ls "the liberalities of
my Lord," he adds, "As you advise me not to reply to the _Sentiments de
l'Academie,_ seeing what personages are concerned therein, there is no
need of interpreters to understand that; I am somewhat more of this world
than Heliodorus was, who preferred to lose his bishopric rather than his
book; and I prefer my master's good graces to all the reputations on
earth. I shall be mum, then, not from disdain, but from respect."

The great Corneille made no further defence he had become a servitor
again; but the public, less docile, persisted in their opinion.

"In vain against the Cid a minister makes league;
All Paris, gazing on Chimene, thinks with Rodrigue;
In vain to censure her th' Academy aspires;
The stubborn populace revolts and still admires; "

said Boileau subsequently.

The dispute was ended, and, in spite of the judgment of the Academy, the
cardinal did not come out of it victorious; his anger, however, had
ceased: the Duchess of Aiguillon, his niece, accepted the dedication of
the _Cid;_ when _Horace_ appeared, in 1639, the dedicatory epistle,
addressed to the cardinal, proved that Corneille read his works to him
beforehand; the cabal appeared for a while on the point of making head
again. "_Horace,_ condemned by the decemvirs, was acquitted by the
people," said Corneille. The same year _Cinna_ came to give the
finishing touch to the reputation of the great poet:--

"To the persecuted Cid the Cinna owed its birth."

Corneille had withdrawn to the obscurity which suited the simplicity of
his habits; the cardinal, it was said, had helped him to get married; he
had no longer to defend his works, their fame was amply sufficient.
"Henceforth Corneille walks freely by himself and in the strength of his
own powers; the circle of his ideas grows larger, his style grows loftier
and stronger, together with his thoughts, and purer, perhaps, without his
dreaming of it; a more correct, a more precise expression comes to him,
evoked by greater clearness in idea, greater fixity of sentiment; genius,
with the mastery of means, seeks new outlets. Corneille writes
_Polyeucte_." [_Corneille et son Temps,_ by M. Guizot.]

It was a second revolution accomplished for the upsetting of received
ideas, at a time when paganism was to such an extent master of the
theatre that, in the midst of an allegory of the seventeenth century,
alluding to Gustavus Ad