Part 18
A few days after the first of these letters was written, Justine received a letter from the Marshal, in answer to one which she had sent him from Commercy, on her way to Lunéville. In this he attributed her misfortunes to the action of the leaders of the _dévots_, or devout party, at the Court, who were always eager to punish persons who contravened the marriage laws, and "did not easily let go their prey." "Favart," he adds, "ought to feel highly flattered that you should sacrifice for him fortune, pleasure, glory, everything, in short, that might have made the happiness of your life. I hope that he will be able to compensate you for it, and that you will never feel the sacrifice which you are making.... You would not make my happiness and your own. Perhaps you will make your own unhappiness and that of Favart. I do not wish it, but I fear it.--Farewell."
At the same time, the hypocritical Marshal wrote to the actress Mlle. Fleury, who had exchanged the rôle of mistress for that of confidante, expressing the grief he felt on hearing of the arrest of the "little fairy," whom he had "imagined out of danger." "How I pity that poor mother [Madame Favart], who is a courageous and sensible woman! I have been her friend since the first time I spoke to her. Tell her that I will do my best, and as she and Favart have not a sou, beg her to accept fifty louis, for which you will find an order enclosed. That will help them for the present, and I promise them assistance in every way for the future." He then declares his opinion that the person responsible for the trouble is the priest who had accompanied Justine's father on his visits to the leading members of the Comédie-Italienne, and that every effort should be made to discover him, if necessary, by bribing Meusnier to reveal his whereabouts.
The money offered by the Marshal was refused by Favart, nor could the old lady and her daughter be prevailed upon to accept it.
Early in November, Justine was removed from Les Grands-Andelys to a convent at Angers. Her new residence was one of the regular _couvents de force_, or houses of detention, where the most rigorous discipline prevailed, and she was treated "like a State criminal." This, as the worthy Marshal had of course foreseen, rendered her supremely miserable, and all the more eager to recover her liberty. To do her justice, however, she would appear to have been far more exercised over the fate of her husband and his mother and sister, left, through his misfortune, almost entirely without resources, than over her own troubles; for, on November 6, we find Maurice writing from Chambord:--
* * * * *
"The great attachment that you entertain for Favart and his relatives is very praiseworthy; but I doubt whether it is advisable to manifest it so clearly, since it is certain that it is this same great attachment which has placed you in the vexatious position in which you now find yourself. I leave to your good sense to judge of the value of what I take the liberty of observing in regard to this matter.... What is certain, is that he has not been arrested, and that he is well, and that none of his relatives are in danger of dying, as you appear to fear. They are all very tranquil, and have not taken any steps to secure your liberation. I do not comprehend their reasons."
* * * * *
As time went on, the captive became a prey to the deepest despair. "Life is a burden to me; I loathe it," she writes to Maurice, dating her letter "December 40th," doubtless to express more forcibly the length and dreariness of her days. "I desire to die, in order that every one may be satisfied; I am living in a state of despair. Never can I recover from the blow that has brought all this upon me."
On his side, the Marshal advised patience, assuring her that he was doing everything in his power to procure her release, but that the difficulties with which he had to contend were very great, inasmuch as it appeared that her father had acted at the instigation of a band of religious fanatics, whose names he had not yet been able to ascertain. If he could find M. Duronceray, he might wring the truth from him, but, unfortunately, up to the present, all attempts to discover his whereabouts had proved fruitless. M. Duronceray, it may be mentioned, was at this time at Ormeaux, near Vincennes, in charge of one of Maurice's agents!
