Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

For four years—that is to say, from 1721 to 1725—the liaison between Adrienne and Maurice de Saxe continued without any particular incident; Maurice pursuing his military studies, making journeys to Dresden and Warsaw to visit his father, on whose behalf he seems to have acted as a sort of unofficial ambassador in France, and indulging in a good many passades; Adrienne, though she must have very speedily awakened to the fact that what was the all-absorbing interest in her life was but a mere episode in her hero's, loving him none the less devotedly, and deriving consolation from the thought that, if others disputed with her the possession of his heart, she alone possessed his confidence. Then came a long separation. The Duchy of Courland, which for nearly two centuries had been under the protection of Poland, fell vacant through the death of Duke Ferdinand, who ruled in the name of his niece, Anne Ivanovna, afterwards Czarina of Russia, a childless widow. Several candidates for the ducal crown presented themselves, and the unprepossessing duchess found herself beset with suitors, eager to strengthen their claims by securing her hand. Augustus II., however, decided to put forward his son, and Anne, having been approached on the matter, expressed herself favourably disposed towards a marriage with the young man.

The prospect of conquering a kingdom for himself with his sword, as, even should the Diet elect him and Anne accept him as her husband, his rivals were not likely to abandon their claims without a struggle, appealed strongly to the adventurous Maurice, and he set out for Courland. Everything augured well for his success, when, one day in May 1726, he received, to his astonishment and disgust, orders from his father to renounce his candidature. Diplomatic complications obliged Augustus to discourage his son's ambition.

Maurice ignored the paternal commands, and some days later found him at Mitau, paying court to the duchess. But, at the same time, in order to leave nothing to chance, he carried on, through the medium of the Saxon ambassador at St. Petersburg, a second matrimonial negotiation, without prejudice to the first, with the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Petrovna, to wit. The ambassador sent to Dresden for a portrait of the count, and showed it to the princess, who was so charmed with the counterfeit presentment that she straightway declared her willingness to espouse the original. Both Anne and Elizabeth, it is hardly necessary to observe, were in blissful ignorance of the double game played by Maurice, who pursued his negotiations with much address, wooing the one lady in person and the other by proxy. Once more matters looked hopeful for the young adventurer, save that now that his father had abandoned him he was in sore straits for money. His mother sent him all she could, but the sums he received from her were very far from being sufficient for his needs, and he accordingly appealed to the generosity of his friends in France. Adrienne was the first to respond. Though, of course, well aware that, in the event of Maurice's success, she would lose him for ever, the devoted woman never hesitated a moment, but sold or pledged her jewellery and plate, and sent the proceeds—some 40,000 livres[80]—to her lover.

Her generosity, however, was of no avail. In spite of his courage and energy, and the assistance of his friends in France, Maurice failed. On June 28, 1726, he was elected Duke of Courland; "but the problem was to fall in love with the Dowager Anne Ivanovna, a big, brazen Russian woman—(such a cheek the pictures give her, in size and somewhat in expression like a Westphalia ham)—and this, with all his adventurous audacity, Count Maurice could not do."[81] The result was that, after maintaining his authority for about a year and performing prodigies of reckless valour, the new duke, attacked by Russia, proscribed by Poland, abandoned by his partisans, disavowed by his father, renounced by Anne ("who had discovered that he did not like Westphalia hams in that particular form, that he only pretended to like them"), and by the Grand Duchess, who had fathomed his little scheme, was compelled to surrender his dukedom and shake the dust of Courland off his feet.

That during this long separation Maurice remained faithful to his absent mistress is very improbable. From the diplomatic correspondence of the time, it would appear that the handsome adventurer had aroused among the fair sex of Saxony, Poland, and Courland a veritable enthusiasm. All the great ladies of Dresden, Warsaw, Mitau, and Riga had espoused his cause, and compelled their husbands to do likewise. "Count Poicey (Grand Marshal of Lithuania)," wrote one of the ministers of Augustus II., "has gone into this affair, like Adam into sin, seduced by his wife." When the Diet of Mitau elected Maurice duke, the delight of his fair partisans knew no bounds. "The women cannot sleep for joy," wrote the Saxon ambassador at St. Petersburg. "As many thousand crowns as our hero has just made Actaeons would be very welcome to me."

Nevertheless, in spite of his military and political occupations and his presumed bonnes fortunes, Maurice found time to think of Adrienne, to write to her "twice a week regularly," and to "testify towards her more affection and confidence than ever." Adrienne, in her turn, passes on the news to one of her friends in an interesting letter, in which she shows herself thoroughly conversant with the somewhat complicated state of affairs in Poland. She deplores the "disgraceful weakness" of Augustus II., who "allowed himself to be governed by the most cruel enemy of his glory (his Minister Flemming), and the most bitter enemy of the son of whom he was unworthy"; severely censures the conduct of the English Government, "which had promised assistance which it had now no intention of rendering," and declares that she was "dying of fear" and "tormented to an extent which she could not describe."

