I believed in good faith that the work had fallen flat; the violence of the attack had shaken my conviction as an author. Some of my friends consoled me; they maintained that the proscription was unjustified, that sooner or later the public would pronounce another verdict: M. de Fontanes especially was firm; I was no Racine, but he might be a Boileau, and he never ceased saying to me:
"They'll come back to it."
His persuasion in this regard was so deep-rooted that it inspired him with some charming stanzas:
Le Tasse, errant de ville en ville, etc.[17],
without fear of compromising his taste or the authority of his judgment.
The Martyrs has, in fact, retrieved itself, has obtained the honour of four consecutive editions, and has even enjoyed particular favour with men of letters: appreciation has been shown me of a work which bears evidence of serious study, of some pains towards style, of a great reverence for language and taste.
Its reception.
Criticism of the subject-matter was promptly abandoned. To say that I had mixed profane with sacred things, because I had depicted two cults which existed side by side and which had each its beliefs, its altars, its priests, its ceremonies, was equivalent to saying that I ought to have renounced history. For whom did the martyrs die? For Jesus Christ. To whom were they immolated? To the gods of the Empire. Therefore there were two religions.
The philosophical question, namely, whether, under Diocletian[18], the Greeks and Romans believed in the gods of Homer, and whether public worship had undergone any changes, was a question that did not concern me as a poet; as an historian, I might have had many things to say.
All this no longer matters. The Martyrs has lived, contrary to my first expectation, and I have had to occupy myself only with the care of revising its text.