SOURCE: "The Realism of Corneille (1) Characters," in Corneille, St Martin's Press, 1963, pp. 178-229.

Epithets derived from names of writers sometimes suffer a strange fate. Some are merely used with the sense of 'like or pertaining to the writer in question', as 'Shakespearean'. Others, however, take on a different shade of meaning and imply, not 'like the writer', but 'like some popular misconception of the writer'. The word 'Machiavellian', for instance, has acquired undertones and overtones of meaning which make the reading of The Prince something of a surprise to the reader who expects it to be 'Machiavellian'. 'Cartesianism' is only a part of Descartes, as 'marivaudage' is only a part of Marivaux. In the same way, the adjective 'Cornelian' has acquired implications, based on an over-simple, if not erroneous, interpretation of Corneille, which make it difficult to approach his plays with an open mind.

Corneille is often regarded as lacking in humanity, as the creator of a false psychology. Corneille, said La Bruyère in a famous phrase, 'peint les hommes comme ils devraient ètre.' 'Corneille est presque toujours hors de la nature,' wrote Voltaire. 'L' observation de la nature ne l'occupait point,' asserted Guizot. In more recent times, we find Faguet saying that 'rien ne ressemble moins à la vie que le théâtre de Corneille,' and Barrère that 'il a aimé l'humanité inhumaine'. His characters, it is said, are over-simplified, and get less and less convincing as time goes on:

Drama of this kind must, it is clear, lack many of the qualities which are usually associated with the dramatic art; there is no room in it for variety of characterdrawing, for delicacy of feeling, or for the realistic presentation of the experiences of life. Corneille hardly attempted to produce such effects as these; and during his early years his great gifts of passion and rhetoric easily made up for the deficiency. As he grew older, however, his inspiration weakened; his command of his material left him; and he was no longer able to fill the figures of his creation with the old intellectual sublimity. His heroes and his heroines became mere mouthing puppets, pouring out an endless stream of elaborate, high-flown sentiments, wrapped up in a complicated jargon of argumentative verse. His later plays are miserable failures. (Lytton Strachey)

Corneille, indeed, has even come to be regarded as a moralist, a creator of supermen. The Cornelian hero is often described as a being whose will is capable of executing whatever course he has selected by the exercise of his reason and whose passions are rational; a magnanimous being, following the path of duty whatever temptations beset him, and fond of abnegation for its own sake. His essential nature, it is said, is expressed in lines such as:

Je le ferais encor, si j'avais à le faire.
(Le Cid, III, 4; Polyeucte, V, 3)

Je suis maître de moi comme de l'univers….
(Cinna, V, 3)

Voilà quelle je suis, et quelle je veux être.

The Cornelian hero has been seen as the dramatic equivalent of the généreux of Descartes, and Corneille has been described as 'le poète de la volonté,' 'professeur d'énergie nationale'. These views have been challenged by some recent writers, such as Bénichou and Nadal, for whom the Cornelian hero is motivated, not by virtue and reason, but by the passion for gioire, which makes him ambitious of heroism, magnanimity, or rank. Even this, however, does not clear Corneille of the imputation of lacking humanity; and, in any case, the older view is still current—even such a great Cornelian scholar as M. Couton talks of 'l'idèe cornélienne de l'homme, éclairé par la raison, doué d'une volonté capable de dompter les passions.'

Now, Corneille began by writing comedies which, besides their comic elements, were distinguished by their use of baroque themes and characteristics and by realism of various kinds. Neither the baroque characteristics nor the comic elements disappeared from Corneille's work when he turned from tragedy to comedy, so that it would seem unlikely, on the face of it, that he abandoned his psychological realism and became a creator of supermen. Indeed, the presence of a comic element in his tragedies seems almost to be a guarantee of their realism. Certainly, in his theoretical writings, Corneille shows that he was no less concerned with realism in tragedy than in comedy:

Le poème dramatique est une imitation, ou pour en mieux parler, un portrait des actions des hommes; et il est hors de doute que les portraits sont d'autant plus excellents, qu'ils ressemblent mieux à l'originai. (Troisième Discours)

The same preoccupation with realism is evident in his views about the characters of tragedy:

Le poète doit considérer l'àge, la dignité, la naissance, l'emploi et le pays de ceux qu'il introduit: il faut qu'il sache ce qu'on doit à sa patrie, à ses parents, à ses amis, à son roi; quel est l'office d'un magistrat, ou d'un generai d'armée, afin qu'il puisse y conformer ceux qu'il veut faire aimer aux spectateurs, et en éloigner ceux qu'il leur veut faire haïr; car c'est une maxime infaillible que, pour bien réussir, il faut intéresser l'auditoire pour les premiers acteurs. (Premier Discours)

He is no less concerned with the vraisemblance of the action: even in his first tragedy, Médée, he attempts to make the events more probable than they are in his original. As for style, he insists that it should be as natural as is compatible with writing in verse:

Il y a cette différence pour ce regard entre le poète dramatique et l'orateur, que celui-ci peut étaler son art, et le rendre remarquable avec pleine liberté, et que l'autre doit le cacher avec soin, parce que ce n'est jamais lui qui parle, et que ceux qu'il fait parler ne sont pas des orateurs [ … ] le langage doit ètre net, les figures placées à propos et diversifiées, et la versification aisée et élevée au-dessus de la prose, mais non pas jusqu'à l'enflure du poème épique, puisque ceux que le poète fait parler ne sont pas des poètes. (Premier Discours)

His dislike of asides, his reluctance to let a monologue be overheard by another character, his aversion from moral discourses and maxims of a general nature, his insistence that narrations must be introduced realistically or not at all, his blend of comedy and tragedy, and his invention of the comédie héroîque are all evidence of the same tendency. It is clear that Corneille's conception of tragedy by no means excludes realism.

The Cornelian superman is certainly not to be found in the four most commonly read plays, Le Cid, Horace, Cinna and Polyeucte.

In Le Cid, what is exceptional is the situation, not the characters. Rodrigue obeys the claims of family honour and kills the Count, who has insulted his father; but he makes the point clearly that this is the only course open to him, since, whatever he does, he is bound to lose Chimène:

Allons, mon bras, sauvons du moins l'honneur,
Puisqu'après tout il faut perdre Chimène.

(I,6)

Once he has fought and killed the Count, there is no going back. The initiative passes to Chimène—and, in fact, in Chimène, as Corneille's critics pointed out in the Querelle du Cid, love is stronger than duty.

She easily strays from the course of action she thinks she ought to follow; her protestations of firmness cover up a fundamental indecision and weakness. After every effort

to do what she thinks she ought, she makes, in reaction, increasingly greater concessions to her love, until the final concession of all, the acceptance of the marriage, is only the logical conclusion of the series.

She demands vengeance (II, 8). Subsequently, however, she refuses Don Sanche's offer of summary justice (III, 2), admits that she loves Rodrigue and is pursuing him unwillingly (III, 3), and, in an interview with her lover, not merely refuses to kill him, but confesses that she still loves him—

Va, je ne te hais point.—Tu le dois.—Je ne puis.

—and that she does not want vengeance:

Je ferai mon possible à bien venger mon père;
Mais malgré la rigueur d'un si cruel devoir,
Mon unique souhait est de ne rien pouvoir.
(III, 4)

When she hears of his exploits against the Moors, she immediately asks:

Mais n'est-il point blessé?
(IV, 1)

She then screws her courage up to the sticking-point once more and goes to the King to demand vengeance again; but, believing Rodrigue to be dead, she reveals her true feelings by fainting in the King's presence (IV, 5). The duel between Rodrigue and Don Sanche, Chimène's champion, is arranged, and the King tells her that she must marry the victor; all she can say in protest is:

Quoi! Sire, m'imposer une si dure loi!
(IV, 5)

Indeed, as Léonor points out, Chimène has chosen a weak champion:

Chimène aisément montre par sa conduite
Que la haine aujourd'hui ne fait pas sa poursuite.
Elle obtient un combat, et pour son combattant
C'est le premier offert qu'elle accepte à l'instant:
Elle n'a point recours à ces mains généreuses
Que tant d'exploits fameux rendent si glorieuses;
Don Sanche lui suffit….
(V, 3)

From this moment on, her resistance grows weaker. In Act V, scene I, she urges Rodrigue to fight and win her:

Sors vainqueur d'un combat dont Chimène est le prix.
Adieu: ce mot lâché me fait rougir de honte.

Later, she does, it is true, say to Elvire:

Quand il sera vainqueur, crois-tu que je me rende?
…..
Mon honneur lui fera mille autre ennemis.
(V, 4)

But this is merely a momentary reaction: the King has already forbidden her to 'faire mille autre ennemis;' so that we cannot take the remark very seriously. Moreover, a few lines later, Elvire having suggested that perhaps Don Sanche might win and become her husband, she bursts out:

Elvire, c'est assez des peines que j'endure,
Ne les redouble point de ce funeste augure.
Je veux, si je le puis, les éviter tous deux;
Sinon, en ce combat Rodrigue a tous mes vœux.
(V, 4)

Mistakenly believing Don Sanche to be the victor, she publicly admits her love for Rodrigue (V, 6), and in the final scene she agrees to marry him:

Rodrigue a des vertus que je ne puis haïr;
Et quand un roi commande, on lui doit obéir.
(V, 7)

The Infante resembles Chimène: indeed, one of the functions of her rôle may well be to set another example of feminine sub-servience to passion by the side of Chimène and so lend credibility to the portrayal. Like Chimène, she is unable to master her love for Rodrigue:

A combien de soupirs
Faut-il que mon cœur se prépare,
Si jamais il n'obtient sur un si long tourment
Ni d'éteindre l'amour, ni d'accepter l'amanti
(V, 2)

She hopes until the last that the marriage of Rodrigue and Chimène will not take place: there is even a suggestion that she would not hesitate to use foul means to prevent it:

Si Rodrigue combat sous ces conditions,
Pour en rompre l'effet, j'ai trop d'inventions.
L'amour, ce doux auteur de mes cruels supplices,
Aux esprits des amants apprend trop d'artifices.
(V, 3)

In Horace, there is only one possible 'Cornelian hero', Horace. Curiace does his duty with reluctance; Sabine and Camille try to deter their menfolk from fighting; and Camille is all love:

Je le vois bien, ma sœur, vous n'aimâtes jamais;
Vous ne connaissez point ni l'amour ni ses traits:
On peut lui résister quand il commence à naître,
Mais non pas le bannir quand il s'est rendu maître….
…..
Et quand I'âme une fois a goùté son amorce,
Vouloir ne plus aimer, c'est ce qu'elle ne peut,
Puisqu'elle ne peut plus vouloir que ce qu'il veut….
(III, 4)

She is, as Sarcey says, neither reasonable nor strong-willed, but 'une personne toute de premier mouvement, incapable de se maîtriser elle-même, l'esclave de ses nerfs toujours agités'. Horace alone masters his feelings and puts his duty to his country before his personal affections. But is he a 'Cornelian hero'?

