Part 6

Whatever may have been Armande's sins or shortcomings, however, we should, in justice to her, remember that the responsibility for Molière's unhappiness did not rest entirely with her. If she was selfish, vain, and frivolous, greedy for pleasure, and impatient of contradiction, Molière possessed the nervousness and irritability so frequently associated with genius in a very marked degree, and which, in his case, were aggravated by ill-health and overwork. The servant of a public ever exacting and eager for novelties, the strain to which he was subjected, always very great, must, at times, have been well-nigh unbearable; for we must remember that he was not only a dramatist, but an actor, not only an actor, but a manager. The financial affairs of the troupe, it is true, were in the capable hands of La Grange; but Molière made himself responsible for its efficiency, and though the _Impromptu de Versailles_ no doubt conveys an exaggerated idea of his difficulties in this direction, they were probably considerable. The jealousy between the two principal actresses, Armande and Mlle. de Brie, must have been alone a fruitful source of trouble. In these circumstances, it is not difficult to understand that the little trials of domestic life, which in the majority of men arouse but a passing feeling of annoyance, should have presented themselves to him as intolerable vexations, and that the sudden gusts of passion in which, we are told, he was wont to indulge on the most trifling provocation, should have widened the breach between himself and Armande, whose narrow mind was incapable of comprehending that in such outbursts men of her husband's temperament oft-times seek relief for long weeks of mental strain and anxiety. Add to all this the fact that Molière was of an excessively jealous disposition, and it becomes obvious that the marriage was doomed to failure from the very first; in fact, the only thing to occasion surprise is that the inevitable rupture did not take place at a much earlier date, and that it was ever healed.

* * * * *

Molière, as we have seen, had been buried on February 21, and three days later the theatre of the Palais-Royal reopened with a performance of the _Misanthrope_, Armande playing Célimène. Her conduct in thus resuming her place in the company so soon after her husband's death was commented upon very unfavourably;[36] but it would appear to have been dictated by stern necessity. In the face of the formidable competition of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, the troupe of Molière, already terribly weakened by the death of its chief, could not possibly have afforded to lose its leading actress for even a brief period; and Armande, therefore, decided to sacrifice her own feelings to the interests of her colleagues.

Indeed, as matters stood, the continued existence of the "Comédiens du Roi" as a separate company was soon in imminent peril. During the Easter recess, the Hôtel de Bourgogne intrigued vigorously against them, with the result that four of the best players, with Baron at their head, resigned their places and passed over to the older theatre; while, shortly afterwards, Lulli obtained the king's permission to make the theatre of the Palais-Royal the home of French opera, and the unfortunate _Moliéristes_ found themselves without a stage to act upon. This was a crushing blow; and when, very reluctantly, the troupe had made overtures to their old rivals in the Rue Mauconseil, with a view to an amalgamation, and had been met by a curt refusal, the position seemed almost desperate.

Well indeed was it for Armande and her colleagues that they numbered among them, in the person of La Grange, one of the shrewdest and most capable men of business who ever trod the boards of a theatre. Born, about 1640, at Amiens, of respectable Picard stock, La Grange, after two or three years' experience in the provinces as a strolling player, joined his fortunes to those of Molière; and, in May 1659, on the death of Joseph Béjart, stepped into his shoes as the _jeune premier_ of the troupe. As an actor, he appears to have been altogether admirable, the type of the perfect lover, as understood in those days, and, according to the anonymous author of the _Entretiens galants_, to see him play with Armande in such a piece as the _Malade imaginaire_ was a sight not easily forgotten: "Their acting continues still, even when their part is concluded; they are never useless on the stage; they play almost as well when they listen as when they speak. Their glances are never wasted; their eyes do not wander round the boxes; they know that the theatre is full, but they speak and act as if they see only those who are concerned in their rôle and action."