In the same letter, he tells her that Favart--the poor man was then hiding in a cellar in the house of a village priest in Lorraine--had paid a visit to Paris, and been seen by several persons; that he was informed that no steps would be taken against him by the police, so long as he remained quiet, and that he had appeared very far from inconsolable at his wife's captivity: "The race of poets does not take things so much to heart. Voltaire has produced two tragedies since the death of Madame du Châtelet, though it was said that he was dead also, because he was believed to be much attached to that lady. But to die, _malpeste_! an author's feelings do not carry him as far as that: they are too familiar with fiction to love reality up to that point."[142]
At length, about the middle of December, when the Marshal considered that his victim had had enough of conventual life to induce her to become amenable to reason, he informed her that, thanks to his untiring efforts on her behalf, she would, in all probability, be shortly released and exiled a certain distance from Paris. He was as yet, he said, in ignorance of the place to which she was to be sent, but was hopeful that it would be within easy distance of the capital, so that he might be able to assist her "_de toutes les choses agréables et utiles_." Justine, overjoyed at the prospect of a speedy end to her captivity, replied, begging him "in God's name not to deceive her," and declaring that she was suffering torments from uncertainty. "I await news from day to day with the utmost impatience since you have given me hope of being able to leave this villainous house. Every time that the bell rings, I have terrible palpitation of the heart. I believe that it is some one come to fetch me. I bound to the door, and, when I find that it is not I whom they seek, I return, covered with confusion, to shut myself up in my little cell and weep, like a little child who has been beaten for ten or twelve days. That is the life I am leading. When I leave here, I shall imagine that I am seeing daylight for the first time. I do not thank you for all your kindness, nor for all the obligations under which you have placed me; they are numberless, and I should never make an end. I know that you do not care for compliments, and I will therefore merely tell you that, so long as I live, I shall use every endeavour to prove to you my gratitude and appreciation of all that you are doing for us. Monseigneur, I implore you in mercy to take me from this place; you will be performing a work of mercy in releasing a poor little prisoner who has never deserved to be one. I eagerly await this good news from you."
In the closing days of the year, Justine received another letter from the Marshal, written from his château at Piples, near Boissy-Saint-Léger, in which he informed her that orders had been given for her release, and only awaited the signature of the Comte d'Argenson, the Minister for Paris, who was, at that moment, too ill to attend to any matters not of the first importance. The letter concluded with the following very significant words, in a woman's handwriting, probably that of the Marshal's ex-mistress and confidante, Mlle. Fleury: "Your friends do not forget you, my dear Jantillesse,[143] and love you always; but, in God's name, become reasonable; think of your own happiness and that of those dear to you."
On the other hand, Justine's sister-in-law, Marguerite Favart, who had evidently discovered the secret of the persecution which the luckless couple were undergoing, wrote to the captive, apparently in answer to a letter from Angers, entreating her to be firm, and to refuse to purchase liberty at the price which would no doubt be set upon it:--
* * * * *
"If you think, as you show you do, my dear sister-in-law, I do not see how you can hesitate as to the course you ought to take, since you are in a position to do as you please. It was not necessary to ask the advice of my brother. You ought to know him well enough to be sure that he would not give you any counsel different from that which he has always given. He knows of no arrangement that can be made with infamy; the most cruel punishments would not terrify him, nor could he be seduced by the most brilliant advantages. He escaped, for a time, from the rest of the evils prepared for him, and did not do so for his own sake. The loss of you had rendered his life odious to him; but he yielded to our alarms; he feared the despair of a mother and a sister already afflicted by the misfortunes which had overtaken him. His son, ourselves, and yourself are the only objects of his hopes and fears. That is all that can interest him now. He has lost, through these continual persecutions, his friends, his protectors, his property, his talents, his health, and all his resources. Nevertheless, he will consider all atoned for when he finds in you sentiments worthy of him. He does not ask to be their object: honour alone must determine you. Content with loving you, he demands nothing in return; knowing, by sad experience, that the heart is not to be commanded. If it be true that you have been detained by force, now that you are free, you will find with us a poor but honourable asylum. Although everything has been done to cast upon my brother and upon us part of the disgrace in which you have been immersed, no one has been deceived, save ill-informed or ignorant persons. Our poverty, our sufferings, justify us in the eyes of sensible people; for which reason our condition has become dear to us: by contenting yourself with it, you can justify yourself also. Such are the sentiments of my brother and ourselves. I inform you of them by my mother's orders. Adieu, my good friend; your affectionate sister embraces and awaits you. Adieu."[144]
