Queens of the French Stage
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Title: Queens of the French Stage
Author: H. Noel Williams
Release date: October 4, 2011 [eBook #37618]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUEENS OF THE FRENCH STAGE ***
Produced by Chuck Greif, Broward County Library, the
Internet Archive and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net
QUEENS OF THE FRENCH
STAGE
[Illustration: _Adrienne Lecouvreur._
_After the painting by Charles Coypel_]
QUEENS OF THE
FRENCH STAGE
BY
H. NOEL WILLIAMS
AUTHOR OF "MADAME RÉCAMIER AND HER FRIENDS," "MADAME DE
POMPADOUR," "MADAME DE MONTESPAN," "MADAME
DU BARRY," ETC.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
153-157 FIFTH AVENUE
1905
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE WIFE OF MOLIÈRE 1
II. MARIE DE CHAMPMESLÉ 87
III. ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR 127
IV. MADEMOISELLE DE CAMARGO 197
V. JUSTINE FAVART 223
VI. MADEMOISELLE CLAIRON 273
INDEX 353
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR. (_Photogravure_) _Frontispiece_
_After the painting by_ CHARLES COYPEL
ARMANDE BÉJART _to face page_ 24
_After a contemporary drawing in the collection of_
M. HENRY HOUSSAYE, _of the Academia Française_
JEAN RACINE " 96
_From an engraving by_ VERTUE
MAURICE DE SAXE " 168
_After the painting by_ HYACINTHE RIGAUD
MADEMOISELLE PRÉVOST " 200
_After the painting by_ JEAN RAOUX, _in the Music of Tours_
MADEMOISELLE DE CAMARGO " 208
_From the painting by_ LANCRET, _in the Wallace Collection
at Hertford House_
JUSTINE FAVART " 240
_After the drawing by_ CHARLES NICOLAS COCHIN _fils_
MADEMOISELLE CLAIRON " 296
_After the painting by_ CARLE VAN LOO
ELIZABETH BERKELEY, Countess of Craven (afterwards
Margravine of Anspach) " 344
_After the drawing by_ SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
QUEENS OF THE FRENCH STAGE
I
THE WIFE OF MOLIÈRE
Few women in French history have been the subject of more discussion
than the young girl whom Molière married, at the church of Saint-Germain
l'Auxerrois, on February 20, 1662.
Armande Grésinde Claire Elisabeth Béjart, for that was the bride's name,
is described in the marriage deed as the daughter of the late Joseph
Béjart, _écuyer_, sieur de Belleville, and of his widow, Marie Hervé.
Joseph Béjart, it should be stated, had died shortly before, or shortly
after, Armande's birth.
The Béjarts were very poor, for the only means which Joseph seems to
have possessed wherewith to maintain his pretensions to nobility were
derived from a small government appointment (_huissier ordinaire du roy
ès eaux et forêts de France_), and his wife had presented him with "at
least eleven children." They lived in the Marais, then the theatrical
quarter of Paris. On its northern outskirts, near the Halles, in the Rue
Mauconseil, stood the old Hôtel de Bourgogne, the first home of the
regular drama; in the centre, in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple, was the
theatre which took its name from the quarter, the Théâtre du Marais,
where Corneille's _Cid_ was first performed; while nearer the Seine, the
playgoer could make choice between the Italian troupes, the _Trois
Farceurs_, Gaultier-Garguille, Gros-Guillaume, and Turlupin,[1] and
open-air entertainments on the Pont-au-Change, the Pont-Neuf, and the
Place Dauphine. It is, therefore, not surprising that the little Béjarts
should have been in the habit of varying the monotony of their
poverty-stricken lives by occasional visits to one or other of these
spectacles, or that, dazzled by those well-known attractions, which were
doubtless as potent in the seventeenth century as they are to-day, the
two eldest, Joseph and Madeleine, should have decided, while still very
young, to make the stage their profession.
What theatre witnessed their _débuts_ we do not know. The majority of
authors are of opinion that they joined a company of strolling players
which was at this time exploiting Languedoc; M. Larroumet hesitates
between one of the unlicensed playhouses of the fairs in the
neighbourhood of Paris and a troupe of amateurs, several of which were
to be found in the capital; while another of Madeleine's biographers, M.
Henri Chardon, thinks that she obtained admission to the Théâtre du
Marais, though it appears very improbable that a young and inexperienced
actress could have met with such good fortune.
However that may be, Madeleine seems to have prospered in her profession
from the very outset, as on January 10, 1636, supported by her
_curateur_, one Simon Courtin, her father, a paternal uncle, a "_chef du
gobelet du roi_," and divers other relatives and friends, she appears
before the Civil Lieutenant of Paris[2] to request permission to
contract a loan of 2000 livres, wherewith to supplement a like sum of
her own and enable her to acquire a little house and garden situated in
the Cul-de-Sac Thorigny.
Two and a half years later (July 11, 1638), we hear of her again, under
circumstances which perhaps explain her desire to secure a residence of
her own--a desire, it must be admitted, not a little singular in a young
lady of eighteen--for on that day is baptized at Saint-Eustache
"Françoise, daughter of Esprit Raymond, chevalier, seigneur de Modène
and other places, chamberlain of the affairs of Monseigneur, only
brother of the King, and of the demoiselle Madeleine Béjart."
M. de Modène and Madeleine were not married; indeed, there was already a
Madame de Modène, residing at Le Mans, who did not die until 1649. But
this trifling accident, as it was regarded in those days, did not
prevent the son of the former (by proxy)[3] and the mother of the
latter (in person) standing as sponsors to the little Françoise, whose
birth was fated to be the cause of much trouble, not to her guilty
parents, but to two perfectly innocent persons, one of whom was as yet
unborn.
A few words must here be said of the father of Madeleine Béjart's child.
Esprit Raymond de Mormoiron, Comte de Modène, who was then about thirty
years of age, came of an old family in the Venaissin. His father,
François Raymond de Mormoiron, had at one time held the office of Grand
Provost of France and had also been employed on several diplomatic
missions. Appointed page to Gaston d'Orléans, brother of Louis XIII., he
became later one of the chamberlains of that prince, and seems to have
done his best to imitate him in his dissipated and turbulent conduct. He
early ranged himself among the enemies of Richelieu, joined the famous
league "for the universal peace of Christendom," and fought on its
behalf at the battle of La Marfée, at the head of a body of cavalry
which he had raised at his own expense. In consequence of this, he was
condemned to death, by a decree of the Parliament of Paris (September 6,
1641), but took refuge in Flanders, with the Duc de Guise, against whom
a similar sentence had been pronounced, and remained there until the
death of Richelieu, followed by that of Louis XIII., left him at liberty
to return to France. When, in 1647, Guise went to Naples, to endeavour
to exploit the revolt of Masaniello to his own advantage, Modène
accompanied him and greatly distinguished himself. He was eventually,
however, taken prisoner by the Spaniards and held captive until 1650. On
his return to France, he meddled no more with public affairs, but
occupied himself with the care of his neglected estates and in the
compilation of a valuable history of the revolution in Naples,
reprinted, in 1826, under the title of _Mémoires du Comte de Modène_. It
is to be noted here that from the early autumn of 1641 until the summer
of 1643 the Comte de Modène was absent from France.
Some time in the early weeks of the year 1643, probably either in the
last week in February or the first in March, Madeleine's father, Joseph
Béjart the elder, died; and on March 10, Marie Hervé, his widow,
presented herself before the Civil Lieutenant of Paris, where, in the
name, and as guardian, of Joseph, Madeleine, Geneviève, Louis, and _"a
little girl not yet baptized," children under age_ (_i.e._ under
twenty-five) of the said deceased and herself, she represented that "the
inheritance of her deceased husband being charged with heavy debts
without any property wherewith to acquit them, she feared that it would
be more burdensome than profitable," and, accordingly, declared her
intention of renouncing it. Her request was supported by her
brother-in-law, Pierre Béjart, _procureur_ to the Châtelet, and other
relatives, and on June 10 of the same year she was permitted to make the
renunciation she desired.
Now who was this "little unbaptized girl"? Without a shadow of doubt,
Armande Béjart, the future wife of Molière; on this point all the poet's
biographers are unanimous. Was she, as represented, the daughter of
Marie Hervé? That is the question which has afforded material for a
controversy which has already lasted for nearly two hundred and fifty
years and seems not unlikely to continue till the end of all things, for
the most fantastic theories, for a small library of books and
pamphlets, and for review and newspaper articles without number. For
some see in this little girl a sister, others a _daughter_ of Madeleine
Béjart, and the truth is of the most vital importance to the honour of
the great man whose wife Armande became.
That the latter impression was almost universal amongst Molière's
contemporaries is beyond question, nor is the fact one that need
occasion any surprise. Every one, that is to say, every one connected
with, or interested in, the theatrical world, was aware that, early in
life, Madeleine Béjart had had a little girl; while, on the other hand,
the birth of Marie Hervé's child, which was of no public interest, and
which, moreover, probably took place not in Paris, but in one of the
adjacent villages,[4] was known to very few. A young girl grew up with
Madeleine, who was tenderly attached to her; it was Armande; but gossip
confounded her with the child Francoise, of whom all trace seems to have
been lost, and the wiseacres smiled the smile begotten of superior
knowledge when any stranger to Paris chanced to refer to the girl as
Madeleine's sister.
For over a century and a half this belief remained unchallenged. Hostile
or sympathetic, all who wrote of Molière--La Grange, Grimarest, Breuze
de la Martinière, Bayle, Donneau de Visé--shared the common opinion in
regard to the origin of Armande Béjart. In 1821, however, there was
quite a flutter of excitement in literary circles, for in that year
Beffara discovered Molière's _acte de mariage_, in which Armande is
spoken of as the daughter of Joseph Béjart and his widow, Marie Hervé.
Forty-two years later, the old scandal, which in the interim had been
partly revived by M. Fournier (_Études sur la vie et les oeuvres de
Molière_) and M. Bazin (_Notes historiques sur Molière_), received
another severe blow by Eudore Soulié's discovery of the deed of March
10, 1643, already mentioned, wherein Marie Hervé requested permission to
renounce the succession to her husband's property, and which confirmed
the statement made in the _acte de mariage_. Such evidence, one would
naturally suppose, would have been accepted as conclusive, and the
matter set at rest once and for all. But tradition dies hard; not a few
_Molièristes_ refused to renounce an opinion sanctioned by so many
generations, and M. Jules Loiseleur, a writer who enjoyed a
considerable, and not undeserved, reputation as an unraveller of
historical mysteries, propounded, on behalf of his fellow-sceptics, the
following theory.
The declarations made by Marie Hervé, in the deed of March 10, 1643, and
again in the _acte de mariage_, that Armande was her child, were, he
maintains, deliberate falsehoods, conceived in the interests of her
daughter, Madeleine. At the beginning of the year 1643, Madeleine was
about to become a mother, for the second time, not, of course, by the
Comte de Modène, who had been in exile for nearly two years, but by some
new lover. Fearing that if Modène returned and learned the fact, he
would refuse to resume the _liaison_, which she hoped might one day be
regularised (M. Loiseleur was under the impression that Madame de Modène
was dead, whereas she lived until 1649), she begged her mother to
recognise the child as her own; a request to which that complacent old
lady, whose husband was just dead, or on the point of death, readily
consented.
Now this ingenious theory is based on the advanced age of Marie
Hervé--she was then about fifty-three--and the belief that she had not
had a child since the birth of Louis Béjart, afterwards a prominent
member of Molière's troupe, who was born on November 14 or 15, 1630,
that is to say, more than twelve years earlier, which facts rendered it
highly improbable that she could have been the mother of Armande; and M.
Loiseleur supports his contention by pointing out that the two eldest
children, Joseph and Madeleine, described in the deed of March 10, 1643,
as minors, were over twenty-five, and that their age was purposely
understated to make their mother appear younger than she was, and so
facilitate the fraud. This point has been contested by Mr. Andrew Lang,
in his admirable article on Molière in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_,
but is really of no importance, as if M. Loiseleur had exercised a
little more care, he would have found that so far from more than twelve
years having elapsed between the birth of the last of Marie Hervé's
children and that of Armande, she had had a little girl _less than three
and a half years before_ (November 30, 1639), baptized, in the parish of
Saint-Sauveur, by the name of Bénigne Madeleine, the second name being
doubtless intended as a compliment to Madeleine Béjart, who acted as
_marraine_.[5] Whereby M. Loiseleur's argument disappears, and his
theory with it.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that Armande's contemporaries saw in her
not a sister, but a daughter of Madeleine Béjart, and, with this
belief, they held another, to wit, that Molière had been, previous to
his marriage with the younger sister, the lover of the elder. From which
two suppositions sprang one of the most hideous accusations that has
ever sullied the reputation of a great man.
Molière, like most successful men, had a good many enemies, and was
accustomed to give and receive very hard knocks. With the company of the
Théâtre du Marais he appears to have been on tolerably amicable terms;
but with the actors of the third great theatre, the Hôtel de Bourgogne,
his relations were decidedly strained, and whenever an opportunity arose
of turning one or other of them into ridicule, he seldom failed to avail
himself of it, though he made an exception in the case of Floridor, who
was too great a favourite with the public for them to tolerate any
attacks upon him. In his _Impromptu de Versailles_, played before the
Court in October 1663, Molière satirised several actors of the Hôtel de
Bourgogne, and, among them, one named Montfleury,[6] whose ponderous
style of declamation he imitated with great success. To this,
Montfleury's son, Antoine Montfleury, who was a prolific and successful
dramatist, replied with another play, called _l'Impromptu de l'hôtel de
Condé_, in which he endeavoured to turn the tables on Molière; but the
vengeance of the father took a very different form.
In December 1663, Racine wrote to the Abbé Le Vasseur: "Montfleury has
drawn up a memorial and presented it to the King. He accuses him
[Molière] of having married the daughter [Armande], and of having
formerly lived with the mother [Madeleine]. But Montfleury is not
listened to at Court."[7] From this passage it is evident that
Montfleury intended Louis XIV. to believe that Molière had married his
own daughter; which is the starting-point of the abominable calumny
which so long weighed, and which still weighs, on the memory of the
great dramatist.
Beyond what Racine tells us, we have no information about this memorial
of Montfleury. That he advanced any proofs in support of his accusation
is extremely improbable; although it is quite possible that he would
have endeavoured to substantiate it had he received any encouragement
from the King. Any way, Louis XIV. appears to have satisfied himself
that the charge was merely the outcome of jealousy and spite, and when,
in the following February, Molière's first child was baptized at
Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, he and his sister-in-law, the ill-fated
Henrietta of England, stood sponsors. Than which the poet could have
desired no more complete reparation.
Thirteen years later, in 1676, that is to say, three years after
Molière's death, Montfleury's accusation was repeated. A man of the name
of Guichard, a sort of _entrepreneur_ for fêtes and plays, coveted
Lulli's post as director of the recently-established Opera, and, seeing
no likelihood of realising his ambition by any legitimate means, had
recourse to poison, the fashionable expedient for ridding oneself of
professional rivals and other inconvenient persons at this period. One
Sebastian Aubry, a connection of the Béjarts, was entrusted with the
commission; but, instead of executing it, he informed Lulli, who
promptly invoked the protection of the law. An inquiry was held and
numerous witnesses called for the prosecution, among whom was the widow
of Molière. In order to discredit the testimony of these witnesses,
Guichard drew up a memorial, in which, besides making the most infamous
charges against Armande's moral character, of which we shall speak
later, he alluded to her as "the orphan of her husband" and "the widow
of her father." Unlike Montfleury, however, who was an old and respected
member of his profession, Guichard appears to have been a consummate
scoundrel, capable of any villainy to serve his ends; and we can hardly
believe that a charge made by such a person could have excited any
feelings, save those of indignation and disgust.
However, unhappily, other pens were not wanting to keep alive this
hideous calumny. It is true that there are no further direct
accusations; but there are allusions, which, as they appear in works
that enjoyed, in their day, a considerable circulation, must have
answered much the same purpose. In 1770, seven years after Montfleury
had set the ball rolling, a certain Le Boulanger de Chalussay, of whom
little or nothing seems to be known, attacked Molière in a play called
_Élomire hypocondre, ou les Médicins vengés_--Élomire being, of course,
an anagram of Molière. This play, intended as a reply to the great
dramatist's repeated attacks on the medical profession, was a fatuous
production, dull, confused, and encumbered with an absurd number of
characters; and the company of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, to whom it was
submitted, very prudently declined to accept it, notwithstanding which
the author caused it to be printed and circulated. In one scene, Élomire
speaks of the care he is taking to train up his wife in the way he would
have her go, in order to avoid all risk of finding himself numbered
among deceived husbands. Thereupon, his confidant reminds him of the
fate which befell Arnolphe in the _École des femmes_, in spite of all
his precautions.[8] But Élomire replies that he is better advised than
Arnolphe:--
"Arnolphe commença trop tard à la forger;
C'est avant le berceau qu'il y devoit songer,
Comme quelqu'un l'a fait."
Molière demanded and obtained the suppression of _Élomire hypocondre_;
but this only had the effect of stimulating its circulation, as, in the
following year, a new edition was clandestinely printed in the
provinces, and, in 1672, a third was produced by the Elzevirs, in
Holland.
Another allusion occurs in a scandalous work entitled _La Fameuse
Comédienne_, published anonymously in 1688, of which we shall have a
good deal to say hereafter: "She [Armande] was the daughter of the
deceased Béjart, a provincial actress, who was making the _bonne
fortune_ of numbers of young gentlemen in Languedoc at the time of the
auspicious birth of her daughter. That is why it is very difficult, in
the face of such promiscuous gallantry, to say who was the father." And
the writer concludes: "She is believed to be the daughter of Molière,
notwithstanding the fact that he afterwards became her husband; however,
one does not really know the truth."
It appears to be the tendency among modern writers, while indignantly
repudiating the accusation of Montfleury, to accept with complacency the
opinion of Molière's contemporaries that his relations with Madeleine
Béjart had been, at one time, on a closer footing than that of
friendship. In this they show a singular want of consistency, for, as M.
Gustave Larroumet, than whom Molière has no more ardent admirer, very
justly observes, the two suppositions are inseparable, and those who
admit the probability of the second cannot well deny the possibility of
the first, provided, of course, that they hold, with M. Loiseleur, that
Marie Hervé had been guilty of fraud in the documents discovered by
Beffara and Eudore Soulié, and that Armande was the daughter of
Madeleine.[9]
Let us, however, look at the facts as briefly as may be, since the
subject is not one upon which it profits greatly to dwell.
