Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

It must not be supposed that, outside the capital, the proscription of the actor was general. In the provinces it varied, according to the views of the different bishops and the particular ritual observed, and in some dioceses the penalties were not enforced at all. Moreover, even among the clergy themselves, men of liberal opinions were not wanting to protest vigorously against the folly and injustice of reviving superannuated anathemas, intended to apply to the sanguinary games of the circus and the scandalous performances of the Roman theatre, against the interpreters of the tragedies of Corneille and Racine and the comedies of Molière. In 1694, a Theatine monk, one Père Caffaro by name, published, under the cloak of anonymity, a very able letter, entitled Lettre d'un Théologien, wherein he asserted that "the theatre, as it then existed in France, contained only lessons of virtue, humanity, and morality, and nothing to which the most chaste ear could not give its attention." He further pointed out that the highest dignitaries of the Church—bishops, cardinals, and nuncios—had no scruples about visiting the theatre, and, therefore, if it was to be condemned, they must be condemned also, "since they authorised it by their presence"; and concluded by eulogising the exemplary life led by so many members of the proscribed profession, and their abounding charity, "to which magistrates and the superiors of convents could bear ample testimony."

This letter made a great stir, and brought Bossuet—then regarded as the mouthpiece of the Gallican Church—into the field to crush the imprudent Theatine. The bishop called upon the monk to retract his statements, and published a treatise called Maximes et réflexions sur la comédie, in which, after denouncing the plays most in vogue, and in particular the comedies of Molière, which he stigmatised as full of "impieties and obscenities unfit for the ears of a Christian," he maintained that it was not only "the idolatry and the scandalous indecency" of the theatre that the Fathers of the Church had condemned, but "its uselessness, its prodigious dissipation, the passions which it excited, and the vanity and love of display which it aroused." According to him, the Church would excommunicate all Christians who frequented the theatre, were the number of offenders not so great.

Bossuet also asserted that actors had always been excommunicated. "The constant practice of the Church," he wrote, "is to deprive those who perform plays of the Sacraments, both in life and death, unless they renounce their art; and to repulse them from the Holy Table as public sinners." This statement, as M. Maugras points out, in his able and interesting work, Les Comédiens hors la loi, was quite untrue. Up to the time of Tartuffe, the Church had shown the greatest indulgence towards the theatrical profession, and the old canons had remained a dead-letter.

Bossuet was followed in his campaign against the theatre by all the most eminent of the French clergy. Massillon, Fléchier, Bourdaloue, and Fénelon vied with one another in denouncing the unhappy actor in their sermons and writings.[57] Père Caffaro was compelled by the Archbishop of Paris to publicly disavow his letter, which, in fear and trembling, he now protested had been extracted from a work of his, written "in the levity of youth," and published without his knowledge or consent; and the persecution, encouraged by the fact that the gloomy bigotry of the old King had led him to withdraw his protection from the theatre, grew more rigorous than ever.

Strangely enough, at the same time that the Church was mercilessly proscribing the French actors, it received with open arms the Italian players, who had definitely established themselves in Paris in 1660, admitted them to the Sacraments, allowed them to be married in church, and buried them in holy ground. This distinction appears the more inexplicable, as the French theatre was at this period as reserved and decent as the Italian was the reverse. The licence of the foreigners, indeed, knew no bounds, and finally their plays assumed so objectionable a character that, in 1697, they were expelled from France.[58] The probable explanation is, that the Gallican Church did not dare to proscribe the same persons whom the sovereign pontiffs tolerated in their realm, and whose performances were freely patronised by the Roman prelates and clergy.[59]

By another inconsistency, the indulgence shown to the Italian players was extended to the singers and dancers of the Opera. The reason given for this exemption was that the members of the Opera were not actors, as they did not bear the name. But, as we have seen, the canons of the early councils, upon which the bigots relied for their authority, made no distinction whatever between the different classes of public performers: actors, singers, dancers, mountebanks, jugglers, and circus performers were all included in one common anathema.[60]

Mlle. de Champmeslé had been greatly distressed at having to renounce her triumphs and the adulation of the public. Proud of the profession to which she owed her fame, she revolted from the idea of repudiating it, and for some time opposed a steady resistance to the solicitations of the curé of Auteuil, who besought her to make her peace with Heaven, or rather with the Church. Finally, however, she yielded, and the curé of Saint-Sulpice, to whose parish she belonged, was summoned to receive her renunciation. Under ordinary circumstances, as we have seen, the unfortunate actor or actress was compelled to give this undertaking in writing duly attested before a notary; but when the priest arrived the poor woman was at the point of death, and he was therefore compelled to content himself with a verbal declaration. This formality concluded, the curé of Auteuil gave the dying actress absolution and administered the last Sacraments; and on May 15, 1698, she passed quietly away, at the age of fifty-six.

On the morrow her body was brought to Paris, and interred at Saint-Sulpice, in the presence of the whole of the Comédie-Française.

That same day, Racine, now a dévot of the most pronounced type, wrote to his son Louis, "with whom," says the poet's very candid biographer, M. Larroumet, "he ought never to have approached such a subject":—

"M. de Rost informed me the day before yesterday that the Champmeslé was in extremis, about which he appeared very distressed; but what is more distressing is that which he apparently troubles little about, I mean the obstinacy with which this poor wretch refuses to renounce the play; declaring, so I am told, that she is proud to die an actress. It is to be hoped that, when she sees death drawing nearer, she will change her tone, as is the rule with the majority of persons who give themselves such airs so long as they are in good health."