On the other hand, the concept of the pure will runs some risk of being perverted at the hands of those who proceed to interpret it by identification with that other "will for power" of Nietzsche, who understood the French poet in this hyperbolical manner and referred to him with fervent admiration on account of this fancy of his. The ideal of the will for power has an altogether modern origin, in the protoromantic and romantic superman, in over-excited and abstract individualism. It did not exist at the time of Corneille, or in the heart of the poet, who was very healthy and simple. The figures of Corneille's tragedies must be looked at through coloured and deforming glasses, as supplied by fashionable literature, in order to see in them such attitudes and gestures.
The further definition, which, while it renders the first conception more exact and more appropriate, at the same time shuts the door on these new fancies, is this: that Corneille's ideal does not express the pure will at the moment of violent onrush and actuation, but of ponderation and reflection, that is to say, as deliberative will. This was what Corneille truly loved: the spirit which deliberates calmly and serenely and having formed its resolution, adheres to it with unshakeable firmness, as to a position that has been won with difficulty and with difficulty strengthened. This represented for him the most lofty form of strength, the highest dignity of man. "Laissez-moi mieux consulter mon âme," says one of Corneille's personages, and all of them think and act in the same way. "Voyons," says the king of the Gepidi to the king of the Goths in the Attila, "—voyons qui se doit vaincre, et s' il faut que mon âme. A votre ambition immole cette flamme. Ou s'il n'est point plus beau que votre ambition. Elle-même s'immole a cette passion."
Augustus hesitates a long while, and gives vent to anguished lamentations, when he has discovered that Cinna is plotting against his life, as though to clear his soul and to make it better capable of the deliberation, which begins at once under the influence of passion, in the midst of anguish and with anguish. Has he the right to lament and to become wrathful? Has he not also made rivers of blood to flow? Does he then resign himself in his turn? Does he forsake himself as the victim of his own past? Far from it: he has a throne and is bound to defend it, and therefore will punish the assassin. Yes, but when he has caused more blood to flow, he will find new and greater hatreds surrounding him, new and more dangerous plots. It is better, then, to die? But wherefore die? Why should he not enjoy revenge and triumph once again? This is the tumult of irresolution, which, while felt as a hard, a desperate torment, and although it seems to hold the will in suspense, in reality sets it in motion, insensibly guiding it to its end. "O rigoureux combat d'un cœur irrésolu!..." The more properly deliberative process enters his breast with the appearance upon the scene of Livia, to whose advice he is opposed, for he disputes and combats it, yet listens and weighs it, seeming finally to remain still irresolute, yet he has already formed hi:; resolve, he has decided in his heart to perform an act of political clemency, so thunderous, so lightning-like in quality, as to bewilder his enemy and to hurl him vanquished at his feet.
The two brother princes in Rodogune are conversing, while they await the announcement as to which is the legitimate heir to the throne. Upon this announcement also depends which shall become the happy husband of Rodogune, whom they both love with an equal ardour. How will they face and support the decision of fate? One of the two, uncertain and anxious about the future, proposes to renounce the throne in favour of his brother, provided the latter renounces Rodogune; but he is met with the same proposal by the other. Thus the satisfaction of both, by means of mutual renunciation, is precluded. But the other course is also precluded, that of strife and conflict, for their brotherly affection is firm, and so is the sentiment of moral duty in both. This also forbids the one sacrificing himself for the other, because neither would accept the sacrifice. What can be saved from a collision, from which it seems that, nothing can be saved? One of the two brothers, after these various and equally vain attempts at finding a solution, returns upon himself, descends to the bottom of his soul, finds there a better motive and is the first to formulate the unique resolution: "Malgré l'éclat du trône et l'amour d'une femme, Faisons si bien régner l'amitié sur notre âme, Qu'étouffant dans leur perte un regret suborneur, Dans le bonheur d'un frère on trouve son bonheur...." And the other, who has not been the first to see and to follow this path asks: "Le pourriez, vous mon frère?" The first replies: "Ah; que vous me pressez! Je le voudrais du moins, mon frère, et c'est assez; Et ma raison sur moi gardera tant d'empire, Que je désavoûrai mon cœur, s'il en soupire." The other, firm in his turn replies: "J'embrasse comme vous ces nobles sentiments...."
