Although there can be little doubt that Adrienne was perfectly sincere when she declared her conviction that love was "nothing but a folly which she detested," and that she was still mistress of her heart when she resisted the first overtures of poor d'Argental, it is not improbable that at the time she wrote her celebrated letter to Madame de Ferriol, she had already renounced the wise resolutions with which she had come to Paris in favour of one whom she loved to her life's end with a tenderness, a devotion, and a disinterestedness to which even the most rigid of moralists do not fail to pay tribute.
About the middle of the year 1720, there arrived in Paris a young man who was destined to become one of the most remarkable figures of the eighteenth century—Maurice, "Count of Saxony," celebrated in later years as Maréchal de Saxe. A natural son of Augustus II., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Aurora von Königsmark, sister of the ill-fated lover of George I.'s uncrowned queen, the future victor of Fontenoy was still at this date only a high-born military adventurer in search of some promising field for the exercise of his talents. From his boyhood Maurice had been a soldier. When only twelve years of age, under the direction of the Count von Schulenburg, one of the ablest generals of the time, he had been present at the sieges of Tournay and Mons and the battle of Malplaquet, carrying a musket, like an ordinary sous-officier, in a regiment despatched by Augustus II. to the assistance of the Emperor. Returning to the camp of the allies in 1710, he assisted at the sieges of Douai and Béthune, where he displayed such reckless courage as to call forth from Prince Eugène the admonition not to confound rashness with bravery. Two years later, he accompanied his royal father to the siege of Stralsund, and again exhibited the same impetuosity in an attempt to cut his way through the enemy and engage Charles XII. in single combat. Delighted by his courage, Augustus promoted him colonel the following year, and, at the age of seventeen, gave him the command of a regiment of cuirassiers. The Countess von Königsmark, on her side, worked to assure her son's fortunes by a wealthy marriage, and succeeded in securing for him the hand of the Countess von Löben, the richest heiress in Saxony. This lady's fortune he quickly dissipated, and other and graver causes of complaint against him not being wanting, in 1721 the marriage was annulled. In the meanwhile, Maurice had made a campaign, under Eugène, against the Turks, and had also contrived to irritate his father by breaches of military discipline and other irregularities. In consequence, Augustus II., whose resentment against the young man was artfully fanned by his chief Minister, Count Flemming, who had conceived a strong antipathy to Maurice, advised him to leave Germany and take service with France, and he accordingly set out for Paris. Here he was well received by the Regent, who appointed him maréchal de camp, his father soon afterwards purchasing for him the command of the Regiment of Greder, one of the foreign corps in the French Service.
From the moment of his arrival in Paris, Maurice de Saxe claimed a large share of the attention of both Court and town. Tall and superbly built, with "circular black eyebrows, eyes glittering bright, partly with animal vivacity, partly with spiritual," a high complexion, and a frank, open countenance, he was one of the handsomest men of his time. His physical strength was extraordinary; no amount of exertion seemed able to fatigue him; in war and in the chase he was capable of performing prodigies of endurance; he could break between his fingers crown-pieces and horseshoes. He was seen everywhere. On the parade ground, he brought his regiment to the highest pitch of perfection, invented new formations and tactics, and quickly made himself respected by his superior officers and adored by the soldiers. In the fashionable world, he was equally successful; no roué of the Regent's circle could surpass him in extravagance, folly, and debauchery; while, despite his brusque manners, which procured him the sobriquet of sanglier (wild boar), he was a welcome guest in many a salon. Soldier, sportsman, athlete, gambler, drinker, and lover, he was all things to all men—and all women.
A great patron of the Comédie-Française, it was inevitable that Maurice de Saxe and Adrienne Lecouvreur should meet, and no less inevitable that the count should pay the actress assiduous court, for if Maurice resembled his father, the "Saxon Man of Sin," in appearance, vivacity, and physical strength, he did so even more closely in his vices. All poor Adrienne's wise resolutions failed her in the presence of this young hero, "to whom," says Des Boulmiers, "hearts offered no more resistance than towns." "From the day that she knew him, she was charmed, subjugated, ravished; it seemed to her that she only then began to live. She surrendered herself as she had never surrendered herself before."[78]
It is not difficult to understand the attraction which Adrienne possessed for Maurice de Saxe, and which kept him, though very far from faithful, at least attached to her for nearly ten years. Her beauty and grace flattered his senses, while her moral qualities appealed to the better side of his nature, to that instinct of heroism and idealism which lay at the root of his character, and which, though often obscured in the midst of his debaucheries, was never wholly extinguished. Less easy is it to comprehend the absolute devotion which Adrienne cherished for him; a devotion which remained proof against absence, infidelity, ill-humour, and indifference, and which endured till the last hour of her life.
We are inclined, however, to think with M. Paléologue—whose study of the actress from the psychological point of view is as admirable as M. Larroumet's from the dramatic—that apart from "that species of fascination and magnetism which the libertine, when he is not of vulgar race, exercises over the feminine mind," Adrienne had very early discovered the really great qualities of Maurice, and that the prospect of developing them, and of generally exercising a beneficent influence over such a man, was a temptation which an imagination so generous as hers found it impossible to resist.
The results of this influence are well summarised by Lemontey in the éloge of the actress which he read at a séance of the Academy in 1823:—
"She was then thirty, an age favourable to experience and passion, which renders a woman as skilful to please as prompt to love. As in the time of chivalry, her cares, her tenderness, her wise counsels, initiated her friend into the amiable accomplishments, the benevolent virtues, the polished manners which, in the sequel, made him as much a Frenchman as his victories. Under her sweet tuition, the Achilles of Homer became the Achilles of Racine. She adorned his mind without enervating it, and modified what seemed extraordinary and singular in the turn of his ideas. She taught him our language, our literature, and inspired him with the taste for poetry, for music, for all the arts, and with that passion for the theatre which followed him even into the camp. One might say of the victor of Fontenoy and his beautiful preceptress that he learned from her everything save war, which he knew better than any one, and orthography, which he never knew at all."[79]