Part 19
But beautiful as Mlle. Gaussin undoubtedly was, and excellent as was her acting in Zaïre and other pathetic parts, she fell very far short of the standard to which her gifted predecessor had attained; nor was it until August 1737 that an actress worthy to assume the mantle of Adrienne arose.
This was Marie Françoise Dumesnil, who, like Adrienne, had begun her career at theatres in the East of France, and, like her, singularly enough, had received her invitation to Paris while playing at Strasburg. Her style, which was marked by a high degree of truth to Nature, refinement, and technical skill, combined with a real enthusiasm for her art, excited general admiration, and her _début_ was brilliantly successful. In the classic répertoire her most celebrated rôles were Cléopâtre, Clytemnestre, and Phèdre; while her most successful creation was Mérope (February 20, 1743), when, according to Voltaire, she kept the audience in tears for three successive acts.[151]
After this triumph--the greatest of her career--it may well have been supposed that Mlle. Dumesnil was destined to maintain her supremacy for many years to come. Nevertheless, ere six months had passed, she found her proud position challenged by a most formidable rival.
Claire Joseph Lerys--for that was the name of this rival, and of the greatest, or, at least, the most celebrated tragic actress of the eighteenth century, though she styled herself Claire _Josèphe Hippolyte_ Lerys _de Latude-Clairon_, and is known to fame under the last of these names--was born at Condé, a little town of Hainaut, on January 25, 1723. Her father was one François Joseph Desiré Lerys, a sergeant in the Régiment de Mailly; her mother, a working-woman, Marie Claire Scanapiecq by name; and she was a natural child, a fact which she omits to mention in the French edition of her _Mémoires_, though she is more candid in the German edition.[152]
The circumstances attending her birth, which she has herself recounted, were, it must be admitted, highly significant of her future career:--
"It was the custom of the little town in which I was born for all persons to assemble during the carnival time at the houses of the wealthiest citizens, in order to pass the entire day in dancing and other amusements. Far from disapproving of these recreations, the curé partook of them and travestied himself with the rest. During one of the fête days, my mother, who was but seven months advanced in pregnancy, suddenly brought me into the world, between two and three o'clock in the afternoon. I was so feeble that every one imagined a few moments would terminate my career. My grandmother, a woman of eminent piety, was anxious that I should be carried out at once to the church, in order that I might there receive the rite of baptism. Not a living soul was to be discovered either at the church or at the curé's house. A neighbour having informed the party that all the town was at a carnival entertainment at the house of a certain wealthy citizen, thither was I carried with all expedition. Monsieur le Curé, attired as Arlequin, and his vicar, disguised as Gille, imagining, from my appearance, that there was not a moment to be lost, hurriedly arranged upon a sideboard everything necessary for the ceremony, stopped the fiddle for a moment, muttered over me the consecrated words, and sent me back to my mother a Christian--at least in name."[153]
When the little girl was twelve years old, she and her mother left Condé, and, after a short stay at Valenciennes, settled in Paris, where the latter found employment as a sempstress. The future queen of tragedy was at this time, according to her own account, a delicate, sensitive child, with a confirmed dislike to needlework, in consequence of which she spent the greater part of her days "trembling beneath the blows and threats of her mother," whom she describes, rather undutifully, as "a violent, ignorant, and superstitious woman."
However, at length Fate took pity on her. Her mother, yielding to the remonstrances of the neighbours, who had been "affected by the appearance of languor to which her misfortunes had reduced her, and her beauty, voice, intelligence, and the sweetness of her temper when she was not forced to work at the needle," ceased to belabour her, and, by way of punishment, took to shutting her up in a room overlooking the street. Now, it happened that the house immediately opposite the Scanapiecqs was occupied by the mother of Mlle. Dangeville, the famous _soubrette_ of the Comédie-Française, and, one day, little Claire, having mounted a chair to survey the neighbourhood, beheld the idol of the pit taking a dancing-lesson in the midst of an admiring circle of relatives and friends. "She was distinguished," she tells us, "for every charm which Nature and youth could unite in the same person. My very being came into my eyes; not one of her movements escaped me. She was surrounded by her family, and when the lesson was over, every one applauded her, while her mother embraced her. The difference between her condition and my own penetrated me with the deepest grief; my tears would not permit me to see anything more. I descended from my chair, and, when the throbbing of my heart had subsided sufficiently for me to remount it, all had disappeared."[154]
From that day, little Claire had only one desire: to be placed _en pénitence_ at the hour at which Mlle. Dangeville was in the habit of taking her lesson; and, the moment she was alone, she would climb to her perch and remain there, a motionless and silent, but enthusiastic spectator of the movements of her fair neighbour. Soon, at first almost unconsciously, the girl began to imitate what she had seen, and with such success that those who came to her mother's house thought that she had been provided with masters. "My manner of entering a room," she says, "of saluting the company, of seating myself, was no longer the same; and the improvement I had acquired, added to the graces of my deportment, obtained for me even the favour of my mother."
