then
his Majesty went away and left me the object of envy. The prince and
princess came and gave me a word, Madame de Maintenon a glance; she went
away with the king. I replied to all, for I was in luck."

_Athalie_ had not the same brilliant success as _Esther_. The devotees
and the envious had affrighted Madame de Maintenon, who had requested
Racine to write it. The young ladies of St. Cyr, in the uniform of the
house, played the piece quite simply at Versailles before Louis XIV. and
Madame de Maintenon, in a room without a stage. When the players gave a
representation of it at Paris, it was considered heavy; it did not,
succeed. Racine imagined that he was doomed to another failure like that
of _Phedre,_ which he preferred before all his other pieces. "I am a
pretty good judge," Boileau kept repeating to him: "it is about the best
you have done; the public will come round to it." Racine died before
success was achieved by the only perfect piece which the French stage
possesses,--worthy both of the subject and of the sources whence Racine
drew his inspiration. He had, with an excess of scrupulousness,
abandoned the display of all the fire that burned within him; but beauty
never ceased to rouse him to irresistible enthusiasm. Whilst reading the
Psalms to M. de Seignelay, when lying ill, he could not refrain from
paraphrasing them aloud. He admired Sophocles so much that he never
dared touch the subjects of his tragedies. "One day," says M. de
Valicour, "when he was at Auteuil, at Boileau's, with M. Nicole and some
distinguished friends, he took up a Sophocles in Greek, and read the
tragedy of _OEdipus,_ translating it as he went. He read so feelingly
that all his auditors experienced the sensations of terror and pity with
which this piece abounds. I have seen our best pieces played by our best
actors, but nothing ever came near the commotion into which I was thrown
by this reading, and, at this moment of writing, I fancy I still see
Racine, book in hand, and all of us awe-stricken around him." Thus it
was that, whilst repeating, but a short time before, the verses of
_Mithridate,_ as he was walking in the Tuileries, he had seen the workmen
leaving their work and coming up to him, convinced as they were that he
was mad, and was going to throw himself into the basin.

Racine for a long while enjoyed the favors of the king, who went so far
as to tolerate the attachment the poet had always testified towards