Molière's connection with the Béjart family is commonly believed to have
begun some time in 1641 or 1642. In June 1643, Madeleine Béjart, with
her younger sister Géneviève, and her brothers, Joseph and Louis, joined
Molière and several others in founding the Illustre Théâtre. She
remained faithful to Molière's fortunes during those disastrous two
years, when the receipts of the new theatre did not suffice to discharge
the ordinary working expenses, and its chief was, on one occasion,
imprisoned in the Châtelet, until the bill of an importunate
candle-merchant had been settled. When the company left Paris, in the
spring of 1646, on its twelve years' wanderings through the provinces,
she accompanied it, and, in addition to playing in nearly every piece,
appears to have superintended the costumes and scenery, and regulated
the expenses, at least so far as concerned Molière and the three other
Béjarts. Finally, when Molière returned to Paris, in 1658, and the
company was installed, first, at the Petit-Bourbon and, afterwards, at
the Palais-Royal, she retained her place and continued to play regularly
down to the time of her death on February 17, 1678, exactly a year
before that of Molière himself.
An admirable actress, one of the best of her time, according to
Tallemant des Réaux, ready to undertake almost any rôle in either
tragedy or comedy, she excelled in depicting smartly-attired maids, who
ridicule the follies of their employers with equal wit, impudence, and
good sense, and, but for her, Molière might never have created his
inimitable _soubrettes_.[10] She was, moreover, remarkably handsome,
tall and graceful, with hair of a peculiarly beautiful blonde hue, and
La Fontaine, Loret, and other contemporaries speak of her in terms of
unfeigned admiration; while she seems to have possessed some literary
ability, having, when a girl of eighteen, addressed a quatrain to
Rotrou, who had just produced his _Hercule mourant_ at the Hôtel de
Bourgogne--which so delighted the dramatist that he published it in an
edition of his work--and also adapted an old comedy, which was performed
by the Illustre Théâtre in the provinces.
That a very warm friendship and regard existed between Madeleine and
Molière is certain, nor does what we know of the latter's relations with
other ladies of his troupe render a closer connection improbable. In
1653, at Lyons, the Illustre Théâtre was strengthened by the accession
of two actresses, Mlle. du Parc and Mlle. de Brie,[11] both destined to
rise to eminence in their profession. Molière promptly fell in love with
the former, who, however, rejected his addresses, as she subsequently
did those of Pierre Corneille and La Fontaine, upon which the mortified
dramatist transferred his attentions to the less attractive, but more
sympathetic, Mlle. de Brie, and formed with her a _liaison_ which
appears to have lasted until his marriage, and was resumed at a later
date.
Under these circumstances, it is scarcely surprising that contemporary
gossip should have coupled the names of Molière and Madeleine
together--"M. Despréaux [Boileau] told me," writes Brossette, "that
Molière had been in love with the actress Béjart, whose daughter he
espoused,"--or that many modern writers should have taken the same view.
M. Larroumet, we may observe, is of the contrary opinion, but, though
generally so correct, he appears in this instance to be arguing from a
false premise. He assumes that the Comte de Modène returned to Paris in
the summer of 1643 and resumed his former relations with Madeleine,
which fact, he says, makes a _liaison_ between her and Molière
altogether improbable. But the count's biographer, M. Chardon, asserts
that at the time when M. Larroumet believes Modène to have been in
Paris, he was residing on his estates in the Venaissin, and that he did
not visit the capital until the autumn of 1646, that is to say, after
the Illustre Théâtre had left for the provinces. Shortly after this, the
count set out with the Duc de Guise for Italy, where, as we have
mentioned, he remained until 1650.[12]
But, after all, the nature of Molière's relations with Madeleine Béjart
subsequent to the birth of Armande is of very secondary importance; it
is on the degree of intimacy existing between them _prior_ to that event
that the whole question hinges. That they were at that time anything
more than friends--possibly only acquaintances--there is not a shred of
evidence to prove; for the rumours we have spoken of relate mainly to
the early years of the Illustre Théâtre. Indeed, so little is known
about their movements previous to the establishment of that institution
that it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty whether their
paths in life lay together or far apart at a particular date, much less
to hazard an opinion upon so very delicate a matter as the one under
discussion.
M. Larroumet says that from July 1638, when her little daughter,
Françoise, was born, until June 1643, when the Illustre Théâtre was
founded, we lose all trace of Madeleine. This is not quite correct, as
on November 30, 1639, she appears as _marraine_ at the baptism of her
little sister, Bénigne Madeleine, in the parish of Saint-Sauveur, and,
six months later (June 5, 1640), we find her discharging the same duty
to a child of one Robert de la Voypierre, described as a
_valet-de-chambre_ at the Church of Saint-Sulpice.[13] After that, it is
true, nothing more is heard of her for three years. Now, where was she
during these three years? M. Chardon thinks that she was in Paris until
the early summer of 1641, and during the remainder of the time--that is
to say, for the eighteen months or more preceding Armande's birth--in
the provinces, with a company of strolling players; and this is the
reason he gives for his supposition.
In May 1641, a friend of the Comte de Modène, Jean Baptiste de
l'Hermite, brother of Tristan de l'Hermite, author of the tragedy of
_Mariamne_, together with his wife and a servant of the count, were
arrested and imprisoned in the Château of Vincennes, apparently on a
charge of treasonable correspondence with Modène. Thereupon, Madeleine,
apprehensive of sharing their fate, her connection with Modène being
well known, leaves Paris and joins a company in the provinces, and does
not show her face in the capital again until Richelieu and Louis XIII.
are both dead, and all danger for the Count and his friends
removed.[14]
As for Molière, he is commonly believed to have spent the year 1642 in
Paris, with the exception of the months of May, June, and July, when M.
Loiseleur is of opinion that he replaced his father as _tapissier
valet-de-chambre_ to the King, who was then returning by easy stages
from the conquest of Roussillon.
Now, if these two theories are correct, as they probably are, it is
obvious that, whoever was the father of Madeleine Béjart's child,
supposing her to have been the mother of Armande, which few now will be
found to maintain, it could not have been Molière, unless Madeleine was
a member of a troupe of strolling players, which performed several times
before the Court at Montfrin, during its stay there in the latter part
of June, a contingency so remote as to be hardly worth taking into
account. With which observations, we hasten to take leave of this most
unpleasant subject, and begin our history of Armande Béjart.
* * * * *
When the Illustre Théâtre quitted Paris, in the spring of 1646, Marie
Hervé and her little daughter accompanied it. It does not appear
probable, however, as some writers have supposed, that Armande's early
years were passed on the high roads. From what we know of her
accomplishments, she must have received a far superior education to that
which a little Bohemian could have obtained. According to one account,
she lived for some years in Languedoc, "with a lady of distinguished
rank in that province," and did not return to her family until 1653,
when the company, relatively more stable, had made Lyons its
headquarters. Thenceforward Armande's education was carried on under the
immediate supervision of Molière himself, who, as time went on, began
to take something more than a friendly interest in the progress of his
pupil, and ended by falling passionately in love with her.
Nearly all the biographers of Molière and Armande agree that Madeleine
Béjart was much occupied by this marriage, though they differ widely in
the part they assign to her, some asserting that she laboured
strenuously to prevent it, others that she did her utmost to bring it
about. According to Grimarest, one of the oldest of the poet's
biographers--who believed Madeleine to have been Molière's mistress, and
that she was, moreover, the mother of Armande, though he does not go so
far as to attribute the girl's paternity to Molière--Madeleine behaved
_en femme furieuse_, threatened to ruin him, her daughter, and herself,
if he persisted in his intention, and that in consequence the lovers
were compelled to contract a secret marriage.
On the other hand, the anonymous author of _La Fameuse Comédienne_, who
wrote nearer the event, gives a wholly different version of the affair.
According to him--or more probably her--it is Madeleine who prepared and
concluded the marriage, by a series of patient and tortuous intrigues,
her object being to recover, through Armande, the influence over Molière
of which Mlle. de Brie had deprived her. "She did not fail to exaggerate
to Molière the satisfaction he would derive from educating for himself a
child whose heart he was sure of possessing, and whose disposition was
known to him, and assured him that it was only at that innocent age that
one could hope to meet with that sincerity which was found but rarely
among persons who had seen the great world. These arguments she often
repeated to Molière, at the same time, adroitly calling his attention
to that natural delight which her daughter showed whenever she observed
him enter the room, and her blind obedience to his wishes. In a word,
she conducted the affair so skilfully that he decided that he could not
do better than marry the girl."
These two accounts, remarks M. Larroumet, would appear, at first sight,
to be equally unworthy of belief, since they are in direct contradiction
to one another. But when we come to examine them more closely, we shall
find that, though the worthlessness of Grimarest's version is clearly
demonstrated by the fact that Molière's marriage had nothing secret
about it, being indeed celebrated publicly in the presence of his family
and Armande's, that of the author of _La Fameuse Comédienne_ has a basis
of truth. Madeleine did, no doubt, play an important part in bringing
about the marriage, but the reason which prompted her to do so was very
different from that stated by the author. Sincerely attached to both her
sister and Molière, she honestly believed that a marriage between them
would be to their common advantage, securing to the one an excellent
settlement in life, and to the other a means of escape from the
gallantries which served but to add fresh annoyances to the cares
imposed upon him by his triple rôle of playwright, actor, and manager.
She committed a grievous mistake, it is true; but that she was animated
by perfectly disinterested motives, and did everything in her power to
make the marriage a happy one, there can be no question.[15]
With the exception of the drawing reproduced in this volume, there does
not appear to be any portrait of Armande, painted or engraved, the
authenticity of which is beyond dispute. But, as some atonement for
this, several excellent pen-portraits have come down to us. The most
interesting of these is, of course, the one traced by Molière's own hand
in that exquisite little scene between Cléonte and Covielle in the third
act of the _Bourgeois gentilhomme_, where Armande plays the part of the
charming Lucile. Cléonte, incensed by Lucile's seeming indifference,
determines to break with her, and calls upon the valet to "assist him in
his resentment and sustain his resolution against every remnant of
affection that may yet plead for her. 'Say, I entreat you, all the harm
that you can of her. Make of her person a picture that shall render her
contemptible in my sight, and, to disgust me with her, point out all the
faults that you can see in her.'"
Smarting under the rebuff just administered to him by Lucile's
waiting-woman, Nicole, who follows the example of her mistress, Covielle
readily obeys, and proceeds to draw a most unflattering portrait of the
young lady. But no sooner does the valet point out some fault in Lucile
than his love-lorn master straightway transforms it into a trait of
beauty, with an ever-increasing anger and impatience.
_Covielle._--"To begin with, her eyes are small."
_Cléonte._--"That is true; her eyes are small, but then they are full of
fire--the most brilliant, the most piercing in the world, the tenderest
that one can possibly see."
_Covielle._--"She has a large mouth."
_Cléonte._--"Yes; but one finds there charms which one does not find in
other mouths; and that mouth, when one beholds it, inspires desire; it
is the most attractive, the most adorable in the world."
_Covielle._--"As for her figure, she is not tall."
_Cléonte._--"No; but she is supple and well-proportioned."
_Covielle._--"She affects a carelessness in her speech and deportment."
_Cléonte._--"It is true, but there is grace in all; and her manners are
engaging and have a nameless charm which insinuates itself into our
hearts."
_Covielle._--"As to her wit----"
_Cléonte._--"Ah! she has that, Covielle; the finest and most delicate
kind."
_Covielle._--"Her conversation----"
_Cléonte._--"Her conversation is charming."
_Covielle._--"It is always serious."
_Cléonte._--"Would you have unrestrained liveliness and boisterous
gaiety? Is there anything more annoying than women who laugh at every
word that is spoken?"
_Covielle._--"But, after all, she is as capricious as any person you can
find."
_Cléonte._--"Yes, she is capricious; there I agree with you; but
everything is becoming to, and must be borne with from, the fair."
[Illustration: ARMANDE BÉJART
From an etching by J. HANRIOT, after a contemporary drawing in the
collection of M. HENRY HOUSSAYE, of the Académie Française]
The fidelity of the aforegoing portrait is confirmed by other
contemporary evidence. Examined in detail, it would appear that
Armande's features were far from perfect, but that the _ensemble_ was
fascinating to a very remarkable degree. Mlle. Poisson, in a _Lettre sur
la vie et les oeuvres de Molière et les comédiens de son temps_, which
she contributed to the _Mercure_ of 1740, describes her as "of middle
height," with "very small eyes," and "a large flat mouth"; but adds that
she had "an engaging air," and "performed every action with grace."
The elder Grandval is in accord with Mlle. Poisson: "Without being
beautiful, she was piquant and capable of inspiring a _grande passion_."
While a bitter enemy of Armande, the anonymous author of _La Fameuse
Comédienne_, while denying her "_aucun trait de beauté_" is fain to
admit that her appearance and manners rendered her very amiable in the
opinion of many people, and that she was "very affecting when she wished
to please."
That Armande should have triumphed so completely over physical
deficiencies was probably due, to some extent, to the perfection of her
toilettes. "No one," the brothers Parfaict tell us, in their _Histoire
du Théâtre Français_, "knew better than she how to enhance the beauty of
her face by the arrangement of her coiffure, or of her figure by the
fashion of her costume." And Mlle. Poisson records that she "showed most
remarkable taste and invariably opposed to the mode of the time." She
seems indeed to have had some claim to be considered the arbitrix of
feminine taste in dress, for the _Mercure galant_ of 1673 ascribes to
her the credit of a radical reform in ladies' toilettes, nothing less
than the substitution of gowns, "_tout unis sur le corps, de la manière
que la taille parait plus belle_," for the majestic but somewhat heavy
costume hitherto in vogue, which concealed beneath its too ample folds
the graceful lines of the figure.
* * * * *
If Armande, as a woman, was an object of admiration to her
contemporaries, as an actress, she aroused in them something very like
enthusiasm. It would indeed have been a matter for surprise had it been
otherwise, since she enjoyed advantages which fall to the lot of very
few. She came of a family which had already contributed several
finished performers to the French stage, and "had in her blood the
passion and instinct of the theatre." With her charm of manner and
exquisite taste in dress, she combined many accomplishments: "she had a
very pretty voice, sang with great taste in both French and Italian, and
danced ravishingly." She had received a long and careful training from
one who was perhaps an even better teacher than he was an actor, and who
was as ambitious for her success as for his own. And, finally, nearly
all her parts--certainly all her more important parts--were written by
Molière with the express object of enabling her to display her abilities
to the best advantage.
Lacking the dignity and strength required to give adequate expression to
the greater passions, she wisely refrained from attempting any important
rôles in tragedy, and in Racine's _Alexandre_ and the _Attila_ of
Corneille we find her allotted only minor parts. But at the Palais-Royal
comedy was, of course, the staple fare, and in "_la rôles de femmes
coquettes et satiriques_," which accorded so well with her own
temperament, and also in those of _ingénues_, Armande had no superior in
her day and probably very few since. Her acting is said to have been
characterised by great judgment, while her by-play was remarkably
effective. "If she but retouches her hair, or rearranges her ribbons or
her jewellery, these little fashions conceal a satire judicious and
natural, and throw ridicule upon the women she wishes to represent."
Moreover, she had the rare gift of being able to change at will the
character of her voice, and "had a different tone for every part she
undertook."
Molière's wise reluctance to allow his young wife to challenge the
verdict of the public until he had done everything in his power to
ensure her success, delayed Armande's first appearance on the stage for
fifteen months after her marriage, when she made her _début_ as Élise in
the _Critique de l'École des femmes_ (June 1, 1663), a reply to the
attacks of Donneau de Visé and other critics upon the play produced at
the Palais-Royal the previous December. The part allotted to her, which
is that of a self-possessed young woman, with a good deal of shrewd
common-sense, a turn for irony of a rather caustic brand, and not too
much consideration for the feelings of others, suited her
admirably--perhaps rather more so than poor Molière at that time
imagined--and secured her a somewhat similar rôle in the delightful
_Impromptu de Versailles_, played before the Court in the following
October, where she figures in the cast as a "satirical wit." She did not
play in the _Mariage forcé_ (January 29, 1664), as, ten days earlier,
she had borne Molière a son, to whom, as we have mentioned, Louis XIV.
and Henrietta of England stood sponsors; but in the following spring we
find her in the first of her long list of important rôles.
At the beginning of May 1664, Louis XIV. entertained the Queen-mother,
Anne of Austria, and his own consort, Maria Theresa, with a brilliant
and sumptuous fête, or rather succession of fêtes, at Versailles, which
was then, of course, still only the little country-house built by Louis
XIII., occupying to-day the bottom of the Cour de Marbre. The fêtes,
which were denominated _Les Plaisirs de l'Ile enchantée_, as the plan
adopted was suggested by the sixth and seventh cantos of Ariosto's
_Orlando Furioso_, which describe the sojourn of Rogero (impersonated by
the King) in the isle and palace of the enchantress Alcena, began on the
7th of the month and lasted a week; stately processions, tilting,
displays of fireworks, balls, and magnificent banquets alternating with
theatrical performances. On the 8th, Molière's troupe gave a comedy
ballet, called the _Princesse d'Élide_, composed for the occasion, by
their chief, at the special request of the King, and the rôle of the
princess was taken by Armande. The play, the subject of which was
borrowed from the Spanish dramatist Moreto's _El Desden con el Desden_
(Scorn for Scorn), is the story of a fair princess, who until then had
professed to despise love and had driven her innumerable suitors to
despair, but who suddenly finds herself wounded to the heart by the
skilfully feigned indifference to her charms shown by Euryale, Prince of
Ithaca, who ultimately succeeds in winning her hand. Though far from
being one of Molière's happiest efforts, as it was hastily strung
together--the first act and the commencement of the first scene of the
second are in verse, and the rest in prose--while the author's natural
flow of wit and humour was checked by the necessity of accommodating
himself to courtly conventions, it met with a very favourable reception,
and, moreover, served to establish Armande's reputation as an actress.
