Queen's remark, "Ils sont
deux puissans dieux" - "Lui seul est dieu, Madame, et le votre n'est rien" -
excited a laugh and I fancy never fails to do so, every time the piece is
performed.
Racine has several passages in his tragedies which perhaps have rather too
much naivete for the dignity of the cothurnus; for instance in the answer
of Agamemnon to Achille in the tragedy of Iphigenie:
Puisque vous le savez, pourquoi le demander?
A poet of to-day would be quizzed for a line like the above, but who dare
venture to point out any defect in an author of whom Voltaire has said and
with justice too, that the only criticism to be made of him (Racine) would
be to write under every page: "Admirable, harmonieux, sublime!"
The costume and the decorations at the Theatre francais are so strictly
classical and appropriate in every respect, that it is to me a source of
high delight to witness the representation of the favourite pieces of
Racine, Corneille, Moliere and Voltaire, which I have so often read with so
much pleasure in the closet and no small quantity of which I have by heart.
The next piece I saw was the Cinnna of Corneille; and here it was that I
beheld Talma for the second time.
