by Lyndon Orr
MAURICE OF SAXONY AND ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR
It is an old saying that to every womanly woman self-sacrifice is almosta necessity of her nature. To make herself of small account as comparedwith the one she loves; to give freely of herself, even though she mayreceive nothing in return; to suffer, and yet to feel an inner poignantjoy in all this suffering--here is a most wonderful trait of womanhood.Perhaps it is akin to the maternal instinct; for to the mother, aftershe has felt the throb of a new life within her, there is no sacrificeso great and no anguish so keen that she will not welcome it as theoutward sign and evidence of her illimitable love.
In most women this spirit of self-sacrifice is checked and kept withinordinary bounds by the circumstances of their lives. In many smallthings they do yield and they do suffer; yet it is not in yielding andin suffering that they find their deepest joy.
There are some, however, who seem to have been born with an abnormalcapacity for enduring hardship and mental anguish; so that by a sortof contradiction they find their happiness in sorrow. Such women areendowed with a remarkable degree of sensibility. They feel intensely. Inmoments of grief and disappointment, and even of despair, there stealsover them a sort of melancholy pleasure. It is as if they loved dimlights and mournful music and scenes full of sad suggestion.
If everything goes well with them, they are unwilling to believe thatsuch good fortune will last. If anything goes wrong with them, they aresure that this is only the beginning of something even worse. The musicof their lives is written in a minor key.
Now, for such women as these, the world at large has very littlecharity. It speaks slightingly of them as "agonizers." It believes thatthey are "fond of making scenes." It regards as an affectation somethingthat is really instinctive and inevitable. Unless such women arebeautiful and young and charming they are treated badly; and this isoften true in spite of all their natural attractiveness, for they seemto court ill usage as if they were saying frankly:
"Come, take us! We will give you everything and ask for nothing. We donot expect true and enduring love. Do not be constant or generous oreven kind. We know that we shall suffer. But, none the less, in oursorrow there will be sweetness, and even in our abasement we shall feela sort of triumph."
In history there is one woman who stands out conspicuously as a typeof her melancholy sisterhood, one whose life was full of disappointmenteven when she was most successful, and of indignity even when she wasmost sought after and admired. This woman was Adrienne Lecouvreur,famous in the annals of the stage, and still more famous in the annalsof unrequited--or, at any rate, unhappy--love.
Her story is linked with that of a man no less remarkable than herself,a hero of chivalry, a marvel of courage, of fascination, and ofirresponsibility.
Adrienne Lecouvreur--her name was originally Couvreur--was born towardthe end of the seventeenth century in the little French village ofDamery, not far from Rheims, where her aunt was a laundress and herfather a hatter in a small way. Of her mother, who died in childbirth,we know nothing; but her father was a man of gloomy and ungovernabletemper, breaking out into violent fits of passion, in one of which, longafterward, he died, raving and yelling like a maniac.
Adrienne was brought up at the wash-tub, and became accustomed to awandering life, in which she went from one town to another. What she hadinherited from her mother is, of course, not known; but she had all herfather's strangely pessimistic temper, softened only by the factthat she was a girl. From her earliest years she was unhappy; yet herunhappiness was largely of her own choosing. Other girls of her ownstation met life cheerfully, worked away from dawn till dusk, and thenhad their moments of amusement, and even jollity, with their companions,after the fashion of all children. But Adrienne Lecouvreur was unhappybecause she chose to be. It was not the wash-tub that made her so,for she had been born to it; nor was it the half-mad outbreaks of herfather, because to her, at least, he was not unkind. Her discontentsprang from her excessive sensibility.
Indeed, for a peasant child she had reason to think herself far morefortunate than her associates. Her intelligence was great. Ambition wasawakened in her before she was ten years of age, when she began tolearn and to recite poems--learning them, as has been said, "between thewash-tub and the ironing-board," and reciting them to the admiration ofolder and wiser people than she. Even at ten she was a very beautifulchild, with great lambent eyes, an exquisite complexion, and a lovelyform, while she had the further gift of a voice that thrilled thelistener and, when she chose, brought tears to every eye. Shewas, indeed, a natural elocutionist, knowing by instinct all thosemodulations of tone and varied cadences which go to the hearer's heart.
It was very like Adrienne Lecouvreur to memorize only such poems as weremournful, just as in after life she could win success upon the stageonly in tragic parts. She would repeat with a sort of ecstasy thepathetic poems that were then admired; and she was soon able to give upher menial work, because many people asked her to their houses so thatthey could listen to the divinely beautiful voice charged with theemotion which was always at her command.
