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.
The glories of Louis XIV. were fast vanishing. Added to the more
circumscribed miseries, resulting to a portion of his subjects from the
revocation of the edict of Nantes, was the universal distress of the
people, loaded by taxation for the purpose of carrying on the war.
Madame de Maintenon felt for all those who suffered. Her notions of
religion, though not jansenist, yet rendered her strictly devout. To
restore Louis to the practice of the virtues she considered necessary to
his salvation, she had thrown him, as much as possible, into the hands
of the jesuits. When the question had been his personal pleasures, she
had ventured far to recall him to a sense of duty; but she never went
beyond. If she governed in any thing, it was with a hidden influence
which he could not detect: she never appeared to interfere; and her
whole life was spent in a sacrifice of almost every pleasure of her own
to indulge his tastes and enjoyments.
Madame de Maintenon was very partial to Racine. His conversation, his
views, his sentiments, all pleased her. One day they conversed on the
distress into which the country was plunged. Racine explained his ideas
of the remedies that might be applied with so much clearness and
animation, they appeared so reasonable and feasible to his auditress,
that she begged him to put them in writing, promising that his letter
should be seen by no eyes but her own. He, moved somewhat by a hope of
doing good, obeyed. Madame de Maintenon was reading his essay when the
king entered and took it up. After casting his eyes over it, he asked
who was the author; and madame de Maintenon, after a faint resistance,
broke her promise--and named Racine. The king expressed displeasure that
he should presume to put forth opinions on questions of state:--"Does he
think that he knows every thing," he said, "because he writes good
verses? Does he wish to be a minister of state, because he is a great
poet?" A monarch never expresses displeasure without giving visible
marks of dissatisfaction. Madame de Maintenon felt this so much that she
sent word to Racine of what had passed, telling him, at the same time,
not to appear at court till he heard again from her. The poet was deeply
hurt. He feared to have displeased a prince to whom he owed so much. He
grew melancholy--he grew ill: his malady appeared to be a fever, which
the doctors treated with their favourite bark; but an abscess was formed
on the liver, which they regarded lightly.
Being somewhat embarrassed in his means at this time, he was desirous of
being excused the tax with which his pension was burdened; he made the
request. It had been granted on a former occasion--now it was refused;
yet with a grace: for the king, in saying "It cannot be," added, "If,
however, I can find some way of compensating him I shall be very glad."
Heedless of this promise, discouraged by the refusal, he brooded
continually over the loss of royal favour. He began to fear that his
adherence to the tenets upheld by the Port Royal might have displeased
the king: in shore, irritated by illness, depressed by his enforced
absence from court, he gave himself up to melancholy. He wrote to madame
de Maintenon on this new idea of being accused of jansenism. His letter
does him little honour--it bears too deeply the impress of servility,
and yet of an irritation which he ought to have been too proud to
express. "As for intrigue," he writes, "who may not be accused, if such
an accusation reaches a man as devoted to the king as I am: a man who
passes his life in thinking of the king; in acquiring a knowledge of the
great actions of the king; and in inspiring others with the sentiments
of love and admiration which he feels for the king. There are many
living witnesses who could tell you with what zeal I have often
combatted the little discontents which often rise in the minds of
persons whom the king has most favoured. But, madame, with what
conscience can I tell posterity that this great prince never listened to
false reports against persons absolutely unknown to him, if I become a
sad example of the contrary?"
Madame de Maintenon was touched by his appeal: she wished to, yet dared
not, receive him. He wandered sorrowfully about the avenues of the park
of Versailles, hoping to encounter her--and at last succeeded: she
perceived him, and turned into the path to meet him. "Of what are you
afraid?" she said. "I am the cause of your disaster, and my interest and
my honour are concerned to repair it. Your cause is mine. Let this cloud
pass--I will bring back fair weather."--"No, no, madam," he cried, "it
will never return for me!" "Why do you think so?" she answered; "Do you
doubt my sincerity, or my credit?"--"I am aware of your credit, madam,"
he said, "and of your goodness to me; but I have an aunt who loves me in
a different manner. This holy maiden prays to God each day that I may
suffer disgrace, humiliation, and every other evil that may engender a
spirit of repentance; and she will have more credit than you." As he
spoke there was the sound of a carriage approaching. "It is the king!"
cried madame de Maintenon--"hide yourself:" and he hurried to conceal
himself behind the trees.
