contrived to atone for its deficiencies by reading and conversation, and
by “that precious faculty of assimilation, of transforming in the
crucible of an original nature the knowledge and the talent of others
into her own.” Her conversation was always charming and witty, though
her wit was untinged by malice--“the irony of Voltaire tempered by
feminine sweetness.” On occasion, however, she could be very severe upon
those who blasphemed her idol--good taste. One day, a hunchbacked duke,
a well-meaning, but somewhat maladroit person, was ill-advised enough
to remind her of the days, now alas! long past, when she had possessed
the most exquisite figure in Paris. Mlle. Contat, though furious at the
pleasantry, dissembled her indignation, but bided her time; and when,
the conversation happening to turn upon hunchbacked people, the duke
observed that Nature, by way of compensation, almost invariably endowed
those so afflicted with intelligence of an unusually high order,
exclaimed: “_Ah! Monsieur le Duc, vous n’êtes que contrefait!_”
Yet she was quite incapable of bearing malice, and more than once gave
proof of rare magnanimity. Placed under surveillance in her
country-house at Ivry during the Terror, she saved the life of one of
her persecutors, who, proscribed in his turn, threw himself upon her
compassion. For some days, she concealed him in her room, bringing him
his food with her own hands. Then, learning that search-parties were
scouring the neighbourhood, and that it was no longer safe for him to
remain, she took the gardener’s wife into her confidence, dressed
herself in the woman’s clothes, disguised her guest as the gardener’s
boy, and drove him in a cart laden with vegetables and milk to
Choisy-le-Roi, whence he was able to make his escape to
Villeneuve-Saint-George and the Forest of Senart.
“Men of letters and actresses,” remarks M. du Bled, “have always
possessed an attraction for one another; interest, end, character, all
create between them affinities which result in gallantry, in friendship,
and in love; the former invent, the latter execute; glory, gain,
success, and failure are their common lot; common also the place of
triumph, the judge who awards the palm and the hisses.”[163] Mlle.
Contat had many friends in the Republic of Letters, and her salon was
one of the most brilliant literary resorts in Paris. Thither came Vigée,
author of the successful comedies, _Les Aveux difficiles_, _La Fausse
Coquette_, and _L’Entrevue_; Desfaucherets, the improviser of proverbs,
whose play _Le Mariage secret_ was ascribed by the sycophantic courtiers
of the Restoration to Louis XVIII., just as they ascribed to him
Arnault’s _Marius à Miturnes_ and Lemierre’s pretty quatrain for a fan:
“Dans les temps de chaleurs extrêmes
Heureux d’amuser vos loisirs,
Je saurai près de vous amener les Zéphirs,
Les Amours y viendront d’eux-mêmes.”
--Maisonneuve, the author of _Roxelane et Mustapha_; Arnault, whose once
applauded tragedies have long since been forgotten, but whose
_Souvenirs_ are still read with pleasure, one of the intimate friends of
Bonaparte during the Directory and a confidant of the _coup d’État_ of
the 18th Brumaire; and, finally, Lemercier, one of the most original
figures of his time--Lemercier, with his half-paralysed body and
brilliant wit[164] and feverish energy, perpetually indulging in the
wildest pranks and attempting with equal ardour every branch of
literature: poems, plays, fiction, and philosophy; a courageous and
honest man, too, who declined to bow the knee to Napoleon and saw, in
consequence, his works--his chief source of income--spitefully
interdicted by the Imperial censors, and the doors of the Academy closed
against him.
Under the Empire, the reputation of Mlle. Contat rose, if possible,
still higher. Napoleon greatly admired her acting, and she frequently
played the leading parts in the theatrical troupe which followed his
victorious armies and gave performances in the towns which he had
conquered.
On January 26, 1809, Mlle. Contat married Paul Marie Claude de Forges
Parny, a retired captain of cavalry, brother--and not nephew, as
Gaboriau and several writers state--of the poet, Evarest Désiré Parny.
A few weeks later, yielding to the solicitations of her friends, she
decided to retire from the stage, after a career of thirty-four years.
It is believed that the attacks made upon her by the critic Geoffroy
were not altogether unconnected with this determination. Her last
appearance was on March 6, 1809, as the tavern-hostess in _Les Deux
Pages_, on which occasion the whole of the takings were devoted to her
benefit. The bill that evening was a triple one. First, Ducis’s
adaptation of _Othello_[165] was presented, with Talma as the Moor.
