was what the ‘Cid’ was for the contemporaries of Corneille.  All that was young, brave, amorous, poetic, caught the inspiration of it.  Those fine exaggerations, heroic, Castilian, that superb Spanish emphasis; that language so proud and high even in its familiarity, those images of a dazzling strangeness, threw us into an ecstasy and intoxicated us with their heady poetry.”  The victory in the end was with the new school.  Musset, writing in 1838, says that the tragedies of Corneille and Racine had disappeared from the French stage for ten years.

Another triumphant battlefield—­a veritable fete romantique—­was the first representation in 1831 of Alexandre Dumas’ “Anthony.”  “It was an agitation, a tumult, an effervescence. . . .  The house was actually delirious; it applauded, sobbed, wept, shouted.  A certain famous green coat was torn from the author’s back and rent into shreds by his too ardent admirers, who wanted pieces of it for memorabilia.” [28]

The English reader who hears of the stubborn resistance offered to the performance of ‘Hernani’ will naturally suppose that there must have been something about it contrary to public policy—­some immorality, or some political references, at least, offensive to the government; and he will have a difficulty in understanding that the trouble was all about affairs purely literary.  “Hernani” was fought because it violated the unities of place and time; because its hero was a Spanish bandit; because in the dialogue a spade was called a spade, and in the verse the lines overlap.  The French are often charged with frivolity in matters of conduct, but to the discussion of matters of art they bring a most serious conscience.  The scene in “Hernani” shifts from Saragossa to the castle of Don Ruy Gomez de Silva in the mountains of Arragon, and to the tomb of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle.  The time of the action, though not precisely indicated, covers at least a number of months.  The dialogue is, in many parts, nervous, simple, direct, abrupt; in others running into long tirades and soliloquies, rich with all the poetic resources of the greatest poet who has ever used the French tongue.  The spirit of the drama, as well as its form, is romantic.  The point of honour is pushed to a fantastic excess; all the characters display the most delicate chivalry, the noblest magnanimity, the loftiest Castilian pride.  Don Ruy Gomez allows the King to carry off his bride, rather than yield up the outlaw who has taken refuge in his castle; and that although he has just caught this same outlaw paying court to this same bride, whose accepted lover he is.  Hernani, not to be outdone in generosity, offers his life to his enemy and preserver, giving him his horn and promising to come to meet his death at its summons.  There is the same fault here which is felt in Hugo’s novels.  Motives are exaggerated, the dramatis personae strut.  They are rather over-dramatic in their poses—–­melodramatic,