What a strange picture does this conversation give of the contradictions
of the human heart. Here is a man whose ruling passion was a desire to
attain eternal salvation and a fear to miss it; a man who believed that
God called men to him by the intervention of adversities and sorrow; and
that the truly pious ought to look on such, as marks of the Saviour's
love: and yet the visitation of them reduced him to sickness and death.
He had many thoughts of total retirement; but he felt it necessary, for
the good of his family and the advancement of his sons, to continue his
attendance at court: for, though not allowed to see the king and madame
de Maintenon privately, he still appeared at the public levees. The
sadness he felt at the new and humiliating part he played there,
rendered this, however, a task from which he would gladly have been
excused.
The abscess on the liver closed, and his depression and sense of illness
increased. One day, while in his study, he felt so overcome that he was
obliged to give over his occupation and go to bed. The cause of his
illness was not known: it was even suspected that he gave way
pusillanimously to a slight indisposition--while death had already
seized on a vital part. He was visited by the nobles of the court, and
the king sent to make inquiries.
His devotion and patience increased as his disease grew painful, and
strength of mind sprang up as death drew near. He occupied himself by
recommending his family to his friends and patrons. He dictated a letter
to M. de Cavoie, asking him to solicit for the payment of the arrears of
his pension for the benefit of the survivors. When the letter was
finished, he said to his son, "Why did you not include the arrears due
to Boileau in the request? We must not be separated. Write your letter
over again; and tell Boileau that I was his friend till death." On
taking leave of this dear friend he made an effort to embrace him,
saying, "I look on it as a happiness that I die before you."
When it was discovered that an internal abscess was formed, an operation
was resolved on. He consented to undergo it, but he had no hopes of
preserving his life. "The physicians try to give me hope," he said, "and
God could restore me; but the work of death is done." Hitherto he had
feared to die--but its near approach found him prepared and courageous.
The operation was useless--he died three days after its performance, on
the 21st of April, 1699, in his sixtieth year.
It will be perceived that we have not said too much in affirming, that
the qualities of his heart compensated for a certain weakness of
character, which, fostered by a too enthusiastic piety, and the
gratitude he owed to him whom he considered the greatest of monarchs,
led him to waste at court, and in dreams of bigotry, those faculties
which ought to have inspired him, even if the drama were reprehensible,
with the conception of some great and useful work, redounding more to
the honour of the Creator (since he gifted him with these faculties)
than the many hours he spent in his oratory. It is plain from his
letters that something puerile was thus imparted to his mind, which,
from the first, needed strengthening. Yet one sort of strength he
gained. He had a conscience that for ever urged him to do right, and a
mind open to conviction. Under the influence of his religious system, he
was led rather to avoid faults than to seek to attain virtues. He had an
inclination for raillery, which, through the advice of Boileau, he
carefully restrained: he was fond of pleasure; religion caused him to
prefer the quiet of his home: and, as the same friend said, "Reason
brings most men to faith--faith has brought Racine to reason." Fearful
of pain himself, he was eager to avoid causing it to others. In society
he was pliant; striving to draw others out rather than endeavouring to
shine himself. "When the prince of Condé passes whole hours with me,"
he said to his son, "you would be surprised to find that I perhaps have
not uttered four words all the time; but I put him into the humour to
talk, and he goes away even more satisfied with himself than with me. My
talent does not consist in proving to the great that I am clever, but in
teaching them that they are so themselves." His faithful friendship for
Boileau is one of the most pleasing circumstances of his life. His
letters show the kindly nature of the intimacy. His wife and family
often visited Auteuil; and Boileau, grown deaf, yet always kind, exerted
himself to amuse or instruct, according to their ages, the children of
his friend.
