Queens of the French Stage Part 16

In the spring of 1742, La Noue, whose tenancy of the Rouen theatre had not been attended with the success he had antic.i.p.ated, 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 _debut_ at the Comedie-Francaise. 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 pa.s.sport 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 _debut_ at the Opera. From La Janiere'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 Popeliniere, 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 _debut_ in the role of Venus, in _Hesione_. In her _Memoires_, 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 "Fretillon,"--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 pa.s.sed to the Comedie-Francaise, but not without encountering many obstacles by the way. Virtue counted for very little at the Academie Royale de Musique, except as a marketable commodity; it counted for a very great deal among the Comediens 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 "Fretillon" 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 Chateauroux, 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 debut_:--

"We, Duc de Gesvres, _pair de France_, First Gentleman of the King's Chamber, direct the troupe of his Majesty's French players to cause the demoiselle Clairon to forthwith make her _debut_ in order that we may be able to judge of her abilities as an actress.

"(Signed) THE DUC DE GESVRES.

"_Executed at Versailles, September 10, 1743._"[158]

In the provinces, Mlle. Clairon's _emploi_ had been that of a _soubrette_, and her experience of tragedy was as yet very slight; for, though she was acquainted with some half-dozen of the leading tragic roles, she had never played any of them more than twice. The _semainiers_, as a number of players who governed the Comedie in rotation were called, were, therefore, not a little surprised when the young lady informed them that it was her intention to make her first appearance as a votary of Melpomene. But their surprise gave way to profound astonishment, when, after they had consented and suggested to her the parts of Constance in _Ines de Castro_ or Aricie in _Phedre_, the _debutante_ replied, with a smile of disdain, that such parts were too small for her, and that it was her wish to play Phedre herself--Phedre, the most difficult character in the whole tragic repertoire; Phedre, one of the most celebrated roles of Mlle. Dumesnil!

"My proposal," she tells us, "made every one smile; they a.s.sured me that the public would not suffer me to finish the first act. I became hot with indignation, but pride sustained me, and I replied as quietly and as majestically as I could: 'Messieurs, you will allow me to play it, or you will not. I have the right to make my choice. I will either play Phedre or nothing.'"

In the end, she was permitted to have her way. According to her own account, she disdained to rehea.r.s.e her part, and, on the fateful evening, September 19, 1743, did not arrive at the theatre until just before the curtain rose. The house was crowded, chiefly with persons who had come thither in the confident antic.i.p.ation of enjoying a hearty laugh at what they were pleased to consider the absurd pretensions of little "Fretillon." They came to laugh and perhaps to hiss; they remained to applaud, and to applaud enthusiastically, for, long before the first act was over, it was apparent to all that a great _tragedienne_ was before them. "It was Phedre herself in all her sovereign splendour, in all the majesty of pa.s.sion," and seldom indeed has that immortal queen of sorrow met with so worthy a representative.

"The 19th of this month," says the _Mercure_, "the players have revived at the theatre Racine's tragedy of _Phedre_, in which Mlle. Clairon, a new actress, has made her _debut_. She represented the princ.i.p.al personage amidst general applause. She is a young woman of much intelligence, who expresses with a very charming voice the sentiments which she has the art to understand. One may say that Nature has lavished upon her talents of the happiest order to enable her to fill all the characters suited to her youth, the agreeableness of her person, and her voice."

A little brochure, ent.i.tled _Lettre a Madame la Marquise V. de G---- sur le debut de Mademoiselle Clairon a la Comedie-Francaise_, supplies us with an interesting portrait of the actress:--

"Mademoiselle Clairon is about twenty-two or twenty-three years of age.

