daughter’s birth is uncertain--_bourgeois de Paris_ being a trifle
indefinite. But, a few years later, he was seized with an ambition to
become an actor and, accordingly, applied for and obtained an _ordre de
début_ at the Comédie-Française, where he appeared under the name of
Raucourt. The _début_, however, was not a success; and the pit intimated
its sense of M. Raucourt’s shortcomings in so unmistakable a manner
that, after his second appearance, that gentleman prudently decided to
seek fame and fortune before a less critical audience. He accordingly
retired to the provinces, and from thence migrated to Spain, as a member
of a French travelling company, taking his little daughter with him. The
latter, who early decided to follow her father’s profession, amply
atoned for any lack of ability on his part, and showed such
extraordinary precocity that at the age of twelve she was already
playing with success in several tragedy parts.
From Spain the Raucourts--to give them the name by which they were
henceforth known--appear to have journeyed to St. Petersburg; but,
towards the end of the year 1770, returned to France, where the girl
obtained an engagement at Rouen, the conservatoire of the Paris
theatres. Here she acted with such success, notably as Euphémie in De
Belloy’s _Gaston et Bayard_, that the fame of her talent soon reached
the capital and she received an order from the Gentlemen of the Chamber
to make her _début_ at the Comédie-Française.
Mlle. Raucourt and her father arrived in Paris in the spring of 1772,
where they rented a modest apartment in the Rue Saint-Jacques, for
though rich in hopes, their purses were light. Provincial players in
those days gained abundant experience, but very little money.
The young actress’s first appearance at the Comédie-Française was
preceded by some months of study, under the direction of Brizard, who
was as excellent a teacher as he was an actor, and, delighted with his
pupil’s intelligence and industry, did not rest content until he had
taught her everything he knew. In the course of a few weeks, she is said
to have mastered no less than nineteen important tragedy parts. From
Brizard’s hands, and at his suggestion, she passed to those of Mlle.
Clairon; and the celebrated _tragédienne_, partly out of a real liking
for the girl and partly out of a desire to set up a rival to Madame
Vestris, with whom her relations were at that time very strained, spared
no pains to put the finishing touch to the actor’s work.[99]
At length, towards the end of the year, Mlle. Raucourt was deemed worthy
to challenge the verdict of the Parisians, and, on December 23, 1772,
she made her _début_, as Dido, in Le Franc de Pompignan’s famous
tragedy, being then within rather more than two months of completing her
seventeenth year.
And what a _début_ it was! Never in the whole history of the theatre had
so young an actress secured so brilliant, so extraordinary, a triumph.
“Before the tragedy began,” says Grimm, “Brizard himself harangued the
pit, demanded its indulgence for a budding talent, and assured it that
his pupil, formed by the criticisms of the public, would one day be its
work. The pit, which loves to the point of folly actors to address it,
particularly when they call it the arbiter of tastes and of talents,
warmly applauded the harangue of Achates Brizard.[100] But when it
beheld the most beautiful and the most noble creature in the world
advance, in the character of Dido, to the edge of the stage; when it
heard the sweetest, the most flexible, the most harmonious, the most
impressive of voices; when it remarked a style of acting full of
dignity, intelligence, and the most subtle and delicate shades, the
enthusiasm of the public knew no bounds. They raised cries of admiration
and applause; they involuntarily embraced one another; they were
perfectly intoxicated. When the play was over, the enthusiasm spread to
their houses. Those who had been present at _Didon_ dispersed to their
various quarters, arrived like men demented, spoke with transports of
the _débutante_, communicated their enthusiasm to those who had not seen
her, and at every supper-table in Paris nothing was heard save the name
of Raucourt.”[101]
Mlle. Raucourt had risen that morning unknown, at least so far as Paris
was concerned; she retired to bed a celebrity, the idol of the playgoing
public. All the gazettes, all the journals, all the correspondence of
the time, resounded with her praises. “Nature,” wrote the dramatic
critic of the _Mercure_, “appears to have lavished its gifts upon her:
she is beautiful, she is impressive in all her rôles, she possesses a
kind of innate aptitude for tragedy, and the most triumphant means of
giving expression to its energy, its sentiment, and its passion; a voice
flexible, sonorous, and well-modulated; a physiognomy which depicts the
