Part 5 (1/2)
”Marion pleure, Marion crie, Marion veut qu'on la marie.”
An answer which nearly caused a quarrel between him and the poet.
To _Berenice_, early in the following January, succeeded _Baiazet_, Mlle. de Champmesle playing the part of Roxane. Madame de Sevigne attended the fifth performance, and next day writes to Madame de Grignan: ”We have been to see the new play by Racine, and thought it admirable. My _daughter-in-law_[45] is, in my opinion, the best performer I ever saw. She is a hundred leagues in front of Des illets, and I, who am supposed to have some talent for acting, am not worthy to light the candles when she appears.... I wish you had been with me that afternoon; I am sure you would not have thought your time ill spent. You would have dropped a tear or two, for I myself shed twenty; besides, you would have greatly admired your _sister-in-law_.”[46] _Bajazet_ printed, the Marchioness sent her daughter a copy: ”If I could send Champmesle with it, you would find the tragedy among the best; without her, it loses half its value. Racine's plays are written for Champmesle, and not for posterity. Whenever he grows old and ceases to be in love, it will be seen whether or not I am mistaken.”[47]
Mlle. de Champmesle did not by any means confine her creations to her lover's heroines; the repertoire of the Hotel de Bourgogne was a rich one. Thus, in March of that same year, she appeared in the t.i.tle-part in _Ariane_, a new tragedy by her fellow-townsman, Thomas Corneille. This play was praised by some critics, but, in all probability, owed its success almost entirely to her impersonation of the heroine, ”which drew the public as the light draws the moth.” Madame de Sevigne was again among the audience, and wrote of the actress in terms of enthusiasm: ”The Champmesle is something so extraordinary that in your life you never saw any one like her. It is the actress that people flock to see, not the play. I went to _Ariane_ entirely for the sake of seeing her.
The tragedy is insipid; the rest of the players wretched. But when the Champmesle appears, every one is enthralled, and the tears of the audience flow at her despair.”[48]
When, seven years later, Mlle. de Champmesle migrated to the Theatre Guenegaud, it was in _Ariane_ that she secured her first triumph.
”_Ariane_,” wrote Donneau de Vise in the _Mercure_, ”has been extremely well attended. Mlle. de Champmesle, that inimitable actress, has drawn tears from the majority of the audience.” The natural manner of her acting and her pathetic rendering of the hapless heroine gave indeed to the play a new lease of life.
Another brilliant success awaited her in the part of Monime, in Racine's _Mithridate_, produced on January 13, 1673, the day after its author's reception at the Academy. The play was received with enthusiasm; and Madame de Coulanges wrote to Madame de Sevigne, then on a visit to her daughter, in Provence: ”_Mithridate_ is charming; you see it thirty times, and the thirtieth it seems finer than the first.”[49] On March 4, it was played at Saint-Cloud, before _Monsieur_ (the Duc d'Orleans), the Duke of Monmouth, Madame de Guise, the Princesse de Monaco, and other distinguished persons; and, in the following August, at Saint-Ouen, where Boisfranc, _Surintendant des Finances_ to _Monsieur_, was entertaining a party from the Court. For her role, which was a most exacting one--Mlle. Clairon confesses in her _Memoires_, that she had never succeeded in playing it entirely to her satisfaction--Mlle. de Champmesle appears to have received very careful instruction from Racine; and the critics were agreed that seldom had anything more expressive and charming than her acting been seen. She was particularly admirable in the scene in the third act, where Monime inadvertently confesses to the jealous Mithridate her love for his son Xiphanes. ”Her cry of anguish when she sees that she has betrayed the secret of her heart, sent a shudder through every vein of the spectators and transported them with emotion.” Brossette tells us that one day, when dining with Boileau, the conversation turned on the subject of declamation, whereupon the poet repeated this pa.s.sage in the tone of Mlle. de Champmesle, as a perfect example of the art.
