i-afupants, fawning

hauteur d'' esprit, haughtiness.

1. 24. le cardinal de Ric]ielieii. The prime minister had enlisted Corneille in the company of the five dramatic authors {la brigade du cardinal, ou l'acadéuiie de campagne') whose business it was to work out his sketches of tragédies and comédies ; but lie soon discovered that the author of Le Cid was too great and too mdependent a genius to rest satisfied with being the mère collaborateur of Colletet, Boisrobert, L'Étoile and Rotrou.

1. 27. entre Corneille et Scudéri. The conceited author of Alaric ou Rome vaincue, cast into the shade by Corneille, became his bitterest enemy ; but notwithstanding his criticism of certain passages in the play, the academician who drew up the Sentiinents de V Académie sur le Cid, did not hesitate to call it a master-piece.

1. 37. désapprouva Polyeucte. This beautiful tragedy, read by Corneille at the Hôtel de Ram-bouillet, was coldly received, and Voiture had to inform the poet that son christiaiiisme surtotct avait déplu.

\. 39. et en phisieurs endroits une traduction. This is nottrue; the work of Guillem de Castro only served as a point de départ to Corneille; and what Voltaire says in his note about Diamante is still more absurd, although he has repeated his remark in his commentary on Corneille and his Anecdotes sur le Cid published by the Gazette littéraire (August T, 1764). The fact is that Diamante's play is the very one alluded to by Fontenelle when he says that Corneille had in his library a Spanish translation of Le Cid.

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