Queens of the French Stage

able from both the immortality and the

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 prece

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

es 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 visit

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 mat

ade 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, determi

nterest to note that the acte de mariage states that the parties "practised the vocation of players," and that the banns had been

hich was devastating Normandy, they removed to Paris. Here Champmeslé, who was by this time a very capable actor, was soon invited to

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 appla

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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 Théatre 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 r?les of Corneille and Racine; but now circumstances had changed. Her acting had had the good fortune to attract the atte

he 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 dramati

thanks. A few days later, Mlle. Des ?illets 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 h

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

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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

is 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

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bability, 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 Bos

, Floridor playing Titus, and Mlle. de Champmeslé the beautiful Jewess. Corneille's Tite et Bérénice ap

o 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 performa

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dred leagues in front of Des ?illets, 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

s, 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 y

e Donneau de Visé in the Mercure, "has been extremely well attended. Mlle. de Champmeslé, that inimitable actress, has drawn tears from the majorit

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 r?le, 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 wa

de 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

non 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,

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indeed, for once, criticism appears to have been almost silenced, and the worst that Barbier d'Aucour, a bitt

er 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 Ph?dra might become

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 Théatre Guénégaud simultaneously with the appearance of Racine's at the H?tel de Bourgogne. Pradon had only three months allowed him; but, nothing daunted, he set to work and completed his

nd 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 n

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 Théatre Gué

nd 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 wa

hat Madame de Montespan might take the lines afterwards addressed on a

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tterer of royalty, and was, moreover, under considerable obligations to the king's mistress, indignantly refused to mutilat

by verse," Mlle. de Champmeslé seems to have put the comble upon her fame as a tragédienne. Of

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Phèdre was the play selected to consecrate the birth of the Comédie-Fran?aise on Sunday, August 25, 1680; and it was Phèdre again, wit

uthor 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 a

tters, and La Fontaine, writing to Mlle. de Champmeslé, mentions it as the most natural thing in the world. Many years afterwards, Boileau rem

han that which he had felt for her predecessor in his affections, Mlle. du Parc, "with whom he had experienced a sentiment which had the dign

s 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 hav

aring 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

ughter. "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: "Yo

ot exactly in the odour of sanctity with their contemporaries; indeed, both were e

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..

se, 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 sh

ves 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 h

rted patiently the numerous infidelities of the lady, "so long as he believed them to be passing fancies and that he was still

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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,

erself 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

ch, 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

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), a

oinette 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-Fran?aise, "sans début." For an actor to be admitted a member of so famous a company without being required to give proofs of his capabilitie

uccess 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

ect and Mlle. de Champmeslé's brilliant impersonation of the Jud?an 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 pro

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 fi

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

ainst 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

administer the Sacraments until the actor had executed a deed formally renouncing his profession, which was signed by him and four ecclesiast

hed 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 an

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 gi

fter 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 t

d 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 Comédie

nd 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

ied 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

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 distin

ace 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 notar

, and interred at Saint-Sulpice, in the pre

to his son Louis, "with whom," says the poet's very candid biographe

ly 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 ho

returns to the subj

lé, who died in a sufficiently good state of mind, after having renounced the pla

y remarks M. Larroumet, "that can po

s 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 r?les, 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

, greatly her superior in pathetic r?les. 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 ?dipe of Voltaire, and Antigone in La Motte's Machabées, which crowned her career. She was even more successful in comedy, and

he stage in 1721, and died in

n 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-Fran?aise, 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 thi