Part 10

It is not altogether easy to determine the reasons which induced Mlle. Guimard to take this step; a step which, as we have mentioned, entailed the renunciation of her profession. Certainly it could not have been any interested motive, since Despréaux was in far from affluent circumstances, while the _danseuse_ was in possession of a comfortable little fortune, as fortunes went, in theatrical circles, in those days.[93] Nor is it at all likely that she was consumed with any very violent passion for the dancing-master, who, on his own confession, was insignificant of figure and remarkably plain of face.[94] The probability is that she was by this time heartily tired of the stage and of a life of gallantry, and desired to spend the remainder of her days in retirement and the odour of sanctity, with a man who, if he had no physical attractions to boast of, “possessed all the little agreeable talents calculated to assure the affection of a woman of pleasure whose youth was dead.”[95]

However that may be, the _ménage_ appears to have been a happy one, and that notwithstanding the fact that the _danseuse_ and her husband were very far from enjoying the life of comfort and tranquillity to which they had looked forward. For the Revolution had begun; and the Revolution meant to themselves and hundreds of other pensioners of the State an abrupt descent from comparative affluence to poverty. Their circumstances were, of course, superior to most of their colleagues, as Madeleine Guimard had saved money, a very small proportion, it is true, of the enormous sums which had passed through her hands, but still sufficient to save them from actual want.

When, in 1792, the municipality entrusted the management of the Opera to Celerier and Francœur, Despréaux was nominated by them a member of the administrative council and stage-manager. These posts would have more than compensated him for the loss of his pensions, but, unfortunately, the directors were shortly afterwards accused of embezzlement and arrested; and in September 1793, Despréaux, perhaps fearful of sharing their fate, resigned.

He and his wife now retired to a little house on the summit of Montmartre, to reach which, he tells us, it was necessary to traverse a road so steep that the Jacobin patrols neglected to ascend it, and they were, in consequence, left undisturbed. Here they appeared to have lived for some three years, and it was here that Despréaux composed most of the poems which he published later, under the title of _Mes Passe-Temps_. “I composed these _chansons_,” he says, “to find some distraction from the terrible evils that beset us, and as a little surprise for my wife, whom I adored.”[96]

Notwithstanding the disparity in years between them, there can be no doubt that Despréaux was devoted to his wife, and in a poetical “_bouquet_” entitled _Un Bon Ménage_, published in 1806, he informs the world of the profound happiness which he has found in his union with the _danseuse_:

* * * * *

“Ah! mon Dieu! combien j’étais fou! Je redoutais le mariage; Et j’avais lu, je ne sais où: ‘Le bonheur n’est pas en ménage.’ Erreur! ta bonté, ta raison M’ont enfin prouvé le contraire, Et je vois, dans l’heureux garçon L’heureux imaginaire (_bis_).

Magdelaine aime ma gaîté Et moi sa tournure m’enchante, Elle fait ma félicité Elle est en verité, charmante! Elle prouve depuis vingt ans Par sa grâce qui m’est si chère, Qu’on a l’art d’arrêter le temps, Quand on a l’art de plaire (_bis_).”

In 1807, Despréaux was appointed inspector of the theatres of the Opera and the Tuileries. Having religiously preserved the traditions of the ancient Court, he was often consulted in regard to the ceremonial to be observed at the fêtes of the new Court of Napoleon. He became, in fact, a kind of unofficial master of the ceremonies, and, in this capacity, assisted at all the solemn functions of the Empire, notably at the marriage of Napoleon and Marie Louise, of which event he has left an interesting account in his _Souvenirs_. When the Empire fell, he found himself out of employment; but in 1815 received the appointments of inspector-general of Court entertainments and professor of dancing and deportment at the École Royale de Musique.