There is certainly no question of reason and will getting the better of passion: the most that one can say is that one passion gets the better of another—for Horace, in contrast to Curiace, cares very much more about his gioire than his duty. Moreover, it is very doubtful whether Horace is an ideal character. The play is clearly a study of a Roman patriot, but it is by no means certain that Corneille shares his point of view. A man who, after seeing both his brothers killed, can remark:

Quand la perte est vengée, on n'a plus rien perdu.
(IV, 5)

—who, having killed his wife's brothers, can greet her with the words:

Sèche tes pleure, Sabine, ou les cache à ma vue….
…..

Participe à ma gioire au lieu de la souiller.
(IV, 7)

—who, having just killed his sister's lover, can adjure her:

Songe à mes trophées:
Qu'ils soient dorénavant ton unique entretien.
(IV, 5)

and who kills her because she cannot control her anguish, seems, on the face of it, to be too lacking in humanity, too self-centred, to be an ideal character. Of course, we may like to think that Comeille admired him, even if we do not; but it is striking that, in taking the law into his own hands in this way, in avenging a personal insult by violence, he places himself on a level with the Count in Le Cid, and that no one in the play condones his action: Tulle in his closing speech condemns it explicitly. Curiace calls Horace 'barbare',—

Mais votre fermeté tient un peu du barbare….
(II, 3)

—and reproaches him with his inhumanity:

J'ai le cœur aussi bon, mais enfin je suis homme.
(II, 3)

Camille also calls him 'barbare' (IV, 5), and Corneille seems to share her attitude, for, in the Examen, he refers to the 'vertu farouche' of his hero and calls him 'criminel'. Moreover, the tragedy opens with a statement that human weakness and emotion are right and proper, which seems to strike the keynote of the play:

Approuvez ma faiblesse, et souffrez ma douleur;
Elle n'est que trop juste en un si grand malheur:
Si près de voir sur soi fondre de tels orages,
L'ébranlement sied bien aux plus fermes courages;
Et l'esprit le plus male et le moins abattu
Ne saurait sans désordre exercer sa vertu.
(I, 1)

The exponents of this point of view dominate the middle of the play. It is not easy to see Horace as the expression of Corneille's ideal.

It is no easier to find a 'Cornelian hero' in Cinna. In Emilie, as in the women of the two previous plays, love is the strongest passion:

J'aime encor plus Cinna que je ne hais Auguste,
Et je sens refroidir ce bouillant mouvement
Quand il faut, pour le suivre, exposer mon amant.
(I, 1)

In the following scene, she says:

Mon esprit en désordre à soi-même s'oppose:
Je veux et ne veux pas, je m'emporte et je n'ose;
Et mon devoir confus, languissant, étonné,
Cède aux rébellions de mon cœur mutiné….
(I, 2)

The truth of her words is borne out subsequently. In Act I, scene 4, when Auguste sends for Cinna, she is filled with unreasoning apprehension: there is no real likelihood that the plot has been discovered, and even Cinna calls her alarm a 'terreur panique'. She urges him to flee, and only changes her mind when she reflects that flight would be useless.

Cinna is a most interesting character study, but a most unheroic hero. He is a hypocrite and a liar, who makes eloquent speeches to his fellow-conspirators, urging them to kill Auguste and restore the glories of Republican Rome—

Avec la liberté Rome s'en va renaître….
(I, 3)

—and who says precisely the opposite to dissuade Auguste from abdicating—

la liberté ne peut plus èrre utile
Qu'à former les fureurs d'une guerre civile….
(II, 1)

In neither case is he concerned in the least about the interests of Rome. He is full of illusions, about himself and his allies. The enthusiastic account he gives of his fellow-conspirators in Act I, scene 3—the falsity of which is surely revealed by the absurd

par un effet contraire,
Leur front pâlir d'horreur et rougir de colère

—is in marked contrast to that of Auguste in Act V, scene 1:

Le reste ne vaut pas l'honneur d'être nommé:
Un tas d'hommes perdus de dettes et de crimes,
Que pressent de mes lois les ordres légitimes,
Et qui désespérant de les plus éviter,
Si tout est renversé, ne sauraient subsister.

As for himself, he tells Emilie that, if he is betrayed:

Ma vertu pour le moins ne me trahira pas:
Vous la verrez, brillante au bord des précipices,
Se couronner de gioire en bravant les supplices,
Rendre Auguste jaloux du sang qu'il répandra,
Et le faire trembler alors qu'il me perdra.
(I, 4)

—a prophecy which his later conduct does not justify. When Auguste, having learned of the plot against his life, accuses Cinna of being involved in it, Cinna immediately denies it:

Moi, Seigneur! moi, que j'eusse une âme si traîtresse;
Qu'un si lâche dessein….
(V, 1)

Above all, Cinna is exclusively motivated by self-interest, and 'ne forme qu'en lâche un dessein généreux'. To kill Auguste is the only way to marry Emilie, and so Auguste must be killed—must not even be allowed to abdicate, because, if Auguste abdicates, though the freedom of Rome would be achieved, his marriage with Emilie would be impossible. But when Auguste promises him Emilie, he sees the possibility of getting Emilie without murdering Auguste and feels remorse as the result of Auguste's trust in him and generosity towards him. As the moment for action approaches, his purpose weakens and his hostility to Auguste diminishes. By Act III, scene 2, he has forgotten Auguste's crimes; by scene 3, Auguste has become a 'prince magnanime'; and by scene 4, he considers that it is honourable to be enslaved by Auguste. He is assailed by doubts and misgivings—

On ne les sent aussi que quand le coup approche.
(III, 2)

He is irresolute. When Emilie justly denounces him for succumbing to Auguste's promises—

Je vois ton repentir et tes vœux inconstants:
Les faveurs du tyran emportent tes promesses;
Tes vœux et tes serments cèdent à ses caresses;
Et ton esprit crédule ose s'imaginer
Qu'Auguste, pouvant tout, peut aussi me donner.
Tu me veux de sa main plutôt que de la mienne….
(III, 4)

—he replies:

J'obéis sans réserve à tous vos sentiments.

But by the end of the scene, finding that Emilie is intransigent and still expects him to fulfil his promises, he rails at her resentfully:

Eh bien! vous le voulez, il faut vous satisfaire
…..
Mais apprenez qu'Auguste est moins tyran que vous,
S'il nous ôte à son gré nos biens, nos jours, nos femmes,
Il n'a point jusqu'ici tyrannisé nos âmes …

Fortinbras says of Hamlet that

he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royally.

Cinna, being put on, proves rather shabbily, and justifies Auguste's low opinion of him:

Ta fortune est bien haut, tu peux ce que tu veux;
Mais tu ferais pitié même à ceux qu'elle irrite,
Si je t'abandonnais à ton peu de mérite.
Ose me démentir, dis-moi ce que tu vaux,
Conte-moi tes vertus, tes glorieux travaux,
Les rares qualités par où tu m'as dû plaire,
Et tout ce qui t'élève au-dessus du vulgaire.
Ma faveur fait ta gloire, et ton pouvoir en vient….
(V, 1)

Auguste, like Cinna, is a most interesting study, but scarcely heroic. He has fulfilled his ambition by becoming Emperor, but found no satisfaction; he is tired of conspiracies and rebellions, of oppression and bloodshed, and thinks seriously of abdicating. The discovery of Cinna's plot brings his dissatisfaction to a head. He is inclined to punish Cinna and kill himself. His wife suggests that he might try a new policy, that of clemency; but he rejects her advice. The successive revelations of the complicity of Emilie and the treachery of Maxime strip him of his last illusions. In his complete disillusionment, his course at last becomes clear, and he forgives them all:

Je suis maître de moi comme de l'univers.
(V, 3)

But if that is true, it is true for the first time in the play.

Why does Auguste choose to be merciful? The failure of his policy and the need to try another course is the obvious reason; but Corneille seems to mean us to believe that inspiration from above was the deciding factor. After rejecting his wife's advice, he says:

Le ciel m'inspirera ce qu'ici je dois faire.
(IV, 3)

Moreover, Emilie, learning that Cinna has been sent for, feels none of the alarm she had felt earlier (I, 3): something assures her that all will be well:

Mon cœur est sans soupirs, mes yeux n'ont point de larmes,
Comme si j'apprenais d'un secret mouvement
Que tout doit succéder à mon contentement!
(IV, 4)

It is to the gods that she attributes the cessation of her hatred for Auguste (V, 3). Disillusionment and divine inspiration: we are far from reason and will.

Pauline, in Polyeucte, is of the same lineage as Chimène, the Infante, Camille and Emilie. In her, too, emotion is stronger than reason. We first see her unreasonably worried by a dream, not only one with apparently no possibility of fulfilment, but one which is itself unreasonable, since Sévère is the last man in the world to appear,

La vengeance à la main, l'œil ardent de colère….
(I, 3)

Polyeucte talks of 'Pauline, sans raison dans la douleur plongée,' and adds that, to keep him at home,

Elle oppose ses pleurs au dessein que je fais,
(I, 1)

a feminine, rather than a rational, line of argument. So far from being a purely rational being, she has a certain amount of amour-propre and possessiveness. Though she does not love Polyeucte—at the beginning of the play, at least—his love for her flatters her amour-propre, and her amour-propre is wounded if she thinks he no longer loves her. She is unhappy because Polyeucte leaves her and will not tell her his secret, and attributes the change in him to the effects of marriage (I, 2-3); and later she complains:

Je te suis odieuse après m'être donnée!
…..
Tu préfères la mort à l'amour de Pauline!
Va, cruel, va mourir: tu ne m'aimas jamais.
(IV, 3)

When she prevails on Sévère to do his best to save Polyeucte, even that 'parfait amant' remarks:

vos douleurs avec trop de rigueur
D'un amant tout à vous tyrannisent le cœur.
(IV, 6)

Her feminine, emotional nature betrays itself particularly in Act IV, scene 3, and in Act V, scene 3. Pauline feels a real affection for her husband; she has been filled with forebodings and fears on his account all day; she already thinks that marriage may have put an end to his love. In short, she is in a more or less hysterical state. And now, to crown everything, her husband not merely persists in his mistaken beliefs, but refuses to do anything to save himself. She at last control of herself and gives vent to her feelings:

Cruel, car il est temps que ma douleur éclate….
(IV, 3)

In Act V, scene 3, she is stung—irrationally—by Polyeucte's bringing up her own words against her. Earlier, Pauline had told him, referring to her love for Sévère:

Depuis qu'un vrai mérite a pu nous enflammer,
Sa présence toujours a droit de nous charmer.
(II, 4)

Now, trying to persuade her to marry Sévère after his death, Polyeucte reminds her:

Puisqu'un si grand mérite a pu vous enflammer,
Sa présence toujours a droit de vous charmer.