* * * * *
Several historians are of opinion that Justine followed her sister-in-law's advice, and that Maurice, in despair of bending her to his will, placed no further obstacles in the way of her release. Such, unfortunately, was not the case. Early in January 1750, the actress was released from the convent at Angers, and exiled to Issoudun, in Berri. On February 10, she obtained permission from Berryer, the Lieutenant of Police, to absent herself for a month from her place of exile, a permission which was renewed at the expiration of that period. Where did she spend the time? The answer is to be found in the report of Meusnier:--
"But as M. de Loewdahl [Marshal Löwendal, the lieutenant and friend of Maurice] is visiting the Marquis de Castelnau in the vicinity of Issoudun, the Marshal has caused the Chantilly to be sent to Chambord, and thence to Piples, where she has been about six weeks, under the charge of Mouret, wife of the concierge of Chambord."[145]
The evidence of Meusnier is confirmed by the Abbé de Voisenon, than whom no one was better acquainted with the private affairs of the Favarts:--
"The Marshal, angered by her resistance, caused her to be carried off, and threatened to have Favart killed, if she refused to surrender herself to him. She was terrified, and, through love for her husband, was unfaithful to him.... The Marshal died; and, as the Chantilly mingled with the favours that were snatched from her the most cruel reproaches, she scarcely obtained any advantage besides her freedom."[146]
Towards the end of the following June, the _lettres de cachet_ against Justine and her husband were revoked, and they were permitted to return to Paris. Poor Favart had been reduced to terrible straits. Almost penniless and firmly convinced that all the police in the realm were at his heels, he had for some months past, as we have mentioned, been hiding in a cellar in the house of a compassionate village priest in Lorraine, earning a precarious livelihood by painting fans by the light of a lamp. The cruel treatment he had received had impaired his health and broken his spirit, and he received the news that his trials were at an end with feelings of positive indifference. "It seems," wrote he to a friend who had sheltered him at Strasburg, "that they are tired of persecuting me; my exile is over, but I am none the happier for that; my sorrows are of a kind that can end only with my life."
Three months after this letter was written (November 30, 1750), Maurice de Saxe died at Chambord,[147] and poor Favart could breathe freely once more. The poet might have been pardoned had he sought consolation for his sufferings in some biting epigram at the expense of the man who had wronged him so cruelly. But his kindly and inoffensive nature was incapable of malice, and he behaved with a moderation almost amounting to magnanimity. "I think," he wrote to one of his friends, "that I may be allowed to say on the death of this illustrious man of war, what the father of our theatre said of Cardinal de Richelieu:--
"Qu'on parle bien ou mal du fameux maréchal, Ma prose ni mes vers n'en diront jamais rien: Il m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal; Il m'a fait de mal pour en dire du bien."
The Marshal was dead, but his death could not undo the evil he had done. Favart, who had loved his wife with all the strength of his nature, was generous enough to pardon a past in which circumstances had been so terribly against her. Instead of reproaching her, he preferred to forget, and in so doing acted wisely; for in Justine, as long as she lived, he found a devoted friend and a sure counsellor, on whose sympathy and advice he was always able to rely, and a companion whose irrepressible gaiety was proof against all the troubles and anxieties of both family and professional life. But his generosity went no further. If friendship had survived Justine's last infidelity, love had not. "Fly from love as from the greatest of all evils," he wrote to his friend at Strasburg; and, incredible as it may appear, when, not long afterwards, Justine, piqued, we may presume, by her husband's indifference, formed a _liaison_ with the eccentric little Abbé de Voisenon, Favart's friend and reputed collaborator, the poet--this man whom we have seen prefer persecution, exile, and misery to dishonour--so far from endeavouring to put a stop to an affair which amounted to a serious scandal, appears to have regarded it with the utmost complacency.
