Part 12

Alarmed by these demonstrations, the Gentlemen of the Chamber decided to mitigate the punishment inflicted upon the elder Sainval, who was, accordingly, granted permission to leave Clermont and to play in the provinces. Everywhere she was received with frantic enthusiasm. At Bordeaux, at the conclusion of the play, two cupids descended from a cloud to crown her with laurels, and the audience pelted her with flowers until the stage resembled a flower-garden.

By far the wisest course would have been to reinstate Mlle. Sainval at the Comédie-Française and thus deprive the turbulent patrons of that institution of any further excuse for demonstrations in her favour and against her rival. But, since the Gentlemen of the Chamber were of opinion that this would be too great a concession to popular clamour, it was decided to endeavour to direct public attention from Mlle. Sainval and her wrongs by recalling Mlle. Raucourt.

Madame Vestris herself seems to have been the first to suggest this step. She was, of course, well aware that if, by any chance, Mlle. Raucourt were to recover the place she had once held in the affections of the public, she herself would be completely overshadowed. But, since her own eclipse would undoubtedly be shared by Mlle. Sainval, whom she now hated far more than she ever had the younger actress, she was prepared to regard that eventuality with complacency.

Mlle. Raucourt, then at Berlin, was accordingly invited to return, and accepted the invitation readily enough, though it may be doubted whether she would have done so at all, could she have foreseen the kind of reception which awaited her. Her creditors, acting doubtless on a hint from an influential quarter, showed no disposition to molest her; but the scandals with which her name had been associated had not been forgotten. Every door was closed to her; no one could be persuaded to have any dealings with this “most compromising of women.”

Friendless and without resources, she knew not where to go, when the good-natured Sophie Arnould offered her hospitality. It was a courageous act on the ex-singer’s part, since her own and Mlle. Raucourt’s enemies did not hesitate to attribute it to the most shameful motives. The same abominable charge which had been brought against the _tragédienne_ was now openly levelled at her.

Sophie, however, cared very little what people might say about her. Not content with extending her hospitality to the proscribed actress, she did everything in her power to interest her friends in favour of her _protégée_. To please his mistress, the Prince d’Hénin became one of Mlle. Raucourt’s warmest partisans, and used all his not inconsiderable influence to break down the social quarantine to which she was subjected.

Mlle. Raucourt’s reinstatement at the Comédie-Française was more easily proposed than accomplished. The majority of her former colleagues opposed it most strenuously, on the ground that their statutes prohibited the readmission of a player who had been excluded by a vote of the _sociétaires_, and that the misconduct of the actress in question had injured the company in the estimation of the public. The Gentlemen of the Chamber, however, turned a deaf ear to their remonstrances. Marie Antoinette, a great admirer of Mlle. Raucourt’s acting, and ever ready to take the part of any of her sex whom she considered to have been hardly treated, espoused her cause, and even talked of paying her debts, and on September 11, 1779, the _Journal de Paris_ contained the following announcement:

“Comédie-Française.--We understand that the demoiselle Raucourt, absent from this theatre for three years, will reappear there this evening, in the rôle of Dido.”

Dido, it will be remembered, was the part in which the actress had made her sensational _début_, seven years before; and the recollection of the triumph she had secured on that occasion had doubtless influenced her choice of this rôle. Now, as then, the doors of the theatre were besieged, and the _salle_ crowded to its utmost capacity. But alas! how different were the feelings which animated the expectant audience! Mlle. Raucourt had been thrust upon the town in defiance of feelings which ought to have been respected; night after night the pit had clamoured for Mlle. Sainval, and, in her stead, it had been given--Raucourt! And to make matters worse, it was an open secret that the Court intended to pay her debts “out of the people’s money.”

Long before the curtain rose, angry murmurs heralded the coming storm, and the moment Dido appeared, it burst in all its fury. The uproar was indescribable. Hisses, groans, and cat-calls came from all parts of the pit. The grossest epithets, the most shocking abuse, were showered upon the unfortunate actress. “It was impossible,” says one account, “to hear a single word of her part. The other actors were allowed to speak, but so soon as her turn arrived, the clamour began again. It is suspected that the partisans of the demoiselles Sainval are no strangers to this fermentation.”

