pf\l CI I CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A COLLECTION MADE BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 AND BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library PN 2205.C71 3 1924 027 229 461 DATE DUE "■aw. i^tmmMSLi 7 '"^ .J ^JlAU _O-aQ0n CAYLORD PniNTEDiNU 5 K. Cornell University Library The original of this bool< is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027229461 GREAT LOVE STORIES OF THE THEATRE sy ADRIENNK l.EC'OUA'REUR Great Love Stories of the Theatre A Record of Theatrical Romance BY CHARLES W. COLLINS NEW YORK DUFFIELD AND COMPANY 1911 Copyright, 1911, By duffield and company PREFACE The tinselled thrones of player-queens enjoy one prerogative, at least, of actual royalty; they too stand within the fierce white light of public attention. Apologies, therefore, need not be made to the memo- ries of the long-dead actresses whose amorous ex- ploits are recounted in the present volume; their intrigues have been permanently photographed into theatrical history. Stage chronicles are usually dull reading for the laity unless the personalities of the players, whose art is indeed wrought in running water, can be re- animated. To the typical theatre-goer, the voice, the smile, of the last new-made "star" has infinitely more interest than the names of all the mummers who have died and been buried, in unsanctified ground or Westminster Abbey, since much-men- tioned Thespis trundled out his cart. From such a view-point this work was undertaken. Certain great women of the theatre's great past have been studied as women rather than as histrionic automata. Their splendid amours, with men of great name or title, have been retold as the central episodes of their lives; and by the blaze of these passions their char- acters and their careers have been silhouetted. Love stories these papers are called, and love stories they remain. There has been no attempt. Preface however, to adopt a pseudo-fictional method. The vein of historical narrative, blended with occasional authentic anecdote, has been chosen as the proper medium, and accuracy, combined with vivacity of manner, has always been the intention. Quotations from the memoirs and obscure stage records which were the chief sources of material have been used freely, in order to keep the subject more closely within its own frame. The articles fall naturally into a chronological sequence, beginning with the early days of the Restoration and ending, in England with the dawn of the Victorian reign and in France when the Romantic movement and Louis Philippe were in the ascendant. They differ widely in mood, these old scandals; each may be read in a key all its own. In the case of Nell Gwyn, it is glittering venality; in that of Anne Bracegirdle, platonic discretion; in that of Adrienne Lecouvreur, tragic disillusion; in that of Mile. Georges, hero-worship ; and so on through the series. Each theme has been chosen for its human appeal or its psychological values; and each story, it is hoped, will be found worth the telling. c. w. c. CONTENTS PAGF I Nell Gwyn and Charles II i II Marie de Champmesl^ and Racine .... 29 III Elizabeth Barry and Thomas Otway ... 55 IV Anne Bracegirdle and William Congreve . 85 V Adrienne Lecouvreur's Lost Illusions . . 11 1 VI Margaret Woffington and David Garrick . 141 VII The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe . . . 161 VIII "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince . . . 189 IX Mlle. Georges and Napoleon 217 X The Follies of "Becky" Wells 245 XI Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clarence . 265 XII Marie Dorval and Alfred de Vigny . . . 293 ILLUSTRATIONS Adrienne Lecouvreur Frontispiece Facing page Nell Gwynne 4 {From the portrait by Sir Peter Lely.) Mrs. Bracegirdle 86 "Peg" Woffington 142 David Garrick 150 George^ P&ince of Wales 190 Mlle. Georges 218 Madame Dorval 294 GREAT LOVE STORIES OF THE THEATRE GREAT LOVE STORIES OF THE THEATRE NELL GWYN AND CHARLES II i C T^ RETTY, witty Nelly," the player-para- W"^ mour of Charles II, is an inevitable first choice for heroine when the notorious romances of the stage are viewed in their historical perspective. Hers was hardly a love story; one may respect the dignity of the tender passion, even in its illicit episodes, by making that concession. The euphemisms of sentimentality can no more be invoked when a "merry monarch" enlists a beauty of the theatre among his fine body of courtesans than when a sultan buys a new Circassian odalisque for his seraglio. Yet the liaison of Eleanor Gwyn and Charles Stuart had in its own time a certain glamour which has been enhanced by the imagi- nation of later generations; and so, with all their profligate fame upon their heads, they may be ac- corded the courtesy title of lovers. The genuine bond of sympathy and friendly afifection between I Great Love Stories of the Theatre them serves as their warrant to that honour; and Nell herself is preeminent among the frail sisterhood of peccant actresses because she, more than any of her royally-favoured successors, left a frank imprint of her dainty finger upon the pie of statesmanship. As for Charles II, there is little need to comment at length upon his lecherous temperament and amor- ous record. His incorrigibility in this regard is celebrated. He was the most immoral man of Eng- land's most debauched period, the Restoration; his propensities were of the barn-yard; he was the Chan- tecler of kings. His conquests may be tabulated, rather than discussed, in this incomplete list: Lucy Walters; Barbara Villiers, afterward Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland; Louise