Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/224

206 E A C I N E preface to both which he had prepared with a view to publishing them together. In this respect Boileau was certainly Racine's good angel, for no one has ventured to excuse the tone of these letters. The best excuse for them is that they represent 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 Pare and Mademoiselle de Champmesle" (which are undoubted, though there is not much to be said about them) and his election to the Academy on 17th July 1673. Mademoiselle du Pare (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 Voisin accused Racine of having poisoned her. Mademoiselle de Champmesl6 was plain and stupid, but an admirable actress and apparently very at- tractive in some way, for not merely Racine but Charles de Sevigne" and many others adored her. She was cruel to none, but for five years before his marriage Racine seems to have been her amant en litre. Long after- wards, just before his own death, he heard of her mortal illness and speaks of her to his son without a flash of tenderness. The series of his dramatic triumphs began with Andro maque, and this play may perhaps dispute with Phedre and AtJialie 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 Andro- maque was on 10th November 1667, in public and by the actors of the Hotel de Bourgogne, but the first con- temporary 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 tragedie pathetique (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 (an epigram not unworthy of Martial, and as difficult to comment on to modern ears polite as some of Martial's own) tells us that some critics thought Pyrrhus too fond of his mistress, and Andromache too fond of her husband, which is not likely to be the present verdict. In the contemporary depreciations is to be found the avowal of its real merit. The interest was too varied, the pathos too close to human nature to content Boileau, and the partisans of Corneille still found Racine unequal to the heroic height of their master's grandeur. A just criticism will probably hold that these two objections neutralize each other. Both parties agreed in saying that much of the success was due to the actors, another censure which is equivalent to praise. It so happens, too, that, though the four main parts were played by accomplished artists, two at least of them were such as to try those artists severely. Pyrrhus was taken by Floridor, the best tragic actor by common consent of his time, and Orestes by Montfleury, also an accomplished player. But Made- moiselle du Pare, 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 Champmesle captivated the author. Andromaque was succeeded, at the distance of not more than a year, by a play which, taken in con- junction with his others, is perhaps the best proof of the theatrical talent of Racine, the charming comedietta of Les Plaideurs. We do not know exactly when it was played, but it was printed on 5th December 1668, and it had succeeded so badly that doubtless no long time passed between its appearance on the stage and in print. For the printing at that time both in France and England made the play publica materies, and therefore in the case of very successful pieces it was put off as long as possible. Many anecdotes are told about the origin and composition of Les Plaideurs* 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' Arte in Paris dispense us from enumerating them. The result is a piece admirably dramatic, but sufficiently literary to shock the profanum vulgus, which too frequently gives the tone at theatres. It failed completely, the chief favouring voice being, accord- ing 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. Moliere, says Valincourt, the special friend of Racine, said in leaving the house, "Que ceux qui se moquoient de cette piece meritoient qu'on se moquoient d'eux." But the piece was suddenly played at court a month later ; the king laughed, and its fortunes were restored. The truth probably was that the legal profession, which was very powerful in the city of Paris, did not fancy the most severe satire on its ways which had been made public since the or ca of the fifth book of Rabelais. It need only be added that, if Louis XIV. admired Les Plaideurs, Napoleon did not, and excluded it from his travelling library. It was followed by a very different work, Britannicus, which appeared on 13th December 1669. It was much less successful than Andromaque, and, whether or not the cabals, of which Racine constantly complains, and which lie certainly did nothing to disarm, had anything to do with this, it seems to have held its own but a very few nights. Afterwards it became very popular, and even from the first the ex- quisite versification was not denied. But there is no doubt that in Britannicus the defects of Racine, which in his first two plays were excusable on the score of apprentice- ship, and in the next two hardly appeared at all, display themselves pretty clearly to any competent critic. The complete nullity of Britannicus and Junie and the insuffi- cient attempt to display the complex and dangerous char- acter of Nero are not redeemed by Agrippina, who is really good, and Burrhus, who is solidly painted as a secondary character. Voltaire calls it "la piece des connaisseurs," and the description is not quite in the sense in which the critic meant it a very pregnant one. Britannicus is eminently the piece in which persons of a dilettante turn are seduced by the beauties which do exist to discover those which do not. The next play of Racine has, except Pkedre, the most curious history of all. " Berenice," says Fontenelle succinctly, " fut un duel," and he acknowledges that his uncle was not the conqueror. Henrietta of Orleans proposed (it is said without letting them know the double commission) the subject to Corneille and Racine at the same time, and rumour gives no very creditable reasons for her choice of the subject. Her death, famous for its disputed causes and for Bossuet's sermon, preceded the performance of the two plays, both of which, but especially Racine's, were successful. There is no doubt that it is the better of the two, but Chapelle's not unfriendly criti- cism in quoting the two lines of an old song