Then came _Les Deux Pages_; and the entertainment concluded with a grand
ballet composed by Gardel, for which all the leading performers of the
Opera gave their services. The Emperor and Empress assisted at the
representation, which, says the _Journal de Paris_, was “one of the most
brilliant that had taken place at the Théâtre-Français for thirty
years.” “The prices,” continues the same journal, “were more than
tripled, but, to judge by the eagerness with which the ticket-offices
were besieged, one may believe that, even if they had been _quintupled_,
it would not have prevented the theatre from being filled. Mlle. Contat
was several times called before the curtain; and all the spectators were
unanimous in demanding her reappearance after the performance, which did
not conclude until a very late hour.”[166]
After her marriage, Mlle. Contat sold her country-house at Ivry, where
she had for many years past spent a good deal of her time, and took up
her residence permanently in Paris, where her house became the resort of
some of the most agreeable society in the capital, for, as we have seen,
she was no less brilliant in private life than on the stage. Unhappily,
she did not live long to enjoy her well-earned leisure. She was already
suffering from that terrible disease, cancer, and she soon learned--by
an accident--that her doom was sealed. “She had been for some time
suffering from violent pain in her breast,” says Fleury. “Her medical
attendant, alarmed by her increasing illness, recommended her to consult
the celebrated Dubois,[167] which she accordingly did. After some
conversation with her, Dubois said: ‘Madame, I will prescribe a course
of treatment for you, which you must scrupulously follow. Call on me
again in about three days’ time, and, in the meanwhile, I will see your
doctor.’ On the appointed day, Contat repeated her visit to Dubois. He
received her in his private cabinet and, after a little conversation, he
left the room, saying he should be with her again in a few moments.
Casting her eyes on the doctor’s writing-table, near which she was
seated, Contat saw her own name written on a slip of paper. It was
merely a medical prescription and, after glancing at it, she laid it
down again. But beside it lay a sheet of paper concealed, on which
Contat also saw her name written. Unfortunately, she took it up and read
it. It was a letter which Dubois had been writing to her doctor. The
first few lines over which she cast her eye declared that the patient
was doomed, and that it would be useless to subject her to a painful
operation, which could not possibly save her. Contat fainted. Dubois, on
his return, perceived that she had perused the fatal paper. He bitterly
reproached himself with having caused, though innocently, a state of
mental despondency calculated to hurry the patient to the grave more
speedily even than the disease itself, certain as was its fatal
termination. The kind-hearted man paid her the most assiduous attention
and sought to cheer her by a faint ray of hope. But in vain; the blow
had been struck.
“Contat, however, behaved with no want of fortitude. At the first shock,
she was naturally staggered. She afterwards became almost indifferent to
her situation. Her mind was cheerful, and she retained her grace and
good-humour to the last. When in the midst of her family and friends,
she successfully concealed her pain and anxiety. In this manner, she
lived two years from the time she so strangely gained the knowledge of
her real condition; and it was only within a fortnight before her death
that she began to complain. Thus died (March 9, 1813) one of the most
brilliant actresses of which the French stage has ever been able to
boast.”
* * * * *
Amalrie Contat, Mlle. Contat’s daughter, presumably by the Comte
d’Artois, adopted her mother’s profession and made her _début_, in 1805,
as Dorine in _Tartuffe_, and the soubrette, in _Le Cercle_, with immense
success. Unfortunately, the great hopes then formed of her were very far
from being fulfilled; and when, three years later, she retired from the
stage, in order to make a rich marriage, she ranked as an actress of
only moderate ability.
VI
MADAME SAINT-HUBERTY
On a certain afternoon, early in September 1777, a rehearsal of Gluck’s
_Armide_ was about to begin at the Opera. The stage was crowded with the
artistes of both sexes, their friends and their admirers, for, as we
have said elsewhere, in those days it was the fashion to attend the
rehearsals of any new opera or play which happened to be arousing
unusual interest, and the fame of the little German composer was at its
height.
