The comedy entitled Alexis et Justine, by the same authors, produced on January 17, 1785, was for Madame Dugazon, who played the part of Justine, the occasion of another triumph, which Grimm records in these terms:
“Madame Dugazon has just developed a new kind of talent in the rôle of Justine. It was difficult to unite to this degree the most lively and the most passionate sensibility with a naïveté the most sweet and the most attractive. This charming actress has been truly eloquent in the scene of the second act with M. de Longpré. Our best tragédiennes could not render with more energy and with variations more just and more profound all the sentiment of this part, one of the most pathetic that has ever been seen on the stage.”[133]
In November of the same year, was produced La Dot, a comedy in three acts by Desfontaines, music by Dalayrac, in which Madame Dugazon gave so charming a rendering of the part of the heroine Colette, that a poet, who elected to remain anonymous, but who, M. Campardon thinks, was, in all probability, the author of the piece himself, thanked her in the following verses for the pleasure she had given him:
“Dis moi donc par quelle magie,
Ne changeant au plus que de nom,
Tu fais, à la voix de Thalie,
Changer de maintien et de ton?
Babet m’avoit semblé parfaite,
Je l’admirerois a chaque trait,
Et depuis que j’ai vu Colette,
Je songe un peu moins à Babet.
Plus naturelle et plus sublime,
Par un mot, un geste, un soupir,
Tout à la fois Colette exprime
Le sentiment et le plaisir.
Partout c’est la vérité pure,
Que Colette prends sur le fait,
Et pour dot la simple nature
Lui fit présent de son secret.”[134]
Madame Dugazon now found herself at the apogee of her talent, and it appeared hardly possible that she could soar any higher, when, in May 1786, her creation of the part of Nina, in Nina, ou la Folle par amour, a drama in one act, by Marsollier de Vivetières, music by Dalayrac, exhibited her in a new light and excited among the Parisians an enthusiasm almost unprecedented.
The genesis of this piece is interesting. It was suggested to Marsollier by a touching anecdote of a young girl who had lived in the neighbourhood of Sedan. On her wedding morning, the maiden had preceded her lover to the church where the ceremony was to be performed. On nearing it, she was met by a friend, who informed her that the young man had been seized with a sudden attack of illness and was dead. The grief of the unhappy girl was such that she lost her reason. Thenceforth, until her own death, ten years later, she walked daily more than two leagues to the spot where she had arranged to meet her lover, and, on arriving there, would sit down and wait for him the entire day. At length, when the shades of evening were falling, she would rise and retrace her steps, exclaiming: “Let us go. He has not yet arrived; I will return to-morrow.”
When he had completed the libretto, Marsollier sent it to Dalayrac, who, quick to recognise the splendid possibilities it offered for musical effect, gladly promised his co-operation. The score was soon written, but, for some little time, the authors hesitated to submit it to the Comédie-Italienne, fearing that their attempt to depict madness on the stage was too hazardous, and might expose them to the risk of a disastrous failure.
While they were still in doubt, Mlle. Guimard offered them the use of her private theatre, in the Chaussée-d’Antin, for an experimental performance. They gratefully accepted, and it was on the erotic stage of the Temple of Terpsichore, “on those boards whereon the coryphées of the fricassée had so many times bounded,” that Madame Dugazon created the part of Nina, before the usual mixed audience of noblemen, grandes dames, and courtesans. The result was a prodigious, an astonishing success, and, on May 15, 1786, the curtain of the Comédie-Italienne rose on Nina, ou la Folle par amour.
The creation of Nina dominates Madame Dugazon’s whole career and eclipses all her earlier triumphs. Never within the memory of man, says M. Campardon, had there been a like success. The actress threw into the part her whole soul, and it was very often remarked that on the days on which she had been playing Nina, she retained throughout the remainder of the evening the haggard eyes and singular gestures of the unhappy mad woman whom she had just been impersonating. “She played the part,” writes Bouilly, “with a perfection impossible to describe; one must have seen and heard her to form a correct idea of that penetrating voice, of that frenzy, heartrending and yet full of charm, of that energy of expression which thrilled every heart.”[135] Grimm pronounces her in this piece superior to herself and to all the actresses that are the most applauded at the other theatres. “Never,” says he, “was there displayed a sensibility more exquisite and more profound. Never did any one know how to assume more happily the most diverse tones. Never did any one vary them with more correctness. It is the sensibility of her acting that decided essentially the success of the work, for the tears which she has caused to flow do not prevent one from perceiving that it leaves much to desire.”[136]
But whatever the shortcomings of Nina may have been, the public seemed resolved to ignore them, and the enthusiasm with which the work and its “inspired interpreter” were received passed all bounds. “When one beheld her, her hair unbound, her eyes staring, a bouquet in her hand, advance towards the grassy bank near which she awaits her ‘bien-aimé,’ when the plaints of the poor distracted girl were translated by the naïve and tender music of Dalayrac, it seemed as if emotion had reached its limits. One wept for Nina, as one wept for Garat, Miss Billington, Todi, Maillard, or Saint-Huberty.”[137]