Part 30

The humour of this piece show's that Racine might have succeeded in comedy: it is full of comic situation, and the true spirit of Aristophanic farce. Yet it did not at first succeed, either because the audience could not at once enter into its spirit, or because it was opposed by a cabal of persons who considered themselves attacked; and it was withdrawn after thé second representation. Molière, however, saw its merits; and, though he had quarrelled with the poet, he said aloud, on quitting the theatre, "This is an excellent comedy; and those who decry it deserve themselves to be decried." A month afterwards the actors ventured to represent it at court. The king entered into the spirit of the fun, and laughed so excessively that the courtiers were astonished. The actors, delighted by this unhoped-for piece of good fortune, returned to Paris the same night, and hastened to wake up the author, to impart the news. The turmoil of their carriages in his quiet street, in the middle of the night, awoke the neighbourhood: windows were thrown open; and, as it had been said that a counsellor of state had expressed great indignation against "Les Plaideurs," it was supposed that the author was carried off to prison, for having dared to ridicule the judges on the public stage; so that, while he was rejoicing at his success, the report in Paris the next morning was that he had been carried off in the night by a _lettre-de-cachet._

In 1673 Racine was elected into the French academy. The speech he made on taking his seat was brief and courteous, but not humble, and delivered in so low a voice that only those near him could hear it. Meanwhile he continued to add to his reputation by bringing out his tragedies of "Bajazet," "Mithridates," "Phædra," and "Iphigenia." Each improving in his peculiar excellence, each found warm admirers and bitter enemies. Pradon brought out a tragedy on the subject of Phædra on the same day as Racine; and he had many partisans. Among them was the duke de Montauzier, and all the clique of the Hôtel de Bouillon. They carried their measures so far as to take the principal boxes, on the first six nights of each piece, and thus filled the theatre, or kept it empty, as they pleased. The chief friend of Pradon was madame des Houlières; who favoured him, because she patronised all those poets whom she judged incapable of writing as well as herself. She witnessed the representation of Racine's play; and returned afterwards to a supper of select friends, among whom was Pradon. The new tragedy was the subject of conversation, each did their best to decry it; and madame des Houlières wrote a mediocre sonnet enough, beginning--

"Dans un fauteuil doré, Phèdre, tremblante et blême,"

to turn it into ridicule. This sonnet had vogue in Paris. No one knew who wrote it: it was attributed to the duke de Nevers, brother of the celebrated duchess de Mazarin. The partisans of Racine parodied the sonnet, under this idea; the parody beginning:

"Dans un Palais doré, Damon jaloux et blême,"

and even attacked the duchess, as

"Une sœur vagabonde, aux crins plus noirs que blonds."

This reply was attributed to Racine and Boileau. The duke de Nevers, highly irritated, threatened personal chastisement in revenge. The report spread that he meant to have them assassinated. They denied having written the offending sonnet; and the son of the great Condé went to them, and said, "If you did not write it, come to the Hôtel de Condé, where the prince can protect you, as you are innocent. If you did write it, still come to the Hôtel de Condé, and the prince will take you under his protection, as the sonnet is both pleasant and witty." An answer was reiterated to the parody, with the same rhymes, beginning:

"Racine et Despréaux, l'air triste et le teint blême."

The quarrel was afterwards appeased, when it was discovered that certain young nobles, and not the poets, were the authors of the first parody.

This last adventure, joined to other circumstances, caused Racine to resolve on renouncing the drama. The opinions of the recluses of the Port Royal concerning its wickedness were deeply rooted in his heart. Though in the fervour of youth, composition, and success, he had silenced his scruples, they awoke, after a suspension, with redoubled violence. He not only resolved to write no more, but imposed severe penances on himself in expiation for those he had already written, and even wished to turn _chartreux_. Religion with him took the narrowest priestly form, redeemed only by the native gentleness and tenderness of his disposition. These qualities made him listen to his confessor, who advised him, instead of becoming a monk, to marry some woman of a pious turn, who would be his companion in working out his salvation. He followed this counsel, and married Catherine de Romanet, a lady of a position in life and fortune similar to his own. [Sidenote: 1677. Ætat. 38.] This marriage decided his future destiny. His wife had never read nor seen his tragedies; she knew their names but by hearsay; she regarded poetry as an abomination; she looked on prayer and church-going as the only absolutely proper occupations of life. She was of an over-anxious disposition, and not a little narrow-minded. But she was conscientious, upright, sincere, affectionate, and grateful. She gave her husband good advice, and, by the calmness of her temper, smoothed the irritability of his. His letters to his son give us pleasing pictures of his affection for his wife and children; melancholy ones of the effects of his opinions. The young mind is timid: it is easily led to fear death, and to doubt salvation, and to throw itself into religion as a refuge from the phantasmal horrors of another world. One after the other of Racine's children resolved to take monastic vows. His sons lost their vocation when thrown into active life; but the girls, brought up in convents, of gentle, pliant, and enthusiastic dispositions, were more firm, and either took the vows in early youth--which devoted them to lives of hardship and self-denial--or had their young hearts torn by the struggles between the world and (not God) but the priests. Racine, on the whole, acted kindly and conscientiously, and endeavoured to prove their vocation before he consented to the final sacrifice; but the nature of their education, and his own feelings, prevented all fair trial; and his joy at their steadiness, his annoyance in their vacillation, betrays itself in his letters. His income, derived from the king's pensions and the place of historiographer, was restricted; and though the king made him presents, yet these were not more than commensurate to his increased expenses when in attendance at court. He had seven children: he found it difficult, therefore, to give doweries to all the girls; and worldly reasoning came to assist and consolidate sentiments which sprang originally from bigotry.

