“To tame a rebel slave, Perched proudly on his rock washed by the ocean-wave.” As epigraph to Europe there were these lines:-- “All friends of France to this my work will friendly be; And all unfriends of her will say the author ill; Yet shall I be content, say, reader, what you will; The joy of some, the rage of others, pleases me.” The enemies of France did not wait for the comedy, in heroic style, of Europe in order to frequently say ill of Cardinal Richelieu. Occupied as he was in governing the affairs of France and of Europe otherwise than in verse, the cardinal chose out work-fellows; there were five of them, to whom he gave his ideas and the plan of his piece; he intrusted to each the duty of writing an act, and “by this means finished a comedy a month,” says Pellisson. Thus was composed the comedy of the _Tuileries_ and the _Aveugle de Smyrne,_ which were printed in 1638; Richelieu had likewise taken part in the composition of the _Visionnaires of Desmarets,_ and supported in a rather remarkable scene the rule of the three unities against its detractors. A new comedy, the _Grande Pastorale,_ was in hand. “When he was purposing to publish it,” says the _History of the Academy,_ “he desired M. Chapelain to look over it, and make careful observations upon it. These observations were brought to him by M. de Bois-Robert, and, though they were written with much discretion and respect, they shocked and nettled him to such a degree, either by their number or by the consciousness they caused him of his faults, that, without reading them through, he tore them up. But on the following night, when he was in bed, and all his household asleep, having thought over the anger he had shown, be did a thing incomparably more estimable than the best comedy in the world, that is to say, he listened to reason, for he gave orders to collect and glue together the pieces of that torn paper, and, having read it from one end to the other, and given great thought to it, he sent and awakened M. de Bois-Robert to tell him that he saw quite well that the gentlemen of the Academy were better informed about such matters than he, and that there must be nothing more said about that paper and print.”