While Mlle. de Champmesle continued her successes, Racine completed his eighth tragedy, _Iphigenie en Aulide_, which was produced at Versailles (August 17, 1674), on the occasion of the magnificent _divertiss.e.m.e.nts_ which Louis XIV. gave to his Court on his return from the conquest of Franche-Comte. This time the performance was given in the open air, in the gardens of the chateau. ”The scenery,” says Andre Felibien, in his account of the fetes, ”represented a long alley of verdure; on either side were the basins of fountains, and, at intervals, grottoes of rustic workmans.h.i.+p, but very delicately finished. On their entablature rose a bal.u.s.trade, on which were arranged vases of porcelain filled with flowers. The basins of the fountains were of white marble supported by gilded tritons, and in these basins one saw others of greater height, which bore tall statues of gold. The alley terminated at the back of the theatre in awnings, which were connected with those covering the orchestra, and beyond appeared a long alley, which was the alley of the Orangery itself, bordered on both sides by tall orange-and pomegranate-trees, interspersed with several vases of porcelain containing various kinds of flowers. Between each tree were large candelabra and stands of gold and azure, which supported girandoles of crystal lighted by several candles. This alley terminated in a marble portico; the pilasters which supported the cornice were of lapis, and the door was all of gold work.”[50]
In writing _Iphigenie_, Racine had departed considerably from his Greek model, discarding the catastrophe in favour of the legend as recorded by Pausanias, wherein it is discovered, at the eleventh hour, that not the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, but another princess is the victim intended by the G.o.ds. Inferior to the n.o.ble tragedy of Euripides, the play was, nevertheless, generally acknowledged to be an advance on anything that Racine had yet attempted, and was a brilliant and unanimous success; a success of emotion, to which Mlle. de Champmesle's pathetic impersonation of the young Greek virgin probably contributed as much as the subject itself, and inspired Boileau to the lines:--
”Jamais Iphigenie en Aulide immolee, N'a conte tant de pleurs a la Grece a.s.semblee, Que dans l'heureux spectacle a nos yeux etale En a fait, sous son nom, verser la Champmele.”
The capital witnessed the new play in the early days of January 1675, and confirmed the judgment of the Court: indeed, for once, criticism appears to have been almost silenced, and the worst that Barbier d'Aucour, a bitter detractor of the poet, could find to say, was that _Iphigenie_ had caused a rise in the price of handkerchiefs.
After _Iphigenie_, Mlle. de Champmesle became the idol of the playgoing public, and ”all Paris” flocked to the Hotel de Bourgogne, seemingly indifferent to the bill, provided they could see the now famous actress.
For nearly two years, however, no role at all commensurate with her abilities appears to have fallen to her lot; for Racine was at work on a new tragedy, which, had he never written anything else, would have sufficed to ensure him a high place among tragic dramatists. The story goes that one day, in Madame La Fayette's salon, Racine contended that it was within the power of a great poet to make the darkest crimes appear more or less excusable--nay, to arouse compa.s.sion for the criminals themselves. In his opinion, even Medea and Phaedra might become objects of pity rather than abhorrence upon the stage. From this view his hearers dissented strongly, showing indeed some inclination to turn it into ridicule; whereupon, in order to convince them of their error, the dramatist determined to measure his strength once more against that of Euripides, and to make the fatal pa.s.sion of Phaedra for her stepson the subject of a tragedy.[51]
But alas! _Phedre et Hippolyte_ was not destined to take its place as the greatest tragedy of the French cla.s.sical school without bringing cruel mortification to its author. Racine, by his success, had made many enemies and many more by the caustic wit which he was in the habit of exercising at the expense of any one who happened to incur his displeasure. Among those whom he had contrived to offend were the d.u.c.h.esse de Bouillon, the fourth of the famous Mancini sisters, and Madame Deshoulieres, a clever but pretentious poetess, whose verses Racine had, perhaps unduly, depreciated. No sooner did the two ladies in question ascertain the subject of the forthcoming play than they engaged a young and conceited poet named Pradon, author of a couple of indifferent tragedies, to enter the lists against the famous dramatist and compose a rival _Phedre_, to be produced at the Theatre Guenegaud simultaneously with the appearance of Racine's at the Hotel de Bourgogne. Pradon had only three months allowed him; but, nothing daunted, he set to work and completed his task within the allotted time and to his own entire satisfaction. In his vanity, he made no secret of his intention of measuring swords with Racine; and Boileau represented to his friend that it would be more in keeping with his dignity to decline the challenge and postpone the production of his play. But the latter, stung to the quick by the conspiracy which had been formed against him, and urged on by Mlle. de Champmesle, ”who had learned her part and wanted money,” decided that it should appear on the date originally fixed.
The play was accordingly produced on New Year's Day 1677, Mlle. de Champmesle, of course, impersonating the heroine. Pradon's tragedy was to have appeared on the same evening; but the difficulty of finding an actress willing to undertake the princ.i.p.al role--it was refused by both Mlle. de Brie and Mlle. Moliere--necessitated a postponement of two days, when Mlle. du Pin, a capable, but by no means brilliant, performer, played Phedre. Pradon ascribed the refusals of the two leading actresses of the company to the machinations of Racine and his friends; but, though Racine was certainly not over-scrupulous in his dealings with his professional rivals, it is more probable that the ladies in question were, not unnaturally, reluctant to challenge comparison with the all-conquering Mlle. de Champmesle, in a part which was obviously so much better suited to her talents than to theirs.
All went well at the Hotel de Bourgogne the first evening. M. de Champmesle himself took possession of the box-office, and when any of the leaders of the rival faction appeared, courteously informed them that every seat in the front part of the house was already occupied; the result being that Racine's admirers had the theatre to themselves, and the play was accorded a reception which could not fail to satisfy the most exacting dramatist. The following evening, however, matters were very different; to the chagrin of the author and the astonishment of the company, every box on the first tier was empty! The same thing occurred the next evening and the next after that, while, to increase the mystery and the poet's mortification, the boxes at the Theatre Guenegaud were reported as crowded with applauding spectators. The explanation was that the d.u.c.h.esse de Bouillon, in her determination to secure the success of her _protege's_ play and the ruin of her enemy's, had adopted the ingenious device of engaging in advance all the front seats at both houses, filling those at the Theatre Guenegaud with her friends and leaving the others empty.
