H. Noel Williams

“ The life of the Court, which naturally possessed a great attraction for a man of Condé’s temperament, was full of snares and pitfalls. It was not for the mere pleasure of beholding their pretty faces that Catherine recruited her entourage from the most beautiful young girls in France. During the lifetime of her husband, in the days before she had been called upon to play a political rôle, Catherine had been the most austere of queens, guarding the reputation of her ladies as jealously as she did her own, and visiting with her severe displeasure the slightest breach of decorum on their part. ”

“ Some of its contents, however, have come, from time to time, into the market, from which we know that it must have been one of the most charmingly-appointed houses of the time, with its painted wainscots, its marble floors, its fluted pilasters, and its exquisitely decorated panels; a house worthy for a queen to inhabit instead of a danseuse.
The generosity of the Prince de Soubise and the devoted La Borde, lavish though it was, failed to suffice Mlle. Guimard, who, to meet her ever-increasing expenditure, found herself reluctantly compelled to associate with them a third lover. ”

“ True it is that compound of excellence is a mere compound of art; were it possible to note action, as music, then she would show a fortnight before every mien, the measure of every tone, the tension of every march on paper. She is else quite free from that disagreeable tragical hiccup so epidemical in France, and so awkwardly returning at the end of every verse; she never shakes so affectedly her head, as some others, in what you call the graceful style, forsooth; and she alone may venture some bold strokes, which would never do else with so well-bred, so elegant an audience. ”

“ I pray God that the contrary may be the case; but, however that may be, you are at present the fable and the malediction of France, and, as I believe, of all the world, even to the barbarians, if they hear of it. But can it really be possible that you have deprived of life a prince who has so much honoured and loved you? If it is, you have no worse enemy than yourself, and have consented to the damnation of your soul. Time, which is the father of truth, will speedily enlighten us on the matter of your conduct, which, I trust, is altogether contrary to the belief which everywhere prevails. ”

“ The fact of the matter was that the Sophie Arnould of 1774 was not the Sophie Arnould of 1758—not the singer who had charmed all Paris in Les Amours des Dieux and Énée et Lavinie. Her voice, always more expressive than powerful, was becoming perceptibly weaker. Her beauty, though she was still very attractive, had lost its freshness. Her frequent absences, her endless caprices, her arrogance and insolence, so long tolerated, had begun to weary not only the long-suffering directors of the Opera, but the public and the critics who influenced it. ”

“ If my complaints have moved with compassion the most insensible of hearts, when my sun failed to shine in the alleys dedicated to love, where will be those who do not share my tears in a prison into which the sun’s rays can never enter, and in which my lot is so much the harder in that I am forbidden to make known to her my cruel martyrdom? ”

“ Mlle. Clairon, a celebrated actress at Paris, seems to me the most perfect female figure I have ever seen on any stage. Her first appearance is excessively engaging; she never comes in staring round upon the company, as if she intended to count the benefits of the house, or, at least, to see as well as to be seen. Her eyes are always at first intently fixed upon the persons of the drama, and then she lifts them by degrees, with enchanting diffidence, upon the spectators. ”

“ She remained an object of admiration and emulation for all the artistes, for those who had seen her, as for those who, in later times, knew her only by renown. She united, in fact, in the highest degree, two qualities usually disconnected: the rarest talent of the singer and the greatest art of the tragédienne. She was in every sense of the word an artiste of genius. ”

“ Louis Henri de Bourbon-Condé, in fact, was neither the odious nor the incapable person whom certain historians have depicted. His courage was indisputable; if he was rapacious, he was also generous and open-handed; if he was a bad enemy, he was also a faithful friend; he possessed cultured tastes, and beneath his love of pleasure and his apparent indifference to public affairs he concealed qualities which only required to be stimulated into activity to make of him, if not a statesman, at least a formidable party-leader. ”

“ But, while denouncing his accomplices, he, to the mortification of Richelieu, kept faith with Madame de Chevreuse, and neither before the commission, nor in the private examinations to which he was subjected, could anything compromising to the duchess be extracted from him. His passion for this woman who had lured him to his destruction was as potent as ever, and from his gloomy dungeon he addressed to her letters filled with extravagant expressions of adoration, which the lovers of those days were wont to employ, but which come strangely from a man menaced by a traitor’s death. ”

“ I am so of all nature. The sun's rays kiss you too often; your tresses suffer too many caresses from the wind. The moment it toys with them, I murmur at it. The very air you breathe with too much pleasure passes between your lips. And, so soon as you sigh, I know not what affrights me, and makes me fear, among your sighs, some errant ones."
Not content with this tribute to the lady's charms, the old poet conceived the idea of writing for Armande a play in which she might impersonate the heroine, and he might portray himself in the character of a chivalrous old man in love with her. ”

“ I have heard them (her enemies) , it is true, seek to turn you into ridicule, accuse you of loving to save money, jeer at your simplicity, and laugh at you for driving about Paris in a hackney-coach. But I have also seen honest and excellent men love and admire you on account of this very simplicity. Do you think that one can see, without sympathy, without enthusiasm, an amiable and celebrated woman leave her house in a hackney-coach, when it would be easy for her to be drawn in the gilded chariot of vice and infamy? ”

