In the life of Boileau there is mention of the poet's first campaign, and the pleasantries that ensued. Boileau never attended another; but Racine followed the king in several; and his correspondence with his friend from the camp is very pleasing. Whatever faults might diminish the brightness of his character, he had a charming simplicity, a warmth of heart, a turn for humour, and a modesty, that make us love the man. His life was peaceful: his attendance at court, domestic peace, the open-hearted intimacy between him and Boileau, were the chief incidents of his life. "The friends were very dissimilar," says Louis Racine; "but they delighted in each other's society: probity was the link of the union." He attended the academy also. It fell to him to receive Thomas Corneille, when he was chosen member in place of the great Corneille. Racine's address pleased greatly. 1684.
Ætat.
45. His praise of his great rival was considered as generous as it was just. To this he added an eulogium on the king, which caused Louis to command him to recite his speech afterwards to him. At one time he was led to break his resolution to write no more poetry, by the request of the marquis of Seignelay, who gave a fête to the king at his house at Sceaux; and on this occasion Racine wrote his "Idyl on Peace."
In a biography of this kind, where the events are merely the every-day occurrences of life, anecdotes form a prominent portion, and a few may here be introduced. Racine had not Boileau's wit, but he had more humour, and a talent for raillery. Boileau represented to him the danger of yielding to this, even among friends. One day, after a rather warm discussion, in which Racine had rallied his friend unmercifully, Boileau said composedly, "Did you wish to annoy me?" "God forbid!" cried the other. "Well, then," said Boileau, "you were in the wrong, for you did annoy me." On occasion of another such dispute, carried on in the same manner, Boileau exclaimed, "Well, then, I am in the wrong; but I would rather be wrong than be so insolently right." He listened to his friend's reprimand with docility. Always endeavouring to correct the defects of his character, he never received a reproof but he turned his eyes inward to discover whether it was just, and to amend the fault that occasioned it. He tells his son in a letter, that accustomed, while a young man, to live among friends who rallied each other freely on their defects, he never took offence, but profited by the lessons thus conveyed. Such, however, is human blindness, that he never perceived the injurious tendency of his chief defect—weakness of character. He displays this amusingly enough in some anecdotes he has recorded of Louis XIV., in which the magnanimity of the monarch is lauded for the gentleness with which he reproved an attendant for giving him an unaired shirt.
Much of Racine's time was spent at court—the king having given him apartments in the castle and his entrées. He liked to hear him read. He said Racine had the most agreeable physiognomy of any one at court, and, of course, was pleased to see him about him. He was a great favourite of madame de Maintenon, whom, in return, he admired and respected. There was a good deal of similarity in their characters, and they could sympathise readily with each other. It is well known how, at this lady's request, he unwillingly broke his resolve, and wrote two tragedies, with this extenuation in his eyes, that they were on religious subjects; indeed, he had no pious scruple in writing them; but, keenly sensitive to criticism, he feared to forfeit the fame he had acquired, and that a falling off should appear in these youngest children of his genius.
The art of reciting poetry with ease and grace was considered in France a necessary portion of education. Racine was remarkable for the excellence of his delivery. At one time he had been asked to give some instructions in the art of declamation to a young princess; but, when he found that she had been learning portions of his tragedy of "Andromaque," he retired, and begged that he might not again he asked to give similar lessons. In the same way, madame de Brinon, superior of the house of Saint Cyr, was desirous that her pupils should learn to recite; and, not daring to teach them the tragedies of Corneille and Racine, she wrote some very bad pieces herself. Madame de Maintenon was present at the representation of one of these, and, finding it insufferable, she begged that it might not be played again, but that a tragedy of Corneille or Racine should be chosen in which there was least love. "Cinna" was first got up, and afterwards "Andromaque." The latter was so well played that madame de Maintenon found it ill suited for the instruction of young ladies: she wrote to Racine on the subject, saying, "Our little girls have been acting your "Andromaque," and they performed it so well that they shall never act either that or any other of your tragedies again;" and she went onto beg that he would write some sort of moral or historical poem fit for the recitation of young ladies. The request is certainly what we, in vulgar language, should call cool. Racine was annoyed, but he was too good a courtier to disobey—he has had his reward. He feared to decrease his reputation. In this he showed too great diffidence of his genius. The very necessity of not dressing some thrice-told heroic fable in French attire was of use; and we owe "Athalie," the best of all his dramas, to this demi-regal command.
