Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

Mr. Markheim's first argument may, we think, be dismissed, as the conversation in Grimarest would appear to be nothing more than a not too skilful imitation of that in the Fameuse Comédienne; but the second is deserving of more attention. The similarity between the several passages Mr. Markheim cites is certainly too striking to be explained away on the ground of mere coincidence; yet, so far from proving his contention, it makes, in our opinion, for a diametrically opposite conclusion. Let us listen to what M. Larroumet, the best-informed and most impartial of all the recent biographers of Molière, has to say upon the matter: "If we admit that the Fameuse Comédienne, in spite of its detestable inspiration, is not the work of a beginner, but of an actress endowed with the talent of a natural style, the simplest course would be to admit further that this fragment is as much her work as the rest of the book. Trained to the practice of the theatre, she combines certain portions of her story with as many little plays. Here she will have perceived the scene to construct and the pathetic tirade to write. Is not the situation one to inspire and stimulate? Sustained then by her recollections of the Misanthrope, her imagination stirred by the passionate complaints of Alceste, her hatred of Armande coming to her assistance, she has been successful in the scene and the tirade."[29]

In a word, the whole Auteuil episode is pure fiction; yet fiction of such a kind—"one of the choicest morsels of French prose in its most glorious epoch"—as may well arouse a regret that the writer did not turn her undoubted talents to some worthier purpose than the composition of scandalous libels.

In the isolation in which he now found himself, Molière, who was one of those who cannot live without woman's affection, turned for comfort to Mlle. de Brie, his former providence, who, it may be mentioned, had in the Misanthrope played the part of Éliante, the lady who endeavours to console Alceste for the caprices of Célimène. Her intervention, however, was of a less irreproachable kind than Éliante's, and she appears to have passed a considerable portion of her time at Auteuil. The poet's friends remonstrated, pointing out that, by renewing his intimacy with Mlle. de Brie, he was giving his wife but too much excuse for her own conduct, and endeavoured to persuade him to break with her. "Is it for virtue, beauty, or intelligence that you love this woman?" one of them is said to have asked him. "You know that Florimont and Le Barre are her lovers, that she is not beautiful, that she is a perfect skeleton, and that she has no common sense." "I know all that," replied Molière; "but I am accustomed to her faults; for me to accommodate myself to the imperfections of another would be a task beyond my powers; I have neither the time nor the patience."

But Molière adored his wife: about this all his contemporaries are agreed. Bold and courageous in his works, ever ready to castigate vice and ridicule folly, without troubling himself about the possibility of reprisals, he showed himself in regard to her feeble and irresolute to the last degree. His relations with Mlle. de Brie and other women were after all but passing caprices; his passion for Armande was the one serious love of his life; a love which survived indifference, ingratitude, it may be even infidelity, and to which he always returned, in spite of vows and good resolutions.

Under these circumstances, a reconciliation could be only a matter of time, and, thanks to the good offices of their common friends, Chapelle and the Marquis de Jonzac, it took place towards the end of the year 1671. The author of the Fameuse Comédienne is discreetly silent about this, fearing that it might weaken her indictment; and, between whiles, places a new intrigue of Armande; this time with a member of her husband's troupe.

Some years before, Molière had rescued a little boy named Michel Baron from the hands of some strolling players, and, perceiving in him the makings of an excellent actor, had attached him to himself and trained him for the stage. His confidence was justified, for Baron became in later years the greatest actor of his time and also a successful dramatist. Armande, however, was far from sharing Molière's liking for the boy; she detested him for his precocity and impertinent airs, and still more for the influence which she suspected him of exercising over her husband; and one day, during a rehearsal of Mélicerte, in which Baron had been cast for the title-part, carried her resentment to the point of dealing him a sound box on the ear. In high dudgeon, Baron forthwith took himself off and joined a strolling company; nor was it until four years later that, at the urgent entreaty of Molière, he consented to return. He was then a tall lad of seventeen, exceedingly handsome, full of assurance, and "already in great request among the ladies of the theatre and also among certain ladies of the fashionable world." It did not appear at first, says the author of the Fameuse Comédienne, that time had greatly modified the hostility with which Mlle. Molière and he regarded one another. But when they appeared together in Psyché, at the carnival of 1671, Armande in the title-part, Baron as Love, there came a change. "The common praises that they received compelled them to examine one another more attentively, and even with some degree of pleasure. He was the first to break the silence by complimenting her on the good fortune that had befallen him in being chosen to represent her lover, and observing that he owed the approbation of the public to this happy chance, and that it was not difficult to play the part of a person whose feelings one could so well understand. The Molière replied that the praises bestowed on a man like himself were the reward of merit, and that she had no share in them; but that gallantry on the part of one who was said to have so many mistresses did not surprise her, and that he must be as accomplished an actor outside the theatre as he was on the stage.

"Baron, to whom these kind of reproaches were not displeasing, told her that he had indeed some habits that one might call bonnes fortunes, but that he was prepared to sacrifice all for her, and that he would set more value on the smallest of her favours than on any which the ladies who had smiled upon him were able to bestow. And he mentioned their names, with a discretion which was natural to him."

Armande is, of course, enchanted by this proof of devotion, and, to cut a long story short, they resolve to continue their respective rôles off the stage.

We have related this supposed intrigue at far greater length than it deserves, since it furnishes a fair sample of the materials upon which M. Loiseleur and other historians have based their judgments of Armande. But, in point of fact, it is no more worthy of belief than the stories about Lauzun, Guiche, and the Abbé de Richelieu. Although the insufferable coxcomb whom La Bruyère has depicted under the name of Roscius, and who is said to have depicted himself in his comedy, L'Homme à bonnes fortunes, was not the kind of person to be deterred by any honourable scruples from making love to the wife of his benefactor, had he been so minded, we can hardly suppose that an intrigue between Armande and a member of his own troupe could have been carried on without Molière becoming aware of it, or that, when aware of it, he would have permitted Baron to retain his place in the company. Moreover, apart from the statement in the Fameuse Comédienne, there is no reason to believe that the old antipathy between Armande and Baron ever ceased to exist, far less that they became lovers. What is certain, is that no sooner was Molière dead than Baron quitted the Palais-Royal and went over to the Hôtel de Bourgogne, at a moment when Armande, become chief of the troupe, was urgently in need of his services. This, it must be admitted, was hardly the conduct of a friend, to say nothing of a lover.

By the side of these intrigues, apocryphal or doubtful, it is pleasant to be able to record a friendship of an altogether unexceptional nature. The great Corneille, in spite of his affection for his wife, Marie de Lemperière, whose hand Cardinal de Richelieu is said to have obtained for him, after her father had sent the poet about his business, was of a very gallant disposition and in the habit of offering incense at the shrine of any goddess of the theatre who was inclined to accept his devotion. At Rouen, in 1758, he had, like Molière at an earlier date, fallen desperately in love with Mlle. du Parc, but had fared no better at the hands of that haughty beauty than the chief of the Illustre Théâtre. This rebuff, which drew from the chagrined poet the well-known Stances à une marquise, seems to have brought home to Corneille the fact that he was no longer young, and to have somewhat damped his amorous ardour. At any rate, when Armande appeared upon the scene, he contented himself with offering her a platonic admiration, charmingly expressed in the third act of Psyché.