At his voice, the poet and the tragedian rose up at a single bound.
"I feel the selfsame fire, the selfsame nerve I feel, That roused th' indignant Cid, drove home Iloratius' steel; As cunning as of yore this hand of mine I find, That sketched great Pompey's soul, depicted Cinna's mind,"-- wrote Corneille in his thanks to Fouquet.

He had some months before said to Mdlle.

du Pare, who was an actress in Moliere's company, which had come to Rouen, and who was, from her grand airs, nicknamed by the others the Marchioness, "Marchioness," if Age hath set On my brow his ugly die; At my years, pray don't forget, You will be as--old as I.
"Yet do I possess of charms One or two, so slow to fade, That I feel but scant alarms At the havoc Time hath made.
"You have such as men adore, But these that you scorn to-day May, perchance, be to the fore When your own are worn away.
"These can from decay reprieve Eyes I take a fancy to; Make a thousand, years believe Whatsoe'er I please of you.
"With that new, that coming race, Who will take my word for it, All the warrant for your face Will be what I may have writ." Corneille reappeared upon the boards with a tragedy called _OEdipe,_ more admired by his contemporaries than by posterity.

On the occasion of Louis XIV.'s marriage he wrote for the king's comedians the _Toison d'or,_ and put into the mouth of France those prophetic words:-- "My natural force abates, from long success alone; Triumphant blooms the state, the wretched people groan Their shrunken bodies bend beneath my high emprise; Whilst glory gilds the throne, the subject sinks and dies." _Sertorius_ appeared at the commencement of the year 1662.

"Pray where did Corneille learn politics and war ?" asked Turenne when he saw this piece played.