Whereof this world holds record."
Molière comes from his rooms in Rue Saint-Honoré, or from his theatre; crossing the Seine by the Pont-Neuf, and passing along Rues Dauphine and de Bucy, and through the Marché Saint-Germain; moody from domestic dissensions, heavy-hearted with the recent loss of his first-born. Once among his friends, he listens, as he always listened, talking but little. La Fontaine saunters from the Hôtel de Bouillon, by way of Rue des Petits-Augustins—now Rue Bonaparte—and of tortuous courts now straightened into streets. Sitting at table, he is yet in his own land of dreams, until, stirred from his musing, his fine eyes brighten, and he chatters with a curious blending of simplicity and finesse. Racine steps in from his lodging in Rue de Grenelle, hard by; the youngest of the four, he, unlike those other two, is seldom silent, and gives full play to his ironical raillery. Next above him in age is the host; shrewd, brusque, incisive of speech and manner. So he shows in Girardon's admirable bust in the Louvre. The enormous wig then worn cannot becloud the bright alertness of his expression, or over-weigh the full lips that could sneer and the square chin, so resolute. These comrades talked of all sorts of things, and read to one another what each had written since they last met; read it for the sake of honest criticism from the rest, and with no other thought. For never were four men so absolutely without pose, without any pretence of earnestness, while immensely in earnest all the time. In "Les Amours de Psyché," La Fontaine assures us that they did not absolutely banish all serious discourse, but that they took care not to have too much of it, and preferred the darts of fun and nonsense that were feathered with friendly counsel. Best of all, his fable makes plain that there were no cliques nor cabals, no envy nor malice, among the men that made this worshipful band.
Boileau-Despréaux.
(From the portrait by Largillière.)
Their table served rather to sit around than to eat from, for their suppers were simple, and the flowing bowl was passed only when boisterous Chapelle or other bon-vivant dropped in. For others were invited at times, men of the world, the court, and the camp. And Boileau was the common centre of these excentric stars, and when each, in his own special atmosphere of coolness, swayed from the others' vicinage, Boileau alone let no alienation come between him and any one of them. For each, he was what Racine had found him, "the best friend and the best man in the world."
The house was near a noted cabaret, to which they sometimes resorted, at the Saint-Sulpice end of the street. The cabaretier was the illustrious Cresnet, made immortal in Boileau's verse. For the poet was no prude, and enjoyed the pleasures of the table so far as his health permitted; and, a trained gastronomic artist, he knew how to order a choicely harmonized repast. His street is widened, his house is gone, and no one can fix the spot. Yet the turmoil of that crowded thoroughfare of to-day is deadened for us by the mute voices of these men.
We have noted Boileau's camp-following with Racine, in their rôles of royal historiographers—in 1678 and later—but he was not strong enough for these excursions, even though they were made a picnic for the court. He was never at home on a horse, and yet out of place in the mud, and he could not enjoy the laughter he caused in either attitude, before or after he was thrown; laughter that is recorded in the letters of Madame de Sévigné.
It was probably because of Molière's taking a country place at Auteuil that Boileau began to make frequent excursions to that quiet suburb about 1667, and went to live in his tiny cottage there in 1685. "He had acquired it," to use his biographer's words, "partly by his Majesty's munificence, and partly by his own careful economy," so that he was opulent, for a poet. His purchase papers were made out by the notary Arouet—Voltaire's father—who drew up Boileau's pension papers in 1692, and who did much notarial work for the Boileau family. The cottage stood exactly on the ground now covered by the rear wing of the Hydropathic Establishment, at No. 12 Rue Boileau, Auteuil. Here he spent the spring and summer months of many a year, always alone, but with a hand-shake and a smile for his many visitors, men of birth as well as men of brains. Hither Voltaire certainly came, when a lad living with Dongois, for he says, in his pleasant rhymed epistle to Boileau:
"Je vis le jardinier de ta maison d'Auteuil."