But, excellent actor as was La Grange, he was even better as an "orator"[37] and manager, posts which, at the time of Molière's death, he had occupied for some six years; and there can be no doubt that much of the success which had attended the troupe was due to his skill in gauging the public taste, his untiring energy, and his personal popularity. To him, too, we owe that wonderful _Registre_, a perfect mine of accurate and detailed information about the doings of Molière's troupe, the Hôtel Guénégaud, and the early years of the Comédie-Française; while it was under his auspices that the first complete edition of his old chief's works was given to the world.

On the advice of La Grange, Armande now resolved on a bold stroke. Some years before, a play-loving nobleman, the Marquis de Sourdéac, had built a theatre in a tennis-court in the Rue Mazarine, near the Luxembourg, where opera had been performed, until, in March 1672, the intriguing Lulli had succeeded in securing for himself the exclusive right of representing musical pieces. It was a fine house, fitted up with every convenience, "with a stage," says Samuel Chappuzeau, in his work on the Paris theatres of the time, "large enough to allow the most elaborate machinery to be worked." La Grange proposed that the troupe should acquire this theatre, and himself undertook the negotiations, which resulted in the Marquis de Sourdéac and his partner, a M. de Champeron, ceding to Armande their lease of the property for the sum of 30,000 livres, of which 14,000 was to be paid in cash and the balance by fifty livres on each performance given there.

An event of great importance was the immediate outcome of the acquisition of this theatre. For some years past, the popularity of the Théâtre du Marais had been steadily declining, a circumstance which seems to have been attributable rather to the mediocrity of the plays produced there and the fact that the district in which it was situated was no longer the centre of Parisian life, as it had been during the first half of the century, than to any lack of talent on the part of the company, which, indeed, comprised several excellent performers of both sexes; and the establishment of the Opera threatened to reduce its already diminished receipts still further. Accordingly, Louis XIV. decided that it should join forces with Mlle. Molière's troupe, and, on June 23, 1673, an ordinance issued by Colbert closed the old playhouse in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple, which had survived the theatrical vicissitudes of nearly eighty years, and granted permission to the two united companies henceforth to be known as the "_Troupe du Roi_," to perform comedies and other _divertissements honnêtes_ in the Rue Mazarine.

The new theatre, which was usually called the Théâtre Guénégaud, the street of that name being close at hand, opened its doors on July 9 with a performance of _Tartuffe_. At first, it met with but indifferent success, and between that date and Easter 1674, the share of each player only amounted to 1481 livres, a striking contrast to the takings at the Palais-Royal during the last year of Molière's life; while, on one occasion, at the beginning of the second season, _l'Avare_ was played to a house of 88 livres! However, matters steadily improved; by the following Easter the success of the company was assured, and the season of 1679-1680 was worth 1100 livres more to each of the old _Moliéristes_ than the great and profitable year of _Tartuffe_ itself.

Although the perennial comedies of Molière naturally figured frequently in the bills, Armande and La Grange had a keen eye for novelties, and did not disdain to tickle the public with melodramas and spectacular plays; and it was from these indeed that the theatre derived the greater part of its revenue. Thus _Circé_, a tragedy by Thomas Corneille, with changes of scenery, and music by Charpentier, brought in 24,000 livres in nine performances; while the _Devineresse_, a comic-melodrama, by the same playwright and Donneau de Visé, on the adventures of La Voisin, the poisoner, was played for forty-seven consecutive nights, almost a record for those days. Another success was achieved when Thomas Corneille turned Molière's _Don Juan_ into verse, "eliminating the speeches which offended the scrupulous." Donneau de Visé, to whose "puffing" in the _Mercure_ the Théâtre Guénégaud was probably indebted for not a little of its popularity, declared that in the process of transition the play "had acquired new beauties without losing any of the old," and though few will be found to agree with this pronouncement, the new version proved exceedingly popular.

The first of the above-mentioned plays, in which Armande secured a great personal triumph in the part of the beautiful sorceress, was associated with a singular incident.

