'I regard it as a happiness for me to die before you,' he said to his friend.

An operation appeared necessary.

His son would have given him hopes.

'And you, too,' said Racine, 'you would do as the doctors, and mock me?
God is the Master, and can restore me to life, but Death has sent in his bill.'" He was not mistaken: on the 21st of April, 1699, the great poet, the scrupulous Christian, the noble and delicate painter of the purest passions of the soul, expired at Paris, at fifty-nine years of age; leaving life without regret, spite of all the successes with which he had been crowned.

Unlike Corneille with the Cid, he did not take tragedy and glory by assault, he conquered them both by degrees, raising himself at each new effort, and gaining over, little by little, the most passionate admirers of his great rival.