actress's rendering of his heroine, hurried to her dressing-room, and,
falling on his knees, overwhelmed her with compliments and thanks. A few
days later, Mlle. Des OEillets was sufficiently recovered to pay a
visit to the theatre to witness the performance of the new star; and,
when the curtain fell, was seen to throw up her hands and exclaim
sorrowfully: "Des OEillets is no more!"--words which, coming from an
actress who sees herself dethroned by an understudy, are more eloquent
than the most exhaustive commentary.
Overjoyed at finding that such an actress had arisen, Racine gave his
new interpreter lessons in elocution, "at the same time studying her
natural peculiarities, with a view to making them serviceable in any
character he might wish her to represent." According to the poet's son,
Louis Racine, Mlle. de Champmeslé owed her subsequent successes entirely
to his father's teaching. "As he had formed Baron," he says, "he formed
the Champmeslé, but with far more trouble. He made her understand the
verses which she had to recite, showed her the gestures which were
appropriate to each passage, and dictated to her the emphasis which she
must employ." There can be no doubt that Mlle. de Champmeslé owed much
to Racine's tuition, but it is equally certain that she had great
natural gifts as an actress, the chief of which were a peculiar grace of
movement and the greatest of all theatrical seductions, a most
enchanting voice, which moved La Fontaine to write:--
"Est-il quelqu'un que votre voix n'enchante?
S'en trouve-t-il une aussi touchante,
Un autre allant si droit au coeur?"
The flexibility of her voice appears to have been quite extraordinary.
Melodious, soft, and caressing in rôles like Iphigénie or Monime, it
became so powerful and sonorous in such parts as Phèdre, Roxane, and
Hermione that, it is said, when the door of the box at the end of the
_salle_ happened to be open, it could be heard at the Café Procope, over
the way. "The recitation of actors in tragedy," says the anonymous
author of the _Entretiens galants_, "is a kind of chant, and you will
readily admit that the Champmeslé would not please you so much, if her
voice were less agreeable. But she has learned to modulate it with so
much skill, and she lends to her words such natural tones, that it would
seem that she really has in her heart the passions she expresses with
her mouth." In pathetic passages, we are told, she drew tears from the
eyes of the most hardened playgoers. "It was amusing to watch the ladies
sighing and drying their eyes and the men laughing at them, while they
themselves were hard put to restrain their emotion."
There seems to be some difference of opinion as to whether Mlle. de
Champmeslé was strictly beautiful. According to the Brothers Parfaict,
"her skin was not clear, and her eyes were very small and round." On
the other hand, she was "of a fine shape, well made and noble," and "her
defects were, so to speak, counterbalanced by the natural graces spread
over her whole person." Louis Racine, though he denies her talent,
admits that she was handsome; while Madame de Sévigné tells us that she
was "almost plain," but "adorable upon the stage." However that may be,
she did not lack for admirers, and Racine, who, two years before, had
lost his mistress, the beautiful Mlle. du Parc--the actress who had in
turn rejected the addresses of Molière, Pierre Corneille, and La
Fontaine--speedily fell in love with her, and installed her in the
vacant place in his affections, M. de Champmeslé accepting his dishonour
with fashionable complacency. Henceforth, as Molière had written for his
wife, Racine wrote for his mistress, who created all his great heroines,
and "investing them with her own charm, became in truth the
_collaboratrice_ of the poet."
"Bénissons de l'amour l'influence divine,
C'est à toi, Champmeslé, que nous devons Racine,
Il écrivait pour toi, de te plaire occupé,
Son vers coulait plus doux de son coeur échappé."
[Illustration: JEAN RACINE
From an engraving by VERTUE]
In the early spring of 1670, Louis XIV.'s sister-in-law, the ill-fated
Henrietta of England, daughter of Charles I., persuaded Corneille and
Racine to write each a tragedy on the story of Titus and Berenice,
without each other's knowledge, and consequently without the knowledge
of any one else. Her object in so doing was, in all probability, merely
to bring the relative merits of the two great dramatists to a decisive
test, though rumour assigned a romantic reason for her choice of the
subject, to wit, a desire to see upon the stage a little story analogous
to that of her one-time relations with Louis XIV. _Madame's_ death,
famous for its disputed causes and Bossuet's funeral oration, occurred
in the following June; but this did not interfere with the completion of
the plays, which were produced within a few days of one another, the
secret having been so well kept that until then neither of the poets had
the faintest conception that they had been simultaneously engaged on the
same subject.