de Querouaille, afterward Duchess of Portsmouth; the Duchess of Mazarine; Erengard de Schulen- berg; Katherine Pegg; Mary Davis; Mrs. Holford; Mrs. Roberts, and, the most admirable as well as the most picturesque figure in the collection, Eleanor Gwyn. His progeny by the left hand were numerous; once, when appealed to by an unctuous courtier as "the father of his people," he overheard and toler- ated the sneering aside of the Duke of Buckingham: "Father of a good many of them." He stocked the peerage with illegitimate offspring; ducal patents were granted to no less than six of his natural sons; and when an encyclopaedist of the reign was pre- paring a "baronage," he had to ask the King's pri- 2 Nell Gwyn and Charles II vate advice for the proper classification and naming of these princelings of the bar sinister. So much for the miscellanies of Charles II's other amours; and now for the notable case of Nelly, whose foot was toasted as the smallest in the kingdom. A public favourite on the stage before she rose to the political importance of a royal mistress, she held the admiration of the sturdy British heart after her attainment of glittering, if dubious, eminence. Where the other paramours of the King were hated by the populace, she was beloved. A child of the people, reared in the gutters, she always possessed the sympathy of the London mob. Frank, merry and kind-hearted, her influence upon her easy-going patron was for good. She never lent herself to the intrigues of the court, and her sway held in counter- poise the malign power of her greatest rival, Louise de Querouaille, who was an instrument of corroding French diplomacy. A courtesan who founds a hos- pital for old soldiers, and who advises her protector, "Send your women packing and attend to the proper business of a king," should rightly command some respect; and these are among the white marks in favour of Eleanor Gwyn. Madame de Sevigne's letters contain vivid con- temporary evidence as to the character of Nell. In contrasting the high-born Louise de Querouaille with the illiterate actress, this sprightly gossip wrote : "Mademoiselle [Louise de Querouaille] amasses treasure and makes herself feared and respected by 3 Great Love Stories of the Theatre as many as she can ; but she did not foresee that she should find a young actress in her way, whom the King dotes on, and she has it not in her power to withdraw him from her. He divides his care, his time and his wealth between these two. The actress is as haughty as Mademoiselle; she insults her, she makes grimaces at her, she attacks her, she fre- quently steals the King from her, and boasts when- ever he gives her the preference. She is young, in- discreet, confident, wild, and of an agreeable humour. She sings, she dances, she acts her part with a good grace ; has a son by the King, and hopes to have him acknowledged. As to Mademoiselle, she reasons thus : 'This lady pretends to be a person of quality; she says she is related to the best families in France ; whenever a person of distinction dies she puts her- self into mourning. If she be such a lady of quality, why does she demean herself to be a courtesan? She ought to die with shame. As for me, it is my profession. I do not pretend to be anything better.' " It is small wonder, then, that for us Nell is the flower of Charles II's flock. The stage which she adorned before he sacrificed her art to his pleasure has honoured her as a heroine in several dramas. Douglas Jerrold depicted her in an admirable light in his comedy, "Nell Gwynne, or the Prologue," produced in 1833. In "English Nell," staged in 1900, she had the vivacious interpretation of An- thony Hope as author and Miss Marie Tempest as actress; and that same season Paul Kester's "Sweet 4 {From the fainthi^^ by Si?- Peter Lely^ NELL GWYN Nell Gwyn and Charles II Nell of Old Drury," played in England by Miss Julia Neilson and in this country by Miss Ada Re- han, presented another attractive version of her story. A third manifestation of the Gwyn vogue then prevalent on the American stage was George C. Hazelton's "Mistress Nell," in which the name-part was played by Miss Henrietta Crosman. Jerrold's comedy, now forgotten, was put forward as a rehabilitation of Nell's character. The pref- ace which stated that intention may, therefore, be quoted : "Whilst we may safely reject as unfounded gos- sip many of the stories associated with the name of Nell Gwynne, we cannot refuse belief to the various proofs of kind-heartedness, liberality, and — taking into consideration her subsequent power to do harm — absolute goodness of a woman mingling (if we may believe a passage in Pepys) from her earliest years in the most depraved scenes of a most dissolute age. The life of Nell Gwynne, from the time of her connection with Charles II to that of her death, proved that error had been forced upon her by cir- cumstances, rather than indulged in from choice. It was under this impression that the present little comedy was undertaken; under this conviction an attempt has been made to show some glimpses of the 'silver lining' of a character, to whose influence over an unprincipled voluptuary we owe a national asylum for veteran soldiers, and whose brightness shines with the most amiable lustre in many actions 5 Great Love Stories of the Theatre of her life, and in the last disposal of her worldly goods." Eleanor Gwyn (also spelled Gwynne, and Gwinn) came of such obscure stock that her birthplace is in doubt. One tradition holds that she was born in Hereford, a town which has honour enough in theat- rical