Racine was in despair; for that not inconsiderable section of the public which judges of the merits of a play solely by results was beginning to declare that his tragedy was a complete failure and Pradon's a brilliant success. After, however, the trick had been played for three more nights, he triumphed. Perhaps Madame de Bouillon had begun to find her amus.e.m.e.nt, which is said to have cost her 15,000 francs, the equivalent of five times as much to-day, somewhat too costly a one; or possibly Racine, discovering the tactics of his enemies, had appealed to the king for protection, and the d.u.c.h.ess had received a hint from his Majesty that such practices were highly displeasing to him. Any way, the lady retired from the field, and, with her withdrawal, the rival _Phedres_ speedily found their respective levels. Nevertheless, in spite of his ultimate success, Racine never forgot the mortification to which he had been subjected, and there can be no doubt that this had not a little to do with his decision to renounce writing for the stage.
When _Phedre_ was played before the Court, Mlle. de Champmesle, fearing that Madame de Montespan might take the lines afterwards addressed on a memorable occasion by Adrienne Lecouvreur to the d.u.c.h.esse de Bouillon:--
”Je suis mes perfidies none, et ne suis pas de ces femmes hardies Qui, goutant dans la crime une tranquille paix, Ont su se faire un front qui ne rougit jamais”--
to apply to herself, begged Racine to alter or erase them. The poet, however, though he yielded the palm to no one as a flatterer of royalty, and was, moreover, under considerable obligations to the king's mistress, indignantly refused to mutilate his play. Several of those present remarked upon the verses; but Madame de Montespan had too much good sense to complain.
As Phedre, the declamation of which, according to the Abbe du Bois, Racine ”had taught her verse by verse,” Mlle. de Champmesle seems to have put the comble upon her fame as a _tragedienne_. Of all her creations, it is the one that La Fontaine names first in the frontispiece of _Belphegor_:--
”Qui ne connait l'inimitable actrice Representant Phedre ou Berenice, Chimene en pleurs ou Camille en fureur?
Est-il quelqu'un qui cette voix n'enchante?”
So inimitable was she in this character, affording her as it did an opportunity for the display of all the resources of her art, that _Phedre_ was the play selected to consecrate the birth of the Comedie-Francaise on Sunday, August 25, 1680; and it was _Phedre_ again, with Mlle. de Champmesle in the t.i.tle-part, which inaugurated the new playhouse in the Rue des Fosses-Saint-Germain, on April 16, 1689.[52]
The popularity of Mlle. Champmesle was not confined to the theatre. Her house was ”the rendezvous of all persons of distinction of the Court and the town, as well as of the most celebrated writers of the time.” Among the former were Charles de Sevigne, Madame de Sevigne's troublesome son, the Marquis de la Fare, the author of the curious and all-too-brief memoirs, and the Comtes de Revel and Clermont-Tonnerre. The latter, besides Racine, included Boileau, Valincourt, Racine's successor at the Academy, Chapelle, and La Fontaine, ”who very much regretted that he was only a friend” of his charming hostess. The utmost cordiality and an entire absence of the restraints of etiquette characterised these gatherings, and n.o.blemen and writers met on a footing of perfect equality. ”Permit me to address you,” writes Boileau to the Comte de Revel, in April 1701, ”in the familiar tone to which you formerly accustomed me at the house of the famous Champmesle.”
The actress's _liaison_ with Racine was not only public but accepted by the easy morality of the day; Madame de Sevigne jests about it in her letters, and La Fontaine, writing to Mlle. de Champmesle, mentions it as the most natural thing in the world. Many years afterwards, Boileau reminds Racine of the numerous bottles of champagne which were drunk by the lady's accommodating husband. ”You know,” adds he, ”at whose expense.”
According to M. Larroumet, Racine's latest biographer, the poet's pa.s.sion for the interpreter of his heroines was of a less defensible kind than that which he had felt for her predecessor in his affections, Mlle. du Parc, ”with whom he had experienced a sentiment which had the dignity of love.” M. Larroumet is of opinion that ”he only loved her with the facile love which the professionals of gallantry frequently inspire.”
However that may be, the lady appears to have been very far from faithful to the poet. An epigram by Boileau, which is rather too _gai_ for us to transcribe, speaks of ”six lovers” (including the husband), and of M. de Champmesle living on the best of terms with the others and his wife. The favoured gentlemen appear to have been Racine and the four n.o.blemen mentioned above. But the only one of the four about whose relations with the actress we have any details is Charles de Sevigne.