And this taunt causes her to burst out:

Que t'ai-je fait, cruel, pour être ainsi traitée….

She reminds him that she did violence to her feelings and over-came her love for Sévère in order to marry him, and suggests that it is time he made a sacrifice in his turn for her sake. To be wounded by being reminded of one's own words is intensely human, but not rational. The conversion of Pauline is entirely in keeping with her emotional nature.

One or two passages are sometimes quoted in support of the view that Pauline is rational:

Ces surprises des sens que la raison surmonte….
(I, 3)

jamais ma raison
N'avoua de mes yeux l'aimable trahison.
(I, 3)

Et sur mes passions ma raison souveraine
Eût blâmé mes soupirs et dissipé ma haine.
(II, 2)

The first two of these passages occur in Act I, scene 3, in which Pauline talks all the more complacently about her reason because she thinks that her love of Sévère, which is dormant, is dead; and she changes her tune considerably in the very next scene. The third quotation is particularly interesting. Pauline, at the beginning of her interview with Sévère—that interview which she has dreaded so much—tries to make it clear that she no longer loves him, that she loves her husband:

Oui, je l'aime, Seigneur, et n'en fais point d'excuse.

She adds that, whatever husband her father had chosen, and even if Sévère had been never so suitable a match,

J'en aurais soupiré, mais j'aurais obéi,
Et sur mes passions ma raison souveraine
Eût blâmé mes soupirs et dissipé ma haine.

This, she says, is what would have happened; she is not necessarily to be believed—any more than Cinna's opinion of what would happen if the conspiracy were betrayed is confirmed by the event. In fact, a touch of ironical reproach from Sévère melts her; she discards this attitude of cold disdain, and tells Sévère just how little power reason had over her, how much she has suffered and still suffers:

si mon âme
Pouvait bien étouffer les restes de sa fiamme,
Dieux, que j'éviterais de rigoureux tourments!
Ma raison, il est vrai, dompte mes sentiments;
Mais quelque autorité que sur eux elle ait prise,
Elle n'y règne pas, elle les tyrannise;
Et quoique le dehors soit sans émotion,
Le dedans n'est que trouble et que sédition.

Of Sévère, it is perhaps enough to quote a recent critic's opinion of him as 'weak and ineffectual'. As for Polyeucte, he is more like the conventional conception of a Cornelian hero, in so far as he loses his life rather than betray his faith, despite the entreaties of his wife. But there are some reservations to be made. Polyeucte is a saint and a martyr, i.e. one in whom, by definition, worldly affections and considerations of personal safety come second to his religion. Any martyr would resemble Polyeucte; there is nothing peculiar to Corneille in such a portrait. Moreover, his actions are the result of grace rather than of his own free will. Indeed, he wants to postpone his baptism, and it is only after he has been baptized that he is filled with fervour and zeal, with the desire to testify publicly to his new religion. Further, Polyeucte is certainly not rational, any more than Horace. The most one can say is that he is torn between two passions, love for his wife and religious zeal, and that the latter triumphs over the former.

The first play in which characters who might be called 'Cornelian' appear is Pompée, where the magnanimity of Cléopâtre, Cornélie and César leads them to behave in unexpected ways. Cléopâtre, who loves César, urges her brother Ptolomée to fight for Pompée; César allows Cornélie, Pompée's widow to go free, even though she is resolved to overthrow him; and Cornélie, whose chief desire is to avenge her husband's death, nevertheless gives César warning of a plot against his life.

'Cornelian' characters do in fact occur in Corneille, but chiefly in the plays from Pompée to Pertharite or Oedipe. In Héraclius, Martian and Héraclius vie in magnanimity, and the strong-minded Pulchérie, on learning that her lover is really her brother, is undismayed:

Ce grand coup m'a surprise et ne m'a point troublée;
Mon âme l'a reçu sans en être accablée;
Et comme tous mes feux n'avaient rien que de saint,
L'honneur les alluma, le devoir les éteint.
(III, 1)

Pulchérie certainly verges on the inhuman: she is less concerned with her brother's fate than that he should not demean himself:

Moi, pleurer! moi, gémir, tyran! J'aurais pleuré
Si quelques lâchetés l'avaient déshonoré,
S'il n'eût pas emporté sa gloire toute entière,
Si quelque infâme espoir qu'on lui dût pardonner
Eût mérité la mort que tu lui vas donner.
(III, 2)

She refuses to marry the son of the tyrant Phocas, because, if she did, filial duty would prevent her from hating him:

Mais durant ces moments unie à sa famille,
Il deviendra mon père, et je serai sa fille:
Je lui devrai respect, amour, fidélité;
Ma haine n'aura plus d'impétuosité;
Et tous mes vœux pour vous seront mols et timides,
Quand mes vœux contre lui seront des parricides.
(III, 1)

In subsequent plays, Don Sanche, Nicomède and Laodice, Grimoald and Rodelinde, Dircé, Thésée and Oedipe show no sign of weakness. Rodelinde (in Pertharite) carries self-abnegation to the point of agreeing to marry Grimoald only if he puts her son to death. Dircé is prepared to die to save Thebes:

Je meurs l'esprit content, l'honneur m'en fait la loi….
(III, 1)

Her father's blood, she says,

ne peut trouver qu'on soit digne du jour,
Quand aux soins de sa gloire on préfère l'amour.
(III, 2)

As for Oedipe, after the discovery that he has killed his father and married his mother, he says:

Ce revers serait dur pour quelque âme commune;
Mais je me fis toujours maître de ma fortune.
(V, 2)

And we are told:

Parmi de tels malheurs que sa Constance est rare!
Il ne s'emporte point contre un sort si barbare;
La surprenante horreur de cet accablement
Ne coûte à sa grande âme aucun égarement;
Et sa haute vertu, toujours inébranlable,
Le soutient au-dessus de tout ce qui l'accable.
(V, 7)

Even in this middle period, however, Rodogune, Théodore, and Andromède are exceptions. In Rodogune, the ambitious, crafty, and unscrupulous Cléopâtre, comparable with Lady Macbeth, might as well be called 'Shakespearean' as 'Cornelian'; and her two sons—a delicate portrayal of brotherly affection—alike, yet admirably differentiated, are certainly not 'Cornelian'. They are unanimous in putting love before ambition, in preferring Rodogune to the throne and their own unity to either. In Théodore, apart from the generosity with which Placide decides to succour his rival, Didyme, who has rescued Théodore from ignominy, and the contest between Didyme and Théodore in Act V, each demanding to be martyred in place of the other, there is little that is 'Cornelian'. The same is true of Andromède, in which the heroine fears death:

que la grandeur de courage
Devient d'un difficile usage
Lorsqu'on touche au dernier moment!
…..
Je pâme au moindre vent, je meurs au moindre

bruit….
(III, 1)

Moreover, there are reservations to be made even about the other plays. Laodice and Nicomède show no sign of weakness; but equally there is no sign either of any conflict between love and duty; at no time have they to choose between each other and their gloire. Grimoald, similarly, is virtuous and generous, but again there is no question of any conflict.

Despite a common misconception, the plays of the last period contain few 'Cornelian' heroes and heroines, though there are one or two, or at least one or two who show some 'Cornelian' traits—such as Pompée, who, in Sertorius, destroys the letter containing the names of the Romans in correspondence with his enemy (a historical detail), or Viriate in the same play:

Je sais ce que je suis, et le serai toujours,
N'eussé-je que le ciel et moi pour mon secours.
(V, 3)

In fact, in this last period, the internal conflict, which had been relatively rare in the middle period, becomes common again and is resolved with more and more difficulty, and more and more frequently by the triumph of passion over duty.

All, then, is not false in the conventional conception of the Cornelian hero. Such characters are found in Corneille—magnanimous, strong-minded creatures, who put their duty or their gloire before their personal inclinations. But such characters are not found by any means in all the plays: they are found chiefly, almost exclusively, in the plays of the middle period. Moreover, even they do not entirely coincide with the conventional image of Corneille's heroes. There is in them all a strong element of emotion or passion—they are usually motivated, not by reason or duty, but by the passion for gloire, the desire for vengeance (Pulchérie in Héraclius), ambition, amour-propre, or the dislike of being subservient to another, of being second (Nicomède and Attale, Dircé who resents Oedipe's having usurped her throne and wants another, Sertorius, Pompée, Viriate, etc.). Nor is it true to describe these characters as 'les hommes comme ils devraient être'. Not only are they often far from ideal, but they are either men and women like the contemporaries of Corneille, or—if they outdo the men and women of Corneille's day—they show the influence of Corneille's conception of the character of Romans and Kings. For Corneille, like his contemporaries, regarded magnanimity as a Roman trait, and considered that Kings and Queens, more than their subjects, are obliged to master their inclinations.

Corneille's views on the obligations of persons of royal blood are constantly expressed from Pompée onwards:

Plus la haute naissance approche des couronnes,
Plus cette grandeur même asservit nos personnes;
Nous n'avons point de cœur pouraimer ni haï:
Toutes nos passions ne savent qu'obéir.
(Rodogune, III, 3)

Je sais ce que je suis, et ce que je me dois.
(Doña Elvire in Don Sanche, I, 1)

Madame, je suis reine, et dois régner sur moi.
(Doña Isabelle in Don Sanche, I, 2)

Comptable de moi-mâme au nom de souveraine,
Et sujette à jamais du trône où je me voi,
Je puis tout pour tout autre et ne puis rien pour moi.

…..
… Tu verras avec combien d'adresse
Ma gloire de mon âme est toujours maîtresse.
(Doña Isabelle in Don Sanche, II, 1)

Et si je n'étais pas, Seigneur, ce que je suis,
J'en prendrais quelque droit de finir mes ennuis;
Mais l'esclavage fier d'une haute naissance,
Où toute autre peut tout, me tient dans l'impuissance;
Et victime d'Etat, je dois sans reculer
Attendre aveuglément qu'on me daigne immoler.
(Ildione in Aitila, II, 6)

This is not to say that all these characters fulfil their obligations easily. Many, in fact, do not act in accordance with their principles, and there are plenty of undutiful princesses and weak or unvirtuous Kings in Corneille—Ptolomée, Prusias, and Eurydice and Orode (in Suréna), in whom mistrust and raison d'état overcome gratitude.

