of the Président de Rieux, drove to the _Tenebrae_ at Longchamps[114] in
a _calèche_ of cane painted blue, with all the chains of silver, drawn
by six ponies no bigger than dogs, ridden by a little postilion and a
little hussar, the first in a red waistcoat all galooned with silver,
and with a blue plume in his hat; the other in a blue tunic, with his
sabre and cap decorated with _plaques_ of silver. The Le Duc held the
horses' reins, and was escorted by two footmen.
"This luxurious equipage was a gallantry of the Comte de Clermont, Abbé
of Saint-Germain, to flatter the vanity of the Le Duc, who occupies the
post of his favourite sultana, which the Camargo enjoyed up to the end
of the year 1741.
"The goddess of the fête responded to this magnificent gallantry by
attire still richer and more elegant, of blue and silver; she had for
companions in her _calèche_ her sister and the Cartou.[115] A number of
other actresses filled three coaches in the suite of Madame l'Abbesse,
and wore her colours of blue and silver.
"All the people at Longchamps, on horseback, in coaches, or in
_calèches_, formed a procession in the rear of this troupe of vestals,
through curiosity or for the sake of amusement....
"Jests and songs at the expense of the Comte de Clermont have not been
wanting, and the King has intimated to him that he is displeased and
scandalised.
"Here is a placard which has been composed on the matter:--
'"THE
TRIUMPH OF VICE
At the Theatre of Longchamps,
By MLLE. LE DUC.
'"_The first representation given on Holy Wednesday, March 21.
On Friday the Theatre will be closed._"'[116]
The duel between the abbé and the judge and their respective sultanas
continued until both gentlemen were nearly ruined; but victory
ultimately rested with the Church, as Mlle. de Camargo and the Président
de Rieux soon grew tired of one another and agreed to separate, the
latter making the ballerina a present of 40,000 crowns out of what was
left of his fortune. After this adventure, according to the report drawn
up by Meusnier, of which we have already spoken, Mlle. de Camargo's old
inclination for the Marquis de Sourdis revived and they resumed their
interrupted _liaison_. Their respective positions were now, however,
reversed, as the Marquis had fallen on evil days, and become so poor
that his mistress had to pledge her earrings and necklace to enable him
to live in a manner befitting his rank.
In the meanwhile, the _danseuse_ had returned to the Opera, where she,
of course, met with an enthusiastic reception.
"Légère et forte en sa souplesse,
La vive Camargo sautait,"
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. Sallé, with whom the Camargo had henceforth to share the
applause of the public and the praises of the poets. Mlle. Sallé's style
of dancing differed widely from that of her celebrated rival. Whereas
the latter danced with astonishing rapidity and rose so high from the
stage that "it seemed as if she were going to touch the friezes," Mlle.
Sallé 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 êtes brillante!
Mais que Sallé, grands dieux! est ravissante!
Que vos pas sont légers, et que les siens sont doux!
Elle est inimitable et vous êtes nouvelle.
Les Nymphes sautent comme vous,
Et les Grâces dansent comme elle."
In spite of the rivalry of Mlle. Sallé, 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 _Pyramé et Thisbé_ 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 _début_ 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 légère_," 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 assistance, 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 Guerché, "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-Honoré, "like a respectable
bourgeoise, very assiduous 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 François 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 repetition 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, entitled _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 amassed 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 délivrée par la pucelle d'Orléans_, which, in 1733,
was awarded the prize of the Académie 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
Opéra-Comique a vaudeville, entitled _Les Deux Jumelles_, which was
produced on March 22, and met with a very favourable reception.
Next day, while Favart, girt with his apron, his shirt-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 identity, replied
that he would go and summon him, and, running up to his bedroom, hastily
removed the signs of his trade, rolled down his shirt-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 Mæcenas. He had been present at the
performance at the Opéra-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 assistance 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 Opéra-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 shell, 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 Crébillon
_père_, 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 crédit,
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 Opéra-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 Lunéville, soliciting for her daughter an engagement at the
Opéra-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-Benoîte 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.
The result of the interview proved that Madame Duronceray had not
exaggerated her daughter's talents. As actress, singer, and dancer, the
girl showed remarkable promise, while she was as charming as she was
accomplished.[120] A very brief examination sufficed to assure Favart
that he had discovered a most valuable acquisition to his troupe; and it
was at once arranged that Mlle. Chantilly, as Justine had decided to
call herself, out of deference for a branch of the Duronceray family
which lived in Paris and might conceivably have taken umbrage at one of
their name appearing on the stage, should make her _début_ in a piece
from Favart's own pen, which he was then writing, in celebration of the
approaching marriage of the Dauphin with the Infanta Maria Theresa. The
title of this vaudeville, _Les Fêtes publiques_, has alone come down to
us; but, whatever its merits may have been, it was highly successful,
the new actress's piquant beauty and grace, no less than her vocal and
dramatic talents, being loudly acclaimed by a succession of crowded
houses.
