Part 13

That the players, or at any rate those of them who held the most pronounced counter-revolutionary opinions, were doomed, was the opinion of even their most sanguine friends. The Revolutionary Court, which had been created in the previous March, to judge without appeal conspirators against the State, still retained all the forms of justice--it was not until June 1794 that the hearing of counsel and calling of witnesses were dispensed with--but its proceedings were, in the great majority of cases, a hollow farce. The judges were appointed from the ranks of the most ruthless Terrorists; the jurymen, nominated by the Convention, were all “_gens d’expédition_”; while, as to give evidence on behalf of an accused person was to incur the danger of sharing his fate, witnesses for the defence could with difficulty be induced to come forward.

For some cause which is not quite certain, but was probably, as Fleury suggests, the fear of disseminating the small-pox, at that time prevailing in the Madelonettes, the case of the imprisoned players was not dealt with for more than nine months. At length, on Messidor 8, the Committee of Public Safety deliberated upon their fate; and Collot d’Herbois sent to Fouquier-Tinville the accusatory documents against Dazincourt, Fleury, Mlles. Raucourt, Louise and Émilie Contat, and Lange, who were considered the most culpable, accompanied by the following letter:

“Herewith I send you the documents relating to the actors of the Comédie-Française. In common with all patriots, you know how counter-revolutionary their conduct has been. You will bring them before the Court on Messidor 13. With regard to the others, there are some among them who may be punished with banishment. But we will see what can be done with them after the others have been tried.”

And on the margin of each of the six _dossiers_, Collot d’Herbois, in his own hand, had traced a capital G in red ink. For the docile Fouquier-Tinville that capital G signified: “_Guillotinez!_”

The trial was fixed for Messidor 13, and, on the following day, it was intended that Mlle. Raucourt and her five colleagues should make their final bow to the public, on the Place de la Révolution.

However, neither trial nor execution ever took place, for, on the morning of the 13th, it was found that the six _dossiers_ had mysteriously disappeared, and all efforts to recover them proved fruitless.

Let us see what had become of them.

In conformity with the usual practice, the papers had been sent by Fouquier-Tinville to the Bureau des Pièces Accusatives at the dismantled Tuileries. Now, in this department there was a clerk named Charles de Labussière, who had accepted the post as a means of securing his own safety, and who at heart was a devoted Royalist. Through Labussière’s hands passed all the documents relating to prisoners awaiting trial and, whenever he could do so with but little fear of discovery, he did not hesitate to destroy them. At first, he observed great caution and confined himself to abstracting a few pages from the portfolios; but, so soon as he became aware of the reckless disorder which characterised the proceedings of the fatal committee, he enlarged the scope of his operations and is said to have saved some hundreds from the guillotine, among whom was no less a personage than Joséphine de Beauharnais, whom Fate subsequently raised to the imperial throne of France. The method he adopted was an ingenious one. As it was then summer and exceedingly hot weather, and the lighting of a fire might have attracted attention, instead of burning the papers, it was his practice to soak them in water, until the bulky parchments had become balls of soft paste, which could be stowed away in his pockets, and to await a favourable opportunity of throwing them into the Seine.

On the night of Messidor 9, Labussière abstracted the papers relating to the imprisoned actors and carried them off. He had, however, a very narrow escape of detection. On his way to the river, his movements aroused the suspicion of a patrol, by whom he was arrested; and he would undoubtedly have been searched and the papers discovered, but for the timely arrival of an official of the Committee of Public Safety, who recognised him and ordered his release.[124]

Thus the players were saved, for before a new brief could be prepared, came “that happiest and most genial of revolutions, the Revolution of the 9th Thermidor,” which brought the Terror to a close and freedom to so many hundreds of prisoners.

Three weeks later, the members of the Comédie-Française reappeared at their theatre in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, now called the Théâtre de l’Égalité. _La Métromanie_ and _Les Fausses Confidences_ composed the programme, and the players, notwithstanding the reactionary views they were known to hold, had a great reception from an immense audience, though, remarked Louise Contat sarcastically, nothing like so large a one as there would have been to see them guillotined.