The identification of Corneille's heroes with the généreux of Descartes is not easy. The généreux controls his passions by means of the will using reason as its instrument; he is detached, aiming only at what it is in his power to achieve without the aid of external circumstances—such things as virtue, freedom, detachment. He is humble and esteems himself for nothing but self-mastery and will-power; he is not interested in gloire or ambition….

The characters of Corneille are not usually subject to fear, but that is about the only respect in which they resemble the généreux. They are passionate, ambitious, egoistical, proud, amorous, subject to hatred, anger and jealousy; they are irrational, though they are good reasoners; above all, they are far from the philosophical detachment of the généreux.

They differ from the Cartesian character in another way: they are not usually rational in their love affairs. The conception of love as rational, as based on some positive quality (though it may only be good looks) in the loved one, is found in Descartes.

Lorsqu'on remarque quelque chose en une [person of the opposite sex] qui agrée davantage que ce qu'on remarque au mâme temps dans les autres, cela détermine l'âme à sentir pour celle-là seule toute l'inclination que la nature lui donne à rechercher le bien qu'elle lui représente comme le plus grand qu'on puisse posséder …

The idea that love is based on 'mérite' does occur in Corneille, too—though it is important to realize that 'mérite' often means personal attractions, not moral worth:

Voyez-la done, Seigneur, voyez tout son mérite….
(Sophonisbe, IV, 5)

This conception of love is first expressed in La Galerie du Palais:

Nous sommes hors du temps de cette vieille erreur
Qui faisait de l'amour une aveugle fureur,
Et l'ayant aveuglé, lui donnait pour conduite
Le mouvement d'une âme et surprise et séduite.
Ceux qui l'ont peint sans yeux ne le connaissaient pas;
C'est par les yeux qu'il entre et nous dit vos appas:
Lors notre esprit en juge; et suivant le mérite,
Il fait croître une ardeur que cette vue excite.
(III, 6)

But the speaker here is not sincere: he is paying court to a lady whom he does not love in order to arouse his mistress's jealousy. There are, however, examples in the tragedies of love based on rational grounds. Chimène and the Infante in Le Cid love Rodrigue because he is worthy of their love, and Pauline in Polyeucte fell in love with Sévère for his good qualities:

Je l'aimai, Stratonice: il le méritait bien….
(I, 3)

Carlos loves Doña Isabelle for her beauty:

Lorsque je vois en vous les célestes accords
Des graces de l'esprit et des beautés du corps,
Je puis, de tant d'attraits l'âme toute ravie,
Sur l'heur de votre époux jeter un œil d'envie….
(Don Sanche, II, 2)

Laodice loves Nicomède because he is worthy of her:

Vous devez le connaître; et puisqu'il a ma foi,
Vous devez présumer qu'il est digne de moi.
Je le désavouerais s'il n'était magnanime,
S'il manquait à remplir l'effort de mon estime,
S'il ne faisait paraître un cœur toujours égal.
(Nicomède, V, 9)

Viriate's love for Sertorius (if it can be called love) is rational:

Ce ne sont pas les sens que mon amour consulte:
Il hait des passions l'impétueux tumulte;
Et son feu, que j'attache aux soins de ma grandeur,
Dédaigne tout mélange avec leur folle ardeur.
J'aime en Sertorius ce grand art de la guerre
Qui soutient un banni contre toute la terre;
J'aime en lui ces cheveux tous couverts de lauriers,
Ce front qui fait trembler les plus braves guerriers,
Ce bras qui semble avoir la victoire en partage.
L'amour de la vertu n'a jamais d'yeux pour l'âge:
Le mérite a toujours des charmes éclatants;
Et quiconque peut tout est aimable en tout temps.
(Sertorius, II, 1)

But a different conception of love is much more common in Corneille—that of love as something quite irrational and instinctive. Isabelle, in L'Illusion comique, rejects the suitor favoured by her father on these grounds:

Je sais qu'il est parfait,
Et que je réponds mal à l'honneur qu'il me fait;
Mais si votre bonté me permet en ma cause,
Pour me justifier, de dire quelque chose,
Par un secret instinct, que je ne puis nommer,
J'en fais beaucoup d'état, et ne le puis aimer.
Souvent je ne sais quoi que le ciel nous inspire
Soulève tout le cœur contre ce qu'on désire,
Et ne nous laisse pas en état d'obéir,
Quand on choisit pour nous ce qu'il nous fait haïr.
Il attache ici-bas avec des sympathies
Les âmes que son ordre a là-haut assorties:
On n'en saurait unir sans ses avis secrets;
Et cette chaîne manque où manquent ses décrets.
Aller contre les lois de cette providence,
C'est le prendre à partie, et blâmer sa prudence,
L'attaquer en rebelle, et s'exposer aux coups
Des plus âpres malheurs qui suivent son courroux.
(III, 3)

Créuse, in Médée, rejects Ægée for similar reasons:

Souvent je ne sais quoi qu'on ne peut exprimer
Nous surprend, nous emporte, et nous force d'aimer;
Et souvent, sans raison, les objects de nos flammes
Frappent nos yeux ensemble et saisissent nos âmes.

…..

Je vous estimai plus, et l'aimai davantage.
(II, 5)

In this last line, Créuse makes a sharp distinction between love and esteem: one may love without esteem and esteem without love. Mélisse, in La Suite du Menteur, sees love as the result of a heaven-created sympathy; for her, love precedes esteem:

Quand les ordres du ciel nous ont faits lun pour l'autre,
Lyse, c'est un accord bientôt fait que le nòtre:
Sa main entre les cœaeurs, par un secret pouvoir,
Sème l'intelligence avant que de se voir;
Il prépare si bien l'amant et la maîtresse,
Que leur âme au seul nom s'émeut et s'intéresse.
On s'estime, on se cherche, on s'aime en un moment:
Tout ce qu'on s'entre-dit persuade aisément;
Et sans s'inquiéter d'aucunes peurs frivoles,
La foi semble courir au-devant des paroles:
La langue en peu de mots en explique beaucoup;
Les yeux, plus éloquents, font tout voir tout d'un coup;
Et de quoi qu'à l'envi tous les deux nous instruisent,
Le cœur en entend plus que tous les deux n'en disent.

Rodogune, like Créuse, separates love and esteem: of two young princes, twin brothers, she loves one and not the other:

Comme ils ont même sang avec pareil mérite,
Un avantage égal pour eux me sollicite;
Mais il est malaisé, dans cette égalité,
Qu'un esprit combattu ne penche d'un côté.
Il est des nœuds secrets, il est des sympathies
Dont par le doux rapport les àmâs assorties
S'attachent l'une à l'autre et se laissent piquer
Par ces je ne sais quoi qu'on ne peut expliquer.
C'est par là que l'un d'eux obtient la préférence:
Je crois voir l'autre encore avec indiffàrence;
Mais cette indifférence est une aversion
Lorsque je la compare avec ma passion.
Etrange effet d'amour! Incroyable chimère!
Je voudrais être à lui si je n'aimais son frère;
Et le plus grand des maux toutefois que je crains,
C'est que mon triste sort me livre entre ses mains.
(1, 5)

Placide complains of

la tyrannie ensemble et le caprice
Du démon aveuglé qui sans discrétion
Verse l'antipathie et l'inclination.
(Théodore, I, l)

Andromede, wondering why she should so suddenly transfer her affections from Phinée to her rescuer, Persée, is told that the gods are responsible: it is they who control our sympathies and antipathies (IV, 2). Lysander in Agésilas is another who sees love as irrational, an 'aveugle sympathie' independent of beauty and 'vrai mérite' (II, 2). So are Spitridate in the same play (V, 3) and Domitian in Tite et Bérénice (II, 2).

Persée in Andromède sees love as irrational in another way: though he has no hope of marrying Andromède, he cannot stop loving her; a lover cannot think of the future:

Vouloir que la raison règne sur un amant,
C'est être plus que lui dedans l'aveuglement.
Un cœur digne d'aimer court à l'objet aimable,
Sans penser au succès dont sa fiamme est capable;
Il s'abandonne entier, et n'examine rien;
Aimer est tout son but, aimer est tout son bien;
Il n'est ni difficulté ni péril qui l'étonne.
(1, 4)

Camille, in Othon, complains that love makes one believe what one wants to believe:

Hélas! que cet amour croit tòt ce qu'il souhaite!
En vain la raison parle, en vain elle inquiète,
En vain la défiance ose ce qu'elle peut,
Il veut croire, et ne croit que parce qu'il le veut.
Pour Plautine ou pour moi je vois du stratagème,
Et m'obstine avec joie à m'aveugler moi-même.
(III, 1)

Albin, in Tite et Bérénice, expatiates on the essential selfishness of love:

L'amour-propre est la source en nous de tous les autres:
C'en est le sentiment qui forme tous les nôtres;
Lui seul allume, éteint, ou change nos désirs:
Les objets de nos vœux le sont de nos plaisirs.
Vous-même, qui brûlez d'une ardeur si fidèle,
Aimez-vous Domitie, ou vos plaisirs en elle?
Et quand vous aspirez à des liens si doux,
Est-ce pour l'amour d'elle, ou pour l'amour de vous?
(I, 3)

This passage no doubt owes something to the Maximes of La Rochefoucauld, but the essential idea is contained already in L'lllusion comique:

Ne me reproche plus ta fuite ni ta fiamme:
Que ne fait point l'amour quand il possède une àme?
Son pouvoir à ma vue attachait tes plaisirs,
Et tu me suivais moins que tes propres désirs.
(V, 3)

Finally, in La Toison d'Or, written several years before Racine's Andromaque, there is a conception of love very close to that usually associated with Racine. Love in this play is an irrational, overriding passion, stronger than will or reason:

Je veux ne t'aimer plus, et n'en ai pas la force,
(II, 2)

says Médée. As in Racine, love changes easily into its opposite, hatred:

Tout violent qu'il est, l'amour l'a fait naître;
Il va jusqu'à la haine, et toutefois, hélas!
Je te haïrais peu, si je ne t'aimais pas.
(II, 2)

The action of the play is admirably summarized in a speech of Aæte, Médée's father, to her brother, Absyrte:

Ah! que tu connais mal jusqu'à quelle manie
D'un amour déréglé passe la tyrannie!
Il n'est rang, ni pays, ni père, ni pudeur,
Qu'épargne de ses feux l'impérieuse ardeur.
Jason plut à Médée, et peut encore lui plaire;
Peut-être es-tu toi-même ennemi de ton père
Et consens que ta sœur, par ce présent fatal,
S'assure d'un amant qui serait ton rival.
Tout mon sang révolté trahit mon espérance:
Je trouve ma ruine où fut mon assurance;
Le destin ne me perd que par l'ordre des miens,
Et mon trône est brisé par ses propres soutiens.
(V, 2)

If it seems rash to assert—as Lanson does, for example—that Corneille conceives of love as a rational preference based on merit, it is no less rash to say—as Lemaitre does—that Le Cid is the only play in which love gets the better of duty. In fact, it is remarkable how often in Corneille love triumphs over honour, ambition, duty, prudence, desire for revenge, and reason. This is already true of Alidor in La Place Royale. It is true, not only of Chimène and the Infante, of Camille and Emilie, of Médée in La Toison, but of most of the characters in the later plays.