annals as the scene of David Garrick's nativ- ity. A stronger claim is made out, however, for the Coal Yard of Drury Lane, in the very purlieus of London, a villainous alley which took on infamy later as the habitat of Jonathan Wild and the nest- ing place of Jack Sheppard, both of them criminals with literary prestige. Close to the Coal Yard was Lewknor Lane, which would now be called a clear- ing-house for the "white slave" traffic, but which from the viewpoint of the Restoration was merely a recruiting station for orange-girls. In this grim locality Eleanor Gwyn was born, February 2, 1650; and an orange-girl she naturally became, vending fruit and tossing banter in the pit of the King's Theatre, the first playhouse to stand on the famous Drury Lane site. She was doubtless present at its dedication, for it was opened in 1663, when she was at the proper orange-girl age of thirteen. With her arch young beauty and her ready tongue, which had every turn of vulgar repartee at its tip, she must have done a thriving business; and her exploits with the basket, coupled with Peg Woffington's a century later, have perpetuated the cry: "Oranges! Will you have any ripe China oranges!" 6 Nell Givyn and Charles II That inimitable diarist, Samuel Pepys, has given to posterity its earliest glimpse of Nell Gwyn. On Monday, April 3, 1665, Mr. Pepys indulged his pas- sion for play-going at the theatre in Lincoln's-Inn- Fields, called the Duke's House because supported by the Duke of York as the other was supported by the King. There he saw the tragedy of "Mustapha,"^ written by the Earl of Orrery, but more important than the performance to the impressionable man- about-town were his attractive neighbours. "All the pleasure of the play," he notes, was that he sat next to "pretty, witty Nelly at the King's House," and to Miss Rebecca Marshall, an actress of the same com- pany — a fact which, he naively admits, "pleased me mightily." Thus it is established that in her six- teenth year Nell Gwyn had become a player — had risen from the pit and its questionable orange-hawk- ing to the stage and its more redoubtable tempta- tions. In that same audience, Pepys also records, were King Charles II and his termagant flame, Lady Castlemaine. The cast for the drama of Nell Gwyn seems assembled in that one entry. Nell's transition from orange-girl to actress, at such an early age, is easy to conjecture. Her charm, her captivating laugh, her quick wit and vivacious manner — qualities which mark every anecdote of her —would have appealed to any discerning stage man- ager as the material from which popular soubrettes are made. Thomas Killigrew, who directed the King's House, himself a dramatist, doubtless took 7 Great Love Stories of the Theatre up the favourite of the pit as a protegee who would one day add honour to his company. Her histrionic progress was rapid, and — thanks again to Pepys — it may be traced with considerable accuracy of detail through the jumbled records of the period. One year afterward, December 8, 1666, the inveterate gossip wrote in his precious journal: "To the King's House and there did see a good part of 'The English Monsieur,' which is a mighty pretty play, very witty and pleasant. And the women do very well, but above all, little Nelly; that I am mightily pleased with the play and much with the house, the women doing better than I ex- pected, and very fair women they are." "Little Nelly" had the leading woman's role in this piece, which was an ephemeral comedy of man- ners by James Howard; she played Lady Wealthy, a rich and sophisticated widow who teases her ad- mirer, Wellbred, with unending persiflage, and hav- ing achieved his reform by that method, finally mar- ries him. The part was thoroughly adapted to Nell's personality, although she was still too young to seem a genuine widow, and was doubtless written expressly for her. A glance over the text of "The English Monsieur" and an attempt to imagine bright little Nelly in it brings to mind, as a modern analogue. Miss Billie Burke in W. Somerset Maug- ham's "Mrs. Dot." Nell Gwyn's success was so marked that she was soon cast in the "stock" or classic dramas to which 8 Nell G question ; but how am I to console myself for the in- tention of this calumny?" Love, in fact, had played another cruel trick upon Adrienne when she gave her heart into the keeping of Maurice de Saxe. He seems to have been her evil genius ; seventeen months after his reappear- ance in Paris she died under suspicious circum- stances, poisoned, according to the popular belief, which is preserved in the drama of Scribe and Le- gouve, by a jealous duchess who coveted her lover. One attempt, certainly, was made upon her life by 129 Great Love Stories of the Theatre this woman; and the case is so strange that it may be recounted in detail. Adrienne's would-be rival was Louise Henriette Frangoise of Lorraine (Mile, de Guise), wife of the Due de Bouillon. As described in a contemporary document, she was: "Very pretty; rather tall than short ; neither stout nor slender ; an oval face ; a broad forehead; black eyes and eyebrows; brown hair; very wide mouth and very red lips." Mile. Aisse, the Circassian girl who was bought in a slave-market of Constantinople and adopted as a daughter by the father of the d'Argental who figures in this story, left a series of letters which are among the most in- teresting documents of the Regency, and in them the Duchesse de Bouillon gets this bad character: "Madame de Bouillon is capricious, violent, head- strong, and much addicted to gallantry. Her tastes extend from the prince to the actor. She