Later Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

The play was produced on March 1, 1782, before a densely crowded house, which the authoress, by a very adroit manœuvre, had taken care to predispose in her favour. It was then the custom on first nights to reserve a large number of the parterre tickets for distribution among the author’s friends, who, of course, applauded enthusiastically, no matter how coldly the production might be received by the general public. But Mlle. Raucourt refused to avail herself of this privilege, declaring that “if her drama were a good one, it would succeed on its own merits”; a decision which, we are told, was received with universal applause.[120]

On the whole, the verdict of the public was favourable. “The first act,” say the Mémoires secrets, “was thought cold, but the second excited long, frequent, and sincere applause. The third act was also applauded, though with less enthusiasm.”

The critics were, however, anything but kind. Grimm describes the subject as “monstrous”; La Harpe stigmatises the work as “an absurd and foolish rhapsody,” a striking proof of “the decadence of talents and the corruption of taste”;[121] while the Mercure, after declaring that the play possesses many faults and advising Mlle. Raucourt “to treat of subjects with a truer and worthier moral end,” declines to say any more. “The author is a woman, and we do not wish to play with her the part of Diomed.”[122]

But whatever opinions they may have held in regard to the merits of the work itself, every one agreed that Mlle. Raucourt was charming in the uniform of a Prussian soldier; and La Harpe states that people went two or three times solely to see her masquerading as a man.

Her success in Henriette encouraged Mlle. Raucourt to undertake a real masculine part, and, two years later (March 1784), she secured a genuine triumph, as a captain of dragoons, in a play by Rochon de Chabannes, called Le Jaloux. The ease with which she wore the uniform appears to have been particularly admired, a circumstance which is not surprising when we remember that, when in hiding, in the summer of 1776, she had worn a very similar dress for more than six weeks.

“What an actor that Raucourt is!” remarked the younger Sainval, who enjoyed a not undeserved reputation as a wit. “And what a pity she persists in wishing to play women’s parts!”

Little by little the hostility of which Mlle. Raucourt had so long been the object subsided. Slowly but surely the tragédienne recovered the ground she had lost, until, in 1786, we find the Mémoires secrets declaring that “she will soon take rank with the greatest actresses,” and that “the most critical amateurs were fain to confess that she had made prodigious improvement.”

This happy result seems to have been due partly to a genuine love of her art, which led her to devote far more time to serious study than had been the case in earlier years, and partly to the exercise of a good deal of tact—willingness to understudy her former rivals, to condescend to the parts of nurse and confidante, and, in short, to do almost anything that was required of her—which had disarmed the jealousy of her colleagues and rendered her an almost popular member of the troupe. It was certainly not attributable to any change in her morals, for if scandal were no longer busy with her name, it was from no lack of material. In the years immediately preceding the Revolution, however, people had more important matters to discuss than the amours of actresses.

The Revolution very nearly proved fatal to Mlle. Raucourt. The questions which were agitating the public mind were very far from leaving the national theatre undisturbed. “Even our little green-room,” writes Fleury, “was not exempt from the invasion of the moment. Melpomene and Thalia had the mortification to see their sacred altars profaned by the party pamphlets of the day, their venerated sanctuary converted into a political club.” The house of Molière, in fact, was divided against itself. Mlle. Raucourt, Molé, Fleury, and Louise Contat had tasted too many of the sweets of Court favour not to deplore deeply the fall of the old régime; while, on the other hand, Talma, Madame Vestris, Dugazon, and Mlle. Deschamps espoused the popular side with the fervour of rooted conviction. Of the remainder, the majority were either Royalists or moderate constitutionalists.[123]