His first choice, however, fell naturally upon Esther. There is something in her story fascinating to the imagination. A young and gentle girl, saving her nation from persecution by the mere force of compassion and conjugal love, is in itself a graceful and poetic idea. Racine found that it had other advantages, when he imaged the pious and persuasive Maintenon in the young bride, and the imperious Montespan in the fallen Vashti. When the play was performed applications were found for other personages, and the haughty Louvois was detected in Haman. The piece pleased the lady who commanded it; but she found her labours begin when it was to be acted, especially when the young duchess of Burgundy took a part. She attributed to the court the discontent about the distribution of parts, which flourishes in every green-room in the world, though it appertain only to a barn; however, success crowned the work. Esther was acted again and again before the king; no favour was estimated so highly as an invitation to be present. Madame de Caylus, niece of madame de Maintenon, was the best actress; and even the choruses, sung by the young pure voices of girls selected for their ability, were full of beauty and interest.
Charmed by the success, madame de Maintenon asked the poet for yet another tragedy. He found it very difficult to select a subject. Ruth and others were considered and rejected, till he chose one of the revolutions of the regal house of Judah[102], which was at once a domestic tragedy, and yet enveloped in all the majesty of royalty, and the grandeur of the Hebrew worship. Athaliah, on the death of her son Ahaziah, destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah, except one child, Joash, who was saved by Jehosheba, a princess of Israel, wife of Jehoiada the priest, and brought up by the latter till old enough to be restored to his throne, when he was brought out before the people, and proclaimed king, and the usurping queen, Athaliah, slain. The subject of this drama, concerning which he hesitated so long and feared so much, he found afterwards far better adapted to the real development of passion than "Esther." "Esther," after all, is a young ladies' play; and the very notion of the personages having allusion to the ladies of the court gives it a temporary and factitious interest, ill adapted to the dignity of tragedy. Racine put his whole soul in "Athalie." His piety, his love of God, his reverence for priests, which caused him to clothe the character of Jehoiada in awful majesty; his awe for the great name of Jehovah, and his immediate interference with the affairs of the Jewish nation; his power of seizing the grandeur of the Hebrew conception of the Almighty gave sublimity to his drama, while the sorrows and virtues of the young Joash gave, so to speak, a virgin grace to the whole. He had erred hitherto in treading with uneasy steps in the path which the Greeks had trod before; but here a new field was opened. And, to enhance the novelty and propriety of the story, he added a versification more perfect than is to be found in any other of his plays.
Yet it was unlucky. It had been represented to madame de Maintenon, that it was ill fitted for the education of noble young ladies to cause them to act before a whole court; and that the art of recitation was dearly purchased by the vanity, love of display, and loss of feminine timidity thus engendered. "Athalie" was, therefore, never got up like "Esther." It was performed, before the king and a few others, in madame de Maintenon's private apartment, by the young ladies, in their own dresses. Afterwards it was performed at Paris with ill success. The author was deeply mortified, while Boileau consoled him by prophesying "le public reviendra;" a prophecy which, in the sequel, was entirely fulfilled.
Many letters of Racine to his family are preserved; which show us the course of his latter years. It was uniform: though a large family brought with it such cares as sometimes caused him to regret his having given up his resolution to turn monk. At home he read books of piety, instructed his children, and conversed with his friends. Boileau continued the most intimate. Often the whole family repaired to Auteuil, where they were received with kindness and hospitality: at other times he followed the king to Fontainebleau and Marli. He had the place of gentleman in ordinary to the king (of which he obtained the survivance for his son), and was respected and loved by many of the chief nobility.
Racine, however, was not destined to a long life; and, while eagerly employed on the advancing his family, illness and death checked his plans. His son thinks that he pays him a compliment by attributing his death to his sensibility, and the mortification he sustained from the displeasure of the king. We, on the contrary, should be glad to exonerate his memory from the charge of a weakness which, carried so far, puts him in a contemptible light; and would rather hope that the despondency, the almost despair, he testified, was augmented by his state of health, as his illness was one that peculiarly affects the spirits. Like every person of quick and tender feelings, he was, at times, inclined to melancholy, and given to brood over his anxieties and griefs. He rather feared evil than anticipated good; and these defects, instead of lessening by the advance of age and the increase of his piety, were augmented through the failure of his health, and the timid and cowardly tendency of his faith.