conceived a fancy for the Comte de Saxe, who had none for her. Not that he piques himself on his fidelity to the Le- couvreur; for, together with his passion for her, he has a thousand little passing tastes. But he was neither flattered nor anxious to reply to the impul- siveness of Madame de Bouillon, who was enraged at seeing her charms despised, and who had no doubt that the Lecouvreur was the obstacle that stood in the way of the passion that the Count would other- wise naturally entertain for her. To destroy this obstacle, she resolved to get rid of the actress." In July, 1729, Adrienne received an anonymous 130 Adrienne Lecouvreur's Lost Illusions letter, asking her to come to a designated spot in the Luxembourg gardens, on a matter of urgent import- ance to herself. Escorted by friends she kept the ap- pointment, and there found a young student of paint- ing from the provinces. Abbe Bouret, who stated that he had been offered a bribe by the Duchesse de Bouillon to poison her. According to his story, he had been approached on this subject by masked men representing the duchess, who declared that he would be richly rewarded if he carried out the com- mission, and would be killed if he did not. He was instructed to ingratiate himself with the actress by his painting, to secure entrance into her house, and to present her with some lozenges or candies which would be supplied him. Terrified by their threats, he consented, and was taken to the duchess, who con- firmed the plot and gave him the poisoned candy. After hearing this strange tale, Adrienne in- formed the police, with the young man's consent. His candies were fed to a dog, which died in fifteen minutes, and then he volunteered to submit to ar- rest until the Duchesse de Bouillon could be con- fronted by him. That lady's family, however, had great influence with both the civil and the church authorities, and the matter was hushed up for a time. Some months afterward Bouret was arrested on a lettre de cachet issued at the request of the Bouil- lons, and was imprisoned. He persisted in his story; Adrienne wrote to him, begging him to with- 131 Great Love Stories of the Theatre draw the charges if they were untrue and promis- ing to obtain his pardon if such were the case; but he continued to accuse the duchess as a poisoner. The actress sent him money, clothes, and books, and summoned his old father, a government official in Metz, to his aid. Parental pleas caused Bouret to be released after three months, but his father's ill- ness prevented him from leaving Paris at once, as Adrienne advised; and six months later he was ar- rested again on a new lettre de cachet. By this time the affair had become a public scandal, the sym- pathy of Paris being strongly in favor of Adrienne and Bouret. Although the prisoner was constantly urged to deny his story with promises of freedom, he refused. While he was stifling in an oubliette, Adrienne died, and suspicion naturally fastened upon the Duchess as having made a second and suc- cessful attempt upon her life. A few months later the terrors of the Bastille broke Bouret's spirit; he recanted, declared that he had invented the plot himself merely to gain the friendship of the actress, and swore that the Duchess was innocent. Soon afterward he was released, and so he disappears from history. Did the Duchesse de Bouillon, once exposed as a poisoner, have the diabolical hardihood to carry out her purpose while the affair was still notorious? That is one of the many unsolved historical myste- ries, although Scribe and Legouve have used the dramatist's license and caused her to poison their 132 Adrienne Lecouvreur's Lost Illusions heroine with a bouquet of drugged flowers. The documentary evidence, however, leaves a reasonable doubt as to her actual guilt, though none as to her murderous intention. Shortly after Bouret's denunciation, the Duchess brazenly appeared in a box when Adrienne was playing Racine's "Phedre." The tragedienne's usual discretion deserted her when she observed her enemy pretending to applaud her, and she turned directly toward the Duchess as she read, with un- mistakable emphasis, the famous lines which may be translated as: "I know my own treacheries, CEnone, but I am not one of those hardened women who, enjoying a tran- quil conscience among their crimes, can face the world without a blush."* The audience applauded this allusion vigorously and the Duchess left the theatre in a rage. This in- cident served Scribe and Legouve for one of the cli- maxes of "Adrienne Lecouvreur." Not long afterward, Adrienne became ill, and though she kept on playing, her health failed rap- idly. That winter the Duchesse de Bouillon tried to convey the impression that a truce had been de- clared between them, and when Adrienne was in- valided, she sent her servants with solicitous inqui- * " Je sais mes perfidies, CEnone, et ne suis pas de ces femmes hardies Qui, goutant dans la crime une tranquille paix, Ont su se faire un front qui ne rougit jamais." Great Love Stories of the Theatre ries every day. Finally, after a performance of Jocaste in Voltaire's "CEdipe," in which she seemed pitifully frail, she took to her bed, and four days later, March 20, 1730, she died. Voltaire, Maurice de Saxe and a surgeon were with her at the end, and the faithful d'Argental, hurriedly sent for, arrived a few minutes too late. The last irony of Adrienne's career came after she was at peace. The cure of her parish, an ex- tremely bigoted priest, had been called in to admin- ister the last sacrament and to receive the renuncia- tion of profession which a player had to make