It was a brilliant assembly; youth, beauty, talent, rank, and wealth
were all represented there. The women especially were in full force, the
queens of song and the stars of the dance: Duranceray, Beaumesnil,
Sophie Arnould, Rosalie Levasseur, Laguerre, Heinel, Guimard, Peslin,
Allard, Théodore, and a bevy of minor divinities, the demoiselles of the
ballet and the ladies of the chorus, many of whose names, though unknown
to dramatic fame, were already writ large in the annals of gallantry:
the two Lilys, the blonde and the brunette; Lolotte, who had the finest
horses in Paris; Droma, whose extravagance had so completely ruined a
rich merchant of the Rue Saint-Honoré that nothing was left for the
unfortunate man but to hang himself, and Rosette, for whose favours two
abbés had recently fought.
A brilliant assembly and a bravely-dressed one too; for even the
_figurante_ drawing her eight hundred or a thousand livres a year seemed
to find no difficulty in patronising the establishments of M. Pagelle,
of _Les Traits Galants_, or M. Bertin, of the _Grand Mogol_. There was,
however, an exception. In a remote corner sat a young woman alone, whose
pale, drawn face bore the marks of cruel struggles and long suffering,
and whose simple, black gown, patched in more than one place, afforded a
striking contrast to the gorgeous toilettes around her. No one spoke to
her, no one heeded her; the gay throng was too much occupied with its
own affairs to have a thought to bestow on so insignificant a person,
until a movement on her part happened to arrest the attention of a
gorgeously-attired damsel, who, with a mocking smile, exclaimed: “_Ah,
tiens! voilà Madame La Ressource_.”[168]
At these words, Gluck, who was talking with the conductor of the
orchestra, abruptly terminated his conversation, and, turning round,
exclaimed, in a voice which could be heard by all: “You have well named
her Madame La Ressource, for one day she will be the resource of the
Opera!”
This speech would appear to have been nothing more than a jest on the
part of the composer; since never could he have even suspected, at that
time, how fully his prediction was to be verified; never could he have
foreseen the astonishing triumphs which awaited this humble _coryphée_,
still confined to the rôles of confidante and secondary divinity. For
the young woman, “thus derided by vice, thus defended by genius,” was
none other than Anne Antoinette Cécile Clavel, known to fame as Madame
Saint-Huberty!
The life of Antoinette Clavel had been a peculiarly sad one; one long
course of privation, misfortunes, disappointments, and disillusions.
Born at Strasburg, on December 15, 1756, she was now in her twenty-first
year. Her father, a musician, formerly a member of a French troupe in
the service of the Elector Palatine, and, at the time of Antoinette’s
birth, attached to the Strasburg theatre, had commenced his little
daughter’s musical education before she was well out of the nursery. The
child, like Sophie Arnould, early gave promise of exceptional talent. At
the age of twelve, she sang to her own harpsichord accompaniment, “with
so much taste and sweetness that she excited the admiration of all who
heard her.” The fame of her precocious talent quickly spread abroad, and
the managers of several foreign and provincial theatres offered her
engagements. But her father and mother, “cherishing in her the germ of
those virtues with which they had inspired her, had no mind to deliver
her youth into distant towns, to the danger of seduction by those
amiable and opulent men who delight in the criminal victories they
achieve over innocence,” refused to allow her to appear, except at the
Strasburg theatre, where “they were able to direct at its outset a
career so slippery for a young and inexperienced girl.”
Here she had the good fortune to attract the attention of the leader of
the orchestra, Lemoine, a French composer who was later to achieve
success in Paris. Lemoine, a kind-hearted and excellent man, gave the
girl lessons and allotted her a part in a little piece of his own, _Le
Bouquet de Colinette_. Never was there a more grateful pupil. In after
years, Madame Saint-Huberty made the most heroic efforts to assure the
success of the somewhat mediocre works of her first professor, of whose
kindness to her when she was a child she could never speak without tears
in her eyes.
“I used to go to his house in the morning,” she related to one of her
friends. “As it was cold and he was not well off, he remained in bed
until the morning rehearsal, in order to save wood. When I arrived to
take my lesson, I used to find him rolled up in his blankets, with a
great woollen night-cap on his head, which reached to his eyes. ‘Ah!
there you are, little one,’ he would say to me, and would throw me one
of the blankets, in which I wrapped myself as well as I could. Then I
used to sing, beating time with my feet with all my strength, in order
to keep them warm.
“In the evening, I accompanied my father to the theatre. Often I was a
_figurante_, and Lemoine, who knew that we made but poor cheer at home,
always contrived to give me some tit-bits, off which I might make a good
supper.
