vernuel

Updated: May 5, 2025

The overturn of Mary of Medicis into a river, where she was half-drowned, would never have been remembered if Madame de Vernuel, who saw it, had not said 'la Reine boit'. Pleasure or malignity often gives ridicule a weight which it does not deserve. The versification, I must confess, is too much neglected and too often bad: but, upon the whole, I read the play with pleasure.

Earl of Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield - Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 1752

The overturn of Mary of Medicis into a river, where she was half-drowned, would never have been remembered if Madame de Vernuel, who saw it, had not said 'la Reine boit'. Pleasure or malignity often gives ridicule a weight which it does not deserve. The versification, I must confess, is too much neglected and too often bad: but, upon the whole, I read the play with pleasure.

Earl of Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield - Complete Project Gutenberg Earl of Chesterfield Works