 
 fender of his native land. In repell- 
 ing the assault of a Moorish army 
 which descends upon Seville, he per- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 forms deeds of valor more wonderful 
 than those which had made the name 
 of his father famous. He saves the 
 state, strengthens the hands of his 
 king, and brings back from the field 
 of battle as captives two Moorish 
 chieftains, who, struck by his prowess, 
 salute him as their lord or seyd, that 
 is, ' Cid.' 
 
 Chimene is persuaded to insist no 
 longer upon revenge. She owes her 
 own personal safety to the achieve- 
 ments of Don Rodrigue. To him the 
 nation owes its existence, and thou- 
 sands of men, women, and children 
 their lives and their happiness. The 
 Cid is the national hero, the saviour 
 of his country. It is not possible now 
 to deal with him as an impetuous 
 youth, over-quick to draw the sword 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 in defence of a father's honor ; he has 
 become a part of the thought of every 
 patriotic Spaniard, his life is more 
 precious than the Hves of other men. 
 But with Don Rodrigue glory counts 
 for nothing while Chimene is his 
 enemy. He will cheerfully die in 
 preference to living and bearing the 
 burden of her hate. It is difficult to 
 imagine a plot less easy of solution. 
 That the girl should marry her lover 
 is repugnant to one's conception of 
 what human nature is or can be. It 
 is almost equally repugnant to us to 
 think of Chimene as remaining obdu- 
 rate. Corneille handles the narrative 
 with infinite tact, but without any re- 
 laxation in his firm and broad treat- 
 ment. The reccKiciliation of the lov- 
 ers is effected through the influence 
 -+54^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 of the king. This reconciliation is 
 not so complete and instantaneous as 
 to jar upon the spectator, neither is it 
 so incomplete as to leave a sense of 
 hopelessness and unrest. 
 
 Victorin Fabre, in his * eloge ' on 
 Corneille, describes the effect pro- 
 duced by the Cid at its first presenta- 
 tion in terms so eloquent and glow- 
 ing as almost to awaken distrust. 
 With due allowance for the splendor 
 of the theme and the enthusiasm of 
 the orator, there is little question that 
 the play-going world was immensely 
 moved on this occasion. Paris was 
 enthusiastic, and the court not less so. 
 The tragedy had three performances 
 at the Louvre, and what seems strange 
 to us in the light of subsequent 
 events, two performances at the pal- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 ace of the Cardinal. Taschereau says 
 that Richelieu, ' not wishing to appear 
 piqued by such a triumph, affected to 
 complete the success ' by opening his 
 own theatre to the fortunate play. 
 Not only were the usual honors in 
 the shape of applause and congratu- 
 lations showered upon the happy 
 author, but at the queen's request a 
 patent of nobility was conferred upon 
 Corneille's father. 
 
 The Cid was the chief topic of 
 conversation. The public wished to 
 see nothing else. Richelieu tried to 
 divert attention to a work of the ' five 
 authors,' and gave a representation of 
 the Aveugle de Smyrne at his palace 
 before the king and the court. The 
 time was not well chosen ; the Aveu- 
 gle de Smyrne only helped by con- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 trast to accentuate the transcendent 
 splendors of the Cid. There is an 
 often quoted letter which Mondory 
 wrote to Balzac, describing the enthu- 
 siasm of the public over Corneille's 
 tragedy. Mondory speaks with the 
 honest delight of one who knows the 
 satisfaction of playing to a crowded 
 house. It seems that the social tri- 
 umph was as great as the dramatic. 
 People accustomed to the best seats 
 in the theatre on ordinary occasions 
 were thankful now to take the worst. 
 Even the corners and out-of-the-way 
 places, where the pages and retainers 
 usually stood, were eagerly sought for 
 by the quality. 
 
 Pellisson's testimony is conclusive. 
 He says : ' It is difficult to imagine 
 with how great approbation this piece 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 was received by the court and the 
 public. People could not weary of 
 seeing it. One heard nothing else 
 talked of in society. Every one knew 
 some portion of it by heart. They 
 taught it to children, and in some 
 parts of France it passed into a pro- 
 verb to say of a thing that it was as 
 "beautiful as the Cidr' 
 
 Nevertheless, a storm was gathering. 
 Richelieu was not pleased. A less 
 tyrannical personage than he might 
 have been irritated to find that a hire- 
 ling poet without I'esprit de suite 
 could work so magnificently when 
 released from his superintendence. 
 There was a singular rumor in circula- 
 tion at one time to the effect that 
 Richelieu wished to buy the Cid^ have 
 it presented under his patronage, and 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 allow it to pass for his own work. 
 Verily, they tell strange tales of public 
 men. This particular story has gained 
 credence because the Cardinal once 
 offered an enormous sum for a piece 
 called the Polyglotte^ by Le Jay. If 
 Tallemant des Reaux is to be believed, 
 Richelieu's anger toward the success- 
 ful play reached such a pitch that 
 Bois-Robert tried to appease and divert 
 him by writing a parody on the Cid. 
 This burlesque was played before his 
 Eminence by lackeys and scullions, 
 and it is to be hoped had the desired 
 effect. 
 
 The thing is not improbable. Men 
 of very great powers are often ex- 
 tremely childish and irritable in their 
 diversions. They lose temper over a 
 game of chess or an unlucky play in 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 golf, and are philosophical in the face 
 of real trials and disappointments. 
 The theatre was Richelieu's diversion. 
 The Cardinal played this game of dra- 
 matics with his whole heart and mind, 
 and was bitter when he lost. 
 
 Corneille always believed that 
 Richelieu, together with some person 
 of high rank, encouraged Scudery, Mai- 
 ret, and others to make an attack upon 
 the Cid, Professional jealousy was a 
 motive sufficient to account for the 
 origin of the attack, and to explain its 
 peculiar virulence. But professional 
 jealousy does not explain the sustained 
 character, the unrelenting continuity 
 of the attack ; that must be accounted 
 for by something of greater force, some- 
 thing less feverish than jealousy. The 
 hostile party were sustained by the 
 -I- 60 4- 
 
4 ^ /^ t ^ — ^^ 
 
 CORNEILLE 
 
 consciousness of recommending them- 
 selves to their master; they rejoiced 
 in being able to gratify him who con- 
 trolled both political and poetical re- 
 wards. 
 
 There was another cause for irrita- 
 tion. The Cid seemed to justify the 
 practice of duelling. The Cardinal 
 had tried to suppress by capital pun- 
 ishment the passion for settling ques- 
 tions of honor at the point of the 
 sword. Men were barbarians in those 
 days, and fought on the most trivial 
 provocation. Voltaire says somewhere 
 that, in a given score of years, of which 
 ten were years of war and ten years of 
 nominal peace, more French gentle- 
 men died by the hands of Frenchmen 
 than by the hands of their enemies. 
 But the Cardinal had even greater 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 cause for anger in seeing how, after he 
 had employed his magnificent powers 
 in abasing the House of Austria, a 
 mere provincial poet could awaken a 
 burst of enthusiasm in favor of Spanish 
 ideals of chivalry and a Spanish na- 
 tional hero. Fontenelle declares that 
 Richelieu was as alarmed as if he had 
 seen the Spaniards at the gates of 
 Paris. 
 
 •62- 
 
M ^ ^^ 
 
 III 
 
 ^^^ORNEILLE himself precipi- 
 tated the 'quarrel of the Cid' He 
 was not only guilty of being success- 
 ful, but in the eyes of his rivals the 
 crime became heinous when he ven- 
 tured to boast of success. Shortly 
 after his triumph the poet printed the 
 lines entitled Excuse a Ariste. In 
 apologizing, half in jest and half in 
 earnest, to a friend who had asked him 
 to write a song, Corneille justifies his 
 disinclination by the character of his 
 ■h.63h^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 genius. His mind is restive amid the 
 restrictions imposed by petty verses, 
 but it loves an eagle-like flight amid 
 the clouds. He claims the right to 
 speak frankly of himself as is the cus- 
 tom of the age. ' I know my worth,' 
 he says ; ' I have organized no league 
 to compel admiration. I have few 
 voices raised in my favor, but I have 
 those without solicitation. My work 
 goes to the theatre without other sup- 
 port; any one is free to praise it or to 
 blame. I satisfy courtiers and people 
 alike. In all places my verses are my 
 only partisans. By their beauty alone 
 is my pen valued, and all my renown 
 I owe to myself, and only to myself ' ^ 
 
 ^ Je sais ce que je vaux, et crois ce qu'on m'en dit. 
 Pour me faire admirer, je ne fais point de ligue: 
 -H-64-J- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 The apparent vanity of these stanzas 
 is explained by that universal expla- 
 nation, the custom of the times. Peo- 
 ple were naive. They boasted of their 
 virtues. Shakespeare said that neither 
 monuments nor the tombs of princes 
 
 J'ai peu de voix pour moi, mais je les ai sans 
 
 brigue; 
 Et mon ambition, pour faire plus de bruit, 
 Ne les va point queter de reduit en reduit. 
 Mon travail sans appui monte sur le theatre: 
 Chacun en liberte I'y blame ou Pidolatre; 
 La, sans que mes amis prechent leurs sentiments, 
 J'arrache quelquefois trop d'applaudissements; 
 La, content du succes que le merite donne. 
 Par d'illustres avis je n'eblouis personne. 
 Je satisfais ensemble et peuple et courtisans, 
 Et mes vers en tous lieux sonts mes seuls partisans; 
 Par leur seule beaute ma plume est estimee, 
 Et pense toutefois n' avoir point de rival 
 A qui je passe tort en le traitant d'egal. 
 
 Excuse a Ariste, 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 should outlive his powerful rhyme. 
 What chances a poet takes in utter- 
 ing a boast like that ! Corneille held 
 much the same belief with respect to 
 himself, and so far both Shakespeare 
 and Corneille have been justified in 
 their noble vanity. But such frank- 
 ness is not for this century. If Csesar 
 had been a modern commander, he 
 would not have been allowed to 
 ' drench his good qualities in his first 
 person singular ' as he did in that fa- 
 mous despatch announcing his victory 
 at Zela over Pharnaces. Men who 
 achieve at the present time have but 
 one recourse, which is to be praised 
 in the newspapers and send marked 
 copies to their friends. 
 
 The Excuse a Ariste greatly irri- 
 tated Corneille's fellow dramatists. It 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 was easy to pervert the meaning of 
 that line, 'Je ne dois qu'a moi seul 
 toute ma renommee,' and to tell Cor- 
 neille that he was a plagiarist who 
 owed his renown entirely to Guillen 
 de Castro. Mairet^ wrote and pub- 
 lished anonymously some stanzas in 
 which he makes the 'true author of 
 the Cid' demand back the verses of 
 which Corneille had robbed him : ' To 
 me thou owest all thy renown/ It was 
 almost another case of ' the upstart 
 crow beautified with our feathers.' 
 
 ^ Jean de Mairet (i 604-1 686), one of the 
 most precocious dramatic poets of the Seventeenth 
 Century. His Chryseide et Arimand was writ- 
 ten before he had completed his eighteenth year. 
 Silvie, Sihanire, Sophonisbey and the Galanteries 
 du due d^ Ossone are his more noteworthy com- 
 positions. 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 The motive which led Scudery and 
 Mairet to attack Corneille was pre- 
 cisely that which prompted Greene to 
 attack Shakespeare, to wit, professional 
 jealousy, hatred of a rival in whom 
 a moderate success would have been 
 fitting, but who becomes detestable 
 as soon as he becomes triumphant. 
 
 In resenting Corneille's claim to 
 originality, and in reminding him of 
 his debt to Guillen de Castro, his crit- 
 ics were not speaking from the point 
 of view of those who were themselves 
 always original, and who, having no 
 need to borrow, abstained from the 
 practice of which he had been guilty. 
 On the contrary, the notable fact about 
 the French drama from 1630 to 1660 
 was its lack of originality. Dramatic 
 authors not only did not invent, but 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 they did not even pretend to invent. 
 They borrowed right and left, and 
 boasted the extent of their obHgations. 
 Reynier says that they hardly seemed 
 to suspect that there might be merit in 
 originality. 'In their prefaces they 
 plumed themselves not upon the exer- 
 cise of their imaginative powers, but 
 upon the happy choice of a model.' 
 They drew from every source, the 
 ancients, mediaeval poets and drama- 
 tists, modern novelists, and above all 
 from the Spanish playwrights. Cor- 
 neille's contemporaries did not mean 
 to accuse him of plagiarism as the 
 term is commonly used, for all were 
 plagiarists alike. The greater part of 
 the comedies of Bois-Robert were 
 taken from Spanish sources, and Rey- 
 nier bluntly calls them ' translations.' 
 -i-69-»- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Even if we grant that Corneille bor- 
 rowed to the full extent charged by 
 his most hostile critics, he would still 
 be ' original ' compared with his con- 
 temporaries. * Originality ' of inven- 
 tion in the drama and in poetry gen- 
 erally is a question that no longer 
 troubles us. Who stops nowadays to 
 question the originality of the Idylls 
 of the King? Who would be so 
 foolish as to ask whether the Earthly 
 Paradise could be called an original 
 work ? 
 