“My father was indebted to him for several pupils, who paid him fairly
well. Finally, he presented us to Count Branicki, an immensely wealthy
nobleman, at whose house plays were frequently performed.”[169]
Antoinette Clavel had been engaged two or three years at the Strasburg
theatre when there arrived in the city a man who described himself as
director-general of the “Menus-Plaisirs” of the King of Prussia, and
stated that the object of his visit was to seek for fresh talent for the
French troupe at Berlin. In his presumed official capacity, he had no
difficulty in procuring admission to the _coulisses_ of the theatre,
where he soon became on terms of friendly intimacy with the actors and
actresses, and with Antoinette in particular. Claude Croisilles de
Saint-Huberty, for by that high-sounding name was the gentleman known,
was still young, but had seen much of the world, of good appearance, and
a fluent talker, whose honeyed words were well calculated to excite the
imagination of inexperienced women, for whom he had all the attraction
of the successful adventurer.
He made such magnificent promises to Antoinette, and held out to her the
hope of such a brilliant career, that, one fine day, in the spring of
1775, the young girl resolved to leave her parents secretly and follow
M. Croisilles de Saint-Huberty to Berlin. Here disillusion awaited her.
The pretended director of the “Menus-Plaisirs” of the King of Prussia
proved to be merely the stage-manager of the French troupe, who could
only very partially carry out the conditions of the engagement which had
induced Mlle. Clavel to quit the paternal roof.
Whether Antoinette was Saint-Huberty’s mistress, or only, as she herself
asserted, an ambitious young artiste decoyed away by the promise of an
advantageous engagement is uncertain. But, however that may be,
Saint-Huberty was exceedingly anxious to become her husband; nor is his
motive difficult to understand. So far from having any right to the
aristocratic patronymic he bore, he was the son of a merchant at Metz,
named simply Croisilles, and had left home in order to gratify a passion
for the stage. A needy and unscrupulous adventurer, he foresaw for the
young singer a successful, and possibly a brilliant, career, upon the
emoluments of which he might levy toll; while if, by chance, her success
was not in accordance with his expectations, he would always be able to
obtain the annulment of a marriage contracted in a foreign country and
without the consent of the parents of either party. And so from morning
until night he importuned Antoinette to marry him, expatiating upon the
vast possessions of the house of Saint-Huberty--possessions well-nigh as
boundless as his love for her--which, he declared, would one day be his,
the brilliant future he could assure his wife, and so forth. Nor did he
plead in vain. At the end of four or five months, the poor girl, alone
in a foreign city, friendless, and almost penniless, had the weakness to
consent; and the marriage was celebrated on September 10, 1775, in the
parish of St. Hedgwig, the so-called Saint-Huberty being described as
“native of France, stage-manager of the French troupe of his Majesty the
King of Prussia,” and Antoinette as “Jungfrau Maria Antonia, native of
Strasburg, actress.”[170]
The young bride was very speedily enlightened as to her husband’s real
character and the motives which had led him to make her his wife. “The
third night of our marriage,” she says, in a memoir which she
subsequently drew up for an annulment of the union, “was marked by the
grossest language on the part of the sieur Croisilles, accompanied by a
pair of sound boxes on the ear, because the counterpane was more on my
side than his.” And, a few weeks later, Saint-Huberty secretly quitted
Berlin, carrying off everything of value that his wife possessed.
From Berlin, whence the too-pressing attentions of his creditors had
been the cause of his abrupt departure, M. Saint-Huberty made his way to
Warsaw, from which city he presently wrote to his wife, informing her
that he had just formed an operatic company, whose first performance
had been warmly applauded at the Polish Court, and that her assistance
alone was wanting to make it worthy to perform before the sovereigns of
the North.
The rascal’s pen must have been as persuasive as his tongue, since
Antoinette at once decided to rejoin her husband. She arrived at Warsaw,
only to find that the company which was supposed to have already
achieved such great things had, as a matter of fact, never given
anything but rehearsals. Finally, however, it gave its first performance
in public and, thanks to the efforts of the young singer, appears to
have made a very favourable impression.
Intoxicated with his success, Saint-Huberty determined to extend the
scope of his operations and establish his troupe on a permanent basis.
With this end in view, he started for Hamburg, “in search of suitable
recruits,” after which he had the imprudence to visit Berlin. It was to
venture into the lion’s den. Scarcely had he set foot in the town, than
he was recognised, arrested, and thrown into prison, where his creditors
announced their intention of keeping him until he should have paid the
uttermost pfenning.
