I believed in good faith that the work had fallen flat; the violence of the attack had shaken my conviction as an author. Some of my friends consoled me; they maintained that the proscription was unjustified, that sooner or later the public would pronounce another verdict: M. de Fontanes especially was firm; I was no Racine, but he might be a Boileau, and he never ceased saying to me: "They'll come back to it." His persuasion in this regard was so deep-rooted that it inspired him with some charming stanzas: Le Tasse, errant de ville en ville, etc.[17], without fear of compromising his taste or the authority of his judgment. The _Martyrs_ has, in fact, retrieved itself, has obtained the honour of four consecutive editions, and has even enjoyed particular favour with men of letters: appreciation has been shown me of a work which bears evidence of serious study, of some pains towards style, of a great reverence for language and taste. [Sidenote: Its reception.] Criticism of the subject-matter was promptly abandoned. To say that I had mixed profane with sacred things, because I had depicted two cults which existed side by side and which had each its beliefs, its altars, its priests, its ceremonies, was equivalent to saying that I ought to have renounced history. For whom did the martyrs die? For Jesus Christ. To whom were they immolated? To the gods of the Empire. Therefore there were two religions. The philosophical question, namely, whether, under Diocletian[18], the Greeks and Romans believed in the gods of Homer, and whether public worship had undergone any changes, was a question that did not concern me as a poet; as an _historian_, I might have had many things to say. All this no longer matters. The _Martyrs_ has lived, contrary to my first expectation, and I have had to occupy myself only with the care of revising its text. The fault of the _Martyrs_ has to do with the wonderful "directness" which, owing to what remained of my classical prejudices, I had unadvisedly employed. Startled at my own innovations, I thought it impossible to dispense with a "Heaven" and a "Hell." Yet the good and bad angels sufficed to carry on the action, without delivering it to worn-out machinery. If the Battle of the Franks, Velléda, Jérôme, Augustin, Eudore, Cymodocée; if all these, and the descriptions of Naples and Greece, are unable to obtain pardon for the _Martyrs_, Hell and Heaven will not save it. One of the passages which most pleased M. de Fontanes was the following: "Cymodocée sat down at the window of the prison and, resting her head, adorned with the martyr's veil, on her hand, sighed forth these harmonious words: