THE JESUIT CRESSET. 575 



come expressly from La Fleche to Tours to fetch him, and with whom 

 he travelled to the former place, he says, " II est ici le geolier de 

 trente-quatre nonnes qui le font eurager a ce qu'il m'assura ; mais je 

 brise sur cet article 



Attaquez vous par quelque raillerie 



Un regiment d'infanterie ? 



Mars ne fera q'uen nire : il s'en amusera : 



Mai si par malheur, votre muse 



A draper les nounes s'ainuse, 



L'amour propre s'eu veugera ; 



Devotement il rougira 



Et bientot il vous poursuivera 



Jusqu' a La Fleche, et par-dela " 



At last, grown weary of his state of exile, he wrote to the Provincial 

 of his order, and the answer he received not being satisfactory, he lost 

 all patience, and demanded his dismissal from the Order of Jesus, 

 wrote them his adieux in verse, and in the year 1735, entered again 

 upon the world. 



Our author having published several other poems, the chief of 

 which (La Chartreuse) met with nearly the same success with Vert- 

 Vert.- His friends, and indeed the public, looked forward with impa- 

 tience for his appearance in that career in which Corneille, Moliere, 

 and Racine had gained immortal honours : in fact, it was then gene- 

 rally understood in France, that a writer ambitious of the name of 

 poet, could not avoid submitting his talents to this severe ordeal. 

 Gresset accordingly commenced with the tragedy of Edward the 

 Third, which was represented on the 22d of January 1740. He sent 

 it by post to Voltaire, who found " the postage rather expensive, 

 although there were some good lines in it." The reception of this 

 piece, though flattering, was not altogether such as to induce him to 

 persevere in the tragic line, which he appears thenceforward wholly 

 to have forsaken for that of comedy. " Le Mediant," a comedy in 

 five acts, and in verse, is, however, the only production of con- 

 sequence which entitles him to the rank of a comic poet. Its success, 

 if we may judge from the fact of its having gone through twenty- 

 four representations, at its first appearance, may be said to have been 

 complete, although the journals of the day were violent in their dis- 

 approbation. The journals however are forgotten, and the " Mechant" 

 still remains an ornament to the French theatre. 



In the year 1740, Gresset addressed to Frederick the Great, an ode 

 on that monarch's accession to the throne of Prussia. The king re- 

 turned him an answer very different from the usual style of replies 

 from crowned heads in general : the poet received an ode to him- 

 self, in elegant French, in the hand -writing of Frederick, concluding 

 thus : 



" Au centre du bon gout c'une nouvelle Athene 

 Tu moissonnes en paix la gloire des talents, 

 Taudis que 1'univers, envieux de la seine 



Applaudit a tes chants. 

 Berlin en est frappee : a sa voix qui t'appele 

 Viens des Muses de 1'Elbe animer les soupirs 

 Et chanter, aux doux'sous de ta lyre immortelle 



L'amour et les plaisirs." 