The _ménage_ Despréaux-Guimard resided, in these last years, in the Rue de Ménars, where the _ex-danseuse_ surrounded herself with a large circle of friends. Often the conversation turned on the past triumphs of Mlle. Guimard, when the younger members of the company would express their regret that it was impossible for them to form an idea of that marvellous talent which, for a whole generation, had so enchanted the patrons of the Opera, and would beg their hostess to give them a few steps of the ballets in which she had achieved her greatest successes. At first, the ballerina refused, on the score of her age and the decline of her physical powers. But the ingenious Despréaux erected in the salon a theatre, the curtain of which was so arranged as to reveal only the knee and the legs of the actors. And here he and his wife, concealing thus all the ravages that time had wrought upon face and figure, danced with legs and feet which seemed to the delighted spectators to have preserved all the grace and suppleness of youth.

Later, when increasing years and feeble health had caused her to retire altogether from society, if one of the few intimate friends who were still admitted to the house happened to refer to her glorious past at the Opera, the old artiste would sometimes offer to amuse her visitors with what she called her theatre. With that, she would draw from under her fauteuil a little drum, which she would place between her feet on a foot-stool. Then she would join two of her fingers, bow, lift the curtain, announce some ballet, and, by a marvel of memory and agility of hand, dance with her two fingers all the steps of this ballet--her own steps, and the steps of those who preceded, and of those who had doubled her--with such correctness as to make her audience appreciate the superiority of her own dancing.[97]

* * * * *

On May 4, 1816, Madeleine Guimard--or rather Madame Despréaux--died at the age of seventy-three; the death of the famous _danseuse_ of the eighteenth century passing almost unnoticed in this Paris of the Restoration, which seemed to have already forgotten her dazzling triumphs of yesterday.

III

MADEMOISELLE RAUCOURT

Several versions have at different times been current in regard to the origin of Mlle. Raucourt. According to the one which, until comparatively recent years, found almost general acceptance, her baptismal name was Françoise Marie Antoinette Clairien; she was born at Dombasle, on November 29, 1753, and was the daughter of “a poor barber overwhelmed with children,” who consigned her to the care of the village postmaster, a person called François Saucerotte, by whom she was adopted.[98] That a child of that name was born at Dombasle, on the above-mentioned date, is true enough; but she was not the future _tragédienne_. The actress in question was born in Paris, on March 3, 1756; François Saucerotte was her own, and not her adopted, father, and she was baptized at the church of Saint-Severin, by the name of Marie Antoinette Joseph, as witness the _acte de naissance_, given by Auguste Jal, in his invaluable _Dictionnaire de Biographie et d’Histoire_:

“Wednesday, March 3, 1756.--Marie Antoinette Joseph, born to-day, daughter of François Saucerotte, bourgeois of Paris, and of Antoinette de la Porte, his wife, residing Rue de Vieille-Bouclerie. The godfather was Julien Mérel, labourer, the godmother, Marguerite Lancelin, _fille majeure_, both residing Rue du Bac. The godmother has declared herself unable to sign her name. (Signed) Mérel, Saucerotte.”

What occupation was followed by François Saucerotte at the time of his daughter’s birth is uncertain--_bourgeois de Paris_ being a trifle indefinite. But, a few years later, he was seized with an ambition to become an actor and, accordingly, applied for and obtained an _ordre de début_ at the Comédie-Française, where he appeared under the name of Raucourt. The _début_, however, was not a success; and the pit intimated its sense of M. Raucourt’s shortcomings in so unmistakable a manner that, after his second appearance, that gentleman prudently decided to seek fame and fortune before a less critical audience. He accordingly retired to the provinces, and from thence migrated to Spain, as a member of a French travelling company, taking his little daughter with him. The latter, who early decided to follow her father’s profession, amply atoned for any lack of ability on his part, and showed such extraordinary precocity that at the age of twelve she was already playing with success in several tragedy parts.