This was, no doubt, Molière's intention, as the whole play appears to
have been conceived expressly to bring into relief the young lady's
various accomplishments--her taste in dress, her charming voice, and her
graceful dancing--and the enamoured Euryale declaims in her honour a
portrait of the most flattering description: "She is, in truth, adorable
at all times; but at that moment she was more so than ever, and new
charms redoubled the splendour of her beauty. Never was her face adorned
with more lovely colours; never were her eyes armed with swifter or
more piercing shafts. The sweetness of her voice showed itself in the
perfectly charming air which she deigned to sing; and the marvellous
tones she uttered penetrated to the very depth of my soul and held all
my senses in a rapture from which they were powerless to escape. She
next showed a disposition altogether divine; her lovely feet on the
enamel of the soft turf danced delightful steps, which carried me quite
beyond myself and bound me by irresistible bonds to the easy and
accurate movements with which her whole body followed those harmonious
motions."
On the three concluding days of the fêtes, the _Fâcheux_, the first
three acts of _Tartuffe_, and the _Mariage forcé_ were in turn
represented. It is uncertain what parts were allotted Armande in the
first and third of these plays, but in the much discussed _Tartuffe_,
now played for the first time, she again filled the leading feminine
rôle. How she fared on this occasion we have unfortunately no
information; but when, in February 1669, the interdict under which
_Tartuffe_ had so long lain was at length withdrawn and the piece
produced at the Palais-Royal, the rhyming chronicle of Robinet speaks in
eulogistic terms of her performance of Elmire.
In the meanwhile, she had successfully created other important parts:
Lucinde in the _Medecin malgré lui_, Angélique in _George Dandin_, and
Elise in _l'Avare_, and, on June 4, 1666, the greatest of all her
triumphs--the rôle of Célimène in the famous comedy of the
_Misanthrope_.
"Célimène," says M. Larroumet, "is the type of woman the most original
and the most complete which the genius of Molière has evolved. Eternal
temptation of actresses, those who have attempted it may be called
legion, those who have succeeded in making themselves mistresses of it
form a select group, admired, envied. Such an actress of genius as
Rachel failed here miserably, and a true Célimène, like Mlle. Mars, is
sure of transmitting her name to posterity. One has noted, however, the
tones and gestures of the great interpreters of the part; tradition
preserves them, and they point out the way. But an intelligent pupil
will readily make herself acquainted with all that can be learned; if
she does not evolve from her own resources the sentiment of the
character, she will only swell the alarming number of vain attempts
which theatrical history records. Célimène is twenty years of age, and
her experience is that of a woman of forty. Coquettish and feline with
Alceste, frivolous and back-biting with the little marquises, cruelly
ironical with Arsinoé, in each act, in each scene, she shows herself
under a different aspect. Contemporary, or very nearly so, of Mesdames
de Châtillon, de Luynes, de Monaco, de Soubise, and the nieces of
Mazarin, she ought to awaken a vague memory of these great names; she is
the exquisite and rare product of an aristocratic civilisation in the
full splendour of its development, and often she speaks a language of
almost plebeian candour and acerbity. In the salon where she reigns, she
ought to convey the idea of perfect ease and supreme distinction; and in
the _dénouement_ she submits to a cruel humiliation without the
possibility of revenge; she makes her exit vanquished at all points,
and, even then, she ought to lose nothing of her haughty bearing and her
tranquil smile."[16]
It will thus be readily understood that an actress who could be trusted
to create such a part must have truly been a great artist, and Armande
secured a brilliant triumph. Her performance was "a charm" and "an
ecstasy," Robinet tells us; and though Robinet was in the habit of
dealing somewhat freely in such expressions, we have no reason to doubt
that on this occasion he faithfully reflects the opinion of the
audience.
But, after all, we can hardly wonder at the young actress's success,
since she had only to be perfectly natural to realise the author's whole
idea of his heroine. For what is Célimène but a finished portrait of
Armande herself? Célimène is "_la grande coquette par excellence_,"
surrounded by a crowd of admirers wherever she goes. Armande, unhappily
for Molière's peace of mind, seems to have enjoyed very much the same
reputation. Célimène depends for her fascination not so much on beauty
of face or form as on her expression, her smile, her manners, her
conversation; "_elle a l'art de me plaire_," says the infatuated
Alceste. Armande possessed the same kind of attractions, and was "very
affecting when she wished to please." Célimène is haughty and imperious.
"It is my wish; it is my wish," she cries when Alceste hesitates to
comply with her demands. "Armande," says a contemporary, "could not
brook contradiction, and pretended that a lover ought to be as
submissive as a slave." In fact, so perfect is the resemblance that even
if the circumstances, of which we shall presently speak, did not
preclude all reasonable doubt about the matter, few would be found to
deny that the heroine of the _Misanthrope_ was drawn from life.
Among Armande's other rôles may be mentioned the capricious and charming
Lucile of the _Bourgeois gentilhomme_, in which Molière drew the
well-known portrait of his wife which we have already cited; the
title-part in the famous "tragedy-ballet" of _Psyché_, one of the most
remarkable instances of collaboration in dramatic history,[17] in which
she appeared in a different costume in each of its five acts--a very
unusual extravagance in those days--and is described by the enthusiastic
Robinet as "marvellous" and "playing divinely"; Henriette in the _Femmes
savantes_, "the model of an honest, sensible, and well-brought-up young
lady;" and finally, Angélique in Molière's swan-song, the _Malade
imaginaire_, perhaps, next to Célimène, her most finished impersonation.
* * * * *
But great as were the dramatic talents of Armande Béjart, they count for
comparatively little in the curiosity which her name arouses. It is her
moral character, her private life, her relations with her famous
husband, which have exercised the minds of the biographers of Molière
for upwards of two centuries. On these matters even more ink has been
expended than on the vexed question of her birth, and with far less
satisfactory results. To the great majority of writers Armande was an
unworthy wife, who repaid the kindness and affection lavished upon her
by the great man whose name she bore with ingratitude and contumely;
while there are not wanting those who go so far as to accuse her of the
grossest infidelity, and to assert that her misconduct was in some
measure responsible for the dramatist's untimely death. When, however,
we come to sift the evidence against her, we shall find that these
extreme views are based on very insufficient or very suspicious
testimony, and that one thing only has been clearly established, namely,
that she rendered Molière's later years very unhappy. But what was the
true cause of his unhappiness, whether occasioned by actual misconduct
on the part of Armande, or merely by an ever present dread that such
must be the inevitable termination of one or other of the very imprudent
flirtations in which she appears to have been continually indulging, is
very difficult, nay, well-nigh impossible, to determine.
It has always been a favourite practice with biographers of Molière and
historians of the French theatre to affect to discover more or less
direct allusions to the dramatist's relations with his wife in several
of his plays: the _École des femmes_, the _Impromptu de Versailles_, the
_Mariage forcé_, _George Dandin_, and, of course, the _Misanthrope_.
That this is true of the last-named play cannot, we think, be disputed;
but in regard to the others, we are inclined to believe that the
significance of the passages and episodes on which their contention
rests have been a good deal exaggerated.
Let us begin with the _École des femmes_, the first in chronological
order. Here, as in the _École des maris_, Molière turns to the ethics of
marriage for his materials. Arnolphe, a middle-aged bachelor, disgusted
by the lack of fidelity among the married women he sees around him,
comes to the conclusion that the only safeguard of a wife's honour is
extreme ignorance. No young woman should know anything beyond her
household and religious duties; her reading is to be confined to the
Bible and the Maxims of Marriage; her only objects in life are to be the
salvation of her soul and the comfort and happiness of her husband. In
order to put his theory to the test, he adopts a little girl called
Agnès, and has her carefully brought up in the most complete seclusion,
with the intention of making her his wife when she shall have reached a
suitable age. But, unfortunately for him--for he falls genuinely in love
with his ward--the damsel's very simplicity proves his undoing; she
bestows her affections upon a young gallant, Horace by name, and poor
Arnolphe is left lamenting the downfall of his hopes.
We have outlined this plot of the play, which is doubtless familiar to
many, as several writers have assumed that Molière has depicted himself
in the role of Arnolphe and Armande in that of Agnès; but beyond the
fact that both Molière and his hero themselves supervised the education
of their intended wives, there does not seem to be the slightest ground
for such a supposition. In the first place, Molière espoused the woman
of his choice; while Arnolphe sees his cherished scheme come to nothing,
through the appearance on the scene of the youthful Horace. In the
second, the brilliant and witty Armande bears as little resemblance to
the unsophisticated Agnès as does her liberal-minded husband to the
tyrannical guardian. And, lastly, to ask us to believe that only ten
months after his marriage, with the glamour of the honeymoon still upon
him, Molière could have intended an unsympathetic character like Agnès
to represent his wife, is to make too great a call upon our credulity.
In the _Impromptu de Versailles_ a good deal has been made of the little
quarrel between the author and his wife, which the former introduces at
the beginning of the play. The company is supposed to be rehearsing a
new comedy, commanded by the King at two hours' notice, and to be
causing its chief no little trouble.
_Mademoiselle Molière._--"Shall I tell you what it is? You ought to have
written a play which you could have acted all alone."
_Molière._--"Be silent, wife; you are a fool."
_Mademoiselle Molière._--"Thank you, my lord and husband; that just
shows what it is to be married, and how strangely wedlock alters people.
You would not have said that eighteen months ago."
_Molière._--"Pray be silent."
_Mademoiselle Molière._--"It is an odd thing that a trifling ceremony
should be capable of depriving us of all our good qualities, and that a
husband and a lover should regard the same person with such different
eyes."
_Molière._--"What loquacity!"
_Mademoiselle Molière._--"'Faith! if I were to write a play, it would be
upon that subject. I would justify women in many things of which they
are accused, and I would make husbands afraid of the contrast between
their abrupt manners and the courtesy of lovers."
Here, we are told by certain critics, the inference is unmistakable;
Molière clearly foresees the fate which awaits him. In our opinion, they
are wrong. In the _Impromptu de Versailles_ Molière and his wife do not,
as in an ordinary play, represent fictitious characters; they appear
under their own names. In these circumstances, it is surely
inconceivable that the dramatist should have introduced this dialogue,
if he had for one moment imagined it applicable to his own affairs! The
very fact that he was so ready to jest upon such a subject seems to us a
conclusive proof that up to that time, at least, Armande's conduct had
given him but scant cause for uneasiness.
The _Mariage forcé_ and _George Dandin_, the former produced early in
the year 1664, when the difference of age and of character between
Molière and his wife was no doubt beginning to produce its fatal
consequences, and the latter in the summer of 1667, after their
separation, of which we shall speak in due course, had actually taken
place, contain more direct allusions to their author's _ménage_.
Sganarelle, like Molière, had believed himself "_le plus content des
hommes_," only to be roughly disillusioned when the carefully brought up
Dorimène frankly avows her passion for "_toutes les choses de
plaisir_"--play, visiting, assemblies, entertainments, and so forth--at
the same time expressing a hope that he does not intend to be one of
those inconvenient husbands who desire their wives to live "_comme des
loup-garous_," since solitude drives her to despair, but that they may
dwell together as a pair "_qui savent leur monde_." Angélique, in her
turn, complains to George Dandin of the tyranny exercised by husbands
"who wish their wives to be dead to all amusements, and to live only for
them." She has no desire, she tells him, to die young, but "intends to
enjoy, under his good pleasure, some of the glad days that youth has to
offer her, to take advantage of the sweet liberties that the age permits
her, to see a little of the _beau monde_, and to taste the pleasure of
hearing her praises sung."
All this is certainly reminiscent of Armande, who, according to
Grimarest, was no sooner married than she "believed herself a duchess,"
affected a coquettish manner with the idle gallants who flocked to pay
court to her, and turned a deaf ear to the warnings of her husband,
whose lessons appeared to her "too severe for a young person who,
besides, had nothing wherewith to reproach herself." But the resemblance
in the situations goes no further. If Dorimène, in her craving for
"_toutes les chases de plaisir_" and Angélique, in her imperious temper
and cold irony, bear some relation to Armande, the foolish and cowardly
Sganarelle, who allows himself to be cudgelled by Dorimène's brother,
Lycidas, into a marriage which he knows must bring him unhappiness, has
nothing, save his age, in common with Molière; while the aspiring
farmer, George Dandin, marrying not for love, but for social position,
and deservedly punished for his snobbishness, is as far removed from his
creator as Tartuffe or Monsieur Jourdain.
When we come to the _Misanthrope_, the similarity between fiction and
reality is too striking to admit of any doubt as to the author's
intentions. It is true that a distinguished English critic[18] professes
to see in this play, as in _Don Garcie de Navarre_--Molière's one
failure, produced the year before his marriage, and withdrawn after a
run of five nights--the outcome of the actor-dramatist's "desire of
indulging his humour of seriousness and a determination to example his
elocutionary theories in verse that, without being actually tragic and
heroic, should have something in it of the tragic and heroic quality."
But, though the large number of verses from _Don Garcie_ which Molière
has incorporated with his role of Alceste would seem to lend some
confirmation to this theory, the fact remains that writers are
practically unanimous in regarding the _Misanthrope_ as, primarily, a
pathetic autobiography of its author under the cloak of fiction. "This
Célimène, so frivolous and so charming, so dangerous and so seductive,
this incorrigible coquette, who does not understand what a noble heart
she is wounding even unto death: is not this Armande Béjart,
embellished by all the love and all the genius of Molière? And Alceste;
who is he? At the first representations people believed that they
recognised the Duc de Montausier, and the Duc de Montausier remarked,
with good reason: 'I thank you; it is a great honour.' But we, for our
part, recognise Molière. This misanthrope is something more than an
honourable gentleman at odds with the world. He is a great genius
misunderstood, who endures and waits; he is a passionate sage, an honest
man with a great and excellent heart."[19]
In the _Misanthrope_, Molière has given to Célimène all the coquetry,
the egoism, and the caustic wit which belonged to Armande; to his own
rôle all the weakness of a high-minded man struggling vainly against his
passion for an unworthy object. "The love I bear for her," says
Alceste--
"Ne ferme point mes yeux aux défauts qu'on lui trouve;
Et je suis, quelque ardeur qu'elle m'ait pu donner,
Le premier à les voirs, comme à les condamner.
Mais, avec tout cela, quoi que je puis faire,
Je confesse mon foible; elle a l'art de me plaire;
J'ai beau voir ses défauts, et j'ai beau l'en blâmer,
En dépit qu'on en ait, elle se fait aimer;
Sa grâce est la plus forte, et, sans doute, ma flamme
De ces vices du temps pourra purger son âme."
There are moments indeed in the play when it almost ceases to belong to
the realm of fiction. The scene, for instance, in the fourth act, when
Alceste, holding in his hand the proof of Célimène's perfidy, the letter
written by her to his rival, Oronte, calls upon her "to justify herself
at least of a crime that overwhelms him," and to do her best to appear
faithful, while he, on his side, will do his best to believe her such;
and Célimène tartly refuses--
"Allez, vous êtes fou, dans vos transports jaloux,
Et ne méritez pas l'amour qu'on a pour vous.
* * * * *
Allez, de tels soupçons méritent ma colère,
Et vous ne valez pas que l'on vous considère:
Je suis sotte, et veux mal à ma simplicité,
De conserver, encor, pour vous, quelque bonté;
Je devrois, autre part, attacher mon estime
Et vous faire un sujet de plainte légitime,"
may well have had its parallel in their own lives. And few, again, can
doubt the sincerity with which the lover must have uttered the lines,--
"Je fais tout mon possible
À rompre de ce coeur l'attachement terrible;
Mais mes plus grands efforts n'ont rien fait jusqu'ici,
Et c'est pour mes péchés que je vous aime ainsi."
"We might well say without exaggeration of this Célimène," remarks
August Wilhelm von Schlegel,[20] "that there is not a single good point
in her whole composition." This may be so; but, as M. Larroumet is
careful to point out, there is really nothing in the _Misanthrope_ which
gives us the right to assume that Armande was anything worse than an
incorrigible coquette. "Célimène is impeccable; she has neither heart
nor feeling."[21] Nor do the remainder of Molière's plays furnish any
fresh proof against Armande; they, on the contrary, strengthen the
impression that, while he suffered much from his wife's character, he
never believed her to have been guilty of anything which might affect
his honour.
This impression seems to have been that of the poet's contemporaries.
Molière had, as we know, many enemies--unscrupulous enemies, who did not
hesitate to launch against him the most hideous of accusations. We can
hardly doubt that had there been any reasonable ground for believing
Armande guilty of something more than coquetry, the Montfleurys, Le
Boulanger de Chalussay and the rest, would have been only too ready to
avail themselves of such an opportunity of humiliating the man whom they
so bitterly hated. Yet though, like all the rest of the world, they were
aware of Molière's jealous nature, and made this weakness the object of
their unsparing ridicule, none of them went so far as to accuse him of
being that which he appears to have been in incessant dread of becoming.
At most, their works contain only vague hints and insinuations, to which
little or no attention seems to have been paid; and it is probable that
Armande's name would have gone down to posterity without any very
serious stain upon it, had she not chanced to be made the victim of one
of the most audacious and malignant libels ever penned.
Among the swarm of scurrilous brochures, fictitious histories, and
stupid romances in the French language which issued from the foreign
press during the decade which followed the Protestant emigration of
1685, was a little book, or rather pamphlet, written for the delectation
of those persons who are always ready to welcome anything calculated to
gratify their curiosity about the private affairs of stage celebrities.
This book, published anonymously at Frankfort, in 1688, by one
Rottenberg, a bookseller who made a speciality of such sensational
works,[22] bore the title of _La Fameuse Comédienne, ou Histoire de la
Guérin_, Guérin being the name of Armande Béjart's second husband, whom
she married in 1677. Although the demand for it was considerable, and
five editions were printed within ten years of the date of its
publication, the charges against Armande which it contained do not
appear to have been taken very seriously, except among the class of
readers for whom it was written, until, in 1697, it occurred to Bayle,
who had a weakness for piquant anecdotes about notable persons, to
include certain passages in his famous Dictionary, since which few of
the biographers of Molière have failed to borrow more or less freely
from its pages, with most unfortunate results to the reputation of the
dramatist's wife.
