Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

"Jeanne Gaussin, reçois mon tendre hommage;

Reçois mes vers au théâtre applaudis;

Protège-les: Zaïre est ton ouvrage;

Il est à toi, puisque tu l'embellis.

Ce sont tes yeux, ces yeux, si pleins de charmes,

Qui du critique ont fait tomber les armes."[150]

But beautiful as Mlle. Gaussin undoubtedly was, and excellent as was her acting in Zaïre and other pathetic parts, she fell very far short of the standard to which her gifted predecessor had attained; nor was it until August 1737 that an actress worthy to assume the mantle of Adrienne arose.

This was Marie Françoise Dumesnil, who, like Adrienne, had begun her career at theatres in the East of France, and, like her, singularly enough, had received her invitation to Paris while playing at Strasburg. Her style, which was marked by a high degree of truth to Nature, refinement, and technical skill, combined with a real enthusiasm for her art, excited general admiration, and her début was brilliantly successful. In the classic répertoire her most celebrated rôles were Cléopâtre, Clytemnestre, and Phèdre; while her most successful creation was Mérope (February 20, 1743), when, according to Voltaire, she kept the audience in tears for three successive acts.[151]

After this triumph—the greatest of her career—it may well have been supposed that Mlle. Dumesnil was destined to maintain her supremacy for many years to come. Nevertheless, ere six months had passed, she found her proud position challenged by a most formidable rival.

Claire Joseph Lerys—for that was the name of this rival, and of the greatest, or, at least, the most celebrated tragic actress of the eighteenth century, though she styled herself Claire Josèphe Hippolyte Lerys de Latude-Clairon, and is known to fame under the last of these names—was born at Condé, a little town of Hainaut, on January 25, 1723. Her father was one François Joseph Desiré Lerys, a sergeant in the Régiment de Mailly; her mother, a working-woman, Marie Claire Scanapiecq by name; and she was a natural child, a fact which she omits to mention in the French edition of her Mémoires, though she is more candid in the German edition.[152]

The circumstances attending her birth, which she has herself recounted, were, it must be admitted, highly significant of her future career:—

"It was the custom of the little town in which I was born for all persons to assemble during the carnival time at the houses of the wealthiest citizens, in order to pass the entire day in dancing and other amusements. Far from disapproving of these recreations, the curé partook of them and travestied himself with the rest. During one of the fête days, my mother, who was but seven months advanced in pregnancy, suddenly brought me into the world, between two and three o'clock in the afternoon. I was so feeble that every one imagined a few moments would terminate my career. My grandmother, a woman of eminent piety, was anxious that I should be carried out at once to the church, in order that I might there receive the rite of baptism. Not a living soul was to be discovered either at the church or at the curé's house. A neighbour having informed the party that all the town was at a carnival entertainment at the house of a certain wealthy citizen, thither was I carried with all expedition. Monsieur le Curé, attired as Arlequin, and his vicar, disguised as Gille, imagining, from my appearance, that there was not a moment to be lost, hurriedly arranged upon a sideboard everything necessary for the ceremony, stopped the fiddle for a moment, muttered over me the consecrated words, and sent me back to my mother a Christian—at least in name."[153]

When the little girl was twelve years old, she and her mother left Condé, and, after a short stay at Valenciennes, settled in Paris, where the latter found employment as a sempstress. The future queen of tragedy was at this time, according to her own account, a delicate, sensitive child, with a confirmed dislike to needlework, in consequence of which she spent the greater part of her days "trembling beneath the blows and threats of her mother," whom she describes, rather undutifully, as "a violent, ignorant, and superstitious woman."

However, at length Fate took pity on her. Her mother, yielding to the remonstrances of the neighbours, who had been "affected by the appearance of languor to which her misfortunes had reduced her, and her beauty, voice, intelligence, and the sweetness of her temper when she was not forced to work at the needle," ceased to belabour her, and, by way of punishment, took to shutting her up in a room overlooking the street. Now, it happened that the house immediately opposite the Scanapiecqs was occupied by the mother of Mlle. Dangeville, the famous soubrette of the Comédie-Française, and, one day, little Claire, having mounted a chair to survey the neighbourhood, beheld the idol of the pit taking a dancing-lesson in the midst of an admiring circle of relatives and friends. "She was distinguished," she tells us, "for every charm which Nature and youth could unite in the same person. My very being came into my eyes; not one of her movements escaped me. She was surrounded by her family, and when the lesson was over, every one applauded her, while her mother embraced her. The difference between her condition and my own penetrated me with the deepest grief; my tears would not permit me to see anything more. I descended from my chair, and, when the throbbing of my heart had subsided sufficiently for me to remount it, all had disappeared."[154]

From that day, little Claire had only one desire: to be placed en pénitence at the hour at which Mlle. Dangeville was in the habit of taking her lesson; and, the moment she was alone, she would climb to her perch and remain there, a motionless and silent, but enthusiastic spectator of the movements of her fair neighbour. Soon, at first almost unconsciously, the girl began to imitate what she had seen, and with such success that those who came to her mother's house thought that she had been provided with masters. "My manner of entering a room," she says, "of saluting the company, of seating myself, was no longer the same; and the improvement I had acquired, added to the graces of my deportment, obtained for me even the favour of my mother."