"I have with great freedom communicated my ideas of acting, but you must not betray me, my good friend; the Clairon would never forgive me, though I called her an excellent actress, if I did not swear by all the gods that she was the greatest genius too."[169]
Space forbids us to give more than a brief account of the many triumphs of this superb tragédienne, who, besides worthily sustaining all the chief characters of the classic répertoire, created forty-three rôles, in not one of which did she fail to uphold her reputation, while the great majority were brilliantly successful. Among the former, she was probably seen to most advantage in Médée—in which character Carle Van Loo painted her in his celebrated portrait—Phèdre, Hermione, Zénobie, Didon, and Cléopâtre. Among the latter, taking them in chronological order, should be mentioned Arétie in the Denys le Tyran of Marmontel; Fulvie in Crébillon's Catalina; Azéma in the Sémiramis of Voltaire; Électre in the Oreste of the same writer; Cassandre in Chateaubrun's play, Les Troyennes; Idamé in Voltaire's Orphelin de la Chine; Astarbé in the tragedy of that name, by Colardeau; Aménaïde in the Tancrède of Voltaire; and Aliénor in De Belloy's Siège de Calais, during the run of which last play occurred the unfortunate incident which led to her retirement from the stage.
The almost fanatical admiration which Voltaire cherished for the actress was no doubt, in part, due to the fact that she had contributed so largely to the success of his plays. If Collé is to be believed, she "made" his Orphelin de la Chine, while as the tender and fiery Aménaïde of Tancrède (September 3, 1760), she appears to have held the audience absolutely enthralled. "Ah! mon cher maître," writes Diderot to the exile of Ferney, "if you could see her crossing the stage, half-leaning upon the executioners who surround her, her knees giving way beneath her, her eyes closed, her arms hanging down, as though in death; if you could hear her cry on recognising Tancrède, you would be convinced, more than ever, that silence and pantomime have sometimes a pathos which all the resources of oratory cannot attain. Open your portfolios and look at Poussin's Esther paraissant devant l'Assuérus: it is Clairon on her way to execution."[170]
The Mercure—the staid Mercure, so chary of its praise—can find no word to describe her acting but that of sublime. The advocate Barbier, voicing the opinion of the average playgoer, declares that "Mlle. Clairon carried the talent of tragic declamation to a point which had never been witnessed before"; while d'Alembert writes: "Mlle. Clairon has been incomparable and beyond anything that she has yet attained to."
To the great disappointment of the public, the health of Mlle. Clairon necessitated the temporary withdrawal of the play after the thirteenth performance, and, when it was revived in the following January, the enthusiasm with which it was received was almost indescribable.
Simultaneously with her celebrity as an actress, Mlle. Clairon enjoyed a celebrity of another, and far less enviable, kind. "Love," she remarks, in her Mémoires, "is one of Nature's needs; and I satisfied it." She did indeed. "Hardly had she appeared on the [Paris] stage," writes La Janière to the Lieutenant of Police, in the report to which we have already had occasion to refer, "than every one began to fight for her, and the crowd of lovers was so great that, in spite of her inclination towards gallantry, she was embarrassed to choose among them." There were princes and dukes; there were marquises, and barons, and counts; there were impecunious chevaliers and wealthy farmer-generals; there were dashing cavalry-officers and sober presidents of the Parliament; there were actors and men of letters. And few indeed—that is to say, few who possessed any passport to her favour: high rank, a handsome presence, a pretty wit, or, best of all, a well-lined purse and a disposition to empty it at her feet,[171] seemed to have sighed in vain.
Poor M. de la Popelinière, to whose good offices Mlle. Clairon had owed her admission to the Opera, did not long retain his proud position of amant en tître. He was speedily abandoned for the Prince de Soubise, who, however, was only accorded a fourth share of the lady's heart, the remainder of that priceless organ being divided between three other high and puissant seigneurs, the Ducs de Luxembourg and de Bouteville and the Marquis de Bissy. Next Mlle. de Camargo's old lover, the Président de Rieux, succeeded in securing a monopoly of the tragédienne's affections, only to lose them, however, the moment he showed a disinclination to loosen his purse-strings. Then came an assortment of admirers, drawn from the nobility, the Parliament, financial circles, the stage, the army, and foreign visitors to Paris, and including the "Baron de Kervert," who is described as a rich Englishman, but whom we have failed to identify; a Polish nobleman, the Comte de Brotok, "who made a brave show before he became acquainted with her, but, in less than four months, had lost coach, diamonds, and snuff-box, and was obliged to pretend that he was in mourning for one of his relations, in order to appear without shame in a black coat;" the actor Grandval, who had had more bonnes fortunes than he could count, but who proved so accommodating an admirer that, after a few months of the lady's society, "his colleagues had to accord him a benefit performance in order to reestablish his affairs, which had fallen into a disastrous condition;" and, finally, the Baron de Besenval, whose reputation for gallantry was, in later years, to compromise Marie Antoinette, and "with whom," says La Janière, "she became infatuated."[172]
For Besenval indeed, with whom she had had a previous liaison during her career in the provinces, Mlle. Clairon, to judge by her letters, appears to have entertained a genuine affection. In one epistle, "she conjures him to love her for ever"; in another, she informs him that a letter which she has just received from him has "restored her to life," and that, however much he may love her, his passion must of necessity be inferior to hers; and, in a third, declares that the devotion she feels for him has "spoiled her taste" for other admirers, and that she "experiences more pleasure in being true to him, whether he desires it or not, than she formerly had in being unfaithful."[173]
But let us listen to some of the reports of the Arguseyed agents of the Lieutenant of Police, which prove what an important personage a fashionable actress was in those days:—