The charms of Justine had already made a deep impression upon Favart,
and, after her triumph in _Les Fêtes publiques_, he became so deeply in
love with the fair _débutante_ that he declared his passion, which the
young lady was pleased to reciprocate. An honest and excellent man,
Favart did not attempt to take advantage of their respective
positions,[121] but offered to make her his wife; and, on December 12,
1745, they were married at the Church of Saint-Pierre-aux-Boeufs, a
little church generally patronised by persons who wished to keep their
marriages secret for a while, in the presence of only the necessary
witnesses.
In view of what we shall presently relate, it is important to note that
M. Duronceray, Justine's father, was not present at the ceremony,
although he had given the required consent to his daughter's marriage,
in writing.
The marriage took place under very inauspicious circumstances. The vogue
that Favart by his operas and Justine by her singing and acting had
obtained for the Opéra-Comique had aroused the jealousy of the
Théâtre-Français and the Comédie-Italienne; and, in the autumn of 1745,
they solicited and obtained its suppression. The severity of this
measure was somewhat mitigated by the permission which Favart received
to open a theatre at the Fair of Saint-Laurent, whither he transferred
his company, and presented, among other pieces, a pantomime, entitled
_Les Vendanges de Tempé_, of which the success was assured by the
charming acting of Justine. This privilege, however, was only accorded
him for a very short time, with the object of allowing the troupe of the
Opéra-Comique leisure to make other arrangements, and, on its
withdrawal, Favart and his colleagues found themselves in a very
embarrassing situation; and matters must have gone hardly with them, had
not the poet had the good fortune to find a protector as powerful as he
was unexpected.
It happened that some little time before the suppression of the
Opéra-Comique, Favart had met at the house of one of those leaders of
the fashionable world whose whim it was to patronise actors and men of
letters, Maurice de Saxe, now become the greatest soldier of his age,
_Maréchal de France_, and "general-in-chief of all the armies of the
King." Maurice, who was as enthusiastic a patron of the drama as he had
been in the days of poor Adrienne Lecouvreur, was followed in his
campaigns by a troupe of actors, which gave performances wherever the
army happened to be quartered, sometimes in a regular theatre, sometimes
in an improvised one; and he now suggested to Favart that he should
organise a second troupe and accompany him to Flanders for the campaign
which was about to open.
The offer seemed like a fortune to poor Favart, in the state of poverty
and uncertainty to which he was then reduced; nevertheless, he hesitated
to accept it, pointing out that the formation of a second company might
be regarded by the troupe already in existence as an encroachment on its
privileges, and that its leader--one Parmentier, an arrogant and
unscrupulous person, with whom Favart was by no means anxious to enter
into competition--would be sure to throw obstacles in his way. The
Marshal, however, solved the difficulty by promising to transfer the
Parmentier troupe to the division of the army commanded by Maréchal
Löwendal, and attach Favart's company to his own person; and, under
these conditions, the poet gratefully accepted his offer.
Here are the terms in which the Marshal announced his appointment to
Favart, and, at the same time, informed him of what was expected of
him:--
"The favourable report that has been made to me about you, Monsieur,
has induced me to choose you, in preference to all others, in order to
give you the exclusive management of my comedy company. I am persuaded
that you will use every endeavour to ensure its success; but do not
imagine that I look upon it merely as an object of amusement; it enters
into my political views and into the plan of my military operations. I
will advise you what you will have to do in this respect when occasion
arises, and, in the meanwhile, I count upon your discretion and
punctuality. You are from this moment at liberty to make all your
arrangements for opening your theatre at Brussels, in the month of April
next."
As there was but little time at his disposal, Favart started at once for
Brussels, where he obtained a lease of the Grand Theatre in the Rue de
la Monnaie. Then he returned to Paris, and, having selected his company,
which comprised all the best artistes of the deceased Opéra-Comique, he
and Justine set out for Flanders.
Two days after their arrival in Brussels, Maurice de Saxe made his entry
into the city. The excitement was intense; an enormous crowd lined the
streets through which the procession was to pass; while the windows, and
even the roofs of the houses, were thronged with spectators eager to
catch a glimpse of the famous general. The weather, however, was
unfavourable for a public ceremony; a storm was brewing, and, as the
Marshal reached the Hôtel de Ville, where all the fair ladies of
Brussels had congregated to receive him, a terrific peal of thunder was
heard. Many persons no doubt saw in this an omen of evil for the
hitherto all-conquering warrior; but Favart chose to regard it far
differently, and forthwith improvised the following verses:--
"Est-ce là notre général
Que ramène Bellone?
--Eh! oui, c'est ce grand maréchal,
C'est lui-même en personne.
--Non; je le vois à ses regards,
C'est le Dieu de la guerre,
Et Jupiter annonce Mars
Par un coup de tonnerre."