* * * * *
The removal of their persecutor left the Favarts free to resume their respective professions, and, on May 3, 1751, Justine reappeared on the stage of the Comédie-Italienne, in a piece entitled _Les Amants inquiets_, of which her husband was the author. At the beginning of the following year, on the death of Riccoboni's wife, she was allotted a full part in the company, to which she remained a tower of strength for nearly twenty years; her talents as an actress and a singer being rivalled by those which she displayed as a dancer, "turning the heads of the public and securing even the support of the women." Her versatility seems to have been truly amazing. "_Soubrettes_, heroines, country girls, simple parts, character parts, all became her," says Favart in his _Mémoires_; "in a word, she multiplied herself indefinitely, and one was astonished to see her play the same day, in four different pieces, parts of the most opposite character." Her powers of mimicry, too, particularly of the different dialects of France, have seldom been surpassed. Provincials whose accents she had borrowed could with difficulty be persuaded that she did not come from the same part of the country as themselves.
Possessed of exquisite taste in theatrical matters, Justine laboured strenuously for a reform in stage costume, and was "not afraid to sacrifice the charms of her countenance to truthfulness of representation." Before her time, actresses who played the parts of _soubrettes_ and peasant-girls wore immense _paniers_, with diamonds in their hair and long gloves reaching to the elbow. But when, in August 1753, she created the rôle of Bastienne in _Les Amours de Bastien et Bastienne_, a parody of Jean Jacques Rousseau's _Devin du village_, which she had composed herself in collaboration with Harny, she appeared on the stage wearing a simple woollen gown, with her hair flat on her head, a cross of gold on her neck, bare arms, and wooden shoes. The _sabots_ offended some critics in the pit, and murmurs of disapprobation were heard. The Abbé de Voisenon, however, saved the situation by a happy _mot_. "_Messieurs_," he cried, "_ces sabots-là donneront des souliers aux comédiens_." The pit, appreciating the abbé's wit, broke into laughter and applause; the malcontents were silenced, and the piece had so great a vogue that the players grew tired of acting it long before the attendances showed any signs of diminishing.[148]
Justine, indeed, neglected nothing to arrive at theatrical truth. In _Les Trois Sultanes_, the plot of which was derived, like several other of Favart's vaudevilles, from the _Contes moraux_ of Marmontel, she played the part of Roxelane in a dress "made at Constantinople with the materials of the country." This was the first occasion on which the costume of Turkish ladies had been seen upon the French stage, and though Favart himself declares that it was "at once decent and voluptuous," it was objected to; and when soon afterwards another play in which the action passed in the Orient was represented before the Court, Justine's reforming zeal received an abrupt check by an order from the Gentlemen of the Chamber to confine herself to the ridiculous and fantastic costume established by custom.
_Les Trois Sultanes_, it may be mentioned, in spite of the unfavourable comments passed upon Roxelane's attire, was extraordinarily successful; and the audience, we are assured, were transported with enthusiasm. A peasant in the pit, "_rendu fou d'admiration_," demanded of his neighbour the name of the author, and on being told that it was Favart, exclaimed: "_Morbleu_! I would that I had that man here; I would embrace him until I had kissed the skin off his cheeks!"
Justine's passion for local colour was again in evidence when the interlude called _Les Chinois_ was represented. "She appeared, as did also the other actors, dressed exactly in the Chinese fashion. The dresses which she had procured had been made in China, while the designs for the scenery and properties had in like manner been made on the spot."
Among other pieces in which Justine appeared with success may be mentioned _La Servante Maîtresse_, _Ninette à la Cour_, _Annette et Lubin_, of which she herself was part author, _Les Moissonneurs_, and _La Fée Urgèle_, "in which," says Voisenon, "she played the part of the old woman in a manner impossible to imitate." According to the same authority, Favart was largely indebted for the success of more than one of his productions to suggestions made by his wife, notably in _Ninette à la Cour_, in which, too, she was responsible for many of the airs.
