They are both of them, I assure you, very friendly towards you, and indeed very good fellows." All this caution did not prevent Racine, however, from dis pleasing the king.

After a conversation he had held with Madame de Maintenon about the miseries of the people, she asked him for a memorandum on the subject.

The king demanded the name of the author, and flew out at him.
"Because he is a perfect master of verse," said he, "does he think he knows everything?
And because he is a great poet, does he want to be minister ?"---Madame de Maintenon was more discreet in her relations with the king than bold in the defence of her friends; she sent Racine word not to come and see her 'until further orders.' "Let this cloud pass," she said; "I will bring the fine weather back." Racine was ill; his naturally melancholly disposition had become sombre.

"I know, Madame," he wrote to Madame de Maintenon, "what influence you have; but in the house of Port-Royal I have an aunt who shows her affection for me in quite a different way.

This holy woman is always praying God to send me disgraces, humiliations, and subjects for penitence; she will have more success than you." At bottom his soul was not sturdy enough to endure the rough doctrines of Port-Royal; his health got worse and worse; he returned to court; he was re-admitted by the king, who received him graciously.