Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

"The favourable report that has been made to me about you, Monsieur, has induced me to choose you, in preference to all others, in order to give you the exclusive management of my comedy company. I am persuaded that you will use every endeavour to ensure its success; but do not imagine that I look upon it merely as an object of amusement; it enters into my political views and into the plan of my military operations. I will advise you what you will have to do in this respect when occasion arises, and, in the meanwhile, I count upon your discretion and punctuality. You are from this moment at liberty to make all your arrangements for opening your theatre at Brussels, in the month of April next."

As there was but little time at his disposal, Favart started at once for Brussels, where he obtained a lease of the Grand Theatre in the Rue de la Monnaie. Then he returned to Paris, and, having selected his company, which comprised all the best artistes of the deceased Opéra-Comique, he and Justine set out for Flanders.

Two days after their arrival in Brussels, Maurice de Saxe made his entry into the city. The excitement was intense; an enormous crowd lined the streets through which the procession was to pass; while the windows, and even the roofs of the houses, were thronged with spectators eager to catch a glimpse of the famous general. The weather, however, was unfavourable for a public ceremony; a storm was brewing, and, as the Marshal reached the Hôtel de Ville, where all the fair ladies of Brussels had congregated to receive him, a terrific peal of thunder was heard. Many persons no doubt saw in this an omen of evil for the hitherto all-conquering warrior; but Favart chose to regard it far differently, and forthwith improvised the following verses:—

"Est-ce là notre général

Que ramène Bellone?

—Eh! oui, c'est ce grand maréchal,

C'est lui-même en personne.

—Non; je le vois à ses regards,

C'est le Dieu de la guerre,

Et Jupiter annonce Mars

Par un coup de tonnerre."

Copies of these verses were printed and circulated everywhere; and the Marshal, having had his attention drawn to them, as he was sitting down to dinner with his general officers, sent for the writer and complimented him upon them. One of the officers present, who did not share his chiefs passion for the theatre, asked Favart of what use a poet like himself could be to the army. "To celebrate the exploits of our warriors and satirise the enemy," was the prompt reply, and the questioner proceeded no further.

During the afternoon, apparently at the request of some of the ladies of the city, the Marshal gave orders that part of the troops should be paraded in front of the Hôtel de Ville and put through various evolutions. One of the corps selected was a contingent of Jacobite Highlanders, "who, in changing their country, had not thought it necessary to change their costume." The scantiness of the gallant Scotsmen's attire, Favart tells us, greatly shocked the Brussels ladies, to the intense amusement of the Marshal and his officers. In the evening, Favart's company gave their first performance, which was so well received as to remove all doubt as to the success of their enterprise.

Although Brussels was the centre of the Marshal's operations, and Favart had secured a lease of the Grand Theatre, the terms of his engagement obliged him to follow the army into the field, a necessity which involved him and his company in many hardships and privations. Once Favart passed three days and three nights without sleep, except such as he could obtain leaning against a tree, with his feet in water. Often provisions ran short; bread sold at fifteen sous the pound, and sometimes the unfortunate actors were nearly starving. Nor were dangers of an even more alarming kind wanting. The country swarmed with the irregular cavalry of the enemy, who intercepted convoys, cut off stragglers, and burned and pillaged to within musket-shot of the French lines. Neither age nor sex was sacred to these Croats and Pandours. A luckless troupe of actors on their way from Brussels to Cologne, to fulfil an engagement at the Elector's Court, was surprised by a body of these marauders and robbed of everything they possessed, with the exception of their theatrical costumes, in which they were compelled to trudge to Louvain, their woe-begone countenances contrasting oddly with the gay habiliments of Arlequin, Scaramouche, and the rest. Maurice de Saxe had granted Favart's company an escort of thirty men of the Régiment de Septimanie; but this force was insufficient to secure them from molestation. One day, while passing through some wooded country between Louvain and Indiogne, they were attacked by a body of hussars, who outnumbered their little escort by as many as four to one. A sanguinary hand-to-hand conflict ensued, for the marauders were as brave as they were ruthless, while their excesses had exasperated the French to the last degree. Twice the hussars were beaten back, and, at length, reinforcements arriving for the defenders, they drew off, leaving, however, only six of the gallant escort alive, the least wounded of whom had received four sabre cuts. Favart, in a letter to his mother giving an account of this adventure, speaks with admiration of the conduct of this soldier: "Never did I see a man of such courage. He was covered with blood, which he was losing in abundance, and yet would not permit his comrades to give a thought to him until the combat was over. Then, in order to speak, he was obliged to hold up his nose and a portion of his cheek, which had been separated from the rest of his countenance by a sabre cut, and had fallen down over his mouth!"

To compensate the Favarts for the hardships and perils they were compelled to undergo, Maurice de Saxe treated them with the greatest kindness; in fact, presents were simply showered upon them. On one occasion, we find him sending them three fine horses to draw their coach; on another, "a camp-bed of red satin"; on a third, twenty-five bottles of Hungarian wine. Moreover, he gave Favart to understand that he might draw upon him freely in case of necessity, and protected him against the attacks of the jealous Parmentier, the leader of the other troupe of actors, who, not without some cause, regarded Favart as a rival, and did all in his power to annoy and discredit him. The simple-minded poet, who had as yet no suspicion as to the real object of the Marshal's attentions, seems to have been under the impression that they were intended as tributes to his literary and dramatic talents, and, in his letters to his mother, waxes quite enthusiastic over his patron's kindness and generosity.

The Marshal, in engaging Favart's services, had told him that he regarded the troupe which followed his army as something more than a means of amusement, and that it "entered into the plan of his military operations." M. Léon Gozlan makes merry over this letter, which, he thinks, was written merely to flatter the poet's vanity, and lure him and his wife to Flanders;[122] but there can be no doubt that Maurice did attach considerable importance to the provision of such entertainments for those under his command. In the first place, they served to occupy not a little of the time which would otherwise be employed in more doubtful pleasures, particularly play, which, in spite of stringent prohibitions, was very prevalent in the army among all ranks, and had a most disastrous effect on the morale of the troops, causing the officers to gamble away their pay and the men their rations, and leading to frequent quarrels and much ill-feeling. In the second place, the Marshal's knowledge of the French character had taught him that a happy couplet de circonstance sung to a lively air often had more effect upon the soldiers than the most eloquent of harangues. An anecdote celebrated in the history of this campaign will show how accurately the great commander had gauged the spirit of his troops.

In the autumn of 1746, the French, after capturing Namur, had occupied Tongres, in the market-place of which Favart had constructed a theatre. The allied army, under Prince Charles of Lorraine, was close at hand, and a decisive engagement was daily expected; but this did not prevent the improvised playhouse from being crowded every evening. Early in the afternoon of October 9, the Marshal sent for Favart to come to his quarters, and, on his arrival, dismissed the officers who were with him, and, turning to the poet, said: "To-morrow I shall give battle. As yet I have issued no orders to that effect. Announce it this evening at the conclusion of the performance, in couplets suitable to the occasion. Until that moment let nothing transpire."