Gioire is no more the mainspring of Corneille's characters than reason and will. In this respect, Corneille reflects the contradictory tendencies of his age—his characters often talk of gloire, but they mean very different things by it, they do not always live up to their ideal, and many are not animated by a desire for gloire at all.

There are characters who are concerned above all with gloire. Cléopâtre, in Pompée, says of princes:

Leur générosité soumet tout à leur gloire,
(II, 1)

—a remark which is certainly true of herself. For her, gloire consists of marrying César and becoming mistress of the world, but it must be achieved by honourable means; and, though she loves César, she wants her brother to treat Pompée magnanimously. César is a kindred spirit, though it is interesting to see that the point is twice made that for him gloire and self-interest point the same way. On having Pompée's head presented to him, we are told:

par un mouvement commun à la nature,
Quelque maligne joie en son cœur s'élevait,
Dont sa gloire indignée à peine le sauvait.
(III, 1)

And Cornélie points out that, in avenging Pompée, he is also serving his own interests—ensuring his own safety ('le Roi le veut perdre, et son rival est mort'), and defending Cléopâtre too. Laodice in Nicomède, similarly, knows no conflict between love and another passion. Gloire and love alike keep her faithful to Nicomède: Attale, his rival, is a subject, has not distinguished himself, and has been educated in Rome, so that to prefer him to Nicomède would be a 'frénésie'. The best example of a character for whom gloire is all-important is Horace, who puts before devoir, in contrast to Curiace, who is primarily concerned with devoir.

contre qui que ce soit que mon pays m'emploie,
J'accepte aveuglément cette gioire avec joie,

says Horace; whereas Curiace's attitude is different:

Encor qu'à mon devoir je coure sans terreur,
Mon cœur s'effarouche, et j'en frémis d'horreur….
(II, 3)

But Horace, as we have tried to show above, is in no sense an ideal character, and Sabine finds fault with him precisely because he is over-preoccupied with gloire to the exclusion of more human feelings:

Prenons part en public aux victoires publiques;
Pleurons dans la maison nos malheurs domestiques,
Et ne regardons point des biens communs à tous,
Quand nous voyons des maux qui ne sont que pour nous.
Pourquoi veux-tu, cruel, agir d'une autre sorte?
Laisse en entrant ici tes lauriers à la porte;
Mêle tes pleurs aux miens.
(IV, 7)

To these characters, there are few others to add—Don Alvar and Don Sanche in Don Sanche, and Rodelinde in Pertharite, are the chief.

It is easier to find examples of characters who act in the interests of their gloire, but only after a struggle—though often gloire is not the only motive. Rodrigue, in Le Cid, fights and kills the father of Chimène, but there is a struggle within him, and the conflict is resolved only by the realization that, whether he avenges his father or not, he is bound to lose Chimène. Emilie is similarly torn between duty and gloire, on the one hand, and love for Cinna on the other. With her, one might associate Sévère, in Polyeucte, in whom there is no particular struggle, but whose motives are mixed. In deciding to try to save Polyeucte, he says:

Et contentons ainsi, d'une seule action,
Et Pauline, et ma gloire, et ma compassion.

For him, gloire is being worthy of Pauline:

La gloire de montrer à cette âme si belle

Que Sévère l'égale, et qu'il est digne d'elle….
(IV, 6)

He is also motivated by honour—'l'honneur m'oblige'.

Doña Isabelle in Don Sanche belongs to this group. Though gloire forbids her to marry except for raison d'état, she is deeply in love with Carlos, and her love influences her behaviour. She is so much preoccupied with Carlos that she gives him the responsibility of choosing a husband for her, and that her other suitors, not unreasonably, complain at one point: 'Toujours Carlos.' Gloire does not win easily in Doña Isabelle. Dircé, in Oedipe, despite the entreaties of her lover, Thésée, and her own regrets, is determined to die in obedience to the oracle, both to save her people and to achieve gloire. One is unworthy to live, she says,

Quand aux soins de sa gloire on préfère l'amour.
(III, 2)

Nevertheless, she is regretful:

Mais j'aurais vécu plus contente,
Si j'avais pu vivre pour toi.
(III, 1)

Mandane, in Agésilas, though she loves someone else, is prepared reluctantly to marry Agésilas, partly because this is the means of saving her brother and herself, but partly out of gloire. Domitie, in Tite et Bérénice, is similarly torn between love for Domitian and the gloire of being Empress, as Pulchérie is between love for Léon and the gloire of making a responsible choice of a husband.

Other characters, after a struggle, do not follow their gloire. Chimène, for example, admits:

Mon unique souhait est de ne rien pouvoir.
(III, 4)

For Othon, gloire means that he must remain faithful to Plautine and Plautine to him; but circumstances are too strong, and he agrees to pay court to Camille, as Plautine consents to marry Martian. In Attila, Honorie says firmly that she will not marry Valamir, who is merely a puppet-king:

…rien ne m'est sensible à l'égal de ma gloire.
(II. 2)

But—like Doña Isabelle—she is jealous of the happiness of Ildione and Ardaric, and, what is more, she later offers the hand of Flavie to Octar if he will bring about her marriage with Valamir—a change of heart which Flavie points out. Tite is prepared to abdicate in order to marry Bérénice:

Ma gloire la plus haute est celle d'être à vous.
(III, 5)

In other words, love matters more to him than gloire. Cinna talks much gloire, but his conception of it changes in the course of the play. In Act I, scene 3, he identifies gloire with the success of his conspiracy; two acts later, he tells Emilie that, after killing Auguste, he means to kill himself:

Et par cette action dans l'autre confondue,
Recouvrera ma gloire aussitòt que perdue.
(III, 4)

The murder of Auguste, from being gloire, has come to be its antithesis. One might class Félix with Cinna. For him, in Act III, scene 5, gloire means not sacrificing Polyeucte, whom he is tempted to put to death out of self-interest. In Act V, scene 4, gloire means shedding Polyeucte's blood and emulating the ancient Roman heroes, Brutus or Manlius. In fact, however, gloire is not his main motive. His decision to execute Polyeucte is due to self-interest, fear of Sevère, determination to carry out his devoir (his orders, the obligations of his official position), and revulsion from Polyeucte's new religion:

sans l'horreur de ses derniers blasphèmes,
Qui m'ont rempli soudain de colère et d'effroi,
J'aurais eu de la peine à triompher de moi.
(V, 4)

His self-domination results from wrath and fear: there is almost a burlesque contrast here between his words and their meaning.

Then there are characters for whom gloire is entirely divorced from honour or morals. The Infante, in Le Cid, begins by combating her love for Rodrigue in the interests of her gloire (i.e. because he is her inferior in station); but when later she decides that his gloire is the equivalent of her rank, she says that she will stop at nothing to prevent the marriage of Rodrigue with Chimène:

Pour en rompre l'effet, j'ai trop d'inventions.
L'amour, ce doux auteur de mes cruels supplices,
Aux esprits des amants apprend trop d'artifices.
(V, 3)

For Cléopâtre in Rodogune and Aspar in Pulchérie, gloire is merely the throne. When Jason, in La Toison, says 'Il y va de ma gloire' (III, 3), he means that for him gloire is the achievement of the golden fleece, and that he can only win it by paying his addresses to Médée, whom he does not love. For Vinius in Othon, gloire means power; and when he says that he is prepared to die for his gloire, he means that he will commit suicide in order to avoid serving an emperor who is hostile to him.

Finally, there is a very large group of characters who do not seem to be motivated by the desire for gloire—i.e. there is nothing in the play to suggest that this is the motive for their actions. In Horace, Sabine and Curiace talk of devoir, not gloire, and Camille cares for nothing but love. There is nothing in Cinna to suggest a desire for gloire as the motive for Auguste's clemency. Polyeucte is animated by religious fervour, by grace, by the desire for permanent happiness; and, when he uses the word gloire, he uses it—the context makes it clear—in the sense of 'heaven', a perfectly normal sense of the word in the seventeenth century. Pauline uses the word devoir at least as much as the word gloire, and a convincing case has been made out for regarding her as a heroine of duty, the embodiment of the doctrines of the neostoical philosophers rather than of the éthique de la gloire. What matters for her, whether she calls it gloire or devoir, is obedience to her father, and obedience and fidelity to her husband:

Je l'aimai par devoir: ce devoir dure encore.
(III, 2)

For Séleucus and Antiochus in Rodogune—one of the plays in which the word gloire occurs least—love and their own unity are more important than anything else. It is true that Antiochus does once use the word, equating it with renunciation of the throne. Ptolomée and his advisers in Pompée care nothing for gloire: Ptolomée does say (III, 2) that he has 'immolé sa gloire' to César, but he seems at no time to have been deterred by the prospect of losing his gloire.

Gloire has little place in Théodore. Marcelle is animated by maternal love and the desire for vengeance. Valens's facile optimism leads him to a policy of masterly inactivity. At one point he does, it is true, claim that this will increase his gloire—

cette illusion de ma sévérité
Augmentera ma gloire et mon autorité,
(V, 7)

—but it is difficult to take this very seriously. Didyme rescues Théodore out of Christian zeal. Théodore herself says that martyrdom will ensure her gloire, and protests that the particular martyrdom chosen will endanger her gloire, and Placide is eager to save Théodore's gloire, which—since he loves her—is also his own; but it is hard to see gloire as the fundamental principle of either—Théodore is primarily a Christian, and Placide a lover.

The word gloire is not much used in Héraclius. Phocas, the tyrant, is not interested in gloire, and Héraclius wants the throne only in order to give it to Eudoxe. Pulchérie says that marriage with Phocas would be fatal to her gloire; but, whenever she shows fortitude or does anything more positive, she talks more of her devoir. She is chiefly actuated by hatred of the tyrant, which she carries to extremes: she is prepared to acknowledge a false claimant, and, though she will not marry Martian to save her brother, she professes her willingness to marry anyone who will kill Phocas. Léontine, though she is gratified by the gloire of having sacrificed her own son to save her Emperor's, is chiefly animated by the desire for vengeance. It is, perhaps, significant that the only character in the play who cares about gloire is Martian: he is eager to have the gloire of dying as Héraclius (who, of course, he is not).