The players, however, did not remain many months in their old home. The Faubourg Saint-Germain, so long the centre of rank and wealth, was being abandoned in favour of more central spots, while, as a result of the existing free trade in theatrical matters, there were now several playhouses within a narrow radius of the Palais-Royal, whose advantage of situation rendered them formidable competitors. In January 1795, accordingly, the members of the Comédie-Française, not, as may be supposed, without many regrets, migrated to the Théâtre Feydeau, a house which had been erected, some years before, for a company of Italian _farceurs_, and was now under the control of a speculative gentleman named Sageret.

To be the paid servant of Sageret, who does not appear to have borne the best of reputations, seemed to Mlle. Raucourt a kind of degradation--the arts and humanity, she declared, cried out against the subjection under which they had been led to place themselves; and, in the following December, that lady withdrew from the company, followed by Larive, Mlle. Joly, Saint-Prix, and several others, and took possession of a theatre in the Rue de Louvois, intending apparently to make it the central point of a reunion of the entire company.

The flower of the Comédie-Française was now divided between three playhouses: the Théâtre de la République, the Théâtre Feydeau, and the Théâtre de Louvois. Of these the latter, which was inaugurated on Nivôse 5, Year v. (December 25, 1796), with _Iphigénie_ and a little play by Laya, entitled _Les Deux Sœurs_, was for a time the most successful; Mlle. Raucourt securing a great personal triumph in another masculine part--that of the hero in Legouvé’s _Laurence_. Laurence, it may be explained, was the young gentleman who became enamoured of Ninon de Lenclos without knowing that he was her son.

The Directory, however, like the despotism which it had succeeded, kept a jealous eye on the theatres, and was in the habit of closing them, temporarily or altogether, upon the slightest provocation; and an incident which took place during the performance of _Les Trois Frères rivaux_ ruined all the hopes of Mlle. Raucourt. One of the characters, addressing his _valet-de-chambre_, by name Merlin, exclaims:

“Monsieur Merlin, you are a scoundrel! Monsieur Merlin, you will end by being hanged!”

Now Merlin de Douai, the Minister of Justice, was just then in very bad odour with the public; and the audience applied the speech to him and cheered vociferously for several minutes.

A few days later (September 9, 1797), at the moment when the curtain was about to rise on a performance of the _Barbier de Seville_, an order arrived forbidding all further representations at the Théâtre de Louvois.

Mlle. Raucourt made every effort to obtain a revocation of the order, but to no purpose. However, she was not long without a theatre, as, at the beginning of the following year, she contrived to secure possession of the former seat of the Comédie-Française, in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, henceforth to be known as the Odéon, which she opened with a performance of _Phèdre_. Shortly afterwards, the Théâtre de la République shared the fate of the Théâtre de Louvois, the political opinions of Talma and his associates being too advanced to please the Government. The enterprising Sageret thereupon induced the homeless players to join forces with their former colleagues at the Théâtre Feydeau, and took over the management of the Odéon from Mlle. Raucourt, his intention being that the actors under his command should appear at either theatre in turn. But Sageret became bankrupt and disappeared; the Odéon was completely destroyed by a fire, the cause of which was never discovered, and Paris found itself without a temple of the legitimate drama.

This unfortunate condition of affairs, however, lasted but a short while. François de Neufchâteau, the author of the _Paméla_ which had proved so fatal, was now Minister of the Interior and honestly desirous of doing everything in his power to promote the interests of the drama. Through his influence, in May 1799, a wise measure of the Consular Government reunited in a single society the scattered members of the old Comédie-Française, and placed at its disposal the _salle_ of the Palais-Royal (formerly the Théâtre de la République), which it has not ceased to occupy to this day.