“ Favoured by wind and tide, the English fleet approached in three divisions. It was an imposing spectacle. The French fleet, under the orders of Valençay, filled the canal. The mole, which since the departure of Denbigh’s expedition had been completed and strengthened by the erection of a double row of gigantic chevaux de frise, the two floating stockades, the forts, the cliffs, the banks of the canal, bristled with guns and soldiers. Thousands of volunteers from all parts of France had flocked to La Rochelle to take part in the long-expected combat and filled the ships and the boats. ”

“ Mlle. Clairon appears to merit even more praise than she has received. It is the actress, and not the play, that has moved me. This tragedy is bad, and I do not retract a single word of what I have said about it; but the actress is admirable. She improves every day; she is ridding herself little by little of her declamatory style, and making great strides towards natural acting. If she continues, she will attain to the art of the Lecouvreur. The progress which she has made is too marked and too astonishing for us not to expect still further improvement; perhaps we may even hope for perfection. ”

“ Roland, so far from being a failure, was an unqualified triumph, and, at the conclusion of the performance, Piccini was escorted home by an enthusiastic crowd of admirers. This happy result was undoubtedly due, in the first instance, to Madame Saint-Huberty’s admirable rendering of the part of Angélique. “Where is Saint-Huberty? where is she?” cried the grateful composer, as the curtain fell to the accompaniment of round upon round of applause. “I wish to see her, to embrace her, to thank her, to tell her that I owe to her my success!” ”

“ Somewhat piqued at the abruptness of his dismissal, he takes his departure, without the faintest suspicion that the most accomplished actress of the sixteenth century has been playing one of her many parts. Passing through the ante-chamber, he perceives, apparently awaiting her royal mistress’s summons, a demure damsel of disturbing beauty—it is always the freshest and most innocent-looking of the squadron who is detailed for this kind of service—who modestly lowers her eyes as they meet his, but not before he has had time to remark that they are in keeping with her other perfections. ”

“ The departure of the English left Richelieu face to face with La Rochelle, “like a lion with his prey.” But the Cardinal was well aware that it was a prey which could not be secured without a long and terrible struggle. With its strong walls, covered on two sides by marshes and on a third by the harbour, and its brave and hardy population, largely composed of seafaring men inured to perils and hardships, La Rochelle was one of the most difficult places to subdue which it was possible to imagine. ”

“ Here, as in the École des maris, Molière turns to the ethics of marriage for his materials. Arnolphe, a middle-aged bachelor, disgusted by the lack of fidelity among the married women he sees around him, comes to the conclusion that the only safeguard of a wife's honour is extreme ignorance. No young woman should know anything beyond her household and religious duties; her reading is to be confined to the Bible and the Maxims of Marriage; her only objects in life are to be the salvation of her soul and the comfort and happiness of her husband. ”

“ I believe thee, so far as it is in me to believe that which does not depend on ourselves. See what it is to love people for themselves or their virtues. For myself, I am well assured that I shall love thee always, whatever may happen, because before I loved thee, I desired for thee all thy good qualities.... My beloved, when I think that nothing stands in the way of our happiness, my heart thrills with pleasure ”

“ The devoted woman, although suffering herself, lost not a moment in hastening to her faithless husband’s side, and in lavishing upon him the tenderest care. Thanks in a great measure to her solicitude, the prince’s health was soon re-established—for his illness would appear to have been much less grave than was at first supposed—and she was able to return to her children. But the hurried journey to Troyes, and the anxiety she had suffered on her husband’s account, had exhausted her slender reserve of strength, and scarcely had she reached Condé-en-Brie, than she was taken dangerously ill. ”

“ Caprices do not agree with reason, and love is nothing else but a folly which I detest, and to which I shall strive hard not to surrender myself so long as I live. You will understand it yet, and the severity with which I have treated you will serve then only to render you more happy. Permit me to approach the matter with you, and to offer you my counsels. Be my friend; I am worthy of that, but choose for mistress one who possesses a heart quite untampered with; who has not yet repented of that trust which renders everything so beautiful; who has been neither betrayed nor deserted ”

“ On her return to Paris, Madame Dugazon found herself, if it were possible, more the rage than ever, and so completely did her popularity eclipse that of her rivals, that, on the evenings on which she did not appear, the directors of the Comédie-Italienne—that nursery of pretty women—had the mortification to see the boxes empty and their theatre a desert. ”

“ Isabelle de Boutteville, who, under the name of the Duchesse de Châtillon, was to achieve celebrity as the most finished coquette of her time, was an imperious young beauty, who already appreciated to the full the power of her own attractions. Insatiable for admiration, she disdained no conquests, encouraging and rebuffing by turns the troop of adorers who gathered about her, and rehearsing thus early with the Duc d’Enghien and the younger of the two boys who were to bear the title of Duc de Nemours the part she was one day to play with them on another stage. ”

“ For an actor to be admitted a member of so famous a company without being required to give proofs of his capabilities, was a privilege which had never yet been accorded, and the playgoing public was up in arms at what it was pleased to consider a scandalous piece of nepotism. So great was the indignation that when Desmares made his first appearance, on May 7, 1685, in Téramène, an angry scene was apprehended; but the new sociétaire's acting was so admirable that the hisses were soon drowned in a storm of applause. ”