From Spain the Raucourts--to give them the name by which they were henceforth known--appear to have journeyed to St. Petersburg; but, towards the end of the year 1770, returned to France, where the girl obtained an engagement at Rouen, the conservatoire of the Paris theatres. Here she acted with such success, notably as Euphémie in De Belloy’s _Gaston et Bayard_, that the fame of her talent soon reached the capital and she received an order from the Gentlemen of the Chamber to make her _début_ at the Comédie-Française.

Mlle. Raucourt and her father arrived in Paris in the spring of 1772, where they rented a modest apartment in the Rue Saint-Jacques, for though rich in hopes, their purses were light. Provincial players in those days gained abundant experience, but very little money.

The young actress’s first appearance at the Comédie-Française was preceded by some months of study, under the direction of Brizard, who was as excellent a teacher as he was an actor, and, delighted with his pupil’s intelligence and industry, did not rest content until he had taught her everything he knew. In the course of a few weeks, she is said to have mastered no less than nineteen important tragedy parts. From Brizard’s hands, and at his suggestion, she passed to those of Mlle. Clairon; and the celebrated _tragédienne_, partly out of a real liking for the girl and partly out of a desire to set up a rival to Madame Vestris, with whom her relations were at that time very strained, spared no pains to put the finishing touch to the actor’s work.[99]

At length, towards the end of the year, Mlle. Raucourt was deemed worthy to challenge the verdict of the Parisians, and, on December 23, 1772, she made her _début_, as Dido, in Le Franc de Pompignan’s famous tragedy, being then within rather more than two months of completing her seventeenth year.

And what a _début_ it was! Never in the whole history of the theatre had so young an actress secured so brilliant, so extraordinary, a triumph. “Before the tragedy began,” says Grimm, “Brizard himself harangued the pit, demanded its indulgence for a budding talent, and assured it that his pupil, formed by the criticisms of the public, would one day be its work. The pit, which loves to the point of folly actors to address it, particularly when they call it the arbiter of tastes and of talents, warmly applauded the harangue of Achates Brizard.[100] But when it beheld the most beautiful and the most noble creature in the world advance, in the character of Dido, to the edge of the stage; when it heard the sweetest, the most flexible, the most harmonious, the most impressive of voices; when it remarked a style of acting full of dignity, intelligence, and the most subtle and delicate shades, the enthusiasm of the public knew no bounds. They raised cries of admiration and applause; they involuntarily embraced one another; they were perfectly intoxicated. When the play was over, the enthusiasm spread to their houses. Those who had been present at _Didon_ dispersed to their various quarters, arrived like men demented, spoke with transports of the _débutante_, communicated their enthusiasm to those who had not seen her, and at every supper-table in Paris nothing was heard save the name of Raucourt.”[101]

Mlle. Raucourt had risen that morning unknown, at least so far as Paris was concerned; she retired to bed a celebrity, the idol of the playgoing public. All the gazettes, all the journals, all the correspondence of the time, resounded with her praises. “Nature,” wrote the dramatic critic of the _Mercure_, “appears to have lavished its gifts upon her: she is beautiful, she is impressive in all her rôles, she possesses a kind of innate aptitude for tragedy, and the most triumphant means of giving expression to its energy, its sentiment, and its passion; a voice flexible, sonorous, and well-modulated; a physiognomy which depicts the affections of the heart in all their variations; a look eloquent and expressive, the art of speaking to the eyes and of investing her by-play with interest. This young actress has received everything from beneficent Nature, and study and experience have had little to do with perfecting and completing her talents.”[102] Grimm predicted that she would be the “_gloire immortelle_” of the French stage. Another critic declared the annihilation of the British fleet alone could have aroused a deeper enthusiasm than her acting; while the _Mémoires secrets_ hailed her as a veritable prodigy: “It is impossible to describe the sensation she has created; nothing like it has been seen within the memory of living man. She is only sixteen and a half; she is a study for a painter. She has the most noble, the most dramatic face, the most enchanting voice, a prodigious intelligence; she did not make a single false intonation. Throughout the whole of her very difficult part, she did not commit the slightest error, not even an inappropriate gesture. A little stiffness and embarrassment in the movements of her arms is the only fault people have been able to find in her.”[103]

