of the Parisian drama, during which Richelieu
is as ubiquitous as Figaro, and has equal
right with the Barber to cry, "Largo al
factotum." He builds theatres; he writes plays;
he causes plays to be criticised.

The theatrical biography of the cardinal
seems to begin with his patronage of Gros
Guillaume, Gaulthier Garguille, and Turlupin,
three journeymen bakers, who, displaying a
certain amount of crude and coarse humour in
certain broad farces, became so exceedingly popular
that they seriously frightened the actors of the
Hotel de Bourgogne, then esteemed the home of
the classical and the legitimate. Let it not be
imagined that, like the new actors of a more
recent date, they contributed towards the fall
of the drama. In the days of the "Turlupinades,"
as the farces were called, after the
professional name of one of the actors therein, the
French stage had not even begun to rise. Poets
there were, indeed, of lofty ambition, but the
results of their inspiration now only hold a
place among the curiosities of literature. Pierre
Corneille is the earliest dramatist who is
allowed to hold a niche in the French Panthéon,
and the first comedy of the immortal Pierre
(Mélite) was not brought out before 1630. The
Cid, from which his fame may be dated, did
not see light till about six years afterwards.
In 1634 the three drolls were all gathered to
their fathers, dying, it is said, in the same
week, in consequence of the terror with which
they were seized on finding themselves involved
in a serious scrape (owing to an exaggerated
imitation, on the part of Gros Guillaume) by
one of the Parisian magistrates.

When the haughty artists of the Hôtel de
Bourgogne complained to the cardinal of the
misconduct of Turlupin and Co., his eminence
resolved to look into the rights of the case, and
inviting the three trespassers to the Palais
Cardinal—the present Palais Royal—which he had
recently built, induced them to give a taste of
their quality in his presence, an alcove being
the stage on which they were to display their
abilities. So successful was their performance
that the discomfited company of the Hôtel de
Bourgogne were enjoined to take them into their
own body; the cardinal remarking that whereas
the more dignified artists always left him sad,
the introduction of the comic element would,
doubtless, prove beneficial.

The joke which so much tickled the cardinal
was not of the most refined order. Gros
Guillaume, dressed as a grotesque woman, was
supposed to be the wife of Turlupin, who,
violently enraged, threatened to cut off the
head of his ridiculous better half with a wooden
sabre, but was suddenly appeased when the
lady sued for mercy in the name of the cabbage
soup which she had made for him the evening
before. The sabre fell from his hands, and he
exclaimed, "Ah, the hussy! she touches me
on the weak point; the fat of the soup still
sticks to my heart."

The victory of the three bakers over their
adversaries did them, after all, more harm, than
good; for, had they remained in their old
quarter, they would not have got into a scrape
with the magistrate.

In 1600 the company of the Hôtel de Bourgogne
having divided itself into two parts, one
of them left the old house to sojourn at the
Marais, while at the Hôtel du Petit Bourbon an
Italian company had been performing since
1577. Such was the predilection of the
cardinal for theatrical amusement that one private
theatre in the Palais Cardinal was not sufficient
to meet his demands. A small theatre was
constructed, capable of holding six hundred,
and a larger one, that held more than three
thousand. In the former of these the ordinary
pieces of the Hôtel de Bourgogne and the
Marais were represented; the latter was
reserved for grand occasions.

But if Richelieu wished to be renowned as a
Mæcenas of the drama, he was still more
ambitious of the fame of a dramatic poet. He
generally worked with assistants, who might be
called professional, and who were the ostensible
authors of the piece; but it was usually
understood that, in some way or other, it
proceeded from the cardinal, and, consequently,
fault could not be found with it, save at the
risk of giving offence in high quarters.

The poetical assistants were usually five in
number, and the first piece that resulted from
the grand combination of intellectual labour
seems to have been a comedy, entitled Les
Thuileries. This, it appears, was constructed
by the cardinal, and written by the five, one of
whom—no less a person than Corneille, whose
Cid, however, had not yet seen the light—
suggested that the plan of the third act might be
advantageously altered. Far from taking the
wholesome advice kindly, Richelieu told
Corneille that he ought to have an "esprit de
suite"—an expression proper to the idiomatic
tongue of the cardinal rather than to that of
Parisians in general. It was, in fact, an
euphemism for "blind obedience."

Colletet, another of the five, and likewise a
member of the French Academy, afforded more
unmixed satisfaction. Three lines which he
wrote in reference to the piece of water in the
Thuileries were considered so exceedingly
felicitous by the cardinal, that he rushed at once to
his escritoire, and taking out fifty pistoles,
thrust them into the hand of the fortunate genius,
at the same time declaring that this sum was
only intended to reward the specially beautiful
lines, and that the king himself would not be
wealthy enough adequately to reward the rest.
The gem so highly prized may be construed in
English thus:

The duck bedews herself with liquid mud,
Then with brave voice and widely flapping wings
Rouses the drake, that lingers at her side.

The happy man expressed his gratitude in a
couplet, which declared how gladly he would
sell his whole library at the price which the
cardinal had given for a few lines. Whatever
may be deemed the merit of these lines, on