The troupe which he had left at Warsaw, deprived of its director and its
salaries, for we may presume that M. Saint-Huberty had taken most of its
available cash with him, found itself in a parlous condition. In the
meantime, however, Antoinette had scored a great personal triumph in the
opera of _Zémire et Azor_, when the reception she met with must have
exceeded her fondest anticipations. Warsaw, in those days, was
essentially a city of pleasure; and its upper classes prided themselves
on following the manners and modes of Paris. The Opera was especially
high in favour, and, as the public was not very discriminating and
lavishly generous to those who earned its approbation, artistes of very
mediocre talent, who in Paris would have been accounted fortunate to be
received in nothing worse than silence, found themselves lauded to the
skies and loaded with gifts. The enthusiasm evoked by Madame
Saint-Huberty’s singing found vent in numerous valuable presents being
made to the artiste, who was thus enabled to realise a sum of 12,000
livres, wherewith she proceeded to release her worthless husband from
his Prussian dungeon. That gentleman, accordingly, returned to Warsaw;
but his creditors in the Polish capital, encouraged by the success which
had attended the proceedings of their fellow victims in Berlin, assumed
so threatening an attitude that, after a brief period of repose, he
judged it expedient to resume his travels, and, one fine night, suddenly
disappeared.
According to his custom, M. Saint-Huberty did not depart with empty
hands. This time he had carried off not only all his wife’s ready money,
but even the contents of her wardrobe, including the costumes which she
wore upon the stage, leaving her without resources and almost without
clothes. Happily, a wealthy and generous Polish lady, the Princess
Lubomirska, took compassion upon the unfortunate actress, refurnished
her wardrobe, and gave her shelter for three months in her own palace.
Soon, however, difficulties arose with her husband’s numerous creditors,
who endeavoured to fix upon her the responsibility for the debts which
the fugitive impresario had contracted; and, in order to free herself
from all responsibility in connection with his liabilities, Madame
Saint-Huberty was obliged to obtain from the authorities at Warsaw a
formal separation, in regard to property. And here is the declaration
which she made on this occasion, bearing date March 17, 1777:
“Before the notaries and public officers of the ancient town of Warsaw,
appearing in person, the noble dame Antoinette de Clavel, wife of the
nobleman Philippe de Saint-Huberty, assisted for the present deed by the
counsel of the nobleman Georges Godin, present and called by her to this
effect: The said Antoinette de Clavel, being of sound mind and body, of
her own full accord has freely and expressly declared and does declare
by the present act: that having learned that the nobleman Philippe de
Saint-Huberty, her husband, had quitted Warsaw, on account of the great
number of debts by which he was overwhelmed, and being ignorant even of
the place to which he had retired, and unwilling to be bound in any
manner by the debts of her husband, which he had contracted without any
participation on her part, she separates herself from all the goods and
property generally of her said husband, excepting, nevertheless, the
goods which she has acquired and brought with her; and the said dame de
Clavel declares, moreover, by a formal declaration, that she makes no
claim whatever to the said property, and approving entirely of the
present separation from the goods of her husband, she has signed the
present deed with her own hand.--Antoinette de Clavel, by marriage
Saint-Huberty, J. Godin, as witness.”[171]
In the meanwhile, the “nobleman” referred to in the aforegoing document
had settled in Vienna, from which city he wrote to his wife, to inform
her that he had arranged to open an opera-house, which he was confident
would be the means of assuring him an ample fortune, and to urge her to
join him without delay. As may be supposed, after her sad experiences,
the poor lady was inclined to regard these assurances with some
suspicion; and, on the advice of the Princess Lubomirska, she, for some
time, declined to leave Warsaw. But Saint-Huberty pleaded so eloquently
in the letters which he continued to send her that ultimately she
relented, and, in spite of the remonstrances of her kind-hearted
patroness, took the road to Vienna.
Here she quickly found that the opera-house and the brilliant prospects
had no existence, save in the imagination of M. Saint-Huberty, who was
reduced to such straits as to be actually in want of bread, and had only
sent for his wife in order to save himself from starvation. Happily,
almost so soon as she arrived, circumstances compelled the impresario to
quit Vienna in the same manner as he had quitted Berlin and Warsaw.