This is beyond doubt what may be called "a tragic situation;" and I confess it does seem very hard-hearted to laugh at it: but the _pas_ that divides the sublime from the ridiculous is not distinctly seen, and there is something vulgar and ludicrous, both in the position and language of the parties, which quite destroys the pathetic effect. It must be remembered that she is dressed in the "habit d'homme" of which her father says so poetically-- Je l'ai d'avance exprès fait faire. Observe, too, that she is still in the sack; the stage directions being, "Le bas du corps, qui est resté vêtu, est caché dans le sac." BLANCHE. Où suis-je? TRIBOULET. Blanche! que t'a-t-on fait? Quel mystère infernal! Je crains en te touchant de te faire du mal.... Ah! la cloche du bac est là sur la muraille: Ma pauvre enfant, peux-tu m'attendre un peu, que j'aille Chercher de l'eau.... A surgeon arrives, and having examined her wound, says, Elle est morte. Elle a dans le flanc gauche une plaie assez forte: Le sang a dû causer la mort en l'étouffant. TRIBOULET. J'ai tué mon enfant! J'ai tué mon enfant! (_Il tombe sur le pavé._) FIN. All this is very shocking; but it is not tragedy,--and it is not poetry. Yet it is what we are told has heaved the earth from under Racine! After such a sentence as this, it must be, I know, _rococo_ to name him; but yet I would say, in his own words, D'adorateurs zélés à peine un petit nombre Ose des premiers temps nous retracer quelque ombre; Le reste.... Se fait initier à ces honteux mystères, Et blasphème le nom qu'ont invoqué leurs pères. As I profess myself of the _petit nombre_, you must let me recall to your memory some of the fragments of that noble edifice which Racine raised over him, and which, as they say, has now perished under the mighty power of Victor Hugo. It will not be lost time to do this; for look where you will among the splendid material of this uprooted temple, and you will find no morsel that is not precious; nothing that is not designed, chiseled, and finished by the hand of a master. Racine has not produced dramas from ordinary life; it was not his object to do so, nor is it the end he has attained. It is the tragedy of heroes and demi-gods that he has given us, and not of cut-purses, buffoons, and street-walkers. If the language of Racine be poetry, that of M. Hugo is not; and wherever the one is admired, the other must of necessity be valueless. It would be endless to attempt giving citations to prove the grace, the dignity, the majestic flow of Racine's verse; but let your eye run over "Iphigénie," for instance,--there also the loss of a daughter forms the tragic interest,--and compare such verses as those I have quoted above with any that you can find in Racine. Hear the royal mother, for example, describe the scene that awaits her: