of the four friends which La Fontaine draws in his Psyche,
Racine figuring as Acante, “ qui aimait extrémement les jardins,
les fleurs, les ombrages, ” in which surroundings he helped to
compose the lampoon of Chapelain décozfé on a writer who had
helped him with criticism, obtained royal gifts for him, and, in
a fashion, started him in the literary career.
We have no definite details as to Racine's doings during
the year 1664, but in February 1665 he read at the Hotel
de Nevers before La Rochefoucauld, Madame de la Fayette,
Madame de Sévigné, and other scarcely less redoubtable judges
the greater part of his second acted play, Alexandre le Grand,
or, as Pomponne (who tells the fact) calls it, Porus. It was
anxiously expected by the public, and Moliére's company
played it on the 4th of December-Monsieur, his wife Henrietta
of England, and many other distinguished persons being present.
The gazetteer, Adrien Perdou de Subligny vouches for its
success, and the receipts were good and steady. But a fortnight
afterwards Alexandre was played, “ de complot avec M. Racine, ”
says La Grange, by the rival actors (who had four days before
performed it in private) at the Hotel de Bourgogne. A vast
amount of ink has been spilt on this question, but no one has
produced any valid justification for Racine. That the piece
failed at the Palais Royal, as is stated in the earliest attempt
to excuse Racine, and the only one made in his lifetime, is not
true. His son simply says that he was “ mécontent des acteurs, ”
which indeed is self-evident. It is certain that Moliére and he
ceased to be friends in consequence of this proceeding; and
that Moliere was in fault no one who has studied the character
of the two men will easily believe. If, however, Alexandre
was the occasion of showing the defects of Racine's character
as a man, it raised him vastly in public estimation as a poet.
He was now for the first time proposed as a serious rival to
Corneille. There is a story that he read the piece to the author
of the Cid and asked his verdict. Corneille praised the piece
highly, but not as a drama, “ Il l'assurait qu'il n'était pas propre
5. la poésie dramatique." There is no reason for disbelieving
this, for the character of Alexander could not fail to shock
Corneille, and he was notorious for not mincing his words.
The contrast between the two even at this early period was
accurately apprehended and put by Saint Evremond in his
masterly Dissertation sur l'Alexarldre, but this was not published
for a year or two. To this day it is the best criticism of the
faults of Racine, though not, it may be, of the merits, which
had not yet been fully seen. It may be added that in the preface
of the printed play the poet showed the extreme sensitiveness
to criticism which perhaps excuses, and which certainly often
accompanies, a tendency to criticize others. These defects
of character showed themselves still more fully in another
matter. The Port Royalists, as has been said, detested the
theatre, and in January 1666 Nicole, their chief writer, spoke
in one of his Lellres sur les visiormaires, directed against Desmurets
de Saint-Sulin, of dramatic poets as “empoisonneurs
publics." Racine immediately published a letter to the author.
It is very smartly written, and if Racine had contented himself
with protesting against the exaggeration of the decriers of
the stage there would have been little harm done. But he
filled the piece with personalities, telling an absurd story of
Mere Angélique Arnauld's supposed intolerance, drawing a
ridiculous picture of Le Maitre (a dead man and his own special
teacher and friend), and sneering savagely at Nicole himself.
The latter made no reply, but two lay adherents of Port Royal
took up the quarrel with more zeal than discretion or ability.
Racine wrote a second pamphlet as bitter and personal as the
first, but less amusing, and was about to publish it when fortunately
Boileau, who had been absent from Paris, returned
and protested against the publication. It remained accordingly
unprinted till after the author's death, as well as a preface
to both which he had prepared with a view to publishing
them together and so discharging the accumulated resentment
arising from a long course of “ excommunications".
After this disagreeable episode Racine's life, for ten years
and more, becomes simply the history of his plays, if we except
his liaisons with the actresses Mademoiselle du Parc and Mademoiselle
de Champrneslé, and his election to the Academy on
the 17th of July 1673. Mademoiselle du Parc (marquise de
Gorla) was no very great actress, but was very beautiful, and
she had previously captivated Moliere. Racine induced her
to leave the Palais Royal company and join the Hotel. She
died in 1668, and long afterwards the infamous Catherine
Voisin accused Racine of having poisoned her. Mademoiselle
de Champmeslé was plain, but an admirable actress, and apparently
very attractive in some way, for not merely Racine
but Charles de Sévigné and many others adored her. For five
years before his marriage Racine seems to have been her amarlt
en litre, but long afterwards, just before his own death, when
he heard of her mortal illness, he spoke of her to his son Without
a flash of tenderness.
The series of his unquestioned dramatic triumphs began with Andromaque, and this play may perhaps dispute with Phédre and Alhalie the title of his masterpiece. It is much more uniformly good than Phedre, and the character of Hermione is the most personally interesting on the French tragic stage. It is said that the first representation of Andrornaque was on 10th November 1667, in public and by the actors of the Hotel de Bourgogne, but the first contemporary mention of it by the gazettes, prose and verse, is on the 17th, as performed in the queen's apartment. Perrault, by no means a friendly critic as far as Racine is concerned, says that it made as much noise as the Cid, and so it ought to have done. Whatever may be thought of the lragédie palhélique (a less favourable criticism might call it the “ sentimental tragedy ”), it could hardly be better exemplified than in this admirable play. A ferocious epigram of Racine's own tells us that some critics thought Pyrrhus too fond of his mistress, and Andromache too fond of her husband, but in the contemporary depreciation's is to be found the avowal of its real merit. Pyrrhus was taken by Floridor, the best tragic actor by common consent of his time, and Orestes by Montfleury, also an accomplished player. But Mademoiselle du Pat, who played Andromache, had generally been thought below, not above, her parts, and Mademoiselle des Oeillets, who played the difficult role of Hermione, was old and had few physical advantages. No one who reads Andromaque without prejudice is likely to mistake the secret of its success, which is, in few words, the application of the most delicate art to the conception of really tragic passion. Before leaving the play it may be mentioned that it is said to have been in the part of Hermione, three years later, that Mademoiselle de Champmeslé captivated the author. Andromaq-ue was succeeded, at the distance of not more than a year, by the charming comedietta of Les Plaideurs. We do not know exactly when it was played, but it was printed on the 5th of December 1668. Many anecdotes are told about its origin and composition. The Wasps of Aristophanes, and the known fact that Racine originally destined it, not for a French company, but for the Italian troupe which was then playing the Commedia dell' arle in Paris, dispense us from enumerating them. The result is a piece admirably dramatic, but sufficiently literary to shock the profarmrn vulgus, which too frequently gives the tone at theatres. It failed completely, the chief favouring voice being, according to a story sufficiently well attested and worthy of belief even without attestation, that of the man who was best qualified to praise and who might have been most tempted to blame of any man then living. Moliére, says Valincourt, the special friend of Racine, said in leaving the house, “ Que ceux qui se moquoient de cette piéce meritoient qu'on se moquoient d'eux.” But the piece was king laughed,
suddenly played at court a month later; the
and its fortunes were restored. It need only be added that, if did not, and
Louis XIV. admired Les Plaideurs, Napoleon
excluded it from his travelling library. It was followed by a very different work, Brilanrlicus, which appeared on 13th December 1669. This was much less successful than Andromaque, and seems to have held its own but a very few nights. Afterwards it became very popular, and even from the first the