affections of the heart in all their variations; a look eloquent and
expressive, the art of speaking to the eyes and of investing her by-play
with interest. This young actress has received everything from
beneficent Nature, and study and experience have had little to do with
perfecting and completing her talents.”[102] Grimm predicted that she
would be the “_gloire immortelle_” of the French stage. Another critic
declared the annihilation of the British fleet alone could have aroused
a deeper enthusiasm than her acting; while the _Mémoires secrets_ hailed
her as a veritable prodigy: “It is impossible to describe the sensation
she has created; nothing like it has been seen within the memory of
living man. She is only sixteen and a half; she is a study for a
painter. She has the most noble, the most dramatic face, the most
enchanting voice, a prodigious intelligence; she did not make a single
false intonation. Throughout the whole of her very difficult part, she
did not commit the slightest error, not even an inappropriate gesture. A
little stiffness and embarrassment in the movements of her arms is the
only fault people have been able to find in her.”[103]
Let us here remark that all this eulogy was very far from being
deserved, and that the critics ere long found reason to modify their
enthusiasm. Mlle. Raucourt was unquestionably a very handsome girl, and
certainly possessed many of the qualities attributed to her by her
admirers; but she never attained anything like the standard of
excellence of Adrienne Lecouvreur, or Mlle. Dumesnil, or Mlle. Clairon.
“With a little sensibility,” remarks one of her colleagues of the
Comédie-Française, “she might have been the greatest of _tragédiennes_;
but that quality, so invaluable on the stage, was wanting.” She was
wanting also in versatility; her acting was, so to speak, all of a
piece; she sinned in excess of force and energy, and never mastered the
art of varying her intonations, what Mlle. Clairon called “the eloquence
of sounds.” No one knew better than did she how to give expression to
the great passions: hatred, jealousy, revenge. She was admirable in the
Agrippine of _Britannicus_, inimitable in the Jocaste of _Œdipe_. But
the more human, the more tender passions: pity, tenderness, love, were
unknown to her. Thus her rendering of Phèdre, the greatest character of
the classic répertoire, was never more than moderately successful, and
compared very unfavourably with that of Mlle. Dumesnil.[104]
However, the public having with one accord decided to place the new
actress on a pedestal and fall down before her, was, for the time being,
blind to her shortcomings. Its enthusiasm increased with each
performance, until it reached a veritable frenzy. On the days on which
she was to appear, the box-office of the theatre was literally besieged
from an early hour in the morning. Servants sent by their employers to
secure places discharged their mission at the risk of their lives;
several were carried away in an unconscious state, and one is said to
have died, as the result of the injuries he received. Tickets for the
pit, costing twenty-four sous, were sold for nine or ten francs apiece,
in the court of the Tuileries, by persons who had been intrepid enough
to secure them; the prices of the other places rising in the same
proportion. The days of the Rue Quincampoix seemed to have returned.
When the time for the performance drew near, the scene almost baffled
description. All the approaches to the Comédie-Française were so blocked
with people that the actors themselves could with difficulty persuade
their excited patrons to make way for them. An enormous crowd surged
round the theatre, forced the doors, and struggled and fought for the
best places in the pit. Those who, by good fortune or superior physical
strength, emerged triumphant from the _mêlée_, arrived panting for
breath, with their clothes nearly torn from their backs, dishevelled
hair, and faces streaming with perspiration. “Do you think,” inquired an
old lady, in Grimm’s hearing, one evening, “that if it had been a
question of saving their country, these people would have exposed
themselves like this?”
The enthusiasm of the town spread to the Court, and, on January 5, the
new actress was commanded to appear at Versailles, where she seems to
have created a similar sensation. Louis XV., despite his indifference to
tragedy, sat out _Didon_ to the end, sent for Mlle. Raucourt and, after
warmly complimenting her, presented her to the Dauphiness, as the Queen
of Carthage. He also made her a present of fifty louis, and gave orders
that she should be received as a member of the Comédie without being
required to give any further proofs of her talent. Madame du Barry
hastened to follow his Majesty’s example, and offered the young actress
the choice of three dresses for her private use, or a _robe de théâtre_.