It would perhaps have been better for Justine's professional reputation had circumstances compelled her to retire from the stage some time earlier than was the case. During her later years, the critics declared that her voice had become thin and disagreeable, and that her acting had lost the _naïveté_ which had been its principal charm. She had become, too, extremely stout, and Madame Necker, then Mlle. Churchod, writing, in 1764, to Madame de Brenles, mentions that she had seen her playing Annette, "with a figure twelve feet broad and two high."[149] The public were more indulgent than the critics; but on December 14, 1769, when she appeared in a vaudeville by her husband called _La Rosière de Salency_, she was very coldly received. The poor actress, believing herself abandoned by the public whose idol she had so long been, and suffering already from the disease of which she eventually died, played from that time less frequently, and, at the end of the year 1771, ceased to appear altogether. On Twelfth-day she was compelled to take to her bed, and sent for the notaries to make her will. She lingered for four months, enduring terrible sufferings, during which she continued to occupy herself with the management of her household, while her gaiety and insouciance never failed her for a single moment. "One day," says Grimm, "on recovering from a long swoon, she perceived, among those whom her danger had hurriedly assembled around her, one of her neighbours rather grotesquely attired, whereupon she began to smile and remarked that she believed she saw 'the clown of Death'; a characteristic _mot_ in the mouth of a dying girl of the theatre."
Almost to the last Justine seems to have cherished a vague hope that she would ultimately recover, and, for a long time, refused to pronounce the renunciation of her profession which the curé of her parish demanded, according to custom, before administering the last Sacraments. Nor was it until, through the influence of Voisenon, she had obtained a promise from the Gentlemen of the Chamber that her salary should be preserved to her, under the form of a pension, in case of retirement, that she yielded, and exclaimed, smiling: "Oh! for the moment, I renounce it." She then received the Sacraments and, profiting by a short respite from pain, composed her own epitaph, which she set to music. She died on April 21, 1772, at four o'clock in the morning, in her forty-sixth year, and was buried the same day in the church of Saint-Eustache.
Favart survived his talented wife just twenty years, and died in May 1792. Towards the end of his life, he became almost blind, notwithstanding which he continued to work for the theatre, besides keeping up an active correspondence with the Italian dramatist Goldoni, who came to Paris to visit him in 1791. The most successful of his later pieces was _La Belle Arsène_, music by Monsigny, produced in 1775.
Of his children by Justine, the only one to call for notice here is his second son, Charles Nicolas Joseph Favart. Born in 1749, at the age of twenty-one he was admitted a _sociétaire_ of the Comédie-Française, where he remained for fifteen years. Though but a moderate actor, he was a successful dramatist; his best works were _Le Diable boiteux, ou la Chose impossible_ (1782); _Les Trois Folies_ (1786); _Le Mariage singulier_ (1787); and _La Vieillesse d'Annette et Lubin_ (1791), the last in collaboration with his father. His son, Antoine Pierre Charles Favart (1780-1867), entered the Diplomatic Service, where he gained some little distinction. He assisted Dumolard in editing the _Mémoires_ of his grandfather, collaborated in a couple of plays, and was an amateur painter of some talent.
VI
MADEMOISELLE CLAIRON
For more than seven years after the death of Adrienne Lecouvreur, her place as a tragic actress remained unfilled. During these years, several capable _tragédiennes_ appeared, notably Jeanne Gaussin, a beautiful brunette with a rich and sympathetic voice, who created the part of Zaïre in Voltaire's tragedy of that name (August 13, 1732), and moved the delighted poet to address her in the following verses:--
"Jeanne Gaussin, reçois mon tendre hommage; Reçois mes vers au théâtre applaudis; Protège-les: _Zaïre_ est ton ouvrage; Il est à toi, puisque tu l'embellis. Ce sont tes yeux, ces yeux, si pleins de charmes, Qui du critique ont fait tomber les armes."[150]