Gloire is unimportant in subsequent plays. In Nicomède, uprightness, independence, magnanimity, générosité and vertu are contrasted with Machiavellian principles. We cannot take Arsinoé very seriously when she claims that her gloire is 'souillée' by the false accusations of two informers, since they are in her pay, and the whole thing is a ruse. In Pertharite, Grimoald only once uses gloire so as to suggest that he cares for it: love and virtue are his pre-eminent characteristics. Pertharite returns from his place of concealment, not to win gloire, but to have the pleasure of seeing his wife. Eduige, after wanting the gloire of marrying a king, decides that in the last resort she prefers virtue to rank, and gloire has no significance for the scheming, selfish Garibalde. It is true that the play ends with the line:

… des hautes vertus la gloire est le seul prix,

but (except in Rodelinde), it is virtue that is stressed in the play. In Attila, when Ardaric talks of dying to preserve his gloire, Ildione is unimpressed:

Cette immortalilé qui triomphe en idée
Veut étre, pour charmer, de plus loin regardée;
Et quand à notre amour ce triomphe est fatal,
La gloire qui le suit nous en console mal.
(IV, 6)

Léon in Pulchérie is moved only by love of the Empress, not by ambition or gloire, and Martian by love, duty and virtue. In Suréna, Eurydice, Orode and Suréna care little for gloire. Eurydice tries to conceal her feelings—

Mon intrépidité n'est qu'un effort de gloire,
Que, tout fier qu'il paraî, mon cœur n'en veut pas croire,
(IV, 2)

—but her behaviour is that of one for whom love is everything. Gloire has little part in Andromède, Oedipe, Sophonisbe, Sertorius, Othon and Tite et Bérénice.

The word gloire occurs frequently in Corneille's plays—some thirty times in each play (much less in Rodogune and Héraclius)—but too much must not be made of this. For one thing, not all the uses of the word are significant—it occurs quite often in the phrase 'faire gloire de', for example, which is an ordinary expression of the period for 'to be proud of, and sometimes, like the word 'honneur', it merely means 'glory' in the sense in which the word might be used to-day. Moreover, it is used in a variety of contexts and with a variety of meanings. It may mean military glory. Sometimes it is equated with honour and duty and virtue. For Pulchérie in Héraclius it means fortitude. For Emilie in Cinna it includes avenging her father and freeing Rome from a tyrant, but does not exclude crime:

Pour qui venge son pére il n'est point de forfaits….
(I, 2)

When Sophonisbe says that she 'prend pour seul objet ma gloire à satisfaire,' she means that gloire requires her to separate her fortunes from those of her vanquished husband. Polyeucte uses the word in the sense of Heaven. For Antiochus in Rodogune it means giving up the throne. Théodore uses the word to mean martyrdom and chastity. Elsewhere it means fidelity in love. It may be used without any idea of duty or honour. For many, such as Aspar, it means gaining a throne, or marrying a king. For Palmis in Suréna it means keeping one's lovers. Camille uses it in protest:

C'est gloire de passer pour un cœur abattu,
Quand la brutalité fait la haute vertu.
(Horace, IV, 4)

The variety of senses is admirably illustrated by a passage in Agésilas. Aglatide says that she wants the gloire of marrying a king, but Elpinice, with sisterly candour, points out that that is the only kind of gloire she wants, that the gloire of marrying a suitor of lesser rank in obedience to her father's wishes does not appeal to her:

La gloire d'obéir à votre grand regret
Vous faisait pester en secret….
(II, 6)

One wonders whether a word which can be used in so many senses can be a useful guide to the motivation of Corneille's characters. It can describe any aim or ambition, and is often very hard to distinguish from self-interest.

Even when characters are actuated by a desire for gloire without self-interest, they often have other motives as well. When they make sacrifices or renunciations, gloire is seldom, if ever, the motive. It is not for gloire that the Infante decides to let Chimène marry Rodrigue:

Je me vaincrai pourtant, non de peur d'aucun blâme,
Mais pour ne troubler pas une si belle fiamme….
(V, 3)

The supreme example of a sacrifice in Corneille is that of Rodelinde in Pertharite, and Rodelinde is one of the characters who talks most of her gloire; but when she proposes that Grimoald should kill her child, the word disappears from her vocabulary, and she justifies her proposition on severely practical grounds. Since the usurper is certain to put her son to death sooner or later, it is better that he should do it now, when he will show himself in his true colours at the outset, and when his action may well be the signal for rebellion. Her attitude is not very human, but at least gloire has nothing to do with it. Agésilas, after a struggle, decides to marry Aglatide, though he prefers Mandane. The desire for gloire is not absent from his decision, but it is due mainly to more concrete motives. He has just learnt that Mandane loves another; he knows, and has just been reminded, that Mandane is not acceptable to Sparta; and he is aware that to marry Aglatide and contract an alliance with Lysander is the best means of consolidating his authority. Mandane, though she loves someone else, is prepared, reluctantly, to marry Agésilas, partly out of a desire for gloire, but also because this is the only means of saving her brother and herself. Bérénice leaves Tite because she has solid grounds for fearing that his safety would be endangered by marriage with her. Pulchérie renounces Léon, because marriage with him would endanger the Empire. If she marries Léon, Martian, the mainstay of her Empire, will go into retirement, and she is afraid both of weakening her Empire and of giving cause for revolts. Hence her determination to marry Léon only at the command of the Senate.

In short, although the word gloire is often on the lips of Corneille's characters, it covers a multitude of senses; and Corneille, in depicting the variety of motives which influence men and women, in depicting all kinds of men and women, from the noblest to the basest, reflects the complex reality both of his own age and of all others. His psychology is profoundly human.

There are, then, in Corneille, particularly in the plays of the middle period, magnanimous and intrepid characters, practically all of royal rank, who have a strong sense of their duty or the exigencies of their gloire. But they are much rarer than is generally supposed, much rarer than a cursory reading of the tragedies might lead one to suppose; for the characters of Corneille must not always be taken at their face value, and their words are not always plain statements of fact. Not only are they fond of using irony and double-entendre but they are often insincere. 'II n‧y a pas de théâtre, says Rousset, 'dont les héros se mentent davantage les uns aux autres.'

Sometimes they delude themselves. Horace, on the point of murdering his sister, says:

C'est trop, ma patience à la raison fait place….
(IV, 5)

'Raison' of course may not mean 'reason' in the modern sense; it can also mean 'tout ce qui est de devoir, de droit, d'équité, de justice' (Dictionnaire de l' Académie). But there is nothing rational or just in Horace's murder of his sister: he is deluding himself in his passion. Very frequently the actions of Comeille's characters belie their words and make their self-deception clear. Doña Isabelle in Don Sanche, for all her talk of her duties as a princess, cannot help betraying to Don Sanche her love for him. Médée, in La Toison, says:

Je suis prète à l'aimer, si le Roi le commande;
Mais jusque-là, ma sœur, je ne fais que souffrir
Les soupirs et les voeux qu'il prend soin de m'offrir.
(II, 2)

Je ferai mon devoir, comme tu fais le tien.
L'honneur doit m'être cher, si la gioire t'est chère:
Je ne trahirai point mon pays et mon pére….
(II, 2)

In fact, love is too strong for her:

Silence, raison importune;
Est-il temps de parler quand mon cœur s'est donné?
(IV, 2)

She betrays her father, and helps Jason to win the fleece:

Du pays et du sang l'amour rompt les liens,
Et les dieux de Jason sont plus forts que les miens.
(V, 5)

Nothing could be more apparently 'Cornelian' than some of Sophonisbe's lines:

Je sais ce que je suis et ce que je dois faire,
Et prends pour seul objet ma gioire à satisfaire.
(III, 5)

De tout votre destin vous êtes la maîtresse:
Je la serai du mien….
(V, 4)

She tells Massinisse that she is only marrying him to avoid being taken in triumph to Rome (II, 4); she explains, too, that she is marrying him in order to gain an ally for her country:

II est à mon pays, puisqu'il est tout à moi.
A ce nouvel hymen, c'est ce qui me convie,
Non l'amour, non la peur de me voir asservie.
(II, 5)

But she is motivated neither by the desire for gioire nor by patriotism, but by love and jealousy:

c'est pour peu qu'on aime, une extrême douceur
De pouvoir accorder sa gioire avec son cœur;
Mais c'en est une ici bien autre, et sans égale,
D'enlever, et sitòt, ce prince à ma rivale,
De lui faire tomber le triomphe des mains,
Et prendre sa conquète aux yeux de ses Romains.
(II, 5)

Ce n'était point l'amour …
C'était la folle ardeur de braver ma rivale;
J'en faisais mon suprême et mon unique bien.
Tous les cœurs ont leur faible, et c'était là le mien.
La présence d'Eryxe aujourd'hui m'a perdue;
Je me serais sans elle un peu mieux défendue;
J'aurais su mieux choisir et les temps et les lieux.
Mais ce vainqueur vers elle eùt pu tourner les yeux….
(V, 1)

Perpenna tells Sertorius:

Oui, sur tous mes désirs je me rends absolu …
J'en veux, à votre exemple, être aujourd'hui le maître.
(IV, 3)

He is probably speaking ironically; if not, he is deluding himself, as the course of the rest of the play shows. Honorie, in Attila, says:

… rien ne m'est sensible à l'égal de ma gioire,
(II, 2)

but never lives up to her principles. Tite, in Tite et Bérénice, says, speaking of Domitie, 'Je veux l' aimer, je l'aime…. ' But he has no such power over his emotions:

Je souffrais Domitie, et d'assidus efforts
M'avaient malgré l'amour, fait maìtre du dehors.
La contrainte semblait tourner en habitude;
Le joug que je prenais m'en paraissait moins rude….
(III, 5)

He also says (II, 1) that, if Bérénice were to come to Rome, he would still marry Domitie; but he is deceiving himself, as subsequent events show. Indeed, Tite admits that what he says and what he feels are two different things.

Je sais qu'un empereur doit parler ce langage;
Et quand il l'a fallu, j'en ai dit davantage;
Mais de ces duretés que j'étale à regret,
Chaque mot à mon cœur coûte un soupir secret;
Et quand à la raison j'accorde un tel empire,
Je le dis seulement parce qu'il le faut dire,
Et qu'étant au-dessus de tous les potentats,
Il me serait honteux de ne le dire pas.