One of the first acts of Racine, on entering on this new life, was to reconcile himself to his friends of the Port Royal. He easily made his peace with M. Nicole, who did not know what enmity was, and who received him with open arms. M. Arnaud was not so facile: his sister, mother Angelica, had been ridiculed by Racine, and he could not forgive him. Boileau endeavoured in vain to bring about a reconciliation: he found M. Arnaud impracticable. At length he determined on a new mode of attack; and he went to the doctor, taking the tragedy of "Phaedra" with him, with the intention of proving that a play may be innocent in the eyes of the severest jansenist. Boileau, as he walked towards the learned and pious doctor's house, reasoned with himself:--"Will this man," he thought, "always fancy himself in the right? and cannot I prove to him that he is in the wrong? I am quite sure that I am in the right now; and, if he will not agree with me, he must be in the wrong." He found Arnaud with a number of visitors: he presented the book, and read at the same time the passage from the preface in which the author testifies his desire to be reconciled to persons of piety. Boileau then went on to say that his friend had renounced the theatre; but at the same time he maintained, that, if the drama was dangerous, it was the fault of the poets; but that "Phædra" contained nothing but what was morally virtuous. The audience, consisting of young jansenist clergymen, smiled contemptuously; but M. Arnaud replied, "If it be so, there is no harm in this tragedy."

Boileau declared he never felt so happy in his life as on hearing this declaration: he left the hook, and returned a few days afterwards for the doctor's opinion: it was favourable, and leave was given him to bring his friend the following day. Louis Racine's account of the interview gives a singular picture of manners. "They (Boileau and Racine) went together; and, though a numerous company was assembled, the culprit entered, with humility and confusion depicted on his countenance, and threw himself at M. Arnaud's feet, who followed his example, and they embraced. M. Arnaud promised to forget the past, and to be his friend for the future--a promise which he faithfully kept."

This same year Racine was named historiographer to the king, together with his friend. In some sort this may be considered fortunate; since, having renounced poetry, he might have neglected literature, had not this new employment given him a subject which he deemed exalted in its nature. How strangely is human nature constituted. Racine made a scruple of writing tragedies, or, indeed, poetry of any kind that was not religious. He believed that it was impious to commemorate in lofty verse the heroic emotions of our nature, or to dress in the beautiful colours of poetry the gentle sorrows of the loving heart: from such motives he gave up his best title to fame, his dearest occupation; but he had no scruple in following his sovereign to the wars, and in beholding the attack and defence of towns. "I was at some distance," he writes to Boileau, "but could see the whole assault perfectly through a glass, which, indeed, I could scarcely hold steady enough to look through--my heart beat so fast to see so many brave men cut down." Still there was no scruple here, though the unjustifiable nature of Louis XIV.'s wars afforded no excuse for the misery and desolation he spread around.

This contradiction strikes us yet more forcibly in his letters to his son, which are full of moral precepts, and just and enlightened advice on literary subjects. Had he been a soldier, it had made a natural portion of the picture; but that a man at once of a lively imagination, tender disposition, and pious sentiments, and who, we are told, evinced particular regard for his own person, should, day after day, view the cruelties and ravages of war _en amateur_ shocks our moral sense.

