Towards the end of the year 1744, Favart was entrusted by the director of the Opera, of which the Opéra-Comique was a dependency, with the management of the latter theatre; and it was while occupying this post that an incident occurred which was to be the starting-point of some very surprising adventures.
One day, in the following January, Favart received a letter from a lady at Lunéville, soliciting for her daughter an engagement at the Opéra-Comique as singer and dancer. The writer of the letter was a certain Madame Duronceray, the wife of one of the musicians of the chapel of Stanislaus Leczinski, ex-King of Poland, to which she herself was attached. The daughter on whose behalf she wrote, Marie Justine-Benoîte Duronceray, was, it appeared, now in her eighteenth year, had been educated by the most skilful masters, under the personal supervision of King Stanislaus himself, and, to judge from the fond mother's letter, was a perfect little prodigy, who united in her person every imaginable accomplishment.
The director returned an encouraging answer, and the two ladies, having obtained the necessary leave of absence from the King, started for Paris, and, on their arrival, lost no time in presenting themselves at Favart's house.
The result of the interview proved that Madame Duronceray had not exaggerated her daughter's talents. As actress, singer, and dancer, the girl showed remarkable promise, while she was as charming as she was accomplished.[120] A very brief examination sufficed to assure Favart that he had discovered a most valuable acquisition to his troupe; and it was at once arranged that Mlle. Chantilly, as Justine had decided to call herself, out of deference for a branch of the Duronceray family which lived in Paris and might conceivably have taken umbrage at one of their name appearing on the stage, should make her début in a piece from Favart's own pen, which he was then writing, in celebration of the approaching marriage of the Dauphin with the Infanta Maria Theresa. The title of this vaudeville, Les Fêtes publiques, has alone come down to us; but, whatever its merits may have been, it was highly successful, the new actress's piquant beauty and grace, no less than her vocal and dramatic talents, being loudly acclaimed by a succession of crowded houses.
The charms of Justine had already made a deep impression upon Favart, and, after her triumph in Les Fêtes publiques, he became so deeply in love with the fair débutante that he declared his passion, which the young lady was pleased to reciprocate. An honest and excellent man, Favart did not attempt to take advantage of their respective positions,[121] but offered to make her his wife; and, on December 12, 1745, they were married at the Church of Saint-Pierre-aux-Bœufs, a little church generally patronised by persons who wished to keep their marriages secret for a while, in the presence of only the necessary witnesses.
In view of what we shall presently relate, it is important to note that M. Duronceray, Justine's father, was not present at the ceremony, although he had given the required consent to his daughter's marriage, in writing.
The marriage took place under very inauspicious circumstances. The vogue that Favart by his operas and Justine by her singing and acting had obtained for the Opéra-Comique had aroused the jealousy of the Théâtre-Français and the Comédie-Italienne; and, in the autumn of 1745, they solicited and obtained its suppression. The severity of this measure was somewhat mitigated by the permission which Favart received to open a theatre at the Fair of Saint-Laurent, whither he transferred his company, and presented, among other pieces, a pantomime, entitled Les Vendanges de Tempé, of which the success was assured by the charming acting of Justine. This privilege, however, was only accorded him for a very short time, with the object of allowing the troupe of the Opéra-Comique leisure to make other arrangements, and, on its withdrawal, Favart and his colleagues found themselves in a very embarrassing situation; and matters must have gone hardly with them, had not the poet had the good fortune to find a protector as powerful as he was unexpected.
It happened that some little time before the suppression of the Opéra-Comique, Favart had met at the house of one of those leaders of the fashionable world whose whim it was to patronise actors and men of letters, Maurice de Saxe, now become the greatest soldier of his age, Maréchal de France, and "general-in-chief of all the armies of the King." Maurice, who was as enthusiastic a patron of the drama as he had been in the days of poor Adrienne Lecouvreur, was followed in his campaigns by a troupe of actors, which gave performances wherever the army happened to be quartered, sometimes in a regular theatre, sometimes in an improvised one; and he now suggested to Favart that he should organise a second troupe and accompany him to Flanders for the campaign which was about to open.
The offer seemed like a fortune to poor Favart, in the state of poverty and uncertainty to which he was then reduced; nevertheless, he hesitated to accept it, pointing out that the formation of a second company might be regarded by the troupe already in existence as an encroachment on its privileges, and that its leader—one Parmentier, an arrogant and unscrupulous person, with whom Favart was by no means anxious to enter into competition—would be sure to throw obstacles in his way. The Marshal, however, solved the difficulty by promising to transfer the Parmentier troupe to the division of the army commanded by Maréchal Löwendal, and attach Favart's company to his own person; and, under these conditions, the poet gratefully accepted his offer.
Here are the terms in which the Marshal announced his appointment to Favart, and, at the same time, informed him of what was expected of him:—