Act I. Courtyard of the inn at Amiens. _Guillot_ and _De Brétigny_,
who have just arrived with the actresses _Poussette_, _Javotte_, and _Rosette_, are shouting for the innkeeper. Townspeople crowd about the entrance to the inn. They descry a coach approaching. _Lescaut_, who has alighted from it, enters followed by two guardsmen. Other travellers appear amid much commotion, amusement, and shouting on the part of the townspeople. He is awaiting his cousin _Manon_, whom he is to conduct to a convent school, and who presently appears and gives a sample of her character, which is a mixture of demureness and vivacity, of serious affection and meretricious preferment, in her opening song, "Je suis encore tout étourdie" (A simple maiden fresh from home), in which she tells how, having left home for the first time to travel to Amiens, she sometimes wept and sometimes laughed. It is a chic little song.
_Lescaut_ goes out to find her luggage. From the balcony of the inn the old roué _Guillot_ sees her. She is not shocked, but laughs at his hints that he is rich and can give her whatever she wants. _De Brétigny_, who, accompanied by the actresses, comes out on the balcony in search of _Guillot_, also is much struck with her beauty. _Guillot_, before withdrawing with the others from the balcony, softly calls down to her that his carriage is at her disposal, if she will but enter it and await him. _Lescaut_ returns but at the same time his two guardsmen come after him. They want him to join with them in gambling and drinking. He pretends to _Manon_ that he is obliged to go to his armoury for a short time. Before leaving her, however, he warns her to be careful of her actions. "Regardez-moi bien dans les yeux" (Now give good heed to what I say).
Left alone, _Manon_ expresses admiration for the jewels and finery worn by the actresses. She wishes such gems and dresses might belong to her. The _Chevalier des Grieux_, young, handsome, ardent, comes upon the scene. He loves _Manon_ at first sight. Nor does she long remain unimpressed by the wooing of the _Chevalier_. Beginning with his words, "If I knew but your name," and her reply, "I am called Manon," the music soon becomes an impassioned love duet. To him she is an "enchantress." As for her--"À vous ma vie et mon âme" (To you my life and my soul).
_Manon_ sees _Guillot's_ postilion, who has been told by his master to take his orders from _Manon_. She communicates to _Des Grieux_ that they will run away to Paris in _Guillot's_ conveyance. "Nous vivrons à Paris" ('Tis to Paris we go), they shout in glad triumph, and are off. There is much confusion when the escape is discovered. Ridicule is heaped upon _Guillot_. For is it not in his carriage, in which the old roué hoped to find _Manon_ awaiting him, that she has driven off with her young lover!