Racine was servile. This last worst fault he owed, doubtless, to his monkish education, which gave that turn to his instinctive wish to gain the sympathy and approbation of his associates. His devotion was servile. He deserves the praise, certainly, of preferring his God to his king; for he continued a jansenist, though the king reprobated that sect and upheld the jesuits, as his own party; yet he never blamed Racine for his adherence to the Port Royal, so he was never tempted to abandon it. His veneration for the king--his fear, his adulation--were carried to a weakness. It is true that it is difficult for a bold, impossible for a feeble, mind to divest itself of a certain sort of worship for the first man of the age; and Louis was certainly the first of his. Racine also liked the refinements of a court; he prided himself on being a courtier. He succeeded better than Boileau, who had no ambition of the sort; yet he could never attain that perfect self-possession, joined to an insinuating and easy address, that marks the man bred in a court, and assured of his station in it. "Look at those two men," said the king, seeing Racine and M. de Cavoie walking together; "I often see them together, and I know the reason. Cavoie fancies himself a wit while conversing with Racine, and Racine fancies himself a courtier while talking to Cavoie." It must not be supposed, however, that he carried his courtier-like propensities to any contemptible excess. His affectionate disposition found its greatest enjoyment at home; and he often left the palace to enjoy the society of his wife and children. His son relates, that one day, having just returned from Versailles to enjoy this pleasure, an attendant of the duke came to invite him to dine at the Hôtel de Condé. "I cannot go," said Racine; "I have returned to my family after an absence of eight days; they have got a fine carp for me, and would be much disappointed if I did not share it with them."

In the life of Boileau there is mention of the poet's first campaign, and the pleasantries that ensued. Boileau never attended another; but Racine followed the king in several; and his correspondence with his friend from the camp is very pleasing. Whatever faults might diminish the brightness of his character, he had a charming simplicity, a warmth of heart, a turn for humour, and a modesty, that make us love the man. His life was peaceful: his attendance at court, domestic peace, the open-hearted intimacy between him and Boileau, were the chief incidents of his life. "The friends were very dissimilar," says Louis Racine; "but they delighted in each other's society: probity was the link of the union." He attended the academy also. It fell to him to receive Thomas Corneille, when he was chosen member in place of the great Corneille. Racine's address pleased greatly. [Sidenote: 1684. Ætat. 45.] His praise of his great rival was considered as generous as it was just. To this he added an eulogium on the king, which caused Louis to command him to recite his speech afterwards to him. At one time he was led to break his resolution to write no more poetry, by the request of the marquis of Seignelay, who gave a fête to the king at his house at Sceaux; and on this occasion Racine wrote his "Idyl on Peace."

In a biography of this kind, where the events are merely the every-day occurrences of life, anecdotes form a prominent portion, and a few may here be introduced. Racine had not Boileau's wit, but he had more humour, and a talent for raillery. Boileau represented to him the danger of yielding to this, even among friends. One day, after a rather warm discussion, in which Racine had rallied his friend unmercifully, Boileau said composedly, "Did you wish to annoy me?" "God forbid!" cried the other. "Well, then," said Boileau, "you were in the wrong, for you did annoy me." On occasion of another such dispute, carried on in the same manner, Boileau exclaimed, "Well, then, I am in the wrong; but I would rather be wrong than be so insolently right." He listened to his friend's reprimand with docility. Always endeavouring to correct the defects of his character, he never received a reproof but he turned his eyes inward to discover whether it was just, and to amend the fault that occasioned it. He tells his son in a letter, that accustomed, while a young man, to live among friends who rallied each other freely on their defects, he never took offence, but profited by the lessons thus conveyed. Such, however, is human blindness, that he never perceived the injurious tendency of his chief defect--weakness of character. He displays this amusingly enough in some anecdotes he has recorded of Louis XIV., in which the magnanimity of the monarch is lauded for the gentleness with which he reproved an attendant for giving him an unaired shirt.

Much of Racine's time was spent at court--the king having given him apartments in the castle and his _entrées_. He liked to hear him read. He said Racine had the most agreeable physiognomy of any one at court, and, of course, was pleased to see him about him. He was a great favourite of madame de Maintenon, whom, in return, he admired and respected. There was a good deal of similarity in their characters, and they could sympathise readily with each other. It is well known how, at this lady's request, he unwillingly broke his resolve, and wrote two tragedies, with this extenuation in his eyes, that they were on religious subjects; indeed, he had no pious scruple in writing them; but, keenly sensitive to criticism, he feared to forfeit the fame he had acquired, and that a falling off should appear in these youngest children of his genius.

The art of reciting poetry with ease and grace was considered in France a necessary portion of education. Racine was remarkable for the excellence of his delivery. At one time he had been asked to give some instructions in the art of declamation to a young princess; but, when he found that she had been learning portions of his tragedy of "Andromaque," he retired, and begged that he might not again he asked to give similar lessons. In the same way, madame de Brinon, superior of the house of Saint Cyr, was desirous that her pupils should learn to recite; and, not daring to teach them the tragedies of Corneille and Racine, she wrote some very bad pieces herself. Madame de Maintenon was present at the representation of one of these, and, finding it insufferable, she begged that it might not be played again, but that a tragedy of Corneille or Racine should be chosen in which there was least love. "Cinna" was first got up, and afterwards "Andromaque." The latter was so well played that madame de Maintenon found it ill suited for the instruction of young ladies: she wrote to Racine on the subject, saying, "Our little girls have been acting your "Andromaque," and they performed it so well that they shall never act either that or any other of your tragedies again;" and she went onto beg that he would write some sort of moral or historical poem fit for the recitation of young ladies. The request is certainly what we, in vulgar language, should call cool. Racine was annoyed, but he was too good a courtier to disobey--he has had his reward. He feared to decrease his reputation. In this he showed too great diffidence of his genius. The very necessity of not dressing some thrice-told heroic fable in French attire was of use; and we owe "Athalie," the best of all his dramas, to this demi-regal command.

