[95]There is humour, certainly, in the description of the bishop, in the "Lutrin," escaping from his enemies by forcing them to receive his blessing.
[RACINE]
1639-1699
Born under not very dissimilar circumstances from Boileau—running, without great variation, the same literary career—sometimes associated in the same labours, always making a part of the same society, and, throughout, his dearest friend, yet the texture of their minds caused Racine to be a very different person from the subject of the foregoing sketch. The lives of both were unmarked by events; but while the one calmly and philosophically enjoyed the pleasures of life, unharmed by its pains, the more tender and sensitive nature of Racine laid him open to their impression. Censures, that only roused Boileau to bitter replies, saddened and crushed his friend. The feelings of religion, which made the former a good and pious man, rendered the other, to a great degree, a bigot. The one was independent of soul, the other sought support: yet, as the faults of Racine were combined with tenderness and amiability of disposition, and as he possessed the virtues of a warm heart, it is impossible not to regard his faults with kindness, while we deplore the mistakes into which they betrayed him. To trace out the different natures of men, to account for the variation, either from innate difference, or the influence of dissimilar circumstances, is, perhaps, one of the most useful objects of a biographer. We all vary one from another, yet none of us tolerate the difference in others: the haughty and independent spirit disdains the pliant and tender, while this regards its opposite as unfeeling and lawless. The conviction, on the contrary, ought to be deeply impressed of the harmony of characters—that certain defects and certain virtues are allied, and ever go together. We should not ask the sheep for fleetness, nor wool from the horse; but we may love and admire the gifts that each enjoy, and profit by them, both as matter of advantage and instruction.
Racine was born of a respectable family of Ferté-Milon, a small town of Valois. His father and grandfather both enjoyed small financial situations in their native town. His father, Jean Racine, married Jeanne Sconin, whose father occupied the same sort of position in society. This pair had two children, whom their deaths left orphans in infancy. The wife died in 1641, and her husband survived her only two years.
The two children, a boy and a girl, were brought up by their maternal grandfather. The daughter passed her life at Ferté-Milon, and died there at the advanced age of ninety-two. The son, named Jean, was born on the 21st of December, 1639. We have few traces of his childhood. It was not, apparently, a happy one; at least we are told that, when all the family of Sconin assembled at his house, on those festive anniversaries which the French celebrate with so much exactitude, his orphan grandchildren were wholly disregarded[96]; and the gentle sensitive heart of Racine must have felt this neglect severely. His first studies were made at Beauvais. At this time the civil war of the fronde was raging in France. The scholars at Beauvais were also divided into parties; and "Vive Mazarin," or "A bas Mazarin," became the rallying cries of their mimic wars; yet not so mimic but that the little combatants encountered perils. Racine himself received a wound on his forehead, of which he ever after bore the mark. The master of the school used to show the scar to everybody as a token of the boy's courage; a quality of which, in after life, he made no great display. 1670.
Ætat.
11. His grandfather died while he was still a child, and he fell to the care of his widowed grandmother. Two of this lady's daughters were nuns in the abbey of Port Royal, and she took up her abode with them; which was, doubtless, the cause that, on leaving the school at Beauvais, Racine was received a pupil in the seminary of that convent.
1655.
Ætat.
16.
At this time, in France, the education of young people was chiefly committed to the clergy. The jesuits did all they could to engross an employment full of promise of power—the great aim of that society. Their principal rivals were the teachers of the abbey of Port Royal, whose methods were admirable, and whose enthusiasm led them to diligence and patience in their task. Theoretically it seems an excellent plan to commit the bringing up of youth to those who dedicate their lives to the strictest practices of virtue, as the recluses of Port Royal at that time undoubtedly did. But, in fact, the monkish spirit is so alien to the true purposes of life, and men who sacrifice every pleasure and affection to the maintenance of ascetic vows must naturally give so preponderating an importance to the objects that influence them, that such teachers are apt rather to trouble the conscience, and plunge youth in extravagant devotion; inspiring rather a polemical spirit, or a dream of idleness, than instilling that manly and active morality, and that noble desire to make a right use of the faculties given us by God, which is the aim of all liberal education. The effects of a monkish tutelage spread a sinister influence over the ductile disposition of Racine; the faults of his character were all fostered; the independence and hardihood he wanted were never instilled.
As a school for learning it succeeded admirably. Greek and Latin were assiduously cultivated by the tutors, and Racine's wonderful memory caused him to make swift progress. M. de Sacy took particular pains with him: discerning his talents, and hoping that he would one day distinguish himself, he took him into his own apartments, and gave him the name and treatment of a son. M. Hannon, who succeeded to M. de Sacy, on the death of the latter, continued the same attentions. Racine was poor: he could not purchase good copies of the classics, and he read them in the Basle editions without any Latin translation. His son tells us that he still possessed his father's Plutarch and Plato, the margins of which were covered with annotations which proved his application and learning.
It is impossible not to be struck by the benefit derived from the Greek writers by a child of genius, who was indebted to the respect which the priests showed for ancient authors for the awakening of his mind to poetry and philosophy. But for this saving grace the monks would probably have allowed him to read only books of scholastic piety. Racine, young as he was, drank eagerly from the purest fountains of intellectual beauty and grace, opened by the Greeks, unsurpassed even to this time. His imaginative spirit was excited by the poetry of the Greek tragedians; and he spent many a day wandering in the woods of Port Royal with the works of Sophocles and Euripides in his hands. He thus obtained a knowledge of these divine compositions which always remained; and in after years he could recite whole plays.[97] It happened, however, that he got hold of the Greek romance of the loves of Theagines and Chariclea. This was too much for priestly toleration. The sacristan discovered the book and devoted it to the flames; another copy met the same fate. Racine bought a third, learnt the romance by heart, and then took the volume to the monk, and told him he might burn that also.