 Corneille was right in saying that 
 he owed his renown to himself alone. 
 The Spanish drama lent him much, 
 but it could not teach him how to 
 write the most stately and beautiful 
 verse that had been heard up to that 
 time upon the French stage. Neither 
 •H'70-*- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 could it teach him the art of being 
 ruggedly independent in situations 
 where Scudery took refuge in bombast 
 and biting of the thumb, and where 
 Bois-Robert was cringing and officious. 
 Guizot once made a happy and 
 penetrating remark on this question 
 of originality. He said that genius 
 was as necessary for choosing well and 
 imitating happily as for inventing out- 
 right. The whole field of Spanish 
 dramatic literature was open to Cor- 
 neille's contemporaries as well as to 
 himself; but Corneille was the only 
 one who had the wit to see the possi- 
 bilities in the story of the Cid and in 
 the plot of the Menteur} 
 
 ^ Guizot: Corneille et son temps . Paris, 1858, 
 p. 201. 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Corneille was not the man to allow 
 Mairet's attack to go unnoticed. He 
 made a counter attack in a rondeau so 
 bitter in tone that his most stalwart 
 admirers do not entirely defend it. 
 The publication of the rondeau had 
 the effect of stirring up a new antago- 
 nist. There appeared an anonymous 
 pamphlet entitled Observations on the 
 Cid. The rhetorical flourish of trum- 
 pets with which the piece opened pro- 
 claimed its authorship. It was by 
 Georges de Scudery,^ a prolific play- 
 wright, the brother of the famous 
 Madeleine de Scudery, and later the 
 governor of the fortress of Notre- 
 
 ^ Georges de Scudery (i 601-1667). Among 
 his best known plays are Lygdamon et Lydiasy the 
 Trompeur puni, the Comedie des Comediensy and 
 the Amant liberal, 
 
 ■^•72h- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Dame-de-la-Garde. He was a man of 
 great self-esteem. A modern critic 
 dubs him ' Scudery le capitaine Fra- 
 casse/ The fortress of which he had 
 charge stood upon a high rock. The 
 Marquise de Rambouillet said that 
 she could not imagine de Scudery in 
 command of a fortress which was situ- 
 ated in a valley. She used to picture 
 him in the act of living up to his con- 
 ception of his importance, ' with head 
 touching the clouds, his look fixed 
 with contempt upon all beneath him.' 
 Scudery declares that in penning 
 his criticism he is not making a satire 
 or a defamatory pamphlet, but a few 
 'simple observations.' He does not 
 distinguish accurately between libel 
 and criticism. He says of the Cid 
 that 'the subject itself is absolutely 
 ■H-73-*- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 valueless: that the play violates the 
 principal rules of dramatic poetry: that 
 there is lack of judgment in its man- 
 agement: that it contains many bad 
 verses : that almost all the beauty it 
 has is concealed : and that the esteem 
 in which it is held is unjustly high.' 
 He makes his points with infinite self- 
 confidence. If the story of the Cid 
 had any dramatic virtue, the honor of 
 it, he says, would belong to its Spanish 
 adapter, Guillen de Castro, and not to 
 the French ' translator.' But as a sub- 
 ject for a play it is valueless because 
 there is no intrigue, no Gordian knot 
 to be unloosed. Nothing is held in 
 suspense. The dullest spectator knows 
 the end from the beginning. More- 
 over the play violates that law of the 
 drama which insists that a story shall 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 not run contrary to the probable course 
 of human action in given circum- 
 stances. No doubt Chinene married 
 Don Rodrigue, it is a fact of history ; 
 but it is most unHkely and altogether 
 unnatural that a young woman of 
 honor should wed her father's mur- 
 derer. A fact may be useful to the 
 historian which is of no value what- 
 ever to the poet. 
 
 After twenty-four pages of criticism 
 in this sort, Scudery takes up the versi- 
 fication. He accuses Corneille of us- 
 ing words that are vulgar and unfit for 
 poetry, of writing French with Ger- 
 man constructions, of extravagance of 
 expression, of employing a word with- 
 out any particular meaning simply to 
 make a rhyme. If Scudery had been 
 a professor of literature rewriting the 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 poems of Keats, he could not have 
 been more exacting. 
 
 To this attack Corneille replied in 
 a little pamphlet which has been 
 described as a model of style; it is 
 entitled, Lettre apologetique du sieur 
 Corneille^ contenant sa reponse aux Ob- 
 servations faites par le sieur Scudiry 
 sur le Cid. After the publication of 
 this letter, Scudery appealed to the 
 Academy to judge between them. 
 The Cardinal insisted th^t the Acad- 
 emy pronounce upon the question, 
 and through Bois-Robert secured Cor- 
 neille's consent to such pronounce- 
 ment. In the mean time the quarrel 
 became general. 
 
 Corneille was indignant that men 
 who professed to be his friends should 
 have assailed him anonymously. He 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 thought it ungenerous in Mairet to 
 accuse him of plagiarism, and con- 
 temptible in Claveret, another pre- 
 tended friend, to distribute Mairet's 
 verses about Paris. In the Lettre 
 apologetique Corneille gives vent to his 
 indignation. He mentions Claveret 
 by name, and couples the name with 
 a plain and truthful phrase. Claveret 
 took umbrage at the expression and 
 attacked Corneille. Having little to 
 offer in the way of argument, he de- 
 scended to abuse. He says to Cor- 
 neille: 'Bear in mind that in prose 
 you are the most impertinent of those 
 who know how to talk. The coldness 
 and stupidity of your nature are such 
 that your conversation excites pity 
 among all who endure your visits. In 
 good society and in the eyes of culti- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 vated people you pass for the most 
 ridiculous of men.' 
 
 This was cruel, and the more cruel 
 because it was partly true. Corneille 
 was not a good converser. He as- 
 tonished admirers by his incapability 
 when for the first time they heard him 
 talk. Ideas came to him readily in 
 the literary work-shop, but not in the 
 drawing-room. He would hesitate, 
 become embarrassed, ' take one word 
 for another,' almost break down. 
 Conde said of Corneille that it was 
 only possible to understand him at 
 Hotel de Bourgogne. The poet freely 
 acknowledged it. ' I have a fertile 
 pen and a sterile mouth,' he said in 
 that little pen-portrait of himself which 
 he addressed to Pellisson. He was 
 by his own confession ' an excellent 
 -+78^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 gallant at the theatre and a very bad 
 one in society.' But people who 
 knew him had learned not to judge 
 him by his ability at small talk. 
 
 A torrent of pamphlets came from 
 the press, some defending Corneille, 
 others attacking him, others still tak- 
 ing a neutral attitude. The fecundity 
 of the disputants was amazing. Col- 
 porteurs sold the pamphlets in the 
 street as newsboys cry their extras at 
 the present day. It is impossible now 
 to identify the writers in every case, 
 but the chief parties to the quarrel, 
 Corneille on the one hand, Scudery, 
 Mairet, and Claveret on the other, 
 signed a number of their papers. Ro- 
 trou,^ a man of fine spirit and a poet 
 
 ^ Jean Rotrou (i 609-1 650). His best works 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 of genius, remained loyal to Corneille, 
 but his attitude was more conciliatory 
 than partisan in this affair. 
 
 Mairet was roughly handled by Cor- 
 neille's friends and became very angry. 
 He had no humor. He wished to 
 make his enemy a target for invec- 
 tive, but was unwilling to be used in 
 like fashion. He wrote the Epitre 
 familiere du sieur Mairet au sieur CoV" 
 neille sur la tragi-comidie du Cid^ ' in 
 which,' says Taschereau, 'he com- 
 pared the works of Corneille with his 
 own and did not hesitate to give him- 
 self the preference ; this was both natu- 
 ral and easy.' Again, one cannot too 
 
 are Saint-Genest, Don Bernard de Cabrere, 
 Vencelas, and Cosroes, He was without doubt 
 the most gifted dramatic poet of his time after 
 Corneille. 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 much admire the naivete of dramatic 
 authors in 1637. They had unshaken 
 confidence in their own powers, and 
 the serenity of children in the way 
 in which they tried to do themselves 
 justice. They would not have been 
 patient under the discipline of ' Let 
 another praise thee.' 
 
 The hostilities might have contin- 
 ued no one knows how long, had not 
 the Cardinal interfered. Richelieu, 
 ' whose sole desire was to arrest the 
 growing reputation of Corneille, but 
 who wished the arrest to be brought 
 about by other means than personal 
 quarrels, interposed his authority.' 
 He had Bois-Robert write to Mairet 
 that so long as these pamphlets dis- 
 played only innocent raillery and 
 lively combats of wit, he was much 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 diverted. But when he saw them 
 become injurious and threatening, he 
 determined to stop their course. He 
 therefore commanded Mairet, if he 
 desired the continuation of the Cardi- 
 nal's good graces, to put his injuries 
 underfoot. A like injunction was 
 sent to Corneille. In brief, there was 
 to be a truce. 
 
 In the letter to Mairet, Bois-Robert 
 added a few words on his own account, 
 or at least pretended that he did. * Up 
 to this point I have spoken by the 
 mouth of His Eminence, but to tell 
 you truly what I think of your pro- 
 cedure, I believe that you have suffi- 
 ciently punished poor Monsieur Cor- 
 neille for his vanities, and that his feeble 
 defence does not demand arms so 
 strong and penetrating as yours. One 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 of these days you will see his Cid very 
 ill treated by the Sentiments of the 
 Academy, The printing of the piece 
 is well under way, and if you come 
 to Paris this month, I will send it to 
 you.' 
 
 The relations between Richelieu and 
 Bois-Robert were never better exem- 
 plified than in this letter. In the first 
 paragraphs we have the Cardinal com- 
 manding peace, and in the latter para- 
 graphs Bois-Robert, who in a case like 
 this is always the Cardinal speaking 
 unofficially, giving a covert thrust at 
 the reputation of that ' poor Monsieur 
 Corneille.' The method was abso- 
 lutely perfect. 'I couldn't lie and 
 so I got Harris to do it,' was the ob- 
 servation of a wit who understood 
 human nature better than do most 
 ^83^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 men. The Cardinal could not descend 
 to personal abuse and threats, but he 
 had only to lift his eyebrows and Bois- 
 Robert did the ungracious task. 
 
 For the present the dispute was 
 raised officially to a higher plane. 
 The attack upon Corneille promised 
 to be none the less determined be- 
 cause it was to be conducted by an 
 army of critics, and there was every 
 indication that it would be much 
 more effective. 
 
 Scudery, as we have already noted, 
 had made an appeal to the Academy. 
 ' He bravely transformed the duel 
 into a law-suit,' says the Abbe Fabre. 
 His document was a little pamphlet 
 of eleven pages entitled, Lettre de 
 M. de Scudery a Vlllustre Academie. 
 The author says : ' Since M. Corneille 
 ^84^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 has taken off my mask and desires the 
 public to know who I am, I profess 
 myself too well accustomed to appear- 
 ing among people of quality to wish 
 still to hide myself ... In truth, since 
 he desires that all the world shall know 
 that I am called Scudery, I confess 
 it. I shall never blush for that name 
 which many worthy people have borne 
 before me, seeing that I, no more than 
 they, have done anything unworthy 
 of a man of honor. But as it is in- 
 glorious to strike an enemy whom one 
 has hurled to the ground, although 
 the enemy utters maledictions, and 
 since it is but just to allow the afflicted 
 though culpable the right of com- 
 plaint, I do not wish to reply to his 
 outrages, nor like him to turn an aca- 
 demic dispute into a contest in Bil- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 lingsgate, or a lyceum into a public 
 market/ 
 
 This lofty tone on the part of a man 
 whose dignity was purely on the out- 
 side, and not dignity of thought or of 
 character, has amused the commenta- 
 tors. Scudery goes on to affirm that 
 the success of the Cid is not due to the 
 poet, but to the actors who presented 
 the over-praised and by no means sur- 
 passingly excellent tragedy. How was 
 it possible, then, that he should be 
 envious of a piece which has so many 
 faults, and the beauties of which are 
 only such as have been given to it by 
 the actors, Mondory, La Villiers, and 
 their companions ? ' However, your 
 illustrious body shall judge between 
 us.' 
 
 Scudery's tone indicates that he felt 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 sure of his ground. Was he so con- 
 vinced of the justice of his cause as to 
 believe it impossible for discerning 
 men to think other than he himself 
 thought ? Or had the Cardinal in a 
 moment of over-confidence promised 
 Scudery that the decision should be 
 adverse ? There is much to convince 
 the student that Richelieu took for 
 granted an almost slavish obsequious- 
 ness on the part of the Academy to 
 his known or implied wish. In the 
 light of what followed, we can hardly 
 overestimate the extent of his dis- 
 appointment. The English are not 
 the only stiff-necked and independent 
 race in Europe as their own historians 
 would have us believe. No English 
 legislative body bent on maintaining 
 its rights and the rights of the people 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 could have held out more tenaciously 
 than did the Parliament of Paris when 
 it was a question of registering the 
 edict for the establishment of the Aca- 
 demic fran9aise. That same Academy 
 in turn required extraordinary pres- 
 sure to compel it to do its duty by 
 the Cardinal its Protector. One can 
 but liken this body to an energetic, 
 vigorous, opinionated boy, who re- 
 quires both coaxing and threats to 
 make him do what his judgment and 
 his prejudices rebel against. He yields 
 at last, but he yields unwillingly and 
 with mental reservations. 
 
