At this period, there was no regular theatre at Rouen; indeed, buildings reserved exclusively for dramatic performances were hardly known outside the capital. There were, however, two large tennis-courts, one situated in the Rue des Charrettes, the other in the Rue Saint-Éloi, the proprietors of which were always ready, at a few hours' notice, to convert them into temples of Thespis for the accommodation of any travelling company which happened to be visiting the town. M. Noury, the lady's latest biographer, thinks that it was in the second of these, called the Feu de Paume des Braques, where Molière's troupe had played in 1643, and again in 1658, that Marie Desmares made her début.

M. de Champmeslé, who is described as "a handsome man, with a distinguished air and extremely polished manners," "witty and possessed of all that is required to please and to command love," made a very favourable impression upon Mlle. Desmares. He, on his side, admired her greatly, and very possibly foresaw something of the great career which awaited her. They, therefore, determined to share each other's fortunes, and the young man, having paid a visit to Paris to obtain his parents' consent, they were married on January 9, 1666, at the church of Saint-Éloi, at Rouen.

In view of what we have already said about the practice of the Church in regard to the theatrical profession, it is not without interest to note that the acte de mariage states that the parties "practised the vocation of players," and that the banns had been published, "notwithstanding the fact that they had no intention of abandoning the exercise of their profession at lawful times."

Mlle. de Champmeslé made her first appearance on the Paris stage on February 15, 1669, in La Fête de Vénus, an insipid pastoral, by the Abbé Boyer, in which she impersonated the goddess and was much applauded. In the early months of 1670 she secured two other triumphs. The first was in an "heroic comedy," called Polycrate, also by Boyer; and it spoke volumes for the talent and charm of the young actress that the audience should have been content to sit through and applaud five acts of what appears to have been an almost worthless play. Her second success was gained in Les Amours de Vénus et Adonis, a tragedy by Donneau de Visé, in which she again represented the goddess, and Robinet chanted her praises:—

At the conclusion of the play, Racine, enraptured with the young actress's rendering of his heroine, hurried to her dressing-room, and, falling on his knees, overwhelmed her with compliments and thanks. A few days later, Mlle. Des Œillets was sufficiently recovered to pay a visit to the theatre to witness the performance of the new star; and, when the curtain fell, was seen to throw up her hands and exclaim sorrowfully: "Des Œillets is no more!"—words which, coming from an actress who sees herself dethroned by an understudy, are more eloquent than the most exhaustive commentary.

The flexibility of her voice appears to have been quite extraordinary. Melodious, soft, and caressing in rôles like Iphigénie or Monime, it became so powerful and sonorous in such parts as Phèdre, Roxane, and Hermione that, it is said, when the door of the box at the end of the salle happened to be open, it could be heard at the Café Procope, over the way. "The recitation of actors in tragedy," says the anonymous author of the Entretiens galants, "is a kind of chant, and you will readily admit that the Champmeslé would not please you so much, if her voice were less agreeable. But she has learned to modulate it with so much skill, and she lends to her words such natural tones, that it would seem that she really has in her heart the passions she expresses with her mouth." In pathetic passages, we are told, she drew tears from the eyes of the most hardened playgoers. "It was amusing to watch the ladies sighing and drying their eyes and the men laughing at them, while they themselves were hard put to restrain their emotion."

Racine was the first in the field, his Bérénice being produced at the Hôtel de Bourgogne on November 21, Floridor playing Titus, and Mlle. de Champmeslé the beautiful Jewess. Corneille's Tite et Bérénice appeared at the Palais-Royal, eight days later, with La Thorillière and Mlle. Molière in the title-parts.

An answer which nearly caused a quarrel between him and the poet.

The capital witnessed the new play in the early days of January 1675, and confirmed the judgment of the Court: indeed, for once, criticism appears to have been almost silenced, and the worst that Barbier d'Aucour, a bitter detractor of the poet, could find to say, was that Iphigénie had caused a rise in the price of handkerchiefs.

