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Updated: May 31, 2025
There is nothing but lightness and elegance, nothing but natural beauty and delicacy in his works." "He says nothing or will talk of nothing but Plato," Racine's daughters used to say. All his contemporaries, however, of fashion and good breeding did not form the same opinion of him.
Singleness of purpose is the dominating characteristic of the French classical drama, and of Racine's in particular; and this singleness shows itself not only in the action and its accessories, but in the whole tone of the piece. Unity of tone is, in fact, a more important element in a play than any other unity.
He had thought to give the Seigneur an opportunity to recede from his seditious position there and then, and to win his future loyalty. M. Racine's situation had peril, and the Governor had here shown him the way of escape. But he had said one thing that drove Louis Racine mad. He had given him unknown information about his own wife.
Beside her I saw Count Philip de Zinzendorf, who was looking for twelve millions for the empress a task which was not very difficult, as he offered five per cent. interest. At the play I found myself sitting next to the Turkish minister, and I thought he would die with laughter before my eyes. It happened thus: They were playing Iphigenia, that masterpiece of Racine's.
Debay's clothes, and the curtain was raised. Poor me! I was more dead than alive, but my courage returned after a triple burst of applause for the couplet which I sang on waking in very much the same way as I should have murmured a series of Racine's lines. When the performance was over Marc Fournier offered me, through Josse, a three years' engagement, but I asked to be allowed to think it over.
He brought out one after another, "Bajazet," "Mithridates," "Phoedra," and "Iphigenia," all of which had an excellent reception. The day "Phoedra" was brought out, another dramatist brought out a drama with the same title. He had powerful friends who went so far as to pack his theater, and buy boxes at the theater upon the stage of which Racine's play was to be enacted, and leave them empty.
And then it lay back, nestling down to sleep, very small, very cosy, mere handful of brown roofs among the orchards. Only the blue smoke of occasional peat fires moved here and there, betraying human occupation. The peace and beauty sank into his heart, as he wandered higher across Mont Racine's velvet shoulder. And the contrast stirred memories of his recent London life.
But, as a rule, Racine's characters speak out most clearly when they are most moved, so that their words, at the height of passion, have an intensity of directness unknown in actual life. In such moments, the phrases that leap to their lips quiver and glow with the compressed significance of character and situation; the 'Qui te l'a dit? of Hermione, the 'Sortez' of Roxane, the 'Je vais
Agitated triumph came upon Louis Racine's face; a weird painful vanity entered into him. He stood up beside his wife, as she turned and looked at him, showing not a sign that what she saw disturbed her. "It is no mushroom honour to be Seigneur of Pontiac, your Excellency," he said, in a tone that jarred. "The barony is two hundred years old.
Poor Niebuhr, they say, the Prussian Professor and Historian, fell broken-hearted in consequence; sickened, if we can believe it, and died of the Three Days! It was surely not a very heroic death; little better than Racine's, dying because Louis Fourteenth looked sternly on him once.
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