FOLLOWING his now settled rhythm of one play
a year, Racine produced Mithridate in January 1673,
probably on the thirteenth of the month. It seems
to have run without a break until Easter and may
well have been taken up again in the summer. Louis XIV
saw it for the first time on February 11th at Saint-Germain;
his approval was such that he came to regard it as his favour-
ite Racinian tragedy. In May, Monsieur commanded a per-
formance in his château at Saint-Cloud for the entertainment
of the Duke of Monmouth and the British Ambassador and
his wife. They saw it in a room "decorated with a marvellous
profusion of flowers arranged in silver bowls and vases".

Like some other immediately successful plays, Mithridate
has hardly any history. After the turquerie of Bajazet,
Racine had returned to the Roman chroniclers and out of
the lamentable story of Mithridates Eupator, King of
Pontus, had evolved a play in which virtue and youth
triumphed over villainy and age. There was one consider-
able female role for the Champmeslé: that of Monime, a
sweet and touching princess; two princely roles to divide
between the Sieur de Champmeslé and Brécourt, though
it is not known which of them played the virtuous Xipharès
and which the treacherous Pharnace; the title role for La
Fleur who, as Mithridate, represented one of the noblest
of the Racinian kings. He sees in time through the villainy
of Pharnace, and with his dying words unites the innocent

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