The authorship of the _Fameuse Comédienne_ remains a mystery to this
day, though contemporary gossip, or historians in search of some new
sensation, have attributed it successively to a number of persons: La
Fontaine, Racine, Chapelle, Blot, the _chansonnier_ of the Fronde,
Rosimont, an actor of the Rue Guénégaud, Mlle. Guyot, a member of the
same company, and Mlle. Boudin, a provincial actress, who would appear
to have been at one time on terms of intimacy with Armande. With regard
to the first five of these suppositions, we will merely remark that
neither La Fontaine, Racine, nor Chapelle were capable of committing
such an infamy; that Blot had been in his grave more than thirty years
at the time of the publication of the libel ascribed to him, and that
the chief argument advanced by M. Charles Livet, the editor of the
latest edition of the _Fameuse Comédienne_, in favour of Rosimont,
namely, a resemblance between the style of the book and a theological
work entitled _La Vie des Saints_, which he published in 1680, seems to
us too fanciful to merit any serious consideration. In the cases of
Mesdemoiselles Guyot and Boudin, there is again a total absence of
anything like adequate proof; nevertheless, though they are both in all
probability guiltless, strong grounds exist for believing the book to be
the work of one of Armande's professional rivals, as the intimate
acquaintance with theatrical life which it reveals precludes all doubt
as to the vocation of the writer; while the preponderating place it
allots to women, the manner in which it speaks of men, the jealous
hatred which inspires it, the _finesse_ of some of its remarks, its
style and method, all denote a feminine hand.[23]
Atrocious libel though the _Fameuse Comédienne_ undoubtedly is, it is
very far from destitute of that literary merit in which even the works
of the most obscure writers of the great epoch of French prose are
seldom lacking, and, moreover, contains not a little interesting and
authentic information about the public career of Molière and his wife.
But that is all that can be said in its favour. "Possessed," remarks M.
Larroumet, "by a ferocious hatred against Armande, hatred of the woman
and the actress, the writer has only one object--to render her odious.
What she knows of the actions of her enemy she perverts or, at any rate,
exaggerates; what she does not know she invents. He who wishes to injure
a man attributes to him acts of indecency or cowardice; he who wishes to
injure a woman gives her lovers; these are the surest means. Thus our
author makes of Armande a Messalina, and a Messalina of the baser sort,
one who sells her favours."
Unfortunately for the object which the libeller has in view, she does
not content herself with general charges; she makes formal accusations,
which she endeavours to substantiate, and the book abounds in letters,
conversations, details about matters which could not possibly have been
known, save to the parties immediately concerned, with the result that
her attack fails miserably, and the judicious reader very speedily
perceives that the work is nothing but a collection of scandalous
anecdotes, which, when not controverted by positive facts, sin
grievously against probability.
However, as all readers are not judicious, and as the book has imposed
on several historians of deservedly high reputation,[24] it may be as
well for us, in the interests of truth, to follow the example of M.
Bazin and M. Larroumet, and devote some little space to an examination
of the charges which have brought so much unmerited odium upon the
memory of Armande Béjart.
The first lover attributed to Armande is the Abbé de Richelieu,
great-nephew of the famous cardinal, a gentleman of a very gallant
disposition, with a marked predilection for actresses: "There was no one
at the Court who did not endeavour to gain her favours. The Abbé de
Richelieu was one of the first who determined to make her his mistress.
As he was very liberal, while the young lady was very fond of
expenditure, the matter was soon concluded. It was agreed that he should
give her four pistoles (about forty francs) a day, without counting
clothes and entertainments. The abbé did not fail to send her every
morning, by a page, the pledge of their treaty, and to go and visit her
every afternoon."
Now, as M. Larroumet points out, if this story is to be accepted, we
must either believe Molière to have been ignorant of the comings and
goings of the page and the abbé, or that he was aware of and tolerated
them: two suppositions equally inadmissible. Moreover, if we consult the
dates, the improbability becomes an impossibility. Armande was married
on February 20, 1662, and on January 19, 1664, she bore Molière a son.
The intrigue must then have taken place between these two periods--which
is to make her infidelity begin at a very early date--since M. Bazin
tells us that the Abbé de Richelieu left France in March 1664 with the
expedition organised to defend Hungary against the Turks, and died at
Venice on January 9, 1665. That, however, does not prevent the _Fameuse
Comédienne_ from making his _liaison_ with Mlle. Molière last until the
production of the _Princesse d' Élide_; a play which was not performed
until May 8, 1664, some weeks after his departure.
On to the supposed intrigue between Armande and the abbé, the anonymous
author next proceeds to graft a new and double adventure: "This affair
lasted for some months without trouble; but Molière having written the
_Princesse d' Élide_, in which the Molière played the princess, which
was the first important rôle she had filled, because Mademoiselle du
Parc played them all and was the heroine of the theatre, she created
such a sensation that Molière had cause to repent of having exhibited
her in the midst of the brilliant young men of the Court. For scarcely
had she arrived at Chambord, where the King gave this entertainment,
than she became infatuated with the Comte de Guiche,[25] while the Comte
de Lauzun[26] became infatuated with her. The latter spared no effort to
obtain her good graces, but the Molière, who had quite lost her head
over her hero, would listen to no proposition, and contented herself
with visiting Du Parc and weeping over the indifference of the Comte de
Guiche. The Comte de Lauzun, however, did not abandon hope, experience
having taught him that nothing could resist him. He knew, moreover, that
the Comte de Guiche was one who set but little store by woman's love,
for which reason he doubted not that his indifference would end by
repulsing the Molière, and that his own star would then produce in her
heart what it had produced in those of all the women whom he had sought
to please. He was not deceived, for the Molière, irritated by the
coldness of the Comte de Guiche, threw herself into the arms of the
Comte de Lauzun, as if desirous of seeking protection against further
suffering at the hands of a man who failed to appreciate her."
Here again we have an impossibility and an improbability. In May 1664
the Comte de Guiche was at Warsaw, having been exiled the previous year,
on account of his complicity in the "Spanish letter" plot against Mlle.
de la Vallière, and, therefore, could not have been making love--or
being made love to--at Versailles. As for Lauzun, no mention of him is
to be found among the persons who assisted at the fêtes where the
_Princesse d'Élide_ was performed, while even if he were present, it is
very unlikely that he had any attention to spare for Mlle. Molière, as
he was at this time desperately in love with the Princesse de Monaco,
who afterwards jilted him for the King himself. The fact is that the
malicious chronicler, having decided to give her victim some _grands
seigneurs_ as lovers, not unnaturally selected those most celebrated for
their gallantry, in the belief that, among their numerous mistresses,
one more would pass without difficulty; but she had little acquaintance
with the Court, and her ignorance has betrayed her.
Although the Abbé de Richelieu had, as we have mentioned, departed for
Hungary, the _Fameuse Comédienne_ retains him on the stage and makes him
play a particularly odious rôle. He intercepts a very tender letter
written by Armande to the Comte de Guiche, and, furious at the lady's
duplicity, "does not amuse himself by uttering reproaches, which never
serve any good purpose; but, congratulating himself on having engaged
her only by the day, resolves to break with her from that moment, which
he does, after calling Molière's attention to the fact that the great
care he took to please the public left him no time for examining the
conduct of his own wife, and that while he worked to divert every one,
every one worked to divert her."
A bitter matrimonial quarrel naturally follows this confidence. Armande
sheds floods of tears, confesses her _tendresse_ for Guiche, but
protests that she is guilty in intention only, carefully refrains from
saying a word about Lauzun, entreats her deluded husband's pardon, which
she obtains with very little difficulty, and profits by his credulity to
continue her intrigues "with more _éclat_ than ever." Wearying of
sentimental or quasi-sentimental attachments, she resolves to profit by
her charms, at the same time making a great pretence of chastity and
"causing to sigh for her an infinity of fools who imagine her to be of
unexampled virtue." However, in due course, Molière is advised of her
proceedings, and another painful scene takes place between husband and
wife. Molière falls into a violent passion and threatens to have her
shut up in a convent. Armande weeps, swoons away, and appears to be on
the point of expiring; but eventually revives and, instead of entreating
pardon, as on the previous occasion, takes a high tone, accuses her
husband of keeping up his intimacy with Mlle. de Brie, who, by a
singular arrangement, still continued to reside under the same roof as
her former lover,[27] and also with Madeleine Béjart, declares that she
"no longer has the courage to live with him, that she would rather die,
and that everything between them must come to an end." In vain her
family, that of Molière, and their common friends endeavour to appease
her. "She conceives henceforth a terrible aversion for her husband, she
treats him with the utmost contempt; finally, she carries matters to
such an extremity that Molière, beginning to perceive her evil
propensities, consents to the rupture which, since their quarrel, she
has never ceased to demand; and, accordingly, without any decree of the
Parliament, they agree that they will no longer live together."
Here, at last, the author of the _Fameuse Comédienne_ is on sure ground;
for we know, on unimpeachable authority, that an "amicable" separation
did actually take place between Molière and his wife. Its precise date
is a matter of some uncertainty, but it must have been subsequent to the
month of April 1665, when Armande presented her husband with a second
child, a daughter, to whom Madeleine Béjart and the Comte de Modène
stood sponsors. "If," says M. Larroumet, "we admit that the
_Misanthrope_ reflects something of the poet's state of mind and of his
feelings towards his wife, the separation perhaps belongs to the moment
when this play was produced, in June 1666, or later, about the month of
August, after the _Médecin malgré lui_." M. Larroumet sees in the
circumstance that the leading feminine parts in the three plays which
followed the _Médecin malgré lui_: _Mélicerte_, _Le Sicilien_, and
_Amphitryon_, were allotted to Mlle. de Brie, and not to Armande--a
distribution which must have been peculiarly galling to the latter, who
had so long filled the most important or the most flattering rôles--a
natural effect of her husband's resentment.
From the moment of their rupture until their reconciliation, some five
years later, husband and wife met no more, except at the theatre.
Armande remained in Paris, with her mother and sister; while Molière
passed most of his rare leisure at a little country-house which he
rented at Auteuil, then, as now, one of the most beautiful suburbs of
Paris. One day, according to the _Fameuse Comédienne_, he was sitting in
his garden, musing sadly upon his lost happiness, when his friend
Chapelle broke in upon his solitude, and, finding him in a more than
usually despondent mood, began to reproach him with betraying a weakness
which he had so often turned to ridicule upon the stage.
"For my part," said he, "if I were unfortunate enough to find myself in
like case to you, and that the person I loved granted favours to others,
I should feel such a contempt for her as would infallibly cure me of my
passion. Moreover, there is a satisfaction open to you, which would be
denied you if she were only your mistress; and that vengeance which
commonly takes the place of love in an outraged heart can compensate you
for all the mortifications your wife occasions you, since you can at
once have her shut up in a convent. This would, indeed, be a sure means
of placing your mind at rest."
Molière, who had listened quietly to his friend, here interrupted him to
inquire whether he himself had never loved.
"Yes," replied Chapelle, "I have been in love as a man of sense ought to
be, but I should never have found any difficulty in following what
honour prescribed; and I blush to find you in such a state of indecision
in regard to this matter."
"I see well," rejoined Molière, "that you have never truly loved. You
take the semblance of love for love itself. I might give you many
examples which would demonstrate to you the strength of this passion;
but I will merely give you a faithful account of my own trouble, that
you may understand how little we are masters of ourselves when once it
has acquired dominion over us. As for the consummate knowledge of the
human heart which you say the portraits I am constantly offering to the
public prove me to possess, I will acknowledge that I have endeavoured
to understand its weakness. But, if my science has taught me that danger
should be avoided, my experience convinces me but too thoroughly that to
escape it is impossible. I judge daily by my own case.
"I am by nature of an excessively tender disposition, and all my efforts
have never enabled me to overcome my inclinations towards love. I sought
to render myself happy, that is to say, so far as might be with a
sensitive heart. I was convinced that few women are deserving of sincere
affection; that interest, ambition, and vanity are at the root of all
their intrigues. I thought, however, to secure my happiness by the
innocence of my choice. I took my wife, so to speak, from the cradle. I
educated her with the care which has given rise to the rumours which
have doubtless reached your ears. I had persuaded myself that I could
inspire her by habit with sentiments that time alone could destroy, and
I neglected nothing whereby this end could be attained. As she was still
young when I married her, I was unaware of her evil propensities, and
deemed myself a little less unfortunate than the majority of those who
contract such engagements. Thus marriage did not lessen my affection;
but she treated me with such indifference that I began to perceive that
all my precautions had been unavailing, and that her feelings towards me
were very far removed from what I desired for my happiness. I reproached
myself with a sensitiveness which seemed ridiculous in a husband,
ascribing to her disposition that which was really due to her want of
affection for me. But I had but too many opportunities of perceiving my
error; and the mad passion which she contracted soon afterwards for the
Comte de Guiche occasioned too much commotion to leave me even this
appearance of tranquillity. I spared no endeavour, so soon as I knew the
truth, to conquer myself, finding it impossible to change her. I
employed all the strength of mind that I could command. I summoned to my
aid everything that could help to console me. I considered her as a
person whose sole merit had lain in her innocence, and whose
unfaithfulness robbed her of all her charms. I resolved henceforth to
live with her as an honourable man whose wife is a coquette, and who is
well persuaded that, whatever may be said, his reputation is not
affected by the misconduct of his spouse. But I had the mortification to
discover that a woman without great beauty, who owed what little
intelligence she possessed to the education which I had given her,
could, in an instant, destroy all my philosophy. Her presence made me
forget all my resolutions; the first words she said in her defence left
me so convinced that my suspicions were ill-founded that I asked pardon
of her for having been so credulous.
"However, my kindness effected no change in her, and, in the end, I
determined to live with her as if she were not my wife; but if you knew
what I suffer you would pity me. My passion has reached such a point as
to cause me to sympathise with her; and when I reflect upon the
impossibility of suppressing what I feel for her, I tell myself, at the
same time, that she has perhaps a similar difficulty in overcoming her
inclination towards coquetry, and I find myself more disposed to pity
than to blame her.
"No doubt you will tell me that one must be a poet to love in this
manner, but, for my part, I hold that there is only one kind of love,
and that those who have not felt such tenderness have never truly loved.
Everything in this world is associated in my mind with her. So entirely
are my thoughts occupied by her that in her absence nothing can give me
pleasure. When I behold her, an emotion, transports which may be felt
but not expressed, deprive me of all power of reflection. I have no
longer eyes for her faults, but see only her lovable qualities. Is not
this the last extremity of folly? And do you not marvel that all my
reason serves only to convince me of my weakness without giving me the
strength to master it?"
Quite a number of writers, including several who are inclined to place
but little confidence in the rest of the _Fameuse Comédienne_,
pronounce unhesitatingly for the genuineness of the above conversation.
M. Edouard Fournier thinks that a letter from Molière to Chapelle has
been worked into the text,[28] while Mr. Gegg Markheim, in his very
interesting preface to the Clarendon Press edition of the _Misanthrope_,
is of opinion that a conversation between the two poets was repeated by
Chapelle, "either thoughtlessly or to clear his friend from certain
slanders," and reached the ears of the author. Mr. Markheim adduces two
circumstances as proofs of the genuineness of the Auteuil confession:
first, that the substance of it is confirmed by a similar conversation
between Molière and his friends, the physician Rohault, and Mignard, the
celebrated painter, cited by Grimarest, in his biography of the
dramatist; secondly, the very remarkable resemblance, not only in
thought but in language, between certain passages in the _Fameuse
Comédienne_ and the _Misanthrope_, in which play Molière is generally
believed to have, in some measure, taken his audience into his
confidence in regard to his domestic affairs. Thus--to cite only one
instance of several which Mr. Markheim gives--in the book Molière says:
"_Je n'ai plus d'yeux pour ses défauts, il m'en reste seulement pour ce
qu'elle a d'aimable_;" while in the play Alceste makes the same
confession in almost the same words:--
"J'ai beau voir ses défauts, et j'ai beau l'en blâmer,
En dépit qu'on en ait, elle se fait aimer."
Mr. Markheim's first argument may, we think, be dismissed, as the
conversation in Grimarest would appear to be nothing more than a not too
skilful imitation of that in the _Fameuse Comédienne_; but the second
is deserving of more attention. The similarity between the several
passages Mr. Markheim cites is certainly too striking to be explained
away on the ground of mere coincidence; yet, so far from proving his
contention, it makes, in our opinion, for a diametrically opposite
conclusion. Let us listen to what M. Larroumet, the best-informed and
most impartial of all the recent biographers of Molière, has to say upon
the matter: "If we admit that the _Fameuse Comédienne_, in spite of its
detestable inspiration, is not the work of a beginner, but of an actress
endowed with the talent of a natural style, the simplest course would be
to admit further that this fragment is as much her work as the rest of
the book. Trained to the practice of the theatre, she combines certain
portions of her story with as many little plays. Here she will have
perceived the scene to construct and the pathetic tirade to write. Is
not the situation one to inspire and stimulate? Sustained then by her
recollections of the _Misanthrope_, her imagination stirred by the
passionate complaints of Alceste, her hatred of Armande coming to her
assistance, she has been successful in the scene and the tirade."[29]
In a word, the whole Auteuil episode is pure fiction; yet fiction of
such a kind--"one of the choicest morsels of French prose in its most
glorious epoch"--as may well arouse a regret that the writer did not
turn her undoubted talents to some worthier purpose than the composition
of scandalous libels.
* * * * *
In the isolation in which he now found himself, Molière, who was one of
those who cannot live without woman's affection, turned for comfort to
Mlle. de Brie, his former providence, who, it may be mentioned, had in
the _Misanthrope_ played the part of Éliante, the lady who endeavours to
console Alceste for the caprices of Célimène. Her intervention, however,
was of a less irreproachable kind than Éliante's, and she appears to
have passed a considerable portion of her time at Auteuil. The poet's
friends remonstrated, pointing out that, by renewing his intimacy with
Mlle. de Brie, he was giving his wife but too much excuse for her own
conduct, and endeavoured to persuade him to break with her. "Is it for
virtue, beauty, or intelligence that you love this woman?" one of them
is said to have asked him. "You know that Florimont and Le Barre are her
lovers, that she is not beautiful, that she is a perfect skeleton, and
that she has no common sense." "I know all that," replied Molière; "but
I am accustomed to her faults; for me to accommodate myself to the
imperfections of another would be a task beyond my powers; I have
neither the time nor the patience."
But Molière adored his wife: about this all his contemporaries are
agreed. Bold and courageous in his works, ever ready to castigate vice
and ridicule folly, without troubling himself about the possibility of
reprisals, he showed himself in regard to her feeble and irresolute to
the last degree. His relations with Mlle. de Brie and other women were
after all but passing caprices; his passion for Armande was the one
serious love of his life; a love which survived indifference,
ingratitude, it may be even infidelity, and to which he always returned,
in spite of vows and good resolutions.
Under these circumstances, a reconciliation could be only a matter of
time, and, thanks to the good offices of their common friends, Chapelle
and the Marquis de Jonzac, it took place towards the end of the year
1671. The author of the _Fameuse Comédienne_ is discreetly silent about
this, fearing that it might weaken her indictment; and, between whiles,
places a new intrigue of Armande; this time with a member of her
husband's troupe.
