This is a charming little bit of autobiography. And in the same letter, after the verses, the old poet says, “My poetry left me at the same time as my teeth.”
All this he writes, laughing in his sleeve. But often enough he was melancholy and depressed. Again we quote from Fontenelle: “Corneille was of a melancholy temperament. He required stronger emotions to make him hopeful and happy than to make him mournful or despondent. His manner was brusque, and sometimes rude in appearance, but at bottom he was very easy to live with, and he was affectionate and full of friendliness.” When he heard of large sums of money being given to other men for their plays, for pieces that the world liked perhaps better than his own, he got unhappy, for he felt that his glory was departing from him. Need we go back two hundred years to find instances of men who have become unhappy from similar causes? There are many such in London and in Paris at this moment. Early in his career, before the days of the Cid, he was proud of his calling. He gloried in being one of the dramatic authors of his time. He says:—
Le théâtre est un fief dont les rentes sont bonnes.
And also:—
Mon travail sans appui monte sur le théâtre,
Chacun en liberté l'y blâme ou l'idolâtre.
Then he had the ball at his feet, and all the world was before him. He had just made his name, and was honored by Richelieu—being appointed one of his five paid authors. But minister and poet did not like each other. The autocrat was in something of the same position towards his inferior as is the big boy towards the little boy who gets above him at school. The big boy wanted to thrash the little boy, and the little boy wouldn't have it; but at last he had to suffer for his precociousness. The big boy summoned other little boys to his assistance, and made them administer chastisement to the offender. This was the examination of the Cid by the Academy.
“En vain, contre le Cid un ministre se ligue,
Tout Paris pour Chimène a les yeux de Rodrigue;
L'Académie en corps a beau le censurer,