Copies of these verses were printed and circulated everywhere; and the
Marshal, having had his attention drawn to them, as he was sitting down
to dinner with his general officers, sent for the writer and
complimented him upon them. One of the officers present, who did not
share his chiefs passion for the theatre, asked Favart of what use a
poet like himself could be to the army. "To celebrate the exploits of
our warriors and satirise the enemy," was the prompt reply, and the
questioner proceeded no further.
During the afternoon, apparently at the request of some of the ladies of
the city, the Marshal gave orders that part of the troops should be
paraded in front of the Hôtel de Ville and put through various
evolutions. One of the corps selected was a contingent of Jacobite
Highlanders, "who, in changing their country, had not thought it
necessary to change their costume." The scantiness of the gallant
Scotsmen's attire, Favart tells us, greatly shocked the Brussels ladies,
to the intense amusement of the Marshal and his officers. In the
evening, Favart's company gave their first performance, which was so
well received as to remove all doubt as to the success of their
enterprise.
Although Brussels was the centre of the Marshal's operations, and Favart
had secured a lease of the Grand Theatre, the terms of his engagement
obliged him to follow the army into the field, a necessity which
involved him and his company in many hardships and privations. Once
Favart passed three days and three nights without sleep, except such as
he could obtain leaning against a tree, with his feet in water. Often
provisions ran short; bread sold at fifteen sous the pound, and
sometimes the unfortunate actors were nearly starving. Nor were dangers
of an even more alarming kind wanting. The country swarmed with the
irregular cavalry of the enemy, who intercepted convoys, cut off
stragglers, and burned and pillaged to within musket-shot of the French
lines. Neither age nor sex was sacred to these Croats and Pandours. A
luckless troupe of actors on their way from Brussels to Cologne, to
fulfil an engagement at the Elector's Court, was surprised by a body of
these marauders and robbed of everything they possessed, with the
exception of their theatrical costumes, in which they were compelled to
trudge to Louvain, their woe-begone countenances contrasting oddly with
the gay habiliments of Arlequin, Scaramouche, and the rest. Maurice de
Saxe had granted Favart's company an escort of thirty men of the
Régiment de Septimanie; but this force was insufficient to secure them
from molestation. One day, while passing through some wooded country
between Louvain and Indiogne, they were attacked by a body of hussars,
who outnumbered their little escort by as many as four to one. A
sanguinary hand-to-hand conflict ensued, for the marauders were as brave
as they were ruthless, while their excesses had exasperated the French
to the last degree. Twice the hussars were beaten back, and, at length,
reinforcements arriving for the defenders, they drew off, leaving,
however, only six of the gallant escort alive, the least wounded of whom
had received four sabre cuts. Favart, in a letter to his mother giving
an account of this adventure, speaks with admiration of the conduct of
this soldier: "Never did I see a man of such courage. He was covered
with blood, which he was losing in abundance, and yet would not permit
his comrades to give a thought to him until the combat was over. Then,
in order to speak, he was obliged to hold up his nose and a portion of
his cheek, which had been separated from the rest of his countenance by
a sabre cut, and had fallen down over his mouth!"
To compensate the Favarts for the hardships and perils they were
compelled to undergo, Maurice de Saxe treated them with the greatest
kindness; in fact, presents were simply showered upon them. On one
occasion, we find him sending them three fine horses to draw their
coach; on another, "a camp-bed of red satin"; on a third, twenty-five
bottles of Hungarian wine. Moreover, he gave Favart to understand that
he might draw upon him freely in case of necessity, and protected him
against the attacks of the jealous Parmentier, the leader of the other
troupe of actors, who, not without some cause, regarded Favart as a
rival, and did all in his power to annoy and discredit him. The
simple-minded poet, who had as yet no suspicion as to the real object of
the Marshal's attentions, seems to have been under the impression that
they were intended as tributes to his literary and dramatic talents,
and, in his letters to his mother, waxes quite enthusiastic over his
patron's kindness and generosity.
The Marshal, in engaging Favart's services, had told him that he
regarded the troupe which followed his army as something more than a
means of amusement, and that it "entered into the plan of his military
operations." M. Léon Gozlan makes merry over this letter, which, he
thinks, was written merely to flatter the poet's vanity, and lure him
and his wife to Flanders;[122] but there can be no doubt that Maurice
did attach considerable importance to the provision of such
entertainments for those under his command. In the first place, they
served to occupy not a little of the time which would otherwise be
employed in more doubtful pleasures, particularly play, which, in spite
of stringent prohibitions, was very prevalent in the army among all
ranks, and had a most disastrous effect on the morale of the troops,
causing the officers to gamble away their pay and the men their rations,
and leading to frequent quarrels and much ill-feeling. In the second
place, the Marshal's knowledge of the French character had taught him
that a happy _couplet de circonstance_ sung to a lively air often had
more effect upon the soldiers than the most eloquent of harangues. An
anecdote celebrated in the history of this campaign will show how
accurately the great commander had gauged the spirit of his troops.