 It was with more than common 
 unwillingness that the Academy un- 
 dertook the task of censuring Cor- 
 neille's tragedy. The members tried 
 all reasonable ways of evading the 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 point at issue. They excused them- 
 selves on the ground of youth and 
 unpreparedness. They appealed to 
 their statutes, which forbade them to 
 pass judgment upon the writings of 
 men not of their body unless such 
 judgment was particularly asked for ; 
 the Cardinal forced Corneille to ask 
 for the Academy's opinion. Not 
 only was an opinion wrung from 
 them, but extraordinary pains were 
 taken by the Cardinal to insure an 
 unfavorable opinion. In this he par- 
 tially failed. These facts do not 
 point to an excess of obsequiousness 
 on the part of the Academy. 
 
 After all, why should the Cid be 
 exempt from criticism more than an- 
 other play ? That it was immeasur- 
 ably better than any other play of the 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 time is not equivalent to saying that 
 it was absolutely beyond criticism. 
 It is not thought sacrilege to speak of 
 its faults at the present day. I take 
 up Boissier's monograph on Madame 
 de Sevigne and find him commenting 
 on the Cid as if its ' inequalities of 
 tone, its haughty familiarities, and its 
 rudenesses of touch * were a matter of 
 course, perfectly understood by all 
 critics, and not offensive to Corneille's 
 audience because the audience had 
 not yet risen to the conception of a 
 * more scrupulous finish, a more sus- 
 tained dignity and elegance.' If it is 
 permitted to speak thus of Corneille 
 in the Nineteenth Century, how much 
 more so in the Seventeenth. Cor- 
 neille and his genius were not as yet 
 sacred, and the enduring virtues of 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 great poetical works can only be seen 
 at long range. To his contempora- 
 ries, no man can be a classic ; at least 
 there will be strong opposition when 
 an attempt is made prematurely to 
 elevate a poet to a station among 
 immortal bards. This is one of the 
 things we are bound to keep in mind, 
 especially when we find ourselves in- 
 clined to grow angry at the hard 
 treatment meted out to him by Cor- 
 neille's fellows. He was simply one 
 of themselves. Many a man has seen 
 Shelley plain and liked him consider- 
 ably less on that account. 
 
 On June 16, 1637, a commission 
 was appointed to examine the Cid 
 and Scudery's Observations. There 
 were three members, Bourzeys, Chape- 
 lain, and Desmarests de Saint-Sorlin. 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Another commission, consisting of 
 Cerisy, Gombauld, and Baro, had for 
 a special task the examination of the 
 verse. They dehberated in ordinary 
 and extraordinary sessions, and after 
 summing up the results of their la- 
 bors, turned over the materials to 
 Chapelain, who drew up the final pa- 
 per and presented it to the Cardinal. 
 The latter was so confident of success 
 that he suggested ' throwing in a 
 handful of flowers here and there.' 
 The memoir was then returned to the 
 Academy for the finishing touches. 
 This task fell to Serizay, Cerisy, 
 Gombauld, and Sirmond. On com- 
 pletion the paper was sent to press 
 and the earlier pages transmitted to 
 the Cardinal. He read them, and 
 immediately ordered the impression 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 stopped. In suggesting a ' few flow- 
 ers,' the Cardinal had not meant that 
 everything was to be smothered in 
 rose leaves. The severity of the criti- 
 cisms had been too greatly mitigated. 
 This was Cerisy's doing. The gener- 
 ous abbe's feeling toward the Cid was 
 of hearty admiration ; he wished it 
 might have been his privilege to write 
 such a work. Chapelain attempted 
 to defend his fellow Academician, but 
 presently desisted, knowing Riche- 
 lieu's intolerance of contradiction. 
 For he saw that the Cardinal was 
 beginning to grow heated over the 
 question. Pellisson has a lively little 
 picture of the scene. Richelieu took 
 Chapelain by the tassels of his collar 
 all the time he talked, 'as one does 
 without thinking when one wishes to 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 be emphatic or to convince some one 
 of a certain thing ; ' in this way they 
 used to ' button-hole ' a man. 
 
 The committee perfectly under- 
 stood what the Cardinal was after, and 
 Sirmond undertook to reedit the pa- 
 per. He failed, in spite of the fact 
 that 'his style was very good and 
 entirely free from affectation.' We 
 have a right to suspect that it was 
 not a case where improvement in 
 the style could satisfy. The Cardinal 
 wanted his literary enemy condemned, 
 and he found difficulty in bringing it 
 about. In something like despair he 
 returned to the original sketch made 
 by Chapelain. This was printed with 
 very few corrections or other changes, 
 and is the official utterance of the 
 Academic fran9aise on the great ques- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 tion which had agitated so many 
 minds during so long a period. The 
 exact title as given in Gaste's reprint 
 is : Les Sentimens de T Acadimie fran- 
 ^oise sur la tragi-comidie du CID, It 
 bears the date 1638, but was printed 
 toward the close of 1637. 
 
 It has been criticised in turn from 
 every point of view and in every 
 shade of critical temper. These opin- 
 ions vary from the bitterly hostile to 
 the complacently approving. Parti- 
 sans and devotees of Corneille are no 
 better pleased with the pamphlet now 
 than was Corneille himself when it 
 first appeared. 
 
 Knowing as we do that Chapelain 
 was the principal author of the Senti- 
 ments^ it is not difficult to explain its 
 narrowness of view. Chapelain wrote 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 in verse, not because he had the di- 
 vine gift of song, but because he had 
 determined to become a poet. Verse 
 was not his natural vehicle of expres- 
 sion. He composed poetry ' as a bird 
 walks.' Never having been wafted 
 away on ' song's bright pinions,' he 
 was incapable of understanding the 
 flights and raptures of a genuine poet. 
 He was bound to be critical, wise, 
 unimpassioned,and without sympathy. 
 It was natural that he should look 
 askance at a work so gloriously spon- 
 taneous as the Cid. Being what he 
 was, how could he help running a 
 blue pencil mark through this, and a 
 red pencil mark through that ? 
 
 Furthermore, he was the embodi- 
 ment of law, the personification of the 
 Academic spirit. There would be 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 eminent fitness in regarding Chape- 
 lain as the inventor of the Three Uni- 
 ties, even if there were less historic 
 ground than really exists for so re- 
 garding him. More than any other 
 writer he gave the doctrine form and 
 expression. What had been, hith- 
 erto, vague, intangible, and of little 
 authority, became in his hands 'a 
 dogma and an orthodoxy.' Other 
 men had seized upon a point here 
 and a point there ; Chapelain grasped 
 the doctrine in its entirety and stated 
 it with classical precision. He con- 
 verted Richelieu, who in turn con- 
 verted others. The circles of influ- 
 ence widened until all the dramatic 
 poets were more or less affected. The 
 converts were not invariably true to 
 the new profession of faith ; but when 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 they went astray, they were sure to 
 apologize, to explain, or even to try 
 desperately ' to juggle with the rules/ 
 For the moment ' law ' triumphed. 
 It were asking too much of human 
 nature to demand that Chapelain, the 
 most conspicuous leader in the war 
 of the Unities, judge the Cid hy other 
 standards than those which, in his 
 heart of hearts, he believed to be cor- 
 rect. Such a man will create the im- 
 pression of narrowness in the very 
 effort to be just. 
 
 In one way the Sentiments was a 
 novelty — it was gentleman-like in 
 manner. Therefore it may be ac- 
 counted an extraordinary production 
 for the times. All the hostile pam- 
 phlets lacked urbanity, and not a few 
 were positively brutal. One of the 
 -1-98 •»- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 disputants affirmed that Corneille's 
 proper place was in a hospital for idi- 
 ots ; another threatened to cane him 
 with a view to curing him of poetic 
 vanity. ' In spite of certain exagger- 
 ations . . . the general tone of the 
 Sentiments is remarkable for extreme 
 moderation, remarkable also for the 
 elegance, distinction, and urbanity of 
 the language.' 
 
 If Richelieu had small reason to be 
 satisfied, Scudery had even less. The 
 ' capitan ' was handled with courte- 
 ous severity. Chapelain seems to 
 take malicious satisfaction in explain- 
 ing how often in his critique Scudery 
 misses the real point ; the objection is 
 justly made, but the reason assigned is 
 bad or foolish. 
 
 Were it only for its urbanity, the 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Sentiments would take a high rank in 
 critical literature. Chapelain may be 
 pardoned his attitude towards a poem 
 of which the most sublime and peren- 
 nial beauties must after all have been 
 hidden from his gaze. If he saw de- 
 fects in the Cid^ he also acknowledged 
 its fine qualities. He granted that it 
 was ' irregular/ but he reminded the 
 readers that the defect was common 
 in the dramatic works of the time, and 
 was Corneille to be condemned be- 
 cause he had not wrought miracles ? 
 
 lOOH 
 
IV 
 
 ^^^ORNEILLE'S discouragement 
 was great, as may be imagined. That 
 proud faith in the stability of his 
 powerful rhyme was not sufficient to 
 restore his mental equilibrium. He 
 seems to have had the feeling of 
 one who has been bruised, hounded, 
 lacerated even, a state of mind most 
 unfavorable to poetic composition. 
 And there was something of timidity 
 mixed with his profession of confi- 
 dence. 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 We get a vivid picture of all this 
 from a letter written by Chapelain 
 to Balzac early in 1639. Chapelain 
 speaks of Corneille's return to Paris 
 three days since, and says that the poet 
 has been to see him, and has accused 
 him, ' not without reason,' of being the 
 principal author of the Sentiments. 
 * He has accomplished nothing more,' 
 continues Chapelain, ' and Scudery in 
 quarreling with him has gained that 
 much; he has made Corneille dis- 
 gusted with work and has dried up his 
 vein. I animated and encouraged 
 ' him as much as I could to avenge him- 
 self both on Scudery and his protector 
 [the Academy] by making a new Cid 
 to win the suffrages of the world ; . . . 
 but there was no way of persuading 
 him, and he talked only of the rules. 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 and of the things he was able to say 
 in response to the Academicians were 
 he not afraid of offending those in 
 authority.' 
 
 This is the picture of a man wholly 
 discouraged. But it is pleasant to 
 have Chapelain's word for it that he 
 tried to arouse Corneille's interest in 
 his mission as a poet. The advice 
 was sound, albeit it came from a critic 
 who was the unwilling instrument of 
 a good deal of the torture that had 
 been inflicted upon Corneille. There 
 was but one way in which the author 
 of the Cid could really vindicate him- 
 self, and that was by writing another 
 poem just as good as the Cid. Chape- 
 lain has been so universally abused 
 during the centuries that I am confi- 
 dent he must have had conspicuous 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 virtues. I should be glad to think 
 that his advice had some weight with 
 the poet, and that among the im- 
 pulses which led to the composition 
 of Horace was the word spoken 
 that morning at Chapelain's house. 
 Within a year from that time the new 
 play was finished. It was presented 
 either in January or February of 1 640, 
 and won universal approval. There 
 was talk of a cabal against it, but 
 nothing appeared in print. Comeille 
 said proudly : ' Horace was condemned 
 by the Duumvirs but acquitted by the 
 people.' Horace was the first of the 
 French tragedies to conform absolutely 
 to the rules. The poet had meditated 
 to good purpose. The classic drama 
 now came to perfect flower. The 
 triumph was the greater because Cor- 
 ^i04-«- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 neille showed in this play that fetter 
 his genius as the pedants would, it was 
 still a transcendent genius. After 
 Horace, nothing was left for the critics 
 to say. 
 
 I am one of those who hold that he 
 who was not born to the inheritance 
 of a certain language will always find 
 insuperable obstacles to a thorough 
 comprehension of the high poetry of 
 that language. This does not mean 
 that no one but a Frenchman can 
 understand Comeille; it means that 
 there are subtle beauties in Corneille 
 which only a Frenchman can under- 
 stand. The Germans teach us many 
 new things about Shakespeare, things 
 undreamt of in our homely philosophy. 
 We still plod along in the old belief 
 that Shakespeare wrote his plays partly 
 ^105 H- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 from the love of writing, partly because 
 it was his business to write plays, 
 partly because he had a family to 
 maintain and a theatre to fill, and in 
 very large part because he was a poet 
 by instinct and was bound by the law 
 of his being to express himself But 
 the German scholars, who would have 
 us believe that Shakespeare designed 
 to teach any one of a hundred remark- 
 able doctrines in his drama, cannot 
 with all their erudition help us in the 
 least to that supreme enjoyment which 
 is ours because English is our native 
 tongue. 
 