Of his tragedies the most contradictory opinions will, of course, be
expressed. We cannot admire them as the French do. We cannot admit the
superior excellence of their plan, because they bring the most
incongruous personages into one spot; and, crowding the events of years
into a few hours, call that unity of time and place: generally we are
only shocked by the improbabilities thus presented; and when the author
succeeds, it seems at best but a piece of legerdemain. Grandeur of
conception is sacrificed to decorum, and tragedy resembles a dance in
fetters. To this defect is added that of the choice of heroic subjects;
which, while it brought the author into unmeet comparison with his
masters, the Greeks, rendered his work a factitious imitation, leaving
small space for the expression of the real sentiments of his heart; and
he either fell into the fault of coldness, by endeavouring (vainly) to
make his personages speak and feel as Greeks would have done, or
incurred the censure applied to him of making his ancient heroes express
themselves like modern Frenchmen. "Phædra" is the best of his heroic
tragedies; and much in it is borrowed from Euripides. "Berenice" and
"Britannicus" must always please more, because the conception is freer,
as due solely to their author. "Athalie" is best of all; most original
in its conception, powerful in its execution, and correct and beautiful
in its language. There is, indeed, a charm in Racine's versification
that wins the ear, and a grace in his characters that interests the
heart. There is a propriety thrown over all he writes, which, if it
wants strength, is often the soul of grace and tenderness. Had he, at
the critical moment when he threw himself into the arms of the priests,
and indulged the notion that to fritter away his time at court was a
more pious pursuit than to create immortal works of art, had he, we
repeat, at that time, dedicated himself to the strengthening and
elevating his mind, and to the composition of poetry on a system at once
pure and noble, and yet true to the real feelings of our nature,
"Athalie" had, probably, not been his _chef d'œuvre_; and, on his
death bed, he might have looked back with more pride on these
testimonies of gratitude to God, for having gifted him with genius, than
on the multitudinous times he had counted his rosary, or the many hours
loitered away in the royal halls of Versailles.
[Footnote 96: Life by Louis Racine. The authentic accounts of Racine are
chiefly founded on this sketch, and on his correspondence.]
[Footnote 97: M. de Valincour says, "I remember one day at Auteuil, when
on a visit to Boileau, with M. Nicole and other friends of distinguished
merit, that we made Racine talk of the Œdipus of Sophocles, and he
recited the whole play to us, translating it as he went on." Racine
often said that he treated subjects adopted by Euripides, but he never
ventured to follow in the steps of Sophocles.]
[Footnote 98: Racine polished French poetry, and inspired it with
harmony, though, even in his verses, we are often annoyed by
trivialities induced by the laws of rhyme. It was left for La Martine to
overcome this difficulty--to put music into his lines, and bend the
stubborn material to his thoughts. Some of the earlier poems, in
particular, of this most graceful and harmonious poet make you forget
that you are reading French--you are only aware of the perfection of his
musical pauses, the expressive sweetness of his language, and feel how
entirely his mind can subdue all things to its own nature, when French
verse, expressing his ideas, becomes sublime, flowing, and graceful. We
cannot believe, however, that any poet could so far vanquish its
monotony as to adopt it to heroic narrative; it is much that it has
attained this degree of excellence in lyrics.]
[Footnote 99: Grimarest, Vie de Molière.]
[Footnote 100: His aunt, a nun of Port Royal, wrote him a letter to
intimate this, which may well be called an excommunication:--"I have
learnt with grief," she says, "that you more than ever frequent the
society of persons whose names are abominable to the pious; and with
reason, since they are forbidden to enter the church, or to partake in
the sacraments, even at the moment of death, unless they repent. Judge,
therefore, my dear nephew, of the state I am in, since you are not
ignorant of the affection I have always felt for you; and that I have
never desired any thing except that you should give yourself up to God
while fulfilling some respectable employment. I conjure you, therefore,
my dear nephew, to have pity on your soul, and to consider seriously the
gulf into which you are throwing yourself. I should be glad if what I am
told proves untrue; but, if you are so unhappy as not to have given up
an intercourse that dishonours you before God and man, you must not
think of coming to see us, for you are aware that I could not speak to
you, knowing you to be in so deplorable a state, and one so contrary to
Christianity. I shall, moreover, pray to God," &c.]
[Footnote 101: Boileau's virile and independent mind was far above the
weakness of his friend, and doubtless deplored it. At once to console,
and to elevate him to a higher tone of feeling, he addressed an epistle
to him, in which are the following lines:--
"Toi donc, qui t'elevant sur la scene tragique,
Suis les pas de Sophocle, et seul de tant d'Esprits,
De Corneille vielli sait consoler Paris,
Cesse de t'étonner, si l'envie animée,
Attachant à ton nom sa rouille envenimée,
La calomnie en main, quelquefois te poursuit.
En cela, comme en tout, le ciel qui nous conduit,
Racine, fait briller sa profonde sagesse;
Le mérite en repos s'endort dans la paresse:
Mais par les envieux un genie excité,
Au comble de son art est mille fois monté.
Plus on veut s'affloiblir, plus il croit et s'élance;
Au Cid persécuté, Cinna doit sa naissance;
Et peut-être ta plume aux censeurs de Pyrrhus
Doit les plus nobles traits dont tu peignis Burhus."]
[Footnote 102: Vide 2 Kings, chap, XI., 2 Chronicles, chap. XXIII.]
FÉNÉLON
1651-1715