The example was especially pernicious, because the genius of the author had rendered it seductive, and because the part which Chimène played assured her of the sympathy of the audience. Corneille was very sensitive to the criticisms of the Academy, and after the _Cid_ appeared something more serious than synthetic form was placed under the knives of the literary doctors; either because the denunciations of his friends bore fruit, or because, in the depths of his heart, he harboured the feelings which the unbridled ardour of the _Cid_ had aroused in the Academy and in the other honest people "who upbraided him, he retreated from the field of sentimental romanticism, and turned his talents in another direction.... Nature's triumph over a social convention was never given another occasion to display its graces or to celebrate its truths under his auspices and the love passion was not heard of again until it came forth in _Horace_ (Camille), to be very severely dealt with."
We are led to believe that had Corneille met the subject of the _Cid_ fifteen years later, he would never have granted Chimène and Rodrigue a marriage license.[71] Nor is this all. Having reformed, he was as fanatical as the rest of the reformers; having become Catholic, he was more Catholic than the Pope. He disclaimed love, and would have none of it; he affirmed that it was unworthy of a place in tragedy. In his own words, written some time later:
The dignity of tragedy demands for its subject some great interest of the State, ... or some passion more manly than love; as, for instance, ambition or vengeance. If fear is permitted to enter such a work it should be a fear less puerile than that inspired by the loss of a mistress. It is proper to mingle a little love with the more important elements, because love is always very pleasing, and it may serve as a foundation for the other interests and passions that I have named. But if love is permitted to enter tragedy it must be content to take the second rank in the poem, and to leave the first places to the capital passions.
Having chosen his bone in this high-handed fashion, Corneille gnawed at it continually; he could never get enough of it. Love had triumphed in the _Cid_, but that day was past; in _Horace_ it struggled for existence; in _Polyeucte_ it was vanquished, though not before it had opposed sturdy resistance. It was weak enough in _Cinna_. After the arrival of _Pompée_ it gave up the struggle, though it was heard piteously murmuring at intervals. When _Pompée_ appeared the ladies disappeared from the drama as if by magic; hardly a woman worthy of the name could be found in literature: a few beings there were draped with the time-worn title, but they were as virile as wild Indians.