At length, unable any longer to keep her secret to herself, and seized with an intense curiosity to ascertain who this wonderful Mlle. Dangeville might be, she decided to take into her confidence one of her mother's friends, who had always treated her a little less as a child than the majority of visitors to the house. This proved a fortunate step, for the person in question, pleased with the little girl's intelligence, not only gave her a good deal of information about Mlle. Dangeville and the profession which she adorned, but obtained from her mother—not without considerable difficulty, for the sempstress "saw in theatrical performances only the road to eternal damnation"—permission to take her to the Comédie-Française to witness a representation of the Comte d'Essex and Les Folies amoureuses.
Mlle. Clairon, in her Mémoires, confesses her inability to give any account of that never-to-be-forgotten evening. She only recollects that, during the whole of the performance, her absorption was such as to prevent her uttering a single word, and that, on returning home, she neither saw nor heard any one. Angrily dismissed to her room by her mother, instead of going to sleep, she spent the whole night in recalling and repeating everything that had been said by the performers at the theatre, and every one was astonished the next day to hear her repeat, with scarcely a mistake, a hundred verses of the tragedy and two-thirds of the after-piece. But this feat of memory was less surprising than the extraordinary way in which the little girl had contrived to assimilate the peculiarities of every actor whom she had seen. She lisped like Grandval, she stammered like Poisson, she mimicked to a nicety the coquettish airs of Mlle. Dangeville, and the cold and dignified manner of Mlle. Balicourt;[155] in short, she tells us, she was looked upon as a prodigy by every one, save her mother, who, frowning angrily, declared that she would rather see her make a gown or a petticoat than waste her time over such unprofitable nonsense. Claire, however, fortified by the praises which she had received, boldly declared her intention of becoming an actress, and, when the enraged sempstress threatened to starve her into submission, or "break her arms and legs," retorted, with the air of a tragedy queen: "Ah, well! you had better kill me at once, since otherwise I am determined to go upon the stage."
Marie Scanapiecq did not, it is hardly necessary to remark, attempt to put her threats into execution; nevertheless, for some two months, she subjected her unfortunate little daughter to a course of such rigorous discipline, in the hope of breaking her spirit, that Claire's health became seriously affected. Then the stern mother began to relent, and, on the advice of one of her customers, to whom she had confided her trouble, finally decided to let the girl have her way, and took her to see the lady in question, who had promised to use her influence to further her ambitions. The lady presented Claire to Desheys, a prominent actor of the Comédie-Italienne, who was so favourably impressed with the little aspirant's abilities that he presented her, in his turn, to his colleagues, and, after a course of instruction in dancing and music, she made her début at the "Italians" on January 8, 1736, in a small part in Marivaux's Isle des Esclaves, under the name of Clairon, a variation of her Christian name of Claire.
Although not yet thirteen, she appears to have acquitted herself with credit, while the progress she made in her profession was remarkable. "My industry, my enthusiasm, my memory," says the actress, "confounded my instructors. I retained everything, I devoured everything." Nevertheless, whether on account of her youth, her diminutive stature—she was very short, even for her age—or, more probably, because her precocious talents had excited the apprehensions of the famous Arlequin, Thomassin, who had daughters of his own to bring forward, she did not remain long at the Comédie-Italienne, and, at the end of a year, found herself obliged to seek her fortune in the provinces.
It was to Rouen that she went—Rouen, the nursery of the Paris theatres—Rouen, which had witnessed the first efforts of Marie de Champmeslé, whose triumphs in tragedy this young girl was one day to eclipse. The principal theatre there was at this time under the joint-management of La Noue, author of La Coquette corrigée, and Mlle. Gautier, both, in after years, prominent members of the Comédie-Française; and Mlle. Clairon was engaged to dance in the ballet, sing in comic opera, and act in a few parts suited to her age, at a salary of 100 pistoles, or about 1000 livres. As some compensation for this meagre remuneration, Marie Scanapiecq, who had accompanied her daughter, and whose views with regard to the morality of dramatic performances had undergone a most surprising alteration since she had discovered that there was money to be made, was installed superintendent of the box-office.
At Rouen, little Clairon soon became a general favourite, and improved so rapidly in her acting that, by the time she was sixteen, she was pronounced to be the most charming soubrette the Norman capital had ever possessed. The Rouen ladies were very far from sharing the prejudices of most provincial dames, who believed themselves degraded if they so much as spoke to an actress, and the girl was invited everywhere. A certain Madame de Bimorel, wife of a president of the Parliament of Normandy, and an old flame of the poet Fontenelle, was particularly kind, and remained her firm friend for more than forty years.
A gay town was Rouen in those days; a place where a young and pretty actress could count on receiving almost as much admiration as in the capital itself. At the theatre they still talked of the cause célèbre arising out of an affray between the Marquis de Cony and the Président de Folleville, which had taken place some years before; how the marquis, encountering the president at the house of a certain danseuse whose heart he had until that moment fondly imagined to be his alone, had addressed him by an opprobrious name; how the president had retorted by a blow directed at the nose of the marquis, and how the infuriated nobleman had thereupon thrown his adversary into the fireplace, with such violence as to incapacitate him from administering justice for many a long day to come. Whence arose the lawsuit in question, bringing with it much glory and fame for the damsel who had been the cause of the dispute and the profession in general.
As was only to be expected, the charming impersonator of soubrettes had no lack of adorers, and she is reported to have been not altogether insensible to the devotion of a M. du Rouvray, a handsome youth of good family, whom she met at Madame de Bimorel's house, and to the more business-like attentions of a certain rich merchant, named Dubuisson. She had also a third soupirant, whose passion was to occasion her much tribulation.
Following the example of many actresses' mothers at this period, Marie Scanapiecq, "whose rigid morals," says her dutiful daughter, "were now discarded for gaiety and pleasure, and who spoke of her former mode of life with derision," had converted her house at Rouen into a kind of pension, where gambling and even more questionable practices were freely permitted, if not actually encouraged. Among those who frequented the establishment was an actor named Gaillard de la Bataille, "a poor, rather amusing devil," who possessed that almost indispensable qualification for a vainqueur de dames in the eighteenth century, the art of celebrating their charms in verse. To Mlle. Clairon he consecrated his muse, and every day chanted her praises in couplet or in quatrain, wherein he vowed that Venus and Vesta were unworthy to be compared with this adorable, this divine young actress. But alas! he was not content with this innocent homage; he dared to love her, "and all the while that he extolled her charms and her virtue, plotted to possess himself of the first and to destroy the other."
One summer morning, when her mother happened to be away from home, Mlle. Clairon was studying her part in bed, all unconscious of evil. Suddenly the door flew open, and her lovelorn poet, who had bribed one of the servants of the house to admit him, appeared upon the threshold, and, casting himself on his knees before her, besought her, in impassioned accents, to reciprocate the flame which was devouring him. His divinity's only response to this appeal was to call loudly for assistance; servants and lodgers, alarmed by her cries, were quickly on the scene, and "with brooms and shovels drove the wretch into the street." "When my mother returned home," continues the actress, "it was resolved that we should lodge a complaint against him; he was reprimanded by the magistrate, had ballads made about him, and was for ever banished our house. But rage succeeded to his love and his desires, and he composed that atrocious libel which has been read all over Europe."