To which the girl replied that she would prefer the stage costume,
“since, in that case, the public would profit by Madame la Comtesse’s
goodness as well as herself.”[105]
After appearing four times in _Didon_, Mlle. Raucourt played the parts
of Émilie, in _Cinna_, Monime, in _Mithridate_, Idamé, in Voltaire’s
_Orphelin de la Chine_, Hermione, in _Andromaque_, and, finally, that of
Pulchérie, in _Héraclitus_, in all of which rôles, Grimm tells us, “she
showed the happiest dispositions and announced the greatest talents.”
The _furore_ she excited, so far from diminishing, continued to
increase, and not a day passed without some persons being more or less
seriously injured in the struggle at the doors of the theatre. The
climax of absurdity seems to have been reached a few evenings after her
visit to Versailles, when her admirers in the pit clamoured for “a
benefit performance for the new actress,” and refused to allow the play
to proceed until the management had announced their willingness to
accede to their patrons’ wishes, provided the Gentlemen of the Chamber
would accord them permission.
In the meanwhile, the triumphs of Mlle. Raucourt, the ovations of which
she was every evening the recipient, had begun to arouse the alarm and
jealousy of her colleagues. The two leading actresses of the company,
Madame Vestris and Mlle. Sainval the elder,[106] had been for some time
mortal enemies; but, in the presence of this newcomer, who had in a
single night relegated them both to secondary places in the affections
of the fickle public, they recognised the wisdom of forgetting their
differences for the nonce and making common cause against the
interloper. They organised a cabal; they filled the pit with their
personal friends and with hired agents, instructed to interrupt the
finest tirades of Mlle. Raucourt with jeers and hisses, and, behind the
scenes, they did everything in their power to render their young rival’s
life a burden to her. Their intrigues were fruitless, nay more, they
recoiled upon their own heads. The voices of the malcontents were
drowned in the bursts of applause, which increased in volume and
frequency the moment it became known that an opposition was at work. So
indignant were the audience that any shortcomings on the part of its
idol were at once attributed to the machinations of her jealous rivals.
One evening, when playing Monime, she forgot her part. “It is all the
fault of those Sainvals,” said the indignant _parterre_. On another, a
cat happened to stray on to the stage and interrupted the performance
with plaintive cries. “I will wager that that cat belongs to Madame
Vestris!” cried a wag in the pit; and the sally was followed by a roar
of derisive laughter.[107] The intriguers found themselves covered with
ridicule; while Mlle. Raucourt’s position grew stronger every day.
* * * * *
The extraordinary popularity of Mlle. Raucourt with the playgoing
public was enhanced by an unsullied reputation off the stage. “I
understand,” writes Grimm, “that this charming creature, so imposing on
the stage, is very simple in private life; that she has all the candour
and innocence of her age, and occupies with girlish amusements the time
not set apart for study. Many dissertations have been written with the
view of discovering metaphysically by what power a girl so young and
innocent can represent with so much power on the stage the transports
and the fury of love.” He adds that so determined was her father to
defend her chastity that he invariably carried two loaded pistols “in
order to blow out the brains of the first who should make an attempt on
the virtue of his daughter.”[108]
M. Raucourt indeed followed his talented daughter about like her shadow;
to the theatre, on her shopping expeditions, to the private houses to
which she was invited. During the performances, he mounted sentinel in
the wings, to be ready to place himself at her side the moment she made
her exit. People compared him to a jealous lover keeping watch over a
flighty mistress.
All these precautions, however, were quite unnecessary. Mlle. Raucourt
was virtuous, or rather she was virtue itself. “In vain was her heart
besieged like the box-office of the theatre on the evenings on which she
was to appear; in vain her adorers prostrated themselves before her. She
turned a deaf ear to the most brilliant propositions; she repulsed with
horror the most tempting offers.”
Soon the virtue of Mlle. Raucourt became as celebrated as her talent; it
was the talk of the town; the memoirs and correspondence of the time
are full of it. “The virtue of the new actress still keeps up.” “The
virtue of the new actress resists the numerous assaults to which it is
subjected.” “The new actress has begun to give _petits soupers_, which,
it is hoped, may lead to what she has hitherto escaped.” And so forth.
