Later Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

A brilliant assembly and a bravely-dressed one too; for even the figurante drawing her eight hundred or a thousand livres a year seemed to find no difficulty in patronising the establishments of M. Pagelle, of Les Traits Galants, or M. Bertin, of the Grand Mogol. There was, however, an exception. In a remote corner sat a young woman alone, whose pale, drawn face bore the marks of cruel struggles and long suffering, and whose simple, black gown, patched in more than one place, afforded a striking contrast to the gorgeous toilettes around her. No one spoke to her, no one heeded her; the gay throng was too much occupied with its own affairs to have a thought to bestow on so insignificant a person, until a movement on her part happened to arrest the attention of a gorgeously-attired damsel, who, with a mocking smile, exclaimed: “Ah, tiens! voilà Madame La Ressource.”[168]

At these words, Gluck, who was talking with the conductor of the orchestra, abruptly terminated his conversation, and, turning round, exclaimed, in a voice which could be heard by all: “You have well named her Madame La Ressource, for one day she will be the resource of the Opera!”

This speech would appear to have been nothing more than a jest on the part of the composer; since never could he have even suspected, at that time, how fully his prediction was to be verified; never could he have foreseen the astonishing triumphs which awaited this humble coryphée, still confined to the rôles of confidante and secondary divinity. For the young woman, “thus derided by vice, thus defended by genius,” was none other than Anne Antoinette Cécile Clavel, known to fame as Madame Saint-Huberty!

The life of Antoinette Clavel had been a peculiarly sad one; one long course of privation, misfortunes, disappointments, and disillusions. Born at Strasburg, on December 15, 1756, she was now in her twenty-first year. Her father, a musician, formerly a member of a French troupe in the service of the Elector Palatine, and, at the time of Antoinette’s birth, attached to the Strasburg theatre, had commenced his little daughter’s musical education before she was well out of the nursery. The child, like Sophie Arnould, early gave promise of exceptional talent. At the age of twelve, she sang to her own harpsichord accompaniment, “with so much taste and sweetness that she excited the admiration of all who heard her.” The fame of her precocious talent quickly spread abroad, and the managers of several foreign and provincial theatres offered her engagements. But her father and mother, “cherishing in her the germ of those virtues with which they had inspired her, had no mind to deliver her youth into distant towns, to the danger of seduction by those amiable and opulent men who delight in the criminal victories they achieve over innocence,” refused to allow her to appear, except at the Strasburg theatre, where “they were able to direct at its outset a career so slippery for a young and inexperienced girl.”

Here she had the good fortune to attract the attention of the leader of the orchestra, Lemoine, a French composer who was later to achieve success in Paris. Lemoine, a kind-hearted and excellent man, gave the girl lessons and allotted her a part in a little piece of his own, Le Bouquet de Colinette. Never was there a more grateful pupil. In after years, Madame Saint-Huberty made the most heroic efforts to assure the success of the somewhat mediocre works of her first professor, of whose kindness to her when she was a child she could never speak without tears in her eyes.

“I used to go to his house in the morning,” she related to one of her friends. “As it was cold and he was not well off, he remained in bed until the morning rehearsal, in order to save wood. When I arrived to take my lesson, I used to find him rolled up in his blankets, with a great woollen night-cap on his head, which reached to his eyes. ‘Ah! there you are, little one,’ he would say to me, and would throw me one of the blankets, in which I wrapped myself as well as I could. Then I used to sing, beating time with my feet with all my strength, in order to keep them warm.

“In the evening, I accompanied my father to the theatre. Often I was a figurante, and Lemoine, who knew that we made but poor cheer at home, always contrived to give me some tit-bits, off which I might make a good supper.

“My father was indebted to him for several pupils, who paid him fairly well. Finally, he presented us to Count Branicki, an immensely wealthy nobleman, at whose house plays were frequently performed.”[169]

Antoinette Clavel had been engaged two or three years at the Strasburg theatre when there arrived in the city a man who described himself as director-general of the “Menus-Plaisirs” of the King of Prussia, and stated that the object of his visit was to seek for fresh talent for the French troupe at Berlin. In his presumed official capacity, he had no difficulty in procuring admission to the coulisses of the theatre, where he soon became on terms of friendly intimacy with the actors and actresses, and with Antoinette in particular. Claude Croisilles de Saint-Huberty, for by that high-sounding name was the gentleman known, was still young, but had seen much of the world, of good appearance, and a fluent talker, whose honeyed words were well calculated to excite the imagination of inexperienced women, for whom he had all the attraction of the successful adventurer.

He made such magnificent promises to Antoinette, and held out to her the hope of such a brilliant career, that, one fine day, in the spring of 1775, the young girl resolved to leave her parents secretly and follow M. Croisilles de Saint-Huberty to Berlin. Here disillusion awaited her. The pretended director of the “Menus-Plaisirs” of the King of Prussia proved to be merely the stage-manager of the French troupe, who could only very partially carry out the conditions of the engagement which had induced Mlle. Clavel to quit the paternal roof.