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And great was the astonishment of my little court when they saw their idol come back from London round and rosy. I remained several days in Paris; then I set out for Brussels, where I was to play Adrienne Lecouvreur and Froufrou. The Belgian public by which I mean the Brussels public is the one most like our own. In Belgium I never feel that I am in a strange country.
The people seemed to relish his presence, for after the second act there were cries for him, to which he responded. He was sitting with some ladies of rank catch that notary's son appearing in public except with the great! But I admit he wrote some good things. I was distressed to see the changes that two years had made in Mademoiselle Lecouvreur.
Then, glancing back, I saw Monsieur Voltaire and the Earl of Peterborough spring upon the footman's running board behind. The people gave one single loud cry of approval, and then amid the tears and farewells of thousands, Adrienne Lecouvreur was borne away for the last time from the Théâtre Français, of which she had been the chiefest ornament.
So he was still skulking in Paris! I knew the sort of persons I should meet with in that saloon and they were there. First, Mademoiselle Lecouvreur herself, fresh from the theater; the Marshal, Duc de Noailles, who called my master "My Saxe," and loved him well; old Marshal Villars, the Duc de Richelieu, an actor or two, some fine ladies, a horde of small fry and Monsieur Voltaire.
Rachel was seen upon the stage for the last time at Charleston on December 17, 1856. She played Adrienne Lecouvreur. She had been tempted to America by the prospect of extravagant profits. It had been dinned into her ears that Jenny Lind, by thirty-eight performances in America, had realized seventeen hundred thousand francs. Why might not she, Rachel, receive as much?
Plays such as Alexandre Dumas's Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle, or the pseudo-historical dramas of Scribe-Adrienne Lecouvreur, Bertrand et Raton, Un Verre d'Eau, Les Trois Maupin, etc. are amusing toys, like those social or military tableaux, the figures of which you can set in motion by dropping a penny in the slot.
Except her, he had not been fortunate in the women he had known best; and there were no more, for him, like Mademoiselle Lecouvreur. He never again spoke to the Duchesse de Bouillon. In that, he was unfailingly true to the memory of the woman who had loved him so well. This was in March of 1730. It seemed to me as if the days were growing heavier, and Paris drearier, every week that passed.
And so Mademoiselle Lecouvreur is no more and how are we all impoverished by her loss!" And much more of the same sort. In June we started for Radewitz, near the Elbe. Thirty thousand soldiers were assembled there, many royalties, including the King of Prussia and the Crown Prince Frederick, afterward known as the Great, and every pretty woman in Europe.
Monsieur Voltaire managed it all, with a delicacy, a tenderness inexpressible. Those who say that man could not love, knew not the nobility of his love for Adrienne Lecouvreur. When her will was opened it was found that nearly all of her property was left to the poor. The death of Adrienne Lecouvreur made an epoch with my master.
It is needless to say that a girl like Adrienne Lecouvreur flung herself with all the intensity of her nature into every role she played. This was the greatest secret of her success; for, with her, nature rose superior to art. On the other hand, it fixed her dramatic limitations, for it barred her out of comedy.
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