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 THE DATES OF CORNEILLE’S 
 EARLY PLAYS 
 
 H. CARRINGTON LANCASTER 
 
 xr(Of 
 
 Vl yl’ \0VS U*- 
 
 Reprinted from Modern Language Notes, January, 1915 
 
 BALTIMORE 
 
 THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS 
 
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 i Iv'V'V 
 
 REMOTE STORA«rSi 
 
 THE DATES OF CORNEILLE’S EARLY 
 PLAYS 
 
 In dating the plays that Corneille wrote be- 
 fore the Cid most modern scholars have ac- 
 cepted conclusions of the freres Parfaict , 1 
 Marty-Laveaux , 2 and a few other writers, with- 
 out thoroughly testing them with recently dis- 
 covered facts concerning Corneille’s contempo- 
 raries and the stage for which they wrote. The 
 following table gives the dates assigned to the 
 first representations of his first eight plays by 
 the freres Parfaict, Marty-Laveaux, and Lan- 
 son , 3 * * as well as the date of each play’s privilege 
 and acheve d’imprimer. 
 
 
 -M 
 
 O 
 
 QJ m CZ 
 
 HI 
 
 J 3 
 ft 1 rt 
 
 
 i-H To 
 
 Er Ph 
 
 >- s 
 * s 
 
 Melite 
 
 1629 
 
 1629 
 
 Clitandre 
 
 1632 
 
 1632 
 
 La Veuve 
 
 1633 
 
 1633 
 
 La Galerie du Palais . . . 
 
 1634 
 
 1633, 1634 6 
 
 La Suivante 
 
 1634 
 
 1634 
 
 La Place royale 
 
 1635 
 
 1634, 1635 8 
 
 Med6e 
 
 1635 
 
 1635 
 
 L’lllusion comique 
 
 1636 
 
 1636 
 
 To estimate the correctness of these dates, 
 let us turn first to the evidence given by Cor- 
 neille himself. His statements as to the length 
 of time he has been writing help us little, for 
 
 1 Histoire du tMdtre frangais, Paris, 1734-1748. 
 
 2 CEuvres de P. Corneille, Paris, 1862-1868 ( Grands 
 Ecrivains collection). 
 
 3 Corneille, second edition, Paris, 1905, pp. 11 and 
 48. 
 
 * Lanson’s dates are substantially the same as 
 
 those given in 1885 by U. Meier, ZSNS., VII, 127- 
 
 135, except that the latter makes 1631 the date of 
 
 Clitandre and has the Suivante precede the Place 
 
 royale. Faguet has returned to Marty-Laveaux’s 
 
 dates in his recent volume, En lisant Corneille, 
 Paris, 1913, p. 8. 
 
 *1, P- xxiv, he gives the first date; II, 1, 9, the 
 
 second. 
 
 3 1, p. xxiv, he gives the first date and explains his 
 mistake in giving the second, found II, 215, 219. 
 
 in 1660 he calls this period thirty years, in 
 1668 forty, in 1682 fifty. 7 They indicate 
 merely that he began to write about 1628-1632. 
 But he does render us valuable assistance when 
 he states that Melite was his first play, 8 that 
 Clitandre was written after a visit to Paris 
 which followed the first representations of 
 Melite , 9 that by March 13, 1634, he had writ- 
 ten six plays, 10 and that the order of the com- 
 position of his plays is that of their position 
 in the first edition of his collected plays. 11 
 From these facts it is evident that Melite and 
 Clitandre were acted before March 8, 1632, 
 date of the latter’s privilege, that the Veuve , 
 Galerie, Suivante, Place royale were composed 
 in this order before March 13, 1634, and that 
 
 <D 
 
 0 
 
 
 oi 
 
 bo 
 
 01 
 
 
 *to 
 
 
 03 
 
 c 
 
 d 
 
 
 V 
 
 
 to 
 
 
 j 
 
 
 £ 
 
 
 
 
 1629 
 
 Jan. 
 
 31, 1633 
 
 Feb. 
 
 12, 
 
 1633 
 
 1632 ( ?) 
 
 March 
 
 8, 1632 
 
 March 
 
 20, 
 
 1632 
 
 1632 ( ?) 
 
 March 
 
 9, 1634 
 
 March 
 
 13, 
 
 1634 
 
 1633 
 
 Jan. 
 
 21, 1637 
 
 Feb. 
 
 20, 
 
 1637 
 
 1633-4 
 
 Jan. 
 
 21, 1637 
 
 Sept. 
 