Racine was the first in the field, his _Bérénice_ being produced at the
Hôtel de Bourgogne on November 21, Floridor playing Titus, and Mlle. de
Champmeslé the beautiful Jewess. Corneille's _Tite et Bérénice_ appeared
at the Palais-Royal, eight days later, with La Thorillière and Mlle.
Molière in the title-parts.
The result of the duel to which the two dramatists found themselves, all
unwittingly, committed was wholly in favour of the younger, Corneille's
play, notwithstanding some fine passages, being unworthy of his
reputation.[44] It was probably to this fact and to the admirable acting
of Mlle. de Champmeslé, rather than to any special merits of his own,
that Racine was indebted for his easy triumph. Approved by the king and
applauded by the public, his _Bérénice_ remained in the bills until
after the thirtieth performance; but it did not please the critics,
Boileau declaring that had he been consulted he would have endeavoured
to dissuade his friend from undertaking so poor a theme; while
Chapelle, when asked by Racine for his opinion, replied in two verses of
an old song:--
"Marion pleure, Marion crie,
Marion veut qu'on la marie."
An answer which nearly caused a quarrel between him and the poet.
To _Bérénice_, early in the following January, succeeded _Baiazet_,
Mlle. de Champmeslé playing the part of Roxane. Madame de Sévigné
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
OEillets, 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 Champmeslé with it, you would find the
tragedy among the best; without her, it loses half its value. Racine's
plays are written for Champmeslé, 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 Champmeslé did not by any means confine her creations to her
lover's heroines; the répertoire of the Hôtel de Bourgogne was a rich
one. Thus, in March of that same year, she appeared in the title-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 Sévigné was again
among the audience, and wrote of the actress in terms of enthusiasm:
"The Champmeslé 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
Champmeslé appears, every one is enthralled, and the tears of the
audience flow at her despair."[48]
When, seven years later, Mlle. de Champmeslé migrated to the Théâtre
Guénégaud, it was in _Ariane_ that she secured her first triumph.
"_Ariane_," wrote Donneau de Visé in the _Mercure_, "has been extremely
well attended. Mlle. de Champmeslé, 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 Sévigné, 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'Orléans),
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 rôle, which was a most
exacting one--Mlle. Clairon confesses in her _Mémoires_, that she had
never succeeded in playing it entirely to her satisfaction--Mlle. de
Champmeslé 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 Xiphanès. "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 passage in the tone of
Mlle. de Champmeslé, as a perfect example of the art.
While Mlle. de Champmeslé continued her successes, Racine completed his
eighth tragedy, _Iphigénie en Aulide_, which was produced at Versailles
(August 17, 1674), on the occasion of the magnificent _divertissements_
which Louis XIV. gave to his Court on his return from the conquest of
Franche-Comté. This time the performance was given in the open air, in
the gardens of the château. "The scenery," says Andre Félibien, in his
account of the fêtes, "represented a long alley of verdure; on either
side were the basins of fountains, and, at intervals, grottoes of rustic
workmanship, but very delicately finished. On their entablature rose a
balustrade, 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 _Iphigénie_, 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 gods. Inferior to the noble 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 Champmeslé's
pathetic impersonation of the young Greek virgin probably contributed as
much as the subject itself, and inspired Boileau to the lines:--
"Jamais Iphigénie en Aulide immolée,
N'a conté tant de pleurs à la Grèce assemblée,
Que dans l'heureux spectacle à nos yeux étalé
En a fait, sous son nom, verser la Champmêlé."
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
_Iphigénie_ had caused a rise in the price of handkerchiefs.
