At midnight, accordingly, the mortal remains of poor Adrienne were placed in a hackney-coach, and, preceded by two street porters bearing torches, and escorted by a squad of the watch and a M. de Laubinière—whom Sainte-Beuve supposes to have been a friend of the actress, but who, M. Monval thinks, was a representative of the Lieutenant of Police—conveyed to a piece of waste land near the Seine, and there buried, quicklime being thrown over the body, and no stone or mark of any kind being placed to indicate where it lay.[99]
The refusal of admission to the unconsecrated portion of the cemetery—a circumstance, as we have already observed, absolutely without precedent[100]—the secret removal, the presence of the representatives of the Lieutenant of Police at the interment, the precautions taken to destroy the corpse by quicklime and to conceal the grave, all point to an intention on the part of the authorities to render a second autopsy impossible. But the most scandalous part of the whole affair is the conduct of Languet de Gergy and his superior, the Archbishop of Paris, in lending themselves to a deliberate attempt to defeat the ends of justice in the interests of Madame de Bouillon and her powerful friends.
A question which has naturally given rise to a good deal of conjecture is the conduct of Maurice de Saxe on this occasion. Egotist and libertine though he was, he was a sincere friend and capable of generous impulses; moreover, even at this period, he possessed no little influence at Court, where he was feared even more than he was respected. Such being the case, it seems almost inconceivable that he should, so far as is known, have made not the slightest effort to save the remains of the woman who had loved him so long and so tenderly from so gross an indignity. In our opinion, the most probable, as well as the most charitable, explanation of the matter is, that Maurice was taken completely by surprise; that the arrangements of the police were carried out with such secrecy and despatch that no inkling of their intentions was permitted to reach him until it was too late for him to intervene.
Another of Adrienne's friends, though, like Maurice, powerless to prevent the barbarous treatment to which she had been subjected, protested against it with all the strength of his generous nature. On the morrow of her burial, Voltaire addressed to Falkener a letter in verse, in which he recalled the honours recently paid to two English actresses, and drew an eloquent comparison between their pompous obsequies and those of poor Adrienne, who had been denied even the privilege of "two tapers and a coffin." But the justly indignant poet went much further than this. On the same day, a meeting of the members of the Comédie-Française was held at the theatre. Voltaire attended, and, in an eloquent speech, called upon the actors to refuse to exercise their profession "until they had secured for the pensioners of the King the rights which were accorded to those who had not the honour of serving his Majesty." His hearers promised to follow his advice, but they did nothing in the matter. The age of strikes had not yet arrived, and they preferred opprobrium with a little money to honour and an empty treasury.
Shortly afterwards, Voltaire composed his fine poem on the death of Adrienne, in which he gave full vent to the feelings of indignation and contempt which consumed him:—
| "Que direz-vous, race future, |
| Lorsque vous apprendrez, la flétrissante injure |
| Qu'à ces arts désolés font des hommes cruel! |
| Ils privent de la sépulture |
| Celle qui dans la Gréce aurait eu des autels. |
| Quand elle était au monde, ils soupiraient pour elle; |
| Je les ai vu soumis, autour d'elle empressés: |
| Sitôt qu'elle n'est plus, elle est donc criminelle! |
| Elle a charmé le monde et vous l'en punissez!" |
The annual closing of the theatre took place on March 24, when Grandval, as the youngest sociétaire, pronounced, according to custom, before the assembled company, an éloge upon their deceased colleague. This éloge had been written by Voltaire himself, and with it we may appropriately conclude our sketch of this celebrated actress, who was not only a great artist, but a noble, high-souled, and cultured woman, who had all the feminine virtues, save one, for the lack of which, when we pause to consider the temptations of her profession, the moral standard of the age in which she lived, and the generosity and devotion she displayed towards those who had won her heart, we shall find it difficult not to pardon her:—
"I feel, Messieurs, that your regrets recall that inimitable actress, who might almost be said to have invented the art of speaking to the heart and of presenting sentiment and truth where once had been shown little but artificiality and declamation.
"Mlle. Lecouvreur—permit us the consolation of naming her—made one feel in every character which she impersonated all the delicacy, all the soul, all the decorum that one could desire: she was worthy to speak before you, Messieurs. Among those who deign to listen to me are several who honoured her by their friendship; they are aware that she was the ornament of society, as well as of the theatre; while those who knew her only as the actress can readily judge, from the degree of perfection to which she had attained, that not only had she an abundance of wit, but that she further possessed the art of rendering wit amiable.
"You are too just, Messieurs, not to regard this tribute of praise as a duty: I dare even to say that, in regretting her, I am merely your interpreter."[101]