Racine was in despair; for that not inconsiderable section of the public which judges of the merits of a play solely by results was beginning to declare that his tragedy was a complete failure and Pradon's a brilliant success. After, however, the trick had been played for three more nights, he triumphed. Perhaps Madame de Bouillon had begun to find her amusement, which is said to have cost her 15,000 francs, the equivalent of five times as much to-day, somewhat too costly a one; or possibly Racine, discovering the tactics of his enemies, had appealed to the king for protection, and the duchess had received a hint from his Majesty that such practices were highly displeasing to him. Any way, the lady retired from the field, and, with her withdrawal, the rival _Phèdres_ speedily found their respective levels. Nevertheless, in spite of his ultimate success, Racine never forgot the mortification to which he had been subjected, and there can be no doubt that this had not a little to do with his decision to renounce writing for the stage. When _Phèdre_ was played before the Court, Mlle. de Champmeslé, fearing that Madame de Montespan might take the lines afterwards addressed on a memorable occasion by Adrienne Lecouvreur to the Duchesse de Bouillon:-- "Je suis mes perfidies Œnone, et ne suis pas de ces femmes hardies Qui, gôutant dans la crime une tranquille paix, Ont su se faire un front qui ne rougit jamais"-- to apply to herself, begged Racine to alter or erase them. The poet, however, though he yielded the palm to no one as a flatterer of royalty, and was, moreover, under considerable obligations to the king's mistress, indignantly refused to mutilate his play. Several of those present remarked upon the verses; but Madame de Montespan had too much good sense to complain. As Phèdre, the declamation of which, according to the Abbé du Bois, Racine "had taught her verse by verse," Mlle. de Champmeslé seems to have put the comble upon her fame as a _tragédienne_. Of all her creations, it is the one that La Fontaine names first in the frontispiece of _Belphégor_:-- "Qui ne connaît l'inimitable actrice Représentant Phèdre ou Bérénice, Chimène en pleurs ou Camille en fureur? Est-il quelqu'un qui cette voix n'enchante?" So inimitable was she in this character, affording her as it did an opportunity for the display of all the resources of her art, that _Phèdre_ was the play selected to consecrate the birth of the Comédie-Française on Sunday, August 25, 1680; and it was _Phèdre_ again, with Mlle. de Champmeslé in the title-part, which inaugurated the new playhouse in the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, on April 16, 1689.[52]