Clairon was studying her part in bed, all unconscious of evil. Suddenly
the door flew open, and her lovelorn poet, who had bribed one of the
servants of the house to admit him, appeared upon the threshold, and,
casting himself on his knees before her, besought her, in impassioned
accents, to reciprocate the flame which was devouring him. His
divinity's only response to this appeal was to call loudly for
assistance; servants and lodgers, alarmed by her cries, were quickly on
the scene, and "with brooms and shovels drove the wretch into the
street." "When my mother returned home," continues the actress, "it was
resolved that we should lodge a complaint against him; he was
reprimanded by the magistrate, had ballads made about him, and was for
ever banished our house. But rage succeeded to his love and his desires,
and he composed that atrocious libel which has been read all over
Europe."
Gaillard did indeed take a cruel revenge for the ignominious treatment
he had received, for his pamphlet, which was entitled _Histoire de
Mademoiselle Cronel, dite Frétillon, actrice de la Comédie de Rouen,
écrite par elle-même_, aided by the subsequent celebrity of its victim,
ran through several editions, and the sobriquet "Frétillon" stuck to her
for life. Mlle. Clairon was at Havre when the libel appeared, and "her
anguish was beyond all power of expression." She returned to Rouen in
fear and trembling, "imagining that every door would be barred against
her, and not daring to look any one in the face." However, the
play-loving Rouennais, who were very indulgent towards the moral
failings of the ladies of the theatre, appear to have been more
diverted than scandalised, and she "found the same public and the same
friends."
Soon, however, trouble arose in another quarter. The troupe of La Noue
and Mlle. Gautier, driven from Rouen by the competition of an opera
company, went to try its fortune in Flanders. Mlle. Clairon's mother
accompanied her, and, while the troupe was performing at Lille, took
advantage of the fact of her daughter being now separated from Madame de
Bimorel and her other friends, to endeavour to coerce her into a
marriage with one of her comrades, whom the girl cordially detested. In
a curious passage in her _Mémoires_, Mlle. Clairon attributes to this
persecution the loss of her innocence:--
"The orders of my mother, her violence, which she carried so far as to
present a pistol to me, in order to obtain my consent, made me at last
sensible of the necessity of having a protector, who, without appealing
to the laws, might be able to restrain those about me and defend me
against them. Actuated by despair alone, without any base, mercenary
motive, without love, without desires, I offered and surrendered myself,
on the sole condition of being protected from the marriage and death
that threatened me at the same time. That moment, which, at first sight,
conveys only an impression of licentiousness, is perhaps the most noble,
the most interesting, the most striking of my life."
Unhappily, the sympathy which this passage might otherwise arouse in the
lady's readers is somewhat discounted by the perusal of the following
extract from an official report which the police-inspector, La Janière,
sent to Berryer, the Lieutenant of Police, some years later, from which
it appears that so violent and persistent was the persecution to which
the unfortunate young actress was subjected by her mother and her
unwelcome admirer, that not one, but three protectors were necessary for
her safety:--
"After some years, having accepted an engagement with the director of
the theatre at Lille, she (Clairon) appeared on the stage in that town,
and did not remain long without making conquests. The Comte de
Bergheick, colonel of the Regiment Royal-Wallon, the Chevalier de By,
lieutenant-colonel of the same regiment, and M. Desplace, major of
cavalry, were her three chief protectors.
"People are at first alarmed at the sight of three rival warriors
contending for the heart of this girl, but let them be reassured,
everything will pass off tranquilly. The Clairon was a careful girl,
and, besides, adroit enough to keep in play half-a-dozen lovers. Thus
everything worked smoothly, and all were satisfied."[156]
In the spring of 1742, La Noue, whose tenancy of the Rouen theatre had
not been attended with the success he had anticipated, and whom the
outbreak of the Austrian Succession War had compelled to relinquish a
project of taking a company to Berlin, returned to Paris, to make his
_début_ at the Comédie-Française. His troupe was in consequence
dispersed, and Mlle. Clairon, finding herself without employment, joined
a travelling company which had been engaged to perform at Ghent, then
the headquarters of the English army. Here, she tells us, she was
received with enthusiastic applause, and "my lord" Marlborough[157] laid
his immense fortune at her feet. But Mlle. Clairon was, above all
things, a patriot, and "my lord" and his immense fortune had no
attractions for her. "The contempt which the English nation affected for
mine," she says, "rendered every individual belonging to it
insupportable to me. It was impossible for me to listen to them without
expressing my dislike." So strong indeed was her aversion to the enemies
of her country that it was only with the greatest difficulty that she
could be prevailed upon to contribute to their entertainment. Finally,
she could endure the situation no longer, and, in spite of the efforts
of her comrades to detain her, procured a passport and escaped to
Dunquerque.
