After this disagreeable episode Racine's life, for ten years and more, becomes simply the history of his plays, if we except his liaisons with the actresses Mademoiselle du Parc and Made moiselle de Champmesle, and his election to the Academy on July 17, 1673. The series of his unquestioned dramatic triumphs began with Andromaque (Nov. 1667), and this play may perhaps dispute with Phedre and Athalie the title of his masterpiece. It is much more uniformly good than Phedre, and the character of Hermione is the most personally interesting on the French tragic stage. Whatever may be thought of the tragedie pathetique (a less favourable criticism might call it the "sentimental tragedy"), it could hardly be better exemplified than in this admirable play, which owes its success to the application of the most delicate art to the conception of really tragic passion. Andromaque was succeeded, at the distance of not more than a year, by the charm ing comedietta of Les Plaideurs (printed on Dec. 5, 1668). At first it was a complete failure, though Moliere is reported to have said on leaving the house, "Que ceux qui se moquoient de cette piece meritoient qu'on se moquoient d'eux"; but the piece was suddenly played at court a month later; the king laughed, and its fortunes were restored. It was followed by a very different work, Britan nicus, which appeared on Dec. 13,5669. This was much less suc cessful than Andromaque, and seems to have held its own but a very few nights. Afterwards it became very popular, and even from the first the exquisite versification was not denied. But the complete nullity of Britannicus himself and of Junie, and the insufficient attempt to display the complex and dangerous char acter of Nero are not redeemed by Agrippina, who is really good, and Burrhus, who is solidly painted as a secondary character. Voltaire calls it "la piece des connaisseurs," a double-edged com pliment. The next play of Racine has, except Phedre, the most curious history of all. Henrietta of Orleans proposed the subject of Berenice to Corneille and Racine at the same time, and both plays, but especially Racine's, were successful. Bajazet, first played on Jan. 4, 1672, has great technical merit, but it is impos sible to imagine anything less oriental than the atmosphere of the piece, which is scarcely saved by its ingenious scenario and admirable style. This charge is equally applicable with the same reservations to Mithridate, which appears to have been produced on Jan. 13, 1673, and was extremely popular. Racine's next attempt, 1phigenie, was a long step backwards and upwards in the direction of Andromaque. Greek tragedy gave examples which prevented him from flying in the face of the propriety of char acter as he had done in Berenice, Bajazet, and Mithridate. The date of its appearance is very uncertain. It was acted at court on Aug. 18, 1674, but it does not seem to have been given to the public till the early spring of 1675.
The last and finest of the series of tragedies proper was the most unlucky. Phedre was represented for the first time on New Year's Day 1677, at the Hotel de Bourgogne. Within a week the opposition company launched an opposition Phedre by Nicolas Pradon, who had been employed to write it by the duchess of Bouillon and other influential enemies of Racine. So well had their measures been taken that the finest tragedy of the French classical school was all but driven from the stage, while Pradon's was a positive success. The unjust cabal against his piece no doubt made a deep impression on Racine. But it is impossible to decide exactly how much influence this had on the subsequent change in his life. For 13 years he had been constantly employed on a series of brilliant dramas. He now broke off his dramatic work entirely and in the remaining 20 years of his life wrote but two more plays, and those under special circumstances and of quite a different kind. He had been during his early manhood a libertine in morals and religion; he now became irreproachably domestic and almost ostentatiously devout. No authentic account of this change exists; what is certain is that Racine reconciled him self with Port Royal, accepted their doctrine of the incompati bility of the stage and the Christian life, and on June i married Catherine de Romanet and definitely settled down to a quiet domestic life, alternated with the duties of a courtier. His wife had money, and he had possessed for some time the post of treasurer of France at Moulins. His annual "gratification" had been increased from Boo to 2,000 livres, and in the year of his marriage he and Boileau were made historiographers-royal with a salary of 2,000 crowns. Racine's labours brought him, in
addition to his other gains, frequent special presents from the king, and in 1690 he further received the office of "gentilhomme ordinaire du roi," which afterwards passed to his son. He had two sons and five daughters.
The almost complete silence which Racine imposed on himself after the comparative failure of Phedre was broken once or twice even before the appearance of his two last exquisite tragedies. The most honourable of these was the reception of Thomas Cor neille on Jan. 2, 1685, at the Academy in the room of his brother. The discourse which Racine then pronounced turned almost en tirely on his great rival, of whom he spoke even more than becom ingly. But it was an odd conjunction of the two reigning passions of the latter part of his life—devoutness and obsequiousness to the court—which made him once more a dramatist. Madame de Maintenon had established an institution at Saint Cyr for the education of poor girls of noble family; the tradition of including acting in education was not obsolete, and the favourite asked Racine for a new play suited to the circumstances. The result was the masterpiece of Esther, with music by Moreau, the court composer and organist of Saint-Cyr. The beauty of the chorus, the perfection of the characters and the wonderful art of the whole piece need no praise. Almost immediately the poet was at work on another and a still finer piece of the same kind, and he had probably finished Athalie before the end of 1690. The fate of the play, however, was very different from that of Esther. The public cared very little for it, but the just judgment of posterity has ranked Athalie, if not as Racine's best work (and there are good grounds for considering it to be this), at any rate as equal to his best. Thenceforward Racine was practically silent, except for a brilliant Histoire abregee de Port Royal and four can tiques spirituelles, in the style and with much of the merit of the choruses of Esther and Athalie. The general literary sentiment was against him, and his weakness for spiteful epigrams cost him many friends. At last even the king withdrew his favour. He died April 21, 1699, and was buried at Port Royal.
Racine may be considered from two very different points of view,—(i) as a playwright and poetical artificer, and (2) as a dramatist and a poet. From the first point of view there is hardly any praise too high for him. Every advantage of which the Senecan tragedy adapted to modern times was capable he gave it. He perfected its versification ; he subordinated its scheme entirely to the one motive which could have free play in it,—the display of a conventionally intense passion, hampered by this or that obstacle ; he set himself to produce in verse a kind of Ciceronian correctness. The grammar-criticisms of Vaugelas and the taste criticisms of Boileau produced in him no feeling of revolt, but only a determination to play the game according to these new rules with triumphant accuracy. The result is that such plays as Phedre and Andromaque are supreme in their own way. But his greatest achievements in pure passion—the foiled desires of Hermione and the jealous frenzy of Phedre—are cold, not merely beside the crossed love of Ophelia and the remorse of Lady Macbeth, but beside the sincerer if less perfectly expressed pas sion of Corneille's Cleopatre and Camille. He had cut away from himself, by the adoption of the Senecan model, all the oppor tunities which would have been offered to his remarkably varied talent on a freer stage, though the admirable success of Les Plaideurs makes us regret that he did not experiment further in comedy.