Even more violent was the hostility displayed when, two nights later, Mlle. Raucourt appeared as Phèdre. All who are familiar with Racine’s famous tragedy know that the part of the hapless heroine contains many lines which may be readily applied to her impersonator by a hostile audience, and, in electing to play it, Mlle. Raucourt furnished her enemies with weapons of which they did not fail to make the very fullest use. The well-known lines once addressed by Adrienne Lecouvreur to her rival and would-be assassin, the Duchesse de Bouillion:

“Je sais mes perfidies, Œnone, et ne suis pas de ces femmes hardies, Qui, goûtant dans la crime une tranquille paix, Ont su se faire un front qui ne rougit jamais,”

were greeted with cries of dissent and uproarious laughter. The words,

“De l’austère pudeur les bornes sont passées...”

were answered with shouts of “_C’est vrai! c’est vrai! il y a longtemps!_” While when she came to the passage in which Phèdre, in an agony of remorse, exclaims,

“Et moi, triste rebut de la nature entière...”

the ironical cheering, La Harpe tells us, seemed as if it would never cease. “Neither her beauty nor her sex,” writes Grimm, “could protect her any longer, and never did the public go so far in forgetfulness of its own dignity.”

For these disgraceful scenes, the Duc de Duras seems to have been, in no small measure, responsible. In his anxiety to secure a hearing for Mlle. Raucourt, this well-meaning but maladroit nobleman had foolishly endeavoured to overawe the opposition by trebling the guard and “filling the pit with policemen,” who pounced upon and conducted to prison the most prominent of the disturbers. Such tactics naturally had the effect of exasperating the malcontents to the last degree and of alienating many whose sympathies had hitherto lain with the persecuted actress. “While the Comte d’Estaing is fighting the English, to make them recognise the independence of America,” it was bitterly said, “the Duc de Duras imprisons Frenchmen for refusing to applaud Raucourt!”

Nevertheless, fair-minded persons appear to have been practically unanimous in condemning the conduct of the pit. “Nothing,” writes La Harpe, “can prove more clearly that the spirit of the _parterre_ is changed. The excesses in which it indulges, unknown until now, show how badly composed it is. Never would an assembly of respectable persons permit itself to say to a woman, whatever she might be, that she was ‘_le rebut de la nature entière_.’ One can decline to listen to her, but it is shocking and abominable to go to such lengths as this.” He adds that, in his opinion, the disturbance was organised by the elder Mlle. Sainval, “who knows better than any one how to set to work the crowd of venal ruffians who compose to-day a third of the _parterre_, and sometimes make themselves its masters”; and declares that so disgusted is he with the cabals and acrimonious quarrels which divide the theatrical and literary worlds, that he has determined to abandon dramatic criticism altogether, and has, accordingly, resigned his post on the _Mercure_.[118]

In the face of such bitter hostility as she was called upon to encounter, Mlle. Raucourt might well have been pardoned if she had withdrawn a second time from the stage. That she declined to bow to the storm proves her to have possessed courage and pertinacity of an unusually high order. Indeed, her firmness on the night of Phèdre, when, at each hostile manifestation, she had slowly and deliberately repeated the line which had evoked it, had undoubtedly contributed to exasperate the baser kind of her persecutors. A little reflection, however, sufficed to assure her that, if she wished to regain the indulgence of the public, she must have recourse to other methods, and, accordingly, she addressed to the _Journal de Paris_ the following letter:

“_September 13, 1776._

“Unusual circumstances having placed me in the position of occupying at the Comédie a different _emploi_ from the one I intended for myself, permit me, through the medium of your journal, to inform the public that I have no other ambition than to fill it to the best of my ability; that I do not purpose playing parts of any other kind, except when it is absolutely indispensable for the service of the Comédie; that, far from desiring to deprive my comrades of anything, my only wish is to understudy them; too happy if, by my zeal, my exactitude, and my efforts, I succeed in convincing the public of my respect and of my anxiety to please them.

