[98] La Bruyère puts in a note: “A rebellion was the ordinary ending of tragedies.”
[99] Some commentators think this is an allusion to the tragedies of Quinault, but they were already buried in oblivion when he died in 1688: it seems rather to refer to those of Jean Galbert de Campistron (1656-1713), who, during ten years, from 1683 to 1693, produced almost yearly a tragedy, none of which have come down to posterity.
[100] Molière often put peasants on the stage; but he never made of them, nor of intoxicated persons, his principal characters: the “sick person” is said to be a hit at Argan in Molièreʼs Le Malade imaginaire. See also page [21], § 38.
[101] This is an allusion to the actor Baronʼs LʼHomme à bonnes fortunes (1686) and the Débauché (1690); this latter comedy, acted before the court the very year the above paragraph first appeared, was a complete failure, and has never been printed. Intoxicated people were often represented on the stage in La Bruyèreʼs time.
[102] In the original comédies, a word employed for tragedies as well as for comedies.
[103] Cinna in the tragedy of that name, Felix in Polyeucte, and Rodogune in Rodogune are examples of this.
[104] The original has nombreux, the Latin numerosus.
[105] Three tragedies by Corneille. Though he himself calls the last tragedy by the name given above, its real title is Horace.
[106] Mithridates, the hero of Racineʼs tragedy of that name; Porus, a character in the Alexandre, and Burrhus in the Britannicus of the same author.
[107] In the comparison between Corneille and Racine there are some reminiscences of a Parallèle de M. Corneille et de M. Racine, published in 1686 by a certain author, de Requeleyne, Baron de Longepierre.