But I do not mean, Fastidiosus, to cite only German precedents, nor to uphold the college drama with the names of Reuchlin, Melancthon, and Luther alone, majestic though they are.  In the University of Paris the custom of acting plays was one of high antiquity.  In 1392 the schoolboys of Angiers performed Robin and Marian, “as was their annual custom”; and in 1477 the scholars of Pontoise represented “a certain moralitie or farce, as is their custom.”  In 1558 the comedies of Jacques Grevin were acted at the College of Beauvais at Paris; but it is in the next century that we come upon the most interesting case.  In the days of Louis XIV. the girls’ school at St. Cyr, of which Madame de Maintenon was patroness, was, in one way and another, the object of much public attention.  Mademoiselle de Caylus, niece of Madame de Maintenon, who became famous among the women of charming wit and grace who distinguished the time, was a pupil at St. Cyr, and in her memoirs gives a pleasant sketch of her school life.  With the rest, “Madame de Brinon,” she says,

first superior of St. Cyr, loved verse and the drama; and in default of the pieces of Corneille and Racine, which she did not dare to have represented, she composed plays herself.  It is to her, and her taste for the stage, that the world owes Esther and Athalie, which Racine wrote for the girls of St. Cyr.  Madame de Maintenon wished to see one of Madame de Brinon’s pieces.  She found it such as it was, that is to say, so bad that she begged to have no more such played, and that instead some beautiful piece of Corneille or Racine should be selected, choosing such as contained least about love.  These young girls, therefore, undertook the rendering of Cinna, quite passably for children who had been trained for the stage only by an old nun.  They then played Andromaque; and, whether it was that the actresses were better chosen, or gained in grace through experience, it was only too well represented for Madame de Maintenon, causing her to fear that this amusement would fill them with sentiments the reverse of those which she wished to inspire.  However, as she was persuaded that amusements of this sort were good for youth, she wrote to Racine, begging him to compose for her, in his moments of leisure, some sort of moral or historic poem, from which love should be entirely banished, and in which he need not believe that his reputation was concerned, since it would remain buried at St. Cyr.  The letter threw Racine into great agitation.  He wished to please Madame de Maintenon.  To refuse was impossible for a courtier, and the commission was delicate for a man who, like him, had a great reputation to sustain.  At last he found in the subject of Esther all that was necessary to please the Court.

So far Mademoiselle de Caylus.  A French historian of literature draws a pleasing picture of the old Racine superintending the preparation of Esther,