_Theodore_ and _Pertharite_ had been failures.

"I don't mention them," Corneille would say, "in order to avoid the vexation of remembering them." He was still living at Rouen, in a house adjoining that occupied by his brother, Thomas Corneille, younger than he, already known by some comedies which had met with success.

The two brothers had married two sisters.
"Their houses twain were made in one; With keys and purse the same was done; Their wives can never have been two.
Their wishes tallied at all times; No games distinct their children' knew; The fathers lent each other rhymes; Same wine for both the drawers drew." -- [Ducis.] It is said, that when Peter Corneille was puizled to end a verse he would undo a trap that opened into his brother's room, shouting, "Sans-souci, a rhyme!" Corneille had announced his renunciation of the stage; he was translating into verse the _Imitation of Christ_.

"It were better," he had written in his preface to _Pertharite,_ "that I took leave myself instead of waiting till it is taken of me altogether; it is quite right that after twenty years' work I should begin to perceive that I am becoming too old to be still in the fashion.

This resolution is not so strong but that it may be broken; there is every, appearance, however, of my abiding by it." Fouquet was then in his glory, "no less superintendent of literature than of finance," and he undertook to recall to the stage the genius of Corneille.