in order to obtain Christian burial in consecrated ground. Certain accounts say that he did not come until she had breathed her last; others, that when exhorted to repentance she pointed to a bust of Maurice which stood near her bed and exclaimed: "Voila mon univers, mon espoir, et mes dieux!" ("There is my universe, my hope, and my gods.") At any rate, she died unshriven, and the churlish priest refused her remains not only Christian burial (which was usual then), but also interment in the unconsecrated part of the cemetery reserved for heretics and unbaptized children. The latter de- nial is without precedent in all the church's spir- itual warfare against the votaries of Thespis. The following midnight, therefore, after an au- topsy, upon which Voltaire insisted and which re- sulted in a verdict of death from natural causes, all that was mortal of Adrienne Lecouvreur was taken 134 Adrienne Lecouvreu/s Lost Illusions in a coach, with only a few porters and guards of the watch in the dreary cortege, to a piece of un- claimed ground near the Seine, and was buried in quick-lime. The place was kept secret and was un- marked by stone or cross. This sudden and brutal disposition of her re- mains, directed by the police; the secrecy, the quick- lime, the concealed grave, all point to powerful in- fluences working to prevent a second autopsy. Maurice de Saxe was wanting in this emergency; he might have secured for the woman who had loved him so deeply the last honours of decent burial, but he does not seem to have made an effort in this di- rection. Voltaire, always at odds with the authori- ties, was helpless. The day after the burial, Voltaire's grief broke out in a fury of protest. He addressed a withering open letter, written in verse, to a public official, con- trasting Adrienne's furtive funeral in the dark to the elaborate obsequies of two English actresses who had recently died. Next, he spoke before the mem- bers of the Comedie-Frangaise with eloquent in- dignation, calling upon them to desert that institu- tion "until they had secured for the pensioners of the king the rights which were accorded to those who had not the honour of serving his majesty." Resolutions to this effect were passed, but were never carried out; the players loved their individual incomes more than their professional good name. Voltaire followed this protest with a splendid poem 135 Great Love Stories of the Theatre on the death of Adrienne, crying out against the sac- rilege of denying the rights of sepulture "to her who in ancient Greece would have had shrines." The Comedie-Frangaise closed its season four days after Adrienne's death, and according to cus- tom, at the final performance an eloge of Adri- enne, written by Voltaire, was read by the youngest member of the company. It concluded with these words : "I feel, messieurs, that your regrets recall that inimitable actress, who might almost be said to have invented the art of speaking to the heart and of pre- senting sentiment and truth where once had been shown little but artificiality and declamation. Mile. Lecouvrcur — permit us the consolation of naming her — made one feel in every character which she impersonated all the delicacy, all the soul, all the decorum that one could desire; she was worthy to speak before you, messieurs. Among those who deign to listen to me are several who hon- oured her by their friendship ; they are aware that she was the ornament of society as well as of the theatre; while those who knew her only as the act- ress can readily judge, from the degree of perfec- tion to which she attained, that not only had she an abundance of wit, but that she further possessed the art of rendering wit amiable. You are too just, messieurs, not to regard this tribute of praise as a duty; I dare even to say that in regretting her I am merely your interpreter." 136 Adrienne Lecouvreur's Lost Illusions Adrienne Lecouvreur, from her debut until her death, was cheated by her highest ideal — love. Her passions always ended in bitterness ; her romances in disillusion. Friendship served her better than love ; it was Voltaire and d'Argental, not Maurice de Saxe, Clavel, and the other unhappy choices of her heart, who appreciated her at her true worth. In 1786, fifty-six years after her death, an old man located her final resting place, on ground now occupied by 1 15 Rue de Grenelle. He was the ever- faithful d'Argental. The marble tablet which he placed there still exists, inscribed by verses of his own composition, indiflferent as to literary quality, but poignant in appeal when the true story of their subject is known. Adrienne's fame was flown, her loves were dust — but an old friend still remembered her gentleness, her kindness, her patience with his youthful folly. 137 GREAT LOVE STORIES OF THE THEATRE VI MARGARET WOFFINGTON AND DAVID GARRICK THE incomparable David Garrick, beau ideal of all players, began, or rather, pre- luded, his career on the stage by falling in love with an actress. Fittingly enough, the lady thus honored was none other than bewitching Mar- garet, or Peg, Woffington, the most sprightly charmer of her day. And, for a time, "little Davy" and "lovely Peggy" romanced together. The biographies of these two eighteenth-century luminaries have been so extensively exploited in memoir, chronicle, and anecdote that it is almost unnecessary to dip into the wealth of theatrical lore associated with their names. Garrick, the greater artist, has been more favoured in this regard ; libra- ries are glutted with his memorabilia. One slender volume of fiction and fact — Charles Reade's "Peg