His mother was deeply devoted to this school, and had in her youth known Ronsard personally. The gibing part of the anecdote about the author of the _Pucelle_ being “bred a poet” was never very funny, and is now more than very stale. The historical part remains and flourishes. ----- The blot on Chapelain’s critical record in the general estimation is, of course, his[317] Censure of the _Cid_ above referred to. [Sidenote: _The_ Sentiments de l’Académie sur le Cid.] Even those who admit that critical like other thought is free, and that a critic is not to be sentenced to Malebolge because he is unfortunate enough not to like the great work of a great man, must acknowledge a certain striking poetical justice in the spectacle of the censor of the _Cid_, for want of correctness, being pitilessly flogged thirty years later by a correcter than he. Nor, nowadays, do we admit much excuse in the undoubted fact that this censure was practically forced on the Academy, and on Chapelain, by the sordid jealousy of Richelieu. ----- Footnote 317: It is formally the Academy’s and not his. But there is no real doubt that nearly all of it expresses his sentiments, and that much of it is actually his in language. The whole history of the _Cid_ dispute is minute and complicated, and may be found in many books. The persons chiefly responsible for it, besides Richelieu and Chapelain, were Georges de Scudéry, an eccentric failure of a genius, Mairet, a playwright of talent, and Claveret, one of none. In all cases, it is to be feared, the extraordinary success of the piece was the exciting cause. -----