The play was accordingly produced on New Year's Day 1677, Mlle. de Champmeslé, of course, impersonating the heroine. Pradon's tragedy was to have appeared on the same evening; but the difficulty of finding an actress willing to undertake the principal rôle—it was refused by both Mlle. de Brie and Mlle. Molière—necessitated a postponement of two days, when Mlle. du Pin, a capable, but by no means brilliant, performer, played Phèdre. Pradon ascribed the refusals of the two leading actresses of the company to the machinations of Racine and his friends; but, though Racine was certainly not over-scrupulous in his dealings with his professional rivals, it is more probable that the ladies in question were, not unnaturally, reluctant to challenge comparison with the all-conquering Mlle. de Champmeslé, in a part which was obviously so much better suited to her talents than to theirs.

Racine was in despair; for that not inconsiderable section of the public which judges of the merits of a play solely by results was beginning to declare that his tragedy was a complete failure and Pradon's a brilliant success. After, however, the trick had been played for three more nights, he triumphed. Perhaps Madame de Bouillon had begun to find her amusement, which is said to have cost her 15,000 francs, the equivalent of five times as much to-day, somewhat too costly a one; or possibly Racine, discovering the tactics of his enemies, had appealed to the king for protection, and the duchess had received a hint from his Majesty that such practices were highly displeasing to him. Any way, the lady retired from the field, and, with her withdrawal, the rival Phèdres speedily found their respective levels. Nevertheless, in spite of his ultimate success, Racine never forgot the mortification to which he had been subjected, and there can be no doubt that this had not a little to do with his decision to renounce writing for the stage.

to apply to herself, begged Racine to alter or erase them. The poet, however, though he yielded the palm to no one as a flatterer of royalty, and was, moreover, under considerable obligations to the king's mistress, indignantly refused to mutilate his play. Several of those present remarked upon the verses; but Madame de Montespan had too much good sense to complain.

As Phèdre, the declamation of which, according to the Abbé du Bois, Racine "had taught her verse by verse," Mlle. de Champmeslé seems to have put the comble upon her fame as a tragédienne. Of all her creations, it is the one that La Fontaine names first in the frontispiece of Belphégor:—

The popularity of Mlle. Champmeslé was not confined to the theatre. Her house was "the rendezvous of all persons of distinction of the Court and the town, as well as of the most celebrated writers of the time." Among the former were Charles de Sévigné, Madame de Sévigné's troublesome son, the Marquis de la Fare, the author of the curious and all-too-brief memoirs, and the Comtes de Revel and Clermont-Tonnerre. The latter, besides Racine, included Boileau, Valincourt, Racine's successor at the Academy, Chapelle, and La Fontaine, "who very much regretted that he was only a friend" of his charming hostess. The utmost cordiality and an entire absence of the restraints of etiquette characterised these gatherings, and noblemen and writers met on a footing of perfect equality. "Permit me to address you," writes Boileau to the Comte de Revel, in April 1701, "in the familiar tone to which you formerly accustomed me at the house of the famous Champmeslé."

The actress's liaison with Racine was not only public but accepted by the easy morality of the day; Madame de Sévigné jests about it in her letters, and La Fontaine, writing to Mlle. de Champmeslé, mentions it as the most natural thing in the world. Many years afterwards, Boileau reminds Racine of the numerous bottles of champagne which were drunk by the lady's accommodating husband. "You know," adds he, "at whose expense."

However that may be, the lady appears to have been very far from faithful to the poet. An epigram by Boileau, which is rather too gai for us to transcribe, speaks of "six lovers" (including the husband), and of M. de Champmeslé living on the best of terms with the others and his wife. The favoured gentlemen appear to have been Racine and the four noblemen mentioned above. But the only one of the four about whose relations with the actress we have any details is Charles de Sévigné.

From the above passages, it would appear that Racine and his friend Boileau were not exactly in the odour of sanctity with their contemporaries; indeed, both were evidently regarded as corrupters of youth by anxious mothers like Madame de Sévigné.

