[OEuvres poétiques de Malherbe, ed. Louis Moland. Paris, 1874. Contains life of Malherbe by Racan. Poésies de F. Malherbe, ed. L. Becq de Fouquières, Paris, 1874, contains André Chénier's commentary.]

Mathurin Régnier . Born at Chartres. Author of nineteen admirable satires.

[OEuvres de Mathurin Régnier. E. Courbet. Paris, 1875.]

Maynard . Born at Toulouse. Disciple of Malherbe.

[OEuvres poétiques. Notice par G. Garisson, 3 vols., Paris, Lemerre.]

Racan . Born at Roche-Racan in Touraine. Disciple of Malherbe; has left a short account of his master's life.

[OEuvres complètes. Ed. Tenant de Latour, 2 vols., Paris, 1857.]

Théophile de Viau . Born at Clairac. Wrote satires, and a treatise on the immortality of the soul, which made him many enemies, and resulted finally in a decree of perpetual exile (1625). The too famous couplet,

Ah! voici le poignard qui du sang de son maître

Fut souillé lâchement; il en rougit, le traître! occurs in his tedious tragedy of Pyrame et Tisbé (1617).

[OEuvres, ed. Alleaume. Bibliothèque Elzévirienne, Paris, 1856.]

Saint-Amant . Born in Normandy. Wrote elegies, mascarades, and a religious epic on Moses.

Voiture . Court versifier. Born at Amiens. An ornament of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, home of Les Précieuses.

[OEuvres, avec le comm. de Tallement des Réaux, ed. A. Ubicini, 2 vols., Paris, 1855.]

Colletet , of the Académie Française.

Corneille . Born at Rouen. Mélite, his first play, was produced when he was twenty-three; it was followed by Clitandre, La Veuve, La Galerie du Palais, La Suivante, La Place Royale, L'Illusion Comique -- all comedies; his first tragedy, Médée, appeared in 1635, and then came Le Cid, Horace, Cinna, Polyeucte, Pompée, Le Menteur, La Suite du Menteur, Théodore, Rodogune, Héraclius, Andromède, Don Sanche d'Aragon, Pentharite. The last play (1652) was a failure, and Corneille was so disgusted that he produced nothing for seven years, devoting himself to a translation in verse of the Imitatio Christi. In 1659 he regained his ancient glory with the rather unsatisfactory OEdipe, and wrote eight more plays, amongst them Sertorius and Attila. In his old age he was poor and neglected. His poems are printed in vol. x of the Marty- Laveaux edition of his works (Paris, 1862-8).

147. Stances de Don Rodrigue. Don Diégue, father of Don Rodrigue, has been struck by Don Gomés, Comte de Gormas. Diégue makes his son promise to avenge him. Don Rodrigue loves Chimène, daughter of Don Gomés.

148. Stances de Polyeucte. Polyeucte, an Armenian noble wedded to Pauline, daughter of the Roman governor of Armenia, has become a Christian and defiled the altars of the Roman gods.

Scarron . Born in Paris. Became paralysed at the age of seventeen. In 1652 married Mlle d'Aubigné, afterwards Mme de Maintenon. Wrote comedies under Spanish influence, and a travesty of the Aeneid in eight books.

[OEuvres, 7 vols., Amsterdam, 1752.]