It cannot be said that the young woman lacked encouragement to persevere
in a course which, for an actress in those days, was as laudable as it
was novel. Every evening the theatre resounded with acclamations, which
were intended to be as much a tribute to her exemplary conduct as to her
beauty and talent. Devout ladies of the Court vied with one another in
giving her good advice and in enriching her wardrobe; and all manner of
flattering epithets were bestowed upon her. She was “Jeanne d’Arc at the
Comédie-Française,” “the Wise Virgin in the midst of the foolish ones,”
“Diana with the features of Venus.”
Nor was material encouragement wanting, as the following anecdote will
show:
“January 20, 1773.--Mlle. Raucourt continues to create the greatest
sensation. It is reported that the other day a man entered her
dressing-room, who informed her that she could judge from his age and
his appearance that he was not prompted by any unlawful motive, but that
he was guided solely by a profound sentiment of admiration for her
talent; that he entreated her not to be offended with one who, in his
enthusiasm, desired to give her proofs of his esteem by a little tribute
which he would lay upon her toilette-table; and forthwith deposited
there two rouleaux of one hundred louis each.” Mlle. Raucourt, the
chronicler adds, graciously replied that it was impossible for her to
refuse a gift offered in such terms, and the gentleman departed,
without making himself known.[109]
A few days later, the lady received an anonymous offer of 12,000 francs
a year, “for so long as she remained chaste.” The writer went on to say
that if she decided not to do so, and would grant him the preference,
the pension should be doubled. The _Nouvelles à la main_, which reports
this incident, informs its readers that it is not yet known which offer
Mlle. Raucourt had decided to accept; but since the anonymous
“benefactor” was commonly understood to be none other than a Prince of
the Blood, the Duc de Bourbon to wit, it would be scarcely reasonable to
expect her to continue inflexible.
The young actress, nevertheless, would accept nothing from the duke, and
her refusal placed the _comble_ upon her fame. Her enemies declared that
she must be “not a woman at all, but a monster”; her idolators could
find no words in which to express their admiration.
Voltaire was the first to besmirch the spotless reputation of Mlle.
Raucourt. It is said that so much fuss about the virtue of an actress
irritated him, and that he was annoyed because the girl’s successes in
the classic répertoire had caused the production of his _Lois de Minos_,
from which he expected great things, to be indefinitely postponed. As,
however, Voltaire, with all his faults, was incapable of deliberately
slandering a woman, it is probable that he acted in good faith, prompted
by a desire to unmask a hypocrite. Circumstance sometimes obliged the
Patriarch to play the hypocrite himself; but he hated hypocrisy in
others; and the news that a young _débutante_, solely on account of an
undeserved reputation for virtue, was being exalted above his beloved
Adrienne Lecouvreur and his favourite interpreter, Mlle. Clairon, may
well have filled him with righteous indignation.
However that may be, he wrote to his friend, the Maréchal de Richelieu,
that he was informed, on excellent authority, that, while in Spain, the
supposed immaculate Raucourt had been the mistress of a gentleman from
Geneva, who had been travelling in that country.
As ill-luck would have it, when the letter arrived, Mlle. Raucourt was
dining at Richelieu’s house, chaperoned, it is hardly necessary to
observe, by her vigilant father; young ladies who valued their
reputations did not go unprotected to visit that evergreen sinner.
D’Alembert, the Princesse de Beauvau, and Mlle. Clairon’s sometime
adorer, the Marquis de Ximenès, were also present. As every one was
anxious to know what the great man had to say, Richelieu, without
opening the letter, handed it to Ximenès, with a request that he would
read it to the company. The marquis complied, and proceeded until he had
uttered the fatal sentence, when he stopped abruptly and began mumbling
apologies. Terrible was the commotion which ensued. Mlle. Raucourt
promptly swooned away; her father drew his sword, swearing that he would
proceed to Ferney and run the Patriarch through the body; the Princesse
de Beauvau called the maladroit marquis a fool; while wicked old
Richelieu, we may presume, looked on choking with suppressed mirth.
