Gaillard did indeed take a cruel revenge for the ignominious treatment he had received, for his pamphlet, which was entitled Histoire de Mademoiselle Cronel, dite Frétillon, actrice de la Comédie de Rouen, écrite par elle-même, aided by the subsequent celebrity of its victim, ran through several editions, and the sobriquet "Frétillon" stuck to her for life. Mlle. Clairon was at Havre when the libel appeared, and "her anguish was beyond all power of expression." She returned to Rouen in fear and trembling, "imagining that every door would be barred against her, and not daring to look any one in the face." However, the play-loving Rouennais, who were very indulgent towards the moral failings of the ladies of the theatre, appear to have been more diverted than scandalised, and she "found the same public and the same friends."
Soon, however, trouble arose in another quarter. The troupe of La Noue and Mlle. Gautier, driven from Rouen by the competition of an opera company, went to try its fortune in Flanders. Mlle. Clairon's mother accompanied her, and, while the troupe was performing at Lille, took advantage of the fact of her daughter being now separated from Madame de Bimorel and her other friends, to endeavour to coerce her into a marriage with one of her comrades, whom the girl cordially detested. In a curious passage in her Mémoires, Mlle. Clairon attributes to this persecution the loss of her innocence:—
"The orders of my mother, her violence, which she carried so far as to present a pistol to me, in order to obtain my consent, made me at last sensible of the necessity of having a protector, who, without appealing to the laws, might be able to restrain those about me and defend me against them. Actuated by despair alone, without any base, mercenary motive, without love, without desires, I offered and surrendered myself, on the sole condition of being protected from the marriage and death that threatened me at the same time. That moment, which, at first sight, conveys only an impression of licentiousness, is perhaps the most noble, the most interesting, the most striking of my life."
Unhappily, the sympathy which this passage might otherwise arouse in the lady's readers is somewhat discounted by the perusal of the following extract from an official report which the police-inspector, La Janière, sent to Berryer, the Lieutenant of Police, some years later, from which it appears that so violent and persistent was the persecution to which the unfortunate young actress was subjected by her mother and her unwelcome admirer, that not one, but three protectors were necessary for her safety:—
"After some years, having accepted an engagement with the director of the theatre at Lille, she (Clairon) appeared on the stage in that town, and did not remain long without making conquests. The Comte de Bergheick, colonel of the Regiment Royal-Wallon, the Chevalier de By, lieutenant-colonel of the same regiment, and M. Desplace, major of cavalry, were her three chief protectors.
"People are at first alarmed at the sight of three rival warriors contending for the heart of this girl, but let them be reassured, everything will pass off tranquilly. The Clairon was a careful girl, and, besides, adroit enough to keep in play half-a-dozen lovers. Thus everything worked smoothly, and all were satisfied."[156]
In the spring of 1742, La Noue, whose tenancy of the Rouen theatre had not been attended with the success he had anticipated, and whom the outbreak of the Austrian Succession War had compelled to relinquish a project of taking a company to Berlin, returned to Paris, to make his début at the Comédie-Française. His troupe was in consequence dispersed, and Mlle. Clairon, finding herself without employment, joined a travelling company which had been engaged to perform at Ghent, then the headquarters of the English army. Here, she tells us, she was received with enthusiastic applause, and "my lord" Marlborough[157] laid his immense fortune at her feet. But Mlle. Clairon was, above all things, a patriot, and "my lord" and his immense fortune had no attractions for her. "The contempt which the English nation affected for mine," she says, "rendered every individual belonging to it insupportable to me. It was impossible for me to listen to them without expressing my dislike." So strong indeed was her aversion to the enemies of her country that it was only with the greatest difficulty that she could be prevailed upon to contribute to their entertainment. Finally, she could endure the situation no longer, and, in spite of the efforts of her comrades to detain her, procured a passport and escaped to Dunquerque.
After a short stay at Dunquerque, Mlle. Clairon proceeded to Paris. According to her own account, she had while there received an order from the Gentlemen of the Chamber directing her to make her début at the Opera. From La Janière's report, however, it appears that "conscious that her talents were too sublime for the provinces, and that she was destined to shine in a greater sphere," she came on her own initiative to the capital, where she was for some months without employment. Ultimately, continues the report, she "accepted the propositions" of the wealthy farmer-general, La Popelinière, who posed as a patron of the arts, and, through his influence, mounted the stage of the Palais-Royal.
However that may be, to the Opera she was admitted, and there, in March 1743, made her début in the rôle of Venus, in Hésione. In her Mémoires, she admits that though she had "a prodigious extent of voice," she was but an indifferent musician, and notwithstanding the fact that the Mercure of the following May contained a poem in which the writer declared that, so long as Clairon remained on earth, he was content to renounce his hopes of Heaven, her reception by the public seems to have left a good deal to be desired. We also gather that she was dissatisfied with the treatment she received from her colleagues—a fact which can hardly occasion surprise if there be any truth in the story that, immediately upon entering the Opera, she had publicly announced her intention of soundly boxing the ears of any lady who dared to address her by the odious name of "Frétillon,"—and soon determined to seek fame and fortune on another stage. "I had," she says, "the good fortune to succeed, but I found that so little talent was required in this theatre, in order to appear possessed of the highest abilities, there seemed to me to be so little merit in merely following the modulations of the musicians, the manners of the performers were so distasteful to me, and the smallness of the salary was so absolutely degrading, that, at the end of four months, I signified my intention of resigning."
From the Opera, Mlle. Clairon passed to the Comédie-Française, but not without encountering many obstacles by the way. Virtue counted for very little at the Académie Royale de Musique, except as a marketable commodity; it counted for a very great deal among the Comédiens du Roi, or rather they chose to pretend that it did, which came to much the same thing where the admission of a damsel of questionable reputation was concerned. Led by her old employer, La Noue, and Mlle. Gaussin, several members of the troupe banded themselves together to oppose the admission of the now notorious "Frétillon" by every means in their power. The latter, on her side, did not lack for supporters, and, for some weeks, a war of pamphlets raged, in which the characters of the different combatants were torn to shreds, to the great delight of the town. Finally, the King's new mistress, Madame de Châteauroux, and her sister, Madame de Lauraguais, intervened on behalf of the young actress, who made so favourable an impression upon the old Duc de Gesvres, at an interview which, in his capacity as First Gentleman of the Chamber, he had very reluctantly accorded her, that, a few days later, she received the coveted ordre de début:—