[149] La Harpe, Correspondance littéraire, iv. 51.
[150] The friendship between Beaumarchais and the Comte de Vaudreuil had its origin in the following incident. The latter had had a dispute, at one of the Court theatres, with a M. de Miromesnil, a distinguished amateur actor, as to the manner in which drunkenness should be depicted on the stage. Some of the company jestingly ascribed the count’s remarks to personal experience. “Nay,” answered Vaudreuil, “they are not my own. I borrow the lesson from the great Garrick, who gave it on the Boulevards to Préville, who acted upon it before a few working men, and caused them to take the mimicry for reality.” Miromesnil disputed the authenticity of the anecdote, and, on being assured that it was true, offered to lay a heavy wager that a Boulevard was not the place. Beaumarchais happened to be standing by. “Take the wager,” he whispered to the count; “it is yours.” Vaudreuil did so. Beaumarchais left the theatre, and shortly afterwards returned with a letter, in which Garrick himself stated that the incident occurred on the Boulevards. From that moment, the count evinced a warm interest in the dramatist’s fortunes.—Hawkins, “The French Stage in the Eighteenth Century,” ii. 291.
[151] Gabriel Henri Gaillard (1726-1806). His chief works were: L’Histoire de François Ier, dit le Grand Roi et le Père des Lettres (1766-1769); L’Histoire de la Rivalité de la France et de l’Angleterre (1771-1777), which procured him admission to the Academy; and L’Histoire de la Rivalité de la France et de l’Espagne (1800).
[152] Loménie, Beaumarchais et son temps, iv.
[153] Souvenirs, i. 100.
[154] Mémoires de Fleury, ii. 413.
[155] Mémoires de Fleury, ii. 415 et seq.
[156] Cited by Gaboriau, Les Comédiennes adorées, p. 180.
[157] And well he deserved his triumph, for surely never had actor been at more pains to secure a perfect resemblance to the character he was to impersonate! “In the first place,” he tells us, in his Mémoires, “I sought to imbue myself with the idea that my apartments were in Potsdam, instead of in Paris; and I resolved to retire to rest, to take my meals, to move, and speak, during two whole months, in the full persuasion that I was Frederick the Great. The better to identify myself with the character, I used every morning to dress myself in the military coat, hat, boots, &c., I had ordered for the part. Thus equipped, I would seat myself before my looking-glass, at one side of which hung Ramberg’s picture of the King. Then, with the help of hair pencils and a palette spread with black, white, red, blue, and yellow, I endeavoured to paint my face to the resemblance of the picture.”
[158] Gaboriau, Les Comédiennes adorées, p. 191.