RACINE 



545 



forgetfulness, as his true vocation opened itself up 

 before his eyes. The great dispersion of the soli- 

 taires of Port Royal took place in 1661, and, from 

 Racine's contemporary letters to the Abbe Le 

 Vasseur, it troubled him but lightly. In November 

 1661 he went to Uzes in Langiiedoc, hoping, but 

 in vain, to get a benefice from his maternal uncle, 

 the vicar-general of the diocese, and here he divided 

 his time between St Thomas, Virgil, and Ariosto. 

 Again in Paris before the beginning of 1664, he 

 obtained in August of that year a pension from 

 the king of six hundred francs for a congratulatory 

 ode. But indeed he received almost to the end of 

 his life handsome rewards in money 'gratifica- 

 tions ' from the court. An ode of gratitude to the 

 king for one of these, La Renommee aux Muses, 

 gained him the life-long friendship of Boileau, and 

 from about this time began the famous but much 

 over-estimated friendship of 'the four' Boileau, 

 La Fontaine, Moliere, and Racine. Unfortunately 

 from about this point there is a break in his corre- 

 spondence, so that we lack satisfactory evidence 

 about the most doubtful and, at the same time, 

 interesting points in his career his singular spite 

 against Moliere, his bitter attack upon Port 

 Royal, and his final conversion and retirement 

 from dramatic work. His earliest play, La The- 

 Imiilf. on Les Freres Ennemis, was acted by Moliere's 

 company at the Palais Royal theatre in June 1(564 ; 

 his second, Alexandre le Grand, in December 1665. 

 After the sixth performance the latter was with- 

 out explanation represented by the rival actors at 

 the Hotel de Bourgogne a fact which of course 

 involved a complete breach of friendship between 

 Moliere and himself. This famous quarrel is 

 difficult beyond most to clear up, but there is at 

 least light enough to see that the wrong did not 

 rest with Moliere. Racine showed himself as 

 hostile to Corneille, most probably only because 

 the older dramatist judged the younger's work 

 somewhat severely. But he soon plunged into a 

 vet more discreditable quarrel. Stung by one of 

 Nicole's Lettres Vinonnaires (January 1666) con- 

 demning the romancer or the dramatic poet as an 

 ' empoisonneur public ' in accordance with the 

 ethics of Port Royal, he published a clever and 

 stinging letter to the author, in which he heaped 

 disgrace on his own head by indecent personalities 

 upon Nicole and even his dead teacher Le Maftre. 

 Boileau's advice alone saved him from further 

 shaming himself with a second. ' This letter,' said 

 Boileau, ' may do credit to your intellect, but 

 certainly none at all to your heart.' Later in life 

 Racine himself said he would give his heart's blood 

 to wipe out the most disgraceful blot upon his life. 

 His repentance made noble atonement for the 

 wrong as for the literary quality of the letters, 

 for brilliant wit and delicate irony they were not 

 unworthy of the hand of Pascal. 



During the next thirteen years Racine produced 

 his greatest work, seeking relaxation from laliour in 

 at least one liaison with an actress. His plays 

 followed in this order : Atulroma//ite ( 1667 ), with its 

 charming character Hermione ; Les Plaideurs ( 1668 ), 

 a delightful little comedy of satire against lawyers, 

 which Moliere was the first to appreciate ; Britan- 

 nicus (1669), which Voltaire styled 'la piece des 

 connaisseurs ;' Berenice (1670), written uncon- 

 sciously in competition with Corneille, the same 

 theme having been given to both poets by Henri- 

 etta of Orleans; Bajuzet (1672), admirable, but 

 anything rather than oriental; Mithriitate (1673), 

 produced almost at the moment of his admission to 

 the French Academy; Ipliigenie ( 1675), a master- 

 piece of pathos ; and I'lieilre ( 1677 ), a marvellous 

 representation of human agony, which afforded a 

 snnject adequate even to the powers of Rachel. 

 With the last ended abruptly his thirteen years of 

 300 



unbroken playwriting. A few days after its pro- 

 duction the Troupe dn Roi introduced an opposi- 

 tion Pkedre, by Pliaon, which, though worthless by 

 comparison, was eagerly supported by a power- 

 ful party, including the famous Duchess of 

 Bouillon. Whether from disgust and mortifica- 

 tion, or from the conversion attributed to him just 

 at this period, Racine turned at once from dramatic 

 work, made his peace with Port Royal, married on 

 June 1, 1677, and settled down to twenty years of 

 domestic happiness. His wife brought him money, 

 if she bore him five daughters and two sons ; and 

 he himself had found ample profit in the drama, 

 besides enjoying an annual gratification that grew 

 gradually from 800 to 2000 livres, not to speak of 

 the office of treasurer of France at Moulins, at 

 least one benefice, and from 1677, jointly with 

 Boileau, the office of historiographer-royal of 

 France, with a salary of 4000 livres a year. The 

 last involved the duty of accompanying the king 

 on several of his expeditions, but in the case of 

 both poets bore little historical fruit beyond a 

 crop of good intentions and a few fragments. In 

 January 1685 Racine emerged from his retirement 

 to pronounce the discourse at the reception to the 

 Academy of Thomas Corneille, and at last did 

 himself honour by his admirable eulogium upon 

 his greater brother. 



In 1689 he wrote Esther, in answer to a request 

 from Madame de Maintenon for a play suitable 

 for her girls at Saint-Cyr. She had tried Andro- 

 maque, but found that the girls acted it ' a great 

 deal too well.' Its success was great, but entirely 

 warranted by the exquisite art of the poem. 

 Atlialie followed in 1691 with much less success, 

 though it perhaps deserved even a greater. Four 

 fiint/ijiieti sjiirituelles, and an admirably written 

 Histoire abregee de Port Royal, make up the whole 

 remainder of Racine's literary work. In his later 

 years he lost the favour of the king how is not by 

 any means clearly understood. He is said to have 

 prepared a memoir on the miseries of the people, 

 and the king, finding Madame de Maintenon read- 

 ing this, expressed his displeasure in some harsh 

 words that broke the sensitive heart of the courtier- 

 poet. On 4th March 1698 he wrote a long letter 

 to Madame de Maintenon, to clear himself from 

 the crime of Jansenism, but he never recovered 

 the king's favour, and his acute mortification 

 appears to have hastened his death. He said to 

 Boileau, with the sweet graciousness of his nature, 

 as he embraced him for the last time, ' Je regarde 

 n .1 ii IMC un bonheiir pour moi de mourir ayant vous. ' 

 He died 21st April 1699, and was buried by his 

 own desire in Port Royal. 



In France it remains an article of patriotism 

 to claim Racine as the greatest of all masters of 

 tragic pathos, yet this estimate does not very 

 greatly exceed the truth. He took the con- 

 ventional French tragedy from the stronger hands 

 of Corneille, and added to it all the jjrace of 

 which it was capable, perfecting exquisitely its 

 versification, and harmoniously subordinating the 

 whole action to the central idea of the one 

 dominant passion. But he was a far greater poet 

 even than a dramatist, and the tender sweetness 

 and beauty of his rhythm, the finished perfection 

 and flexibility of his cadence, and the indefin- 

 able yet ever present stamp of distinction that 

 informs his style, combine to add a charm of 

 its kind beyond almost anything else in the whole 

 poetry of France. It may be that the highest poetry 

 of all is beyond his reach, and that his verses are 

 only for a sensitive ear, but such they haunt with a 

 peculiar charm beyond the art of a Lamartine or a 

 Hugo. Within its limits his poetry attains the 

 perfection of the classic in the highest as well 

 as severest sense of the term ; it sums up in its 