Loving as he did, in this way, the work of the deliberative will (we have recorded two only of the situations in his tragedies, and we could cite hundreds), Corneille did not love love, a thing that withdraws itself from deliberation, a severe illness, which man discovers in his body, like fire in his house, without having willed it and without knowing how it got there. Sometimes the deliberative will is affected by it and for the moment at least upset, and then we hear the cry of Attila: "Quel nouveau coup de foudre! O raison confondue, orgueil presque étouffé...." as he struggles against its enchantments: "cruel poison de l'âme et doux charme des yeux." But as a general rule, he promptly drives it away from him, coldly and scornfully; or he subdues it and employs it as a means and an assistance in far graver matters, such as ambition, politics, the State; or he accepts it for what it contains of useful and worthy, which as such is the object and the fruit of deliberation. "Ce ne sont pas les sens que mon amour consulte: Il hait des passions l'impétueux tumulte...." Certainly, this attitude is intransigent, ascetic and severe: but what of it? "Un peu de dureté sied bien aux grandes âmes." Certainly love comes out of it diminished and humiliated: "D'Amour n'est pas le maître alors qu'on délibère;" love deserves its fate and almost deserves the gibe: "La seule politique est ce qui nous émeut; On la suit et l'amour s'y mêle comme il peut: S'il vient on l'applaudit; s'il manque on s'en console...." It manages as best it can and becomes less powerful and wonderfully ductile beneath this pressure, ready to bend in whatever direction it is commanded to bend by the reason. Sometimes it remains suspended between two persons, like a balance, which awaits the addition of a weight in order to lean over: "...Ce cœur des deux parts engagé, Se donnant à vous deux ne s'est point partagé, Toujours prêt d'embrasser son service et le vôtre, Toujours prêt à mourir et pour l'un et pour l'autre. Pour n'en adorer qu'une, il eût fallu choisir; Et ce choix eût été au moins quelque désir, Quelque espoir outrageux d'être mieux reçu d'elle ...." On another occasion, although there might be some inclination or desire, rather toward the one than the other side, it is yet kept secret, beneath the resolve to suffocate it altogether, should reason ordain that love must flow into a contrary channel. Not only are Corneille's personages told to their face: "Il ne faut plus aimer," an act of renunciation to be asked of a saint, but they are also bidden thus: "Il faut aimer ailleurs," an act worthy of a martyr.
He did not love love, not because it is love, but because it is passion, which carries one away and which, if it be allowed to do so, will not consent to state the terms of the debate clearly, and engage in deliberation. His dislike for the inebriation of hatred and of anger, which blind or confound the vision, and which, as passion, is also foreign to his ideal, also appears in confirmation of this view. "Qui hait brutalement permet tout à sa haine, Il s'emporte où sa fureur l'entraîne.... Mais qui hait par devoir ne s'aveugle jamais; c'est sa raison qui hait ...." His ideal personages sometimes declare, when face to face with their enemy: "je te dois estimer, mais je te dois haïr." On the other hand, we perceive clearly why Corneille was led to admire the will, even when without moral illumination, even indeed when it is actively opposed to or without morality; for it has the power of not yielding to and of dominating the passions, of not being violent weakness, but strength, or as it was called during the Renaissance, "virtú." In that sphere of deliberation there existed a common ground of mutual understanding between the honest and dishonest man, between the hero of evil and the hero of good, for each pursued a course of duty, in his own way and both agreed in withstanding and despising the madness of the passions.
And we also see why the domain towards which Corneille directed his gaze and for which he had a special predilection, was bound to be that of politics, where "virtú," in the sense that it possessed during the period of the Renaissance, found ample opportunity for free expansion and for self-realisation. In politics, we find ourselves continuously in difficult and contradictory situations, where acuteness and long views are of importance and where it is necessary to make calculations as to the interests and passions of men, to act energetically upon what has been decided after nice weighing in the balance, to be firm as well as prudent. It has been jocosely observed by William Schlegel that Corneille, the most upright and honest of men, was more Machiavellian than any Machiavelli in his treatment and representation of politics, that he boasted of the art of deceiving, and that he had no notion of true politics, which are less complicated and far more adroit and adaptable. Lemaître too admits that in this respect he was "fort candide." But who is not excessive in the things that he loves? Who is not sometimes too candid regarding them, with that candour and simplicity which is born of faith and enthusiasm? His very lack of experience in real politics, his simplicism and exaggeration in conceiving them, is there to confirm the vigour of his affection for the ideal of the politician, as supremely expressed by the man who ponders and deliberates. He always has la raison d'état and les maximes d'état upon his lips. We feel that these words and phrases move, edify and arouse in him an ecstasy of admiration.