Three weeks later, we learn that M. de Sévigné is not prospering in his love-affairs; Ninon has dismissed him, and Mlle. de Champmeslé is on the point of following her example: "A word or two concerning your brother. Ninon has given him his congé. She is tired of loving without being loved in return; she has insisted upon his returning her letters, which he has accordingly done. I was not a little pleased at the separation. I gave him a hint of the duty he owed to God, reminded him of his former good sentiments, and entreated him not to stifle all notion of religion in his breast. But this is not all; when one side fails us, we think to repair it with the other, and are deceived. The young Merveille (Mlle. de Champmeslé) has not broken with him, but she will soon, I believe.... The poor Chimène says she sees plainly that he no longer loves her, and has applied himself elsewhere. In short, this affair makes me laugh; but I wish sincerely it may be the means of weaning him from a state so offensive to God and hurtful to his own soul. Ninon told him that he was a pompion fricasseed in snow. See what it is to keep good company! One learns such elegant expressions."

According to M. Gueullette (Acteurs et Actrices du temps passé), Racine, though deeply in love with Mlle. de Champmeslé, supported patiently the numerous infidelities of the lady, "so long as he believed them to be passing fancies and that he was still beloved." But when the actress embarked upon a more serious love-affair with the Comte de Clermont-Tonnerre, and a wit wrote—

he was so bitterly mortified that he left her never to return.

At Easter 1679, in consequence of some dissensions with their colleagues, Mlle. de Champmeslé and her husband quitted the Hôtel de Bourgogne, where they had played for nineteen years, for the Théâtre Guénégaud, which, by a contract dated April 12, awarded them, "in gratitude," in addition to a full share of the profits, an annual allowance of one thousand livres. All her contemporaries are agreed that this defection was the principal cause of the fusion of the two troupes in the following year. Deprived of the services of the famous actress, the Hôtel de Bourgogne was no longer able to cope with its powerful rivals in the Rue Mazarine.

On the formation of the new company, the Champmeslés figured at the head of the list of the twenty-seven players nominated by Louis XIV., and Mlle. Champmeslé was at once recognised as the mainstay of the theatre in tragedy, as Mlle. Molière—or rather Mlle. Guérin, as she had now become—was in comedy. Her husband, too, proved himself well worthy of his place, not only as an actor, but as a playwright. His Parisien (produced February 5, 1682), as we have said elsewhere, provided Mlle. Guérin with one of her greatest triumphs, and he secured another success in his Fragments de Molière, an amusing piece, in which various characters from Molière's plays were introduced.

If any hopes had existed that the distressing incidents which had accompanied the death of the great actor-dramatist had been merely the outcome of the hostility of the Church towards a particular individual, and, as such, were unlikely to be repeated, they were speedily doomed to disappointment. Henceforth, the penalties denounced against the profession by the early councils were no longer suffered to remain a dead letter, but were enforced with the most merciless severity. The actor found himself excommunicated both in life and death. Marriage, absolution, the Holy Sacrament, baptism, all were denied him; and he was even refused Christian burial. In one way, and in one way only, could he escape this infamous proscription, which was publicly proclaimed every Sunday from every pulpit in Paris, namely, by renouncing his profession, surrendering his means of livelihood, forfeiting, in the case of a member of the Comédie-Française, the pension to which he was entitled after twenty years' service.

Two years later, Rosimont died suddenly without having had time to abjure his errors. Notwithstanding a fondness for good liquor, he was a sincerely religious man, having published a translation of the Psalms in verse, and also written, or collaborated in, a Vie des saints pour tous les jours de l'année. This fact, however, was not permitted to have any weight with the bigoted curé of Saint-Sulpice, and the remains of poor Rosimont were interred, without any ceremony, in a part of the cemetery reserved for unbaptized children.

Bossuet also asserted that actors had always been excommunicated. "The constant practice of the Church," he wrote, "is to deprive those who perform plays of the Sacraments, both in life and death, unless they renounce their art; and to repulse them from the Holy Table as public sinners." This statement, as M. Maugras points out, in his able and interesting work, Les Comédiens hors la loi, was quite untrue. Up to the time of Tartuffe, the Church had shown the greatest indulgence towards the theatrical profession, and the old canons had remained a dead-letter.

Two months later, he returns to the subject in these terms:—

"I must tell you, by the way, that I owe reparation to the memory of the Champmeslé, who died in a sufficiently good state of mind, after having renounced the play, very repentant for her past life, but especially distressed at having to die."

"There is no conversion," very justly remarks M. Larroumet, "that can possibly excuse such language as this."

Mlle. Desmares retired from the stage in 1721, and died in 1743 at the age of sixty-one.