Some years before, Molière had rescued a little boy named Michel Baron
from the hands of some strolling players, and, perceiving in him the
makings of an excellent actor, had attached him to himself and trained
him for the stage. His confidence was justified, for Baron became in
later years the greatest actor of his time and also a successful
dramatist. Armande, however, was far from sharing Molière's liking for
the boy; she detested him for his precocity and impertinent airs, and
still more for the influence which she suspected him of exercising over
her husband; and one day, during a rehearsal of _Mélicerte_, in which
Baron had been cast for the title-part, carried her resentment to the
point of dealing him a sound box on the ear. In high dudgeon, Baron
forthwith took himself off and joined a strolling company; nor was it
until four years later that, at the urgent entreaty of Molière, he
consented to return. He was then a tall lad of seventeen, exceedingly
handsome, full of assurance, and "already in great request among the
ladies of the theatre and also among certain ladies of the fashionable
world." It did not appear at first, says the author of the _Fameuse
Comédienne_, that time had greatly modified the hostility with which
Mlle. Molière and he regarded one another. But when they appeared
together in _Psyché_, at the carnival of 1671, Armande in the
title-part, Baron as Love, there came a change. "The common praises that
they received compelled them to examine one another more attentively,
and even with some degree of pleasure. He was the first to break the
silence by complimenting her on the good fortune that had befallen him
in being chosen to represent her lover, and observing that he owed the
approbation of the public to this happy chance, and that it was not
difficult to play the part of a person whose feelings one could so well
understand. The Molière replied that the praises bestowed on a man like
himself were the reward of merit, and that she had no share in them; but
that gallantry on the part of one who was said to have so many
mistresses did not surprise her, and that he must be as accomplished an
actor outside the theatre as he was on the stage.
"Baron, to whom these kind of reproaches were not displeasing, told her
that he had indeed some habits that one might call _bonnes fortunes_,
but that he was prepared to sacrifice all for her, and that he would set
more value on the smallest of her favours than on any which the ladies
who had smiled upon him were able to bestow. And he mentioned their
names, with a discretion which was natural to him."
Armande is, of course, enchanted by this proof of devotion, and, to cut
a long story short, they resolve to continue their respective rôles off
the stage.
We have related this supposed intrigue at far greater length than it
deserves, since it furnishes a fair sample of the materials upon which
M. Loiseleur and other historians have based their judgments of Armande.
But, in point of fact, it is no more worthy of belief than the stories
about Lauzun, Guiche, and the Abbé de Richelieu. Although the
insufferable coxcomb whom La Bruyère has depicted under the name of
Roscius, and who is said to have depicted himself in his comedy,
_L'Homme à bonnes fortunes_, was not the kind of person to be deterred
by any honourable scruples from making love to the wife of his
benefactor, had he been so minded, we can hardly suppose that an
intrigue between Armande and a member of his own troupe could have been
carried on without Molière becoming aware of it, or that, when aware of
it, he would have permitted Baron to retain his place in the company.
Moreover, apart from the statement in the _Fameuse Comédienne_, there is
no reason to believe that the old antipathy between Armande and Baron
ever ceased to exist, far less that they became lovers. What is certain,
is that no sooner was Molière dead than Baron quitted the Palais-Royal
and went over to the Hôtel de Bourgogne, at a moment when Armande,
become chief of the troupe, was urgently in need of his services. This,
it must be admitted, was hardly the conduct of a friend, to say nothing
of a lover.
By the side of these intrigues, apocryphal or doubtful, it is pleasant
to be able to record a friendship of an altogether unexceptional nature.
The great Corneille, in spite of his affection for his wife, Marie de
Lemperière, whose hand Cardinal de Richelieu is said to have obtained
for him, after her father had sent the poet about his business, was of a
very gallant disposition and in the habit of offering incense at the
shrine of any goddess of the theatre who was inclined to accept his
devotion. At Rouen, in 1758, he had, like Molière at an earlier date,
fallen desperately in love with Mlle. du Parc, but had fared no better
at the hands of that haughty beauty than the chief of the Illustre
Théâtre. This rebuff, which drew from the chagrined poet the well-known
_Stances à une marquise_, seems to have brought home to Corneille the
fact that he was no longer young, and to have somewhat damped his
amorous ardour. At any rate, when Armande appeared upon the scene, he
contented himself with offering her a platonic admiration, charmingly
expressed in the third act of _Psyché_.
_Psyché._--"Can one be jealous of the affection of relatives?"
_Amour._--"I am so, my Psyché; I am so of all nature. The sun's rays
kiss you too often; your tresses suffer too many caresses from the wind.
The moment it toys with them, I murmur at it. The very air you breathe
with too much pleasure passes between your lips. And, so soon as you
sigh, I know not what affrights me, and makes me fear, among your sighs,
some errant ones."
Not content with this tribute to the lady's charms, the old poet
conceived the idea of writing for Armande a play in which she might
impersonate the heroine, and he might portray himself in the character
of a chivalrous old man in love with her. He, accordingly, composed his
_Pulchérie_, which, as Molière, for some reason, could not see his way
to accept it for the Palais-Royal, was produced at the Marais on
November 2, 1672. It was a poor play, the dramatist having failed to
endow either the plot with interest, or the characters, apart from the
amorous old senator Martian, with any special individuality; and even
Corneille's devoted admirer, Madame de Sévigné, was compelled to admit
that "_Pulchérie_ was not a success." Nevertheless the terms in which
Martian speaks of the heroine were so very flattering that Armande must
have regretted that circumstances had prevented her undertaking the
latter part.
The reconciliation between Molière and Armande was in all likelihood
facilitated by a serious illness with which the latter was seized in the
early autumn of 1671, during the run of _Psyché_. Under such
circumstances the most legitimate grievances are apt to be forgotten,
and it must have needed but very little persuasion on the part of their
common friends to induce Molière, with all his love for his wife revived
at the sight of her suffering, to hasten her convalescence by an
assurance of his full forgiveness. In the following February, Madeleine
Béjart died, leaving the bulk of her property to Armande, and, towards
the middle of that year, Molière removed from the Place du Palais-Royal,
where he had lived for so long with the Béjarts and Mlle. de Brie, to a
large house in the Rue de Richelieu, near the Académie des Peintres,
which he furnished very sumptuously. Here, on September 15, Armande gave
birth to her third child--a son--baptized as Pierre Jean Baptiste Armand
on October 1, Boileau-Puimorin, brother of Boileau-Despréaux, and Mlle.
Mignard, daughter of the celebrated painter, acting as sponsors. The
little boy, however, only survived this ceremony a few days, thus
preceding his illustrious father to the grave by rather less than four
months.
The reconciliation with his wife, indeed, in itself so happy, was
destined to prove fatal to Molière, and was undoubtedly one of the
causes of his premature death. For some years, the poet had suffered
from a chest affection, very possibly due to frequent exposure during
his provincial tours. In the winter of 1665-1666, we learn from Robinet
that he had had an illness which all but terminated fatally, and in the
spring of 1667 he was again "_tout proche d'entrer dans la bière_," was
absent from the theatre for two months, and was compelled to restrict
himself to a milk diet, and speak as little as possible when not on the
stage. The retired life he had led during his breach with Armande had,
of course, favoured the adoption of this regimen, and under it his
health had so much improved that, believing himself cured, and unwilling
to impose on his wife the cheerless society of a valetudinarian, he
abandoned his abstemious habits, entertained largely, and, in short,
resumed his former mode of life. The result was a rapid aggravation of
his complaint; his nights were sleepless, he was racked by a terrible
cough, and, at the beginning of the year 1673, it became evident that
his days were numbered. In this condition, by the irony of Fate, it fell
to him to represent the folly of a man in perfect health who, imagining
himself the victim of all manner of fell diseases, is ready to submit to
any and every remedy that may be suggested to him,--that is to say, the
exact counterpart of his own state. On February 10, the _Malade
imaginaire_, a happy conception in the composition of which the author
had doubtless contrived to find some relief from his sufferings, both of
body and mind--for there is some reason to believe that his relations
with his wife were again becoming strained--was produced at the
Palais-Royal, and played for three nights to crowded houses. On the
morning of the fourth performance, February 17,[30] Molière was so weak
that Armande and Baron united in urging him not to play, but their
efforts were unavailing. "How," he asked, "can I refuse to appear when
so many persons' bread depends upon it? I should reproach myself for the
distress I might cause them, as I have sufficient strength to prevent
it." This speech is often quoted as a proof of Molière's consideration
for others, but though the great writer's unselfishness and generosity
are happily beyond dispute, it would appear more probable that his plea
was merely an excuse for disregarding the advice of his wife and friend,
as he was sufficiently well off to have been able to compensate those
who would have suffered by the temporary closing of the theatre without
any very serious inconvenience.[31] No; Molière knew that his end was
near, and, like the brave man he was, he preferred to die in harness,
rather than, by taking to his bed, prolong his sufferings a few days
longer.
Accordingly, when the play began at four o'clock, he again appeared in
the high-backed arm-chair of the imaginary invalid, and acted the part
with as much whimsical humour as on the three previous occasions, though
it was obvious to those on the stage that every speech and movement cost
him a terrible effort; and in the burlesque ceremony where Argan takes
the oath as a new doctor, swearing to adhere to the remedies prescribed
by antiquity and to ignore modern discovery, he was seized with a
convulsion, which he endeavoured vainly to disguise by forcing a laugh.
When the curtain fell, he made his way to Baron's dressing-room and
complained that he was "perishing of cold." A chair was obtained, and
the dying man conveyed to his home, where he was put to bed. Feeling
that his last hour was at hand, he asked for the consolations of
religion, and Armande and Baron hurried off to Saint-Eustache, where,
however, the two priests in attendance, learning who it was who required
their help, declined to leave the church. The next priest applied to had
a better sense of his duty, and consented to administer the Sacraments.
But, in the meanwhile, much precious time had been wasted, and when he
reached the house, Molière had no further need of his services. He had
died at ten o'clock, in the arms of two Sisters of Charity, to whom he
had long given shelter during their Lenten visits to Paris, and who had
but that day arrived in the capital.
Notwithstanding the assistance of these two nuns, and the fact that a
priest had been summoned to his death-bed, Molière was none the less
regarded as having died without the consolations of religion, and M.
Merlin, the curé of Saint-Eustache, refused ecclesiastical burial to his
remains.
Armande at once addressed a petition to the Archbishop of Paris, Harlay
de Chanvalon, explaining the circumstances of the case, and laying
stress upon the fact of her husband having communicated at the previous
Easter. It has been stated that the archbishop's reply was an absolute
refusal. This is incorrect; he confined himself to referring the
petition to an official whose duty it was to inquire into such matters.
However, Armande, dreading an unfavourable answer, determined to seek
the intervention of the King, and, accompanied by the curé of Auteuil, a
liberal-minded ecclesiastic and a personal friend of Molière, she set
off for Saint-Germain, where the Court then was. Even her enemies are
compelled to admit that, in these trying circumstances, she showed both
dignity and courage. "If," she exclaimed, when the King demurred to
granting her request, "if my husband was a criminal, his crimes were
authorised by your Majesty in person." This was certainly true, though
to remind his Majesty of the fact was hardly calculated to further her
cause, nor did the curé of Auteuil improve matters by embarking on a
theological argument, apparently with the view of anticipating an attack
upon his orthodoxy by his more bigoted brethren. Nevertheless, Louis
XIV., though obviously much annoyed at such outspokenness, behaved with
that tact which is one of his best claims to our respect. He dismissed
the widow and the curé, telling them that the matter was one which
concerned the archbishop and not himself; but, at the same time, he
wrote to the prelate, bidding him "take steps to avoid _éclat_ and
scandal."
The archbishop, as became a good courtier, bowed to the royal commands,
but, in order to save appearances, compromised the matter. He permitted
"the curé of Saint-Eustache to give ecclesiastical burial to the body of
the deceased in the cemetery of the parish, on condition, nevertheless,
that it should take place without any ostentation, with two priests
only, and after dusk had fallen; that there should be no solemn service
on his behalf, either in the said parish of Saint-Eustache or even in
any church of the regular clergy, and that our present permission shall
be without prejudice to the rules of the ritual of our Church, which we
desire shall be observed according to their form and tenor."[32]
* * * * *
Much has been written on the refusal of the curé of Saint-Eustache to
accord Molière Christian burial, and on the conditions imposed by the
Archbishop of Paris after the official intervention of the king; and the
bigotry and inhumanity of both priest and prelate have been denounced in
scathing terms. But the majority of those who have treated of the
incident were better acquainted with the theatre than the Sorbonne, for,
though the souvenirs of _Tartuffe_ and _Don Juan_ no doubt counted for
much in the matter, Harlay de Chanvalon and his subordinate were, after
all, only putting into force a rule of the Church which had existed for
centuries, though in recent times it had, happily, been more honoured in
the breach than the observance. As, however, the question is of great
interest, and one, also, to which we shall have occasion to return more
than once in the course of the present volume, it may be as well for us
to give here a brief sketch of the doctrine of the Church in regard to
the actor.
The hostility of the Christian Church to the theatre may be traced back
to very early times. The Fathers of the Church--Tertullian,
Saint-Cyprian, Saint-Chrysostome, and others--had been unsparing in
their condemnation of the actor,[33] whilst Saint-Salvien, a priest of
the fourth century, went so far as to declare that "comedy was worse
than blasphemy, theft, homicide, and all other crimes, and that the
spectator was the accomplice of the performer." Nor was this hostility
by any means confined to treatises and sermons. The Council of Elvira,
in 305, enacted that no actor was to be received into the Church unless
he had solemnly engaged to renounce his profession; if he failed to keep
his promise, he was to be immediately excommunicated. At the Council of
Arles, held five years later, all circus-performers and actors were
excluded from the Sacraments, so long as they exercised their
profession; and the third Council of Carthage (A.D. 397) denied them
baptism or absolution. Henceforth, the Church regarded actors as beyond
her pale, and, imitating the severity of the Roman Law, placed them on
the same footing as prostitutes. She refused them baptism; she refused
them absolution; she refused to marry them; she refused to accept them
as sponsors at the baptism of the children of their relatives and
friends; she refused them the Holy Communion, in public or in private,
in life or on their death-beds; finally, she refused them even Christian
burial.
Extravagantly severe as all these canons may, at first sight, appear,
they were none the less perfectly logical. It was indeed only natural
that the early Church should insist that actors who desired to
participate in her Sacraments should forthwith abjure their profession,
when we pause to consider the exceedingly licentious character of the
Roman theatre and the powerful influence it exercised in perpetuating
the memory of Paganism. It is to be remarked, however, that the censures
pronounced against the actor emanated not from any Pope or ecumenical
council, but from provincial synods, and when, in process of time,
Paganism disappeared and practically the whole of civilised Europe
became Christian, they naturally ceased to be enforced--though they were
never formally abrogated--in every country, save one. The exception was
France, where the old anathemas remained in force, as a natural
consequence of the independent attitude adopted by the French clergy
towards the Holy See.
In order to protect themselves against the encroachments of the Popes,
and to resist the changes which they were incessantly striving to
introduce into the discipline of the Church, the French bishops laid the
foundations of Gallicanism, by declaring immutable all the canons
promulgated by the early councils up to the eighth century which had
passed into the customs of the Church of France. The adoption of these
canons was a very serious matter for the theatrical profession in
France, for among them was that of the Council of Arles, already
mentioned, which expressly excluded the actor from the Sacraments, so
long as he followed his calling. However, it was clearly understood that
the penalties pronounced should not be applied to the regular actor, but
only to mountebanks and other persons whose performances might serve to
recall those of Paganism; and indeed down to the time of the
Reformation, when the Catholic clergy, unwilling to show less austerity
than those of the Reformed faith, began to proscribe severely all kinds
of amusements, even these seem to have been treated with great
indulgence.[34]
In 1624, the bigoted Jean de Gondy, Archbishop of Paris, declared in a
pastoral letter that actors ought to be deprived of the Sacraments and
ecclesiastical burial, and stigmatized their profession as "infamous
and one unworthy of a Christian." Nevertheless, until the latter part of
the seventeenth century, thanks in a great measure, no doubt, to the
patronage bestowed on the stage by Richelieu and Mazarin, in practice
the greatest tolerance prevailed, and the clergy accorded to the actor
the same treatment as to all other good Catholics. Thus, on January 6,
1654, we find Molière appearing as godfather at a church at Montpellier,
and, in 1670 and again in 1672, discharging the same duty at churches in
Paris, while his marriage, in February 1662, at Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois,
was celebrated without the least difficulty being raised.
Strange as it may appear, it was the protection accorded the theatre,
and the extreme indulgence shown to all connected with it, by a great
party in the Church itself that was directly responsible for the
termination of this happy state of affairs and the violent reaction, of
which the conduct of Harlay de Chanvalon and the curé of Saint-Eustache
towards Molière was but the beginning.
For some time, the Jesuits seem to have regarded the theatre with
disfavour; but towards the middle of the seventeenth century, perceiving
that it might very readily be made to serve as a vehicle for the
propagation of their own ideas, their attitude changed, and they not
only permitted all who came under their influence to attend the play,
but even encouraged the pupils in their colleges to perform theological
comedies, in which their enemies, the Jansenists, were held up to
ridicule. This, naturally, had the effect of exasperating the zealots of
Port-Royal and their numerous adherents, who, always hostile to the
drama, quickly became bitterly antagonistic and required but very
slight provocation to declare open war.
This provocation was not long in coming. In 1665, the clever but
eccentric playwright Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, the author of _Les
Visionnaires_, having passed "_à la devotion la plus outrée_," espoused
the cause of the Jesuits, and, believing that he had received a call
from Heaven to combat the heretics--that is to say, the Jansenists--made
a violent attack upon them. The Jansenists replied by the pen of their
famous publicist, Nicole, who stigmatized those who wrote for the
theatre as "public poisoners, not of bodies, but of souls." Racine,
believing his honour touched, joined in the fray and ridiculed the
bigotry of Port-Royal. Nicole rejoined with a _Traité de la Comédie_,
wherein, relying on the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, he
condemned not only dramatic authors, but those who interpreted them.
"The playhouse," said he, "is a school of Vice. The profession of an
actor is an employment unworthy of a Christian," and much more to the
same effect. Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti, formerly a generous
patron of the drama and of Molière, but now, for some time past, a
Jansenist of the most advanced type, published a similar work, and gave
it as his opinion that a troupe of actors was "a troupe of devils," and
to amuse oneself at the play was to "delight the demon." So the war went
on.
