en Rochefoucault said that Boileau
and Racine had only one kind of genius, and could only talk about their
own poetry, it is evident that the observation should not have extended to
Racine, however it might to Boileau. It was Racine's excessive sensibility
which made him the finest dramatic reciter. The celebrated actress,
Mademoiselle Champmesle,[A] the heroine of his tragedies, had no genius
whatever for the stage, but she had beauty, voice, and memory. Racine
taught her first to comprehend the verses she was going to recite, showed
her the appropriate gesture, and gave her the variable tones, which he
even sometimes noted down. His pupil, faithful to her lessons, though a
mere actress of art, on the stage seemed inspired by passion; and as she,
thus formed and fashioned, naturally only played thus effectively in the
dramas of her preceptor, it was supposed that love for the poet inspired
the actress.

[Footnote A: Racine first met this actress at the Marquis de Sevigne's
_petit soupers_; so much lamented by his more famous mother in one of her
admirable letters, who speaks of "the Racines and the Despreaux's" who
assisted his prodigality. In one of Madame de Sevigne's letters, dated in
1672, she somewhat rashly declares, "Racine now writes his dramas, not for
posterity, but for Mademoiselle Champmesle:" she had then forsaken the
marquis for the poet, who wrote _Roxane_ in _Bajazet_ expressly for her.
--ED.]

When Racine read aloud he diffused his own enthusiasm once with Boileau
and Nicole, amid a literary circle, they talked of Sophocles, whom Racine
greatly admired, but from whom he had never dared to borrow a tragic
subject. Taking up a Greek Sophocles, and translating the OEdipus, the
French poet became so deeply imbued with the Greek tragedian, that his
auditors caught all the emotions of terror and pity. "I have seen," says
one of those auditors, "our best pieces represented by our best actors,
but never anything approached the agitation which then came over us; and
to this distant day I have never lost the recollection of Racine, with the
volume in his hand, full of emotion, and we all breathlessly pressing
around him."

It was the poet's sensibility that urged him to make the most
extraordinary sacrifice that ever poet made; he wished to get rid entirely
of that poetical fame to which he owed everything, and which was at once
his pleasure, his pride, and his property. His education had been a
religious one