Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

Adrienne begged the grammarian not to be sparing of his advice, and, following it religiously, soon succeeded in correcting her faulty pronunciation.

It must not be supposed that Adrienne was able to effect the overthrow of a style of elocution which had reigned almost unchallenged since the foundation of the Comédie-Française without encountering strenuous and, in some cases, acrimonious opposition from its many champions. Mesdemoiselles Duclos and Desmares, prompted, no doubt, as much by jealousy of the newcomer as by loyalty to the traditions in which they had been trained, were particularly bitter in their resistance, and, supported by the Quinault coterie,[71] did not confine themselves to legitimate protests or to sustaining against her promising débutantes, but subjected the young actress to a variety of petty persecutions. Régnier, in his Souvenirs et études du théâtre, cites a number of extracts from the registers of the Comédie, from which it appears that a favourite practice of Adrienne's enemies was to cause her to be fined on all kinds of pretexts: for being late for rehearsal, for not wearing the costume prescribed for her part, and so forth. On one occasion, a kind colleague inquired if she were aware that the anagram of her name was Couleuvre (viper); and during the run of Voltaire's Hérode and Mariamne, Mlle. de Seine, who, two years later, became the wife of Quinault-Dufresne, carried her insolence so far that the Gentlemen of the Chamber, within whose jurisdiction the theatre lay, were obliged to interfere, and direct the semainiers, as a number of players who governed the theatre in rotation were called, "to deduct the sum of one hundred livres from the share of Mlle. de Seine, for unseemly behaviour towards Mlle. Lecouvreur, and to give her warning that she would be dismissed from the troupe in the event of a repetition of the offence."

The climax of the campaign against Adrienne had, it seems, been reached some time before this incident. In September 1723, Philippe Poisson, a retired member of the Comédie-Française, submitted to the company, under a nom de guerre, a comedy in one act, entitled l'Actrice nouvelle, which was nothing less than a personal satire on Adrienne, her art, and her private life. The play, in Adrienne's absence, was read to the assembled troupe by the elder Quinault, who, in the speeches assigned to the heroine, imitated the voice and gestures of the tragédienne so cleverly as to send the lady's enemies into convulsions of merriment. It was at once resolved to accept the play, and Mlle. Duclos and her friends doubtless indulged in much gleeful anticipation as to what their rival's feelings would be when she found herself publicly caricatured before her admirers in the boxes and pit. Unfortunately for the success of this malicious scheme, the secret, though well kept, leaked out, and Adrienne lost no time in bringing the matter to the notice of the authorities, who issued an order forbidding the production of l'Actrice nouvelle.

That Adrienne should have triumphed so completely as she did over tradition and jealousy was due to two causes. In the first place, she succeeded in securing the immediate, and almost unanimous, approbation of the playgoing public, who, when afforded an opportunity of comparing the rival methods of elocution, pronounced without hesitation, and in no uncertain way, in favour of the innovation. The second was the unexpected intervention of Baron, who, in April 1720, at the age of sixty-seven, suddenly resolved to return to the scene of his many triumphs, and, delighted to find that an actress had arisen who shared his own views on the subject of elocution, lent her all the encouragement and support in his power. Aided by this invaluable ally, Adrienne succeeded in effecting a veritable revolution; the "bawlings" which had so disgusted the Italian actor Riccoboni were heard no more, the monotonous chant was banished, and in its place reigned "a declamation simple, noble, and natural."[72]

The excellence of Adrienne's delivery was equalled, if not surpassed, by her really wonderful by-play. Like Mlle. Molière, she possessed in a very marked degree the difficult art of listening, the extreme mobility of her features enabling her to assume at will every shade of emotion and exhibit successively the different impressions which the words addressed to her would naturally produce. "Perhaps no one," observes the Mercure, "has ever so well understood the art of silent scenes, that is to say, listened so well and so well expressed the sense of the words uttered by the actor who was on the stage with her"; while Dumas d'Aigueberre tells us that "her attitudes were noble and natural, that she invested the movements of her arms with inimitable grace, and that her eyes announced what she was about to say." She possessed, too, a very rare gift—the art of concealing art, of entirely subordinating the interpreter to the work. The dramatist Collé, a critic by no means easy to please, it may be remarked, declares that "her treatment of every detail of a rôle was perfect; and, in this way, caused one to forget the actress; one saw only the personage whom she happened to be representing." Yet another trait, and one which provoked general admiration, was the rapidity and completeness with which she passed from one state of mind to its exact opposite, from profound grief to joyous gaiety, from frenzied anger to moving tenderness. "When in the rôle of Elisabeth,"[73] says the Mercure, "she learned of the love of the Comte d'Essex for the Duchess d'Irton; when, in fact, she was delivered to the greatest scorn which a woman, and, in particular, a queen, can endure, with what sensibility did she descend from the height of pride to the extreme of the greatest tenderness, even so far as to co-operate with the duchess, in order to save the count."