 9, 
 
 1637 
 
 1633 
 
 Jan. 
 
 21, 1637 
 
 Feb. 
 
 20, 
 
 1637 
 
 1635 
 
 Feb. 
 
 11, 1639 
 
 March 
 
 16, 
 
 1639 
 
 1636 
 
 Feb. 
 
 11, 1639 
 
 March 
 
 16, 
 
 1639 
 
 Medee and the Illusion comique appeared be- 
 fore the first representation of the Cid, which 
 took place in December, 1636, or January, 
 1637. These facts seem certain. Let us now 
 consider the plays separately. 
 
 1. Melite. Fontenelle’s date, 1625, is en- 
 tirely inconsistent with other dates in Cor- 
 neille’s career, as will appear from the follow- 
 ing discussion. The freres Parfaict 12 substi- 
 tute for it 1629 on the ground that Mairet de- 
 
 7 Discours du podme dramatique, Marty-Laveaux, 
 I, 16. 
 
 8 Examen de Melite, Marty-Laveaux, I, 137. 
 
 “ Examen de Clitandre, Marty-Laveaux, I, 270. 
 
 10 Au Lecteur de la Veuve, Marty-Laveaux, I, 378. 
 
 11 Am Lccteur, CEuvres de Corneille, Rouen et Paria, 
 1644, petit in-12; Marty-Laveaux, I, 2. 
 
 12 IV, 462. 
 
 I 
 
clarcd 13 in 1636 that Rotrou, Scudery, Cor- 
 neille, Du Ryer began to write in this order 
 after himself. To their knowledge that Rotrou 
 began writing in 1628, Marty-Laveaux 14 adds 
 the information that Scudery produced his first 
 play “ en sortant du regiment des gardes,” and 
 that he was in the army as late as March, 1629. 
 He then states that Du Ryer’s first play was 
 Argenis et Poliarque, whose privilege was ob- 
 tained February 25, 1630, and concludes that 
 Melite was first represented between these 
 last dates. Eugene Rigal 15 supports this con- 
 clusion by citing Corneille’s assertion 18 that 
 Melite “ etablit une troupe de comediens a 
 Paris,” and by arguing that this troop, after- 
 wards that of the Marais, began to play in the 
 fall of 1629. 
 
 But Mairet’s statement cannot be accepted 
 with confidence. The passage in which it oc- 
 curs is one in which he is trying to prove him- 
 self very precocious and the first in date of 
 the new generation of dramatists. Fie deliber- 
 ately changes his own birth-date for this pur- 
 pose and may have pretended that Du Ryer 
 began writing after Rotrou, Corneille, and 
 Scudery because it was he who was his nearest 
 rival for priority. It is probable that Du Ryer 
 wrote Argenis et Poliarque no later than the 
 first part of 1629 and it is still more probable 
 that he had already written two other plays. 17 
 Moreover, it is by no means certain that Scu- 
 dery’s first production appeared before 1630. 18 
 Consequently Mairet’s evidence does not prove 
 
 18 Epitre didicatoirc to liis Galanteries du. due 
 d’Ossonne. 
 
 14 1, 129. 
 
 1B Esquisse d'une histoire des tht&trcs de Paris, 
 Paris, 1887, pp. 75, 76. 
 
 18 Examen de M6lite, Marty-Laveaux, 1, 138. 
 
 17 .-1 r6t a phile and Clitoplion, which were never pub- 
 lished. I have shown from statements in their 
 avertissement, from their structure, and from the 
 facts of Du Ityer’s life that these were his first plays, 
 brought out as early as 1628. Cf. Pierre Du Ryer 
 Dramatist, Washington, 1912, pp. 33, 34; Pierre Du 
 Ryer, dcrivain dramatique in Revue d’histoire lit 1 6- 
 raire de la France, 1913, pp. 313, 314. 
 
 18 Mote the altogether unsatisfactory reasons for 
 dating it 1629 given by Battereau in his Georycs de 
 Ecudiry als Dramatikcr, Leipzig, 1902, pp. 7, 8. 
 
 that Melite was written in 1629, but merely 
 that Corneille began to write about the same 
 time as these other dramatists, in the period 
 1628-1630. 
 