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Mlle. Raucourt, to her honour be it said, never made any secret of her monarchical sympathies. During the Directory, she was a bright and shining light of what was known as “_Le petit Coblentz_,” an association of Royalists which held its meetings at a house in the Boulevard des Italiens and strove, by force of jests, sarcasms, and epigrams, to upset the Republic. She wore on her spencer eighteen buttons, “a delicate allusion to Louis XVIII., the legitimate sovereign.” And when she fanned herself, it was with one of those famous weeping-willow fans, the folds of which formed the face of Marie Antoinette.

Nevertheless, Mlle. Raucourt had, personally, but little cause to complain of the Directory. Her antagonism to the Government did not extend to its agents, through the good offices of some of whom she contrived to make a considerable fortune, by judicious speculation in assignats, army contracts, and confiscated estates. She now discharged her debts, and bought “a palace” in the Rue Royale, with a spacious garden attached, where she gave sumptuous fêtes, to which all fashionable Paris was invited. Nothing so delightful as her boudoir, we are assured, had ever been seen before; the fittings were of green and gold, and the chimney-piece of blue marble.

After the establishment of the Empire, Napoleon, who was a great admirer of Mlle. Raucourt’s acting, accorded her a handsome pension and engaged her to organise a troupe of French players, to travel through Italy and give performances in the principal towns, with the idea of extending French influence in that country. In Italy, Mlle. Raucourt remained several years, paying, however, occasional visits to Paris, when she appeared at the Comédie-Française, generally in the parts of mothers or queens, and always with great success. Madame Vigée Lebrun tells us that she remained to the last a great _tragédienne_, but that, with advancing years, her voice became so harsh that, when not looking at her, people might have imagined themselves listening to a man.[125]

Mlle. Raucourt retired from the stage in 1814, her farewell appearance at the Comédie-Française being as Catherine de Medicis, in the _États de Blois_ of Raynouard. On January 15 of the following year, she died, after a short illness, “thanking God that she had been permitted to salute the return of her legitimate King.”

The funeral, which took place two days later, was the occasion of a painful scandal. From the earliest days of the Restoration, the clergy, relying on the support of the new Government, had shown themselves as intolerant towards the actor as had those of the old régime. Mlle. Raucourt’s house was in the Rue du Helder, that is to say, in the parish of Saint-Roch, and it was in that church that the service should have been held. The curé, however, flatly refused to celebrate it. “Actors,” said he, “are excommunicated, and the time has come to revert to the rigorous execution of the canons of the Church.” It was in vain that he was reminded of the never-failing charity of the deceased woman towards the poor of his parish, and the generous gift which he himself had received each year for the needs of his church. He remained deaf to all representations and entrenched himself behind the orders of the Archbishop of Paris.

To obtain justice, the members of the Comédie-Française addressed a petition to the King, but the morning of the interment came without bringing an answer from his Majesty. In the meanwhile, the news of the refusal of the curé of Saint-Roch to accord ecclesiastical burial to the remains of the great actress had become common knowledge and had aroused widespread indignation. An enormous crowd, numbering fully 15,000 persons, assembled in the Rue du Helder and the adjoining streets, among which might be observed several actors of the Comédie in the uniform of the National Guards. At the moment when the cortège left the house, the police gave the order to proceed directly to the cemetery; but the crowd interfered and compelled the hearse to drive towards Saint-Roch. On entering the Rue de la Michodière, a police-officer rushed to the horses’ heads, to turn them in the direction of the boulevard, but was roughly pushed aside; and the procession, growing in size every moment, pursued its way towards Saint-Roch.

When the church was reached, the principal door was found closed, a circumstance which threw the mob into a frenzy of anger. Some proposed to break down the door, others to carry the corpse to the Tuileries or the archbishop’s palace; while cries of “_Le curé à la lanterne!_” were raised, and if that intolerant ecclesiastic had had the temerity to show himself, it is to be feared that he would have been very roughly handled.

