REMARKS ON BRITANNICUS

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EDME BOURSAULT (1638-1701), a dramatic satirist and story-writer, was present at the first performance of Britannicus, on December 13, 1669, and has given his impressions of it in a short story, Artemise et Poliante (1670). Boursault was unfriendly to Racine. He says in part (see Mesnard's edition of Racine, vol. II, pages 224-227): "Il était sept heures sonnées par tout Paris, quand je sortis de l'Hôtel de Bourgogne, où l'on venait de représenter pour la première fois le Britannicus de M. Racine. je m'étais mis dans le parterre pour avoir l'honneur de me faire étouffer par la foule. Mais le marquis de Courboyer, qui ce jour-là justifia publiquement qu'il était noble [by being publicly beheaded in the Place de Grève], ayant attiré à son spectacle tout ce que la rue Saint-Denis a de marchands qui se rendent régulièrement à l'Hôtel de Bourgogne pour avoir la première vue de tous les ouvrages qu'on y représente, je me trouvai si à mon aise que j'étais résolu de prier M. de Corneille, que j'aperçus tout seul dans une loge, d'avoir la bonté de se précipiter sur moi . . . Monsieur de ⚫, admirateur de tous les nobles vers de M. Racine, fit tout ce qu'un véritable ami d'auteur peut faire pour contribuer au succès de son ouvrage, et n'eut pas la patience d'attendre qu'on le commençât pour avoir la joie de l'applaudir . . . Cependant les auteurs qui ont la malice de s'attrouper pour décider souverainement des pièces de

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théâtre, et qui s'arrangent d'ordinaire sur un banc de l'Hôtel de Bourgogne, qu'on appelle le banc formidable, à cause des injustices qu'on y rend, s'étaient dispersés de peur de se faire reconnaître . . . Des connaisseurs, auprès de qui j'étais incognito, et de qui j'écoutais les sentiments, en trouvèrent les vers fort épurés; mais Agrippine leur parut fière sans sujet, Burrhus vertueux sans dessein, Britannicus amoureux sans jugement, Narcisse lâche sans prétexte, Junie constante sans fermeté, et Néron cruel sans malice. . . . Quoique rien ne m'engage à vouloir du bien à M. Racine, et qu'il m'ait désobligé sans lui en avoir donné aucun sujet, je vais rendre justice à son ouvrage, sans examiner qui en est l'auteur. Il est constant que dans le Britannicus il y a d'aussi beaux vers qu'on en puisse faire, et cela ne me surprend pas; car il est impossible que M. Racine en fasse de méchants. Ce n'est pas qu'il n'ait répété en bien des endroits: que fais-je ? que dis-je ? et quoi qu'il en soit, qui n'entrent guère dans la belle poésie ... Le premier acte promet quelque chose de fort beau, et le second même ne le dément pas; mais au troisième il semble que l'auteur se soit lassé de travailler; et le quatrième, qui contient une partie de l'histoire romaine . . . laisserait pas de faire oublier qu'on s'est ennuyé au précédent, si dans le cinquième la façon dont Britannicus est empoisonné, et celle dont Junie se rend vestale, ne faisaient pitié. Au reste, si la pièce n'a pas eu tout le succès qu'on s'en était promis, ce n'est pas faute que chaque acteur n'ait triomphé dans son personnage."

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This account of the first performance of Britannicus contains few of the criticisms of the play which prompted Racine's reply in his First Preface. There he answers statements of specified defects; Boursault is more general,

though he touches on both style and plot. But Racine (in his Second Preface) and Boursault agree that the success of the tragedy fell below the expectation. Why this was the case is not clear. It may be that after Andromaque the public expected a more domestic subject. Besides, political themes were the domain of Corneille.

Tacitus furnished nearly all the material for the plot, but Racine mastered the Annals so thoroughly that he is entirely independent of his source in purpose and treatment. Hints of detail seem to have been suggested by Seneca (De Clementia, dedicated to Nero) and Suetonius (Lives of the Casars). In the tragedy Nero is the central figure. All depends upon his mood. Whatever he does reacts at once upon the other characters. This idea was also the conception in Andromaque. There is, however, an essential difference between the two plays. In the earlier tragedy Racine studied the effect of conjugal fidelity and maternal love on Andromache. In Britannicus he watches the development of Nero's nature in his relation to his family and subjects. Love plays a certain part in this development, but a minor part. Ambition, the desire to be free of restraint, to rule, to exult in the exercise of power, to tantalize dependents, predominate over the more refined passion. The obstacles placed in the way of the growth of these characteristics are slight and fleeting. It is the unchaining of the brute which Racine portrays, and in this portrayal of virtue steadily abandoned and vice gradually adhered to we witness the same descent into evil in classical tragedy which Flaubert and his successors have shown us in the modern novel.

The only considerable opposition to Nero's self-indulgence comes from Agrippina, whom he had once feared

and now avoids. Her motive is also ambition, the love of power. She does not wish to abdicate her long-continued authority, overthrown by the ruler she herself had made. This trait is historical, but in emphasizing it Racine has neglected the other Agrippina, the worthy mother of such a son. Indeed the Agrippina of Britannicus seems almost a virtuous person. Narcissus, hardly outlined by Tacitus, is Nero's evil nature personified, an excellent reproduction of the agents and flatterers of the tyrant. Burrus, his opponent, whom Boursault's neighbors well characterized as "vertueux sans dessein," and who seems somewhat of a time-server, was a prominent actor in the intrigues of the court, and is closely patterned on Tacitus' description of him ("et maerens Burrhus ac laudans,” Annals, XIV, 15). Because Racine is true to his original here, the character, which assents to evil that good may come, is not sympathetic, nor is it adapted to the requirements of the stage. As for Junia and Britannicus, the lovers, they are Racine's own conception. Tacitus merely furnished the name and a hint (see the Prefaces) for the former, who reminds us of Molière's ingénues. The history of Britannicus is given at length in the Annals, but there is little in the career of the ill-starred boy to suggest the trusting and highspirited youth (see Act III, Sc. 8) of the tragedy.

The style of Britannicus presents some contrasts with the style of Andromaque. The expressions are different because the subject is different, the desire for power rather than love. The speeches are more often eloquent than pathetic. In the love passages there is quite a departure from the expressions of the earlier tragedy. Britannicus and Nero are rarely guilty of the précieux phrases which had made French courtiers out of Pyrrhus and Orestes.

The versification, also, is more regular than in Andromaque. Nearly every line contains the four rhythmical elements (as an exception see 1. 440), and the tendency toward overflow verse is less. For sustained eloquence Britannicus holds its own with Corneille's masterpieces, recalling at times Cinna or Pompée.

The actors, whom Boursault praises at the first performance of the play, included two who were in the cast of Andromaque, Floridor, the Nero, and Mlle des Eillets, the Agrippina. In later times Le Kain and Talma have particularly distinguished themselves in the part of Nero.

An excellent reproduction of the character of Nero and the manners of his court may be found in Sienkiewicz' novel, Quo Vadis?