Part 12 (1/2)

wrote Voltaire. Nevertheless, she had now to be content with a divided empire. During her long absence, a new star had arisen, in the person of a Mlle. Salle, with whom the Camargo had henceforth to share the applause of the public and the praises of the poets. Mlle. Salle's style of dancing differed widely from that of her celebrated rival. Whereas the latter danced with astonis.h.i.+ng rapidity and rose so high from the stage that ”it seemed as if she were going to touch the friezes,” Mlle.

Salle danced slowly and with the minimum of exertion, relying for effect upon grace of movement and voluptuous poses.

The rivalry between the two stars was very bitter, and all attempts to promote a better understanding proved fruitless, although Voltaire himself intervened, and addressed to the ladies some graceful lines, in which he adroitly divided his praises between them:--

”Ah! Camargo, que vous etes brillante!

Mais que Salle, grands dieux! est ravissante!

Que vos pas sont legers, et que les siens sont doux!

Elle est inimitable et vous etes nouvelle.

Les Nymphes sautent comme vous, Et les Graces dansent comme elle.”

In spite of the rivalry of Mlle. Salle, the fame of the elder ballerina was still sufficient to have satisfied a less exacting artiste. An air to which she danced in the first act of _Pyrame et Thisbe_ excited such enthusiasm that it became the vogue of the salons, first, as a song, and, later, as a dance, which was called after the _danseuse_, the ”Camargo,” and by that name was still known a century later.

Her triumphs in the dance encouraged Mlle. de Camargo to tempt fortune in another _emploi_, and, in an opera called _Les Talents lyriques_, she accordingly made her _debut_ as a singer. She had a very pretty voice, and was much applauded; but, for some reason, did not repeat the experiment.

At the age of forty-one, conscious that she no longer possessed the ”_souplesse forte et legere_,” which Voltaire had once celebrated, Mlle.

de Camargo decided to retire, and, at Easter 1751, quitted the scene of her many triumphs, never to return. Her popularity had endured to the last, for Casanova, who saw her dance some months earlier, declares that the public applauded her ”with a kind of frenzy.”

On her retirement, she received a pension of 1500 livres, instead of the usual 1000, and another pension of a like amount from the King. She had, however, little need of such a.s.sistance, as, more prudent than most of her colleagues, she had found secure investments for a considerable portion of the sums which her various admirers had lavished upon her; while, if Meusnier is correct, she was in receipt of an annual allowance of 12,000 livres from the Comte de Clermont, which would have been materially increased, but for the interference of Mlle. Le Duc.

Henceforth she ceased to interest the town. In 1753, we learn that she has taken unto herself another impecunious lover, a certain Chevalier de la Guerche, ”who lived with her, and the whole of whose expenses she defrayed,” after which we hear no more of her until the chroniclers record her death, which took place on April 28, 1770, at the age of sixty. She was then living in the Rue Saint-Honore, ”like a respectable bourgeoise, very a.s.siduous in visiting the poor of her parish, and always surrounded by a dozen dogs, to whom she was much attached.” She was nursed in her last illness by the widow of Francois Boucher, the famous painter.

The best-known portrait of Mlle. de Camargo is that by Lancret, in the Wallace Collection, at Hertford House. An original repet.i.tion of this portrait, with a marked variation in the colour scheme, is in the Museum at Nantes. The Neues Palais at Potsdam contains another portrait by Lancret, ent.i.tled _La Camargo avec son danseur_, which shows the ballerina in the act of executing a _pas de deux_ with a male dancer.[117]

V

JUSTINE FAVART

Towards the end of the reign of Louis XIV., there lived in the Rue de la Verrerie, in Paris, a pastry-cook named Charles Paul Favart. No ordinary pastry-cook was Charles Paul; he was a man of parts and a poet; but a poet of an unusually practical turn of mind, inasmuch as, instead of contributing sonnets to the _Mercure_, he was in the habit of utilising his talent to advertise the excellence of his wares, with the result that his buns[118] and cakes were famed throughout the length and breadth of Paris.