She is exceedingly fair; her head is well set. Her eyes are fine, full of fire, and sparkle with voluptuousness. Her mouth is furnished with beautiful teeth; her bosom is well formed. One gains in examining her a pleasure which the other senses share with the sight. Her figure is shapely, she carries herself very gracefully. A modest and pleasing manner interests one in her favour. Although she is not a finished beauty, one must resemble her to be charming. Her wit is sparkling, her conversation sweet and engaging. Musician and actress, lover of the arts and their pupil, she is qualified for everything, and, without making any effort, she becomes naturally whatever she wishes to be."[159]

Mlle. Clairon continued her _debuts_ with success. On the following evening, she gave an admirable rendering of the part of Zen.o.bie, and this was succeeded by further triumphs as Ariane, electre, and the Atalide of _Bajazet_. She played also several important roles in comedy, among them the Dorine of _Tartuffe_. But her acting here was distinctly inferior to her performances in tragedy; a circ.u.mstance which is not a little singular when we remember that the reputation she had brought with her from the provinces had been gained entirely in the former _genre_. Possibly, recognising that her true vocation was tragedy, she was now somewhat careless of the impression she might make in other roles.

On October 29, 1743, an order from the Duc de Gesvres conferred on the young _debutante_ a _demi-part_ in the troupe of the Comedie-Francaise.

In the following December, she was accorded a further quarter share, and, exactly a year later, obtained a full part.

The middle of the eighteenth century was the golden era of the Comedie-Francaise. What a galaxy of talent do we find there!

Mesdemoiselles Clairon, Dumesnil, Gaussin, and Dangeville; Grandval, Mole, Lekain, Preville, and Brizard! Never before and never since have so many celebrated players appeared together upon one stage. And of this brilliant band, Mlle. Clairon was the ruler; ruling not so much by force of talent, for Mlle. Dumesnil had greater natural talent, nor by beauty, for Mlle. Gaussin was more beautiful, but by her remarkable intelligence, her unwearying industry, and her strength of will. Only Mlle. Dumesnil could compare with her upon the stage; off it, Mlle.

Clairon reigned supreme.

For nearly twenty-two years, Mlle. Clairon disputed the dramatic sceptre with her celebrated rival, inferior to the latter in parts which required the combination of tragic force with pathos and tenderness, but incomparably her superior in characters of the sterner type, especially those into which dignity and an element of lofty and inflexible pride entered.[160] The methods of the two great actresses could hardly have been more dissimilar. "The one was all temperament," says Edmond de Goncourt, "the other all study and art." Mlle. Dumesnil frequently came upon the stage with no very definite idea as to the tone or att.i.tude she would a.s.sume in certain pa.s.sages, trusting to a happy inspiration, which, it must be acknowledged, seldom failed her.[161] With Mlle.

Clairon, who made her art the subject of the most profound and unremitting study, every tone and every gesture had been carefully rehea.r.s.ed beforehand, and the character elaborated in its minutest details. So numerous indeed were her private rehearsals that she insensibly carried with her her theatrical air into private life, and her friends laughingly declared that she called for her fan and her coach in the tone of Agrippina, and spoke to her lackey like a queen addressing the captain of her guards.[162] But this artificiality was so dexterously concealed, she possessed in such a supreme degree the art of concealing art, so dignified and graceful were her movements, and so marvellous her command of facial expression, that even the warmest admirers of Mlle. Dumesnil and her school of acting and the most captious of critics were compelled to acknowledge her charm, while the ordinary playgoer was "transported with enthusiasm."

Tributes to her genius came from all quarters, from friend and foe, from her compatriots and from foreigners alike. Voltaire, when she performed in his little theatre at Ferney, went quite wild with enthusiasm, and declared that, for the first time in his life, he had seen perfection in any kind.[163] Favart, though severely reprobating the extravagance of the admirers who had medals struck in the lady's honour,[164] cherished for her the most profound admiration. "Mlle. Clairon," he writes to the Count Durazzo, "is raised so far above criticism by the superiority of her talents that all the remarks of the most punctilious censor can but serve to convince me that she has attained the last degree of perfection. It seems as if she owed only to Nature all that she has acquired by a.s.siduous study. Every day we are struck with some new admiration."

Colle, who disliked her heartily, partly no doubt on account of her friendship with the philosophers, writing in 1750, considers her inferior to Mlle. Dumesnil in sentimental scenes, but acknowledges her immense superiority to the latter "in parts requiring little energy and much dignity," such as the heroines of Corneille and the Fulvie of Crebillon's _Catilina_. He, however, severely criticises her delivery, which he describes as "artificial and inflated to the last extreme."