 This play of Horace has its recon- 
 dite charms which appeal only to the 
 French mind, its delicacies of versifi- 
 cation which only the French ear can 
 appreciate ; but at the same time there 
 ^io6-i- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 is no tragedy by the great master 
 which makes so direct and strong an 
 appeal to reader or hearer through 
 qualities in the highest degree popular. 
 The texture of the piece is firmly knit. 
 The plot is striking and cumulative 
 in interest. The language is ener- 
 getic, every phrase, every word, preg- 
 nant with meaning. If any poet or 
 any play can make a patriotism so 
 exalted seem both possible and real, 
 Corneille is the poet to do it, and 
 Horace the play. We perhaps get 
 a better idea of the logic of the dra- 
 matic form from Horace than from 
 any other piece. The march of 
 events is irresistible. The various 
 scenes and acts are perfect in them- 
 selves and yet inalienably the parts of 
 a great whole. It is a superb illustra- 
 
 -4- 107 +- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 agreed that the dispute shall be set- 
 tled by a combat between six chosen 
 warriors, three for Rome, three for 
 Albe. The defenders of Rome are 
 Horace and his brothers; the de- 
 fenders of the cause of the mother city 
 are Curiace and his brothers. There 
 is a notable scene in the second act 
 which shows Curiace and Horace in 
 marked .(Contrast. The great Roman 
 warrior has been told of his election to 
 the high office of defender of his city. 
 He questions the wisdom of the 
 choice, but is ravished at the thought 
 that he is held worthy to take into 
 his keeping the destinies of the state. 
 Flavian then enters, bringing the word 
 to Curiace that he has been chosen to 
 defend the cause of Albe. Curiace 
 shudders at the thought of lifting his 
 
 -4- IIO-*- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 hand against the brother of his be- 
 trothed, against his sister's husband. 
 To Horace, whose ecstasy of patri- 
 otism has a touch of the barbaric in it, 
 there is a higher virtue and a greater 
 joy in the sacrifice of those whom 
 one holds most dear to the good of 
 the country. 
 
 Corneille follows Livy closely in 
 his narrative of the actual combat. 
 Horace alone returns from the battle- 
 field, accompanied by Procule bear- 
 ing the swords of the three Curiaces. 
 He calls on his sister to rejoice in that 
 victory which, though it has brought 
 death to her lover, has brought life to 
 the state. Camille, more human than 
 Horace, cannot rise to a patriotism so 
 splendid, so self-abnegatory, and at 
 the same time so brutal. She bursts 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 agreed that the dispute shall be set- 
 tled by a combat between six chosen 
 warriors, three for Rome, three for 
 Albe. The defenders of Rome are 
 Horace and his brothers; the de- 
 fenders of the cause of the mother city 
 are Curiace and his brothers. There 
 is a notable scene in the second act 
 which shows Curiace and Horace in 
 marked ,pontrast. The great Roman 
 warrior has been told of his election to 
 the high office of defender of his city. 
 He questions the wisdom of the 
 choice, but is ravished at the thought 
 that he is held worthy to take into 
 his keeping the destinies of the state. 
 Flavian then enters, bringing the word 
 to Curiace that he has been chosen to 
 defend the cause of Albe. Curiace 
 shudders at the thought of lifting his 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 hand against the brother of his be- 
 trothed, against his sister's husband. 
 To Horace, whose ecstasy of patri- 
 otism has a touch of the barbaric in it, 
 there is a higher virtue and a greater 
 joy in the sacrifice of those whom 
 one holds most dear to the good of 
 the country. 
 
 Corneille follows Livy closely in 
 his narrative of the actual combat. 
 Horace alone returns from the battle- 
 field, accompanied by Procule bear- 
 ing the swords of the three Curiaces. 
 He calls on his sister to rejoice in that 
 victory which, though it has brought 
 death to her lover, has brought life to 
 the state. Camille, more human than 
 Horace, cannot rise to a patriotism so 
 splendid, so self-abnegatory, and at 
 the same time so brutal. She bursts 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 into that passionate denunciation be- 
 ginning — 
 
 Rome, l^ unique objet de mon ressentiment ! 
 
 and is slain by Horace as a traitress. 
 Horace is pardoned, because the in- 
 terests of the state are greater and 
 more vital than the interests of an 
 individual. 
 
 Was it courage or sheer audacity, 
 ironical humor or self-interest, which 
 prompted Corneille to dedicate this 
 tragedy of Horace to Cardinal Riche- 
 lieu? In the light of the events 
 which had just taken place, one would 
 scarcely think of his Eminence as the 
 person to whom the honor rightfully 
 belonged. Moreover, there are phrases 
 in this dedicatory epistle which, if not 
 servile, — and Corneille was too open- 
 minded and honest to be servile in 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 the grosser meaning of the word, — 
 must be interpreted as irony of the 
 most daring sort. Voltaire, that scor- 
 pion of kings and prelates, believed 
 that Corneille meant to be ironical, 
 and quotes in proof of it the sonnet 
 which the poet wrote after the death 
 of Louis XIII. 
 
 I cannot see an absolute lack of 
 independence in the phrasing of this 
 dedication. We must consider the 
 times. Men rendered unto Csesar 
 the things that were Csesar's, includ- 
 ing florid ascriptions of praise. As 
 the bows were more profound than 
 now, so the language in which one 
 addressed those great in station was 
 highly colored, mannered, pictur- 
 esque. Where society was as thor- 
 oughly organized as in the first half 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 of the Seventeenth Century, men and 
 women went through their parts like 
 soldiers. They were drilled into the 
 observance of forms and taught rever- 
 ence for customs. One was able to 
 see what Ruskin wanted to see in our 
 day, kings with their crowns on their 
 heads and bishops with their croziers 
 in their hands. If one entered into 
 this society, he must conform to its 
 laws. Not every prince will have the 
 wit or the patience of Charles II, who 
 took off his own hat when George 
 Fox refused to uncover. Corneille 
 addressed Richelieu in the sophisti- 
 cated and insincere phrases of a pub- 
 lic dedication, which one might be- 
 lieve or not, but the form of which 
 was predetermined, and as rigid as a 
 court costume. 
 
.1^ ^ ^ ^ta ^ - ^ 
 
 CORNEILLE 
 
 So far as the fact is concerned, it 
 remains for some daring critic to sug- 
 gest that Richelieu asked for the ded- 
 ication, that is to say, made known 
 his willingness to accept it. We 
 must not forget the imperious quality 
 of Corneille's genius. He was the 
 idol of the public. He was adored 
 of Hotel de Rambouillet. Thirty- 
 three years after the production of 
 Horace^ Madame de Sevigne said, 'I 
 am crazy over Corneille.' All the 
 world was in that condition in 1640. 
 The man was so immeasurably supe- 
 rior to his dramatic contemporaries 
 that the fact was blindingly signifi- 
 cant. He who denied was as one 
 who denied the existence of the sun 
 from whose rays he was that moment 
 seeking shelter. There is nothing 
 
4 ^ fi sAA ^ /^ ^fc 
 
 CORNEILLE 
 
 fantastic in the supposition that Cor- 
 neille knew beforehand that his dedi- 
 cation would be acceptable to Riche- 
 lieu. 
 
 The poet laments that the gift he 
 brings is so little worthy of the Cardi- 
 nal, and so ill proportioned to what is 
 due. The choice of a subject cannot 
 be condemned at any rate ; and Cor- 
 neille feels that he has guarantee of 
 this in the words of Livy, who said of 
 the story of Horatius, ' There is hardly 
 anything more noble in all the past.' 
 'The subject,' says Corneille, 'was 
 susceptible of the highest graces 
 could it have been treated by a more 
 skilful hand ; but at least it has re- 
 ceived from mine all of which that 
 hand was capable, and all that could 
 reasonably be expected from a pro- 
 -^ ii6h^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 vincial muse, who not being so happy 
 as often to enjoy the attentions of 
 Your Eminence, has not that lamp 
 to her feet by which others are contin- 
 ually lighted.' The phrases did not 
 sound grotesque to people who read 
 them in 1640; they are grotesque 
 to us who reflect how little Scudery 
 and I'Estoile were able to accomplish, 
 though illuminated daily by those 
 favorable glances which Corneille's 
 provincial muse had to do without. 
 
 Cinnuy on la clemence cTAuguste^ 
 dates from this same year, 1640. The 
 story is based on an episode in the 
 life of Octavian. Emilie, daughter of 
 Toranius, seeks to avenge the death of 
 her father, who was proscribed during 
 the Triumvirate. She is one of Cor- 
 neille's most characteristic heroines, 
 ^ 117-!- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 beautiful, steadfast, implacable. Her 
 lover, Cinna, a grandson of Pompee, 
 and therefore Octavian's enemy by- 
 political inheritance, is the chief of a 
 conspiracy to overthrow the govern- 
 ment and murder the Emperor. Both 
 Emilie and Cinna are recipients of 
 many favors and of high honors at the 
 emperor's hands. Cinna has moments 
 of doubt, in which he almost repents 
 of his undertaking. Emilie, less infirm 
 of purpose, holds her lover to his pa- 
 triotic mission, and makes the emper- 
 or's life the price of her hand. When 
 their plot is discovered and they are 
 brought before Auguste, each tries to 
 defend the other. Emilie takes the 
 blame upon herself, protesting that 
 she had tempted Cinna to join the 
 conspiracy, as she had tempted many 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 besides. She offers herself as a vic- 
 tim, though she cannot hope that her 
 lover will be spared because of her 
 self-accusation. When a crime has 
 been committed against the state, 
 there is no excuse. To die in Cin- 
 na's presence and rejoin her father, — 
 that is her only hope and prayer. 
 
 Cinna, anxious to save her life, 
 declares that he alone must bear the 
 responsibility. He had laid this plan 
 long before he loved her. She was 
 at first inflexible, and only yielded 
 when he made appeal to her wish to 
 take vengeance for her father's death. 
 Auguste, in whose mind there has 
 been a struggle between the desire to 
 forgive and the desire to punish, tri- 
 umphs over any ungenerous motive, 
 and in the greatness of his soul par- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 dons both conspirators. He unites 
 them to each other in wedlock, and 
 to himself by every bond which grati- 
 tude and admiration can suggest. 
 
 The tragedy of Cinna was dedicated 
 to Montauron, who was so flattered 
 thereby that he gave the author two 
 hundred pistoles, a fabulous sum even 
 in that period of reckless expendi- 
 ture. Montauron was instantly turned 
 into a proverb. A particularly florid 
 dedication, and one likely on that 
 account to elicit a handsome gift, was 
 always spoken of as a dedication ' a 
 la Montauron.' The expression was 
 all the better for being true. The 
 gentleman was noted for his liberality 
 towards men of letters. It is a pity 
 for their sake that his money did not 
 last longer. Marty-Laveaux quotes 
 
 -»- I20-I- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 from Gueret's Parnasse reformi two 
 articles, which show how the financier's 
 name was the su'bject of envious sport 
 in the fraternity of writers. Among 
 the reforms proposed were these : ' Ar- 
 ticle X, It is forbidden to He in dedi- 
 catory epistles ; ' and ' Article XII, All 
 dedications a la Montauron are to be 
 suppressed.' 
 
 Polyeucte^ martyr^ was produced in 
 1643. This 'tragedie chretienne ' is 
 Corneille's masterpiece. The story is 
 briefly this : — 
 
 Pauline, daughter of Felix, the 
 Ptoman governor of Armenia, has 
 married Polyeucte, an Armenian lord. 
 In Rome she had been beloved by 
 Severe, a brilliant young soldier, and 
 had loved him in return. Her father's 
 appointment to the governorship, and 
 
 -J.I2I H- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 his natural opposition to accepting as 
 son-in-law a man who had his fortune 
 yet to make, puts an end to the hopes 
 of Pauline and Severe. The girl fol- 
 lows her father to his province, the 
 soldier seeks renown through a heroic 
 death. 
 
 Polyeucte becomes enamored of 
 Pauline. She marries him because 
 her father desires it. By this alliance 
 with a powerful Armenian house, 
 Felix hopes to strengthen his influence 
 in the province. Pauline gives her 
 husband from duty an affection which 
 she could have given Severe from in- 
 clination. Among the varied interests 
 in this fine play, there is but one more 
 absorbing than the growth of Pauline's 
 love for her husband. As she realizes 
 the greatness of his soul, his generosity, 
 
 -J. 122-*- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 his self-forgetfulness, Pauline's mea- 
 sured respect and tempered obedience 
 grow into pride and admiration, then 
 into passion, culminating as the action 
 of the play proceeds in the desire for 
 martyrdom with Polyeucte. 
 
 Severe was not killed in battle as had 
 been believed. After heroic deeds 
 and many adventures, he has risen to 
 high rank, and has become the favorite 
 of the Emperor Decie. He is now 
 on his way to the capital of Armenia, 
 ostensibly to take part in the great 
 public sacrifices, really to claim Pau- 
 line. Felix is in distress at his 
 approach. So, too, is Pauline, who has 
 been warned in a dream that Severe's 
 coming means not alone reproaches, 
 but disaster and death. 
 
