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Updated: June 21, 2025
As soon as his health had recovered a little from the horror of the Bohemian campaign, Vauvenargues took the step of writing to Voltaire, then a stranger, for his opinion on that crying question, the relative greatness of Corneille and of Racine, a question to all Frenchmen like that between predestination and free-will to Milton's rebel angels.
Some clung desperately to the passing order: some caught at a plank and drifted. The Abbe Corneille only asked: "Where do we stand as men? Where is that which makes us live?" For he believed: "Where life is, there is God." And that was why he was in sympathy with Christophe. For his part, Christophe was glad once more to hear the splendid music of a great religious soul.
Cloud Napoleon had once paid a glowing eulogy to the power of tragic dramas, and, speaking of Corneille, declared that to his inspiration the French nation owed many of its finest impulses and its most brilliant deeds. "If he were here, I would make him a prince."
The best feature of this work Voltaire owed to Sophocles, whom he nevertheless slanders in his preface; and in comparison with whose catastrophe his own is flat in the extreme. Not a little, however, was borrowed from the frigid Oedipus of Corneille; and more especially the love of Philoctetus for Jocaste, which may be said to correspond nearly with that of Theseus and Dirce in Corneille.
A friendly grocer let them have an empty store-room for their performances, and in this store-room Adrienne Lecouvreur first acted in a tragedy by Corneille, assuming the part of leading woman. Her genius for the stage was like the genius of Napoleon for war. She had had no teaching.
On the night after the seizure by Kirke of the goods in store, he took from the room of Corneille de Vendremur, a clerk, one hundred livres in gold and money, a silver cup and some silk stockings. He was suspected of having stolen from the chapel of the Lower Town, a silver chalice, the gift of Anne of Austria.
Other writers have sought, for instance, our great classical authors, Pascal, Bossuet and perhaps Corneille, to influence the thought of their time; some, like Molière, La Fontaine, and La Bruyère, to correct customs. Others still, such as our romantic writers, Hugo or De Musset, desired only to express their personal conception of the world and of life.
Voltaire confessed as much with a modesty which was by no means familiar to him. Inimitable in their genius, Corneille, Bossuet, Pascal, Moliere left their imprint upon the generation that came after them; it had judgment enough to set them by acclamation in the ranks of the classics; in their case, greatness displaced time.
At ten the King and his family went down to the Queen's chamber, and there passed the day. He employed himself in educating his son, made him recite passages from Corneille and Racine, gave him lessons in geography, and exercised him in colouring the maps. The Queen, on her part, was employed in the education of her daughter, and these different lessons lasted till eleven o'clock.
"Yes, Monsieur," continued Corneille, "I see every evening with what rapidity a noble thought finds its echo in French hearts; and every evening I retire happy at the sight. Gratitude prostrates the poor people before this statue of a good king! Who knows what other monument another passion may raise near this? Who can say how far the love of glory will lead our people?
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