The attacks of Nicole and the Prince de Conti were not without their
effect; they aroused the zeal of all who disliked the theatre and
believed it prejudicial to morality; and a regular campaign was
organised. All unconsciously, Molière himself forged a terrible weapon
for the enemies of his profession. The production of _Tartuffe_ aroused
a perfect storm of indignation among all sections of the clergy; Jesuit
and Jansenist united in denouncing the play, its author, and his
calling. A curé of Paris, one Père Roullé, demanded that the writer,
"this demon clothed with flesh and habited as a man, the most notorious
blasphemer and libertine that has appeared for centuries past, should be
delivered to the flames, the forerunners of those of hell;" Bourdaloue
preached against it; Bossuet declared the works of the poet to be a
tissue of buffooneries, blasphemies, infamies, and obscenities; and
Hardouin de Péréfixe, the then Archbishop of Paris, issued an order
forbidding people "to represent, read or hear _Tartuffe_ recited under
pain of excommunication."
All the old prejudices of the Church against the theatre awoke with
redoubled force. All the old anathemas against the hapless actor, which
had been allowed to slumber for centuries, were dug up by industrious
theologians, and the clergy waited eagerly for opportunities of applying
them. In 1671, Floridor, the famous tragedian of the Hôtel de Bourgogne,
fell dangerously ill and sent for the curé of Saint-Eustache to give him
absolution. The curé flatly refused, save on condition that the actor
would engage, in the event of his recovery, never again to set foot on
the stage. Floridor gave the required promise; nevertheless, when he
died, he was buried without ecclesiastical rites. Molière himself, as we
have just seen, was the next victim of priestly intolerance.
* * * * *
The funeral took place on February 21, at nine o'clock in the evening,
in conformity with the orders of Chanvalon. By that hour, an immense
crowd had gathered in front of the house, drawn thither, no doubt,
merely by curiosity. Armande, however, "unable to penetrate its
intention," became much alarmed, fearing that the enemies of her husband
were organising a riot, and that some indignity to his remains was
intended. She accordingly determined to endeavour to appease it, and
going to a window, threw out handfuls of silver to the amount of one
thousand livres, "at the same time, imploring the assembled people to
give their prayers to her husband, in terms so touching that there was
not one among those persons who did not pray to God with all his heart."
The body of Molière was not taken into the church, but conveyed direct
to the cemetery of Saint-Joseph; the coffin, covered by a large pall,
being preceded by two priests and six _enfants bleus_ carrying lighted
tapers in silver sconces, and followed by a considerable number of
people, many of whom bore torches. Among the mourners were Boileau, La
Fontaine, Chapelle, and the players of the Palais-Royal.
When the cortège reached the cemetery, which was situated in the Rue
Montmartre, a long delay occurred, as the gate was closed and the keys
had been forgotten. While awaiting their arrival, the mourners were able
to read, by the light of the blazing torches, a placard posted on the
wall, which bore the following verses:--
"Il est passé ce Molière
Du Théâtre à la bière;
Le pauvre homme a fait un faux bond;
Et ce tant renommé bouffon
N'a jamais su si bien faire
Le _Malade imaginaire_
Qu'il a fait la mort pour tout de bon."
At last, the keys arrived, and the ceremony was concluded without
further incident. Molière was interred in the middle of the cemetery, at
the foot of the cross. Not a word was spoken over his grave.[35]
Above the last resting-place of her husband Armande placed a large
tombstone, which was still to be seen in 1745, when the brothers
Parfaict published their _Histoire du Théâtre Français_. "This stone,"
writes Titon du Tillet, "is cracked down the middle, which was
occasioned by a very noble and very remarkable action on the part of his
widow. Two or three years after Molière's death, there was a very severe
winter, and she ordered to be conveyed to the cemetery a hundred loads
of wood, which were burned on her husband's tomb, to warm all the poor
of the quarter; the great heat of the fire caused this stone to crack in
two."
* * * * *
It is, as we have said elsewhere, an exceedingly difficult task to
arrive at a definite conclusion in regard to the conduct of Armande.
That she was the abandoned woman that the _Fameuse Comédienne_ and the
writers who follow it have depicted her we entirely decline to believe.
If she had been, is it conceivable that Molière would have lived with
her so long, or that, once having broken with her, he would ever have
been brought to consent to a reconciliation? On the other hand, to
pretend that she was an irreproachable wife seems as hazardous as to
affirm her misconduct. There is no smoke without fire, and the
separation between her and her husband--a separation lasting for five
years--is a highly suspicious circumstance. Its immediate cause may, of
course, have been merely incompatibility of temper--for the account of
the matter given by the _Fameuse Comédienne_ is utterly unreliable--but,
at the same time, it may very well have been occasioned by a far graver
reason. On the whole, the wisest course would appear to be to adopt a
middle position, and, while refusing to accept the statements of her
detractors, to be equally diffident about associating ourselves with the
somewhat violent reaction in the lady's favour which has set in within
recent years.
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.
M. de Champmeslé, who is described as "a handsome man, with a
distinguished air and extremely polished manners," "witty and possessed
of all that is required to please and to command love," made a very
favourable impression upon Mlle. Desmares. He, on his side, admired her
greatly, and very possibly foresaw something of the great career which
awaited her. They, therefore, determined to share each other's fortunes,
and the young man, having paid a visit to Paris to obtain his parents'
consent, they were married on January 9, 1666, at the church of
Saint-Éloi, at Rouen.
In view of what we have already said about the practice of the Church in
regard to the theatrical profession, it is not without interest to note
that the _acte de mariage_ states that the parties "practised the
vocation of players," and that the banns had been published,
"notwithstanding the fact that they had no intention of abandoning the
exercise of their profession at lawful times."
The young couple continued playing in Rouen and the neighbourhood until
the summer of 1668, when, alarmed, apparently by the plague, which was
devastating Normandy, they removed to Paris. Here Champmeslé, who was by
this time a very capable actor, was soon invited to join the company of
the Théâtre du Marais; and, at the beginning of the following year, his
wife was offered a place in the same troupe.
Mlle. de Champmeslé made her first appearance on the Paris stage on
February 15, 1669, in _La Fête de Vénus_, an insipid pastoral, by the
Abbé Boyer, in which she impersonated the goddess and was much
applauded. In the early months of 1670 she secured two other triumphs.
The first was in an "heroic comedy," called _Polycrate_, also by Boyer;
and it spoke volumes for the talent and charm of the young actress that
the audience should have been content to sit through and applaud five
acts of what appears to have been an almost worthless play. Her second
success was gained in _Les Amours de Vénus et Adonis_, a tragedy by
Donneau de Visé, in which she again represented the goddess, and Robinet
chanted her praises:--
"La belle déesse Vénus,
Et dans ce rôle cette actrice
Est une parfaite enchantrice."
But Mlle. de Champmeslé was but half satisfied with such successes. She
was ambitious, and felt that at the Marais her talents had not
sufficient scope. The old theatre, as we have said elsewhere, had now
fallen on evil days; the pieces represented there seemed sorry stuff
indeed in comparison with the comedies of Molière and the tragedies of
Racine; it was the Palais-Royal and the Hôtel de Bourgogne which divided
the suffrages of the playgoing public; the _salle_ in the Rue
Vieille-du-Temple was at times well-nigh deserted. She knew that her
true vocation was in tragedy; not in tragedy such as the third-class
dramatists who wrote for the Théâtre du Marais penned, but in plays like
the _Cid_ and _Polyeucte_, _Alexandre_ and _Andromaque_. On first
arriving in Paris, she had had the good sense to recognise that her
talents were as yet insufficiently developed to allow of her attempting
the great rôles of Corneille and Racine; but now circumstances had
changed. Her acting had had the good fortune to attract the attention of
a member of the Marais troupe named Laroque, whose acquaintance she had
made at Rouen. Laroque, as is not infrequently the case, though only a
moderate performer, was an admirable instructor; and, perceiving in his
young colleague great possibilities, had devoted much time and care to
perfecting her in her art, and with the happiest results. Accordingly,
at Easter 1670, Mlle. Champmeslé and her husband quitted the Rue
Vieille-du-Temple for the Hôtel de Bourgogne. "Here she met Racine and
glory."
The Hôtel de Bourgogne reopened after the Easter recess with a revival
of Racine's _Andromaque_ which three years before had aroused an
enthusiasm the like of which had not been witnessed since the days of
the _Cid_. The part of Hermione was to have been taken by Mlle. Des
OEillets, who had created it; but she was lying ill of a malady from
which she died not long afterwards, and it was in consequence decided to
entrust it to Mlle. Champmeslé. Racine, who knew nothing of the new
recruit, and feared that such a difficult role might suffer in the hands
of an actress who had never interpreted anything more important than the
insipid heroines of Boyer and Visé, refused at first to attend the
performance, and, though he ultimately consented to be present, did so
with evident reluctance. His apprehensions were groundless. "Mlle. de
Champmeslé's rendering of the first two acts was very weak," relates the
Abbé de Laporte in his _Annales dramatiques_. "These acts, where
Hermione is in turn attracted and repelled by Pyrrhus, require a
profound knowledge of the stage and great _finesse_. But in the last
acts, where she is a frenzied lover, with whom jealousy carries all
before it and to whom a supreme betrayal leaves nothing but vengeance to
live for, she retrieved her ground so completely, threw so much fire
into her acting, and rendered the passions with such real fervour that
she was enthusiastically applauded."
At the conclusion of the play, Racine, enraptured with the young
actress's rendering of his heroine, hurried to her dressing-room, and,
falling on his knees, overwhelmed her with compliments and thanks. A few
days later, Mlle. Des OEillets was sufficiently recovered to pay a
visit to the theatre to witness the performance of the new star; and,
when the curtain fell, was seen to throw up her hands and exclaim
sorrowfully: "Des OEillets is no more!"--words which, coming from an
actress who sees herself dethroned by an understudy, are more eloquent
than the most exhaustive commentary.
Overjoyed at finding that such an actress had arisen, Racine gave his
new interpreter lessons in elocution, "at the same time studying her
natural peculiarities, with a view to making them serviceable in any
character he might wish her to represent." According to the poet's son,
Louis Racine, Mlle. de Champmeslé owed her subsequent successes entirely
to his father's teaching. "As he had formed Baron," he says, "he formed
the Champmeslé, but with far more trouble. He made her understand the
verses which she had to recite, showed her the gestures which were
appropriate to each passage, and dictated to her the emphasis which she
must employ." There can be no doubt that Mlle. de Champmeslé owed much
to Racine's tuition, but it is equally certain that she had great
natural gifts as an actress, the chief of which were a peculiar grace of
movement and the greatest of all theatrical seductions, a most
enchanting voice, which moved La Fontaine to write:--
"Est-il quelqu'un que votre voix n'enchante?
S'en trouve-t-il une aussi touchante,
Un autre allant si droit au coeur?"
The flexibility of her voice appears to have been quite extraordinary.
Melodious, soft, and caressing in rôles like Iphigénie or Monime, it
became so powerful and sonorous in such parts as Phèdre, Roxane, and
Hermione that, it is said, when the door of the box at the end of the
_salle_ happened to be open, it could be heard at the Café Procope, over
the way. "The recitation of actors in tragedy," says the anonymous
author of the _Entretiens galants_, "is a kind of chant, and you will
readily admit that the Champmeslé would not please you so much, if her
voice were less agreeable. But she has learned to modulate it with so
much skill, and she lends to her words such natural tones, that it would
seem that she really has in her heart the passions she expresses with
her mouth." In pathetic passages, we are told, she drew tears from the
eyes of the most hardened playgoers. "It was amusing to watch the ladies
sighing and drying their eyes and the men laughing at them, while they
themselves were hard put to restrain their emotion."
There seems to be some difference of opinion as to whether Mlle. de
Champmeslé was strictly beautiful. According to the Brothers Parfaict,
"her skin was not clear, and her eyes were very small and round." On
the other hand, she was "of a fine shape, well made and noble," and "her
defects were, so to speak, counterbalanced by the natural graces spread
over her whole person." Louis Racine, though he denies her talent,
admits that she was handsome; while Madame de Sévigné tells us that she
was "almost plain," but "adorable upon the stage." However that may be,
she did not lack for admirers, and Racine, who, two years before, had
lost his mistress, the beautiful Mlle. du Parc--the actress who had in
turn rejected the addresses of Molière, Pierre Corneille, and La
Fontaine--speedily fell in love with her, and installed her in the
vacant place in his affections, M. de Champmeslé accepting his dishonour
with fashionable complacency. Henceforth, as Molière had written for his
wife, Racine wrote for his mistress, who created all his great heroines,
and "investing them with her own charm, became in truth the
_collaboratrice_ of the poet."
"Bénissons de l'amour l'influence divine,
C'est à toi, Champmeslé, que nous devons Racine,
Il écrivait pour toi, de te plaire occupé,
Son vers coulait plus doux de son coeur échappé."
[Illustration: JEAN RACINE
From an engraving by VERTUE]
In the early spring of 1670, Louis XIV.'s sister-in-law, the ill-fated
Henrietta of England, daughter of Charles I., persuaded Corneille and
Racine to write each a tragedy on the story of Titus and Berenice,
without each other's knowledge, and consequently without the knowledge
of any one else. Her object in so doing was, in all probability, merely
to bring the relative merits of the two great dramatists to a decisive
test, though rumour assigned a romantic reason for her choice of the
subject, to wit, a desire to see upon the stage a little story analogous
to that of her one-time relations with Louis XIV. _Madame's_ death,
famous for its disputed causes and Bossuet's funeral oration, occurred
in the following June; but this did not interfere with the completion of
the plays, which were produced within a few days of one another, the
secret having been so well kept that until then neither of the poets had
the faintest conception that they had been simultaneously engaged on the
same subject.
Racine was the first in the field, his _Bérénice_ being produced at the
Hôtel de Bourgogne on November 21, Floridor playing Titus, and Mlle. de
Champmeslé the beautiful Jewess. Corneille's _Tite et Bérénice_ appeared
at the Palais-Royal, eight days later, with La Thorillière and Mlle.
Molière in the title-parts.
The result of the duel to which the two dramatists found themselves, all
unwittingly, committed was wholly in favour of the younger, Corneille's
play, notwithstanding some fine passages, being unworthy of his
reputation.[44] It was probably to this fact and to the admirable acting
of Mlle. de Champmeslé, rather than to any special merits of his own,
that Racine was indebted for his easy triumph. Approved by the king and
applauded by the public, his _Bérénice_ remained in the bills until
after the thirtieth performance; but it did not please the critics,
Boileau declaring that had he been consulted he would have endeavoured
to dissuade his friend from undertaking so poor a theme; while
Chapelle, when asked by Racine for his opinion, replied in two verses of
an old song:--
"Marion pleure, Marion crie,
Marion veut qu'on la marie."
An answer which nearly caused a quarrel between him and the poet.
To _Bérénice_, early in the following January, succeeded _Baiazet_,
Mlle. de Champmeslé playing the part of Roxane. Madame de Sévigné
attended the fifth performance, and next day writes to Madame de
Grignan: "We have been to see the new play by Racine, and thought it
admirable. My _daughter-in-law_[45] is, in my opinion, the best
performer I ever saw. She is a hundred leagues in front of Des
OEillets, and I, who am supposed to have some talent for acting, am
not worthy to light the candles when she appears.... I wish you had been
with me that afternoon; I am sure you would not have thought your time
ill spent. You would have dropped a tear or two, for I myself shed
twenty; besides, you would have greatly admired your
_sister-in-law_."[46] _Bajazet_ printed, the Marchioness sent her
daughter a copy: "If I could send Champmeslé with it, you would find the
tragedy among the best; without her, it loses half its value. Racine's
plays are written for Champmeslé, and not for posterity. Whenever he
grows old and ceases to be in love, it will be seen whether or not I am
mistaken."[47]
Mlle. de Champmeslé did not by any means confine her creations to her
lover's heroines; the répertoire of the Hôtel de Bourgogne was a rich
one. Thus, in March of that same year, she appeared in the title-part in
_Ariane_, a new tragedy by her fellow-townsman, Thomas Corneille. This
play was praised by some critics, but, in all probability, owed its
success almost entirely to her impersonation of the heroine, "which drew
the public as the light draws the moth." Madame de Sévigné was again
among the audience, and wrote of the actress in terms of enthusiasm:
"The Champmeslé is something so extraordinary that in your life you
never saw any one like her. It is the actress that people flock to see,
not the play. I went to _Ariane_ entirely for the sake of seeing her.
The tragedy is insipid; the rest of the players wretched. But when the
Champmeslé appears, every one is enthralled, and the tears of the
audience flow at her despair."[48]
When, seven years later, Mlle. de Champmeslé migrated to the Théâtre
Guénégaud, it was in _Ariane_ that she secured her first triumph.
"_Ariane_," wrote Donneau de Visé in the _Mercure_, "has been extremely
well attended. Mlle. de Champmeslé, that inimitable actress, has drawn
tears from the majority of the audience." The natural manner of her
acting and her pathetic rendering of the hapless heroine gave indeed to
the play a new lease of life.
Another brilliant success awaited her in the part of Monime, in Racine's
_Mithridate_, produced on January 13, 1673, the day after its author's
reception at the Academy. The play was received with enthusiasm; and
Madame de Coulanges wrote to Madame de Sévigné, then on a visit to her
daughter, in Provence: "_Mithridate_ is charming; you see it thirty
times, and the thirtieth it seems finer than the first."[49] On March
4, it was played at Saint-Cloud, before _Monsieur_ (the Duc d'Orléans),
the Duke of Monmouth, Madame de Guise, the Princesse de Monaco, and
other distinguished persons; and, in the following August, at
Saint-Ouen, where Boisfranc, _Surintendant des Finances_ to _Monsieur_,
was entertaining a party from the Court. For her rôle, which was a most
exacting one--Mlle. Clairon confesses in her _Mémoires_, that she had
never succeeded in playing it entirely to her satisfaction--Mlle. de
Champmeslé appears to have received very careful instruction from
Racine; and the critics were agreed that seldom had anything more
expressive and charming than her acting been seen. She was particularly
admirable in the scene in the third act, where Monime inadvertently
confesses to the jealous Mithridate her love for his son Xiphanès. "Her
cry of anguish when she sees that she has betrayed the secret of her
heart, sent a shudder through every vein of the spectators and
transported them with emotion." Brossette tells us that one day, when
dining with Boileau, the conversation turned on the subject of
declamation, whereupon the poet repeated this passage in the tone of
Mlle. de Champmeslé, as a perfect example of the art.
