The two children, a boy and a girl, were brought up by their maternal grandfather. The daughter passed her life at Ferté-Milon, and died there at the advanced age of ninety-two. The son, named Jean, was born on the 21st of December, 1639. We have few traces of his childhood. It was not, apparently, a happy one; at least we are told that, when all the family of Sconin assembled at his house, on those festive anniversaries which the French celebrate with so much exactitude, his orphan grandchildren were wholly disregarded[96]; and the gentle sensitive heart of Racine must have felt this neglect severely. His first studies were made at Beauvais. At this time the civil war of the fronde was raging in France. The scholars at Beauvais were also divided into parties; and "Vive Mazarin," or "A bas Mazarin," became the rallying cries of their mimic wars; yet not so mimic but that the little combatants encountered perils. Racine himself received a wound on his forehead, of which he ever after bore the mark. The master of the school used to show the scar to everybody as a token of the boy's courage; a quality of which, in after life, he made no great display. [Sidenote: 1670. Ætat. 11.] His grandfather died while he was still a child, and he fell to the care of his widowed grandmother. Two of this lady's daughters were nuns in the abbey of Port Royal, and she took up her abode with them; which was, doubtless, the cause that, on leaving the school at Beauvais, Racine was received a pupil in the seminary of that convent. [Sidenote: 1655. Ætat. 16.] At this time, in France, the education of young people was chiefly committed to the clergy. The jesuits did all they could to engross an employment full of promise of power--the great aim of that society. Their principal rivals were the teachers of the abbey of Port Royal, whose methods were admirable, and whose enthusiasm led them to diligence and patience in their task. Theoretically it seems an excellent plan to commit the bringing up of youth to those who dedicate their lives to the strictest practices of virtue, as the recluses of Port Royal at that time undoubtedly did. But, in fact, the monkish spirit is so alien to the true purposes of life, and men who sacrifice every pleasure and affection to the maintenance of ascetic vows must naturally give so preponderating an importance to the objects that influence them, that such teachers are apt rather to trouble the conscience, and plunge youth in extravagant devotion; inspiring rather a polemical spirit, or a dream of idleness, than instilling that manly and active morality, and that noble desire to make a right use of the faculties given us by God, which is the aim of all liberal education. The effects of a monkish tutelage spread a sinister influence over the ductile disposition of Racine; the faults of his character were all fostered; the independence and hardihood he wanted were never instilled.