Ernest Legouvé was born at Paris in 1807. His father was Gabriel-Marie-Jean-Baptiste Legouvé (1764-1812), a French poet. Ernest Legouvé was a littérateur and dramatist. His best known plays, written in collaboration with Scribe, are Adrienne Lecouvreur (1849) and La Bataille de dames (1851). Legouvé died in 1903.
Adrienne Lecouvreur
Adrienne Lecouvreur, one of the most talented actresses in the history of the French stage, was born, according to the parish records, at Damery, near Épernay, in Champagne, on April fifth, 1692. Her father was Robert Couvreur and her mother Marie Bouly.
When ten years of age, she came with her parents to Paris. She manifested very early a marked talent in recitation which soon attracted wide and favorable attention. Her first attempts at acting were decidedly successful.
Having received very careful theatrical training from Le Grand, she was engaged, in 1708, by Mlle. Fonpré, directress of the theater of Lille, to play at that theater. Later she became the leading actress of the theater of Lunéville, and it is thought that she played also at Metz. In 1711 she was first actress of the theater of Strassburg and had become very popular.
Her career at the Comédie-Française began on the 27th of March, 1717. On May 14th she appeared in the Électre (1708) of Crébillon (1674-1762) and as Angélique in Georges Dandin (1668) by Molière (1622-1673). Her success was complete, and it was freely acknowledged that she was beginning as the greatest actresses ordinarily finish.
The actress whose memory was then most popular was Mme. Champmeslé (1642-1698), who had won renown in the theater of Racine. At the time of Mlle. Lecouvreur’s début at Paris, her principal rivals were Mlle. Desmares (retired in 1721), a niece of Mme. Champmeslé; and Mlle. Du Clos (1670-1748).
The style of speech on the stage had been too declamatory and somewhat stilted and unnatural. It was, in contrast to this, the directness and simplicity of the elocution of Adrienne, in a word the sincerity and naturalness of her work, which especially appealed to the public, and enabled her, as the leading exponent of something better in the art of the stage, to hold her own against all rivals and intrigues.
Her répertoire was very large and her activity very great. In ten months she played 139 times. Among the leading rôles in which she appeared in various years were the following: (1) in plays by Pierre Corneille (1606-1684)—Pauline in Polyeucte, Chimène in Le Cid, and Cornélie in Pompée; (2) in plays by Jean Racine (1630-1699)—the title rôles in Iphigénie, Bérénice, and Phèdre, Atalide in Bajazet, Zarès in Esther, and Antigone in La Thébaïde; (3) in other plays—Électre in Électre and Éricie in Pyrrhus by Crébillon; Agathe in Les Folies amoureuses by Regnard (1655-1709); Angélique in Les Fils ingrats by Piron (1689-1773); Constance in Inès de Castro by La Motte-Houdard (1672-1731); and Jocaste in the Œdipe of Voltaire (1694-1778).
After seeing Mlle. Lecouvreur in the rôle of Constance in the interesting tragedy Inès de Castro, Voltaire is said to have thus expressed his appreciation: “Mlle. Le Couvreur a joué le rôle de Constance avec dignité et délicatesse.... Où le sentiment domine... elle est au-dessus de tout ce que j’ai jamais entendu.”