One evening, a well-dressed man, who occupied a seat upon the stage, approached the actress, as she was standing in the wings awaiting her turn to go on, and addressed her in the manner of an ardent and favoured lover. "Never," said he, "have I seen you look so beautiful. Were it not that I am already your slave, I should be so from this moment."

Armande, who had never seen the gentleman before, turned haughtily away, without making any reply. But when the play was over, the stranger followed her to her dressing-room, and, having reproached her with her previous coldness, inquired why she had not kept an appointment which she had given him that afternoon. The lady, in profound astonishment, disclaimed all knowledge of her visitor, and angrily ordered him to leave the room. The stranger refused, insisting that she had given him "a score of rendezvous," and demanding how she could have the audacity to treat him thus after such an intimacy as had existed between them. Armande thereupon sent her maid to summon some of her colleagues, who arrived to find their leader and the stranger almost beside themselves with passion. As well as her outraged feelings would permit, the actress explained the situation to her friends, declaring that she had never set eyes on the gentleman before her in her life; while he, on his side, asserted in the most positive manner that he knew her intimately, and that she had repeatedly met him at a house of somewhat questionable repute. "Why," cried he, "the very necklace she is now wearing is one of the presents I have made her!" and he snatched it from her. Armande immediately sent for the guards attached to the theatre, who seized the stranger and held him until the arrival of a commissary of police, when he was conducted to prison.

His statement to the authorities served but to deepen the mystery. It transpired that he was a M. Lescot, a president of the Parliament of Grenoble, who was on a visit to Paris. He had fallen in love with Armande after seeing her play at the Théâtre Guénégaud, but, lacking courage to declare his passion directly, and having failed to secure an introduction in the ordinary way, had had recourse to the good offices of a woman called Ledoux, "_dont le métier ordinaire était de faire plaisir au public_," and promised her a liberal reward, if she could arrange a rendezvous. In this she had been successful; Mlle. Molière had accepted his proposals, and they had met repeatedly at Ledoux's house. The actress had, however, strictly forbidden him, for prudential reasons, to address, or even approach, her at the theatre, which instructions he had faithfully observed until that evening, when, as she had failed to keep an appointment to meet him after dinner, he had determined to ascertain the reason, thinking that "a little display of passion" might not be altogether displeasing to her. As for the necklace, which, it should be mentioned, was one of a common pattern, he had purchased it at a jeweller's shop on the Quai des Orfévres, the lady being with him at the time. Let them question the jeweller, who would, no doubt, be prepared to corroborate his statement.

Matters now began to look very unpleasant for Armande, and when the jeweller of the Quai des Orfévres, without a moment's hesitation, identified her as the lady who had accompanied the president to his shop, and Ledoux was found to have left the city, she was in despair. However, a few days later the affair was cleared up. Hunted down by the police, Ledoux confessed that she had palmed off on the credulous Lescot a young woman called Tourelle, who bore so extraordinary a resemblance to Mlle. Molière, both in appearance and voice, that it was almost impossible for any one not personally acquainted with the latter to tell one from the other, and who had already succeeded in duping quite a number of persons. This woman was also arrested, and a decree of the Parliament of Paris, dated October 17, 1675, sentenced the two delinquents "to be flogged, naked, with rods, before the principal gate of the Châtelet and the house of Mlle. Molière," and to be afterwards banished from Paris for three years. Président Lescot was condemned to pay a fine of two hundred crowns, and to make "verbal reparation," that is to say, he had to declare in court, in the presence of Mlle. Molière and any four persons whom she might select, that he had "raised his hand against her and used the insulting language mentioned in the indictment through error and inadvertence." Which done, we may presume, he lost no time in returning to Grenoble, a sadder and a wiser man.