“I have the honour to be, &c.,

“DE RAUCOUR.”

This diplomatic epistle seems to have been not without its effect, and, though her reception at the Comédie-Française still left much to be desired, no attempt was made to repeat the violent scenes which had marked her two first performances. On the other hand, her creditors, urged on by her personal enemies, had again taken up arms and left her not a moment’s peace. In order to avoid imprisonment, she was once more on the point of expatriating herself, when a royal edict appeared which “rendered free from all seizures, confiscations, or stoppages the wages and appointments of the players and other persons attached to the theatre, up to the amount of two-thirds, apart from the necessary expenditure for board and lodging.”

It was common belief that this edict had been inspired by the Queen, who had seen in it an economical method of settling the debts of her favourite actress, and its appearance, while saving Mlle. Raucourt from the necessity of choosing between imprisonment and flight, exposed her to a fresh storm of invective. A score of pamphlets and leaflets, some in prose, some in verse, were launched against her, in which she and her supporters, the Duc de Duras, the Prince d’Hénin, Sophie Arnould, Madame Vestris, and Brizard, were assailed in the most violent manner. A few passages from one of these effusions, entitled _La Vision du prophète Daniel_, will convey a good idea of the methods employed against unpopular personages in the eighteenth century:

The Old Satrap [the Duc de Duras], having banished Mlle. Sainval, “to punish her for having more talents than his concubine [Madame Vestris],” announces his intention of recalling the Harlot of Babylon [Mlle. Raucourt], “whom all nations have rejected,” and forcing the people whom he governs to receive her.

“And one heard a cry: ‘Way, way for the Prince des Nains [the Prince d’Hénin]!’

“And I looked, expecting to behold at the head of a troop of pigmies an abortion.

“And I saw a tall, thin man, with a foolish eye and a silly smile, affecting an air of importance; and what was my surprise to see, through his transparent body, that, in place of blood, a black and poisonous mud circulated in his veins...!”

“And his corrupt heart was falling into rottenness. And one saw there none of those feelings which characterise the nobility; cowardice, poltroonery, debauchery, infamy, deceit, avarice, and duplicity, shared what remained of this gangrened heart.”

“And he made his way through the crowd, leading by the hand a woman, whom I took for a man, from her impudent demeanour, her loud voice, and her gigantic stature [Mlle. Raucourt].

“She cast around her lascivious glances.... And a voice cried: ‘Behold her; the woman who has gone beyond all the abominations wherewith the nations of the earth are soiled.

“‘And she is about to renew here the scenes of debauchery and extravagance which she has given elsewhere.’”[119]

At the beginning of the following year, the _Nouvelles à la main_ announce that Mlle. Raucourt has repaid the hospitality and protection received from Sophie Arnould by “an act of frightful ingratitude, unhappily but too common among women,” namely, by stealing away from her the Prince d’Hénin, “in order to rivet her fetters upon him.” The writer adds that Sophie is furious, and that the guilty pair, fearful of the consequences of their treachery, have fled to Bagatelle and taken refuge with the Comte d’Artois, who is credited with a desire to participate in the good fortune of the Prince d’Hénin.

The report that the prince had taken Mlle. Raucourt under his protection, in the technical sense of the term, was true; but, so far from having sought refuge with the Comte d’Artois, at Bagatelle, he appears to have rented the château from its royal owner. Sophie Arnould, if she cherished any animosity against the offenders--which is open to question, the probability being that she and the prince were by this time heartily tired of one another--would have been far more likely to revenge herself by some biting _bon mot_ than by personal injury.

Paris and Versailles, we are told, laughed over this adventure till its sides ached, for a whole week. Mlle. Raucourt’s conduct was considered despicable, but there was little pity for Sophie, who, one writer declares, was justly punished “for having welcomed a woman who was the opprobrium of her sex.”

