Corneille was his favorite French poet, and his admiration for the Christian tragedy of "Polyeucte" prompted him to write a drama in the same style, called the "Martyrdom of Vivia." The scene was placed in his own Nîmes, in the time of the Roman Empire. The piece was full of beauties, and above all of enthusiasm, but, as might have been expected, it was hardly a theatrical success. He says himself: "The glorification of the martyrs of old is not a sentiment of our day"; but when "Vivia" was performed under his own auspices in his native town the result was far different. It created a _furor_, and everything, even the accessories, was perfect. Every one vied with each other to make it not only a success in itself, but an ovation to the author. Reboul, when he once saw it acted in Paris, was so genuinely overcome by it that, leaning across the box toward his friend M. de Fresne, he whispered naïvely with tears in his eyes: "I had no idea that it was so beautiful." As a poet, he utterly despised mere popularity, and has recorded this feeling both in verse and in prose. In his poem "Consolation in Forgetfulness" he asks whether the nightingale, hidden among the trees, seeks out first some attentive human ear into which to pour its ravishing strains? Nay, he answers, but the songster gives all he has to the night, the desert, and its silence, and if night, desert, and silence are alike insensible, its own great Maker is ever at hand to listen. But it is useless to translate winged verse into lame prose; the next verse we will quote in the original: "Un grand nom coûte cher dans les temps où nous sommes, Il fant rompre avec Dieu pour captiver les hommes." The same idea is reproduced in his correspondence: "The revolution has for a long time usurped, all over Europe, the disposal of popularity and renown, and, alas! how many Esaus there are who have sold their birthright for a mess of celebrity!... Our excellent friend M. Le Roy had a quality of soul capable of harmonizing with the sad memories of fallen greatness! Our _siècle de grosse caisse_[39] has lost the secret of those high and sublime feelings which the reserve of a simple-minded man may cover."