But, five years later, when Mlle. Clairon had adopted the more natural method of speaking and acting of which we shall presently speak, the dramatist is all admiration:--

"I have seen _L'Orphelin_ [Voltaire's _L'Orphelin de la Chine_], and wept at the second and fifth acts. Mlle. Clairon appears to merit even more praise than she has received. It is the actress, and not the play, that has moved me. This tragedy is bad, and I do not retract a single word of what I have said about it; but the actress is admirable. She improves every day; she is ridding herself little by little of her declamatory style, and making great strides towards natural acting. If she continues, she will attain to the art of the Lecouvreur. The progress which she has made is too marked and too astonishing for us not to expect still further improvement; perhaps we may even hope for perfection."[165]

The _Reflexions sur la declamation_ of Herault de Sech.e.l.les contain a striking testimony to that wonderful command of expression, the result of a profound study of physiognomy, which enabled her, without opening her lips, to convey to her audience an exact impression of the different phases of emotion through which her mind happened to be pa.s.sing.

"One day, Mlle. Clairon seated herself in an arm-chair, and, without uttering a single word, she painted, with her countenance alone, all the pa.s.sions: hatred, rage, indignation, indifference, melancholy, grief, love, pity, gaiety. She painted not only the pa.s.sions themselves, but all the shades and differences which characterise them. In terror, for example, she expressed dismay, fear, embarra.s.sment, surprise, uneasiness. When we expressed our admiration, she replied that she had made a special study of anatomy, and knew what muscles it was necessary to call into play."

And listen to Oliver Goldsmith's tribute, which appeared in the second number of _The Bee_:--

"Mlle. Clairon, a celebrated actress at Paris, seems to me the most perfect female figure I have ever seen on any stage. Her first appearance is excessively engaging; she never comes in staring round upon the company, as if she intended to count the benefits of the house, or, at least, to see as well as to be seen. Her eyes are always at first intently fixed upon the persons of the drama, and then she lifts them by degrees, with enchanting diffidence, upon the spectators.

Her first speech, or at least the first part of it, is delivered with scarce any motion of the arm; her hands and her tongue never set out together, but one prepares for the other.... By this simple beginning, she gives herself a power of rising to the pa.s.sion of the scene. As she proceeds, every gesture, every look, acquires new violence; till at last, transported, she fills the whole vehemence of the play and the whole idea of the poet. Her hands are not alternately stretched out and then drawn in again, as with the singing women at Sadler's Wells; they are employed with graceful variety, and every moment please with new and unexpected eloquence. Add to this, that their motion is generally from the shoulder; she never flourishes her hands while the upper part of the arm is motionless; nor has she the ridiculous appearance as if her elbows were pinned to her hips."

But perhaps the most interesting of all eulogies of the actress is contained in a letter to Garrick by his Danish correspondent, Sturtz--a really masterly description, which suffers but little from the fact of the writer being a foreigner, and which we, therefore, need make no apology for producing at length:--

"In such a representing nation, I had a great opinion of their stage, and yet I was disappointed. It seems the quality has forestalled the best parts for them alone, for I saw but an indifferent medley of plays.

"There is, indeed, Mme. Clairon, standing alone amidst the ruins of the Republic, shooting for the last rays of a departing star. I have gazed on her when she trod the stage as Queen of Carthage,[166] worthy that rank and above the mob of queens; she inspired every sentiment; she displays every pa.s.sion, and, I dare say, she felt none: all the storm was on the surface, waves ran high, and the bottom was calm; her despair and her grief rose and died at the end of her tongue.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MADEMOISELLE CLAIRON

From an engraving by LAURENT CARS and JACQUES BEAUVARLET, after the painting by CARLE VAN LOO]

" ...She goes through a number of opposite feelings: soft melancholy, despair, languid tenderness, raving fury, scorn, and melting love; there is not one pa.s.sion absent. She is wonderful in those transitions where an inferior actress, from an intense grief, would, at some lucky event, jump on a sudden to a giddy, wanton joy. Mme. Clairon, though exulting at her new-born hope that aeneas might stay, keeps always the dark colour of sorrow; when her eye brightens through her tears, she looks, as Ossian expresses it, 'like the moon through a watery cloud.' Her characteristic perfection is the scornful, the commanding part; then is n.o.bility spread about her as a glory round the head of a saint; and yet she never puts off the woman; in the midst of violent rage she is always the tender female, and a _nuance_ of love softens the hard colour into harmony.