"One is struck," observes M. Larroumet, "by the singular resemblance that this affair presents to that of the Diamond Necklace, which, in 1785, involved the name of Marie Antoinette in so resounding a scandal. After a lapse of a hundred years, the same rôles are resumed, that of Armande by the queen, that of the _entremetteuse_ Ledoux by the Comtesse de la Motte, that of the woman Tourelle by the girl Oliva, finally, that of Président Lescot by the Cardinal de Rohan. And that nothing may be wanting to the parallel, just as the queen was bespattered by the infamous libel of Madame de la Motte, Armande had to submit to _La Fameuse Comédienne_."

Less than a year afterwards, Armande was the victim of another scandal, even more painful than the one recorded above. The scoundrelly Guichard, the attempted poisoner of Lulli, of whom we have already spoken, did not confine his attack upon the widow of Molière to repeating the hideous accusation of Montfleury: he calumniated her in the most shameful manner. "The Molière," he wrote, "is infamous both in law (_i.e._ by profession) and in deed. Previous to her marriage, she lived continually in wholesale prostitution; during her married life, continually in public adultery. In short, the Molière is the most infamous of all infamous women." The obvious extravagance of these charges, and the fact that Guichard assailed with equal violence the characters of most of the other witnesses for the prosecution, no doubt robbed them of much of their sting.[38] Nevertheless, they can hardly have failed to occasion the unfortunate woman great annoyance, and, following as they did so closely upon the _affaire_ Lescot, had probably not a little influence upon a step which she took some months later.

In May 1677, Armande exchanged the glorious name of Molière for that of Guérin d'Estriché, one of her colleagues of the Théâtre Guénégaud, and, in earlier years, a member of the now defunct Théâtre du Marais. For this second marriage she was severely blamed by her contemporaries,[39] while it is the fashion among modern writers to refer to it as if it had been a species of sacrilege. In this, we are inclined to think, an injustice had been done Armande. Molière, as one of his recent biographers reminds us, was not, during the years which followed his death, regarded as the mighty genius which he is now admitted to have been. Save to a few, like Boileau, who fully comprehended the extent of the loss which literature had sustained, he was merely an amusing actor and an excellent author, whose premature death they deplored, but whom they never dreamed of apotheosizing.[40] As for Armande, she was still young and retained all her fascination; she had not been happy in her first marriage, and may very well have felt that life owed her some compensation. Besides, a second marriage would free her from the attentions of unwelcome admirers, of whom, we may be sure, the luckless Président Lescot was only one among many, and would provide her with a counsellor in business matters whose interests would be identical with her own, and of whom she must have long felt the need.

With Guérin, Armande appears to have lived very happily, and even the author of _La Fameuse Comédienne_ is compelled to recognise that her conduct was exemplary, though she hastens to qualify this reluctant admission by declaring that her second husband was a veritable tyrant, who brooked no opposition to his will and did not hesitate to enforce obedience by blows. All disinterested witnesses, however, concur in representing Guérin as an excellent man, and we see no reason to believe that the anonymous author comes anywhere nearer the truth here than in other portions of her history.

At Easter 1679, Armande and La Grange succeeded in persuading the famous _tragédienne_ Mlle. de Champmeslé, who had been for nineteen years the mainstay of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, to transfer her services to the Théâtre Guénégaud, Armande, with rare self-denial, ceding to the illustrious recruit the place which she herself had so long occupied. The defection of their great actress was a paralysing blow for the players of the Rue Mauconseil, and, coupled with the death of La Thorillière, which occurred shortly afterwards, rendered their position so precarious that, by a _lettre de cachet_ dated October 21, 1680, Louis XIV. directed that they should join forces with the Théâtre Guénégaud; and the Comédie-Française was founded. Thus, of the three great troupes in existence at the time of Molière's death, his own alone survived, fortified by the ruin of their rivals.

