la comédie avec celle du jansénisme ? Mais, Dieu merci, tout cela va s’accommoder, et je me flatte d’avoir un nombre honnête de conseillers au parlement, à la première représentation de ma tragédie turco-chrétienne.
Adieu, mon cher ami ; je retourne à Ériphyle dans le moment ; je vous écrirai de longues lettres quand je ne ferai plus de tragédies. V.
I have not written a word to you this month : you must forgive me ; I was a little busy. I have written a play, it is now in the hands of the players ; they say it is moving, and full of what the French call interest. My design, in writing this new tragedy was, to represent the most majestic and tender ideas our religion can afford, with the most touching and the most cruel effects of love. If my friends do not deceive me, and are not deceived themselves, this play will meet with some success. I have not been wanting, at the same time, in mending my tragedy of Ériphyle. I intend to send you them both by the next opportunity. These continued studies have not driven my friends out of my thoughts. I have seen mistress Sallé as often as I could ; she is now a little sick ; the death of her brother has touched her heart to the quick : she paid to friendship and to nature the tender duties she owed to love : her heart is made for tenderness, but it seems all her sentiments were confined to this brother and you : now your rival is dead I think you must engross the whole soul of mistress Sallé. The pit, the boxes, the ladies, the petits-maîtres, even mademoiselle Provost, were in raptures the last day she danced in the new opéra ; for my part I was surprised ; and, to my judgment, her dance of Amadis was never so singular, so admirable ! What verses can I now write for her that could equal her abilities ? M. Bernard has attempted a madrigal, and has fallen short even of his own idea : this is my case. I find there must be in an inscription an exactness and a short way of painting a flash of sentiment ; something so tight, so neat, and so full, that I must give the work over. I have found out nothing but this :
De tous les cœurs et du sien la maîtresse,
Elle allume des feux qui lui sont inconnus :
- ↑ Pièces inédites, 1820.
