Part 7 (1/2)

Then began for Adrienne the life of a provincial actress, which, if it had somewhat improved since the days of the Ill.u.s.tre Theatre, was still very far from being a bed of roses. ”Mixture of hard work and of compulsory pleasure,” says M. Larroumet, ”with the companions.h.i.+ps of the _coulisses_, the persistent attentions of young men of fas.h.i.+on and garrison officers, the errors of sentiment and conduct which were the consequence, and the repentance and disgust which followed, it was the most miserable and most trying to which a refined nature could submit.”[64]

For ten years, that is to say, from 1706 to 1717, Adrienne exploited Flanders, Lorraine, and Alsace, now accepting a lengthy engagement at some important theatre, now journeying with some travelling company from town to town, acquiring in this rude apprentices.h.i.+p a thorough knowledge of her art and a particularly cruel experience of life.

At Lille, where she appears to have remained for about three years, dramatic performances were during several weeks carried on to the accompaniment of the cannon of a besieging army, first, under the Duke of Marlborough, and, afterwards, under Prince Eugene, to whom the citadel surrendered on October 28, 1708. On one occasion, a sh.e.l.l exploded within a few paces of the theatre, notwithstanding which the performances were as well attended as in time of peace.

After leaving Lille, Adrienne accepted an engagement as ”leading lady”

at the theatre at Luneville, and she is also believed to have played at Metz, Nancy, and Verdun. Finally, early in the year 1711, we find her occupying a similar position at the Strasburg theatre, one of the finest houses to be met with out of Paris, with a salary of two thousand livres, a considerable sum for those days; and here she seems to have remained until the spring of 1717, when she returned to Paris to make her _debut_ at the Comedie-Francaise.

The portrait of Adrienne Lecouvreur was painted by several of the leading artists of her time: Charles Coypel, Fontaine, H. de Troy _le pere_, Jean Baptiste Van Loo, and, it is believed, Nattier. None of these portraits, unfortunately, have come down to us, though the works of the two first painters are well known through the engravings of Drevet and Schmidt.

In regard to the merits of the two portraits, there seems to be considerable difference of opinion. Michelet, in his _Histoire de France_, speaks with enthusiasm of the painting by Coypel, reproduced in this volume, in which Adrienne is represented as Cornelie in _La Mort de Pompee_, weeping over the urn of her husband, which she holds clasped to her breast. ”She must have exercised a terrible power over hearts, to have been able to transform beasts into men, to have caused the feeble and mediocre Coypel to paint such a portrait. An inspired artist of our time, our first sculptor, Preault, told me that he knew not a word of the history of Mlle. Lecouvreur when he saw this engraving. He was very affected by it, enraptured, and he seized upon it greedily.... It is more than a work of art, it is, as it were, a dream of grief. Those heavenly eyes, suffused with sublime tears, the gesture of those arms clasping the funeral urn, the grief expressed by that countenance, the silent accusation which that whole figure brings against destiny, all make of this picture a unique work, an honour alike to painter and model.”

M. Larruomet agrees with Michelet: ”I, for my part, am of opinion that if Charles Coypel, as a rule an artist of but moderate ability, invented the pose of this portrait, he had, by chance, an inspiration of genius, and that, if he only borrowed it from the actress, she possessed that innate sense of att.i.tude which we admire in our own day (1892), in M.

Mounet-Sully and Madame Sarah Bernhardt, and which alone would have sufficed to make of them great actors.” M. Larroumet declares the portrait to possess ”the incontestable merit of being a superb work of art,” and greatly prefers it to the one by Fontaine, which shows us the actress ”_en robe de chambre_,” with her hair dressed in the fas.h.i.+on of the day. In the latter he can see only a ”_tableau d'apparat_” of but little merit.

On the other hand, Regnier, M. Maurice Paleologue, and M. Georges Monval, to the last of whom we owe the publication of Adrienne's correspondence, give the preference to Fontaine's work. ”It is a truer, a more human, a more lifelike, a more familiar Adrienne,” remarks M.

Monval, who stigmatises the portrait by Coypel as ”a fantastic and studied picture, a _tete d'etude_, a ba.n.a.l figure, under which one might equally well inscribe the name of Magdalene repentant, or of Sophie Arnould.”

For ourselves, while on the whole inclined to endorse the high opinion which Michelet and M. Larroumet have formed of Coypel's portrait, we cannot but think that the latter has unduly depreciated that by Fontaine, which appears to us both pleasing and natural.

However that may be, the two portraits, in all essential respects, are far from dissimilar, and as they accord well with the descriptions of the actress given by contemporary writers, we see no reason to doubt the fidelity of either. In both we find a high forehead, fine eyes, a slightly aquiline nose, a well-shaped mouth, with the rather prominent lower lip which recalls the portraits of princesses of the House of Austria, and a rounded chin; in a word, the features of a very pretty woman.