Armande continued her career as an actress for some years longer, perhaps her most successful impersonation being that of a young Italian girl in a play called _Le Parisien_, written by the husband of Mlle. de Champmeslé. At the Easter recess of 1694, she retired from the stage, with a pension of one thousand livres. From that time we hear but little of her. She appears to have lived a very quiet and uneventful life, for the most part, at a charming country-house which she owned at Meudon, and which still exists, very much as the actress left it.[41] She died at Paris, in the Rue du Touraine, on November 30, 1700, at the age of fifty-eight.

Of Armande's three children by Molière only one survived their father, a daughter, Madeleine, who, at the age of twenty, much to her mother's disgust, eloped with a M. de Montalant, a middle-aged widower with several children. Making a virtue of necessity, Madame Guérin gave her consent to her daughter's marriage, and Madeleine and her husband subsequently resided at Auteuil, where the former died in 1723. She left no children.

By Guérin, Armande had a son, to whom she seems to have been intensely devoted. In 1698, at the age of twenty, this young man published an edition of the _Mélicerte_ of Molière, which he had rendered into verse, preceded by an introduction, in which he mentioned that in the Guérin household the memory of the dramatist was held "in respect and veneration."

Armande's death certificate naturally contained no mention of the great man whose name she had once borne and whose works she had both inspired and interpreted. Nevertheless, posterity has decided to ignore her connection with the worthy Guérin, and, for us, she must always remain the "Wife of Molière."

II

MARIE DE CHAMPMESLÉ

"The name of the Champmeslé is inseparable from both the immortality and the frailties of the life of Racine."[42]

Marie Desmares, the actress of whom these words were written, was born at Rouen, the birthplace of the two Corneilles and other prominent figures in the dramatic history of the seventeenth century, in February 1642. Her father, Guillaume Desmares, though not, as several biographical dictionaries and works of reference state, the son of a President of the Parliament of Normandy, appears to have been a person of some social position, as his name is preceded by a _Monsieur_, a title which in those days was generally confined to the _noblesse_ and professional classes, while her mother, Marie Marc, was also respectably connected, one of her brothers being an official of the Parliament.

Of Marie's childhood and youth we know scarcely anything. In 1653 she lost her father, very probably in an epidemic which broke out at Rouen that year; and, not long afterwards, her mother married again, her second husband being one Antoine La Guérault or Laguérault, a well-to-do landed proprietor in the neighbourhood. The girl and her brother Nicolas, who was also to achieve distinction on the boards, seem to have received a fair education; but, either because she was unhappy in the home of her stepfather, or because she saw but little chance of the indispensable _dot_ being forthcoming, at the age of twenty-three, Marie decided to tempt fortune on the stage.

At this period, there was no regular theatre at Rouen; indeed, buildings reserved exclusively for dramatic performances were hardly known outside the capital. There were, however, two large tennis-courts, one situated in the Rue des Charrettes, the other in the Rue Saint-Éloi, the proprietors of which were always ready, at a few hours' notice, to convert them into temples of Thespis for the accommodation of any travelling company which happened to be visiting the town. M. Noury, the lady's latest biographer, thinks that it was in the second of these, called the _Feu de Paume des Braques_, where Molière's troupe had played in 1643, and again in 1658, that Marie Desmares made her _début_.

By Marie's side, a young actor from Paris, Charles Chevillet by name, made his bow to the public. This young man, who was a few months younger than his fair colleague, was the son of a worthy silk-merchant of the Rue Saint-Honoré.[43] Chevillet _père_, being of a practical turn of mind, had endeavoured to inspire his son with a taste for his own trade. But, as ill-luck would have it, the theatre of the Petit-Bourbon, where Molière's troupe was then established, was situated within easy distance of his shop, and, after attending the performances for some little time, Charles came to the conclusion that measuring and matching silks was altogether too prosaic a calling for him. Accordingly, one fine day he disappeared from Paris and made his way to Rouen, where, according to the custom of the time, in mounting the boards, he added to his own patronymic an aristocratic pseudonym, and became Charles Chevillet, Sieur de Champmeslé.