Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

Voltaire had been one of the first to appreciate both the talents and personal qualities of Adrienne, and in a letter to Thiériot, written shortly after the actress's untimely death, he declares himself to have been "her admirer, her friend, her lover." The biographers of the lady are divided in opinion as to whether this last term is to be taken in its literal, or in its platonic and poetic sense; but whatever may have been the relations between the tragédienne and the writer, it is certain that Adrienne found in Voltaire one of the firmest and most devoted of her friends, who is undoubtedly sincere when he reminds her

"De la pauvre amitié que son cœur a pour elle,"

and who remained tenderly attached to her to the last hour of her life.

However, even if Adrienne yielded in favour of a dramatic author to the customs of her profession, or, as Lemontey expresses it, was "bound to Voltaire by the ties of glory and of love which in the preceding century had united Racine and the Champmeslé," it is improbable that either of the other persons mentioned were anything more than admirers. The actress's early experiences of the tender passion had, as we have seen, been singularly bitter; the selfishness of man had inflicted upon her the most cruel of humiliations for a loving and sensitive woman, that of being cast aside like a broken toy when she had surrendered herself in the most absolute confidence, and she had come to Paris firmly resolved to remain henceforth mistress of her heart and her actions. The letters published by M. Monval show that, during the first three years of her residence in the capital, she replied to several declarations of love by offers of friendship, explaining her ideas on the subject with singular frankness.

"If I am unable to render you more happy," she writes to one of her soupirants, "I am more grieved than you yourself. I reproach myself. I tell myself, without doubt, more than you can tell me; but I could not deceive you. Caprices do not agree with reason, and love is nothing else but a folly which I detest, and to which I shall strive hard not to surrender myself so long as I live. You will understand it yet, and the severity with which I have treated you will serve then only to render you more happy. Permit me to approach the matter with you, and to offer you my counsels. Be my friend; I am worthy of that, but choose for mistress one who possesses a heart quite untampered with; who has not yet repented of that trust which renders everything so beautiful; who has been neither betrayed nor deserted; who believes you such as you are, and all men such as you. Let her be young and rather strong; she will be the less sensitive. Finally, see that she gives to you as much constancy as I should have given, if I had never loved any one save you."

Among the adorers whom Adrienne rejected, and whose friendship she nevertheless succeeded in retaining through life, was the Marquis de la Chalotais, whose famous quarrel with Madame du Barry's protégé, the Duc d'Aiguillon, convulsed all France during the last years of Louis XV. The future Advocate-General of the Parliament of Brittany was, at the time when he made Adrienne's acquaintance, a gay young abbé and a great frequenter of the Comédie-Française, where he paid assiduous court to its chief divinity, but without obtaining anything save her friendship and esteem. Having succeeded to the family title and become Advocate-General at Rennes, he continued to correspond with his former enchantress, and was in the habit of sending her a present every year. Only nine days before her death, Adrienne wrote him a charming letter, thanking him for his gift and assuring him of her lasting regard:—

"When one has been acquainted with a person for ten or twelve years, and has a kind of attachment for him which is proof against separation and ought not to injure any one, one may speak without restraint. I assure you, then, that I love you as much as I esteem you, that I pray for your happiness and that of all belonging to you, and I entreat you to retain for me remembrance and more."

In his letter, La Chalotais had expressed regret that it was impossible for him to take lessons in declamation from Adrienne; and the actress concludes by very modestly defining her own method of elocution, and giving her friend some very excellent advice on the subject:—

"You say that you would like me to teach you the art of declamation, of which you stand in need. You have then forgotten that I do not declaim. The simplicity of my acting is my one poor merit; but this simplicity, which chance has turned to my advantage, appears to me indispensable to a man in your profession. The first requisite is intelligence, and that you have; the next, to allow beneficent Nature to do her work. To speak with grace, nobility, and simplicity, and to reserve all your energies for the argument, are what you will say and do better than any man."

An admirer whom Adrienne had infinitely more difficulty in persuading to be content with friendship than La Chalotais was Voltaire's faithful ally, d'Argental. D'Argental, who was then a lad scarcely out of his teens, conceived for the actress a most violent passion, and, though the latter repeatedly assured him that friendship was all she had to bestow, for long refused to abandon hope.