Woffington" — perpetuates his casual partner's fame, however, as effectually as a hundred-weight of musty stage histories. For all the glory of these two, their love story has been somewhat neglected — perhaps because both were discreet enough to leave no personal record of 141 Great Love Stories of the Theatre it; perhaps because, being merely a mummers' mock-wedding, it did not assume scandalous as- pects in an age when the amours of nobility alone attracted much notice. But at any rate, it is well worth the telling, in so far as it may be reconstructed. Woffington is the more sympathetic figure in the liaison, and she shall, therefore, be introduced first, according to the portrait of her greatest — but purely literary — admirer, Charles Reade. He re-creates her imaginatively as follows: "It certainly was a dazzling creature; she had a head of beautiful form, perched like a bird upon a throat massive yet shapely and smooth as a column of alabaster, a symmetrical brow, black eyes full of fire and tenderness, a delicious mouth with a hun- dred varying expressions, and that marvelous fac- ulty of giving beauty alike to love or scorn, a sneer or a smile. But she had one feature more remark- able than all, her eye-brows — the actor's feature; they were jet-black, strongly marked, and in repose were arched like a rainbow; but it was their extra- ordinary flexibility which made other faces upon the stage look sleepy beside Margaret Wofiington's. In person she was considerably above the middle height, and so finely formed that one could not de- termine the exact character of her figure. At one time it seemed all stateliness ; at others, elegance per- sonified, and flowing voluptuousness at another. She was Juno, Psyche, Hebe, by turns, and for aught we know at will." 142 •PEG" WOFFINGTON Margaret Woffington and David Garrick This description is based upon a passage in the "Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs. Woffington," written by an anonymous contemporary, and pub- lished shortly after her death. It, too, may be quoted, in order to fix the vision of bewitching Peggy: "Her eyes were black as jet, and while they beamed with ineffable lustre at the same time re- vealed all the sentiments of her heart, and showed that native good sense resided in their fair possessor. Her eyebrows were full and arched, and had a pecu- liar property of inspiring love or striking terror. Her cheeks were vermilioned with Nature's best rouge, and outvied all the labored works of art. Her nose was somewhat of the aquiline, and gave her a look full of majesty and dignity. Her lips were of the colour of coral and the softness of down ; and her mouth displayed such beauties as would thaw the very bosom of an anchorite. Her teeth were white and even. Her hair was of a bright auburn colour. Her whole form was beauteous to excess." An Irish colleen, daughter of a bricklayer, she had as a child sold "China oranges" about the thea- tres of her native Dublin, and then had taken to the stage as naturally as a duck takes to water. She became a great favourite in the Irish capital, and when she appeared for the first time as the dashing Sir Harry Wildair in "The Constant Couple," a versifier broke out in her praise as follows: 143 Great Love Stories of the Theatre That excellent Peg Who showed such a leg When lately she dressed in men's clothes — A creature uncommon, Who's both man and woman, The chief of the belles and the beaux. At the age of twenty-two, with only one costume in her wardrobe, she came to London to make her fortune. After eighteen fruitless visits, she finally gained an audience with Rich, the eccentric mana- ger of Covent Garden, and from that moment her future was assured. "It was a fortunate thing for my wife," Rich afterwards told Sir Joshua Reynolds, "that I am not of a susceptible temperament. Had it been other- wise, I should have found it difficult to retain my equanimity enough to arrange business with the amalgamated Calypso, Circe and Armida who daz- zled my eyes. A more fascinating daughter of Eve never presented herself to a manager in search of rare commodities. She was as majestic as Juno, as lovely as Venus, and as fresh and charming as Hebe." Peg Woffington was the toast of London before David Garrick had broken away from his wine- merchant's vault. As Sylvia in Farquhar's "The Recruiting Officer," as Lady Sadlife in "The Double Gallant," and as Sir Harry Wildair in "The Con- stant Couple" — which established her preemi- 144 Margaret W offington and David Garrick nence in debonair "breeches-roles" — she was tre- mendously admired. Garrick was then selling wine, yearning to desert commerce and join his fortunes with the art which, in his own words, "is really what I dote upon." His business of dispensing Red Port, Canary, Moun- tain and Malmsey to the bloods of London; his tem- peramental inclination toward the stage, and his gay tastes as a young man-about-town, all brought him into contact with the players. He was not only a constant theatre-goer, but also a habitue of the green- rooms and cofifee-houses, on speaking terms with all the celebrities, chief among whom for him was pretty Peggy Woffington. Smitten by her Sylvia and her Wildair, he sought her acquaintance and enlisted himself in the train of her admirers. Hav- ing scribbled verses from early youth, what was more natural than that he invoke the lyric muse in honour of his divinity? In the London Magazine, about that time, there appeared a ballad "To Peggy," signed D. G., which was long believed to be of his authorship. Some of its stanzas run : Once more I'll tune my vocal