It is to be hoped that the Prince d’Hénin found in Mlle. Raucourt’s society sufficient compensation for being dragged through the same gutters as the _tragédienne_ by the scribes who delighted to assail her, and for the fact that it was now his privilege to deal with the horde of creditors who were “perpetually howling at her skirts.” To do him justice, meanness was not one of his failings; but adversity had not taught the lady wisdom, at least so far as financial matters were concerned, and no sooner did her unfortunate lover discharge one debt than she appears to have straightway contracted another. Under date September 16, 1781, we read in the _Mémoires secrets_:

“Queen Melpomene is more than ever ruined by debt. The Prince d’Hénin, to aid her to escape the pursuits of her creditors, has taken over all the furniture and effects of this actress. But he is summoned to declare upon oath, before the Civil Lieutenant of Paris, whether his ostensible ownership is not simulated.”

It would be interesting to know what course the prince adopted under these somewhat embarrassing circumstances; but, unfortunately, the chroniclers do not tell us.

In the meanwhile, Mlle. Raucourt was seeking consolation for her many troubles in the cultivation of the Muses. She was at work upon “a drama in three acts and in prose,” entitled _Henriette_, adapted, it would appear, from a play which she had seen at Warsaw, some years before. The plot was briefly as follows:

A Prussian colonel, Stelim by name, wounded in a duel, is carried to the house of Henriette’s father and nursed by the lady, who falls deeply in love with her patient. The colonel recovers and returns to his duty, all unconscious of the passion which he has inspired. The lovelorn Henriette resolves to follow him, runs away from home, dressed as a man, and enlists in her colonel’s regiment. One day, she surprises her beloved in the act of kissing the hand of a strange lady, upon which, unaware that the latter is only his sister, she is so overcome by jealousy and mortification that she deserts. She is pursued, recaptured, tried by court-martial, and condemned to be shot; but, at the last moment, her secret is discovered, and all ends happily.

_Henriette_ did not reach the stage of the Comédie-Française without encountering many difficulties. In the Warsaw play, Frederick the Great and his army had been treated with very scant respect; and the Prussian Ambassador now demanded that Mlle. Raucourt’s adaptation should be very strictly scrutinised, and that “all passages calculated to wound the King his master eliminated.” As there seem to have been a good many of these, it was feared, at first, that the play would be mutilated beyond recognition, even if it were not prohibited altogether. But the Prince d’Hénin left no stone unturned to rescue his mistress’s work from the claws of the censor, and, after many conferences and much correspondence, it was finally decided to spare those passages “in which the impertinence towards the King of Prussia was more remarkable for its intention than for its effect.”

The play was produced on March 1, 1782, before a densely crowded house, which the authoress, by a very adroit manœuvre, had taken care to predispose in her favour. It was then the custom on first nights to reserve a large number of the _parterre_ tickets for distribution among the author’s friends, who, of course, applauded enthusiastically, no matter how coldly the production might be received by the general public. But Mlle. Raucourt refused to avail herself of this privilege, declaring that “if her drama were a good one, it would succeed on its own merits”; a decision which, we are told, was received with universal applause.[120]

On the whole, the verdict of the public was favourable. “The first act,” say the _Mémoires secrets_, “was thought cold, but the second excited long, frequent, and sincere applause. The third act was also applauded, though with less enthusiasm.”

The critics were, however, anything but kind. Grimm describes the subject as “monstrous”; La Harpe stigmatises the work as “an absurd and foolish rhapsody,” a striking proof of “the decadence of talents and the corruption of taste”;[121] while the _Mercure_, after declaring that the play possesses many faults and advising Mlle. Raucourt “to treat of subjects with a truer and worthier moral end,” declines to say any more. “The author is a woman, and we do not wish to play with her the part of Diomed.”[122]

But whatever opinions they may have held in regard to the merits of the work itself, every one agreed that Mlle. Raucourt was charming in the uniform of a Prussian soldier; and La Harpe states that people went two or three times solely to see her masquerading as a man.

