The Mdlle. Clairon, named above, took up the inheritance which her predecessor had resigned. Claire Joseph Hippolyte Legris de Latude were her names; but, out of the first, she made the name by which she became illustrious. Her life was a long one—1723-1803. She acted from childhood to middle age; first as sprightly maiden, then in opera, till Rouen discovered in her a grand tragédienne, and sent her up to Paris, which city ratified the warrant given by the Rouennais. She made her first appearance as Phèdre, and the Parisians at once worshipped the new and exquisite idol.
The power that Mdlle. Clairon held over her admirers, the sympathy that existed between them, is matter of notoriety. She was once acting Ariane in Thomas Corneille’s tragedy, at Marseilles, to an impassioned southern audience. In the last scene of the third act, where she is eager to discover who her rival can be in the heart of Theseus, the audience took almost as eager a part; and when she had uttered the lines in which she mentions the names of various beauties, but does not name, because she does not suspect, her own sister, a young fellow who was near her murmured, with the tears in his eyes, ‘It is Phædra! it is Phædra!’—the name of the sister in question. Clairon was one of those artists who conceal their art by being terribly in earnest. In her days the pit stood, there were no seats; parterre meant exactly what it says, ‘on the ground.’ The audience there gathered as near the stage as they could. Clairon, in some of her most tragic parts, put such intensity into her acting that as she descended the stage, clothed in terror or insane with rage, as if she saw no pit before her and would sweep through it, the audience there actually recoiled, and only as the great actress drew back did they slowly return to their old positions.
The autobiographical memoirs of Mdlle. Clairon give her rank as author as well as actress. Her style was declamatory, rather heavy, and marked by dramatic catchings of the breath which were among the faults that weaker players imitated. It was the conventional style, not to be rashly broken through in Paris; she accordingly first tried to do so at Bordeaux in 1752. ‘I acted,’ she tells us, ‘the part of Agrippina, and from first to last I played according to my own ideas. This simple, natural, unconventional style excited much surprise in the beginning; but, in the very middle of my first scene, I distinctly heard the words from a person in the pit, “That is really fine!”’ It was an attempt to change the sing-song style, just as Mdlle. Clairon attempted to change the monotonous absurdity of the costume worn by actresses; but she was preceded by earlier reformers, Adrienne Lecouvreur, for instance. Her inclination for natural acting was doubtless confirmed on simply hearing Garrick recite passages from English plays in a crowded French drawing-room. She did not understand a word of English, but she understood Garrick’s expression, and, in her enthusiasm, Mdlle. Clairon kissed Roscius, and then gracefully asked pardon of Roscius’s wife for the liberty she had taken.
It is said that Clairon was one of those actresses who kept themselves throughout the day in the humour of the character they were to act at night. It is obvious that this might be embarrassing to her servants and unpleasant to her friends, family, and visitors. A Lady Macbeth vein all day long in a house would be too much of a good thing; but Mdlle. Clairon defended the practice, as others did: ‘How,’ she would say, ‘could I be exalted, refined, imperial at night, if through the day I had been subdued to grovelling matters, every-day commonness, and polite servility?’ There was something in it; and in truth the superb Clairon, in ordinary life, was just as if she had to act every night the most sublimely imperious characters. With authors she was especially arbitrary, and to fling a manuscript part in the face of the writer, or to box his ears with it, was thought nothing of. Even worse than that was ‘only pretty Fanny’s way.’
The cause of Mdlle. Clairon’s retirement from the stage was a singular one. An actor named Dubois had been expelled from membership with the company of the Théâtre Français, on the ground that his conduct had brought dishonour on the profession. An order from the King commanded the restoration of Dubois, till the question could be decided. For April 15, 1765, the ‘Siege of Calais’ was accordingly announced, with Dubois in his original character. On that evening, Lekain, Molé, and Brizard, advertised to play, did not come down to the theatre at all. Mdlle. Clairon arrived, but immediately went home. There was an awful tumult in the house, and a general demand that the deserters should be clapped into prison. The theatre was closed: Lekain, Molé, and Brizard suffered twenty-four days’ imprisonment, and Mdlle. Clairon was shut up in Fort L’Évêque. At the re-opening of the theatre Bellecourt offered a very humble apology in the names of all the company; but Mdlle. Clairon refused to be included, and she withdrew altogether from the profession.
On a subsequent evening, when she was receiving friends at her own house, the question of the propriety of her withdrawal was rather vivaciously discussed, as it was by the public generally. Some officers were particularly urgent that she should return, and play in the especially popular piece the ‘Siege of Calais.’ ‘I fancy, gentlemen,’ she replied, ‘that if an attempt was made to compel you to serve with a fellow-officer who had disgraced the profession by an act of the utmost baseness, you would rather withdraw than do so?’ ‘No doubt we should,’ replied one of the officers, ‘but we should not withdraw on a day of siege.’ Clairon laughed, but she did not yield. She retired in 1765, at the age of forty-two.
Clairon, being great, had many enemies. They shot lies at her as venomous as poisoned arrows. They identified her as the original of the shameless heroine in the ‘Histoire de Frétillon.’ With her, however, love was not sporadic. It was a settled sentiment, and she loved but one at a time; among others, Marmontel (see his Memoirs), the Margrave of Anspach, and the comedian Larive. After all, Clairon had a divided sway. The rival queen was Marie Françoise Dumesnil. The latter was much longer before the public. The life of Mademoiselle Dumesnil was also longer, namely, from 1711 to 1803. Her professional career in Paris reached from 1737, when she appeared as Clytemnestra, to 1776, when she retired. For eleven years after Clairon’s withdrawal Dumesnil reigned alone. She was of gentle blood, but poor; she was plain, but her face had the beauty of intelligence and expression. When Garrick was asked what he thought of the two great tragédiennes, Clairon and Dumesnil, he replied, ‘Mdlle. Clairon is the most perfect actress I have seen in France.’ ‘And Mdlle. Dumesnil?’ ‘Oh!’ rejoined Garrick, ‘when I see Mdlle. Dumesnil I see no actress at all. I behold only Semiramis and Athalie!’—in which characters, however, she for many years wore the paniers that were in vogue. She is remembered as the first tragic actress who actually ran on the stage. It was in ‘Mérope,’ when she rushed to save Ægisthe, exclaiming, ‘Hold! he is my son!’ She reserved herself for the ‘points,’ whether of pathos or passion. The effect she produced was the result of nature; there was no art, no study. She exercised great power over her audiences. One night having delivered her famous fine in Clytemnestra,
Je maudirais les dieux, s’ils me rendaient le jour,
an old captain standing near her clapped her on the back, with the rather rough compliment of ‘Va-t-en chienne, à tous les diables!’ Rough as it was, Dumesnil was delighted with it. On another occasion, Joseph Chénier, the dramatist, expressed a desire, at her own house, to hear her recite. It is said that she struck a fearful awe into him, as she replied, ‘Asséyez-vous, Néron, et prenez votre place!’—for, as she spoke, she seemed to adopt the popular accusation that Joseph had been accessory to the guillotining of his brother, the young poet, André Chénier. Her enemies asserted that Dumesnil was never ‘up to the mark’ unless she had taken wine, and a great deal of it. Marmontel insists that she caused his ‘Héraclides’ to fail through her having indulged in excess of wine; but Fleury states that she kept up her strength during a tragedy by taking chicken broth with a little wine poured into it.