In the great world, the world of the great and the noble, love was mentioned only as Corneille regarded it in his plays. Every one was in love,--or feigned to be in love; on all hands were heard twitterings as of birds in the springtime; but the pretty music ceased when marriage was suggested, for no one had thought of founding a domestic hearth on a sentiment as personal and as ephemeral as love. It was understood that the collective body came first, that the youth--man or maid--belonged to the family, not to self. Contrary to our way of looking at things, it was considered meet and right for the individual to subject himself to a species of public discipline in everything relating to the essential actions of private life; the demand for the public discipline of individuals was based upon the interests of the community. This law--or social tyranny, if you will--covered marriage, and upon occasion Parliament did police duty and enforced it. Parliament forbade the aged Mme. de Pibrac to marry a seventh time--although her six marriages had all been accomplished under normal conditions--because it was supposed that a seventh marriage might entail ridicule. The reason given by Parliament when it forbade Mme. de Limoges to permit her daughter to marry a very honourable man of whom she was fond, and who was supposed to be fond of her, was this: that her guardian and tutor "did not approve of the marriage." The history of this subject of marriage shows us that our great grandmothers did not bear malice against destiny; they were truly Cornéliennes in their conviction that a decorous control of the will constrained the sentiments of an high-born soul, and they married their daughters without scruple, and without anxiety, as freely and as carelessly as they had married themselves. Religion was always close at hand, waiting to staunch the wounds which social exigencies and family selfishness made in the hearts of the unfortunate lovers. The understanding between Corneille and his readers was perfect; all that he did pleased the playgoers, and when, as he was searching for what we should call "the realistic," he came upon the idea that he might tempt the public taste by presenting a play with a Spanish setting, his critics were well pleased. He wrote the _Cid_ and it was an unqualified success; but its exotic sentiments and the generous breadth of its morals excited vigorous protestations; the piece was met by resistance like that which greeted the appearance of Ibsen's _Doll's House_.