At length, unable any longer to keep her secret to herself, and seized with an intense curiosity to ascertain who this wonderful Mlle. Dangeville might be, she decided to take into her confidence one of her mother's friends, who had always treated her a little less as a child than the majority of visitors to the house. This proved a fortunate step, for the person in question, pleased with the little girl's intelligence, not only gave her a good deal of information about Mlle. Dangeville and the profession which she adorned, but obtained from her mother--not without considerable difficulty, for the sempstress "saw in theatrical performances only the road to eternal damnation"--permission to take her to the Comédie-Française to witness a representation of the _Comte d'Essex_ and _Les Folies amoureuses_.
Mlle. Clairon, in her _Mémoires_, confesses her inability to give any account of that never-to-be-forgotten evening. She only recollects that, during the whole of the performance, her absorption was such as to prevent her uttering a single word, and that, on returning home, she neither saw nor heard any one. Angrily dismissed to her room by her mother, instead of going to sleep, she spent the whole night in recalling and repeating everything that had been said by the performers at the theatre, and every one was astonished the next day to hear her repeat, with scarcely a mistake, a hundred verses of the tragedy and two-thirds of the after-piece. But this feat of memory was less surprising than the extraordinary way in which the little girl had contrived to assimilate the peculiarities of every actor whom she had seen. She lisped like Grandval, she stammered like Poisson, she mimicked to a nicety the coquettish airs of Mlle. Dangeville, and the cold and dignified manner of Mlle. Balicourt;[155] in short, she tells us, she was looked upon as a prodigy by every one, save her mother, who, frowning angrily, declared that she would rather see her make a gown or a petticoat than waste her time over such unprofitable nonsense. Claire, however, fortified by the praises which she had received, boldly declared her intention of becoming an actress, and, when the enraged sempstress threatened to starve her into submission, or "break her arms and legs," retorted, with the air of a tragedy queen: "Ah, well! you had better kill me at once, since otherwise I am determined to go upon the stage."
Marie Scanapiecq did not, it is hardly necessary to remark, attempt to put her threats into execution; nevertheless, for some two months, she subjected her unfortunate little daughter to a course of such rigorous discipline, in the hope of breaking her spirit, that Claire's health became seriously affected. Then the stern mother began to relent, and, on the advice of one of her customers, to whom she had confided her trouble, finally decided to let the girl have her way, and took her to see the lady in question, who had promised to use her influence to further her ambitions. The lady presented Claire to Desheys, a prominent actor of the Comédie-Italienne, who was so favourably impressed with the little aspirant's abilities that he presented her, in his turn, to his colleagues, and, after a course of instruction in dancing and music, she made her _début_ at the "Italians" on January 8, 1736, in a small part in Marivaux's _Isle des Esclaves_, under the name of Clairon, a variation of her Christian name of Claire.
Although not yet thirteen, she appears to have acquitted herself with credit, while the progress she made in her profession was remarkable. "My industry, my enthusiasm, my memory," says the actress, "confounded my instructors. I retained everything, I devoured everything." Nevertheless, whether on account of her youth, her diminutive stature--she was very short, even for her age--or, more probably, because her precocious talents had excited the apprehensions of the famous Arlequin, Thomassin, who had daughters of his own to bring forward, she did not remain long at the Comédie-Italienne, and, at the end of a year, found herself obliged to seek her fortune in the provinces.
It was to Rouen that she went--Rouen, the nursery of the Paris theatres--Rouen, which had witnessed the first efforts of Marie de Champmeslé, whose triumphs in tragedy this young girl was one day to eclipse. The principal theatre there was at this time under the joint-management of La Noue, author of _La Coquette corrigée_, and Mlle. Gautier, both, in after years, prominent members of the Comédie-Française; and Mlle. Clairon was engaged to dance in the ballet, sing in comic opera, and act in a few parts suited to her age, at a salary of 100 pistoles, or about 1000 livres. As some compensation for this meagre remuneration, Marie Scanapiecq, who had accompanied her daughter, and whose views with regard to the morality of dramatic performances had undergone a most surprising alteration since she had discovered that there was money to be made, was installed superintendent of the box-office.
At Rouen, little Clairon soon became a general favourite, and improved so rapidly in her acting that, by the time she was sixteen, she was pronounced to be the most charming _soubrette_ the Norman capital had ever possessed. The Rouen ladies were very far from sharing the prejudices of most provincial dames, who believed themselves degraded if they so much as spoke to an actress, and the girl was invited everywhere. A certain Madame de Bimorel, wife of a president of the Parliament of Normandy, and an old flame of the poet Fontenelle, was particularly kind, and remained her firm friend for more than forty years.