 Rigal’s opinion is influenced by his ac- 
 ceptance of Marty-Laveaux’s dating. Mon- 
 dory’s troop, which, according to Corneille, was 
 established by Melite, was accused in a law- 
 suit, brought against it on February 25, 1631, 
 of having at that time given 135 performances 
 outside of the Hotel de Bourgogne. 19 From 
 this accusation Rigal argues that, as in 
 Chappuzeau’s time (1674) the troops gave 
 three performances a week, while at the begin- 
 ning of the seventeenth century they had given 
 only one, they gave probably two a week to- 
 wards 1631, and that therefore Mondory’s troop 
 must have begun playing by the fall of 1629 
 in order to have acted 135 times by February 
 25, 1631. 
 
 But we do not have to go so far as the time 
 of Chappuzeau to find a troop giving as many 
 as three performances a week. When Moliere 
 returned to Paris, his company acted regularly 
 either three or four times a week, probably con- 
 tinuing a custom already established at the. 
 capital. Occasional omissions of regular per- 
 formances were offset by extra representations 
 at the houses of the nobility, so that this troop 
 gave 135 performances in less than ten months, 
 between April 28, 1659, and February 10, 1660. 
 Three performances a week, therefore, are not 
 too high an average for Mondory’s troop while 
 it was trying to establish itself at Paris. Cer- 
 tainly there is nothing improbable in this num- 
 ber, so that the evidence indicates only that . 
 the new troop began to play either in the fall 
 of 1629 or in the early months of 1630. 
 
 Finally, the use of the word “ etablir ” does 
 not show that Corneille’s play was the first 
 that Mondory represented. His troop may have 
 struggled for several months before being per- 
 manently established by the representation of 
 Melite. Rigal’s testimony, therefore, while 
 showing that the play was not represented be- 
 fore 1629, by no means prevents the acceptance 
 
 18 Eudore-Soultf, Recherches sur Moliire, Paris, 
 1863, pp. 164, 165; Rigal, op. cit., 69. 
 
of 1630 as the probable date of its first rep- 
 resentation. 
 
 Positive evidence in favor of the 1630 dat- 
 ing was discovered by Dannheisser 20 as early 
 as 1890, but it has been very generally over- 
 looked. In one of the polemical articles occa- 
 sioned by the Cid’s success, the Avertissement 
 au Besangonnois Mairet, mention is made of 
 “ cette malheureuse Silvanire que le coup 
 d’essai de M. Corneille terrassa dbs sa premiere 
 representation.” 21 Evidently, then, M elite fol- 
 lowed Silvanire. What was the date of the 
 latter play? 
 
 Dannheisser shows that, while Mairet, in the 
 Bpitre to his Galanteries du due d’Ossonne, de- 
 liberately changes his age to prove his pre- 
 cocity, the statements he makes with regard to 
 the relative order of his own plays and the 
 number of years that separated them from one 
 another are probably correct. “Je composay 
 ma Chriseide a seize ans. . . . Silvie, qui 
 la suivit nn an apres . . . Je fis la Sil- 
 vanire a 21, Le Due d’Ossonne a 23, Virginie 
 a 24, Sophonisbe a 25, Marc-Anthoine et S oil- 
 man a 26.” Therefore, since Marsan 22 has 
 established the date of Sylvie as 1626 or 1627, 
 Silvanire was written in 1630 or 1631, pref- 
 erably the former year as the privilege was 
 obtained February 3, 1631. 23 
 
 Moreover, both Dannheisser and Marsan 24 
 call our attention to the following reference to 
 Silvanire in the Au lecteur to the 1630 edi- 
 tion of Sylvie: 25 “ Contente-toy de cet ouvrage 
 cy, en attendant que je te donne une Tragi- 
 Comedie purement Pastorale 26 de ma derniere 
 
 20 Zur Chronologie der Dramen Jean de Mairet’s, 
 Romanische Forschungen, V, 37-64, 1890. 
 
 21 Marty-Laveaux, III, 70. 
 
 22 La Sylvie du sieur Mairet, Paris, 1905, pp. vii- 
 xii. 
 
 23 Had Silvanire been first produced in 1631, Mairet 
 would not have taunted Corneille with his unseemly 
 haste in printing the Cid so soon after its first rep- 
 resentation. Cf., below, my discussion of the date of 
 Clitandre. 
 
 24 La Pastorale dramatique, Paris, 1905, p. 375. 
 
 25 La Sylvie du sieur Mairet, 8. The achevi d’im- 
 primex to this edition is not given. 
 
 28 There can be no doubt of the fact that this 
 means Silvanire, for Mairet wrote no other pastoral 
 than this after Sylvie. 
 
 et meilleure fagon. Ce que je promets a ta 
 curiosite, je le tiendray dans cette annee 1630.” 
 If Mairet is here referring to the approaching 
 first representations of Silvanire , this is, of 
 course, excellent proof that it appeared first in 
 1630, but even if he is referring only to its 
 publication — and it seems strange that, if he 
 is here promising its publication in 1630, he 
 did not secure the privilege to print it till 
 February 3, 1631 — he still clearly implies that 
 Silvanire is a new work, finished, perhaps, but 
 not yet known to the public. 
 