After a short stay at Dunquerque, Mlle. Clairon proceeded to Paris.
According to her own account, she had while there received an order from
the Gentlemen of the Chamber directing her to make her _début_ at the
Opera. From La Janière's report, however, it appears that "conscious
that her talents were too sublime for the provinces, and that she was
destined to shine in a greater sphere," she came on her own initiative
to the capital, where she was for some months without employment.
Ultimately, continues the report, she "accepted the propositions" of the
wealthy farmer-general, La Popelinière, who posed as a patron of the
arts, and, through his influence, mounted the stage of the
Palais-Royal.
However that may be, to the Opera she was admitted, and there, in March
1743, made her _début_ in the rôle of Venus, in _Hésione_. In her
_Mémoires_, she admits that though she had "a prodigious extent of
voice," she was but an indifferent musician, and notwithstanding the
fact that the _Mercure_ of the following May contained a poem in which
the writer declared that, so long as Clairon remained on earth, he was
content to renounce his hopes of Heaven, her reception by the public
seems to have left a good deal to be desired. We also gather that she
was dissatisfied with the treatment she received from her colleagues--a
fact which can hardly occasion surprise if there be any truth in the
story that, immediately upon entering the Opera, she had publicly
announced her intention of soundly boxing the ears of any lady who dared
to address her by the odious name of "Frétillon,"--and soon determined
to seek fame and fortune on another stage. "I had," she says, "the good
fortune to succeed, but I found that so little talent was required in
this theatre, in order to appear possessed of the highest abilities,
there seemed to me to be so little merit in merely following the
modulations of the musicians, the manners of the performers were so
distasteful to me, and the smallness of the salary was so absolutely
degrading, that, at the end of four months, I signified my intention of
resigning."
From the Opera, Mlle. Clairon passed to the Comédie-Française, but not
without encountering many obstacles by the way. Virtue counted for very
little at the Académie Royale de Musique, except as a marketable
commodity; it counted for a very great deal among the Comédiens du Roi,
or rather they chose to pretend that it did, which came to much the same
thing where the admission of a damsel of questionable reputation was
concerned. Led by her old employer, La Noue, and Mlle. Gaussin, several
members of the troupe banded themselves together to oppose the admission
of the now notorious "Frétillon" by every means in their power. The
latter, on her side, did not lack for supporters, and, for some weeks, a
war of pamphlets raged, in which the characters of the different
combatants were torn to shreds, to the great delight of the town.
Finally, the King's new mistress, Madame de Châteauroux, and her sister,
Madame de Lauraguais, intervened on behalf of the young actress, who
made so favourable an impression upon the old Duc de Gesvres, at an
interview which, in his capacity as First Gentleman of the Chamber, he
had very reluctantly accorded her, that, a few days later, she received
the coveted _ordre de début_:--
* * * * *
"We, Duc de Gesvres, _pair de France_, First Gentleman of the King's
Chamber, direct the troupe of his Majesty's French players to cause the
demoiselle Clairon to forthwith make her _début_ in order that we may be
able to judge of her abilities as an actress.
"(Signed) THE DUC DE GESVRES.
"_Executed at Versailles, September 10, 1743._"[158]
* * * * *
In the provinces, Mlle. Clairon's _emploi_ had been that of a
_soubrette_, and her experience of tragedy was as yet very slight; for,
though she was acquainted with some half-dozen of the leading tragic
rôles, she had never played any of them more than twice. The
_semainiers_, as a number of players who governed the Comédie in
rotation were called, were, therefore, not a little surprised when the
young lady informed them that it was her intention to make her first
appearance as a votary of Melpomene. But their surprise gave way to
profound astonishment, when, after they had consented and suggested to
her the parts of Constance in _Inès de Castro_ or Aricie in _Phèdre_,
the _débutante_ replied, with a smile of disdain, that such parts were
too small for her, and that it was her wish to play Phèdre
herself--Phèdre, the most difficult character in the whole tragic
répertoire; Phèdre, one of the most celebrated rôles of Mlle. Dumesnil!