Within recent years, interest in Adrienne Lecouvreur has been greatly stimulated owing to the publication by M. Georges Monval, the learned archivist of the Comédie-Française, of a collection of the actress's letters, preceded by an admirable biography, containing much information about the early part of her theatrical career, of which, up to that time, little or nothing was known. These letters, besides affording us a valuable insight into Adrienne's character, contain, in the opinion of eminent French critics, some truly exquisite pages, which entitle the writer to a place beside the Caylus, the Staals, the Aïssés, and other mistresses of the language of her time.

This last statement was probably true enough, as her father was a man of the most violent temper, who, after leading his family a sad life, finally became insane and had to be sent to the maison de santé at Charleville. Here, Adrienne tells us, the unfortunate man distinguished himself by "setting fire to the four corners of his room, and concealing himself in the chimney, which he had previously stopped up with the coverlet of his bed." His intention apparently was to make his escape amid the confusion which would follow the discovery of the fire, but, in the result, he was nearly burned to death. In spite of all she seems to have suffered at her father's hands, Adrienne never ceased to love him, and saw in this calamity "the chief of all her misfortunes."

When Adrienne was thirteen, a chance circumstance revealed her vocation for the theatre. She and some other children of her quarter took it into their heads to perform some plays for their own amusement, and met to rehearse at a grocer's shop in the Rue Ferou. The young people had the hardihood to attempt Polyeucte, Adrienne playing Pauline, one of the most touching of the great Corneille's heroines, and reciting the famous dramatist's verses with a fire and pathos which eclipsed Mlle. Duclos herself.

It had been arranged that the performance should consist of Pierre Corneille's famous tragedy, to be followed by a lively little play, in one act, and in verse, called Le Deuil, the joint work of Hauteroche and Thomas Corneille. In those days, we may observe, a tragedy was almost invariably followed by a comedy, the idea presumably being to dissipate the sad impressions produced by the former, and send the audience home in good spirits.

In default of a costume suitable to the period in which the action of Polyeucte passes, Adrienne had borrowed a gown of fashionable make from Madame du Gué's waiting-woman, which, unfortunately, was very much too large for her. But the little actress's talent triumphed over sartorial disadvantages, and her impersonation of the faithful wife of Polyeucte struggling against the memory of her first love was perfectly extraordinary for one of her age. "She charmed every one by a quite novel style of recitation, so natural and so true that it was the unanimous opinion that she had but a step to take to become the greatest actress ever seen upon the French stage."

Polyeucte concluded, the little actors were about to begin their performance of Le Deuil, and every one was looking forward to see whether Adrienne would shape as well in comedy as she had in tragedy, when the archers of the Lieutenant of Police suddenly appeared on the scene. The members of the Comédie-Française had got wind of this entertainment, composed of two pieces from their own répertoire; and, indeed, several of them had assisted at it. The popularity of the national theatre was just then much weakened by the rivalry of the Opera and the unlicensed playhouses of the fairs in the neighbourhood of Paris, and they feared that by tolerating such performances as the present one their receipts would be still further diminished. They accordingly sent a deputation to d'Argenson, begging him to uphold the exclusive privileges conferred upon the Comédie-Française at its foundation, and to nip the enterprise of their youthful competitors in the bud.

Adrienne had an aunt, a laundress, who numbered among her customers an actor named Le Grand, who had recently been admitted a sociétaire of the Comédie-Française, and was in the habit of increasing his professional income by training pupils for the stage. Le Grand was an amusing character. The son of a surgeon-major of the Invalides, he had received a fair education, and, after serving his apprenticeship in the provinces, had left France to accept an engagement at the Polish Court, where he had remained for some years. He seems to have owed his admission to the Comédie-Française to the patronage of no less a person than the Grand Dauphin himself, for, though an excellent teacher, he was an actor of but moderate ability, and was, moreover, so singularly ill-favoured that for some time he could not appear on the stage without being exposed to bursts of derisive laughter. His ready wit and imperturbable good-humour, however, eventually gained him the favour of the public. One night when he was being unmercifully chaffed by the pit, he came to the front of the stage, and coolly addressed his persecutors as follows: "Gentlemen, it will be easier for you to accustom yourselves to my face than for me to change it."