The actors in the procession, alarmed at all this uproar, the blame for which, they feared, would be laid upon them, took advantage of a moment when the more violent section of the crowd was occupied in endeavouring to force the great door of the church, to make the cortège resume its progress towards Père-Lachaise. The mob, however, gave chase, overtook the hearse at the top of the Rue Traversière, and brought it back in triumph to Saint-Roch.
In the meanwhile, a deputation had started for the Tuileries; Louis XVIII. consented to admit it to his presence, and Huet, an actor of the Opéra-Comique, harangued the monarch with so much eloquence, that, some days later, he received an intimation that a course of foreign travel might not be without benefit to his health. However, his representations had the desired effect; for the King promised to interfere without delay, sent orders to the curé to receive the body, and, for greater security, despatched his own almoner to read the service.
The orders of the King arrived only just in time to prevent a serious affray between the infuriated mob and the troops who had been summoned to quell the disturbance. The great door was then opened, and the coffin, borne on the shoulders of the crowd, was carried to the foot of the altar, where the people themselves lighted the candles. The almoner of the Court arrived, accompanied by two choristers, and performed the service, at the conclusion of which an immense concourse of people followed the cortège as far as Père-Lachaise.[126]
IV
MADAME DUGAZON
WHEN, at the close of the year 1774, Justine Favart retired from the stage of the Comédie-Italienne, to die alas! a few months later, she left behind her, in the person of a young girl of nineteen, a worthy successor, whose budding talents she had been one of the first to recognise and encourage.
Louise Rosalie Lefèvre, known to fame as Madame Dugazon, was born, at Berlin, on June 18, 1755, of French parents. Her father, François Joseph Lefèvre, was a dancing-master, formerly of the Comédie-Italienne, and when, in 1767, the little Louise, who had been from a very early age destined for the stage, made her first appearance on the boards of that theatre, it was as a danseuse in a pas de deux introduced into the Nouvelle École des femmes, a comedy in three acts and in prose, by Moissy.