"My proposal," she tells us, "made every one smile; they assured me that
the public would not suffer me to finish the first act. I became hot
with indignation, but pride sustained me, and I replied as quietly and
as majestically as I could: 'Messieurs, you will allow me to play it, or
you will not. I have the right to make my choice. I will either play
Phèdre or nothing.'"
In the end, she was permitted to have her way. According to her own
account, she disdained to rehearse her part, and, on the fateful
evening, September 19, 1743, did not arrive at the theatre until just
before the curtain rose. The house was crowded, chiefly with persons who
had come thither in the confident anticipation of enjoying a hearty
laugh at what they were pleased to consider the absurd pretensions of
little "Frétillon." They came to laugh and perhaps to hiss; they
remained to applaud, and to applaud enthusiastically, for, long before
the first act was over, it was apparent to all that a great
_tragédienne_ was before them. "It was Phèdre herself in all her
sovereign splendour, in all the majesty of passion," and seldom indeed
has that immortal queen of sorrow met with so worthy a representative.
"The 19th of this month," says the _Mercure_, "the players have revived
at the theatre Racine's tragedy of _Phèdre_, in which Mlle. Clairon, a
new actress, has made her _début_. She represented the principal
personage amidst general applause. She is a young woman of much
intelligence, who expresses with a very charming voice the sentiments
which she has the art to understand. One may say that Nature has
lavished upon her talents of the happiest order to enable her to fill
all the characters suited to her youth, the agreeableness of her person,
and her voice."
A little brochure, entitled _Lettre à Madame la Marquise V. de G---- sur
le début de Mademoiselle Clairon à la Comédie-Française_, supplies us
with an interesting portrait of the actress:--
"Mademoiselle Clairon is about twenty-two or twenty-three years of age.
She is exceedingly fair; her head is well set. Her eyes are fine, full
of fire, and sparkle with voluptuousness. Her mouth is furnished with
beautiful teeth; her bosom is well formed. One gains in examining her a
pleasure which the other senses share with the sight. Her figure is
shapely, she carries herself very gracefully. A modest and pleasing
manner interests one in her favour. Although she is not a finished
beauty, one must resemble her to be charming. Her wit is sparkling, her
conversation sweet and engaging. Musician and actress, lover of the arts
and their pupil, she is qualified for everything, and, without making
any effort, she becomes naturally whatever she wishes to be."[159]
Mlle. Clairon continued her _débuts_ with success. On the following
evening, she gave an admirable rendering of the part of Zénobie, and
this was succeeded by further triumphs as Ariane, Électre, and the
Atalide of _Bajazet_. She played also several important rôles in comedy,
among them the Dorine of _Tartuffe_. But her acting here was distinctly
inferior to her performances in tragedy; a circumstance which is not a
little singular when we remember that the reputation she had brought
with her from the provinces had been gained entirely in the former
_genre_. Possibly, recognising that her true vocation was tragedy, she
was now somewhat careless of the impression she might make in other
rôles.
On October 29, 1743, an order from the Duc de Gesvres conferred on the
young _débutante_ a _demi-part_ in the troupe of the Comédie-Française.
In the following December, she was accorded a further quarter share,
and, exactly a year later, obtained a full part.
The middle of the eighteenth century was the golden era of the
Comédie-Française. What a galaxy of talent do we find there!
Mesdemoiselles Clairon, Dumesnil, Gaussin, and Dangeville; Grandval,
Molé, Lekain, Préville, and Brizard! Never before and never since have
so many celebrated players appeared together upon one stage. And of this
brilliant band, Mlle. Clairon was the ruler; ruling not so much by force
of talent, for Mlle. Dumesnil had greater natural talent, nor by beauty,
for Mlle. Gaussin was more beautiful, but by her remarkable
intelligence, her unwearying industry, and her strength of will. Only
Mlle. Dumesnil could compare with her upon the stage; off it, Mlle.
