Christians have but one God, absolute master of all, whose mere will does whatever he resolves; but, if I may venture to say what seems to me true, our gods very often agree ill together; and, though their wrath crush me before your eyes, we have a good many of them for them to be true gods. Finally, among the Christians, morals are pure, vices are hated, virtues flourish; they offer prayers on behalf of us who persecute them; and, during all the time since we have tormented them, have they ever been seen mutinous? Have they ever been seen rebellious? Have our princes ever had more faithful soldiers? Fierce in war, they submit themselves to our executioners; and, lions in combat, they die like lambs. I pity them too much not to defend them. Come, let us find Felix; let us commune with his son-in-law; and let us thus, with one single action, gratify at once Paulina, and my glory, and my compassion.
Such is the high heroic style in which pagan Severus resolves and speaks. And thus the fourth act ends.
Felix makes a sad contrast with the high-heartedness which the other characters, most of them, display. He is base enough to suspect that Severus is base enough to be false and treacherous in his act of intercession for Polyeuctes. He imagines he detects a plot against himself to undermine him with the emperor. Voltaire criticises Corneille for giving this sordid character to Felix. He thinks the tragedist might better have let Felix be actuated by zeal for the pagan gods. The mean selfishness that animates the governor, Voltaire regards as below the right tragic pitch. It is the poet himself, no doubt, with that high Roman fashion of his, who, unconsciously to the critic, taught him to make the criticism.
Felix summons Polyeuctes to an interview, and adjures to be a prudent man. Felix at length says, “Adore the gods or die.” “I am a Christian,” simply replies the martyr. “Impious! Adore them, I bid you, or renounce life.” (Here again Voltaire offers one of his refrigerant criticisms: “Renounce life does not advance upon the meaning of die; when one repeats the thought, the expression should be strengthened.”) Paulina meantime has entered to expostulate with Polyeuctes and with her father. Polyeuctes bids her, “Live with Severus.” He says he has revolved the subject, and he is convinced that another love is the sole remedy for her woe. He proceeds in the calmest manner to point out the advantages of the course recommended. Voltaire remarks—justly we are bound to say—that these maxims are here somewhat revolting; the martyr should have had other things to say. On Felix’s final word, “Soldiers, execute the order that I have given,” Paulina exclaims, “Whither are you taking him?” “To death,” says Felix. “To glory,” says Polyeuctes. “Admirable dialogue, and always applauded,” is Voltaire’s note on this.
The tragedy does not end with the martyrdom of Polyeuctes. Paulina becomes a Christian, but remains pagan enough to call her father “barbarous,” in acrimoniously bidding him finish his work by putting his daughter also to death. Severus reproaches Felix for his cruelty, and threatens him with his own enmity. Felix undergoes instantaneous conversion—a miracle of grace which, under the circumstances provided by Corneille, we may excuse Voltaire for laughing at. Paulina is delighted; and Severus asks, “Who would not be touched by a spectacle so tender?”
The tragedy thus comes near ending happily enough to be called a comedy.
Such as the foregoing exhibits him is the father of French tragedy, Corneille, where at his best; where at his worst, he is something so different that you would hardly admit him to be the same man. For never was genius more unequal in different manifestations of itself, than Corneille in his different works. Molière is reported to have said that Corneille had a familiar, or a fairy, that came to him at times, and enabled him to write sublimely; but that, when the poet was left to himself, he could write as poorly as another man.
Corneille produced some thirty-three dramatic pieces in all, but of these not more than six or seven retain their place on the French stage.
Corneille and Bossuet together constitute a kind of rank by themselves among the Dii Majores of the French literary Olympus.