_Bajazet_ soon followed.

"Here is Racine's piece," wrote Madame de Sevigne to her daughter in January, 1672; if I could send you La Champmesle, you would think it good, but without her, it loses half its worth.

The character of Bajazet is cold as ice, the manners of the Turks are ill observed in it, they do not make so much fuss about getting married; the catastrophe is not well led up to, there are no reasons given for that great butchery.

There are some pretty things, however, but nothing perfectly beautiful, nothing which carries by storm, none of those bursts of Corneille's which make one creep.

My dear, let us be careful never to compare Racine with him, let us always feel the difference; never will the former rise any higher than _Andromaque_.