When she was thirteen her father moved to Paris, where she was placed atschool--a very humble school in a very humble quarter of the city.Yet even there her genius showed itself at that early age. A numberof children and young people, probably influenced by Adrienne, formedthemselves into a theatrical company from the pure love of acting.A friendly grocer let them have an empty store-room for theirperformances, and in this store-room Adrienne Lecouvreur first acted ina tragedy by Corneille, assuming the part of leading woman.
Her genius for the stage was like the genius of Napoleon for war. Shehad had no teaching. She had never been inside of any theater; and yetshe delivered the magnificent lines with all the power and fire andeffectiveness of a most accomplished actress. People thronged to see herand to feel the tempest of emotion which shook her as she sustained herpart, which for the moment was as real to her as life itself.
At first only the people of the neighborhood knew anything about theseamateur performances; but presently a lady of rank, one Mme. du Gue,came out of curiosity and was fascinated by the little actress. Mme. duGue offered the spacious courtyard of her own house, and fitted it withsome of the appurtenances of a theater. From that moment the fame ofAdrienne spread throughout all Paris. The courtyard was crowded bygentlemen and ladies, by people of distinction from the court, and atlast even by actors and actresses from the Comedie Franchise.
It is, in fact, a remarkable tribute to Adrienne that in her thirteenthyear she excited so much jealousy among the actors of the Comedie thatthey evoked the law against her. Theaters required a royal license,and of course poor little Adrienne's company had none. Hence legalproceedings were begun, and the most famous actresses in Paris talkedof having these clever children imprisoned! Upon this the company soughtthe precincts of the Temple, where no legal warrant could be servedwithout the express order of the king himself.
There for a time the performances still went on. Finally, as the otherchildren were not geniuses, but merely boys and girls in search of fun,the little company broke up. Its success, however, had determined forever the career of Adrienne. With her beautiful face, her lithe andexquisite figure, her golden voice, and her instinctive art, it wasplain enough that her future lay upon the stage; and so at fourteenor fifteen she began where most actresses leave off--accomplished andattractive, and having had a practical training in her profession.
Diderot, in that same century, observed that the truest actor is one whodoes not feel his part at all, but produces his effects by intellectualeffort and intelligent observation. Behind the figure on the stage, tornwith passion or rollicking with mirth, there must always be the cooland unemotional mind which directs and governs and controls. This sametheory was both held and practised by the late Benoit Constant Coquelin.To some extent it was the theory of Garrick and Fechter and Edwin Booth;though it was rejected by the two Keans, and by Edwin Forrest, whoentered so throughly into the character which
he assumed, and who letloose such tremendous bursts of passion that other actors dreaded tosupport him on the stage in such parts as Spartacus and Metamora.
It is needless to say that a girl like Adrienne Lecouvreur flung herselfwith all the intensity of her nature into every role she played. Thiswas the greatest secret of her success; for, with her, nature rosesuperior to art. On the other hand, it fixed her dramatic limitations,for it barred her out of comedy. Her melancholy, morbid disposition wasin the fullest sympathy with tragic heroines; but she failed when shetried to represent the lighter moods and the merry moments of those whowelcome mirth. She could counterfeit despair, and unforced tears wouldfill her eyes; but she could not laugh and romp and simulate a gaietythat was never hers.
Adrienne would have been delighted to act at one of the theaters inParis; but they were closed to her through jealousy. She went into theprovinces, in the eastern part of France, and for ten years she was aleading lady there in many companies and in many towns. As she blossomedinto womanhood there came into her life the love which was to be at oncea source of the most profound interest and of the most intense agony.
It is odd that all her professional success never gave her anyhappiness. The life of the actress who traveled from town to town, thecrude and coarse experiences which she had to undergo, the disorder andthe unsettled mode of living, all produced in her a profound disgust.She was of too exquisite a fiber to live in such a way, especially in acentury when the refinements of existence were for the very few.
She speaks herself of "obligatory amusements, the insistence of men, andof love affairs." Yet how could such a woman as Adrienne Lecouvreur keepherself from love affairs? The motion of the stage and its mimic griefssatisfied her only while she was actually upon the boards. Love offeredher an emotional excitement that endured and that was always changing.It was "the profoundest instinct of her being"; and she once wrote:"What could one do in the world without loving?"