While Mlle. de Champmeslé continued her successes, Racine completed his
eighth tragedy, _Iphigénie en Aulide_, which was produced at Versailles
(August 17, 1674), on the occasion of the magnificent _divertissements_
which Louis XIV. gave to his Court on his return from the conquest of
Franche-Comté. This time the performance was given in the open air, in
the gardens of the château. "The scenery," says Andre Félibien, in his
account of the fêtes, "represented a long alley of verdure; on either
side were the basins of fountains, and, at intervals, grottoes of rustic
workmanship, but very delicately finished. On their entablature rose a
balustrade, on which were arranged vases of porcelain filled with
flowers. The basins of the fountains were of white marble supported by
gilded tritons, and in these basins one saw others of greater height,
which bore tall statues of gold. The alley terminated at the back of the
theatre in awnings, which were connected with those covering the
orchestra, and beyond appeared a long alley, which was the alley of the
Orangery itself, bordered on both sides by tall orange-and
pomegranate-trees, interspersed with several vases of porcelain
containing various kinds of flowers. Between each tree were large
candelabra and stands of gold and azure, which supported girandoles of
crystal lighted by several candles. This alley terminated in a marble
portico; the pilasters which supported the cornice were of lapis, and
the door was all of gold work."[50]
In writing _Iphigénie_, Racine had departed considerably from his Greek
model, discarding the catastrophe in favour of the legend as recorded by
Pausanias, wherein it is discovered, at the eleventh hour, that not the
daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, but another princess is the
victim intended by the gods. Inferior to the noble tragedy of Euripides,
the play was, nevertheless, generally acknowledged to be an advance on
anything that Racine had yet attempted, and was a brilliant and
unanimous success; a success of emotion, to which Mlle. de Champmeslé's
pathetic impersonation of the young Greek virgin probably contributed as
much as the subject itself, and inspired Boileau to the lines:--
"Jamais Iphigénie en Aulide immolée,
N'a conté tant de pleurs à la Grèce assemblée,
Que dans l'heureux spectacle à nos yeux étalé
En a fait, sous son nom, verser la Champmêlé."
The capital witnessed the new play in the early days of January 1675,
and confirmed the judgment of the Court: indeed, for once, criticism
appears to have been almost silenced, and the worst that Barbier
d'Aucour, a bitter detractor of the poet, could find to say, was that
_Iphigénie_ had caused a rise in the price of handkerchiefs.
After _Iphigénie_, Mlle. de Champmeslé became the idol of the playgoing
public, and "all Paris" flocked to the Hôtel de Bourgogne, seemingly
indifferent to the bill, provided they could see the now famous actress.
For nearly two years, however, no rôle at all commensurate with her
abilities appears to have fallen to her lot; for Racine was at work on a
new tragedy, which, had he never written anything else, would have
sufficed to ensure him a high place among tragic dramatists. The story
goes that one day, in Madame La Fayette's salon, Racine contended that
it was within the power of a great poet to make the darkest crimes
appear more or less excusable--nay, to arouse compassion for the
criminals themselves. In his opinion, even Medea and Phædra might become
objects of pity rather than abhorrence upon the stage. From this view
his hearers dissented strongly, showing indeed some inclination to turn
it into ridicule; whereupon, in order to convince them of their error,
the dramatist determined to measure his strength once more against that
of Euripides, and to make the fatal passion of Phædra for her stepson
the subject of a tragedy.[51]
But alas! _Phèdre et Hippolyte_ was not destined to take its place as
the greatest tragedy of the French classical school without bringing
cruel mortification to its author. Racine, by his success, had made many
enemies and many more by the caustic wit which he was in the habit of
exercising at the expense of any one who happened to incur his
displeasure. Among those whom he had contrived to offend were the
Duchesse de Bouillon, the fourth of the famous Mancini sisters, and
Madame Deshoulières, a clever but pretentious poetess, whose verses
Racine had, perhaps unduly, depreciated. No sooner did the two ladies in
question ascertain the subject of the forthcoming play than they engaged
a young and conceited poet named Pradon, author of a couple of
indifferent tragedies, to enter the lists against the famous dramatist
and compose a rival _Phèdre_, to be produced at the Théâtre Guénégaud
simultaneously with the appearance of Racine's at the Hôtel de
Bourgogne. Pradon had only three months allowed him; but, nothing
daunted, he set to work and completed his task within the allotted time
and to his own entire satisfaction. In his vanity, he made no secret of
his intention of measuring swords with Racine; and Boileau represented
to his friend that it would be more in keeping with his dignity to
decline the challenge and postpone the production of his play. But the
latter, stung to the quick by the conspiracy which had been formed
against him, and urged on by Mlle. de Champmeslé, "who had learned her
part and wanted money," decided that it should appear on the date
originally fixed.
The play was accordingly produced on New Year's Day 1677, Mlle. de
Champmeslé, of course, impersonating the heroine. Pradon's tragedy was
to have appeared on the same evening; but the difficulty of finding an
actress willing to undertake the principal rôle--it was refused by both
Mlle. de Brie and Mlle. Molière--necessitated a postponement of two
days, when Mlle. du Pin, a capable, but by no means brilliant,
performer, played Phèdre. Pradon ascribed the refusals of the two
leading actresses of the company to the machinations of Racine and his
friends; but, though Racine was certainly not over-scrupulous in his
dealings with his professional rivals, it is more probable that the
ladies in question were, not unnaturally, reluctant to challenge
comparison with the all-conquering Mlle. de Champmeslé, in a part which
was obviously so much better suited to her talents than to theirs.
All went well at the Hôtel de Bourgogne the first evening. M. de
Champmeslé himself took possession of the box-office, and when any of
the leaders of the rival faction appeared, courteously informed them
that every seat in the front part of the house was already occupied; the
result being that Racine's admirers had the theatre to themselves, and
the play was accorded a reception which could not fail to satisfy the
most exacting dramatist. The following evening, however, matters were
very different; to the chagrin of the author and the astonishment of the
company, every box on the first tier was empty! The same thing occurred
the next evening and the next after that, while, to increase the
mystery and the poet's mortification, the boxes at the Théâtre Guénégaud
were reported as crowded with applauding spectators. The explanation was
that the Duchesse de Bouillon, in her determination to secure the
success of her _protégé's_ play and the ruin of her enemy's, had adopted
the ingenious device of engaging in advance all the front seats at both
houses, filling those at the Théâtre Guénégaud with her friends and
leaving the others empty.
Racine was in despair; for that not inconsiderable section of the public
which judges of the merits of a play solely by results was beginning to
declare that his tragedy was a complete failure and Pradon's a brilliant
success. After, however, the trick had been played for three more
nights, he triumphed. Perhaps Madame de Bouillon had begun to find her
amusement, which is said to have cost her 15,000 francs, the equivalent
of five times as much to-day, somewhat too costly a one; or possibly
Racine, discovering the tactics of his enemies, had appealed to the king
for protection, and the duchess had received a hint from his Majesty
that such practices were highly displeasing to him. Any way, the lady
retired from the field, and, with her withdrawal, the rival _Phèdres_
speedily found their respective levels. Nevertheless, in spite of his
ultimate success, Racine never forgot the mortification to which he had
been subjected, and there can be no doubt that this had not a little to
do with his decision to renounce writing for the stage.
When _Phèdre_ was played before the Court, Mlle. de Champmeslé, fearing
that Madame de Montespan might take the lines afterwards addressed on a
memorable occasion by Adrienne Lecouvreur to the Duchesse de
Bouillon:--
"Je suis mes perfidies
OEnone, et ne suis pas de ces femmes hardies
Qui, gôutant dans la crime une tranquille paix,
Ont su se faire un front qui ne rougit jamais"--
to apply to herself, begged Racine to alter or erase them. The poet,
however, though he yielded the palm to no one as a flatterer of royalty,
and was, moreover, under considerable obligations to the king's
mistress, indignantly refused to mutilate his play. Several of those
present remarked upon the verses; but Madame de Montespan had too much
good sense to complain.
As Phèdre, the declamation of which, according to the Abbé du Bois,
Racine "had taught her verse by verse," Mlle. de Champmeslé seems to
have put the comble upon her fame as a _tragédienne_. Of all her
creations, it is the one that La Fontaine names first in the
frontispiece of _Belphégor_:--
"Qui ne connaît l'inimitable actrice
Représentant Phèdre ou Bérénice,
Chimène en pleurs ou Camille en fureur?
Est-il quelqu'un qui cette voix n'enchante?"
So inimitable was she in this character, affording her as it did an
opportunity for the display of all the resources of her art, that
_Phèdre_ was the play selected to consecrate the birth of the
Comédie-Française on Sunday, August 25, 1680; and it was _Phèdre_ again,
with Mlle. de Champmeslé in the title-part, which inaugurated the new
playhouse in the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, on April 16, 1689.[52]
The popularity of Mlle. Champmeslé was not confined to the theatre. Her
house was "the rendezvous of all persons of distinction of the Court and
the town, as well as of the most celebrated writers of the time." Among
the former were Charles de Sévigné, Madame de Sévigné's troublesome son,
the Marquis de la Fare, the author of the curious and all-too-brief
memoirs, and the Comtes de Revel and Clermont-Tonnerre. The latter,
besides Racine, included Boileau, Valincourt, Racine's successor at the
Academy, Chapelle, and La Fontaine, "who very much regretted that he was
only a friend" of his charming hostess. The utmost cordiality and an
entire absence of the restraints of etiquette characterised these
gatherings, and noblemen and writers met on a footing of perfect
equality. "Permit me to address you," writes Boileau to the Comte de
Revel, in April 1701, "in the familiar tone to which you formerly
accustomed me at the house of the famous Champmeslé."
The actress's _liaison_ with Racine was not only public but accepted by
the easy morality of the day; Madame de Sévigné jests about it in her
letters, and La Fontaine, writing to Mlle. de Champmeslé, mentions it as
the most natural thing in the world. Many years afterwards, Boileau
reminds Racine of the numerous bottles of champagne which were drunk by
the lady's accommodating husband. "You know," adds he, "at whose
expense."
According to M. Larroumet, Racine's latest biographer, the poet's
passion for the interpreter of his heroines was of a less defensible
kind than that which he had felt for her predecessor in his affections,
Mlle. du Parc, "with whom he had experienced a sentiment which had the
dignity of love." M. Larroumet is of opinion that "he only loved her
with the facile love which the professionals of gallantry frequently
inspire."
However that may be, the lady appears to have been very far from
faithful to the poet. An epigram by Boileau, which is rather too _gai_
for us to transcribe, speaks of "six lovers" (including the husband),
and of M. de Champmeslé living on the best of terms with the others and
his wife. The favoured gentlemen appear to have been Racine and the four
noblemen mentioned above. But the only one of the four about whose
relations with the actress we have any details is Charles de Sévigné.
This young gentleman seems to have had something of the Oriental in his
temperament; for, at the time that he was paying court to the actress,
he was "wearing the chains of Ninon, this same Ninon who corrupted the
morals of his father."[53] The celebrated Ninon de Lenclos, it may be
mentioned, was then in her fifty-sixth year, but still retained much of
her former fascination; indeed, if tradition is to be believed, she had
lovers when she was over eighty!
Madame de Sévigné was much distressed by the conduct of her son. "Madame
de la Fayette and I are using every effort to wean him from so dangerous
an attachment," she writes to her daughter. "Besides, he has a little
actress (Mlle. de Champmeslé) and all the Despréaux and the Racines.
There are delicious suppers--that is to say, _diableries_." Then, on
March 18: "Your brother is at Saint-Germain. He divides his time between
Ninon and a little actress, and, to crown all, Despréaux. We lead him a
sad life. Ye gods, what folly! Ye gods, what folly!"
From the above passages, it would appear that Racine and his friend
Boileau were not exactly in the odour of sanctity with their
contemporaries; indeed, both were evidently regarded as corrupters of
youth by anxious mothers like Madame de Sévigné.
Three weeks later, we learn that M. de Sévigné is not prospering in his
love-affairs; Ninon has dismissed him, and Mlle. de Champmeslé is on the
point of following her example: "A word or two concerning your brother.
Ninon has given him his _congé_. She is tired of loving without being
loved in return; she has insisted upon his returning her letters, which
he has accordingly done. I was not a little pleased at the separation. I
gave him a hint of the duty he owed to God, reminded him of his former
good sentiments, and entreated him not to stifle all notion of religion
in his breast. But this is not all; when one side fails us, we think to
repair it with the other, and are deceived. The young Merveille (Mlle.
de Champmeslé) has not broken with him, but she will soon, I believe....
The poor Chimène says she sees plainly that he no longer loves her, and
has applied himself elsewhere. In short, this affair makes me laugh; but
I wish sincerely it may be the means of weaning him from a state so
offensive to God and hurtful to his own soul. Ninon told him that he was
a _pompion fricasseed in snow_. See what it is to keep good company! One
learns such elegant expressions."
Then, on April 17, Madame de Sévigné informs her daughter that the young
gentleman's health has broken down under the strain of "the abandoned
life he had led during Holy Week," and that he can "scarcely bear a
woman in his presence." Profiting by his remorse, his fond mother
becomes his confessor: "I took the opportunity to preach him a little
sermon on the subject, and we both indulged in some Christian
reflections. He seems to approve my sentiments, particularly now that
his disgust is at its height. He showed me some letters that he had
recovered from his actress. I never read anything so warm, so
passionate; he wept, he died; he believed it all while he was writing
it, and laughed at it a moment afterwards. I assure you that he is worth
his weight in gold."
Finally, on April 22, the marchioness writes that all is at an end
between her son and Mlle. de Champmeslé, and that she has been
instrumental in preventing the young man from playing a singularly mean
trick upon his former enchantress: "He has left his actress at last,
after having followed her everywhere. When he saw her, he was in
earnest; a moment later, he would make the greatest game of her. Ninon
has completely discarded him; he was miserable while she loved him, and
now that she loves him no longer, he is in absolute despair. She wished
him, the other day, to give her the letters he had received from his
actress, which he did. You must know that she was jealous of that
princess, and wanted to show them to a lover of hers, in the hope of
procuring her a few blows with a belt. He came and told me, when I
pointed out to him how shameful it was to treat this little creature so
badly, merely for having loved him; that she had not shown people his
letters, as some would have him believe, but, on the contrary, had
returned them to him again; that such treacherous conduct was unworthy
of a man of quality, and that there was a degree of honour to be
observed, even in things dishonourable in themselves. He acquiesced in
the justice of my remarks, hurried at once to Ninon's house, and, partly
by strategy and partly by force, got the poor devil's letters out of her
hands. I made him burn them. You see by this what a regard I have for
the reputation of an actress."
According to M. Gueullette (_Acteurs et Actrices du temps passé_),
Racine, though deeply in love with Mlle. de Champmeslé, supported
patiently the numerous infidelities of the lady, "so long as he believed
them to be passing fancies and that he was still beloved." But when the
actress embarked upon a more serious love-affair with the Comte de
Clermont-Tonnerre, and a wit wrote--
"À la plus tendre amour elle fut destinée
Qui prit longtemps Racine dans son coeur:
Mais, par un insigne malheur,
Le _Tonnerre_ est venu, qui l'a _déracinée_"--
he was so bitterly mortified that he left her never to return.
The brothers Parfaict and d'Allainval assert that disgust at his
treatment at the hands of Mlle. de Champmeslé was the immediate cause of
Racine's retirement from dramatic authorship, at the age of
thirty-eight, at the height of his talent, in the heyday of his success;
for after _Phèdre_ he wrote but two more plays, _Esther_ and _Athalie_,
which were performed by the young girls of Saint-Cyr, and were not seen
upon the Paris stage until many years after his death. This, however, is
very unlikely, and it is quite possible, as M. Larroumet suggests, that
Racine, instead of abandoning the theatre, because Mlle. de Champmeslé
had discarded him, discarded the actress, because he had abandoned the
theatre. The poet's retirement indeed seems to have been attributable to
several different motives: disgust at the shameful cabal against
_Phèdre_ and the various annoyances to which it gave rise; the fear that
a repetition of such tactics might jeopardise his position as the
greatest tragic dramatist of his time; weariness of a dissipated life,
and, above all, the awakening, after a sleep of many years, of the
religious sentiments with which his old teachers of Port-Royal had
inspired him in youth. Indignation at Mlle. Champmeslé's conduct may, of
course, have had something to do with the positive antipathy to the
theatre which he manifested in his last years;[54] but to assert that it
was the cause of his renunciation of a profession which had brought him
fame and fortune is to credit him with a capacity for sincere affection
which he certainly never possessed.
With Racine departed not a little of the immense popularity which the
theatre had enjoyed during the past half-century, for though of capable
actors there was, fortunately, no lack, dramatists of even moderate
ability were few and far between. In place of _Andromaques_ and
_Iphigénies_ and _Phèdres_, Mlle. de Champmeslé had to resign herself to
appear in such deservedly-forgotten plays as the _Achille_ of Thomas
Corneille, the _Argélie_ of the Abbé Abeille, and the _Troade_ of
Pradon. Nevertheless, despite the barrenness of the field in which she
laboured, she contrived to gather fresh laurels, and her masterly
impersonation of Queen Elizabeth in Thomas Corneille's _Comte d'Essex_
(January 1678) was enthusiastically received, and secured for a mediocre
play a success out of all proportion to its merits. "One might have said
of her," remarks M. Noury, "as a critic said of Adrienne Lecouvreur,
after seeing her in the same part, 'I have seen a queen among actors.'
She possessed, in fact, majesty."
At Easter 1679, in consequence of some dissensions with their
colleagues, Mlle. de Champmeslé and her husband quitted the Hôtel de
Bourgogne, where they had played for nineteen years, for the Théâtre
Guénégaud, which, by a contract dated April 12, awarded them, "in
gratitude," in addition to a full share of the profits, an annual
allowance of one thousand livres. All her contemporaries are agreed that
this defection was the principal cause of the fusion of the two troupes
in the following year. Deprived of the services of the famous actress,
the Hôtel de Bourgogne was no longer able to cope with its powerful
rivals in the Rue Mazarine.