On October 23, 1728, Maurice returned to Paris, and the lovers were united once more. "A person expected for a very long time arrives this evening," writes Adrienne to a friend, "apparently in moderately good health. A courier has come on in advance, because the berlin in which they were travelling broke down thirty leagues from here. They have started in a post-chaise, and this evening they will be here." The liaison was resumed, but it seems to have been troubled by frequent storms. Maurice returned a disappointed man; the future seemed dark, his star was temporarily hidden; a life of inaction, always trying to one of his restless, ambitious temperament, was well-nigh intolerable after the adventurous years he had spent in Courland. He sought relief in pleasure—the chase, high play, and gallantry; wearied of that, and endeavoured to kill time by the study of mathematics and the art of war and the composition of his curious Rêveries. Wearied of that also, turned to Adrienne for consolation, and vented his ill-humour upon her. Claiming the utmost liberty for himself, he was, nevertheless, indisposed to concede even a small measure of it to his mistress. He grew jealous and suspicious of her friends, and even believed, or professed to believe, that her relations with one of them were exceeding the limits of friendship; for we find Adrienne writing to a confidant as follows:—

"I am worn out with anger and grief; I have been dissolved in tears this livelong night. Perhaps it is unreasonable of me, since I have nothing wherewith to reproach myself; but I cannot endure severity so little deserved. They suspect me; they do more, they accuse me; they do worse still, they wish to convict me, and that without giving me an opportunity of defending myself, in such a way that, if chance does not enable me to ascertain what is happening, I shall be covered with the most horrible calumny possible to conceive, by a man who has borne the name of my friend for ten years. They do not wish me to tell you this. I esteem and love tenderly him who forbids me, but I know not how to keep it to myself; I am too affected, too wounded, and too alarmed for the future not to reveal it, at any rate, to you. I need advice. A man capable of this calumny may very well imagine others; and that which distresses me the more is the necessity for dissimulation. To exclaim against deceit is natural, and I would prefer to pardon it rather than to be compelled to restrain both my grief and my feelings. I have been told that it is his way of thinking, that he does not intend to do me any wrong in confounding me with the generality of women. I cannot entertain this idea. That is not the language he has held to me for ten years, and ought not to be the reward of my attention to please him and to make him esteem me, at least, according to my deserts. What can one do to me, after all, save wound me in the place where I am the most sensitive? I could destroy in an instant the error in question; but how am I to console myself for the intention of this calumny? This is not a chance suspicion; it is a confidence made to a man who has no feeling for me, save friendship, but whose friendship is worth more than all the passions in the world, whose esteem is more precious to me than life, and whose companionship is more necessary for me than all the fortunes in the universe. It is before him that I am made to appear false and contemptible. Whatever he says, they attest my supposed crime. O mon Dieu! What are we to do?"

Seventeen months after Maurice's return to France Adrienne died, under peculiarly dramatic circumstances; popular rumour ascribing her death to poison administered by the agents of the Duchesse de Bouillon,[82] a pretender to the heart of the Saxon hero, who was already under suspicion of having made an attempt upon her rival's life. To arrive at a satisfactory conclusion in regard to this very mysterious affair, it would be necessary to have before us the dossier containing the report of the autopsy and other important documents of which Sainte-Beuve speaks in his well-known study of the actress. This dossier has, however, disappeared, and it is uncertain if it is still in existence; the probability is that it has been destroyed. Sainte-Beuve's conclusion was that the Duchesse de Bouillon was guiltless, not only of Adrienne's death, which he ascribes to natural causes, but of any attempt on her life. The former opinion was, no doubt, justified by the evidence which the lost dossier contained. But the latter, which seems to have been based on an altogether misplaced belief in the veracity of a certain Abbé Aunillon—who was on terms of the closest intimacy with the accused duchess, and invented a most ingenious defence on behalf of his friend, which we need not enter into here—the great critic would probably have seen cause to alter had he been acquainted with the documents which have been brought to light of recent years by M. Ravaisson, M. Campardon, and M. Monval.

Let us, however, borrow the account of the affair given a few days after Adrienne's death, by Mlle. Aïssé in a letter to Madame Calandrini, and which, she declares, had been furnished her by "a friend of the Lecouvreur," probably d'Argental, to whom she was related:—