Brilliant tragédienne though Adrienne undoubtedly was, in scenes which called for an unusual display of passion, her acting appears to have left a good deal to be desired, a circumstance probably attributable to her want of physical strength. According to Collé, she "excelled in scenes where the greatest finesse was needed rather than those which required strength." Her acting, too, was somewhat uneven; to see her at her best, Dumas d'Aigueberre tells us, "it was necessary for her to be animated either by some part which pleased her or by some object of interest." In fact, though no one had ever given such magnificent renderings of the rôles of Monime and Bérénice, she lacked the courage and determination which had enabled Mlle. de Champmeslé to make a success out of the most mediocre part. The receipts of the Comédie-Française during the early years of its existence would, we are inclined to think, have been much less satisfactory had it fallen to Adrienne Lecouvreur's lot to interpret the insipid heroines of Pradon and Boyer.

The principal rôles created by Adrienne in tragedy were Cléopatre in the Antiochus et Cléopatre of Deschamps, Antigone in the Machabées of La Motte, Zarès in Esther, Nitetis in Danchet's play of that name, Constance in La Motte's Inès de Castro, and the title-part in Voltaire's Mariamne.

The last-named play failed, owing to one of those little incidents so common to the French stage of that day. At the moment when Mariamne, condemned to death by poison, was on the point of raising the fatal cup to her lips, a wag in the pit cried out, "La Reine boit," a sally which was followed by such merriment that the indignant actors declined to finish the play. Re-written by Voltaire, who this time prudently made the death of the heroine take place off the stage, it reappeared a year later, under the title of Hérode et Mariamne, when it had twenty-eight representations, and when played before the Court at Fontainebleau, moved the young Queen, Marie Leczinska, to tears.

It was during the run of Mariamne, in its revised form, that the quarrel between Voltaire and the Chevalier de Rohan, second son of the Duc de Rohan-Chabot, took place. The poet and the chevalier were with several other persons in Adrienne's dressing-room at the theatre; Voltaire was giving the company the benefit of his views on dramatic art or some other subject. "Who is that young man who talks so loud?" cried Rohan, who was in love with Adrienne and very probably jealous of the friendship existing between her and the poet. "He is one who does not carry about a great name, but earns respect for the name he has," was the retort. The chevalier raised his cane threateningly; Voltaire laid his hand upon his sword; Adrienne promptly sank down in a swoon, or, perhaps, since she was an actress, in a pretended swoon; both gentlemen hastened to her assistance, and the quarrel ceased. How, a few days later, Rohan caused Voltaire to be cudgelled by his lackeys; how the enraged poet, after taking a course of fencing lessons, challenged his enemy to a duel, and how, in consequence, he was packed off to the Bastille, for the second time, are incidents too well known to require relation here.[74]

In comedy Adrienne appears to have fallen very far short of the high standard she attained as a tragédienne. "She only played and shone in a few rôles," says the Mercure. The registers of the Comédie-Française show that she attempted Célimène, "the touchstone of grandes coquettes," and Elmire in Tartuffe; but, as she only figures nine times in the former character and four times in the latter, we may presume that her rendering of them could not have been more than moderately successful. She gave, however, a very pleasing interpretation of Alcmène in Amphitryon, and Hortense in Le Florentin, in which character she made her last appearance on the stage, and, as Angélique, had a large share in the success of Piron's Fils ingrats; while to her acting in the part of the heroine, Voltaire was much indebted for the favourable reception accorded to his little comedy l'Indiscret. On the other hand, as the Marquise, in Marivaux's Surprise de l'amour, she seems to have come very near to an absolute failure, the critics accusing her of giving to what the author intended to be a gay and frivolous character an air of solemnity and dignity more befitting a tragedy queen.