A gay town was Rouen in those days; a place where a young and pretty actress could count on receiving almost as much admiration as in the capital itself. At the theatre they still talked of the _cause célèbre_ arising out of an affray between the Marquis de Cony and the Président de Folleville, which had taken place some years before; how the marquis, encountering the president at the house of a certain _danseuse_ whose heart he had until that moment fondly imagined to be his alone, had addressed him by an opprobrious name; how the president had retorted by a blow directed at the nose of the marquis, and how the infuriated nobleman had thereupon thrown his adversary into the fireplace, with such violence as to incapacitate him from administering justice for many a long day to come. Whence arose the lawsuit in question, bringing with it much glory and fame for the damsel who had been the cause of the dispute and the profession in general.
As was only to be expected, the charming impersonator of _soubrettes_ had no lack of adorers, and she is reported to have been not altogether insensible to the devotion of a M. du Rouvray, a handsome youth of good family, whom she met at Madame de Bimorel's house, and to the more business-like attentions of a certain rich merchant, named Dubuisson. She had also a third _soupirant_, whose passion was to occasion her much tribulation.
Following the example of many actresses' mothers at this period, Marie Scanapiecq, "whose rigid morals," says her dutiful daughter, "were now discarded for gaiety and pleasure, and who spoke of her former mode of life with derision," had converted her house at Rouen into a kind of _pension_, where gambling and even more questionable practices were freely permitted, if not actually encouraged. Among those who frequented the establishment was an actor named Gaillard de la Bataille, "a poor, rather amusing devil," who possessed that almost indispensable qualification for a _vainqueur de dames_ in the eighteenth century, the art of celebrating their charms in verse. To Mlle. Clairon he consecrated his muse, and every day chanted her praises in couplet or in quatrain, wherein he vowed that Venus and Vesta were unworthy to be compared with this adorable, this divine young actress. But alas! he was not content with this innocent homage; he dared to love her, "and all the while that he extolled her charms and her virtue, plotted to possess himself of the first and to destroy the other."
One summer morning, when her mother happened to be away from home, Mlle. Clairon was studying her part in bed, all unconscious of evil. Suddenly the door flew open, and her lovelorn poet, who had bribed one of the servants of the house to admit him, appeared upon the threshold, and, casting himself on his knees before her, besought her, in impassioned accents, to reciprocate the flame which was devouring him. His divinity's only response to this appeal was to call loudly for assistance; servants and lodgers, alarmed by her cries, were quickly on the scene, and "with brooms and shovels drove the wretch into the street." "When my mother returned home," continues the actress, "it was resolved that we should lodge a complaint against him; he was reprimanded by the magistrate, had ballads made about him, and was for ever banished our house. But rage succeeded to his love and his desires, and he composed that atrocious libel which has been read all over Europe."
Gaillard did indeed take a cruel revenge for the ignominious treatment he had received, for his pamphlet, which was entitled _Histoire de Mademoiselle Cronel, dite Frétillon, actrice de la Comédie de Rouen, écrite par elle-même_, aided by the subsequent celebrity of its victim, ran through several editions, and the sobriquet "Frétillon" stuck to her for life. Mlle. Clairon was at Havre when the libel appeared, and "her anguish was beyond all power of expression." She returned to Rouen in fear and trembling, "imagining that every door would be barred against her, and not daring to look any one in the face." However, the play-loving Rouennais, who were very indulgent towards the moral failings of the ladies of the theatre, appear to have been more diverted than scandalised, and she "found the same public and the same friends."
Soon, however, trouble arose in another quarter. The troupe of La Noue and Mlle. Gautier, driven from Rouen by the competition of an opera company, went to try its fortune in Flanders. Mlle. Clairon's mother accompanied her, and, while the troupe was performing at Lille, took advantage of the fact of her daughter being now separated from Madame de Bimorel and her other friends, to endeavour to coerce her into a marriage with one of her comrades, whom the girl cordially detested. In a curious passage in her _Mémoires_, Mlle. Clairon attributes to this persecution the loss of her innocence:--
"The orders of my mother, her violence, which she carried so far as to present a pistol to me, in order to obtain my consent, made me at last sensible of the necessity of having a protector, who, without appealing to the laws, might be able to restrain those about me and defend me against them. Actuated by despair alone, without any base, mercenary motive, without love, without desires, I offered and surrendered myself, on the sole condition of being protected from the marriage and death that threatened me at the same time. That moment, which, at first sight, conveys only an impression of licentiousness, is perhaps the most noble, the most interesting, the most striking of my life."