On the morrow, the story was all over Paris. The first feeling was one
of incredulity--people are always slow to believe that idols of their
own creation have feet of clay--and both Court and town took the side of
the outraged actress, and declared that she had been grossly
calumniated. D’Alembert reported the scene at the marshal’s house, and
the feeling which his accusation had aroused, to Voltaire, who, perhaps
alarmed for the future reception of his tragedies, hastened to pour the
balm of his flattery upon the wound which he had inflicted: “I am the
aged Æson, and you the enchantress Medea.” “I have scarcely left to me
eyes to see, a soul to admire, a hand to write to you.” And then he
breaks forth into verse:
“Raucourt, tes talents enchanteurs
Chaque jour te font des conquêtes,
Tu fais soupirer tous les cœurs,
Tu fais tourner toutes les têtes.
* * * * *
L’art d’attendrir et de charmer
A paré ta brillante aurore,
Mais ton cœur est fait pour aimer,
Et ce cœur ne dit rien encore.”
But the mischief was done: no amount of epistles or madrigals could
repair it. Gradually people began to think that there might have been
more truth in the story about the Genevese lover than they had at first
supposed; Voltaire, they reflected, lived close to Geneva, and was
probably well informed. Mlle. Raucourt’s many adorers took courage; they
redoubled their attentions; they refused any longer to believe her
indignant protestations. Nothing, as the actor Fleury observes, is more
dangerous to virtue than such incredulity, nothing more disheartening
than to make sacrifices in which the world does not believe. Whether
Voltaire’s accusation was true or not, certain it is that Mlle. Raucourt
ere long came to the conclusion that she had made sacrifices enough, and
one fine day the town “learned with stupefaction” that at Compiègne,
where the troupe of the Comédie-Française was giving a series of
performances before the Court, the impregnable virtue of its idol had at
length succumbed.
It was at first reported that the fortress had surrendered to no less a
person than the King himself. “No one expected this _début_,” writes a
Parisian staying at Compiègne, “which is not likely to meet with the
success of _Didon_. But she has an excuse. What woman can resist her
King?”
Soon, however, this rumour was contradicted. It was not his Most
Christian Majesty, but his Prime Minister, the Duc d’Aiguillon, who had
triumphed over the resistance of the lady. A more unfortunate choice for
an actress who wished to retain her popularity with the Parisians could
not have been made. Next to the Chancellor, Maupeou, and the
Comptroller-General, the Abbé Terrai, d’Aiguillon was the best-hated man
in France.
Mlle. Raucourt’s intimacy with the Minister lasted but a very short
time; it was merely a _galanterie_. But, in March 1774, we learn that
she is living openly under the protection of the Marquis de Bièvre, a
young officer of Musketeers, with some literary pretensions,[110] who
had paid her debts, amounting, it was said, to 40,000 livres, made a
settlement upon her, and allowed her a handsome sum per month, for
current expenses.
The once modest and retiring young actress, as if resolved to atone for
the strict decorum she had formerly imposed upon herself, now lived a
life of the utmost luxury and extravagance. She had ten or twelve horses
in her stables, rented two or three houses, and kept fifteen servants,
while her toilettes were the envy and despair of all feminine Paris. On
Good Friday, she drove to the Abbey of Longchamps, in the train of Mlle.
Duthé and Mlle. Cléophile, the inamorata of the Spanish Ambassador, two
of the most extravagant courtesans of the time, “in a pompous equipage
drawn by four horses.” “The carriage was of an apple-green colour,
encrusted with different coloured stones, the mountings of the harness
were of silver, and the reins of crimson silk.” The chronicler adds that
it is common belief that M. de Bièvre is not the only person who pays
for these luxuries.
Soon M. de Bièvre was discarded and, “after some excursions into the
Court and financial circles,” Mlle. Raucourt accepted the protection of
another marquis, de Villette, the dissipated husband of Voltaire’s
“_Belle et Bonne_.” M. de Villette’s reign was even shorter than that of
his predecessor in the lady’s affections, and far from a tranquil one.
Not content with doing her very best to ruin him by her extravagance,
his mistress tried to inveigle him into a duel with the architect
Belanger, over some epigram which Sophie Arnould had made at her
expense, and was highly indignant when poor Villette, who was of a
peace-loving disposition, declined to humour her. After a few weeks,
they quarrelled violently over money matters and parted on very bad
terms, but not before the marquis had, by a letter to the gazettes,
taken the whole town into his confidence in regard to the way the lady
had treated him.
[Illustration: MADEMOISELLE RAUCOURT