As early as 1660 he had made himself known by his ode in celebration of the marriage of Louis XIV.; while he remained unknown as the author of an unaccepted and unplayed drama in verse, sent to the Théâtre du Marais.
Racine's Paris homes were all in or near the "Pays Latin," for he preserves its ancient appellation in his letters. On leaving college, in 1660-61, he took up quarters with his uncle Nicolas Vitart, steward and intendant of the Duchesse de Chevreuse, and secretary of her son the Duc de Luynes. Vitart lived in the Hôtel de Luynes, a grand mansion that faced Quai des Grands-Augustins, and stretched far back along Rue Gît-le-Cœur. It was torn down in 1671. La Fontaine had lodgings, during his frequent visits to Paris at this period, a little farther west on Quai des Grands-Augustins, and he and Racine, despite the eighteen years' difference of age, became close companions. La Fontaine made his young friend acquainted with the cabarets of the quarter, and Racine studied them not unwillingly. Just then, too, Racine doubtless met Molière, recently come into the management of the theatre of the Palais-Royal. An original edition of "Les Précieuses Ridicules," played a while before this time at the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon, bears on its title-page "Privilège au Sr. de Luyne." This was Guillaume de Luyne, bookseller and publisher in the Salle des Merciers of the Palais de Justice; and at his place, a resort for book-loving loungers, we may well believe that the actor-manager made acquaintance with the young poet, coming from his home with the Duc de Luynes, within sight across the narrow arm of the river.
Not as a poet was he known in this ducal house, but as assistant to his uncle, and the probable successor of that uncle, who tried to train him to his future duties. Among these duties, just then, was the construction of the new Hôtel de Luynes for the Duchesse de Chevreuse. This is the lady who plays so prominent a rôle in Dumas's authentic history of "The Three Musketeers." The hôtel that was then built for her stands, somewhat shorn of its original grandeur, at No. 201 Boulevard Saint-Germain, and you may look to-day on the walls constructed under the eye of Jean Racine, acting as his uncle's overseer. This uncle was none too rigid of rule, nor was the household, from the duchess down, unduly ascetic of habit; and young Racine, "nothing loath," spent his days and eke his nights in somewhat festive fashion. His anxious country relatives at length induced him to leave the wicked town, and in November, 1661, he went to live at Uzés, near Nîmes, in Languedoc. Here he was housed with another uncle, of another kidney; a canon of the local cathedral, able to offer church work and to promise church preferment to the coy young cleric.
Racine was bored by it all, and mitigated his boredom, during the two years he remained, only by flirting and by stringing rhymes. The ladies were left behind, and the verses were carried to the capital, on his return in November, 1663. He showed some of them, first to Colbert and then to Molière, who received the verse with scant praise, but accepted, paid for, and played "La Thébaïde"—a work of promise, but of no more than promise, of the future master hand. It was at this period, about 1664, that Racine, of his own wish, first met Boileau, who had criticised in a kindly fashion some of the younger poet's verses. Thus was begun that friendship which was to last unmarred so many years, and to be broken only by Racine's death.
With Corneille, too, Racine made acquaintance, in 1665, and submitted to him his "Alexandre." He was greatly pleased by the praise of the author of the "Cid"; praise freely given to the poetry of the play, but along with it came the set-off that no talent for tragedy was shown in the piece. It was not long before the elder poet had to own his error, and it is a sorrow to record his growing discontent with the younger man's triumphs. Racine believed then and always, that Corneille was easily his master as a tragic dramatist; a belief shared with him by us of to-day, who find Corneille's tragedies as impressive, his comedies as spirited, as ever, on the boards of the Comédie Française; while Racine's tragic Muse seems to have outlived her day on those boards, and to have grown aged and out of date, along with the social surroundings amid which she queened it.
Racine's reverence for his elder and his better never wore away, and on Corneille's death—when, to his place in the Academy, his lesser brother Thomas was admitted—it fell to Racine, elected in 1673, to give the customary welcome to the new Academician, and to pay the customary tribute to his great forerunner. He paid it in words and in spirit of loyal admiration, and no nobler eulogy of a corrival has been spoken by any man.
On his return to town, in 1663, Racine had found his uncle-crony Vitart living in the new Hôtel de Luynes, and in order to be near him he took lodging in Rue de Grenelle. It was doubtless at the eastern end of that street, not far from the Croix-Rouge—a step from Boileau in Rue du Vieux-Colombier, and not far from La Fontaine on Quai Malaquais. Here he stayed for four years, and in 1667 he removed to the Hôtel des Ursins. This name had belonged to a grand old mansion on the north bank of Île de la Cité, presented by the City of Paris to Jean Juvénal des Ursins, Prévôt des Marchands under Charles VI. In the old prints, we see its two towers rising sheer from the river, and behind them its vast buildings and spacious grounds extending far away south on the island. According to Edouard Fournier, a painstaking topographer, all this structure was demolished toward the end of the eighteenth century, and over its site and through its grounds were cut the three streets bearing its name of des Ursins—Haute, Milieu, Basse. Other authorities claim that portions of the hotel still stand there, among them that portion in which Racine lived; his rooms having remained unaltered up to 1848. The street is narrow and dark, all its buildings are of ancient aspect, and on its south side is a row of antiquated houses that plainly date back to Racine's day and even earlier. It is in one of these that we may establish his lodgings.
The house at No. 5, commonly and erroneously pointed out as his residence, is of huge bulk, extending through to Rue Chanoinesse on the south. No. 7 would seem to be still more ancient. No. 9 is simply one wing of the dark stone structure, of which No. 11 forms the other wing and the central body, massive and gloomy, set back from the street behind a shallow court, between these wings. In the low wall of this court, under a great arch, a small forbidding door shuts on the pavement, and behind, in a recess, is an open stairway leading to the floor above. No. 13 was undoubtedly once a portion of the same fabric. All these street windows are heavily barred and sightless. These three houses evidently formed one entire structure at first, and this was either an outlying portion of the Hôtel des Ursins, or a separate building, erected after the demolition of that hôtel, and taking the old name. In either case, there can be no doubt that these are the walls that harbored Racine. The tenants of his day were mostly men of the law who had their offices and residential chambers here, by reason of their proximity to the Palais de Justice. With these inmates Racine was certainly acquainted—the magistrates, the advocates, the clerks, of whom he makes knowing sport in his delightful little comedy, "Les Plaideurs." It was played at Versailles, "by royal command," before King and court in 1668. This was not its original production, however; it had had its first night for the Paris public a month earlier, and had failed; possibly because it had not yet received royal approval. Molière, one of the audience on that first night, was a more competent critic of its quality, and his finding was that "those who mocked merited to be mocked in turn, for they did not know good comedy when they saw it." This verdict gives striking proof of his innate loyalty to a comrade in trade, for he and the author were estranged just then, not by any fault of Molière, and he had the right to feel wronged, and by this unasked praise he proved himself to be the more manly of the two.
The piece was an immediate success at Versailles. The Roi Soleil beamed, the courtiers smiled, the crowd laughed. The players, unexpectedly exultant, climbed into their coaches as soon as they were free, and drove into town and to Racine, with their good news. This whole quiet street was awakened by their shouts of congratulation, windows were thrown open by the alarmed burghers, and when they learned what it meant, they all joined in the jubilation.
Racine lived here from 1667 to 1677, and these ten years were years of unceasing output and of unbroken success. Beginning with his production of "Andromaque" in the first-named year, he went, through successive stage triumphs, to "Phèdre," his greatest and his last play for the public stage, produced on New Year's Day of 1677, at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. It was on these boards that almost all his plays were first given.