It was free determination and complete submission to reason, duty, objective utility, to what was fitting—and not a spirit of courtly adulation—that led him to look with an equal ecstasy of admiration upon personages in high positions and upon monarchs, the summit of the pyramid. He did not therefore admit them because they can do everything, still less because they can enjoy everything, but on the contrary, because, owing to their office, their discipline and tradition, they are accustomed to sacrifice their private affections and to conduct themselves in obedience to motives superior to the individual. Kings too have a heart, they too are exposed to the soft snares of love; but better than all others they know what is becoming behaviour: "Je suis reine et dois régner sur moi: Je rang que nous tenons, jaloux de notre gloire, Souvent dans un tel choix nous défend de nous croire, Jette sur nos désirs un joug impérieux, Et dédaigne l'avis et du cœur et des yeux." And elsewhere: "Les princes out cela de leur haute naissance, Leur âme dans leur rang prend des impressions Qui dessous leur vertu rangent leurs passions; Leur générosité soumet tout à leur gloire ...." They love, certainly, as it happens to all to love, but they do not on that account yield to the attractions of the senses. "Je ne le cèle point, j'aime, Carlos, oui, j'aime; Mais l'amour de l'état plus fort que de moi-même, Cherche, au lieu de l'objet le plus doux à mes yeux, Le plus digne héros de régner en ces lieux." His predilection for history, especially for Roman history, has the same root, and had long been elaborated as an ideal—even in the Rome of the Empire, yet more so at the time of the Renaissance and during the post-Renaissance, and even in the schools of the Jesuits. It was thus transformed into a history that afforded examples of civic virtues, such as self-sacrifice, heroism, and greatness of resolve. We spare the reader the demonstration that this tendency was altogether different from, and indeed opposed to historical knowledge and to the so-called "historical sense," because questions of this sort and the accompanying eulogies accorded to Corneille as a historian, are now to be looked upon as antiquated.
The historical relations of Corneille's ideal are clearly indicated or at any rate adumbrated in these references and explanations, as also its incipience and genesis, which is to be found, as we have stated, in the theory and practice of the Renaissance, concerning politics and the office of the sovereign or prince, and for the rest in the ethics of stoicism, which was so widely diffused in the second half of the sixteenth century, and not less in France than elsewhere. The image of Corneille is surrounded in our imagination with all those volumes, containing baroque frontispieces illustrative of historical scenes, which at that time saw the light every day in all parts of Europe. They were the works of the moralists, of the Machiavellians, of the Taciteans, of the councillors in the art of adroit behaviour at court, of the Jesuit casuists Botero and Ribadeneyra, Sanchez and Mariana, Valeriano Castiglione and Matteo Pellegrini, Gracian and Amelot de la Houssaye, Balzac and Naudée, Scioppio and Justus Lipsius. They might be described as comprizing a complete and conspicuous section of the Library of the Manzonian Don Ferrante, the "intellectual" of the seventeenth century.
Such literature as this and the history of the time itself have been more than once given as the source of the poetical inspiration proper to Corneille, and indeed they appear spontaneously in the mind of anyone acquainted with the particular mode of thought and of manners that have prevailed during the various epochs of modern society. It is therefore unpleasant to find critics intent on fishing out other origins for it, in an obscure determinism of race and religion, almost as if disgusted with the obvious explanation, which is certainly the only true one in this case, pointing out for instance in Corneille "an energy that comes from the north," that is to say from the Germany that produced Luther and Kant, or from the country that was occupied for a time by their forefathers the Normans, those Scandinavian pirates who disembarked under the leadership of Rollo (if this fancy originated with Lemaître, they all repeat it); or they discover the characteristic of his poetry in the subtlety and litigious spirit of the Norman, and in the lawyer and magistrate whose functions he fulfilled.