 Polyeucte, though a convert to 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Christianity, has made no public con- 
 fession of his belief Spurred on by 
 the exhortations of Nearque, his friend, 
 he rises to that height of zeal which 
 was characteristic of the early martyrs, 
 and denounces the old gods in the 
 very temple at the hour of the public 
 sacrifices. The two Christians are 
 thrown into prison. Nearque is put 
 to death at once; Polyeucte, as a noble- 
 man and the son-in-law of the governor, 
 is given an opportunity to recant. 
 
 The most subtly planned devices 
 cannot shake his faith, while the bru- 
 tality of persecution and torture only 
 serves to confirm it. He sees the pun- 
 ishment of Nearque and is filled with 
 envy. Confronted with his wife, who 
 pleads with him to recant and aban- 
 don these ridiculous phantasms of 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 the Christian belief, he finds himself 
 put to the severest test. But he is 
 unshaken. Pauline pleads her love ; 
 she reminds him of his rank, his influ- 
 ence, of his noble deeds and his rare 
 qualities. The appeal to love and 
 ambition are alike useless. Polyeucte 
 loves Pauline, — less than his God, 
 but better far than himself He has 
 ambition, but for a happiness ' without 
 measure and without end.' He is 
 lifted to so exalted a height of self- 
 abandonment that he begs Severe to 
 accept at his hands the greatest of his 
 treasures and the one of which he is 
 the least worthy, — Pauline. 
 
 Though the death of Polyeucte will 
 leave Severe free to marry Pauline, 
 his generous nature revolts against a 
 persecution so odious. He urges Felix 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 to relax the law against Christians. 
 The governor fears a plot to betray 
 him for weakness in administering the 
 affairs of the province. He can prove 
 his sincerity by putting his son-in-law 
 to death. He thinks to meet craft with 
 craft; and though the people clamor 
 for Polyeucte's release, while Severe 
 warns, and Pauline begs with an elo- 
 quence born of a love that almost sur- 
 passes human love, Felix is unmoved. 
 Polyeucte suffers martyrdom. His 
 death opens Pauline's eyes to the truth. 
 ' I see, I understand, I believe ! ' she 
 cries. Baptized in the blood of her 
 tortured and dying husband, she be- 
 comes a Christian, and calls upon her 
 unnatural father to save his credit with 
 the Emperor by subjecting herself to 
 martyrdom. We can believe in the 
 ^126-4- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 sincerity of Pauline's conversion ; it is 
 not so easy to accept as logical from 
 the dramatic point of view, or possible 
 from the human, the sudden conversion 
 of Felix. Threatened by Severe, who 
 as the Emperor's favorite is not likely 
 to utter idle threats, Felix avows him- 
 self a Christian, and offers his life with 
 that of Pauline as a sacrifice to the 
 outraged Pagan deities. Severe for- 
 gives, and with a largeness of soul 
 characteristic of a noble Roman, pro- 
 mises that persecution of the Christians 
 shall cease. 
 
 Brunetiere's striking remark, quoted 
 before, about the relation that Corneille 
 sustained to the precieuses was based 
 upon study too broad and profound 
 to require the corroboration of a mere 
 anecdote. But as one of the objects 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 of this little series of studies is to show 
 the variety and extent of the influences 
 emanating from Hotel de Rambouillet, 
 the anecdote is in place here. 
 
 Before Polyeucte was put upon the 
 stage, Corneille read the play at Hotel 
 de Rambouillet. ' It was received 
 with the applause which politeness and 
 the great reputation of the author re- 
 quired. But several days afterward 
 Monsieur Voiture came to see Mon- 
 sieur Corneille, in order to explain to 
 him, with much delicate circumlocu- 
 tion, that Polyeucte had not succeeded 
 to the extent its author imagined ; that 
 especially was it displeasing in its 
 religiosity (Christianisme). Monsieur 
 Corneille, alarmed, wished to withdraw 
 the piece from the hands of the come- 
 dians who had undertaken it; but 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 finally left it with them upon the judg- 
 ment of one of their number, who did 
 not, however, play in it because he was 
 a very poor actor.' Fontenelle, who 
 tells the story, adds : ' Was it, then, for 
 this comedian to judge better than all 
 Hotel de Rambouillet ? ' 
 
 Everybody knows that many an 
 actor whose powers are not equal to 
 the performance of a part in a great 
 tragedy may be an excellent judge of 
 the dramatic possibilities of that same 
 tragedy. One would like to know to 
 what extent Voiture was empowered 
 to speak for ' all Hotel de Rambouil- 
 let.' Moreover, since Hotel de Ram- 
 bouillet had three years before defended 
 Corneille against the Cardinal and his 
 hosts, it had earned the right to an 
 expression of opinion. And we must 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 always remember that the poet was as 
 yet only a successful dramatist, who 
 had not reached his thirty-fifth year, 
 and whose work could not mean to 
 his contemporaries what it means to 
 us, consecrated as it now is by the dis- 
 criminating praise of two and a half 
 centuries. 
 
 '-in"*!' 
 
 •I30H 
 
Ji ^ f^ 
 
 ^^^ORNEILLE'S genius reached 
 its highest point of development in 
 Polyeucte. In creating this passionate 
 martyr, whose ardent spirit has re- 
 minded one critic of Saint Paul, John 
 Huss, Calvin, and Prince Kropotkin 
 rolled into one, the poet had given the 
 measure of his power. Scholars date 
 the period of his decline from the 
 Mort de Pompee^ produced in the win- 
 ter of 1643-44. The word 'decline ' 
 is used relatively, however. Pompie is 
 -1.131^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 inferior to Horace^ no doubt, but it is 
 a tragedy which only Corneille could 
 have written. 
 
 Two comedies, the Menteur and the 
 Suite du Menteur^ followed Pompee, 
 The first of these is the piece to which 
 Moliere believed himself so greatly 
 indebted. Moliere told Boileau that 
 without the Menteur as a model he 
 might still have written comedies of 
 intrigue, but he could hardly have 
 written the Misanthrope. On the 
 occasion of the Menteur^ Balzac wrote 
 Corneille : ' You will be Aristophanes 
 when it pleases you to be, as you have 
 already been Sophocles.' 
 
 Between 1644 and 1647 Corneille 
 
 produced Rodogune^ ^heodore^ and 
 
 Heraclius. The first of the three was 
 
 received with ' universal applause.' 
 
 -1-132^^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 This is the play for which Corneille 
 showed a strong liking, especially 
 when people praised in his presence 
 the merits of Cinna or the Cid. With 
 characteristic open-mindedness, the 
 poet confessed that this preference 
 might be another illustration of that 
 blind and unreasoning fondness which 
 parents sometimes display for one child 
 rather than another. Thiodore shocked 
 the audience by the repulsive character 
 of one of its situations. This fact is 
 often cited as a naive illustration of 
 Corneille's purity of heart. He was 
 one of those rare poets who could 
 touch pitch and not be defiled. He 
 was amazed at the obstinacy of a pub- 
 lic which insisted upon seeking and 
 finding grossness where grossness was 
 not intended. It may be cited among 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 the paradoxes of criticism that the deli- 
 cate-minded Voltaire was offended by 
 the plot oi 'Theodore. The world's debt 
 to Voltaire is very great; but in all 
 dramatic literature there is no scene 
 comparable for mirthfulness with the 
 spectacle of the author of the Pucelle 
 reading the author oi Horace a lesson in 
 decency I In HiracUus Corneille grew 
 more involved and complicated than 
 ever. It is not easy to explain the suc- 
 cess of this ' melodrama ' with the pub- 
 lic in the light of Corneille's own con- 
 fession that it needed to be heard more 
 than once to be comprehended, and that 
 he had himself been told by persons 
 well qualified to judge, that witnessing 
 a representation of Hiraclius fatigued 
 the mind more than serious study. 
 After this frank acknowledgment, we 
 ■H.134+- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 may reject as apocryphal that absurd 
 anecdote which represents the poet as 
 unable to follow the action of his own 
 play when it was revived several years 
 later. 
 
 It is amusing to find how ancient 
 is the cry that the theatre-going public 
 wants novelties, and how invariably 
 that passion for the unusual is referred 
 to some national trait or peculiarity. 
 * You know the humor of our French 
 people/ says Corneille : ' they love 
 novelty, and I venture non tarn meliora 
 quam nova^ in the hope of being the 
 better able to please them.' The refer- 
 ence is to the second of two novelties 
 which Corneille put upon the stage 
 in 1650, namely, Andrornede and 'Don 
 Sanche d! Aragon, 
 
 Andrornede was a ' comedy with 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 music' It was spectacular, or as they 
 used to say, *comedie a machines/ 
 The fashion was introduced from Italy. 
 Torelli, a Venetian, who had the 
 mechanical devices in hand, was so 
 skilful that he was popularly called the 
 ' Grand Sorcerer/ ' He invented the 
 method by which it was possible to 
 change the whole scene in the twin- 
 kling of an eye/ The music for this 
 piece was composed by d'Assoucy. 
 It was presented after long delay at 
 the Theatre de Petit-Bourbon. The 
 success was * prodigious,' and Corneille 
 was more than rewarded for the delay 
 of three years to which the piece had 
 been subjected. We are allowed to 
 think of this remarkable man as not 
 alone the father of French tragedy, 
 but as having contributed in no small 
 ^136+- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 degree to form the public taste for 
 opera, and for a type of opera in which 
 the poetry was not subordinated to the 
 music and the stage setting. In his 
 *examen' of Andrornede published 
 ten years afterward, and also in the 
 * Argument' prefixed to the play, 
 Corneille gives full credit to the in- 
 ventor of the mechanical devices. 
 These, he says, are so ' necessary ' that 
 to attempt to do without one of them 
 would be to topple the whole edifice 
 to the ground. He acknowledges 
 that it is a piece for the eye rather 
 than the ear, and he congratulates him- 
 self that he has so skilful a coadjutor 
 as Torelli, who on this occasion has 
 surpassed all his former achievements. 
 Don Sanche d'Aragon is a comedie 
 hero'ique. The play was not entirely 
 
4 ^ ^ ^ts ^ ^^ 
 
 CORNEILLE 
 
 pleasing to the authorities, for it seemed 
 to touch too closely upon current 
 events. There was no design in this. 
 The case was not one where the dra- 
 matic author had made his allusions to 
 fit contemporary history, but it comes 
 near to being one of those singular 
 instances where the event seemed to 
 have taken its cue from the play. 
 DonSanche is represented as of humble 
 birth, the son of a fisherman. He 
 subdues monarchs, and plays havoc 
 with the affairs of state. In the 
 opinion of the ruling powers, the time 
 was ill chosen for encouraging such 
 ambitions, even in dramatic pictures. 
 The war of the Fronde was disturbing 
 France. In England a Cromwell had 
 made himself military ruler, and the 
 head of a king had fallen on the scaf- 
 ^138^- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 fold. These were bad precedents. 
 What an uncomfortable thing, if it 
 should turn out that in writing Don 
 Sanche Corneille had been uttering 
 prophecy ! And so it comes that the 
 Comte de Neufchateau, in his book 
 called the Esprit du grand Corneille^ 
 says : * Cromwell killed Don Sanche.' 
 
 Nicomede (1651), a comedie hero- 
 i'que like Don Sanche^ was the last of 
 the poet's great flights. He wrote 
 nine or ten more pieces, but all inferior 
 to this splendid play. He was fully 
 conscious of the merit of the work, 
 and might have admitted as wholly 
 deserved the tribute of the admirer 
 who declared that Nicomede was as 
 beautiful as the Cid, 
 
 Pertharite (1652) failed completely, 
 and in the opinion of its author, igno- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 miniously. The play had but two 
 performances. So disappointed was 
 the poet that he could not bear any 
 allusion to the unhappy circumstance. 
 He easily persuaded himself that he 
 was too old — he lacked four years 
 of being fifty — to please the public 
 longer. In a preface to an early 
 printed edition of the play, he spoke 
 of his failure in terms which do not 
 attempt to conceal his disappoint- 
 ment. ' It is better,' he says, ' that I 
 should take my farewell of the theatre 
 at my own instance than wait to be 
 dismissed. The facts are evident; after 
 twenty years of work, I begin to real- 
 ize that I am too old to be in fashion. 
 This satisfaction I have, that both in 
 respect of art and of morals I leave 
 the French stage in a better condition 
 -i-i40h^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 than I found it. The great geniuses 
 of my time have contributed much to 
 the theatre, but I flatter myself that my 
 efforts have not been to its injury. . . . 
 Grant me the privilege of adding this 
 unhappy poem to the one and twenty 
 which have preceded it with so much 
 success. This will be the last impor- 
 tunity of similar nature which I shall 
 make you ! ' 
 
 The touch of bitterness is unmis- 
 takable. Corneille pretty nearly kept 
 his word, and had it not been for 
 the expostulations of Fouquet, might 
 never again have tempted public 
 favor. As it was, his retirement lasted 
 seven years. Fouquet, who was in 
 the height of his glory at the beginning 
 of the second half of the century, set 
 himself to the task of bringing the 
 -^ 141-t- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 author of the Cid back to the stage. 
 The Surintendant was liberal toward 
 men of letters. Corneille said of him 
 that he was minister of belles-lettres as 
 well as minister of finance. Fouquet 
 proposed three subjects. Corneille 
 elected to write a play on CEdipus. It 
 was presented at Hotel de Bourgogne 
 in January, 1659. ^^ ^^^ successful, 
 perhaps for the reason assigned by a 
 modern critic, who sees in CEdipe not 
 a tragedy but a melodrama. The 
 Court was attracted. The Gazette 
 of February 15 announced that their 
 Majesties, with a great number of per- 
 sons of quality ,went to Hotel de Bour- 
 gogne 'to witness a performance of 
 the CEdipe of Sieur de Corneille, the 
 latest work of this celebrated author.' 
 It is exactly at this point that the 
 -I- 1424- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 biographers of Corneille celebrate the 
 golden days of the poet's reputation. 
 The militant period of his life was 
 past. His fame had been increased 
 rather than diminished by his seven 
 years of retirement. He had had 
 time to grow into the position of a 
 classic. Many of his bitterest ene- 
 mies were dead, others had been 
 whipped into line by a public which 
 does not in the long run judge amiss. 
 Moreover, Corneille, being fifty-three 
 years of age, was in some sort a vet- 
 eran. Younger men rallied about 
 him and did honor to his great gifts 
 as they had not before. He was stim- 
 ulated to work by these conditions. 
 