(V, 1)

We have seen already how Corneille's characters often feign a calmness or indifference which they are far from feeling, like Eryxe. Similarly, they sometimes say one thing in public, for the sake of appearances, and another in private. Eryxe, for example, recognizes in public that 'l'hymen des rois doit être au-dessus de l'amour,' but in private she confesses that she does not share this view:

Mais je suis au-dessus de cette erreur commune:
J'aime en lui sa personne autant que sa fortune….
(II, 1)

Pulchérie tells Léon that she loves him with a calm, rational love:

Je vous aime, et non pas de cette folle ardeur
Que les yeux éblouis font maîtresse du cœur,
Non d'un amour conçu par les sens en tumulte,
A qui l'âme applaudit, sans qu'elle se consulte,
Et qui ne concevant que d'aveugles désirs,
Languit dans les faveurs, et meurt dans les plaisirs.
Ma passion pour vous généreuse et solide
A la vertu pour âme, et la raison pour guide,
La gloire pour objet …
(I, 1)

But her real passion comes out in her confession to Irène:

Léon seul est ma joie, il est mon seul désir….
(III, 2)

Sometimes, too, Corneille's characters are simply untruthful or hypocritical. Chimène, when she faints on hearing that Rodrigue has been wounded, gives a false explanation of her emotion. Cinna denies his complicity in the plot against Auguste's life. Jason tells Aæte that his love for Médée is genuine:

Et mon amour n'est pas un amour politique.
(III, 1)

But a few minutes later, he says precisely the opposite to Hypsipyle:

entendez-le, Madame,
Ce soupir qui vers vous pousse toute mon âme;
Et concevez par là jusqu'où vont mes malheurs,
De soupirer pour vous, et de prétendre ailleurs.
(III, 3)

Othon tells Camille:

C'est votre intérêt seul qui fait parler ma flamme.
(III, 5)

In fact, he is only interested in obtaining the Empire. Suréna, when Orode asks him if he knows whom the princess Eurydice loves, does not answer truthfully.

In other words, to understand a character of Corneille—as of any other dramatist—it is not enough to consider isolated passages. What he says on one occasion, must be related with what he says elsewhere; what he says in public, must be taken in conjunction with what he says in private. Due allowance must always be made for irony, double-entendre and hypocrisy. Actions are a safer guide to character than words. Nor must the opinion of other characters in the play be overlooked—it is from Léonor that we learn that Chimène has chosen the weakest champion possible. We must beware, above all, of taking lines out of their context. One or two examples of the way in which this can distort the meaning have been encountered already. Here is one more. Sophonisbe's line,

Sur moi, quoi qu'il en soit, je me rends absolue,
(V, 1)

is often quoted as an instance of the strength of will of Corneille's characters. Looked at in its context it is less convincing. In fact, it merely means that Sophonisbe is determined to commit suicide; and the rest of the speech shows that she is less resolute than that single line suggests. She continues:

Contre sa dureté j'ai du secours tout prêt,
Et ferai malgré lui moi seule mon arrêt.
Cependant de mon feu l'importune tendresse
Aussi bien que ma gloire en mon sort s'intéresse,
Veut régner en mon cœur comme ma liberté;
Et n'ose l'avouer de toute sa fierté.
Quelle bassesse d'âme! ô ma gloire! ô Carthage!
Faut-il qu'avec vous deux un homme la partage?
Et l'amour de la vie en faveur d'un époux
Doit-il être en ce cœur aussi puissant que vous?
(V, 1)

Although Corneille is almost always his best critic, what he says about his plays in his Discours and Examens is not always a safe guide to their interpretation. Of Sophonisbe, for example, he says this:

Je lui prête un peu d'amour, mais elle règne sur lui, et ne daigne l'écouter qu'autant qu'il peut servir à ces passions dominantes qui règnent sur elle, et à qui elle sacrifie toutes les tendresses de son cœur, Massinisse, Syphax, sa propre vie. (Avis au lecteur)

As has been shown above, the text of the play contradicts him. Sophonisbe is less single-minded than this passage suggests; she herself admits that her downfall is the result of her jealousy and her desire to spite her rival.

Corneille's characters are not, then, remarkable for will-power or self-mastery. Moreover, if they often lack the will to carry out what they conceive to be their duties, will-power sometimes occurs divorced from any moral sense at all. Cléopâtre, in Rodogune, is the supreme example of a strong, immoral or amoral, character; but Médée (in Médée) and Arsinoé are her sisters, and Dircé in Oedipe is not strikingly dutiful.

Not only are Corneille's characters unable to master their passions, but they are far from ideal in other respects. Weak or vacillating or mediocre characters are not rare in Corneille. The King in Le Cid; Cinna, Auguste and Maxime in Cinna; Félix in Polyeucte, irresolute, pusillanimous, worldly and selfish; the vacillating Ptolomée of Pompée and his Machiavellian advisers; Antiochus and Séleucus in Rodogune; the indulgent but weak Valens in Théodore, who is dominated by his wife, allows her to act for him, and will not intervene even between her and his son; Prusias in Nicomède, timid, dominated by his wife, devoid of gratitude to his son, whom he mistrusts and who, he fears, is scheming to supplant him; Attale in the same play; the selfish Garibalde of Pertharite, who says:

Je t'aime, mais enfin je m'aime plus que toi,
(II, 2)

and who is Grimoald's evil counsellor, who is responsible for Grimoald's love for Rodelinde, and who persuades Grimoald to threaten the life of Rodelinde's son because he wants Grimoald to be hated: none of these is ideal; some are ordinarily human, others more than ordinarily weak and selfish.

Of the characters in the later plays, the same is true. In La Toison d'Or, there is Jason, the fickle opportunist, untruthful but possessed of a quick, subtle brain, for whom love is a means to an end, and who is prepared to make love to any woman if it suits his interests. There is Médée, who betrays her father for love, and who is jealous, violent, and cruel:

Je ne croirai jamais qu'il soit douceur égale
A celle de se voir immoler sa rivale….
(IV, 3)

There is her brother, Absyrte, for whom love takes precedence over every other consideration, who does not hesitate, with Médée's help to play a trick on Hypsipyle to make her love him, and who roundly declares:

Et je ne suis pas homme à servir mon rival….
(V, 1)

There is Hypsipyle, too, who, devoid of any amour-pro-pre, pursues her faithless lover, Jason, cannot resolve to give him up—

Prince, vous savez mal combien charme un courage
Le plus frivole espoir de reprendre un volage,
De le voir malgré lui dans nos fers retombé,
Echapper à l'objet qui nous l'a dérobé,
Et sur une rivale et confuse et trompée
Ressaisir avec gloire une place usurpée,
(II, 5)

—implores him to return to her, and finally marries someone else.

Sertorius opens with the words of Perpenna:

D'où me vient ce désordre, Aufide, et que veut dire
Que mon cœur sur mes vœux garde si peu d'empire?

—words which characterize not only Perpenna, but almost everyone else in the play. Aristie asks:

Qu'importe de mon cœur, si je sais mon devoir?
(I, 3)

but her state of mind is not so simple as that. Although her husband, Pompée, has divorced her and remarried, she cannot overcome her love for him:

je hais quelquefois,
Et moins que je ne veux et moins que je ne dois.
(III, 2)

She offers her hand to Sertorius from resentment, jealousy and wounded amour-propre. Love, in Sertorius himself, is stronger than political prudence. He decides to marry Viriate, whom he loves himself, to Perpenna, his lieutenant, in order to avoid dissensions in his army, but he lacks strength to carry out his resolution:

Je m'étais figuré que de tels déplaisirs
Pourraient ne me coûter que deux ou trois soupirs;
Et pour m'en consoler, j'envisageais l'estime
Et d'ami généreux et de chef magnanime;
Mais près d'un coup fatal, je sens par mes ennuis
Que je me promettais bien plus que je ne puis.
(IV, 1)

He tries to evade discussing the matter with Perpenna, in order to avoid committing himself. It is by no means certain that he is telling the truth when he says to Perpenna:

Non, je vous l'ai cédée, et vous tiendrai parole.
Je l'aime, et vous la donne encor malgré mon feu….
(IV, 3)

Certainly, the arguments he uses to dissuade Perpenna from marrying Viriate do not all appear to be sincere: it seems unlikely, for example, that Viriate would treat with her enemies if Sertorius were to keep his promise to Perpenna. It is because Sertorius cannot convince Perpenna of his sincerity that he is assassinated. Perpenna plots against Sertorius from envy and jealousy; yet in so doing he is conscious that he is doing wrong. He murders Sertorius, but his deed fills him with remorse.

Othon is by no means an ideal character. His love for Plautine originated in self-interest (like the love of Rastignac for Delphine de Nucingen in Le Père Goriot). Though it has become genuine, he agrees to relinquish her, albeit reluctantly. Having paid court to Camille, Galba's niece, in order to gain the Empire, he finds himself engaged to the princess but excluded from the succession, and has to try to dissuade her from marrying him, but without daring to confess the truth. He is hypocritical, virtuous under a good emperor, depraved under a bad one. Plautine, who urges Othon to make love to Camille, cannot help being jealous when he does so (like Atalide in Bajazet, later). Her father, Vinius, is another Félix, eager above all to maintain his power. Galba describes him thus:

Voyez ce qu'en un jour il m'a sacrifié:
Il m'offre Othon pour vous, qu'il souhaitait pour gendre;
Je le rends à sa fille, il aime à le reprendre;
Je la veux pour Pison, mon vouloir est suivi;
Je vous mets en sa place, et l'en trouve ravi;
Son ami se révolte, il presse ma colère;
Il donne à Martian Plautine à ma prière….
(V, 1)

Galba is weak. Camille, his niece, is intelligent and shrewd, but jealous and vindictive. She is determined to marry Plautine, her rival in Othon's affections, to Martian, whom Plautine loathes, in order to be revenged upon her; and, when Othon places himself at the head of a revolt, she says:

Allons presser Galba pour son juste supplice
…..
Du courroux à l'amour si le retour est doux,
On repasse aisément de l'amour au courroux.
(IV, 7)

In Agésilas, Cotys, who is betrothed to Elpinice but does not love her, refuses to give her up to Spitridate:

Je serai malheureux, vous le serez aussi.
(I, 4)

Spitridate is equally selfish in proposing to his sister that she should overcome her love for Cotys and marry Agésilas in order that he should be happy with Elpinice. Agésilas himself says:

… Je ne suis pas assez fort
Pour triompher de ma faiblesse.
(III, 4)

Attila is a most interesting study. He is an able politician, excelling rather at sowing dissension amongst his enemies than at military conquest, shrewd and suspicious, wily and cruel. He devises one scheme after another to torment the wretched kings and princesses in his power, playing with them like a cat with mice. But he is at the same time irresolute, and allows love to get the better of political prudence. Though Honorie is the more suitable match, he cannot overcome his preference for Ildione:

Moi qui veux pouvoir tout, sitôt que je vous voi,
Malgré tout cet orgueil, je ne puis rien pour moi.
(III, 2)

Ildione and Honorie do not love Attila, but they are jealous of his favour and speak spitefully to each other. Honorie is particularly interesting. In situation, and to some extent in character, she resembles Racine's Hermione. She is unbalanced, and lacks self-control; jealousy makes her mean and spiteful. In a fit of pique, she refuses Attila, and, against her principle that a puppet-king is unworthy of her, agrees to marry Valamir. Wounded by Ildione's taunts, she seeks an unworthy revenge by betraying to Attila Ildione's love for Ardaric and suggesting that she should be made to marry a subject. She imprudently betrays the secret of her own love for Valamir:

Que n'ai-je donc mieux tu que j'aimais Valamir!
Mais quand on est bravée et qu'on perd ce qu'on aime,
Flavie, est-on si peu maîtresse de soi-même?
(IV, 2)

She sinks her pride and asks Attila to marry her.

