d by Boileau, rather detract from the beauty of
the poem; the last canto in particular is quite unworthy of his genius.
In 1674 appeared also his translation of Longinus _On the Sublime_, to
which were added in 1693 certain critical reflections, chiefly directed
against the theory of the superiority of the moderns over the ancients
as advanced by Charles Perrault.

Boileau was made historiographer to the king in 1677. From this time the
amount of his production diminished. To this period of his life belong
the satire, _Sur les femmes_, the ode, _Sur la prise de Namur_, the
epistles, _A mes vers_ and _Sur l'amour de Dieu_, and the satire _Sur
l'homme_. The satires had raised up a crowd of enemies against Boileau.
The 10th satire, on women, provoked an _Apologie des femmes_ from
Charles Perrault. Antoine Arnauld in the year of his death wrote a
letter in defence of Boileau, but when at the desire of his friends he
submitted his reply to Bossuet, the bishop pronounced all satire to be
incompatible with the spirit of Christianity, and the 10th satire to be
subversive of morality. The friends of Arnauld had declared that it was
inconsistent with the dignity of a churchman to write on any subject so
trivial as poetry. The epistle, _Sur l'amour de Dieu_, was a triumphant
vindication on the part of Boileau of the dignity of his art. It was not
until the 15th of April 1684 that he was admitted to the Academy, and
then only by the king's wish. In 1687 he retired to a country-house he
had bought at Auteuil, which Racine, because of the numerous guests,
calls his _hotellerie d'Auteuil_. In 1705 he sold his house and returned
to Paris, where he lived with his confessor in the cloisters of Notre
Dame. In the 12th satire, _Sur l'equivoque_, he attacked the Jesuits in
verses which Sainte-Beuve called a recapitulation of the _Lettres
provinciales_ of Pascal. This was written about 1705. He then gave his
attention to the arrangement of a complete and definitive edition of his
works. But the Jesuit fathers obtained from Louis XIV. the withdrawal of
the privilege already granted for the publication, and demanded the
suppression of the 12th satire. These annoyances are said to have
hastened his death, which took place on the 13th of March 1711.

Boileau was a man of warm and kindly feelings, honest, outspoken and
benevolent. Many anecdotes are told of his frankness of speech at court,
and of his generous actions. He holds a well-defined pla