The great Corneille made no further defence he had become a servitor again; but the public, less docile, persisted in their opinion. “In vain against the Cid a minister makes league; All Paris, gazing on Chimene, thinks with Rodrigue; In vain to censure her th’ Academy aspires; The stubborn populace revolts and still admires; ” said Boileau subsequently. The dispute was ended, and, in spite of the judgment of the Academy, the cardinal did not come out of it victorious; his anger, however, had ceased: the Duchess of Aiguillon, his niece, accepted the dedication of the _Cid;_ when _Horace_ appeared, in 1639, the dedicatory epistle, addressed to the cardinal, proved that Corneille read his works to him beforehand; the cabal appeared for a while on the point of making head again. “_Horace,_ condemned by the decemvirs, was acquitted by the people,” said Corneille. The same year _Cinna_ came to give the finishing touch to the reputation of the great poet:-- “To the persecuted Cid the Cinna owed its birth.” Corneille had withdrawn to the obscurity which suited the simplicity of his habits; the cardinal, it was said, had helped him to get married; he had no longer to defend his works, their fame was amply sufficient. “Henceforth Corneille walks freely by himself and in the strength of his own powers; the circle of his ideas grows larger, his style grows loftier and stronger, together with his thoughts, and purer, perhaps, without his dreaming of it; a more correct, a more precise expression comes to him, evoked by greater clearness in idea, greater fixity of sentiment; genius, with the mastery of means, seeks new outlets. Corneille writes _Polyeucte_.” [_Corneille et son Temps,_ by M. Guizot.]