Still, through these ten years she seems to have loved only that shemight be unhappy. There was a strange twist in her mind. Men who werehonorable and who loved her with sincerity she treated very badly. Menwho were indifferent or ungrateful or actually base she seemed to chooseby a sort of perverse instinct. Perhaps the explanation of it is thatduring those ten years, though she had many lovers, she never reallyloved. She sought excitement, passion, and after that the mournfulnesswhich comes when passion dies. Thus, one man after another came into herlife--some of them promising marriage--and she bore two children, whosefathers were unknown, or at least uncertain. But, after all, one canscarcely pity her, since she had not yet in reality known that greatpassion which comes but once in life. So far she had learned only a sortof feeble cynicism, which she expressed in letters and in such sayingsas these:
"There are sweet errors which I would not venture to commit again. Myexperiences, all too sad, have served to illumine my reason."
"I am utterly weary of love and prodigiously tempted to have no more ofit for the rest of my life; because, after all, I don't wish either todie or to go mad."
Yet she also said: "I know too well that no one dies of grief."
She had had, indeed, some very unfortunate experiences. Men of rank hadloved her and had then cast her off. An actor, one Clavel, wouldhave married her, but she would not accept his offer. A magistrate inStrasburg promised marriage; and then, when she was about to accept him,he wrote to her that he was going to yield to the wishes of his familyand make a more advantageous alliance. And so she was alternatelycaressed and repulsed--a mere plaything; and yet this was probably allthat she really needed at the time--something to stir her, something tomake her mournful or indignant or ashamed.
It was inevitable that at last Adrienne Lecouvreur should appear inParis. She had won such renown throughout the provinces that eventhose who were intensely jealous of her were obliged to give her dueconsideration. In 1717, when she was in her twenty-fifth year, shebecame a member of the Comedie Franchise. There she made an immediateand most brilliant impression. She easily took the leading place. Shewas one of the glories of Paris, for she became the fashion outside thetheater. For the first time the great classic plays were given, notin the monotonous singsong which had become a sort of theatricalconvention, but with all the fire and naturalness of life.
Being the fashion, Mlle. Lecouvreur elevated the social rank of actorsand of actresses. Her salon was thronged by men and women of rank.Voltaire wrote poems in her honor. To be invited to her dinners wasalmost like receiving a decoration from the king. She ought to have beenhappy, for she had reached the summit of her profession and somethingmore.
Yet still she was unhappy. In all her letters one finds a plaintivetone, a little moaning sound that shows how slightly her nature had beenchanged. No longer, however, did she throw herself away upon dullards orbrutes. An English peer--Lord Peterborough--not realizing that she wasdifferent from other actresses of that loose-lived age, said to hercoarsely at his first introduction:
"Come now! Show me lots of wit and lots of love."
The remark was characteristic of the time. Yet Adrienne had learnedat least one thing, and that was the discontent which came from lightaffairs. She had thrown herself away too often. If she could not lovewith her entire being, if she could not give all that was in her to begiven, whether of her heart or mind or soul, then she would love no moreat all.
At this time there came to Paris a man remarkable in his own century,and one who afterward became almost a hero of romance. This was Maurice,Comte de Saxe, as the French called him, his German name and title beingMoritz, Graf von Sachsen, while we usually term him, in English, MarshalSaxe. Maurice de Saxe was now, in 1721, entering his twenty-fifth year.Already, though so young, his career had been a strange one; and it wasdestined to be still more remarkable. He was the natural son of DukeAugustus II. of Saxony, who later became King of Poland, and who isknown in history as Augustus the Strong.
Augustus was a giant in stature and in strength, handsome, daring,unscrupulous, and yet extremely fascinating. His life was one of revelryand fighting and display. When in his cups he would often call for ahorseshoe and twist it into a knot with his powerful fingers. Many werehis mistresses; but the one for whom he cared the most was a beautifuland high-spirited Swedish girl of rank, Aurora von Konigsmarck. She wasdescended from a rough old field-marshal who in the Thirty Years'War had slashed and sacked and pillaged and plundered to his heart'scontent. From him Aurora von Konigsmarck seemed to have inherited a highspirit and a sort of lawlessness which charmed the stalwart Augustus ofPoland.
Their son, Maurice de Saxe, inherited everything that was good in hisparents, and a great deal that was less commendable. As a mere childof twelve he had insisted on joining the army of Prince Eugene, andhad seen rough service in a very strenuous campaign. Two years later heshowed such daring on the battle-field that Prince Eugene summoned himand paid him a compliment under the form of a rebuke.
"Young man," he said, "you must not mistake mere recklessness forvalor."