shell, To hills and dales my passion tell, A flame which time can never quell That burns for lovely Peggy. Yet greater bards the lyre should fit — For pray, what subject is more fit Than to record the radiant wit And bloom of lovely Peggy? Great Love Stories of the Theatre Were she arrayed in rustic weed With her the bleating flocks I'd feed, And pipe upon my oaten reed To please my lovely Peggy. With her a cottage would delight; All pleases when she's in my sight! But when she's gone 'tis endless night — All's dark without my Peggy. This song, however, was really written by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, a minor poet of the day and himself an aspirant to Peggy's favour. Gar- rick's true touch as a troubadour is to be found, rather, in these lines "to Sylvia" : Possession cures the wounded heart, Destroys the transient fire, But when the mind receives the dart Enjoyment whets desire. Your charms such slavish sense control, — A tyrant's short-lived reign I But milder reason rules the soul, Nor time can break the chain. May Heaven and Sylvia grant my suit, And bless the future hour — That Damon who can taste the fruit May gather every flower. Then, at the obscure little theatre of Goodman's 146 Margaret Woffington and David Garrick Fields, October 19, 1741, came the memorable oc- casion of Garrick's first appearance on the stage, as Richard III. That was the birth of one of the greatest histrionic geniuses the world has known; the young man leaped immediately into fame, with- out ever having played a minor role, without having worked up from an humble apprenticeship, without any systematic training whatsoever. The next day he wrote to his provincial brother: "My mind has always inclined toward the stage. All my illness and lowness of spirit was owing to my want of resolution to tell you my thoughts when here. . . . Last night I played Richard the Third to the surprise of everybody, and as I shall make very nearly 300 pounds per annum by it, and as it is really what I dote upon, I am resolved to pursue it." Joyously he embraced the new career, for it not only satisfied the longings of his ambition, but it also catered to the desires of his heart — it brought him closer to Margaret Woffington. He secured an engagement at Drury Lane almost immediately; Davy and Peggy were together, and the romance was fairly begun. Garrick's most intimate friend in the days when he first spread his wings was Charles Macklin, a burly, scholarly, roistering Irishman of consider- able repute on the eighteenth century stage. It is said that by insisting upon a realistic method of dic- tion and pantomime, Macklin anticipated the sweep- 147 Great Love Stories of the Theatre ing reforms wrought by Garrick. He was the man who introduced Davy to Peggy, and in 1742 the three of them, each an exponent of the new, natural- istic school which drove ranting and posing out of the theatre, installed themselves together at 6 Bow Street — a congenial neighborhood for the talent of the times, with Wills' cofifee-house and Tom Davies' book-shop just around the comer. Associated together in the public eye upon the stage, Garrick and Woffington soon became linked socially as well. Macklin was presently discovered to be unnecessary to their domestic arrangements, and they shortly removed to other apartments in Southampton Street, where they set up housekeeping merrily, without benefit of clergy. Peg WoiEngton had no particular reputation to lose by this bohemian union — which is not saying that she was worse than her feminine rivals in the theatre. She was, if anything, far above the average Georgian actress in the honesty of her life; hers was a clean, sunny, winsome nature ; and yet she was a child of fortune who let her fancy stray where it listed. Garrick himself had no reputation as a liber- tine, and this afifair with Woffington was, so far as is known, his only illicit entanglement. They were young, he twenty-five and she twenty-four, and deeply in love; they looked forward to marriage at some indefinite time; and so, like a couple of bright song-birds, they nested together with no pretense at concealment. 148 Margaret Wofjington and David Garrick The liaison is explained in Fitzgerald's "Life of Garrick" as follows: "The lively Garrick did not see in her merely what the men-about-town so much admired, the sau- ciness and boldness which seeks to captivate by an effrontery of speech and bearing, and a wearisome succession of 'breeches-parts,' but was taken, we may be sure, by the half-pensive, half-sad expression, and fancied an ideal that could be capable of real love and true happiness. Indeed, the whole of this amour, as it must be called, turns out on examina- tion so different from the vulgar notion handed down by the Macklins, Murphys, and others, that it becomes a valuable illustration of Garrick's char- acter. He was all through looking to an honourable attachment, an honourable establishment in life with one whom he could sincerely esteem. Under the follies and the failings which he fancied were those of the hour, he saw the generous nature, the honest purpose, the warm impulse, the sense of loyalty to herself and duty to her profession which might in time be earnest for her sense of duty to himself. Margaret Woffington, it must be remembered, had many gifts and accomplishments that were of an in- tellectual sort. She was indeed a captivating crea- ture. She could speak French admirably and dance with infinite grace, and above all, possessed a kind, generous heart that could do a good-natured thing." As good a case, with better ground, can be made