IT will be remembered that Gudin in his history of Beaumarchais speaks of a meeting of literary men at the table of a certain Mademoiselle Ménard, femme d’esprit, where the subject of the comic opera lately composed by Beaumarchais was discussed. It was this same Mademoiselle Ménard who in the words of Loménie was “the cause of an Homeric combat between Beaumarchais, prudent and dexterous as Ulysses, and a duke and peer, robust and ferocious as Ajax.”
Mademoiselle Ménard was a young and pretty actress, who in June, 1770, had made her début with success at the Comédie Italienne. In his Correspondence littéraire, of June, 1770, Baron von Grimme, the great critic of the time, says of her after a rather cold analysis: “Mademoiselle Ménard must be given a trial; she seems capable of great application. It is said that her first occupation was that of a flower girl
on the boulevards, but wishing to withdraw from that estate which has degenerated a little from the first nobility of its origin, since Glysère sold bouquets at the doors of the temple of Athens, she bought a grammar and applied herself to a study of the language and its pronunciation, after which she tried playing comedies. During her first attempts, she has addressed herself to all the authors, musicians, and poets, asking their counsels with a zeal and docility which has had for recompense the applause which she has obtained in her different rôles. M. de Pequigny, to-day the duc de Chaulnes, protector of her charms, has had her portrait painted by Greuze; so if we do not retain her in the theater we shall at least see her at the next salon.”
Acting on the wishes of her protector, Mademoiselle Ménard had renounced the theater and was in the habit of receiving at her house poets, musicians, and great lords, Beaumarchais among the rest.
“The duc de Chaulnes,” says Loménie, “was a man notorious for the violence and extravagance of his character. The history of Beaumarchais by Gudin contains details about him in every way confirming the testimony of other contemporaries.”
“His character,” wrote Gudin, “was a peculiar mixture of contradictory qualities; esprit without judgment, pride, with such a lack of discernment as to rob him of dignity before superiors, equals or inferiors, a vast but disorderly memory, a great desire to improve himself, a still greater taste for dissipation, a prodigious strength of body, a violence of disposition which rendered him extremely unreasonable and robbed him of the power to think clearly, frequent fits of rage which made of him a savage beast incapable of being controlled.
“At one time banished from his country for five years, he
spent the time of his exile in making a scientific expedition. He visited the pyramids, lived with the Bedouins and brought home many objects of natural history.”
To this portrait by Gudin, Loménie adds the following: “In the midst of his disorderly and extravagant life, he had conserved something of the taste of his father, a distinguished mechanician, physicist, and natural historian who died an honorary member of the Academy of Natural Sciences. The son loved chemistry passionately and made several discoveries. Nevertheless even here he displayed many eccentricities. Thus, to verify the efficacy of a preparation he had invented against asphyxiation, he shut himself up in a glass cabinet and asphyxiated himself, leaving to his valet de chambre the care to come to his aid at the proper moment to try his remedy. Happily his servant was punctual and no harm was done.
“The peculiar character of the duke rendered his liaison with Mademoiselle Ménard very stormy. At the same time brutal, jealous, and unfaithful, he inspired in her little sentiment other than fear. Suddenly becoming infatuated with Beaumarchais, he introduced him to the young woman in question.”