Before he was twenty he had attained the stature and strength of hisroyal father; and, to prove it, he in his turn called for a horseshoe,which he twisted and broke in his fingers. He fought on the side of theRussians and Poles, and again against the Turks, everywhere displayinghigh courage and also genius as a commander; for he never lost hisself-possession amid the very blackest danger, but possessed, as Carlylesays, "vigilance, foresight, and sagacious precaution."
Exceedingly handsome, Maurice was a master of all the arts that pleased,with just a touch of roughness, which seemed not unfitting in so gallanta soldier. His troops adored him and would follow wherever he mightchoose to lead them; for he exercised over these rude men a magneticpower resembling that of Napoleon in after years. In private life he wasa hard drinker and fond of every form of pleasure. Having no fortune ofhis own, a marriage was arranged for him with the Countess von Loben,who was immensely wealthy; but in three years he had squandered allher money upon his pleasures, and h
ad, moreover, got himself heavily indebt.
It was at this time that he first came to Paris to study militarytactics. He had fought hard against the French in the wars that were nowended; but his chivalrous bearing, his handsome person, and his recklessjoviality made him at once a universal favorite in Paris. To theperfumed courtiers, with their laces and lovelocks and mincing ways,Maurice de Saxe came as a sort of knight of old--jovial, daring,pleasure-loving. Even his broken French was held to be quite charming;and to see him break a horseshoe with his fingers threw every one intoraptures.
No wonder, then, that he was welcomed in the very highest circles.Almost at once he attracted the notice of the Princesse de Conti, abeautiful woman of the blood royal. Of her it has been said that she was"the personification of a kiss, the incarnation of an embrace, the idealof a dream of love." Her chestnut hair was tinted with little gleams ofgold. Her eyes were violet black. Her complexion was dazzling. But bythe king's orders she had been forced to marry a hunchback--a man whosevery limbs were so weakened by disease and evil living that they wouldoften fail to support him, and he would fall to the ground, a writhing,screaming mass of ill-looking flesh.
It is not surprising that his lovely wife should have shuddered much athis abuse of her and still more at his grotesque endearments. When hereyes fell on Maurice de Saxe she saw in him one who could free her fromher bondage. By a skilful trick he led the Prince de Conti to invade thesleeping-room of the princess, with servants, declaring that she wasnot alone. The charge proved quite untrue, and so she left her husband,having won the sympathy of her own world, which held that she had beeninsulted. But it was not she who was destined to win and hold the loveof Maurice de Saxe.
Not long after his appearance in the French capital he was invited todine with the "Queen of Paris," Adrienne Lecouvreur. Saxe had seen heron the stage. He knew her previous history. He knew that she was verymuch of a soiled dove; but when he met her these two natures, so utterlydissimilar, leaped together, as it were, through the indescribableattraction of opposites. He was big and powerful; she was small andfragile. He was merry, and full of quips and jests; she was reserved andmelancholy. Each felt in the other a need supplied.
At one of their earliest meetings the climax came. Saxe was not theman to hesitate; while she already, in her thoughts, had made a fullsurrender. In one great sweep he gathered her into his arms. It appearedto her as if no man had ever laid his hand upon her until that moment.She cried out:
"Now, for the first time in my life, I seem to live!"
It was, indeed, the very first love which in her checkered career wasreally worthy of the name. She had supposed that all such things werepassed and gone, that her heart was closed for ever, that she wasinvulnerable; and yet here she found herself clinging about the neckof this impetuous soldier and showing him all the shy fondness andthe unselfish devotion of a young girl. From this instant AdrienneLecouvreur never loved another man and never even looked at any otherman with the slightest interest. For nine long years the two were boundtogether, though there were strange events to ruffle the surface oftheir love.
Maurice de Saxe had been sired by a king. He had the lofty ambition tobe a king himself, and he felt the stirrings of that genius which inafter years was to make him a great soldier, and to win the brilliantvictory of Fontenoy, which to this very day the French are never tiredof recalling. Already Louis XV. had made him a marshal of France; and acertain restlessness came over him. He loved Adrienne; yet he felt thatto remain in the enjoyment of her witcheries ought not to be the wholeof a man's career.
Then the Grand Duchy of Courland--at that time a vassal state of Poland,now part of Russia--sought a ruler. Maurice de Saxe was eager to secureits throne, which would make him at least semi-royal and the chief ofa principality. He hastened thither and found that money was needed tocarry out his plans. The widow of the late duke--the Grand Duchess Anna,niece of Peter the Great, and later Empress of Russia--as soon as shehad met this dazzling genius, offered to help him to acquire the duchyif he would only marry her. He did not utterly refuse. Still anotherwoman of high rank, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia, Peter theGreat's daughter, made him very much the same proposal.
