that it had soul.

The extraordinary favor with which this play was received marked an
epoch in a small way, a return to antique ideas and themes, to more
elevated subjects and modes of dealing with them. Six weeks after its
appearance Sainte-Beuve writes: "We have always been rather apish in
France: the Grecian, Roman and biblical tragedies which every day now
brings forth are innumerable. Who will deliver me from these Greeks and
Romans? Here we are overrun by them again after forty years'
insurrection, and by the Hebrews to boot." The high-water mark of the
author's popularity was the publication of a trifle called the
_Anti-Lucrece_, which was sold in the purlieus of the Odeon: next day
there was a rumor that a second _Anti-Lucrece_ was in preparation. But
the tide had turned: six months later, when the theatre reopened after
the summer vacation with the same tragedy, Sainte-Beuve records:
"_Lucrece_ has reappeared only to die, not by the poignard, but of
languor, coldness, premature old age. It is frightful how little and how
fast we live in these times--works as well as men. We survive ourselves
and our children: the generations are turned upside down. Here is a
piece which scarcely six months ago all Paris ran to hear without being
asked:... now they are tired of it already, and can find nothing in it:
it is like last year's snow." The death-blow of the tragedy was given,
Sainte-Beuve says, not by the dagger, but by a luckless blunder of the
actor who played Lucretia's father, and who, instead of saying,
_L'assassin palissant_ ("The assassin turning pale,") said, _L'assassin
polisson_ ("The scamp of an assassin"); which set everybody laughing;
and that was the end of it.

M. Ponsard might console himself, if he liked, by the reflection that
his play, if not immortal, had killed his fair rival's _Judith_ and
swallowed up Victor Hugo's _Burgraves_, which had been acted at the
Theatre Francais a month before _Lucrece_ was first produced. Regarding
the former, Sainte-Beuve shows unwonted tenderness or policy. "Never let
me be too epigrammatic about Madame de Girardin," he wrote to M.
Olivier: "I would not seem to play the traitor to her smiles;" though in
reference to a sharp encounter between her and Jules Janin he hints that
she has claws of her own. He does not deny himself the pleasure of
mentioning Victor Hugo's little weaknesses. At the first three
representations of _Les Burgraves_ the theatre was packed wit