To return to Boileau: not long before his death he somewhat changed his habits. Though not in want of money, he was induced, by the solicitations of a friend, to sell him his house at Auteuil, it being promised that a room should always be reserved for him, and that he should continue as much its master as when he actually possessed it. Fifteen days after the sale he visited the place, and, going into the garden, looked about for a little grove, beneath whose shade he was accustomed to saunter and indulge in reverie; it was no longer there: he called for the gardener, and heard that, by order of the new proprietor, his favourite trees had been cut down: he paused for a moment, and then went back to his carriage, saying, "Since I am no longer master, what business have I here?" He returned instantly to Paris, and never revisited Auteuil.
Boileau was a pious man; he fulfilled strictly his religious duties. It is told of him that, dining with the duke of Orleans on a fast-day, nothing but flesh being served at table, Boileau confined himself to bread: the duke, perceiving this, said, "The fish has been forgotten, so you must be content to forego the fast as we do." "Yet," said Boileau, "if you were but to strike the ground with your foot, fish would rise from the earth." A witty and happy adaptation of Pompey's boast. In his latter years he congratulated himself on the purity of his poems. "It is a great consolation," he said, "to a poet about to die, to feel that he has never written any thing injurious to virtue."
His last days were employed in correcting a complete edition of his works. This was to include his "Dialogue on the Romances," which so pleasantly ridicules the language which mademoiselle Scuderi puts in the mouths of Cyrus, Horatius Codes, and Clelia. Out of respect for the authoress he had hitherto refrained from printing it; but it had been read in private: the marquis de Sévigné had written it down from recollection; and it had been printed in a pirated edition of the works of St. Evremond. Mademoiselle Scuderi being dead, Boileau resolved on publishing it. But the chief addition to his edition was his "Epistle to Ambiguity." Already was the publication in progress when the jesuits took alarm. They gave it in charge to père le Tellier, the king's confessor, to speak to Louis, and to induce him to stop the publication. The monarch was docile to the voice of his confessor: he not only forbade Boileau to publish the satire, but ordered him to give up the original into his hands, informing him, at the same time, that with this omission his edition might appear. But Boileau, feeling himself about to die, disdained to temporise, and preferred suppressing the whole edition rather than truckle to the jesuits.
1711.
Ætat.
75.
His death was Christian and catholic, yet not so strictly devout as that of Racine. To the last he maintained his literary tastes, and was alive to critical remark. A friend thought to amuse him during his last illness by reading a new and popular tragedy: "Ah! my friend," he cried, "am I not dying in time? the Pradons, whom we laughed at in our youth, were suns in comparison with these authors." When he was asked how he felt, he replied by a verse from Malherbe:
"Je suis vaincu du temps, je cède à ses outrages."
As he was expiring, he saw M. Coutard approach; he pressed his hand, saying, "Bon jour, et adieu—c'est un long adieu."
He died of dropsy on the chest, on the 13th of March, 1711, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He was buried in the lower chapel of the Sainte Chapelle, immediately under the spot which, in the upper chapel, is immortalised by his "Lutrin." Numerous friends attended the funeral; and one among them overheard a woman say, "He had many friends, it seems, yet I have heard that he spoke ill of everybody."
This is an exaggeration of what may be considered as the only flaw in Boileau's character:—generous and charitable; simple and natural in his manners; full of friendship, kindness, and integrity; we almost hesitate to pronounce severity of criticism against bad books a fault; but we cannot avoid perceiving that the ridicule he has attached to the names of Chapelain, Cotin, and others, however well deserved by their writings, might have been spared to the men. It reminds us too strongly of the anonymous critics of the present day not to be held in detestation.