 The preponderance of evidence points clearly, 
 then, to the fact that Silvanire was first repre- 
 sented in 1630, and, indeed, this date has been 
 generally accepted for it. But we continue to 
 find 1629 set down as the year. of Melite’s first 
 appearance. It is difficult to change a date so 
 important as one that marks the opening of a 
 great writer’s career. Nevertheless, if we accept 
 this date for Silvanire, and the evidence is most 
 strongly in favor of it, we must acknowledge 
 the logical implication that M elite, which fol- 
 lowed it, appeared no earlier than 1630. 
 
 That its first representation took place no 
 later than the winter of 1630 is shown by Cor- 
 neille’s statement 27 that its “ trois premieres 
 representations ensemble n’eurent point tant 
 d’affluence que la moindre de celles qui les 
 suivirent dans le meme hiver.” This cannot 
 mean the winter of 1630-1631, for that would 
 place the first performance of M elite too late 
 to allow a reasonable time for the large num- 
 ber of representations that came between this 
 first performance and February 25, 1631, date 
 of the law-suit to which I have referred above. 
 The reference must be to the winter of 1629- 
 1630. Therefore, the conclusion that best fits 
 all the facts in the case is that Melite was first 
 represented towards the month of February, 
 1630. 
 
 2. Clitandre. We know that this tragi- 
 comedy was written after its author had taken 
 a trip to Paris to inquire about the success of 
 Melite, 2 * and that the permission to print it 
 
 27 Rpitre d Monsieur de Liancour, Marty-Laveaux, 
 I, 135. 
 
 28 Marty-Laveaux, I, 373. 
 
was obtained March 8, 1632. Its earliest pos- 
 sible date would therefore be late in 1630. It 
 is improbable that it was first acted later than 
 1631, for at this period, according to Chapelain 
 in a letter of March 9, 1640, a play was rarely 
 published less than six months after its first 
 representation. This was largely due to the 
 fact that a play could be acted by a troop other 
 than that which first gave it only after its 
 publication. 119 It was consequently to the in- 
 terest of the actors to keep it out of print as 
 long as possible. For this reason Mairet con- 
 sidered Corneille’s quick publication of the 
 Cid an injustice to the actors for whom he 
 wrote. 30 Unless we have proof to the contrary, 
 as in the case of the Cid , it seems safe to as- 
 sume that a play’s first representation occurred 
 at least six months before the date of its privi- 
 lege. I conclude, therefore, that Clitandre 
 should be dated, not 1632, but 1631 or late in 
 1630. 
 
 3. La Veuve. The privilege was granted 
 March 9, 1634. Expressions in the dedication 
 and in a poem published with the play, “ le 
 bon accueil qu’ autrefois cette Veuve a regu,” 
 “ un temps si long sans tc montrer au jour,” 
 show, as Marty-Lavcaux points out, 31 that con- 
 siderable time elapsed between the first repre- 
 sentation of this comedy and its publication. 
 Consequently the Veuve, represented after Cli- 
 tandre and before the Oalerie du Palais, must 
 have appeared in 1631 or 1632. 
 
 4. La Galerie du Palais. According to the 
 Au lecteur to la Veuve, printed March 13, 
 1634, Corneille had written six plays by this 
 time. 32 Hence la Galerie du Palais, la Sui- 
 vanle, and la Place royale were already fin- 
 ished, as well as Mclite, Clitandre, and la 
 
 39 Fibres Parfaict, IX, 105. 
 
 39 Lett re familidre, quoted by the freres Parfaict, 
 V, 200. Cf. also Marty- La veaux, III, 8. 
 
 31 Op. cit., I, 373. 
 
 32 Marty-Laveaux, I, 378. Though this scholar 
 realized what inference was to be drawn from this 
 evidence, he stuek to the traditional date, 1635, for 
 the first representation of the Place royale till he 
 learned of the next piece of evidence I cite. The 
 correct inference was drawn in 1885 by U. Meier, 
 op. cit., VII, 131. 
 
