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"Violating the Constitution." Beranger could not be induced to say anything else. Yesterday, December 5, 1850, I was at the Francais. Rachel played "Adrienne Lecouvreur." Jerome Bonaparte occupied a box next to mine. During an entr'acte I paid him a visit. We chatted. He said to me: "Louis is mad. He is suspicious of his friends and delivers himself into the hands of his enemies.
The pity, fury, and despair that filled all hearts; the cries, the maledictions directed toward Madame de Bouillon; the tears for Mademoiselle Lecouvreur; the passion of regret, the tears, the words of endearment lavished upon her. When I came to myself after a period of frenzy, Gaston Cheverny had thrown his arm about my neck and was weeping like a woman. The Duchesse de Bouillon had vanished.
Francezka, then, with a cry of despair that rang through the still, soft May evening, thrust the cobbler's boy away and leaned sobbing against the cloth wall of the theater; and the people, after a full minute of delighted amazement, broke into thunders of applause. Mademoiselle Lecouvreur and Monsieur Voltaire led the hand clapping.
She speaks herself of "obligatory amusements, the insistence of men, and of love affairs." Yet how could such a woman as Adrienne Lecouvreur keep herself from love affairs? The motion of the stage and its mimic griefs satisfied her only while she was actually upon the boards. Love offered her an emotional excitement that endured and that was always changing.
Adrienne Lecouvreur, foolish French Actress, lent him all the 30,000 pounds she had gathered by holding the mirror up to Nature and otherwise, to prosecute this Courland business; which proved impossible for him.
Jacques Haret greeted me cordially, as I say, but with good-natured condescension. He began to tell me that he had the finest child actress in his troupe he had ever seen. "So tragic, so moving, so graceful, so droll, so natural; she could, in two years more, wrest the laurels from the brow of Mademoiselle Lecouvreur herself!" So he declared, again whacking me on the back.
And Monsieur Voltaire how I hoped the king's ministers would see the usefulness of keeping him out of France! And Mademoiselle Lecouvreur how sweet and generous she would be and then came the ever-haunting thought of Francezka Capello. Where was she at this moment?
A mournful little smile came upon Mademoiselle Lecouvreur's reddened lips, and she answered: "You do not need me, Monsieur, to prove that you can write comedies or tragedies or anything else. All the muses adopted you at your birth, and if ever Adrienne Lecouvreur is remembered it will be because she was chosen by you sometimes to play the immortal parts you created."
Whether she comes to ruin, you care not; whether it lands you in prison, you are willing to take the chances; you are, in short, a scoundrel. Come, Mademoiselle Lecouvreur." "Sir," replied Jacques Haret, following them to the gate, "I am in this business for my living, not for my health, which is admirable, thank you.
He ran forward, refused to let them pay, and escorted mademoiselle to a bench under the purple blooming lilac hedge where she could both see and hear well. "It is a very great honor, Mademoiselle," said Jacques Haret, "to entertain you in my theater." Mademoiselle Lecouvreur, with that smile which won all hearts, replied: "I thank you very much, Monsieur.
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