The enterprising pastry-cook might have ama.s.sed a comfortable fortune, had he been content with the profits of his trade. But, unhappily, he became involved in the craze for speculating in Mississippi stock; and, on his death, his wife and two children found themselves almost unprovided for. The eldest of these children, a boy named Charles Simon, who had inherited the paternal turn for verses, was at this time pursuing his studies at the famous college of Louis-le-Grand, where he had already gained some little distinction. Forced to abandon the cultivation of the Muses to take charge of his father's business, which, though burdened with debt, still remained to them, he nevertheless contrived, in the intervals of making pastry, to compose a poem on _La France delivree par la pucelle d'Orleans_, which, in 1733, was awarded the prize of the Academie des Jeux Floraux. He had already, in collaboration with another young poet, written a piece called _Polinchinelle, comte de Paonfier_, performed at the Fair of Saint-Germain; and, in the following year, he submitted to the Opera-Comique a vaudeville, ent.i.tled _Les Deux Jumelles_, which was produced on March 22, and met with a very favourable reception.

Next day, while Favart, girt with his ap.r.o.n, his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves rolled up to the elbow, a square cap on his head, and a larding-pin in his hand, was working in his shop in the Rue de la Verrerie, a coach drove up to the door, out of which stepped an elderly gentleman, very richly dressed, who inquired for M. Favart, the author of _Les Deux Jumelles_.

Poor Favart, ashamed for the moment of revealing his ident.i.ty, replied that he would go and summon him, and, running up to his bedroom, hastily removed the signs of his trade, rolled down his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, donned his best coat, and returned to the shop to greet his amused visitor.

The latter, it transpired, was a wealthy farmer-general,[119] who had a fancy for playing the part of Maecenas. He had been present at the performance at the Opera-Comique, the previous evening, and had been so charmed with the piece that he had made inquiries concerning its author, and, on learning that he was a young man without means of his own, had resolved to offer him his protection. ”I have myself,” said he, ”been on bad terms with Fortune; but she has ended by caressing me, and I find no better way of using her favours than to employ them to the advantage of the arts and literature.”

Thanks to the a.s.sistance of the generous financier, Favart was enabled to relinquish his business and devote himself entirely to play-writing.

In the course of the next few years, he provided the lesser theatres with more than a score of pieces, one of which, _La Chercheuse d'esprit_, played at the Opera-Comique, in 1741, met with extraordinary success. Up to this time, Favart's pieces had appeared anonymously, but, encouraged by the enthusiastic reception accorded to the play in question, he now decided to emerge from his sh.e.l.l, and, in accordance with this resolution, gave a dinner to some of the most noted _beaux esprits_ and authors of the time. Among those present was Crebillon _pere_, who received, with his invitation, a delicate specimen of the dramatist's culinary skill, an attention which he acknowledged by the following quatrain:--

”Il est un auteur en credit, Dont la muse a le don de plaire: Il fit la _Chercheuse d'esprit_, Il n'en chercha point pour la faire.”

Towards the end of the year 1744, Favart was entrusted by the director of the Opera, of which the Opera-Comique was a dependency, with the management of the latter theatre; and it was while occupying this post that an incident occurred which was to be the starting-point of some very surprising adventures.

One day, in the following January, Favart received a letter from a lady at Luneville, soliciting for her daughter an engagement at the Opera-Comique as singer and dancer. The writer of the letter was a certain Madame Duronceray, the wife of one of the musicians of the chapel of Stanislaus Leczinski, ex-King of Poland, to which she herself was attached. The daughter on whose behalf she wrote, Marie Justine-Benoite Duronceray, was, it appeared, now in her eighteenth year, had been educated by the most skilful masters, under the personal supervision of King Stanislaus himself, and, to judge from the fond mother's letter, was a perfect little prodigy, who united in her person every imaginable accomplishment.

The director returned an encouraging answer, and the two ladies, having obtained the necessary leave of absence from the King, started for Paris, and, on their arrival, lost no time in presenting themselves at Favart's house.