straight to Paris, and went to awaken Racine.  “Three carriages during the night, in a street where it was unusual to see a single one during the day, woke up the neighborhood.  There was a rush to the windows, and, as it was known that a councillor of requests (law-officer) had made a great uproar against the comedy of the Plaideurs, nobody had a doubt of punishment befalling the poet who had dared to take off the judges in the open theatre.  Next day all Paris believed that he was in prison.”  He had a triumph, on the contrary, with Britannicus, after which the, king gave up dancing in the court ballets, for fear of resembling Nero. Berenice was a duel between Corneille and Racine for the amusement of Madame Henriette.  Racine bore away the bell from his illustrious rival, without much glory. Bajazet soon followed.  “Here is Racine’s piece,” wrote Madame de Sevigne to her daughter in January, 1672; if I could send you La Champmesle, you would think it good, but without her, it loses half its worth.  The character of Bajazet is cold as ice, the manners of the Turks are ill observed in it, they do not make so much fuss about getting married; the catastrophe is not well led up to, there are no reasons given for that great butchery.  There are some pretty things, however, but nothing perfectly beautiful, nothing which carries by storm, none of those bursts of Corneille’s which make one creep.  My dear, let us be careful never to compare Racine with him, let us always feel the difference; never will the former rise any higher than Andromaque.  Long live our old friend Corneille!  Let us forgive his bad verses for the sake of those divine and sublime beauties which transport us.  They are master-strokes which are inimitable.”  Corneille had seen Bajazet.  “I would take great care not to say so to anybody else,” he whispered in the ear of Segrais, who was sitting beside him, “because they would say that I said so from jealousy; but, mind you, there is not in Bajazet a single character with the sentiments which should and do prevail at Constantinople; they have all, beneath a Turkish dress, the sentiments that prevail in the midst of France.”  The impassioned loyalty of Madame de Sevigne, and the clear-sighted jealousy of Corneille, were not mistaken; Bajazet is no Turk, but he is none the less very human.  “There are points by which men recognize themselves, though there is no resemblance; there are others in which there is resemblance without any recognition.  Certain sentiments belong to nature in all countries; they are characteristic of man only, and everywhere man will see his own image in them.” [Corneille et son temps, by M. Guizot.] Racine’s reputation went on continually increasing; he had brought out Mithridate and Iphigenie; Phedre appeared in 1677.  A cabal of great lords caused its failure at first.  When the public, for a moment led astray after the Phedre of Pradon, returned to the