On the formation of the new company, the Champmeslés figured at the head
of the list of the twenty-seven players nominated by Louis XIV., and
Mlle. Champmeslé was at once recognised as the mainstay of the theatre
in tragedy, as Mlle. Molière--or rather Mlle. Guérin, as she had now
become--was in comedy. Her husband, too, proved himself well worthy of
his place, not only as an actor, but as a playwright. His _Parisien_
(produced February 5, 1682), as we have said elsewhere, provided Mlle.
Guérin with one of her greatest triumphs, and he secured another success
in his _Fragments de Molière_, an amusing piece, in which various
characters from Molière's plays were introduced.
Mlle. de Champmeslé's successes did not make her forget her relatives.
Her brother, Nicolas Desmares, was at this time acting at Copenhagen, in
the troupe subsidised by Christian V. That monarch held the actor and
his wife, Anne d'Ennebaut, in high esteem, and, in 1682, in imitation of
Louis XIV.'s conduct in regard to Molière, he and his queen stood
sponsors to their little daughter, Christine Antoinette Charlotte
Desmares, destined, in years to come, to emulate the triumphs of her
famous aunt. Three years later, Mlle. de Champmeslé persuaded her
brother to return to France, and obtained from the King permission for
him to be received into the Comédie-Française, "_sans début_." For an
actor to be admitted a member of so famous a company without being
required to give proofs of his capabilities, was a privilege which had
never yet been accorded, and the playgoing public was up in arms at what
it was pleased to consider a scandalous piece of nepotism. So great was
the indignation that when Desmares made his first appearance, on May 7,
1685, in _Téramène_, an angry scene was apprehended; but the new
_sociétaire's_ acting was so admirable that the hisses were soon drowned
in a storm of applause.
When, in 1689, the Comédie-Française, ousted from the Rue Mazarine,
migrated to its new home in the Rue Neuve-des-Fossés-Saint-Germain,
Mlle. de Champmeslé, in spite of advancing years, continued her
triumphant career, her remarkable talents and enthusiasm enabling her to
secure some measure of success for even the most insipid tragedy. Apart
from revivals of the great masterpieces of Corneille and Racine, perhaps
her most notable success was gained in the part of Judith in the Abbé
Boyer's tragedy of that name, produced in March 1795, when she was in
her fifty-fourth year. This play had a singular history. For some time
it created a perfect _furore_, and the theatre could with difficulty
accommodate the crowds which presented themselves nightly at the doors.
"The seats on the stage," says Le Sage, "had to be given up by the men
to the women, whose handkerchiefs were spread upon their knees, to wipe
away the tears to be called forth by touching passages. The usual
occupants of the seats had to be content with the wings. In the fourth
act, there was a scene which proved particularly moving, and, for that
reason, was called the '_scène des mouchoirs_.' The pit, where laughers
are always to be found, made itself merry at the expense of these
impressionable ladies, instead of weeping with them."
Intoxicated by his success, the Gascon poet, in an evil hour for
himself, determined to allow his work to be printed, and it was
published during the Easter recess. It was, of course, eagerly bought,
but no sooner did people begin to read the book, than they made the
discovery that this tragedy, which the author's indiscreet admirers had
been comparing to _Polyeucte_ and _Phèdre_, was, in truth, a most
mediocre play, which clearly owed its phenomenal success to the
religious nature of the subject and Mlle. de Champmeslé's brilliant
impersonation of the Judæan heroine. The indignation of the public
against the unhappy abbé, who, it seemed to consider, had perpetrated a
kind of fraud at its expense, knew no bounds, and it was forthwith
decided that _Judith_ must be driven with ignominy from the boards.
Accordingly, when the curtain rose on Quasimodo Sunday--the usual
evening for the reopening of the theatre--the players, whose appearance
for so many nights had been the signal for prolonged applause, were
received with a storm of hisses and derisive laughter. "Then," continues
Le Sage, "Mlle. de Champmeslé, actress worthy of eternal remembrance,
astonished to hear such a symphony, when her ears were accustomed only
to applause, addressed the pit as follows: 'Gentlemen, we are rather
surprised that you should receive so badly to-day a play which you
applauded during Lent.' To which a voice replied: 'The hisses were at
Versailles, at the sermons of the Abbé Boileau.'"[55]
Mlle. de Champmeslé continued on the stage until the end of her life,
for, with her, acting would seem to have been not only a profession, but
a passion and a delight. As she grew old, however, she naturally began
to feel the strain of such constant exertion, and the efforts she was
called upon to make in order to secure the success of Longpierre's
_Médée_, in February 1694, brought on a somewhat severe illness. She
recovered and resumed her place in the company; but, four years later,
during the run of the _Oreste et Pilade_ of La Grange-Chancel, which the
author modestly asserts "drew as many tears as the _Iphigénie_ of M.
Racine," she was taken seriously ill and ordered by the doctors a
complete rest. She retired to Auteuil, which was "already sprinkled with
fine houses and noted among suburban villages for the purity of its
atmosphere." Here Boileau had a villa, with a delightful garden
attached, in which he was in the habit of entertaining all the literary
celebrities of the day, from Racine to Madame Deshoulières; and in
summer the village was a favourite health resort of those Parisians
whose means did not permit of a visit to Dieppe.
The air of Auteuil, however, was powerless to cure Mlle. de Champmeslé.
She grew gradually worse, and early in May, it was seen that her end was
near. Then arose the question of the administration of the last
Sacraments; but before speaking of this, it may be as well for us to
glance back and see what had been the practice of the Church in regard
to the theatrical profession during the quarter of a century which had
elapsed since the death of Molière.
* * * * *
If any hopes had existed that the distressing incidents which had
accompanied the death of the great actor-dramatist had been merely the
outcome of the hostility of the Church towards a particular individual,
and, as such, were unlikely to be repeated, they were speedily doomed to
disappointment. Henceforth, the penalties denounced against the
profession by the early councils were no longer suffered to remain a
dead letter, but were enforced with the most merciless severity. The
actor found himself excommunicated both in life and death. Marriage,
absolution, the Holy Sacrament, baptism, all were denied him; and he was
even refused Christian burial. In one way, and in one way only, could he
escape this infamous proscription, which was publicly proclaimed every
Sunday from every pulpit in Paris, namely, by renouncing his profession,
surrendering his means of livelihood, forfeiting, in the case of a
member of the Comédie-Française, the pension to which he was entitled
after twenty years' service.
In 1684, Brécourt, an actor of the Comédie-Française, died. On his
death-bed he sent for the curé of Saint-Sulpice; but that priest refused
to administer the Sacraments until the actor had executed a deed
formally renouncing his profession, which was signed by him and four
ecclesiastics.[56] Shortly afterwards, two other players, Raisin and
Sallé, were compelled to subscribe to similar documents, in the presence
of a notary.
Two years later, Rosimont died suddenly without having had time to
abjure his errors. Notwithstanding a fondness for good liquor, he was a
sincerely religious man, having published a translation of the Psalms in
verse, and also written, or collaborated in, a _Vie des saints pour tous
les jours de l'année_. This fact, however, was not permitted to have any
weight with the bigoted curé of Saint-Sulpice, and the remains of poor
Rosimont were interred, without any ceremony, in a part of the cemetery
reserved for unbaptized children.
It must not be supposed that, outside the capital, the proscription of
the actor was general. In the provinces it varied, according to the
views of the different bishops and the particular ritual observed, and
in some dioceses the penalties were not enforced at all. Moreover, even
among the clergy themselves, men of liberal opinions were not wanting to
protest vigorously against the folly and injustice of reviving
superannuated anathemas, intended to apply to the sanguinary games of
the circus and the scandalous performances of the Roman theatre, against
the interpreters of the tragedies of Corneille and Racine and the
comedies of Molière. In 1694, a Theatine monk, one Père Caffaro by name,
published, under the cloak of anonymity, a very able letter, entitled
_Lettre d'un Théologien_, wherein he asserted that "the theatre, as it
then existed in France, contained only lessons of virtue, humanity, and
morality, and nothing to which the most chaste ear could not give its
attention." He further pointed out that the highest dignitaries of the
Church--bishops, cardinals, and nuncios--had no scruples about visiting
the theatre, and, therefore, if it was to be condemned, they must be
condemned also, "since they authorised it by their presence"; and
concluded by eulogising the exemplary life led by so many members of the
proscribed profession, and their abounding charity, "to which
magistrates and the superiors of convents could bear ample testimony."
This letter made a great stir, and brought Bossuet--then regarded as the
mouthpiece of the Gallican Church--into the field to crush the imprudent
Theatine. The bishop called upon the monk to retract his statements, and
published a treatise called _Maximes et réflexions sur la comédie_, in
which, after denouncing the plays most in vogue, and in particular the
comedies of Molière, which he stigmatised as full of "impieties and
obscenities unfit for the ears of a Christian," he maintained that it
was not only "the idolatry and the scandalous indecency" of the theatre
that the Fathers of the Church had condemned, but "its uselessness, its
prodigious dissipation, the passions which it excited, and the vanity
and love of display which it aroused." According to him, the Church
would excommunicate all Christians who frequented the theatre, were the
number of offenders not so great.
Bossuet also asserted that actors had always been excommunicated. "The
constant practice of the Church," he wrote, "is to deprive those who
perform plays of the Sacraments, both in life and death, unless they
renounce their art; and to repulse them from the Holy Table as public
sinners." This statement, as M. Maugras points out, in his able and
interesting work, _Les Comédiens hors la loi_, was quite untrue. Up to
the time of _Tartuffe_, the Church had shown the greatest indulgence
towards the theatrical profession, and the old canons had remained a
dead-letter.
Bossuet was followed in his campaign against the theatre by all the most
eminent of the French clergy. Massillon, Fléchier, Bourdaloue, and
Fénelon vied with one another in denouncing the unhappy actor in their
sermons and writings.[57] Père Caffaro was compelled by the Archbishop
of Paris to publicly disavow his letter, which, in fear and trembling,
he now protested had been extracted from a work of his, written "in the
levity of youth," and published without his knowledge or consent; and
the persecution, encouraged by the fact that the gloomy bigotry of the
old King had led him to withdraw his protection from the theatre, grew
more rigorous than ever.
Strangely enough, at the same time that the Church was mercilessly
proscribing the French actors, it received with open arms the Italian
players, who had definitely established themselves in Paris in 1660,
admitted them to the Sacraments, allowed them to be married in church,
and buried them in holy ground. This distinction appears the more
inexplicable, as the French theatre was at this period as reserved and
decent as the Italian was the reverse. The licence of the foreigners,
indeed, knew no bounds, and finally their plays assumed so objectionable
a character that, in 1697, they were expelled from France.[58] The
probable explanation is, that the Gallican Church did not dare to
proscribe the same persons whom the sovereign pontiffs tolerated in
their realm, and whose performances were freely patronised by the Roman
prelates and clergy.[59]
By another inconsistency, the indulgence shown to the Italian players
was extended to the singers and dancers of the Opera. The reason given
for this exemption was that the members of the Opera were not actors, as
they did not bear the name. But, as we have seen, the canons of the
early councils, upon which the bigots relied for their authority, made
no distinction whatever between the different classes of public
performers: actors, singers, dancers, mountebanks, jugglers, and circus
performers were all included in one common anathema.[60]
* * * * *
Mlle. de Champmeslé had been greatly distressed at having to renounce
her triumphs and the adulation of the public. Proud of the profession to
which she owed her fame, she revolted from the idea of repudiating it,
and for some time opposed a steady resistance to the solicitations of
the curé of Auteuil, who besought her to make her peace with Heaven, or
rather with the Church. Finally, however, she yielded, and the curé of
Saint-Sulpice, to whose parish she belonged, was summoned to receive her
renunciation. Under ordinary circumstances, as we have seen, the
unfortunate actor or actress was compelled to give this undertaking in
writing duly attested before a notary; but when the priest arrived the
poor woman was at the point of death, and he was therefore compelled to
content himself with a verbal declaration. This formality concluded, the
curé of Auteuil gave the dying actress absolution and administered the
last Sacraments; and on May 15, 1698, she passed quietly away, at the
age of fifty-six.
On the morrow her body was brought to Paris, and interred at
Saint-Sulpice, in the presence of the whole of the Comédie-Française.
That same day, Racine, now a _dévot_ of the most pronounced type, wrote
to his son Louis, "with whom," says the poet's very candid biographer,
M. Larroumet, "he ought never to have approached such a subject":--
"M. de Rost informed me the day before yesterday that the Champmeslé was
_in extremis_, about which he appeared very distressed; but what is
more distressing is that which he apparently troubles little about, I
mean the obstinacy with which this poor wretch refuses to renounce the
play; declaring, so I am told, that she is proud to die an actress. It
is to be hoped that, when she sees death drawing nearer, she will change
her tone, as is the rule with the majority of persons who give
themselves such airs so long as they are in good health."
Two months later, he returns to the subject in these terms:--
"I must tell you, by the way, that I owe reparation to the memory of the
Champmeslé, who died in a sufficiently good state of mind, after having
renounced the play, very repentant for her past life, but especially
distressed at having to die."
"There is no conversion," very justly remarks M. Larroumet, "that can
possibly excuse such language as this."
* * * * *
Mlle. de Champmeslé left behind her two brilliant pupils. The first was
Mlle. Duclos, daughter of a former member of the Marais troupe named
Châteauneuf, who made her _début_ at the Comédie-Française in 1693, and
was soon afterwards engaged to understudy the great actress in first
tragedy parts. She excelled in rôles requiring "majesty of bearing and
the impetuous sway of passion," and in such secured several notable
successes; but her style both of speaking and acting seems to have been
very artificial. She was, moreover, cursed with a most abominable
temper, which made her a perfect terror to her colleagues at rehearsals,
and which she could not always control, even before the audience. At the
first performance of La Motte's _Inès de Castro_, in 1723, a scene
which was intended to be intensely pathetic excited the merriment of the
pit, upon which Mlle. Duclos, who was playing Inès, stopped the
performance, and coming to the front of the stage, shouted angrily,
"Foolish pit! You are laughing at the finest thing in the play." On
another occasion, when Dancourt apologised to the audience for the
lady's non-appearance in one of her most popular rôles, at the same time
indicating, by a significant gesture, the cause of her indisposition,
the actress, who happened to be standing in the wings, rushed on to the
stage, beside herself with passion, and soundly boxed her facetious
colleague's ears, amid roars of laughter. In 1733, when in her
fifty-sixth year, Mlle. Duclos was foolish enough to marry an actor
named Duchemin, a youth scarcely seventeen! Two years later, she was
compelled to obtain a separation from her juvenile husband, whom she
alleged had "maltreated her daily," and dealt her "_coups de pied et de
poing tant sur le corps que sur le visage_." Mlle. Duclos's most
successful creation was Zénobie, in the _Rhadaminthe et Zénobie_ of
Crébillon, and among her other impersonations were Ariane, in Thomas
Corneille's play of that name, Josabeth, in _Athalie_, Hersélie in La
Motte's _Romulus_, and the title-part in the _Électre_ of Longpierre.
She retired, in 1733, with a pension of 1000 livres from the theatre,
and another of the same amount from the court, which she enjoyed for
twelve years.
The second of Mlle. de Champmeslé's pupils was her own niece, Charlotte
Desmares, of whom we have already spoken. After playing in child-parts
for some years at the Comédie-Française, Mlle. Desmares made her _début_
in 1699, the year after her aunt's death. She was an exceedingly pretty
young woman, and, though inferior to Mlle. Duclos in declamatory
tragedy, greatly her superior in pathetic rôles. Her best tragedy parts
were Iphigénie in La Grange-Chancel's _Oreste et Pilade_, which had been
Mlle. de Champmeslé's last creation, Sémiramis in Crébillon's play of
that name, Jocaste in the _OEdipe_ of Voltaire, and Antigone in La
Motte's _Machabées_, which crowned her career. She was even more
successful in comedy, and no better _soubrette_ had been seen since the
days of Madeleine Béjart. In 1715, she became the mistress of the Regent
d'Orléans, by whom she had a daughter. "My son," wrote the old Duchesse
d'Orléans, "has been presented with a daughter by the Desmares. She
tried to pass off another child on him as his, but he replied, '_Non,
celui-ci est par trop Arlequin_.'"
Mlle. Desmares retired from the stage in 1721, and died in 1743 at the
age of sixty-one.
* * * * *
Charles de Champmeslé did not long survive his wife. A curious story
attaches to his death. On the night of August 19-20, 1701, he dreamed
that his dead mother and his wife appeared to him and beckoned him to
follow them. Convinced that this dream was a warning of his approaching
death, he went, early the following morning, to the church of the
Cordeliers, and, handing the sacristan a thirty-sol piece, requested him
to have two Requiem Masses said for the souls of his departed relatives.
Then, as the monk was about to return him the change--the fee for a Mass
was ten sols--the actor exclaimed: "Keep the balance and say a third
Mass for me; I will stay and listen to it." On leaving the church,
Champmeslé made his way to a tavern adjoining the Comédie-Française,
and sat down on a bench by the door, where he remained for some time,
deep in thought. Presently he entered the theatre and walked about the
_foyer_, muttering to himself the old proverb: "_Adieu, paniers!
vendanges sont faites_" ("Farewell, baskets! the grapes are gathered").
He repeated this so often, and his manner appeared so strange, that his
colleagues feared his mind had suddenly become affected. But, after a
while, he recovered his usual cheerfulness, and invited his
brother-in-law, Nicolas Desmares, and several others to dine with him at
the tavern, in order to settle some dispute which had arisen between two
of them. Scarcely, however, had they reached the door, than Champmeslé
staggered, put his hands to his forehead, and fell, face downwards, on
the floor. When his friends raised him up, he was dead.
III
ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR
Although not the greatest, Adrienne Lecouvreur is perhaps the most
interesting, and certainly the most sympathetic, figure in the history
of the French stage. She was the first actress to enjoy not only renown
in the theatre, but consideration in society; she was beloved by the
greatest soldier of her time; she was on terms of the closest friendship
with the greatest poet, and inspired him to a most touching elegy; while
the terrible suspicion attaching to her death and the deplorable scandal
connected with her burial have invested her with a halo of romance. She
seems, moreover, to possess an attraction for French writers which is
shared by no other actress. She has found a well-informed contemporary
biographer in the dramatist d'Allainval; Sainte-Beuve has given her a
place in his _Lundis_, and Michelet one in his _Histoire de France_;
Lemontey pronounced an eloquent _éloge_ of her before the Academy;
Régnier has allotted her a chapter in his _Souvenirs et études du
théâtre_, and M. Larroumet has consecrated to her a fine s
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