The actors in the procession, alarmed at all this uproar, the blame for which, they feared, would be laid upon them, took advantage of a moment when the more violent section of the crowd was occupied in endeavouring to force the great door of the church, to make the cortège resume its progress towards Père-Lachaise. The mob, however, gave chase, overtook the hearse at the top of the Rue Traversière, and brought it back in triumph to Saint-Roch.

In the meanwhile, a deputation had started for the Tuileries; Louis XVIII. consented to admit it to his presence, and Huet, an actor of the Opéra-Comique, harangued the monarch with so much eloquence, that, some days later, he received an intimation that a course of foreign travel might not be without benefit to his health. However, his representations had the desired effect; for the King promised to interfere without delay, sent orders to the curé to receive the body, and, for greater security, despatched his own almoner to read the service.

The orders of the King arrived only just in time to prevent a serious affray between the infuriated mob and the troops who had been summoned to quell the disturbance. The great door was then opened, and the coffin, borne on the shoulders of the crowd, was carried to the foot of the altar, where the people themselves lighted the candles. The almoner of the Court arrived, accompanied by two choristers, and performed the service, at the conclusion of which an immense concourse of people followed the cortège as far as Père-Lachaise.[126]

IV

MADAME DUGAZON

When, at the close of the year 1774, Justine Favart retired from the stage of the Comédie-Italienne, to die alas! a few months later, she left behind her, in the person of a young girl of nineteen, a worthy successor, whose budding talents she had been one of the first to recognise and encourage.

Louise Rosalie Lefèvre, known to fame as Madame Dugazon, was born, at Berlin, on June 18, 1755, of French parents. Her father, François Joseph Lefèvre, was a dancing-master, formerly of the Comédie-Italienne, and when, in 1767, the little Louise, who had been from a very early age destined for the stage, made her first appearance on the boards of that theatre, it was as a _danseuse_ in a _pas de deux_ introduced into the _Nouvelle École des femmes_, a comedy in three acts and in prose, by Moissy.

It was not, however, as a _danseuse_ that Louise Lefèvre was to attain her immense reputation. Ere long her grace, refinement, and command of facial expression attracted the attention of the composer Grétry, who after some conversation with her, promised her a part in his next opera. He was as good as his word, and when, in 1769, he produced his _Lucile_, it was for the little Lefèvre that he composed the pretty air:

“On dit qu’à quinze ans.”

The grace, charm, and _naïveté_ with which she rendered it decided her future. Pleased at finding his previsions confirmed, the composer advised her to devote herself seriously to the study of music, promising that he would bear her in mind; and from that day the girl “divided her time between dancing, which was her duty, and the study of music, which was her passion.”[127]

She was fortunate in her teachers, particularly in Madame Favart, who, with a magnanimity far from common on the stage, did all in her power to aid and encourage the young aspirant. The lessons were not thrown away, nor was the pupil wanting in gratitude; for even in her old age, when she had retired from the theatre, Madame Dugazon could not mention the name of Justine Favart without tears in her eyes.

At length, on June 19, 1774, Mlle. Lefèvre was promoted to a definite part, that of Pauline, in _Sylvain_, words by Marmontel, music by Grétry. Her success was instantaneous, unprecedented. At a single bound, she attained the highest rank, an elevation from which she never afterwards descended. Never in the history of the Comédie-Italienne had such talent been exhibited by so young an actress, and never had talent been so keenly appreciated by its patrons. It sufficed for her to undertake the principal part in any new work to ensure for it a favourable, if not a triumphant, reception. _Les Événements imprévus_, _l’Amant jaloux_, _Les Amours d’été_, and many other pieces owed the vogue which they enjoyed entirely to her masterly impersonations.

