emperor as retaining his office against his inclination, and upon the advice of the very persons who were conspiring against him. Here Corneille was able to make use of the fact, related by Suetonius, that Augustus twice considered laying down his rule, and that the second time, in a meeting of magistrates and senators, he expounded a plan for the government of the empire. This hint had been elaborated by Dio Cassius in a scene, where the emperor is represented as counseling with Agrippa. and Mæcenas, whether to lay down the rule or continue in office. Agrippa pleads the cause of the republic, while Mæcenas urges the advantages of a monarchy. The account of this interview is very long, occupying the whole of book LII of this author's History of Rome.

Corneille makes use of this scene by representing a similar deliberation in act II, scene I. He gives to Cinna the rôle . of Mæcenas, and to Maxime that of Agrippa. The imitation is close as to general setting, but here the resemblance stops. Beyond a few general ideas, it cannot be said that he has borrowed anything from Dio Cassius. The result of this scene affects the action of the play throughout. It determines our judgment of the characters of Cinna and Maxime, and it enhances the value of the magnanimity of Auguste in the final dénouement.

These are, as far as is known, the sole sources of Corneille in the composition of this tragedy. He might have used the Histoire Romaine of Coeffeteau, with which he was familiar, for he cites it in the Avertissement to Polyeucte, his next play; but there is no evidence of such influence. Coeffeteau's history, for the incidents in question, is based upon Dio Cassius and Seneca, and is practically a translation of these authors.

IV. THE UNITIES IN CINNA

The unity of time is strictly observed. The events of the play require little more than the time of representation; at most, they need not extend beyond five or six hours.

The question of the unity of place was still undecided at the time of the composition of Cinna. To be sure, the judgment of the Academy upon the Cid1 had recommended its strict observation, and in Horace Corneille had followed that recommendation, but the discussion still continued. In theory, the battle for an absolute unity of place was decided with the publication of D'Aubignac's Pratique du Théâtre, in 1657; in practice, a strict observation of this rule did not obtain until the advent of Racine. One of the strongest enemies of the new doctrine was the multiplex stage-setting of the early decades of the seventeenth century. Corneille had passed his apprenticeship in dramatic composition, when that method of stage decoration was in vogue, and he was never able to break away from it entirely. This fact must be borne in mind in interpreting whatever he says about the unity of place in the Discours sur les trois Unités and the Examens, both published in 1660. Especially the former of the two is in many instances an answer to D'Aubignac's work, and Corneille maintained practically to the end of his career that the unity of place was observed, if the action remained within the limits of a single city.

Cinna was written in 1640 and, unless we are greatly mistaken, before the multiplex stage-setting had fallen entirely into disuse. The stage which Corneille had in

1 For the Unity of place in the Cid, cp. Modern Language Notes, XIII col. 197 ff.

mind probably represented simultaneously the cabinet of Auguste and the apartment of Émilie, and the action passed from the one to the other. Whether the actors spoke in the front of the stage or not, it is impossible to decide, though it is rather probable that they did; but the action remains in one apartment or the other during the whole of the act, acts I and III taking place in the apartment of Emilie, acts II and V in the cabinet of the emperor. Only once (act IV, scene 4) does the scene change in the middle of the act, which Corneille defends in the Examens, by saying that it would have been improper to have Maxime bring the news of the discovery of the conspiracy to Emilie in the apartment of the emperor.

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The rest of the discussion of the unity of place in Cinna, which appears in the Examen, is an answer to D'Aubignac's criticism: "Je n'ai jamais pu bien concevoir comment Monsieur Corneille peut bien faire qu'en un même lieu Cinna conte à Émilie tout l'ordre et toutes les circonstances d'une grande conspiration contre Auguste et qu'Auguste y tienne un conseil de confidence avec ses deux favoris." It is difficult to decide just how this statement is to be interpreted, in view of the fact that both in the Discours des trois Unités and in the Examens Corneille still seems to favor multiplex scenery, though he is ready to allow the action to go on, without reference to the stage-setting. Before his death, however, the simple decorations, consistent with a severe unity of place, had become generally accepted, and the same often-cited document which gives the scene for the Cid as le théâtre est une chambre à quatre portes" describes the stage for Cinna as follows: Le théâtre est un palais. Au second acte il faut un fauteuil et deux tabourets et au cinquième il faut un fauteuil et un tabouret à la gauche du roi.”3

1 See page 14.

2 Pratique du Théâtre, page 397. 3 Cp. Despois, Théâtre sous Louis XIV, page 412.

The unity of action presents more difficulty, inasmuch as the play has been accused of violating this rule. There can be little question as to what Corneille himself considered to be the principal action of the tragedy. The first edition bore the title Cinna ou la clémence d'Auguste; the dedication to Monsieur de Montoron' began with the words: 'Monsieur, je vous présente un tableau d'une des plus belles actions d'Auguste"; in the Discours du Poème Dramatique, during the discussion of the general characteristics of dramatic action, occurs the sentence: “Il faut qu'une action...aye un commencement, un milieu et une fin. Cinna conspire contre Auguste et rend compte de sa conspiration à Émilie, voilà le commencement; Maxime en fait avertir Auguste, voilà le milieu; Auguste lui pardonne, voilà la fin."

From all these facts it is evident that in the author's mind Auguste is the centre of the action. Yet, the play was not understood thus, and in the seventeenth century not Auguste but Cinna and, at a certain time, Émilie even more than he, were considered to be the real protagonists, and the first enthusiasm of the spectators was aroused for the conspirators. This feeling is evident in the letter (printed on page 10) written by Balzac to Corneille two years after the appearance of the play. This is not the place to multiply citations of a similar nature, which could easily be added, all showing the same interpretation of the action, and forcing the conclusion that the play contains a double intrigue.

Voltaire was astonished at this interpretation, and in the Commentaire he said: "Il n'y a point de double action... Les trois unités sont aussi parfaitement observées qu'elles puissent l'être." In a note to the letter of Balzac he added: “Il paraît qu'en effet Emilie était re

gardée comme le premier personnage de la pièce, et que dans les commencements on n'imaginait pas que l'intérêt pût tomber sur Auguste. C'est donc Cinna qu'on regardait comme l'honnête homme de la pièce, parcequ'il avait voulu venger la liberté publique. En ce cas il fallait qu'on ne regardât la clémence d'Auguste que comme un trait de politique conseillé par Livie. Dans les premiers mouvements des esprits émus par un poème tel que Cinna, on est frappé et ébloui de la beauté des details; on est longtemps sans former un jugement précis sur le fond de l'ouvrage."

He erred when he thought that the old interpretation had disappeared. La Harpe, in his discussion of the play,' begins by repeating the opinion of Voltaire, "l'unité d'action, de temps et de lieu y est observée," but in the further examination of the action he practically contradicts this assertion, for he attempts to show that the interest of the spectator changes during the second act. Being at first centred on Cinna, after the council scene, when the magnanimous nature of the emperor has become evident, the conspiracy loses its patriotic aim, Cinna becomes a partisan in a private vendetta, and the interest of the spectator is henceforth fastened upon Auguste. Finally he concludes that the rôle of Cinna is “essentiellement vicieux, en ce qu'il manque à la fois d'unité de caractère et de vraisemblance morale." Thus, in the eyes of the critics of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the plan of the action was as follows:

1. Cinna conspires against Auguste. 2. The conspiracy is discovered.

3. Auguste pardons Cinna.

During the Revolution, and after it, the play was looked upon as a political tragedy, a sort of thesis discussing the question that filled all minds.

1 Cours de Littérature, V, page 214 ff.