Her success in _Henriette_ encouraged Mlle. Raucourt to undertake a real masculine part, and, two years later (March 1784), she secured a genuine triumph, as a captain of dragoons, in a play by Rochon de Chabannes, called _Le Jaloux_. The ease with which she wore the uniform appears to have been particularly admired, a circumstance which is not surprising when we remember that, when in hiding, in the summer of 1776, she had worn a very similar dress for more than six weeks.

“What an _actor_ that Raucourt is!” remarked the younger Sainval, who enjoyed a not undeserved reputation as a wit. “And what a pity she persists in wishing to play women’s parts!”

Little by little the hostility of which Mlle. Raucourt had so long been the object subsided. Slowly but surely the _tragédienne_ recovered the ground she had lost, until, in 1786, we find the _Mémoires secrets_ declaring that “she will soon take rank with the greatest actresses,” and that “the most critical amateurs were fain to confess that she had made prodigious improvement.”

This happy result seems to have been due partly to a genuine love of her art, which led her to devote far more time to serious study than had been the case in earlier years, and partly to the exercise of a good deal of tact--willingness to understudy her former rivals, to condescend to the parts of nurse and confidante, and, in short, to do almost anything that was required of her--which had disarmed the jealousy of her colleagues and rendered her an almost popular member of the troupe. It was certainly not attributable to any change in her morals, for if scandal were no longer busy with her name, it was from no lack of material. In the years immediately preceding the Revolution, however, people had more important matters to discuss than the amours of actresses.

* * * * *

The Revolution very nearly proved fatal to Mlle. Raucourt. The questions which were agitating the public mind were very far from leaving the national theatre undisturbed. “Even our little green-room,” writes Fleury, “was not exempt from the invasion of the moment. Melpomene and Thalia had the mortification to see their sacred altars profaned by the party pamphlets of the day, their venerated sanctuary converted into a political club.” The house of Molière, in fact, was divided against itself. Mlle. Raucourt, Molé, Fleury, and Louise Contat had tasted too many of the sweets of Court favour not to deplore deeply the fall of the old régime; while, on the other hand, Talma, Madame Vestris, Dugazon, and Mlle. Deschamps espoused the popular side with the fervour of rooted conviction. Of the remainder, the majority were either Royalists or moderate constitutionalists.[123]

This divergence of political opinion soon led to angry recriminations and thence to an open rupture, and, in the spring of 1791, Talma and his friends, finding their position growing intolerable, withdrew from the company, to found, at the Palais-Royal, the Théâtre-Français de la Rue de Richelieu, which, in the following year, became the Théâtre de la République.

Having purged itself of its Republican members, the Comédie threw itself boldly into the political strife, and, throughout the terrible winter of 1792-93, allowed no opportunity to slip of advocating the restoration of order and security. On January 3, 1793, during the King’s trial, it produced a play, by Jean Laya, entitled _Les Amis des Lois_, in which Robespierre (under the name of Nomophage), Marat, and other Montagnards were held up to ridicule and odium. How such a play contrived to escape the vigilance of the Republican censors is not easy to understand, since so thinly veiled were the allusions that almost every passage was punctuated by the cheers and hooting of an excited audience. It was, of course, speedily suppressed, and from that moment the doings of the Comédie were closely watched by the sanguinary faction now rising to supremacy in the State, which only awaited an opportunity of closing the theatre and arraigning the whole company before the Revolutionary Court.

An adaptation of “Pamela,” by François de Neufchâteau, afterwards Minister of the Interior, which contained not a little material calculated to awaken regret for the proscribed nobility, provided the Jacobins with the pretext they desired, and, on September 3, the whole of the players, with the exception of Molé, who had contrived to effect his escape, and Des Essarts, who was taking the waters at Baréges, were arrested and conveyed to the Madelonettes, in the Quartier Saint-Martin-des-Champs, and Sainte-Pélagie, in the Rue de la Clef; the men being assigned to the former prison and the women to the latter.