Clairon reigned supreme.
* * * * *
For nearly twenty-two years, Mlle. Clairon disputed the dramatic sceptre
with her celebrated rival, inferior to the latter in parts which
required the combination of tragic force with pathos and tenderness, but
incomparably her superior in characters of the sterner type, especially
those into which dignity and an element of lofty and inflexible pride
entered.[160] The methods of the two great actresses could hardly have
been more dissimilar. "The one was all temperament," says Edmond de
Goncourt, "the other all study and art." Mlle. Dumesnil frequently came
upon the stage with no very definite idea as to the tone or attitude she
would assume in certain passages, trusting to a happy inspiration,
which, it must be acknowledged, seldom failed her.[161] With Mlle.
Clairon, who made her art the subject of the most profound and
unremitting study, every tone and every gesture had been carefully
rehearsed beforehand, and the character elaborated in its minutest
details. So numerous indeed were her private rehearsals that she
insensibly carried with her her theatrical air into private life, and
her friends laughingly declared that she called for her fan and her
coach in the tone of Agrippina, and spoke to her lackey like a queen
addressing the captain of her guards.[162] But this artificiality was so
dexterously concealed, she possessed in such a supreme degree the art of
concealing art, so dignified and graceful were her movements, and so
marvellous her command of facial expression, that even the warmest
admirers of Mlle. Dumesnil and her school of acting and the most
captious of critics were compelled to acknowledge her charm, while the
ordinary playgoer was "transported with enthusiasm."
Tributes to her genius came from all quarters, from friend and foe, from
her compatriots and from foreigners alike. Voltaire, when she performed
in his little theatre at Ferney, went quite wild with enthusiasm, and
declared that, for the first time in his life, he had seen perfection in
any kind.[163] Favart, though severely reprobating the extravagance of
the admirers who had medals struck in the lady's honour,[164] cherished
for her the most profound admiration. "Mlle. Clairon," he writes to the
Count Durazzo, "is raised so far above criticism by the superiority of
her talents that all the remarks of the most punctilious censor can but
serve to convince me that she has attained the last degree of
perfection. It seems as if she owed only to Nature all that she has
acquired by assiduous study. Every day we are struck with some new
admiration."
Collé, who disliked her heartily, partly no doubt on account of her
friendship with the philosophers, writing in 1750, considers her
inferior to Mlle. Dumesnil in sentimental scenes, but acknowledges her
immense superiority to the latter "in parts requiring little energy and
much dignity," such as the heroines of Corneille and the Fulvie of
Crébillon's _Catilina_. He, however, severely criticises her delivery,
which he describes as "artificial and inflated to the last extreme."
But, five years later, when Mlle. Clairon had adopted the more natural
method of speaking and acting of which we shall presently speak, the
dramatist is all admiration:--
"I have seen _L'Orphelin_ [Voltaire's _L'Orphelin de la Chine_], and
wept at the second and fifth acts. Mlle. Clairon appears to merit even
more praise than she has received. It is the actress, and not the play,
that has moved me. This tragedy is bad, and I do not retract a single
word of what I have said about it; but the actress is admirable. She
improves every day; she is ridding herself little by little of her
declamatory style, and making great strides towards natural acting. If
she continues, she will attain to the art of the Lecouvreur. The
progress which she has made is too marked and too astonishing for us not
to expect still further improvement; perhaps we may even hope for
perfection."[165]
The _Réflexions sur la déclamation_ of Hérault de Séchelles contain a
striking testimony to that wonderful command of expression, the result
of a profound study of physiognomy, which enabled her, without opening
her lips, to convey to her audience an exact impression of the different
phases of emotion through which her mind happened to be passing.
"One day, Mlle. Clairon seated herself in an arm-chair, and, without
uttering a single word, she painted, with her countenance alone, all the
passions: hatred, rage, indignation, indifference, melancholy, grief,
love, pity, gaiety. She painted not only the passions themselves, but
all the shades and differences which characterise them. In terror, for
example, she expressed dismay, fear, embarrassment, surprise,
uneasiness. When we expressed our admiration, she replied that she had
made a special study of anatomy, and knew what muscles it was necessary
to call into play."