Both of these imperial women might well have attracted a man likeMaurice de Saxe, had he been wholly fancy-free, for the second of theminherited the high spirit and the genius of the great Peter, while thefirst was a pleasure-seeking princess, resembling some of those Romanempresses who loved to stoop that they might conquer. She is describedas indolent and sensual, and she once declared that the chief good inthe world was love. Yet, though she neglected affairs of state and gavethem over to favorites, she won and kept the affections of her people.She was unquestionably endowed with the magnetic gift of winning hearts.
Adrienne, who was left behind in Paris, knew very little of what wasgoing on. Only two things were absolutely clear to her. One was that ifher lover secured the duchy he must be parted from her. The other wasthat without money his ambition must be thwarted, and that he would thenreturn to her. Here was a test to try the soul of any woman. It provedthe height and the depth of her devotion. Come what might, Mauriceshould be Duke of Courland, even though she lost him. She gatheredtogether her whole fortune, sold every jewel that she possessed, andsent her lover the sum of nearly a million francs.
This incident shows how absolutely she was his. But in fact, becauseof various intrigues, he failed of election to the ducal throne ofCourland, and he returned to Adrienne with all her money spent, andwithout even the grace, at first, to show his gratitude. He stormed andraged over his ill luck. She merely soothed and petted him, though shehad heard that he had thought of marrying another woman to securethe dukedom. In one of her letters she bursts out with the pitifulexclamation:
I am distracted with rage and anguish. Is it not natural to cry outagainst such treachery? This man surely ought to know me--he ought tolove me. Oh, my God! What are we--what ARE we?
But still she could not give him up, nor could he give her up, thoughthere were frightful scenes between them--times when he cruellyreproached her and when her native melancholy deepened into outburstsof despair. Finally there occurred an incident which is more orless obscure in parts. The Duchesse de Bouillon, a great lady of thecourt--facile, feline, licentious, and eager for delights--resolved thatshe would win the love of Maurice de Saxe. She set herself to win itopenly and without any sense of shame. Maurice himself at times, whenthe tears of Adrienne proved wearisome, flirted with the duchess.
Yet, even so, Adrienne held the first place in his heart, and her rivalknew it. Therefore she resolved to humiliate Adrienne, and to do so inthe place where the actress had always reigned supreme. There was to bea gala performance of Racine's great tragedy, "Phedre," with Adrienne,of course, in the title-role. The Duchesse de Bouillon sent a largenumber of her lackeys with orders to hiss and jeer, and, if possible,to break off the play. Malignantly delighted with her plan, the duchessarrayed herself in jewels and took her seat in a conspicuous stage-box,where she could watch the coming storm and gloat over the discomfitureof her rival.
When the curtain rose, and when Adrienne appeared as Phedre, an uproarbegan. It was clear to the great actress that a plot had been devisedagainst her. In an instant her whole soul was afire. The queen-likemajesty of her bearing compelled silence throughout the house. Even thehired lackeys were overawed by it. Then Adrienne moved swiftly acrossthe stage and fronted her enemy, speaking into her very face the threeinsulting lines which came to her at that moment of the play:
I am not of those women void of shame, Who, savoring in crime the joys of peace, Harden their faces till they cannot blush!
The whole house rose and burst forth into tremendous applause. Adriennehad won, for the woman who had tried to shame her rose in trepidationand hurried from the theater.
But the end was not yet. Those were evil times, when dark deeds werecommitted by the great almost with impunity. Secret poisoning was acommon trade. To remove a riva
l was as usual a thing in the eighteenthcentury as to snub a rival is usual in the twentieth.
Not long afterward, on the night of March 15, 1730, Adrienne Lecouvreurwas acting in one of Voltaire's plays with all her power and instinctiveart when suddenly she was seized with the most frightful pains. Heranguish was obvious to every one who saw her, and yet she had thecourage to go through her part. Then she fainted and was carried home.
Four days later she died, and her death was no less dramatic than herlife had been. Her lover and two friends of his were with her, and alsoa Jesuit priest. He declined to administer extreme unction unless shewould declare that she repented of her theatrical career. She stubbornlyrefused, since she believed that to be the greatest actress of her timewas not a sin. Yet still the priest insisted.
Then came the final moment.
"Weary and revolting against this death, this destiny, she stretched herarms with one of the old lovely gestures toward a bust which stood nearby and cried--her last cry of passion:
"'There is my world, my hope--yes, and my God!'"
The bust was one of Maurice de Saxe.