 Veuve. A Latin poem, composed between Sep- 
 tember, 1633, and August, 1634, confirms this 
 evidence by references to the Galerie and the 
 Place royale. 33 It is probable, therefore, that 
 the first of the three was written and acted as 
 early as 1632. To give it an earlier date 
 would crowd too many of Corneille’s plays into 
 the years 1630-1631 and put the unusually 
 long period of six years or more between the 
 first acting and the printing of the Galerie. 
 To date it 1633, on the other hand, would put 
 too many plays into this year. Therefore, 1632 
 is the probable date of the play. 
 
 5. Lm Suivante. The fact that this comedy 
 was printed a few months later than the Place 
 royale does not mean that its first representa- 
 tion followed that of the other play, as can be 
 seen by comparing the case of Clitandre, pub- 
 lished before M elite, but represented after it. 
 On the other hand, we have Corneille’s state- 
 ment that the Suivante preceded the Place roy- 
 ale and there is a reference to the former play 
 in the latter. 34 The Suivante should therefore 
 be dated between the Galerie du Palais and the 
 Place royale, in the first half of 1633 or, per- 
 haps, late in 1632. 
 
 6. La Place royale. Claveret’s Place royale 
 was acted before the king at Forges between 
 June 15 and July 3, 1633. 35 Its author 
 charged Corneille with undertaking his play of 
 the same name “ des que vous sutes que j’y 
 travaillois.” Probably both plays were begun 
 before the royal visit and Corneille’s was 
 brought out in the latter half of 1633. We 
 have seen that it cannot possibly have appeared 
 later than March 13, 1634. 
 
 7. Medee. By a reference to one of Balzac’s 
 letters 30 Marty-La veaux 37 shows that Medee 
 
 33 Bouquet, Louis XIII et sa cour aux caux de 
 Forges, in Revue des Societfs savantes des ddparte- 
 ments, 2e st*rie, I, 011-042 (1859); Marty-Laveaux, 
 X, 08. 
 
 31 Marty-Laveaux, II, 200. 
 
 35 Let Ire du Sieur Claveret au Sicur Corneille, 10; 
 Bouquet, loc. cit.; Marty-Laveaux, X, 64; U. Meier, 
 op. cit., VII, 131, 132. The latter was, 1 believe, 
 the first to date Corneille’s play by its association 
 with Claveret’s. 
 
 33 To Boisrobert, April 3, 1635. 
 
 37 II, 330, 331. 
 
must have been represented before April 3, 
 1635. It could not have been written long 
 before, as it is referred to as “ presque achevee ” 
 in the Parnasse of La Pineliere, 38 a book 
 printed in 1635, written perhaps as early as 
 the latter part of 1634. The date assigned to 
 Medee should be, then, the end of 1634 or the 
 beginning of 1635 and not simply the latter 
 year, as we ordinarily find it. 
 
 8. L’lllusion comique. As Mareschal tells 
 us in the preface to his Railleur that this play 
 preceded Corneille’s Illusion , Marty-Laveaux 39 
 dates the latter comedy 1636, having learned 
 from the freres Parfaict 40 that the Railleur 
 was first given that year. But the freres Par- 
 faict admit that they date the Railleur 1636 
 because it preceded the Illusion. As a matter 
 of fact we do not know the date of the Rail- 
 leur,* 1 so that, while we wait for its discovery, 
 
 38 Freres Parfaict, V, 166, and Marty-Laveaux, loc. 
 cit. 
 
 39 II, 424. 
 
 40 y, 177. 
 
 41 If its author is correct in stating that it oilers 
 the first miles gloriosus of his generation, it must 
 
 we must date the Illusion between Medee and 
 the Cid, in 1635 or 1636. 
 
 I conclude from the foregoing that the most 
 probable dates for the first representations of 
 Corneille’s early plays are: 
 
 1. M elite, 1630, towards the month of Feb- 
 ruary. 
 
 2. Clitandrc, 1631, possibly late in 1630. 
 
 3. La Veuve, 1631 or 1632. 
 
 4. La Galerie du Palais, 1632. 
 
 5. La Suivante, 1633, possibly late in 1632. 
 
 6. La Place royale, 1633, possibly 1634 be- 
 fore March 13. 
 
 7. Medee, end of 1634, or 1635 before 
 April 3. 
 
 8. L’lllusion comique, 1635 or 1636. 
 
 H. Carrington Lancaster. 
 
 Amherst College. 
 
 have been represented at least as early as 1633, 
 date of the publication of Rayssiguier’s Bourgeoise, 
 which contains among its characters “ Le Vaillant, 
 Fanfaron.” 
 

 
 
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