His first choice, however, fell naturally upon Esther. There is something in her story fascinating to the imagination. A young and gentle girl, saving her nation from persecution by the mere force of compassion and conjugal love, is in itself a graceful and poetic idea. Racine found that it had other advantages, when he imaged the pious and persuasive Maintenon in the young bride, and the imperious Montespan in the fallen Vashti. When the play was performed applications were found for other personages, and the haughty Louvois was detected in Haman. The piece pleased the lady who commanded it; but she found her labours begin when it was to be acted, especially when the young duchess of Burgundy took a part. She attributed to the court the discontent about the distribution of parts, which flourishes in every green-room in the world, though it appertain only to a barn; however, success crowned the work. Esther was acted again and again before the king; no favour was estimated so highly as an invitation to be present. Madame de Caylus, niece of madame de Maintenon, was the best actress; and even the choruses, sung by the young pure voices of girls selected for their ability, were full of beauty and interest.

Charmed by the success, madame de Maintenon asked the poet for yet another tragedy. He found it very difficult to select a subject. Ruth and others were considered and rejected, till he chose one of the revolutions of the regal house of Judah[102], which was at once a domestic tragedy, and yet enveloped in all the majesty of royalty, and the grandeur of the Hebrew worship. Athaliah, on the death of her son Ahaziah, destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah, except one child, Joash, who was saved by Jehosheba, a princess of Israel, wife of Jehoiada the priest, and brought up by the latter till old enough to be restored to his throne, when he was brought out before the people, and proclaimed king, and the usurping queen, Athaliah, slain. The subject of this drama, concerning which he hesitated so long and feared so much, he found afterwards far better adapted to the real development of passion than "Esther." "Esther," after all, is a young ladies' play; and the very notion of the personages having allusion to the ladies of the court gives it a temporary and factitious interest, ill adapted to the dignity of tragedy. Racine put his whole soul in "Athalie." His piety, his love of God, his reverence for priests, which caused him to clothe the character of Jehoiada in awful majesty; his awe for the great name of Jehovah, and his immediate interference with the affairs of the Jewish nation; his power of seizing the grandeur of the Hebrew conception of the Almighty gave sublimity to his drama, while the sorrows and virtues of the young Joash gave, so to speak, a virgin grace to the whole. He had erred hitherto in treading with uneasy steps in the path which the Greeks had trod before; but here a new field was opened. And, to enhance the novelty and propriety of the story, he added a versification more perfect than is to be found in any other of his plays.

Yet it was unlucky. It had been represented to madame de Maintenon, that it was ill fitted for the education of noble young ladies to cause them to act before a whole court; and that the art of recitation was dearly purchased by the vanity, love of display, and loss of feminine timidity thus engendered. "Athalie" was, therefore, never got up like "Esther." It was performed, before the king and a few others, in madame de Maintenon's private apartment, by the young ladies, in their own dresses. Afterwards it was performed at Paris with ill success. The author was deeply mortified, while Boileau consoled him by prophesying "le public reviendra;" a prophecy which, in the sequel, was entirely fulfilled.

Many letters of Racine to his family are preserved; which show us the course of his latter years. It was uniform: though a large family brought with it such cares as sometimes caused him to regret his having given up his resolution to turn monk. At home he read books of piety, instructed his children, and conversed with his friends. Boileau continued the most intimate. Often the whole family repaired to Auteuil, where they were received with kindness and hospitality: at other times he followed the king to Fontainebleau and Marli. He had the place of gentleman in ordinary to the king (of which he obtained the survivance for his son), and was respected and loved by many of the chief nobility.

Racine, however, was not destined to a long life; and, while eagerly employed on the advancing his family, illness and death checked his plans. His son thinks that he pays him a compliment by attributing his death to his sensibility, and the mortification he sustained from the displeasure of the king. We, on the contrary, should be glad to exonerate his memory from the charge of a weakness which, carried so far, puts him in a contemptible light; and would rather hope that the despondency, the almost despair, he testified, was augmented by his state of health, as his illness was one that peculiarly affects the spirits. Like every person of quick and tender feelings, he was, at times, inclined to melancholy, and given to brood over his anxieties and griefs. He rather feared evil than anticipated good; and these defects, instead of lessening by the advance of age and the increase of his piety, were augmented through the failure of his health, and the timid and cowardly tendency of his faith.