Four days after her appearance in _Sylvain_, Mlle. Lefèvre was received _à l’essai_, with a salary of 1800 livres, which, in the following April, was increased to 2400 livres. But promotion was slow in those days, even for the most brilliant talents, and it was not until April 7, 1776, that she became a _sociétaire_.[128]

But long before this--almost, indeed, from the evening on which she had first played Pauline--the public had taken her to its heart. People seemed never tired of lauding “her sympathetic voice, her exquisite sensibility, her gaiety, which was so contagious, her acting, which was so tender and impassioned.” Some enthusiasts even went so far as to declare that such remarkable talent must be the product of some divine inspiration.

Mlle. Lefèvre was not strictly beautiful, but “adorably pretty,” dainty, and refined. She had delicate features, a mobile face, “and an expressive mouth, sometimes mocking, sometimes pouting.” But her greatest charm seems to have been her splendid eyes, fringed with long lashes, which, in turn, “shone with mischief and gaiety, or closed in order to allow the soft tears to flow.” Her figure, we are told, “without being tall, was well-proportioned, and all her movements were characterised by a peculiar charm.”

Naturally, she was speedily surrounded by a throng of adorers. No actress of the time was so sought after, courted, adulated. “Jupiters of all conditions solicited the honour of descending at her feet in a shower of gold.” The most brilliant propositions were made to her: furnished hôtels, gorgeous equipages, ravishing toilettes, parures of diamonds, together with the hearts, if not the hands, of the noblest in the land, were at her disposal. She repulsed them all; she had decided to marry--to marry in her own profession. And her choice fell upon Dugazon, of the Comédie-Française.

A singular character was this Dugazon. Born at Marseilles, in 1749, he made his first appearance on the Paris stage in 1771, and at once succeeded in ingratiating himself with his audience. Handsome and well made, he united to a profound knowledge of his art and a wealth of humour, a physiognomy of extraordinary flexibility, which he could so change at any moment that it seemed as if he had put on a mask. “By the play or the contraction of certain muscles of his face, he possessed the faculty of disfiguring himself instantly and so completely as to become unrecognisable.” There can be no question that he was a great comedian, though his style was in the spirit of farce rather than of comedy, and by the side of Préville, who, with all his vivacity, never condescended to what was low or trivial, he must have appeared a mere caricaturist. But in broad comedy he was unsurpassed, and in the farces of Scarron and Le Grand, as Scapin in the _Fourberies_, Monsieur Jourdain in the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, Mascarille in _l’Étourdi_, and Sganerelle in _Don Juan_, no actor of the time could even approach him.

But if the actor was excellent, the man was altogether insupportable. In the café or the tavern, a quarrelsome braggart, as ready with his sword as with his tongue. In the salon--for, in his character of privileged buffoon, he was admitted into the highest circles--a rude jester, who respected neither age nor sex, and who took the most outrageous liberties with every one who did not make him keep his distance. Many are the stories told of his eccentricities, one at least of which will bear repetition here.

One day the actor received a summons to Versailles, from Louis XVI. himself. Wondering much what his sovereign could require of him, he repaired thither, and, on his arrival, was ushered into the King’s cabinet, where he found his Majesty alone. The King bade him be seated, and then informed him that he required his assistance in a matter closely concerning the dignity of the Royal Family. He was, said he, extremely displeased at her Majesty continuing to attend the balls at the Opera, in the face of his oft-expressed disapproval of these gatherings. He had therefore bethought him of a means of curing her of this deplorable weakness for mixed society. Dugazon must attend the next ball, in disguise, treat the august lady as if she were nothing but a common _bourgeoise_, and so shock and disgust her that she would never care to attend another.

Dugazon obeyed with alacrity; the commission entrusted to him was one after his own heart. At the next ball he appeared disguised as a fishwife, a veritable virago of the Halles, foul of tongue, unkempt and dirty, and, taking the Queen aside, behaved to her--it was the King’s express command, be it remembered--with such outrageous coarseness and familiarity that the spectators were absolutely horrified.

Next morning, the King slyly inquired how her Majesty had enjoyed herself the previous evening.

“Never,” answered Marie Antoinette, laughing heartily, “never was I so much diverted as yesterday!”

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