 In 1661 he produced the ConquUe 
 de la T^oison d'or^ which, like Andro- 
 mede^ was a tragedy ' a machines,' and 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 with music. It was so successful that 
 it was played the next winter. Then 
 followed Sertorius^ presented in Feb- 
 ruary, 1662, *by the comedians of the 
 Marais.' This was the piece which 
 so impressed Turenne, and led him to 
 ask in astonishment : ' Where did Cor- 
 neille learn the art of war ? ' In 1663 
 Sophonisbe was produced, to the great 
 annoyance of two petulant critics, 
 de Vise and the Abbe d'Aubignac. 
 Another irritating pamphlet war was 
 declared. I>Aubignac stirred up a 
 hornet's nest of small poets to attack 
 Corneille. De Vise, ashamed of his 
 companionship, withdrew, and began 
 to defend the great dramatist. 
 
 Sophonisbe was followed by Othon 
 in 1664, by Agisilas in 1666, and by 
 Attila in 1667. The first of the three 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 was received with little cordiality, and 
 Agesilas was considered unworthy the 
 author of CEdipe and Sertorius^ as 
 they in turn had been thought un- 
 worthy the author of the Cid and 
 Horace, Boileau's epigram on Agesi- 
 las is often quoted : — 
 
 J'ai vu P Agesilas : 
 Helas! 
 
 Attila was not ill-treated at the hands 
 of the public, and had twenty perform- 
 ances at the Palais-Royal by Moliere's 
 comedians. That Attila should have 
 been produced by Moliere rather 
 than by the comedians of Hotel de 
 Bourgogne was due to Corneille's 
 natural irritation at the preference 
 shown for the works of his young 
 rival, Racine. 
 
 "Tite et Berenice was produced by 
 ^145^- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Moliere's troupe in 1670. This 
 drama and the brilliant Bourgeois gen- 
 tilhomme were played alternately, each 
 piece having about twenty perform- 
 ances. Corneille did not escape the 
 charge of obscurity; what thoughtful 
 poet does ? In this play of TiV^? et 
 Berenice were lines which baffled his 
 most devoted admirers. Boileau used 
 to say ' that there were two sorts of 
 galimatias^ simple and double. Sim- 
 ple galimatias was where the author 
 understood what he wanted to say, 
 but other people understood nothing. 
 Double galimatias was where neither 
 the author nor the readers understood 
 anything.' He illustrated the saying 
 ' with certain lines from "Tite et B'eri- 
 nice' 
 
 Baron, the femous actor who cre- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 ated the role of Domitian, was sadly- 
 troubled by these lines. The more 
 he studied them, the less he compre- 
 hended them. He appealed to Moli- 
 ere, with whom he was living at that 
 time, but Moliere was not able to un- 
 derstand them either. He was able, 
 however, to give sound advice. Said 
 Moliere : ' Wait ; Monsieur Corneille 
 will be here to supper, and you shall 
 ask him to explain them.' When 
 Corneille arrived, young Baron em- 
 braced him as was his custom, for he 
 loved him ; and then he begged the 
 old poet to explain the four verses. 
 Corneille, after having examined the 
 lines for some time, said : ' I do not 
 understand them very well myself 
 now, but do you always speak them ; 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 they who do not understand them 
 will admire them.' 
 
 The anecdote is good enough to 
 be apocryphal. It is to be found in 
 Rkr'eations littiraires^ by Cizeron-Ri- 
 val, and is copied into most of the 
 biographies of Corneille. 
 
 Towards the close of 1670, Cor- 
 neille wrote in collaboration with Mo- 
 liere and Quinault a spectacular piece 
 for Carnival. It was Moliere's idea 
 to take the old story of Psyche for the 
 subject. The music was composed by 
 LuUy, and the opera was presented at 
 the Theatre des Tuileries in January, 
 1671. They who are best qualified 
 to judge say that there are few verses 
 more graceful, more highly endowed 
 with the indescribable charm of true 
 lyric poetry, than these verses which 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Corneille contributed to the ' tragedie- 
 ballet ' of Psyche. 
 
 His last works were Pulcherie and 
 Surena, In the midst of their defects 
 were passages which brought to mind 
 the ' firm and imposing grandeur ' of 
 the greater plays. Corneille's mis- 
 takes were always the ' mistakes of a 
 giant.' Even in this last fruit from 
 an old tree were high qualities which 
 belonged only to him. 
 
 hi49H 
 
VI 
 
 ^UT little is known of Cor- 
 neille's private life. He was neither 
 eccentric in manner nor brilliant in 
 conversation, and therefore people had 
 little to say about him. For a man 
 whose entire career had to do with the 
 stage, he left but a slender harvest of 
 anecdote. He lived until October, 
 1684. ^^^ brother Thomas lived 
 until 1709, and his nephew Fonte- 
 nelle did not die until 1757. But for 
 all that he seems to come within our 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 reach, and to be tangible in a sense in 
 which Shakespeare is not, Corneille is 
 shadowy and indefinite. 
 
 Yet there was nothing mysterious 
 about him. He was a plain man, 
 with simple tastes and homely inter- 
 ests. Historians tell us with an air of 
 wonder that he was a dutiful son, a 
 good husband, a good father, and a de- 
 voted member of the church. He was 
 in fact warden of his parish for years, 
 and was a singularly devout man. In 
 every particular he was the opposite 
 of the Bohemian playwright who is a 
 stock figure in literary annals. What 
 a contrast he offers to his old enemy 
 Bois-Robert, whose history in the most 
 recent and authoritative of works be- 
 gins with this sentence : ' Bois-Robert 
 entirely lacked the moral sense.' 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 No, Corneille was not picturesque. 
 He was strong, simple-hearted, he was 
 a genius, but he was not picturesque. 
 For this reason his contemporaries 
 never got over their surprise as they 
 compared the man and the work. 
 They marvelled, tried to explain it to 
 themselves, and then settled back in 
 the belief that there was a psycholo- 
 gical trick about it. Moliere's story 
 accounting for the operation of Cor- 
 neille's mind may not be authentic, 
 but it illustrates the case quite as well. 
 Moliere said that Corneille had a lit- 
 tle goblin which hovered about him ; 
 and when the goblin saw his master 
 cleaning his nails and getting ready 
 to write, he would go up to him and 
 whisper in his ear the things to say. 
 Then Corneille would put them down. 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Afterward the goblin would go away 
 a little distance and say to himself, 
 * Now let us see how he will do 
 alone.' And then Corneille would 
 write all those passages in his works 
 which are so difficult to read. He 
 would write until the goblin took 
 pity on him and dictated once more. 
 ' It was not the Corneille we know 
 who wrote all the beautiful passages 
 in his plays,' said Moliere, ' it was the 
 goblin.' 
 
 In his old age he became poor. 
 Poets used to live in those days either 
 by dedications; or 'little verses,' by 
 which we may understand poems of 
 occasion; or by 'domesticity,' which 
 means that they took up residence at 
 the house of some powerful lord, ate 
 his bread, drank his wine, and sang 
 -+IS4+- 
 
 I 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 his praises. It is not possible to 
 imagine Corneille in such a situation ; 
 and since he had no great skill in 
 'little verses,' and could not write a 
 dedication ' a la Montauron ' every 
 week, his case was a hard one. Once, 
 when some admirer congratulated 
 him on the success of his work, he 
 answered : ' I am satiated with glory 
 and famished for money.' There is 
 a letter from a bourgeois of Rouen 
 which describes Corneille sitting on a 
 bench in a cobbler's shop while he 
 has a shoe mended, and afterwards giv- 
 ing the shoemaker the three pieces of 
 money remaining in his pocket. *I 
 have wept,' says the writer of the let- 
 ter, ' to see so great a genius reduced 
 to this excess of misery.' 
 
 Lemaitre observes that, strictly 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 speaking, the only point proven by 
 this incident is that Corneille was 
 a man of entirely simple manners. 
 There is no rigid demonstration of 
 poverty in the mere fact of the poet's 
 going to the shop and waiting until 
 the shoe was mended. The letter, 
 however, was written by one who was 
 sufficiently well acquainted with Cor- 
 neille's affairs to see in this otherwise 
 natural though unceremonious pro- 
 ceeding a fresh illustration of the nar- 
 rowness of the poet's circumstances. 
 
 Corneille was not only simple of 
 manner, but he was something more. 
 They bring against him the unkind- 
 est charge that a Parisian knows how 
 to make : ' Corneille remained always 
 a provincial.' He never acquired ur- 
 banity of manner. He was brusque 
 -+1564- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 and even rude at times. According 
 to Lemaitre, this rudeness was not con- 
 fined to his manner, it used to come 
 out in his verse occasionally. The 
 poet is a refreshing figure on this ac- 
 count. The reader becomes wearied 
 of the supple courtiers and the smil- 
 ing, insinuating abbes whom he meets 
 so often in a study of this period. The 
 Due de Montausier and Pierre Cor- 
 neille are as invigorating as a breath 
 of cool air on a hot day. 
 
 Corneille married shortly after the 
 triumph of Cinna. His wife was 
 Marie de Lamperiere, a daughter of 
 Matthieu de Lamperiere, ' lieutenant 
 particulier civil et criminel du Bailly 
 de Gisors, au siege d'Andely.' There 
 is a tradition that Richelieu used his 
 influence to help Corneille win the 
 ^157^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 lady of his choice. The father was 
 opposed to the match, but yielded 
 readily at the Cardinal's suggestion. 
 The story was first told by Fonte- 
 nelle. Whoever wishes to read the 
 refutation of this and other pictur- 
 esque traditions of the poet's career 
 will do well to consult Bouquet's his- 
 torical and critical study, entitled 
 Points obscurs et nouveaux de la vie de 
 Pierre Corneille, The family with 
 which the poet allied himself held a 
 dignified position in the world and 
 was fairly well to do. Six children 
 were bom of this marriage, of whom 
 the eldest, Marie, is notable because 
 by her second marriage she became 
 the ancestress of Charlotte Corday. 
 
 Marie de Lamperiere had a younger 
 sister. Marguerite, who married 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Thomas Corneille. Nothing reflects 
 greater credit on the ' grand ' Corneille 
 than his attitude towards his brother 
 Thomas. He loved him tenderly, 
 gave him a father's care and guidance 
 after their father's death, helped him 
 in his dramatic beginnings, and was 
 at all times and in all circumstances 
 his best and most unselfish friend. 
 Is this why some of the biographers 
 exclaim ' vie bourgeoise,' and declare 
 that Corneille was a poet only in his 
 works? What would they have? 
 Apparently, in the minds of not a few 
 critics, marital fidelity and brotherly 
 devotion are not only vulgar, but quite 
 incompatible with poetry. 
 
 Corneille's introduction to the bril- 
 liant society of Hotel de Rambouillet 
 took place about the time of his mar- 
 -+159^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 riage. He was welcomed there as the 
 most gifted and successful dramatic 
 poet of the day. He read his plays 
 before the Marquise and her guests, 
 and contributed three poems to the 
 Guirlande de Julie. To the Marquise 
 de Rambouillet, who cherished sincer- 
 ity and all the other qualities which 
 we call ' sterling,' the poet's presence 
 must have been grateful. To ordinary 
 men and women of fashion he was 
 an enigma. He had few social gifts, 
 and perhaps despised ' the graces.' 
 His reading of his own works was 
 like most authors' readings, more 
 curious than agreeable. According 
 to Vigneul-Marville, the poet never 
 spoke his own language very cor- 
 rectly, though this may have been from 
 pure neghgence. They talked of his 
 
 ^I6o^- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 ' Norman patois.' His nephew, Fonte- 
 nelle, says that the poet read his verses 
 with force but without grace. Accord- 
 ing to the report of persons less favor- 
 ably prejudiced, Corneille was barely 
 intelligible when he read aloud. 
 