" ...Nature has done a good deal in favour of Madame Clairon; her voice is melody, of a vast extent, and capable of numberless inflexions; however, I was sometimes unwillingly disturbed by a disagreeable shrill cry, rather expressing physical pain. As to her figure, it is not a very elegant one, her head being rather too big and her whole person too little; and yet she is great, towering amongst the crowd in the height of action;[167] so as you see by the enchantment of art a colossal head of Jupiter in a cameo the size of sixpence. Were I in a temper to find fault with her, I might mention her too articulate declamation, the _cadence_ of every motion; but then I might as well charge Raphael with having too carefully marked his contours, which are the admiration and the models of every age. True it is that compound of excellence is a mere compound of art; were it possible to note action, as music, then she would show a fortnight before every mien, the measure of every tone, the tension of every march on paper. She is else quite free from that disagreeable tragical hiccup so epidemical in France, and so awkwardly returning at the end of every verse; she never shakes so affectedly her head, as some others, in what you call the graceful style, forsooth; and she alone may venture some bold strokes, which would never do else with so well-bred, so elegant an audience.

"So when she heard that all was lost, that aeneas was gone, then, in the rage of despair, with her two hands across, she beat her forehead with such a gloomy, death-threatening look that we all stood aghast, and her cry raised horror in every breast. I cannot say that she killed herself well, though, but she died well; her weakening voice was not a childish, whining tone, but imminent dissolution altered it, convulsion raised it, and so it vanished into the air as a vapour. There, then, I have brought her to the highest pitch of glory of your tribe, self-murder; may she now quietly repose!"[168]

And Garrick replies, laying his finger, with unerring instinct, upon the one weak spot in Mlle. Clairon's acting:--

"What shall I say to you, my dear friend, about 'the Clairon.' Your dissection of her is as accurate as if you had opened her alive; she has everything that art and a good understanding, with great natural spirit, can give her. But there I fear (and I only tell you my fears and open my soul to you) the heart has none of those instantaneous feelings, that life-blood, that keen sensibility, that bursts at once from genius, and, like electrical fire, shoots through the veins, marrow, bones, and all, of every spectator. Madame Clairon is so conscious and so certain of what she can do, that she never, I believe, had the feelings of the instant come upon her unexpectedly; but I p.r.o.nounce that the greatest strokes of genius have been unknown to the actor himself till circ.u.mstances and the warmth of the scene has sprung the mine, as it were, as much to his own surprise as to that of the audience. Thus I make a great difference between a great genius and a good actor. The first will always realise the feelings of his character, and be transported beyond himself; while the other, with great powers and good sense, will give great pleasure to an audience, but never

----"'Pectus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, Ut magus.'

"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 G.o.ds that she was the greatest genius too."[169]

s.p.a.ce forbids us to give more than a brief account of the many triumphs of this superb _tragedienne_, who, besides worthily sustaining all the chief characters of the cla.s.sic repertoire, created forty-three roles, 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 Medee--in which character Carle Van Loo painted her in his celebrated portrait--Phedre, Hermione, Zen.o.bie, Didon, and Cleopatre. Among the latter, taking them in chronological order, should be mentioned Aretie in the _Denys le Tyran_ of Marmontel; Fulvie in Crebillon's _Catalina_; Azema in the _Semiramis_ of Voltaire; electre in the _Oreste_ of the same writer; Ca.s.sandre in Chateaubrun's play, _Les Troyennes_; Idame in Voltaire's _Orphelin de la Chine_; Astarbe in the tragedy of that name, by Colardeau; Amenade in the _Tancrede_ of Voltaire; and Alienor in De Belloy's _Siege 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 Colle is to be believed, she "made" his _Orphelin de la Chine_, while as the tender and fiery Amenade of _Tancrede_ (September 3, 1760), she appears to have held the audience absolutely enthralled. "Ah! _mon cher maitre_," 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 Tancrede, 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'a.s.suerus_: 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.