And listen to Oliver Goldsmith's tribute, which appeared in the second
number of _The Bee_:--
"Mlle. Clairon, a celebrated actress at Paris, seems to me the most
perfect female figure I have ever seen on any stage. Her first
appearance is excessively engaging; she never comes in staring round
upon the company, as if she intended to count the benefits of the
house, or, at least, to see as well as to be seen. Her eyes are always
at first intently fixed upon the persons of the drama, and then she
lifts them by degrees, with enchanting diffidence, upon the spectators.
Her first speech, or at least the first part of it, is delivered with
scarce any motion of the arm; her hands and her tongue never set out
together, but one prepares for the other.... By this simple beginning,
she gives herself a power of rising to the passion of the scene. As she
proceeds, every gesture, every look, acquires new violence; till at
last, transported, she fills the whole vehemence of the play and the
whole idea of the poet. Her hands are not alternately stretched out and
then drawn in again, as with the singing women at Sadler's Wells; they
are employed with graceful variety, and every moment please with new and
unexpected eloquence. Add to this, that their motion is generally from
the shoulder; she never flourishes her hands while the upper part of the
arm is motionless; nor has she the ridiculous appearance as if her
elbows were pinned to her hips."
But perhaps the most interesting of all eulogies of the actress is
contained in a letter to Garrick by his Danish correspondent, Sturtz--a
really masterly description, which suffers but little from the fact of
the writer being a foreigner, and which we, therefore, need make no
apology for producing at length:--
* * * * *
"In such a representing nation, I had a great opinion of their stage,
and yet I was disappointed. It seems the quality has forestalled the
best parts for them alone, for I saw but an indifferent medley of plays.
"There is, indeed, Mme. Clairon, standing alone amidst the ruins of
the Republic, shooting for the last rays of a departing star. I have
gazed on her when she trod the stage as Queen of Carthage,[166] worthy
that rank and above the mob of queens; she inspired every sentiment; she
displays every passion, and, I dare say, she felt none: all the storm
was on the surface, waves ran high, and the bottom was calm; her despair
and her grief rose and died at the end of her tongue.
[Illustration: MADEMOISELLE CLAIRON
From an engraving by LAURENT CARS and JACQUES BEAUVARLET, after the
painting by CARLE VAN LOO]
" ...She goes through a number of opposite feelings: soft melancholy,
despair, languid tenderness, raving fury, scorn, and melting love; there
is not one passion absent. She is wonderful in those transitions where
an inferior actress, from an intense grief, would, at some lucky event,
jump on a sudden to a giddy, wanton joy. Mme. Clairon, though exulting
at her new-born hope that Æneas might stay, keeps always the dark colour
of sorrow; when her eye brightens through her tears, she looks, as
Ossian expresses it, 'like the moon through a watery cloud.' Her
characteristic perfection is the scornful, the commanding part; then is
nobility spread about her as a glory round the head of a saint; and yet
she never puts off the woman; in the midst of violent rage she is always
the tender female, and a _nuance_ of love softens the hard colour into
harmony.
" ...Nature has done a good deal in favour of Madame Clairon; her voice
is melody, of a vast extent, and capable of numberless inflexions;
however, I was sometimes unwillingly disturbed by a disagreeable shrill
cry, rather expressing physical pain. As to her figure, it is not a very
elegant one, her head being rather too big and her whole person too
little; and yet she is great, towering amongst the crowd in the height
of action;[167] so as you see by the enchantment of art a colossal head
of Jupiter in a cameo the size of sixpence. Were I in a temper to find
fault with her, I might mention her too articulate declamation, the
_cadence_ of every motion; but then I might as well charge Raphael with
having too carefully marked his contours, which are the admiration and
the models of every age. True it is that compound of excellence is a
mere compound of art; were it possible to note action, as music, then
she would show a fortnight before every mien, the measure of every tone,
the tension of every march on paper. She is else quite free from that
disagreeable tragical hiccup so epidemical in France, and so awkwardly
returning at the end of every verse; she never shakes so affectedly her
head, as some others, in what you call the graceful style, forsooth; and
she alone may venture some bold strokes, which would never do else with
so well-bred, so elegant an audience.