Let us here remark that all this eulogy was very far from being deserved, and that the critics ere long found reason to modify their enthusiasm. Mlle. Raucourt was unquestionably a very handsome girl, and certainly possessed many of the qualities attributed to her by her admirers; but she never attained anything like the standard of excellence of Adrienne Lecouvreur, or Mlle. Dumesnil, or Mlle. Clairon. “With a little sensibility,” remarks one of her colleagues of the Comédie-Française, “she might have been the greatest of _tragédiennes_; but that quality, so invaluable on the stage, was wanting.” She was wanting also in versatility; her acting was, so to speak, all of a piece; she sinned in excess of force and energy, and never mastered the art of varying her intonations, what Mlle. Clairon called “the eloquence of sounds.” No one knew better than did she how to give expression to the great passions: hatred, jealousy, revenge. She was admirable in the Agrippine of _Britannicus_, inimitable in the Jocaste of _Œdipe_. But the more human, the more tender passions: pity, tenderness, love, were unknown to her. Thus her rendering of Phèdre, the greatest character of the classic répertoire, was never more than moderately successful, and compared very unfavourably with that of Mlle. Dumesnil.[104]

However, the public having with one accord decided to place the new actress on a pedestal and fall down before her, was, for the time being, blind to her shortcomings. Its enthusiasm increased with each performance, until it reached a veritable frenzy. On the days on which she was to appear, the box-office of the theatre was literally besieged from an early hour in the morning. Servants sent by their employers to secure places discharged their mission at the risk of their lives; several were carried away in an unconscious state, and one is said to have died, as the result of the injuries he received. Tickets for the pit, costing twenty-four sous, were sold for nine or ten francs apiece, in the court of the Tuileries, by persons who had been intrepid enough to secure them; the prices of the other places rising in the same proportion. The days of the Rue Quincampoix seemed to have returned.

When the time for the performance drew near, the scene almost baffled description. All the approaches to the Comédie-Française were so blocked with people that the actors themselves could with difficulty persuade their excited patrons to make way for them. An enormous crowd surged round the theatre, forced the doors, and struggled and fought for the best places in the pit. Those who, by good fortune or superior physical strength, emerged triumphant from the _mêlée_, arrived panting for breath, with their clothes nearly torn from their backs, dishevelled hair, and faces streaming with perspiration. “Do you think,” inquired an old lady, in Grimm’s hearing, one evening, “that if it had been a question of saving their country, these people would have exposed themselves like this?”

The enthusiasm of the town spread to the Court, and, on January 5, the new actress was commanded to appear at Versailles, where she seems to have created a similar sensation. Louis XV., despite his indifference to tragedy, sat out _Didon_ to the end, sent for Mlle. Raucourt and, after warmly complimenting her, presented her to the Dauphiness, as the Queen of Carthage. He also made her a present of fifty louis, and gave orders that she should be received as a member of the Comédie without being required to give any further proofs of her talent. Madame du Barry hastened to follow his Majesty’s example, and offered the young actress the choice of three dresses for her private use, or a _robe de théâtre_. To which the girl replied that she would prefer the stage costume, “since, in that case, the public would profit by Madame la Comtesse’s goodness as well as herself.”[105]

After appearing four times in _Didon_, Mlle. Raucourt played the parts of Émilie, in _Cinna_, Monime, in _Mithridate_, Idamé, in Voltaire’s _Orphelin de la Chine_, Hermione, in _Andromaque_, and, finally, that of Pulchérie, in _Héraclitus_, in all of which rôles, Grimm tells us, “she showed the happiest dispositions and announced the greatest talents.” The _furore_ she excited, so far from diminishing, continued to increase, and not a day passed without some persons being more or less seriously injured in the struggle at the doors of the theatre. The climax of absurdity seems to have been reached a few evenings after her visit to Versailles, when her admirers in the pit clamoured for “a benefit performance for the new actress,” and refused to allow the play to proceed until the management had announced their willingness to accede to their patrons’ wishes, provided the Gentlemen of the Chamber would accord them permission.