 Though not a handsome man, Cor- 
 neille had *a very agreeable counte- 
 nance.' His eyes were full of fire, his 
 nose large, his mouth finely shaped. 
 He was of medium height, neither fat 
 nor thin, though inclining towards a 
 full habit, and quite negligent of dress. 
 He might have been taken for a 
 'merchant of Rouen' rather than a 
 portrayer of the life and thought of 
 heroes. 
 
 He became a candidate for the 
 Academy first in 1644, and again in 
 1646. The company rejected him 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 the first time in favor of de Salomon, 
 and the second time in favor of Du 
 Ryer. Too often these facts are told 
 in a way to reflect upon the Academy. 
 It is but fair to say that the policy of 
 this body was to choose, of two eligi- 
 ble candidates, the one who made his 
 home in Paris. There were exceptions 
 to this rule, Balzac being the most 
 conspicuous. 
 
 After Maynard's death, Corneille 
 again offered himself He told the 
 members that he had now arranged 
 his affairs at Rouen so as to be able to 
 pass a part of each year at the capital. 
 At the time of his reception into the 
 company (January 22, 1647), he pro- 
 nounced a discourse which his ardent 
 admirer, Taschereau, has declared to 
 be one of the worst of compositions, 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 hardly redeeming its faults by its 
 brevity. 
 
 In criticising the historians for omit- 
 ting to speak of that rule against non- 
 resident membership of the Academy 
 as applied to the case of Corneille, we 
 are not absolving that body from the 
 charge of narrowness. It was not al- 
 together liberal in its attitude toward 
 the great dramatic poet. But its nar- 
 rowness can be explained, if not de- 
 fended. The Academy was after all 
 a club. It did not call itself one ; but 
 the traditions of the Golden Age re- 
 mained, and good fellowship was a 
 phrase which still had a meaning. It 
 was impossible that men should not 
 be affected by these considerations in 
 the choice of new members. What- 
 ever social virtues Corneille had were 
 ^163^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 not pronounced. Though an eminent 
 poet, he was not a man whose society 
 was sought by other men because of 
 his ' clubable ' qualities. 
 
 He was probably a negligent Aca- 
 demician. One cannot easily imagine 
 him as regular in attendance and eager 
 over the minutise of Academic busi- 
 ness. He assisted at the public func- 
 tions, but took no prominent part in 
 the routine work. Marty-Laveaux 
 says that his colleagues were proud to 
 have him among them, and were not 
 disposed to be exacting in their de- 
 mands. No finer tribute to Corneille's 
 modesty of demeanor could be paid 
 than was paid by Racine, who said 
 that one might look in vain for any 
 evidence that Corneille wished to take 
 advantage of his great renown. ' He 
 -i-i644- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 came as a docile pupil, seeking to be 
 instructed in our meetings, and leav- 
 ing his laurels at the door of the 
 Academy.' 
 
 Corneille was a very proud man, 
 but his pride often took an unusual 
 form. In his age men were boastful 
 of their ancestry, and apparently there 
 were no ancestors who were not noble. 
 Occasionally we find an exception 
 like Voiture, who was handicapped by 
 the fact that everybody knew about 
 his father, the wholesale wine-mer- 
 chant of Amiens ; yet Voiture had a 
 sturdiness of nature quite incompati- 
 ble with that thin vanity which is flat- 
 tered by the consciousness of being 
 technically ' noble.' The majority of 
 men were only content with the par- 
 ticle de. They yearned for it, and 
 -i.i65h- 
 
1 ^ 1 mtr^ i / B y 
 
 CORNEILLE 
 
 would do anything to obtain it. They 
 were willing to toil, flatter, cringe, lie. 
 So common was the particle, and so 
 doubtful of origin in many cases, that 
 it ought to have been debased. But 
 it was not. No extravagance of use 
 could dim its splendor. 
 
 Corneille had no foolish affectation 
 of this sort. To the end of his days 
 he remained Pierre Corneille. So far 
 as we know, he never used, or encour- 
 aged others to use, any title in con- 
 nection with his name. In a legal 
 document he is spoken of as Sieur de 
 Damville. This fact disturbed Tasche- 
 reau, who tried to explain it on the 
 ground of failing mental powers. 
 The document in question related to 
 the sale of Corneille's house in Rouen, 
 and was drawn up the year before the 
 ■^ i66h— 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 poet's death. In the second edition 
 of his Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages 
 de P. Corneilky Taschereau announced 
 with triumphant satisfaction that he 
 was wrong in supposing that the poet 
 had assumed the title himself It was 
 applied to him by his relative, Le 
 Bouyer de Fontenelle, who had charge 
 of the sale. 
 
 Still less was Corneille guilty of 
 that vulgar and disgusting form of 
 vanity which boasts the humbleness 
 of its origin and exalts its present con- 
 dition at the expense of poor but 
 worthy parents. He was simple, nat- 
 ural, unaffected. Had he continued 
 financially prosperous, he might have 
 been more genial. Men are wonder- 
 fully placid and easy-going under the 
 discipline of wealth. 
 
 ^ i67-»- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 His mental vigor declined percep- 
 tibly as he advanced in years. He 
 showed the effect of a long life of in- 
 tense application. He became more 
 straitened in circumstances. Lanson 
 says, recounting the sources of his in- 
 come, that Corneille was at no time 
 in misery. One could the more read- 
 ily believe this, were it not that the 
 world always contains people able at 
 the same instant to boast their houses 
 and lands and to bewail their lack of 
 money. Lemaitre likens Corneille, 
 in all that concems money, to the el- 
 der Dumas and to Honore de Balzac. 
 When such men have ready money, 
 they are incapable of realizing the 
 state of mind consequent upon being 
 moneyless. Without necessarily be- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 ing spendthrifts, they spend as if the 
 source were inexhaustible. 
 
 There was a tradition that during 
 the poet's last illness, Boileau, know- 
 ing Corneille to be in great distress and 
 perhaps at the point of death, went 
 to the king and generously offered to 
 sacrifice his own pension, if by so 
 doing Corneille might be reestablished 
 in his. ' The king immediately sent 
 two hundred louis.' 
 
 This tradition enjoyed an uninter- 
 rupted existence up to the year 1888. 
 It was then reinterpreted, by Bou- 
 quet, in the interest of that strict 
 historical verity which we all admire, 
 and are reluctant to receive because 
 less piquant than tradition. The king 
 did indeed send Corneille ' money to 
 die with,' but not at the instance of 
 -^ 169-1- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Boileau. Corneille died some time 
 during the night of September 30 
 and October 1, 1684. 
 
 He was buried in the church of 
 Saint-Roch, 'without mausoleum or 
 epitaph' to indicate to the stranger 
 the place of his interment. One hun- 
 dred and thirty-seven years elapsed 
 before any memorial was raised to his 
 honor. In 1821 the Due d'Orleans, 
 afterward Louis-Philippe, placed a 
 commemorative tablet of marble on 
 one of the pillars in the church. On 
 this tablet was sculptured a medallion 
 of the poet togetlier with an inscrip- 
 tion which says: 'Pierre Corneille, 
 ne a Rouen le 6 Juin 1606, mort a 
 Paris, rue d'Argenteuil, le 1^ Octobre 
 1684, ^^^ inhume dans cette eglise.' 
 
 His brother Thomas, younger than 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 he by nineteen years, succeeded to 
 his arm-chair in the Academy. His 
 widow survived him ten years. The 
 fortunes of his children and grand- 
 children were various, and neither 
 more nor less happy than the average 
 of human fortunes. In 1728 the fam- 
 ily of Corneille was supposed to be 
 extinct in the line of direct descent 
 from the poet. Marie Corneille, who 
 derived from a collateral branch, re- 
 ceived substantial assistance from Vol- 
 taire, and from all whom he could 
 interest in her welfare, as the only liv- 
 ing representative of the great name. 
 Voltaire had the discomfort of being 
 roundly abused for not exerting him- 
 self afresh in behalf of another Cor- 
 neille, who announced himself at Fer- 
 ney one day as a direct descendant of 
 -+171 -I- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 the author of the Cid, It was Claude- 
 Etienne, son of Pierre-Alexis Cor- 
 neille, who in childhood had been 
 abandoned by his father and whom 
 the world had lost track of He was 
 now thirty-five years of age, had been 
 a soldier and an adventurer, and was 
 for the moment a beggar. Voltaire 
 took a very philosophical view of 
 his case. He apparently decided that 
 as Claude-Etienne was a man in the 
 prime of life, and by no means igno- 
 rant of the ways of the world, he was 
 quite able to shift for himself 
 
 Marie, eldest child of the great 
 Corneille, was twice married. Her 
 second husband was Jacques-Adrien 
 de Farcy. Of their two children, 
 Francois de Farcy married Adrien de 
 Corday. Of this marriage was born 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Jacques-Adrien de Corday, who es- 
 poused Mademoiselle de Belleau de 
 La Motte, and begat sons and daugh- 
 ters to the number of eight. The 
 most notable of the sons was Jacques- 
 Fran9ois, a lieutenant in the regiment 
 of La Fere, whose daughter, Marie- 
 Anne Charlotte de Corday, killed Ma- 
 rat, and a few days later died by the 
 guillotine. This girl of twenty-five 
 played a role so impassioned and he- 
 roic that one may look in vain for its 
 counterpart in the tragedies of her 
 great ancestor. 
 
 173- 
 
VII 
 
 n 
 
 V^ORNEILLE'S services to dra- 
 matic literature were so great and so 
 varied that it is not easy to compre- 
 hend them. One may glibly repeat 
 Faguet's statement that ' Corneille 
 carried to a degree of perfection hith- 
 erto unknown all the dramatic forms, 
 tragedy, comedy, tragi-comedy, melo- 
 drama, and spectacular piece,' but the 
 full significance of this statement is 
 only to be grasped by much reading 
 and not a little reflection. 
 -+175-^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Consider, for example, how great a 
 service that poet renders the literature 
 of his native land who writes plays 
 which are not only perfectly fitted to 
 the needs of dramatic representation, 
 but which may also be read with 
 the highest degree of pleasure. Cor- 
 neille's best plays are absolutely 
 dramatic and unqualifiedly literary. 
 They have that rare distinction by 
 virtue of which a multitude of beau- 
 ties not to be perceived in the reading 
 are brought into prominence when 
 the play is played ; and by virtue of 
 which, on the other hand, beauties of 
 thought and diction too subtle for the 
 atmosphere of the play-house are dis- 
 closed in the quiet of the study. The 
 rank and file of dramatic authors are 
 blind to the significance of this lesson 
 -H- 176-1- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 taught by the masters of their craft. 
 Knowing, as they must, that there is 
 small chance of life for a play which 
 is not strongly tinctured with the lit- 
 erary quality, they still court oblivion 
 for the sake of an immediate and a 
 brief popularity. Some of these su- 
 perficial pieces have a longer career 
 than others. The genius of a bril- 
 liant actor gives them a semblance of 
 life ; but it is only a semblance, and 
 when the actor dies, the play dies too. 
 It can hardly be accounted among 
 the least of Corneille's services to dra- 
 matic literature that he purified the 
 stage. Where licentiousness had 
 reigned for years, cleanliness came to 
 take its place. In bringing about this 
 reform, the poet had no motive which 
 was not praiseworthy. There is a 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 kind of virtue which is commercial; 
 it would be vicious, were it not that 
 morality pays a higher rate of inter- 
 est. Corneille was haughtily above 
 the influence of these low and care- 
 less motives. His was one of those 
 large natures which in its splendid 
 health of mind and body despises 
 filth of any kind. 
 
 In the third place he demonstrated 
 that the creative artist may be splen- 
 didly self-conscious. He was a critic 
 of adroit and penetrating powers, no 
 less in command of the ' theoric ' than 
 of the ' art and practic part ' of dra- 
 matic writing. He rendered a service 
 to the little understood art of dra- 
 matic criticism by his three Discourse 
 and by those prefaces called Examens 
 which are to be found in most editions 
 ^ 178-1- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 of his plays dating from the year 1660. 
 The edition of 1660 was in three vol- 
 umes. Each volume contained two 
 essays, one on the general theory of 
 dramatic composition, and one on the 
 several plays contained in that partic- 
 ular volume. The essays on the gen- 
 eral theory of the drama bear the fol- 
 lowing titles : Discours de Vutilite et 
 des parties du Poeme dramatique, Dis^ 
 cours de la 'J'ragidie^ and Discours des 
 trois Unites d^ action de jour et de lieu. 
 In the Examens Corneille justifies, ex- 
 plains, or condemns his manner of 
 handling the materials of the individ- 
 ual plays. Critics have been known 
 to lament the pains which the great 
 poet took in accounting to himself 
 and his public in the small matters 
 of dramatic casuistry. Would that 
 -1-179^ 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Shakespeare had cared enough for 
 his own work to do the same ! But 
 there is a school of criticism which 
 prefers that a poet should never ex- 
 plain, and which despises the bard 
 who is intelligible. 
 
