The Stones of Paris in History and Letters, Volume 1 (of 2) by Charlotte M. Martin

Author:Charlotte M. Martin [Martin, Charlotte M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Reference, Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Fiction & Literature
ISBN: 9781486493210
Publisher: Emereo Publishing
Published: 2013-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

Pierre Corneille stands in bronze on the bridge of his natal town, Rouen, where he stood in the flesh of his twenty-eight years, among other citizens who went to welcome Louis XIII. and his ruler, Richelieu, on their visit in 1634. The young advocate by profession and poet by predilection presented his verses in greeting and in honor of the King, and was soon after enrolled one of the small and select band of the Cardinal's poets. With the Cardinal's commission and a play or two, already written when only twenty-three, he made his way to Paris. For nearly thirty years, the years of his dramatic triumphs, Corneille lived alternately in Paris and in Rouen, until his mother's death, in 1662, left him free to make his home in the capital. In that year he settled in rooms in the Hôtel de Guise, now the Musée des Archives, whose ducal owner was a patron of the Théâtre du Marais, close at hand. At his death, in or about 1664, Corneille sent in a rhymed petition for rooms in the Louvre, where lodging was granted to men of letters not too well-to-do. His claim was refused, and he took an apartment in Rue de Cléry during that same year. It was a workman's quarter, and none of its houses were very grand, but that of Corneille is spoken of as one of the better sort, with its own porte-cochère. Pierre's younger brother, Thomas, came to live in the same house. And from this time on, the two brothers were never parted in their lives. They had married sisters, and the two families dwelt in quiet happiness under the common roof. This house in Rue de Cléry cannot be fixed. It may be one of the poor dwellings still standing in that old street, or it may no longer exist. It is the house famous in anecdotal history for owning the trap-door in the floor between the working-rooms of the brothers, which Pierre—at loss for an adequate rhyme—would lift up, and call to Thomas, writing in his room below, to give him the wished-for word.

This dull street formed the background of a touching picture, when, in 1667, Corneille's son was brought home, wounded, from the siege of Douai. The straw from the litter was scattered about the street as the father helped them lift his boy to carry him into the house, and Corneille was summoned to the Châtelet, for breaking police regulations with regard to the care of thoroughfares; he appeared, pleaded his own cause, and was cast in damages!

Here in 1671, Corneille and Molière, in collaboration, wrote the "tragedy-ballet 'Psyche'"; this work in common cementing a friendship already begun between the two men, and now made firmer for the two years of Molière's life on from this date. The play was begun and finished in a fortnight, to meet the usual urgency of the King in his amusements. Molière planned the piece and its spectacular effects, and wrote the prologue,

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