Domitie, in The et Bérénice, finds that her ambition to be Empress is not strong enough to overcome her love for Domitian:

Si l'amour quelquefois souffre qu'on le contraigne,
Il souffre rarement qu'une autre ardeur l'éteigne;
Et quand l'ambition en met l'empire à bas,
Elle en fait son esclave, et ne l'étouffe pas.
Mais un si fier esclave ennemi de sa chaîne,
La secoue à toute heure, et la porte avec gêne,
Et maître de nos sens, qu'il appelle au secours,
Il échappe souvent, et murmure toujours.
Veux-tu que je te fasse un aveu tout sincère?
Je ne puis aimer Tite, ou n'aimer pas son frère;
Et malgré cet amour, je ne puis m'arrêter
Qu'au degré le plus haut où je puisse monter.
…..
Hélas! plus je le vois, moins je sais que lui dire.
Je l'aime, et le dédaigne, et n'osant m'attendrir,
Je me veux mal des maux que je lui fais souffrir.
(I, 1)

She cannot prevent herself from feeling jealous when she sees Domitian paying court to Bérénice; though, on the other hand, when she thinks that Tite prefers Bérénice, her pride is hurt and she wants to be revenged on him. Corneille's Tite, unlike Racine's Titus, is weak and vacillating—

Maître de l'univers sans l'être de moi-même…

(II, 1)

—and is prepared to abdicate to win Bérénice. His brother, Domitian, is not magnanimous. Finding Domitie determined to marry Tite, he expresses the wish that Bérénice would return and prevent the marriage and exults in her discomfiture:

Que je verrais, Albin, ma volage punie,
Si de ces grands apprêts pour la cérémonie,
Que depuis si longtemps on dresse à si grand bruit,
Elle n'avait que l'ombre, et qu'une autre eût le fruit!
Qu'elle serait confuse! et que j'aurais de joie!
(I, 3)

For Eurydice and Suréna, love is the only thing that matters.

Je veux, sans que la mort ose me secourir,
Toujours aimer, toujours souffrir, toujours mourir,

says Eurydice, and Suréna echoes her words:

où dois-je recourir,
O ciel! s'il faut toujours aimer, souffrir, mourir.
(I, 3)

For Suréna,

le moindre moment d'un bonheur souhaité,
Vaut mieux qu'une si froide et vaine éternité.
(I, 3)

There is nothing rational about Eurydice, who is all fears and jealousy, and who touchingly strikes up a friendship with Suréna's sister, as a way of being near him vicariously. Though her duty requires her to marry Pacorus, not only does she not love him, but she makes no pretence of doing so, reminds him that he has loved another, postpones her marriage with him, and does not conceal that she loves someone else. Nor can she bring herself to allow Suréna to obey the king and marry Mandane, so that she is directly responsible for his death. Pacorus, too, is another character who cannot master his love: Suréna tells him:

l'amour jaloux de son autorité,
Ne reconnaît ni rois ni souveraineté.
Il hait tous les emplois où la force l'appelle:
Dès qu'on le violente, on en fait un rebelle;
Et je suis criminel de n'en pas triompher,
Quand vous-même, Seigneur, ne pouvez l'étouffer!
(IV, 4)

Palmis is yet another:

The women of Corneille are often spiteful, jealous and possessive. Doña Isabelle, who suspects that Don Sanche loves Doña Elvire, is determined that if she cannot marry him herself, her rival shall not be happier than she. If she should have to marry Doña Elvire's brother, she says:

devenant par là reine de ma rivale,
J'aurai droit d'empêcher qu'elle ne se ravale,
Et ne souffrirai pas qu'elle ait plus de bonheur
Que ne m'en ont permis ces tristes lois d'honneur.
(Don Sanche, III, 6)

If Don Sanche must marry someone else, it must be a woman she has chosen for him, not one he has chosen himself:

Qu'il souffre autant pour moi que je souffre pour lui….
(III, 6)

Mandane, in Agésilas, expresses similar views; so do Bérénice and Eurydice. Sophonisbe is more openly possessive:

Un esclave échappé nous fait toujours rougir.
(I, 2)

Albin, in Tite et Bérénice, discourses in general terms on this feminine characteristic:

Seigneur, telle est l'humeur de la plupart des femmes.
L'amour sous leur empire eût-il rangé mille âmes,
Elles regardent tout comme leur propre bien,
Et ne peuvent souffrir qu'il leur échappe rien.
Un captif mal gardé leur semble une infamie:
Qui l'ose recevoir devient leur ennemie;
Et sans leur faire un vol on ne peut disposer
D'un cœur qu'un autre choix les force à refuser:
Elles veulent qu'ailleurs par leur ordre il soupire,
Et qu'un don de leur part marque un reste d'empire.
(IV, 4)

Several of Corneille's heroines, besides Domitie, illustrate his remarks.

Corneille's portrayal of human nature, then, is much more varied and subtle than is often supposed. His characters are for the most part unable to subdue their passions by their reason or their will; relatively few place honour or duty before inclination. They are not supermen or ideal creatures, but real men and women. Nearly all have their moments of weakness and indecision; nearly all have human faults and weaknesses. Above all, they are more complex in their motivation than they are often considered to be.

They are very varied. There are some strong characters, with some of the traits we think of as 'Cornelian', though they are far less numerous than is often imagined, and are by no means always virtuous. But such characters are relatively few and untypical, and confined to a certain number of plays. By their side are to be found a host of ordinary or weak or erring characters. Corneille's plays, indeed, constitute a wonderful and varied gallery of portraits. In Polyeucte, for example, we have Polyeucte, Sévère, Pauline, and Félix, all different types of humanity, admirably differentiated one from the other. To take another example, in Nicomède Corneille gives us—by the side of the self-confident, honourable, plain-speaking, tactless, ironical Nicomède and his feminine counterpart, Laodice—the wily Arsinoé, ambitious for her son, Attale, rather than for herself, adept at winding round her little finger her husband, the timid, mistrustful, uxorious Prusias. There are, too, the admirably portrayed diplomat, Flaminius, shrewd and subtle, skilfully concealing the iron hand beneath the velvet glove, making his will known by reasoned advice and hints, an excellent ambassador, and Attale, the brother of Nicomède, young and inexperienced, somewhat précieux, but intelligent and endowed with sound instincts, so that he gradually learns to distinguish between the world as he has been brought up to believe that it is and the world as it really is. Or, ranging over the whole work of Corneille, Rodrigue, Horace, Curiace, Auguste, Cinna, Polyeucte, César, Don Sanche, Nicomède, Othon, Martian and Suréna are not the same type of hero, any more than Chimène, Camille, Sabine, Pauline, Cléopâtre, Rodogune, Laodice, Dircé, Sophonisbe, Camille (in Othon), Ildione, Honorie, Pulchérie or Eurydice are one type of heroine. Maxime, Garibalde and Perpenna are three quite different types of weak character or villain. Again, Corneille shows many different types of older men—the count and Don Diègue, old Horace, Félix, Valens, Prusias, Vinius, Attila, Martian, and Suréna have little in common.

Corneille is excellent, too, at depicting family life. There is great variety in his fathers, for example: Don Diègue and old Horace, both affectionate and proud of their sons, but the former a little out of sympathy with his son's inner conflict, Félix, Valens, Prusias, Aæte…. Two deserve a particular mention: Phocas, in Héraclius, suffering because neither of the two young men will acknowledge him as father; and Martian, in Pulchérie, guessing the secrets of his daughter's heart and betraying his own in a touching scene. Then the mothers: Marcelle, in Théodore, full of fierce, maternal affection; Arsinoé, in Nicomède, like her a good mother but a bad stepmother; Jocaste, in Oedipe, who, though she has remarried, is thoughtful for her daughter's welfare; Cléopâtre, in Rodogune, devoid of any affection for her sons; Cassiope, in Andromède, whose excessive maternal pride has brought misfortune to her country and her daughter. Perhaps Corneille is at his best in portraying the relationships between brothers and sisters. Leaving aside the comedies, we think of the sisterly bickering of Chalciope and Médée; of the delicate affection between Antiochus and Séleucus in Rodogune; of the dawning affection between the two half-brothers, Nicomède and Attale; of Mandane, in Agésilas, resisting the entreaties of her brother, Spitridate, who wants her to marry Agésilas, whom she does not love, so that Agésilas may let him be happy with Elpinice; of the eagerness of Irène in Pulchérie to help Léon; of the loyalty and affection of Palmis in Suréna. It is clear that no attempt to reduce Corneille's characters to a single formula can do justice to the range and variety of his characterization.

Nor is there any evidence that Corneille wrote with the object of inculcating a moral lesson of any kind. He himself, in the Discours, expressly denies that drama should have a moral aim; and it is difficult to feel that in any play we are being shown ideal characters on whom Corneille wishes us to model ourselves. Let us rather say, with Vedel: 'Il reste aussi invisible derrière son œuvre que Shakespeare.' The truth is surely that Corneille was concerned with studying human nature, with portraying different types of men and women, of fathers and sons and mothers and daughters, of lovers and their mistresses, of kings and tyrants and diplomats and politicians, of soldiers and adventurers, with studying their behaviour in different situations, their problems, their sufferings. Indeed, a contemporary anecdote, recently unearthed by Professor Lough, shows us a Corneille who—like Balzac—closely identified himself with his characters:

M'a dit qu'étant à table avec M. l'Abbé de Cerisy, M. de Corneille, et avec d'autres honnêtes gens à Rouen, M. Corneille qu'était assis auprès de lui à mi-repos, lui donna un coup de poing sur l'épaule avec un cri, qui fut suivi de paroles, qui témoignèrent assez qu'il songeait ailleurs: Ah! que j'ai de la peine à faire mourir cette fille! Comme il avait surpris la compagnie, il fut obligé à dire la vérité, et en les demandant pardon, il les assurait, qu'il n'était propre pour la conversation, et qu'il ne saurait s'empêcher rêver sur quelqu'une de ses comédies qu'il avait sur les mains, et qui fut l'occasion de ses paroles.