s, it has lasted, with its traditions, its primitive statutes, its
reminiscences, its respect for the past. It has preserved its courteous
and modest dignity, its habits of polite neutrality, the suavity and
equality of the relations between its members. It was said just now that
Richelieu's work no longer existed save in history, and that revolutions
have left him nothing but his glory; but that was a mistake: the French
Academy is still standing, stronger and freer than at its birth, and it
was founded by Richelieu, and has never forgotten him.

Amongst the earliest members of the Academy the cardinal had placed his
most habitual and most intimate literary servants, Bois-Robert,
Desmarets, Colletet, all writers for the theatre, employed by Richelieu
in his own dramatic attempts. Theatrical representations were the only
pleasure the minister enjoyed, in accord with the public of his day. He
had everywhere encouraged this taste, supporting with marked favor ,
Hardy and the _Theatre Parisien_. With his mind constantly exercised by
the wants of the government, he soon sought in the theatre a means of
acting upon the masses. He had already foreseen the power of the press;
he had laid hands on Doctor Renaudot's _Gazette de France;_ King Louis
XIII. often wrote articles in it; the manuscript exists in the National
Library, with some corrections which appear to be Richelieu's. As for
the theatre, the cardinal aspired to try his own hand at the work; his
literary labors were nearly all political pieces; his tragedy of
_Mirame,_ to which he attached so much value, and which he had
represented at such great expense for the opening of his theatre in the
Palais-Cardinal, is nothing but one continual allusion, often bold even
to insolence, to Buckingham's feelings towards Anne of Austria. The
comedy, in heroic style, of Europe, which appeared in the name of
_Desmarets,_ after the cardinal's death, is a political allegory touching
the condition of the world. Francion and Ibere contend together for the
favors of Europe, not without, at the same time, paying court to the
Princess Austrasia (Lorraine). All the cardinal's foreign policy, his
alliances with Protestants, are there described in verses which do not
lack a certain force: Germanique (the emperor) pleads the cause of Ibere
with Europe:--

"No longer can he brook to gaze on such as these,
Destroyers of the shrines, foes of the Deities,
B