In the meanwhile, the triumphs of Mlle. Raucourt, the ovations of which she was every evening the recipient, had begun to arouse the alarm and jealousy of her colleagues. The two leading actresses of the company, Madame Vestris and Mlle. Sainval the elder,[106] had been for some time mortal enemies; but, in the presence of this newcomer, who had in a single night relegated them both to secondary places in the affections of the fickle public, they recognised the wisdom of forgetting their differences for the nonce and making common cause against the interloper. They organised a cabal; they filled the pit with their personal friends and with hired agents, instructed to interrupt the finest tirades of Mlle. Raucourt with jeers and hisses, and, behind the scenes, they did everything in their power to render their young rival’s life a burden to her. Their intrigues were fruitless, nay more, they recoiled upon their own heads. The voices of the malcontents were drowned in the bursts of applause, which increased in volume and frequency the moment it became known that an opposition was at work. So indignant were the audience that any shortcomings on the part of its idol were at once attributed to the machinations of her jealous rivals. One evening, when playing Monime, she forgot her part. “It is all the fault of those Sainvals,” said the indignant _parterre_. On another, a cat happened to stray on to the stage and interrupted the performance with plaintive cries. “I will wager that that cat belongs to Madame Vestris!” cried a wag in the pit; and the sally was followed by a roar of derisive laughter.[107] The intriguers found themselves covered with ridicule; while Mlle. Raucourt’s position grew stronger every day.

* * * * *

The extraordinary popularity of Mlle. Raucourt with the playgoing public was enhanced by an unsullied reputation off the stage. “I understand,” writes Grimm, “that this charming creature, so imposing on the stage, is very simple in private life; that she has all the candour and innocence of her age, and occupies with girlish amusements the time not set apart for study. Many dissertations have been written with the view of discovering metaphysically by what power a girl so young and innocent can represent with so much power on the stage the transports and the fury of love.” He adds that so determined was her father to defend her chastity that he invariably carried two loaded pistols “in order to blow out the brains of the first who should make an attempt on the virtue of his daughter.”[108]

M. Raucourt indeed followed his talented daughter about like her shadow; to the theatre, on her shopping expeditions, to the private houses to which she was invited. During the performances, he mounted sentinel in the wings, to be ready to place himself at her side the moment she made her exit. People compared him to a jealous lover keeping watch over a flighty mistress.

All these precautions, however, were quite unnecessary. Mlle. Raucourt was virtuous, or rather she was virtue itself. “In vain was her heart besieged like the box-office of the theatre on the evenings on which she was to appear; in vain her adorers prostrated themselves before her. She turned a deaf ear to the most brilliant propositions; she repulsed with horror the most tempting offers.”

Soon the virtue of Mlle. Raucourt became as celebrated as her talent; it was the talk of the town; the memoirs and correspondence of the time are full of it. “The virtue of the new actress still keeps up.” “The virtue of the new actress resists the numerous assaults to which it is subjected.” “The new actress has begun to give _petits soupers_, which, it is hoped, may lead to what she has hitherto escaped.” And so forth.

It cannot be said that the young woman lacked encouragement to persevere in a course which, for an actress in those days, was as laudable as it was novel. Every evening the theatre resounded with acclamations, which were intended to be as much a tribute to her exemplary conduct as to her beauty and talent. Devout ladies of the Court vied with one another in giving her good advice and in enriching her wardrobe; and all manner of flattering epithets were bestowed upon her. She was “Jeanne d’Arc at the Comédie-Française,” “the Wise Virgin in the midst of the foolish ones,” “Diana with the features of Venus.”

Nor was material encouragement wanting, as the following anecdote will show: