Page:Memoirs of Hyppolite Clairon (Volume 1).djvu/51

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

19

better situation. I was told of a small house in la Rue des Marais, which let for 200 livres, where Racine was said to have lived forty years with his family. I was informed it was there he had composed his immortal works, and that there he had died; that afterwards it had been occupied by the tender Lecouvreur, who had ornamented and ended his days in it. The walls of the house, said I, will be alone sufficient to make me feel the sublimity of the author, and acquire the talents necessary for an actress; it is in this sanctuary I will live and die. I took it, and put a bill upon the apartments I had before occupied. Among the number who applied for them were several persons attracted solely by cu-

C 2