Lulli always remained a buffoon in the mind of Mademoiselle, although she assisted at his triumphs and survived him.
Mademoiselle preserved the taste for literature formed at Saint-Fargeau. Her name is associated with several incidents, great and small, of the literary history of the times. In 1669, when Tartuffe was definitely authorised, she wished to have it performed in her salon. This fact is noteworthy as the Church still forbade its representation. On August 21, Mademoiselle gave a fête. When most of the guests had departed, "Tartuffe, the fashionable piece, was played before twenty women and numbers of men."[195] Did the end of the phrase contain a slight excuse—"which was the fashionable piece"? However this may be, Mademoiselle could boast to her confessor that she had been "economical" with Molière. The entertainment at the Luxembourg was paid for with three hundred francs given to the actors, the current price being for such a performance five hundred and fifty francs. Thus the virtuous homes evidenced their piety!
On another occasion, Mademoiselle had the honour, if the Abbé d'Olivet may be believed, of supplying Molière with an entire scene ready made: and what a scene! Among the habitués of the salon figured one of the victims of Boileau, the impudent Abbé Cotin, who not finding himself sufficiently étrillé (thrashed) had provoked new retaliations in gossiping about Molière.
One day he brought some verses of his own composition to the palace of the Luxembourg to read them to Mademoiselle. In the midst of her admiration another writer, supposed to be Ménage, entered. Mademoiselle committed the error of showing the verses of the Abbé and, without mentioning the name of the author, of defending the expressed opinions. The result was the scene between Vadius and Trissotin (at first named "Tricotin" lest one should be deceived). It was only needful for Molière to give the touch of genius as in the sonnet to the Princess Uranie and in the verses upon the Carosse Amarante. In these two cases, it is well known that the lines are copied word for word from a volume written by the Abbé Cotin.[196]
Many echoes of the grand literary battle of the century[197] still resounded in the Luxembourg. The success of the first tragedies of Racine irritated that portion of the public, always large, which has a horror of being disturbed in its habits of thought by importunate novelties. Such a disturbance is a punishment to many persons, whether the moving force comes from literature, science, or art. There are many examples of this fixed state of mind to be found in the past century: it will suffice to recall the struggles hardly yet quieted between Pasteur and Wagner.
Racine appeared on the scene as a revolutionary force. He and Molière, sustained by their friend Boileau, presented a dramatic art absolutely new, which was separated by a gulf from that of Corneille and for which nothing had prepared the way. Corneille's predecessors were Mairet, the du Ryers and many others: Racine stood alone. He was the first and the last to make tragedy realistic, with the subject simple, the characters scrupulously true to nature, and the language often audaciously familiar.
Louis XIV. applauded. Racine and the King well comprehended each other. Heinrich Heine has given the reason for this in one of those phrases which throw light upon an entire period: "Racine is the first modern poet, as Louis XIV. was the first modern King."
The young Court applauded cordially with the King. It also belonged to the new régime; but for the old Court, for the survivors of the Hôtel Rambouillet, the tragedy of Racine was as shocking, as displeasing, as were the first realistic romances to the faithful adherents of romanticism, and for the same reasons. In spite of the difficulty so many have, of sympathising with the ideas of the one called a little disdainfully "the gentle Racine," "the elegant Racine," this writer appeared neither gentle nor elegant to three-fourths of the salon, to the "old Court" of the Grande Mademoiselle. The Pyrrhus seemed to them "brutal," the Phèdre, a "madwoman" "the blackness" of Nero or Narcisse entirely beyond what should be permitted on the stage.
Not that the personages of Corneille or of his predecessors acted less wickedly, but their brutes and villains were nevertheless "heroes" and that made all the difference. The personages created by Racine were only "men," simple men, who used words "low and grovelling," bourgeois words, expressions such as "Quoi qu'il en soit, que fais je, que dis-je!"[198] and did not even realise the sense: more than three hundred improper terms have been counted in Andromaque. Racine would have fared better if his poetic methods had not been in some way a criticism upon the cleverness of Corneille. This was the real grievance, obliging the adorers of the old poet to condemn the insolent one.