After _Iphigénie_, Mlle. de Champmeslé became the idol of the playgoing
public, and "all Paris" flocked to the Hôtel de Bourgogne, seemingly
indifferent to the bill, provided they could see the now famous actress.
For nearly two years, however, no rôle 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 compassion for the
criminals themselves. In his opinion, even Medea and Phædra 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 passion of Phædra for her stepson
the subject of a tragedy.[51]
But alas! _Phèdre et Hippolyte_ was not destined to take its place as
the greatest tragedy of the French classical 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
Duchesse de Bouillon, the fourth of the famous Mancini sisters, and
Madame Deshoulières, 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 _Phèdre_, to be produced at the Théâtre Guénégaud
simultaneously with the appearance of Racine's at the Hôtel 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 Champmeslé, "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
Champmeslé, 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 principal rôle--it was refused by both
Mlle. de Brie and Mlle. Molière--necessitated a postponement of two
days, when Mlle. du Pin, a capable, but by no means brilliant,
performer, played Phèdre. 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 Champmeslé, in a part which
was obviously so much better suited to her talents than to theirs.
All went well at the Hôtel de Bourgogne the first evening. M. de
Champmeslé 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 Théâtre Guénégaud
were reported as crowded with applauding spectators. The explanation was
that the Duchesse de Bouillon, in her determination to secure the
success of her _protégé'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 Théâtre Guénégaud 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
amusement, 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 duchess 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 _Phèdres_
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 _Phèdre_ was played before the Court, Mlle. de Champmeslé, fearing
that Madame de Montespan might take the lines afterwards addressed on a
memorable occasion by Adrienne Lecouvreur to the Duchesse de
Bouillon:--
"Je suis mes perfidies
OEnone, et ne suis pas de ces femmes hardies
Qui, gôutant 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 Phèdre, the declamation of which, according to the Abbé du Bois,
Racine "had taught her verse by verse," Mlle. de Champmeslé seems to
have put the comble upon her fame as a _tragédienne_. Of all her
creations, it is the one that La Fontaine names first in the
frontispiece of _Belphégor_:--
"Qui ne connaît l'inimitable actrice
Représentant Phèdre ou Bérénice,
Chimène 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
_Phèdre_ was the play selected to consecrate the birth of the
Comédie-Française on Sunday, August 25, 1680; and it was _Phèdre_ again,
with Mlle. de Champmeslé in the title-part, which inaugurated the new
playhouse in the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain, on April 16, 1689.[52]
The popularity of Mlle. Champmeslé 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 Sévigné, Madame de Sévigné'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 noblemen 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 Champmeslé."
The actress's _liaison_ with Racine was not only public but accepted by
the easy morality of the day; Madame de Sévigné jests about it in her
letters, and La Fontaine, writing to Mlle. de Champmeslé, 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
passion 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 Champmeslé living on the best of terms with the others and
his wife. The favoured gentlemen appear to have been Racine and the four
noblemen mentioned above. But the only one of the four about whose
relations with the actress we have any details is Charles de Sévigné.
This young gentleman seems to have had something of the Oriental in his
temperament; for, at the time that he was paying court to the actress,
he was "wearing the chains of Ninon, this same Ninon who corrupted the
morals of his father."[53] The celebrated Ninon de Lenclos, it may be
mentioned, was then in her fifty-sixth year, but still retained much of
her former fascination; indeed, if tradition is to be believed, she had
lovers when she was over eighty!
Madame de Sévigné was much distressed by the conduct of her son. "Madame
de la Fayette and I are using every effort to wean him from so dangerous
an attachment," she writes to her daughter. "Besides, he has a little
actress (Mlle. de Champmeslé) and all the Despréaux and the Racines.
There are delicious suppers--that is to say, _diableries_." Then, on
March 18: "Your brother is at Saint-Germain. He divides his time between
Ninon and a little actress, and, to crown all, Despréaux. We lead him a
sad life. Ye gods, what folly! Ye gods, what folly!"
From the above passages, it would appear that Racine and his friend
Boileau were not exactly in the odour of sanctity with their
contemporaries; indeed, both were evidently regarded as corrupters of
youth by anxious mothers like Madame de Sévigné.