In default of portraits painted or engraved, Adrienne's beauty would be amply attested by her contemporaries. Not that the testimony in her favour is altogether unanimous, as M. Paleologue rather boldly a.s.serts; to expect unanimity in regard to the appearance of a celebrated actress, whose triumphs must of necessity arouse envy and jealousy in many quarters, would be as unreasonable as to look for a general appreciation of her dramatic talent. But the number of those who decline to admit her attractiveness is very small, and not above suspicion of prejudice, while the evidence to the contrary is abundant and authoritative.

”Without being tall,” wrote, in 1719, the author of _Les Lettres historiques sur tous les spectacles de Paris_, ”she is very well made, and has an air of distinction, which prepossesses one in her favour; no one in the world has more charms. Her eyes speak as much as her mouth, and often supply the place of her voice. In short, I cannot do better than compare her to a miniature, since she has agreeableness, finesse, and delicacy.”

The _Mercure_ confirms this portrait: ”Mlle. Lecouvreur was about the middle height and admirably formed, with a n.o.ble and confident air, a well-poised head and shapely shoulders, eyes full of fire, a pretty mouth, a slightly aquiline nose, and very pleasing manners; although not plump, her face was somewhat full, with features admirably adapted to express sorrow, joy, tenderness, fear, and pity.”[65]

Nature, besides endowing Adrienne with beauty, had given her an exceedingly susceptible heart. Her letters, published some years ago by M. Georges Monval, though, with one or two exceptions, none of them can be said to come within the category of love-letters, reveal an ardent and imperious need of loving and being loved. ”_Que faire au monde sans aimer?_” she writes to one of her friends; and these words might very well have been taken as her motto.

With her, however, love was very far from being the consuming fire it is with so many of her s.e.x; she was of the race of tender, not of pa.s.sionate lovers; of the race, too, of those who, scorning the lighter forms of gallantry, and yet unable to preserve their virtue, are so often destined to bitter disappointment, disillusion, and remorse.

”Relative of the Monimes, the Berenices, the La Vallieres, and the a.s.ses,” says M. Paleologue, in his fine study of the actress, ”she has their melting tears, their touching grace, and their voluptuous modesty.

But her true originality among the women of her time lay in the conception that she formed of love. We know the singular change that this sentiment had undergone beneath the dissolving influence of the morals of the Regency; all that had made up to that time for the n.o.bility and poetry of pa.s.sion had fallen beneath the blows of the reigning philosophy and the persiflage of the salons. In this transformation the woman had lost more than the man. She had been taught that modesty and fidelity were grandiloquent words devoid of meaning, and, freeing herself from all romantic illusion, and clinging only to the positive and agreeable in her amorous intrigues, she displayed everywhere a cynical libertinism.

”It was the honour of Adrienne to resist this contagion. The gift of her person was always a pledge of the heart. She loved not by caprice, not by vanity, but by a moral inclination, with an ardour, a conscientiousness, and a gravity profound.”[66]

The first of the actress's adorers was the Baron D----, a young officer of the Regiment de Picardie, which formed part of the garrison of Lille.

Of him we know nothing, save that, after the _liaison_ had lasted some months, he died suddenly, an event which occasioned his mistress such terrible grief that she is said to have seriously contemplated destroying herself. To the baron succeeded a certain Philippe Le Roy, ”officer of the Duke of Lorraine,” by whom, in 1710, Adrienne had a daughter, baptized as elisabeth Adrienne. M. Le Roy, however, appears to have proved fickle, for, soon afterwards, we hear of a third lover, a provincial actor named Clavel, brother of Mlle. Fonpre.

With Clavel Adrienne corresponded, and two of her letters to him have fortunately been preserved, the only love-letters of this woman who loved so much that have come down to us. It is much to be regretted that the rest of this correspondence has been lost, as they reveal the actress in a very favourable light: warm-hearted, sincere, loyal, and disinterested.

The first letter, written some time in the year 1710, is in reply to one from Clavel, which she has been impatiently awaiting:--

”I have at last received that letter so eagerly antic.i.p.ated, and for which I have been astounding Notre Dame des Carmes with my prayers. I can a.s.sure thee, my dear friend, that I have had no rest since thy departure, both on account of my uneasiness at not receiving news of thee and of finding myself inconvenienced as I am. I hope to be better now, since I have reason to believe that thou lovest me still and that thou art well. Take care of thyself, I beg of thee, since thy health is as precious to me as my own. I shall be charmed to learn that thou art enjoying thyself, provided that I lose by it nothing of what is mine, and that thou dost not write to me less often.... a.s.suredly, I believe that thou hast a kind heart, and, consequently, art faithful to thy poor Lecouvreur, who loves thee more than herself.... I embrace thee with all the tenderness of my heart, and swear to thee a constancy proof against all things.”

From the second letter, which was written two years later, and which M.

Larroumet declares to be ”one of the tenderest and most touching letters to be found in literature, real or imaginative, worthy of comparison with the famous letter of _Manon Lescaut_,” it would appear that Clavel had promised to marry Adrienne, or, at least, given her reason to believe that such was his intention; and she refers to the matter with a frankness, a delicacy, and a forgetfulness of self rarely met with where personal interests are at stake:--