 Corneille, the master of tragedy, 
 also takes high rank among the lyric 
 poets of France. He made a poetic 
 version of the Imitation of Jesus 
 Christ. He translated from the Latin 
 the Office de la Vierge^ the Hymnes du 
 briviaire romain^ the Sept Psaumes peni- 
 tentiaux^ and many other pieces be- 
 sides. We need not lay too much 
 stress on Lemaitre's malicious sugges- 
 tion that the seasons of exalted piety 
 during which these devotional poems 
 were composed always followed hard 
 upon personal disaster. It is plea- 
 
 ■H-l80H- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 santer to read this critic's tribute to 
 the fecundity of Corneille's poetic 
 vein, and to be reminded that this 
 remarkable man ' left from twenty 
 to twenty-five thousand verses, trans- 
 lated either from liturgical Latin or 
 the Latin of the Imitation ; ' in other 
 words, that Corneille wrote ' twice as 
 many lyric verses as Lamartine and 
 three or four times as many as Alfred 
 de Vigny.' Verily, there were giants 
 in the Seventeenth Century ! 
 
 He is a unique and altogether at- 
 tractive figure. I cannot understand 
 that attitude which denies to Cor- 
 neille's history the quality of interest- 
 ingness. One critic says that he had 
 no ' life,' another that he had a career 
 which was all of a piece, dull, with- 
 out event. The world has curious 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 ideas of what constitutes 'life.' . If 
 a man haunts the wine-shops, is a 
 roysterer and something of a rake, if 
 he writes his poetry between fits of 
 intoxication and dies in debt, his 
 biographer will talk gravely about 
 the profundity of his experience. But 
 if he is respectable, goes to church, 
 has a family and supports his family, 
 dresses for dinner, and has some con- 
 sideration for society and the state, 
 the advocates of a mild bohemianism 
 will talk about the narrowness and 
 stupidity of his career, and will tell 
 you how little such a poet knows of 
 the great movements and forces of 
 our time. There is a deal of rubbish 
 in print exalting the irregular literary 
 lives at the expense of the regular. 
 We shall expect one of these days to 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 hear a lament that Shakespeare did 
 not lead a broader existence. Why, 
 this man Shakespeare was actually 
 respectable. He made money and 
 kept it. He owned city property 
 and an estate in the country. He 
 attended to his bills, and saw to it 
 that money due him was paid ; if it 
 was not paid, he sued for it. To 
 Shakespeare there was no disgrace in 
 being a gentleman. He was broad- 
 minded, sweet-tempered, affable, dis- 
 tinguished for his common sense, 
 * while all do speak of his upright- 
 eousness of dealing.' He makes 
 quite as good a showing as if he had 
 been stabbed in a tavern brawl like 
 his friend Marlowe, and left but a 
 splendid promise and an unhappy 
 memory. 
 
/ 
 
 / 
 
 CORNEILLE 
 
 Corneille's career was not dull. 
 His cup of life was filled to the brim 
 with event. He knew the common- 
 place and the exceptional phases of 
 existence. If in the outward aspects 
 of his history there was much that 
 might be called work-a-day, it was 
 the better for him. In those stretches 
 of time when there was little outward 
 disturbance, the poetic life was strong, 
 full, and rich. How is it possible 
 to apply the word ' commonplace ' to 
 the man in whose brain were forming 
 the heroic figures of the Cid or of 
 Horace ? 
 
 He knew the city and the pro- 
 vince, the drawing-room and the jus- 
 tice's court, the splendors of Hotel de 
 Rambouillet and the squabbles and 
 petty jealousies of that mimic world 
 -f-i84-»- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 the theatre. He knew for a moment 
 Richelieu, and perhaps understood 
 him rather better than Bois-Robert, 
 whose only will was to do the Cardi- 
 nal's will. He knew the extremes of 
 popularity and neglect. He had stood 
 on the highest pinnacle of public fa- 
 vor, had seen the court and the city 
 frenzied with admiration over his 
 achievements, and on the other hand 
 he had tasted the bitterness of defeat 
 and neglect. He had lived through 
 that trying period in the life of a man 
 of genius when he understands that 
 the battle is not to the experienced 
 and the wise, but to the young and 
 the buoyant. He cannot be said to 
 have accepted his misfortunes philo- 
 sophically ; I am not trying to show 
 that Corneille was a ' philosopher,' 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 but that he was a man who lived, 
 suffered, passed through the myriad 
 experiences of his fellow man, and 
 was the richer and better for the very 
 simplicity of those experiences. 
 
 There was discovered in the city of 
 Rouen, many years ago, an old book 
 of parish accounts. Some thirty 
 pages of this book are in Corneille's 
 own hand. The poet's house in Rue 
 de la Pie belonged to the parish of 
 Saint-Sauveur. The church has long 
 since completely disappeared, but the 
 enormous folios which contained the 
 parish accounts were preserved, and 
 in 1840 a scholar, Deville, discovered 
 'to his surprise and joy' that Cor- 
 neille had kept the books for a year 
 and made the entries of receipts and 
 expenditure, with his own hand. Cor- 
 -i-i86-»- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 neille was ' treasurer in charge ' of the 
 parish from Easter, 1651, to the cor- 
 responding date 1652. There was 
 satisfaction over this discovery for 
 the reason that examples of the poet's 
 handwriting are 'excessively rare/ 
 Deville reminded that part of the 
 public which shared his interest that 
 these entries must have been made 
 about the time when Corneille was 
 writing his 'admirable tragedy of 
 Nicomede' The coincidence is suf- 
 ficiently striking in itself; we are not 
 required to follow the enthusiastic 
 discoverer to the point of believing 
 that Corneille may have written Nico- 
 mede and kept the parish accounts 
 * with the same pen.' 
 
 It is a pleasure to know these 
 homely details of a great poet's life. 
 ■H.187+- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 Genius is never more attractive than 
 when it is busied and patiently busied 
 with the commoner affairs of life. 
 Great men are so imposing and so in- 
 scrutable, they make such a demand 
 upon one's powers of admiration, that 
 it is a relief to get some testimony 
 as to their human and familiar quali- 
 ties. Rcederer used to wish that it 
 might have been his privilege to see 
 Madame de Sevigne sitting with her 
 friends, embroidering or sewing. A 
 glimpse of the great epistolary artist as 
 she appeared in hours of relaxation, 
 when she employed her time as less 
 gifted women employed theirs, would 
 be illuminating, the distinguished 
 critic thought. Who would not re- 
 joice in the discovery of some frag- 
 ment of those accounts which Geof- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 frey Chaucer used to keep when he 
 collected revenues on skins and tanned 
 hides for the port of London ? The 
 finding of some hitherto unknown 
 poem would hardly bring us so near 
 to the author of the Canterbury Tales 
 as memorabilia of this homely char- 
 acter. 
 
 The only relation to genius which 
 the majority of us sustain consists in 
 the ability to appreciate it more or 
 less imperfectly. Perhaps for this rea- 
 son alone we should rejoice in every 
 detail, no matter how commonplace, 
 which has the effect of narrowing in 
 some little degree that gulf which di- 
 vides the man of genius from the vast 
 multitude of human beings. 
 
 The unconscious element in Cor- 
 neille's work has been absurdly exag- 
 -§•189 H- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 gerated. The poet lived among the 
 mountain heights, and when he came 
 down into the valley, he seemed odd 
 and childish to the dwellers in the val- 
 ley. They said foolish things about 
 him, as, for example, that he was able 
 to estimate the value of a play only 
 by the sum he received for it. This 
 is to push the ' goblin ' theory of po- 
 etic composition to its most grotesque 
 point. 
 
 Surely it is not unreasonable to be- 
 lieve, even in respect to so intangible 
 a thing as poetry, that they who have 
 accomplished great ends know best 
 the means to those ends. Corneille 
 had a marvellous gift for poetry. He 
 was spontaneous and prolific. But 
 he was also a consummate literary ar- 
 tist. He had learned the great les- 
 -H90'*- 
 
CORNEILLE 
 
 son that raw, untutored genius will 
 not carry a man to the highest pin- 
 nacle of literary fame. There must 
 be added patient, unremitting, finely 
 directed toil. 
 
 191. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL 
 NOTE 
 
 X HE following list of books is, perhaps, 
 sufficiently extended to meet the needs of 
 the amateur of literature. The specialist 
 will not require to be told how indispen- 
 sable is the Bibliographie Cornelienne^ by 
 Emile Picot, Paris, 1876. 
 
 The materials relating to Corneille are 
 divided into three groups : — 
 
 First : Brief critical and biographical 
 notices. After consulting the admirable 
 manuals by Lanson, Lintilhac, Brunetiere, 
 and Faguet, the student may to his advan- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 tage read the passages on Corneille in the 
 following general histories of French liter- 
 ature. 
 
 1. Nisard (D.), Histoire de la Litter a- 
 ture fran^aise, Paris, Firmin-Didot. 17® 
 edition. Vol. II., pp. 87-135. 
 
 2. Godefroy (Frederic), Histoire de la 
 Litterature fran^aise : XVII siecle, Poetes. 
 Paris, Gaume et 0% 1897, ^^ edition ; pp. 
 109—144 are devoted to Corneille. 
 
 3. Doumic (Rene), Histoire de la Lit- 
 terature fran^aise, Paris, Delaplane. 13® 
 edition, pp. 245-254. 
 
 4. Albert (Paul), La Litterature fran- 
 faise au dix-septieme siecle, Paris, Hachette, 
 1892. 8® edition, pp. 72-94. 
 
 5. Dowden (Edward), A History of 
 French Literature, New York, Appleton, 
 1897, ^^ ^^^ series entitled ^Literatures of 
 the World,' pp. 16 3- 170. 
 
 6. Geruzez (Eugene), Histoire de la 
 
 ^-194-1- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 Litterature fran^atse. Paris, Didier, 1869. 
 8^ edition. Vol. II., pp. 72-98. 
 
 Second : Biographies and Critical Es- 
 says. 
 
 1. Bouquet (F.), Points obscurs et nou- 
 veaux de la Vie de Pierre Corneille, Paris, 
 Hachette, 1888. 
 
 2. Taschereau (J.), Histoire de la vie 
 et des ouvrages de Pierre Corneille^ ' Biblio- 
 theque elzevirienne.' Paris, Jannet, 1855. 
 
 3. Guizot (Francois), Corneille et son 
 temps. Paris, 1852. 
 
 4. Lanson (Gustave), Corneille^ in the 
 series of ' Grands £crivains fran^ais.' 
 Paris, Hachette, 1898. 
 
 5. Faguet (£mile), Dix-septieme Siecle^ 
 * Corneille.' Paris, Societe fran^aise d'im- 
 primerie, 1898 ; pp. 3-29. Consult, also, 
 Faguet's Corneille^ in the ' Collection des 
 Classiques populaires.' Paris, H. Lecene 
 et H. Oudin, 1888. 
 
 --HI95-*- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 6. Breitinger (H.), Les Unites d'Aris- 
 tote avant le Cid de Corneille, Geneve et 
 Bale, Georg et C% 1895. 
 
 7. Brunetiere (F.), Les ^poques du the- 
 atre fran^ais. Paris, Hachette, 1892. 
 
 8. Petit de Julleville (L.), Histoire de 
 la Langue et de la Litterature fran^aise, 
 Paris, Colin, 1897. ^^^' ^ *^ chapter 5. 
 The chapter on Corneille, comprising 
 about eighty pages, is by Jules Lemaitre. 
 One should also read the chapter on the 
 
 * theatre au XVII siecle avant Corneille,' 
 by E. Rigal, and the chapter on the * the- 
 atre au Temps de Corneille,' by Gustave 
 Regnier. At the close of each chapter 
 will be found a bibliography. 
 
 9. Marty-Laveaux (Ch.), Notice bio- 
 graphique sur Pierre Corneille^ in Vol. I. of 
 
 * CEuvres de P. Corneille.' Paris, Ha- 
 chette, 1862. Read, also, in Vol. III., pp. 
 3-76, the Notice on the Cid. 
 
 -1-196 •«- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 lo. Chdruel (A.), Memoires sur la vie 
 publique et privee de Fouquet. Paris, Char- 
 pentier, 1862. Vol. I., chapter 23. 
 
 The student should not fail to consult 
 Sainte-Beuve's Portraits Litteraires^ the Nou- 
 veaux Lundis^ and Port-RoyaL 
 
 Third : Direct sources. 
 
 1. Corneille (Pierre), (Euvres^ edited 
 by Ch. Marty-Laveaux, in the series of 
 ' Grands £crivains de la France.' Paris, 
 Hachette, 1862, in twelve volumes, with a 
 supplementary ' album ' of portraits, stage- 
 settings, facsimiles, etc. 
 
 2. Gast6 (Armand), La ^erelle du 
 Cidy pieces et pamphlets publies d*apres les 
 originaux^ avec une introduction, Paris, 
 Welter, 1898. 
 
 3. Pellisson et d'Olivet, Histoire de 
 T Academie fran^aise. Paris, Didier et 
 0% 1858, 2 vols. Pellisson gives fifteen 
 pages to the * quarrel of the Cid.' D'Oli- 
 
 ^197+- 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 vet reprints the Vie de M, Corneille Vaine^ 
 by Fontenelle. In the notes Livet has in- 
 dicated the variations between this text of 
 the * life ' and that which was printed in 
 the third volume of Fontenelle's ' works/ 
 edition of 1742. 
 
 198- 
 
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