Occupied as he was in governing the affairs of France and of Europe otherwise than in verse, the cardinal chose out work-fellows; there were five of them, to whom he gave his ideas and the plan of his piece; he intrusted to each the duty of writing an act, and “by this means finished a comedy a month,” says Pellisson.  Thus was composed the comedy of the Tuileries and the Aveugle de Smyrne, which were printed in 1638; Richelieu had likewise taken part in the composition of the Visionnaires of Desmarets, and supported in a rather remarkable scene the rule of the three unities against its detractors.  A new comedy, the Grande Pastorale, was in hand.  “When he was purposing to publish it,” says the History of the Academy, “he desired M. Chapelain to look over it, and make careful observations upon it.  These observations were brought to him by M. de Bois-Robert, and, though they were written with much discretion and respect, they shocked and nettled him to such a degree, either by their number or by the consciousness they caused him of his faults, that, without reading them through, he tore them up.  But on the following night, when he was in bed, and all his household asleep, having thought over the anger he had shown, be did a thing incomparably more estimable than the best comedy in the world, that is to say, he listened to reason, for he gave orders to collect and glue together the pieces of that torn paper, and, having read it from one end to the other, and given great thought to it, he sent and awakened M. de Bois-Robert to tell him that he saw quite well that the gentlemen of the Academy were better informed about such matters than he, and that there must be nothing more said about that paper and print.”

The cardinal ended by permitting the liberties taken in literary matters by Chapelain and even Colletet.  His courtiers were complimenting him about some success or other obtained by the king’s arms, saying that nothing could withstand his Eminence.  “You are mistaken,” he answered, laughing; “and I find even in Paris persons who withstand me.  There’s Colletet, who, after having fought with me yesterday over a word, does not give in yet; look at this long letter that he has just written me!” He counted, at any rate, in the number of his five work-fellows one mind too independent to be subservient for long to the ideas and wishes of another, though it were Cardinal Richelieu and the premier minister.  In conjunction with Colletet, Bois-Robert, De l’Etoile, and Rotrou, Peter Corneille worked at his Eminence’s tragedies and comedies.  He handled according to his fancy the act intrusted to him, with so much freedom that the cardinal was shocked, and said that he lacked, in his opinion, “the follower-spirit” (l’esprit de suite).  Corneille did not appeal from this judgment; he quietly took the road to Rouen, leaving henceforth to his four work-fellows the glory of putting into form the ideas of the all-powerful minister; he worked alone, for his own hand, for the glory of France and of the human mind.