Unhappily, the sympathy which this passage might otherwise arouse in the lady's readers is somewhat discounted by the perusal of the following extract from an official report which the police-inspector, La Janière, sent to Berryer, the Lieutenant of Police, some years later, from which it appears that so violent and persistent was the persecution to which the unfortunate young actress was subjected by her mother and her unwelcome admirer, that not one, but three protectors were necessary for her safety:--
"After some years, having accepted an engagement with the director of the theatre at Lille, she (Clairon) appeared on the stage in that town, and did not remain long without making conquests. The Comte de Bergheick, colonel of the Regiment Royal-Wallon, the Chevalier de By, lieutenant-colonel of the same regiment, and M. Desplace, major of cavalry, were her three chief protectors.
"People are at first alarmed at the sight of three rival warriors contending for the heart of this girl, but let them be reassured, everything will pass off tranquilly. The Clairon was a careful girl, and, besides, adroit enough to keep in play half-a-dozen lovers. Thus everything worked smoothly, and all were satisfied."[156]
In the spring of 1742, La Noue, whose tenancy of the Rouen theatre had not been attended with the success he had anticipated, and whom the outbreak of the Austrian Succession War had compelled to relinquish a project of taking a company to Berlin, returned to Paris, to make his _début_ at the Comédie-Française. His troupe was in consequence dispersed, and Mlle. Clairon, finding herself without employment, joined a travelling company which had been engaged to perform at Ghent, then the headquarters of the English army. Here, she tells us, she was received with enthusiastic applause, and "my lord" Marlborough[157] laid his immense fortune at her feet. But Mlle. Clairon was, above all things, a patriot, and "my lord" and his immense fortune had no attractions for her. "The contempt which the English nation affected for mine," she says, "rendered every individual belonging to it insupportable to me. It was impossible for me to listen to them without expressing my dislike." So strong indeed was her aversion to the enemies of her country that it was only with the greatest difficulty that she could be prevailed upon to contribute to their entertainment. Finally, she could endure the situation no longer, and, in spite of the efforts of her comrades to detain her, procured a passport and escaped to Dunquerque.
After a short stay at Dunquerque, Mlle. Clairon proceeded to Paris. According to her own account, she had while there received an order from the Gentlemen of the Chamber directing her to make her _début_ at the Opera. From La Janière's report, however, it appears that "conscious that her talents were too sublime for the provinces, and that she was destined to shine in a greater sphere," she came on her own initiative to the capital, where she was for some months without employment. Ultimately, continues the report, she "accepted the propositions" of the wealthy farmer-general, La Popelinière, who posed as a patron of the arts, and, through his influence, mounted the stage of the Palais-Royal.
However that may be, to the Opera she was admitted, and there, in March 1743, made her _début_ in the rôle of Venus, in _Hésione_. In her _Mémoires_, she admits that though she had "a prodigious extent of voice," she was but an indifferent musician, and notwithstanding the fact that the _Mercure_ of the following May contained a poem in which the writer declared that, so long as Clairon remained on earth, he was content to renounce his hopes of Heaven, her reception by the public seems to have left a good deal to be desired. We also gather that she was dissatisfied with the treatment she received from her colleagues--a fact which can hardly occasion surprise if there be any truth in the story that, immediately upon entering the Opera, she had publicly announced her intention of soundly boxing the ears of any lady who dared to address her by the odious name of "Frétillon,"--and soon determined to seek fame and fortune on another stage. "I had," she says, "the good fortune to succeed, but I found that so little talent was required in this theatre, in order to appear possessed of the highest abilities, there seemed to me to be so little merit in merely following the modulations of the musicians, the manners of the performers were so distasteful to me, and the smallness of the salary was so absolutely degrading, that, at the end of four months, I signified my intention of resigning."
From the Opera, Mlle. Clairon passed to the Comédie-Française, but not without encountering many obstacles by the way. Virtue counted for very little at the Académie Royale de Musique, except as a marketable commodity; it counted for a very great deal among the Comédiens du Roi, or rather they chose to pretend that it did, which came to much the same thing where the admission of a damsel of questionable reputation was concerned. Led by her old employer, La Noue, and Mlle. Gaussin, several members of the troupe banded themselves together to oppose the admission of the now notorious "Frétillon" by every means in their power. The latter, on her side, did not lack for supporters, and, for some weeks, a war of pamphlets raged, in which the characters of the different combatants were torn to shreds, to the great delight of the town. Finally, the King's new mistress, Madame de Châteauroux, and her sister, Madame de Lauraguais, intervened on behalf of the young actress, who made so favourable an impression upon the old Duc de Gesvres, at an interview which, in his capacity as First Gentleman of the Chamber, he had very reluctantly accorded her, that, a few days later, she received the coveted _ordre de début_:--
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"We, Duc de Gesvres, _pair de France_, First Gentleman of the King's Chamber, direct the troupe of his Majesty's French players to cause the demoiselle Clairon to forthwith make her _début_ in order that we may be able to judge of her abilities as an actress.
"(Signed) THE DUC DE GESVRES.
"_Executed at Versailles, September 10, 1743._"[158]
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