The marquis loved the lady very dearly. For her sake, he abandoned a former enchantress of the name of Mainville, "who had already plucked some of his feathers." For her sake, he parted with a fine estate in Champagne and laid the proceeds at her feet. And every day he came to visit her "in an equipage of the most brilliant description, with two tall lackeys in the rumble, and a running footman preceding it, all superbly habited."[186]
Finally, however, she killed his love with a bon mot. A fair colleague in the green-room, with whom she was having words, happened to remark that Monsieur le Marquis had turned Mademoiselle's head. "Yes," snapped the actress, "away from him." M. de Ximenès, be it said, was not an Adonis.
This injudicious speech was duly reported to the marquis, who, stung to the quick, quitted the lady for ever. Mlle. Clairon wrote demanding the return of a portrait of herself which she had given him. It came, and, with it, these cruel verses:—
| "Tout s'use, tout périt, tu le prouves, Clairon; |
| Ce pastel dont tu m'a fait don, |
| Du temps a ressenti l'outrage |
| Il t'en ressemble davantage."[187] |
To M. de Ximenès succeeded a gentleman who, for some time, baffled the curiosity of Berryer's inspectors by invariably visiting the actress under cover of night, in a hackney-coach, and with his features concealed by a cloak. Ultimately, it transpired that the mysterious admirer was the Marquis de Bauffremont, who having recently married—and not for love—a lady of a very jealous disposition, had strong reasons for desiring to hide his identity.[188]
The discreet M. de Bauffremont was followed by yet another marquis; he of Rochechouart—Mlle. Clairon appears to have been extremely partial to noblemen of this particular rank—and, finally, the lady formed a liaison with Joseph Alphonse Omer, Comte de Valbelle d'Oraison, "who had received from Nature all the graces that go to the making of an amiable man, and whom Chance had made the richest noble in Provence."[189]
Let us hasten to add that here, at any rate, Mlle. Clairon seems to have experienced a genuine passion, which was undoubtedly reciprocated; for her liaison with the Comte de Valbelle lasted for nineteen years, and, as we shall presently see, might have been regularised, had the actress been so disposed.
With her triumph in the Aménaïde of Tancrède, of which we have spoken elsewhere, Mlle. Clairon reached the height of her fame. She ruled with despotic sway not only the theatre, but the world of fashion as well. At her house, in the Rue des Marais—the same house which had been successively occupied by Marie de Champmeslé, Racine, and Adrienne Lecouvreur—she received the cream of the society of both Court and capital:[190] Mesdames d'Aiguillon, de Villeroi, de la Vallière, de Forcalquier, and others; and in turn, was a frequent guest at their tables and also at that of Madame du Deffand. The Princess Galitzin, wife of the Russian Ambassador at the Court of Vienna, formed so deep an attachment for the actress that she "could not spend two hours without seeing her or writing to her." It was she who commissioned Carle Van Loo to paint his celebrated portrait of Mlle. Clairon as Medea,[191] and presented it to the actress. It was she, too, who, in 1759, persuaded the Russian Court to invite the great actress to leave France and take up her residence at St. Petersburg. The terms offered were extremely tempting,[192] and Mlle. Clairon hesitated long before refusing them. But her passion for the Comte de Valbelle was then at its height, and she could not reconcile herself to the idea of being separated from her lover. Then the count offered to make her his wife, and accompany her to Russia, and so anxious was the Czarina Elizabeth to secure the services of the tragédienne, that she promised, through the Princess Galitzin, to accord him the same rank as he held in France, "and the emoluments necessary to sustain it." Mlle. Clairon, however, fell ill, and illness gave her time for reflection. She remembered that she was seven years older than her lover, who was a very gallant gentleman indeed, and very far from an example of fidelity; as her charms waned, she could hardly flatter herself that he would become more constant. She remembered, too, the difference in station; she thought of the indignation of the count's family, and she asked herself whether, in years to come, he would not reproach her with having taken him at his word.
Finally, she came to the conclusion that "the soul capable of rejecting all the advantages which are offered is a thousand times more noble than the one that accepts them," and declined to expatriate herself.[193] The Princess Galitzin was not the only distinguished foreigner to seek to perpetuate the genius of Mlle. Clairon. Garrick, who had seen her act at Lille, during his first visit to France in 1742, and prophesied a great future for her,—though this, of course, was in comedy—came to Paris, with his wife, after the conclusion of peace in 1763, on their way to Italy. A warm friendship sprang up between the great English actor and the Queen of the French stage, and so delighted was Garrick with the tragédienne's talent that he commissioned Gravelot to engrave a design, representing Mlle. Clairon "in all the attributes of Tragedy," her arm resting on a pile of books, on which might be read the names of Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, and Crébillon.[194] By her side stood Melpomene crowning her with laurel. At the top of the frame, on a ribbon encircled by an olive branch, one read:—
"Prophétie Accomplie."