them only depends the fame of Colletet. He put
into verse a tragedy called Cymiade, which had
been written in prose by the Abbé d'Aubignac,
and which, although produced, has since sunk
into oblivion; but the three lines and the
grateful couplet are to be found in every
collection of French theatrical anecdotes.

Far more celebrated than Colletet was Jean
Chapelain, who wrote the prologue to Les
Thuileries, and who was likewise one of the
earlier members of the Academy; for he has
left behind him the reputation of being the
very worst French poet that ever put pen to
paper. However, the unwieldy poem on the
subject of the Maid of Orleans, which was
entitled La Pucelle, and which raised him to the
summit of his bad eminence, did not make its
appearance till more than twenty years after the
first performance of the cardinal's comedy at the
Palais Royal, which took place in 1635. This
prologue, at any rate, answered its purpose;
for Richelieu was so highly pleased with it, that
he requested Chapelain to lend him his name,
adding that in return he would lend him his
purse on some future occasion.

Middling as the plays might be that were
issued by the dramatic firm of Richelieu and
Co., there was at the time glory in being
connected with them. The illustrious five had a
bench to themselves in the best part of the
theatre; their names were honourably
mentioned in the prologue, and their pieces were
always played in the presence of the king and
court.

Pierre Corneille was the only poet of the five
who attained a really great reputation. Of the
rest the most noted was Desmarets de Saint
Sorlin, who, it seems, had not the least natural
inclination to become a dramatic poet, but whose
genius, latent even to himself, was somehow
detected by the cardinal. The light which he
possessed unknown he would willingly have kept
under a bushel, even after it had been discovered
by the great man; but Richelieu pressed him so
hardly to try his hand at a plot, that refusal at
last became dangerous. The plot once achieved,
some other gifted mortal might write the verse.
At all events, the cardinal wished to break in
the recalcitrant man of talent by degrees.

Working with the fear of Richelieu before his
eyes, Desmarets produced the skeleton of a
comedy called Aspasie, the success of which,
with his patron, literally exceeded his hopes; for
whereas he had done all that he had desired to
do, and a great deal more, he was now enjoined
to write the verse, and encouraged by the remark
that no other was worthy to perform a task so
noble. Aspasie was accordingly finished, in
spite of the poet's repugnance, played in the
presence of the Duke of Parma, and, by
command of his eminence, applauded to the skies.

Left to himself, Desmarets would have
preferred epic to dramatic poetry; and when
Richelieu, rendered more urgent than ever by the
success of Aspasie, proposed that he should
supply a similar work every year, he endeavoured
to shield himself against the new infliction by
alleging that his hours were fully occupied
by the composition of an heroic poem on the subject of
the ancient King Clovis, of which he had already
written two books, and which would throw the
poetic lustre over France in general, and the
cardinal in particular, and make the reign of
Louis the Thirteenth famous in the annals of
poesy. The man who wants a comedy is not
to be put off with an epic, and Richelieu, who
had given Desmarets two snug places under
government, besides making him a member of
the Academy, replied that the serious duties of
his protégé demanded more recreation, and that
the composition of dramatic pieces was a light
and pleasant amusement. He added, more than
a lifetime would be required for the completion
of Clovis; and in this respect he was wrong,
for in 1657, more than twenty years after the
production of Aspasie, the ponderous epic
appeared in twenty-six cantos, which were
afterwards reduced to twenty.

Desmarets having been thus fairly bagged by
the cardinal, the conqueror and the captive set
their shoulders to the wheel, and turned out a
comedy called Les Visionnaires, which really
acquired something like a grand reputation.
The noise that it made originated no doubt in
the will of the all-potent cardinal, but it was a
good loud noise at any rate, and owed much of
its wide-spreading effect to the circumstance
that it was virtually a "hit" at actual
celebrities of the day. The Visionnaires named in
the title were persons respectively distinguished
by some particular crotchet, and all the initiated
among the audience were perfectly aware for
whom the dramatic portrait was intended. One
lady could bestow her affections on none but
Alexander the Great, and she was understood to
represent Madame de Sablé, one of the most
famous of the so-called "précieuses," who had
dared to repel the advances of the cardinal
himself, and who was castigated in the play
accordingly. The arch intriguer, Madame de
Chavigny, who is so conspicuous in the history
of Anne of Austria, figured as the coquette of
the story. And there was a third female "visionary"
who was never happy save at the theatre,
and who was meant for the great Madame de
Rambouillet, queen and hostess of "précieuses"
in general. All this was vastly amusing.

Many persons have learned by worldly
experience that it is easier to form a connexion than
to get rid of one, and this lesson was received by
Desmarets, who, from the time when Les
Visionnaires was first brought out, could not write a
piece without exciting a suspicion that the
cardinal had a finger in the pie. There was no
direct information to the effect that a tragedy
called Roxane, which was brought out in 1640,
had any other author than Desmarets; but the
world insisted that the cardinal had lent his
valuable assistance. On the strength of this belief
the poet Voiture, renowned in his day, extolled
the play in the most disgusting spirit of adulation;
and results proved that the hypothesis of
the cardinal's partnership was the safest, if not
the most correct that could be adopted; for the