out for Mistress Woffington. Later events proved 149 Great Love Stories of the Theatre that she was the more honestly devoted of the two. Their housekeeping arrangements were as unique as if devised by one of the comic dramatists of the period. It was to be a cooperative establishment; Garrick was to pay the expenses one month and Woffington the next. His income then amounted to about 1,000 pounds a year; hers to about 600. Thus they could afford to live luxuriously, and they en- tertained often; but all the honour of the situation went to Peggy. Garrick had come to London to make his fortune, and he was bent upon achieving that ambition, in the most material sense. He was no bohemian, no spendthrift; he husbanded his money, while Wof- fington was generous almost to a fault. Dr. John- son hit the actor off truly in a remark to Boswell: "He had then begun to feel money in his purse, and he did not know when he would have enough of it." So saving was David, in fact, that his economy has become a tradition. A young and successful man in love who practises unnecessary parsimony is not a figure for much hero-worship; the wits busied themselves at David's expense, and many an epi- gram has perpetuated his grudging share of that ex- periment in "trial marriage." Macklin was their most frequent guest, and being addicted to sarcasm, he has not spared his friend David in the "Mackliniana" which he left behind him. "In talk Garrick was a very generous man," he 150 DAVID GARRICK Margaret Wofjington and David Garrick remarked, "a very humane man and all that, and I believe he v^^as no hypocrite in his immediate feel- ings. But he would tell you this in his house in Southampton Street, till, turning the corner, the • very first ghost of a farthing would melt all his fine sentiments into the air, and he was again a mere manager." Dr. Johnson, too, enjoyed the hospitality of the Garrick-Woffington alliance, the association be- tween the ponderous lexicographer and the volatile actor being historic ; a great tea-drinker, he was par- ticularly fond of the bohea served by the fair hands of Mistress Peg. One evening, when Garrick was the paymaster of the month, she brewed a cup extra- strong for the honoured guest — and Garrick, "the pernickety little player," as Johnson dubbed him^ bounded up from his chair to enter an emphatic protest. "It is no stronger than I have made it before," said Woffington. "No stronger than usual! It is, madam. All last month it would have injured nobody's stomach. But this tea, madam, is as red as blood!" That year Garrick and Woffington left London for a joint engagement in Dublin, which lasted for three brilliant months. She was re-crowned queen of the Dublin heart, and he repeated his London tri- umphs before audiences said to be the most exacting in Great Britain. Woffington, as usual, was be- sieged with admirers, all of whom were jealous of Great Love Stories of the Theatre Garrick. Upon one occasion, Garrick was visiting her at the home of her mother and sister, and, the day being warm, had removed his wig to cool his head. Suddenly a fervent young lord, a great patron of the drama and a worshipper of Peg, was announced, at which Garrick took himself off to another room, forgetting his wig, which was left on the table. As soon as the visitor entered, his eyes fell on that in- criminating object. He immediately burst out into a storm of jealous rage. Peggy heard him through, and then began to laugh. She was always a better actress off the stage than on. "Yes, my lord," she said, "it is certainly Mr. Gar- rick's wig; and as I am learning a new breeches- role, he was good enough to lend it to me to prac- tise with." Thus was the noble's powerful patronage saved for herself and Garrick. Wofiington's quickness of repartee was famous. Between her and Kitty Clive there was a feud of long standing, and some of their exchanges of femi- nine banter have become classic. "A pretty face," said Kitty to Peg, "of course ex- cuses a multiplication of sweethearts." "And a plain one," retorted Peg to Kitty, "insures a vast overflow of unmarketable virtue." Mistress Clive had her revenge for that. When Peg was playing Sir Harry Wildair, she ran into the 152 Margaret Woffington and David Garrick green-room, after a scene which had been received with enthusiasm, saying: "I really believe half the house take me to be a man." "And the other half know the contrary," whipped out the evil-minded Kitty. Peg's and David's joint housekeeping lasted only two or three seasons. In 1745, Garrick was living in King Street, Covent Garden ; he had gone to play in Dublin without Woffington, and she had departed for Paris with her sister to study tragedy under Dumesnil. In 1746, he was playing at Covent Garden and she at Drury Lane; even their profes- sional association had ended. And in 1748, Gar- rick married Mile. Violette, a dancer as famous then as Genee is now, to be a virtuous family man from that time forward. Garrick's parsimony and WofBngton's love of ad- miration were the causes of their separation. They bickered over the details of household expense; they quarrelled over Peg's friendships with other men. Sl;ie always preferred masculine society, say- ing, "women never talked but of silks and satins." She was imprudent, rather than unfaithful, but Gar- rick doubtless gave some credence to the groundless scandals which were circulated about her. The only letter in Woffington's hand which is extant contains a defense against this gossip. Written to Thomas Robinson, a juvenile player, it reads in part: -- 153 Great Love Stories of the Theatre "I hear the acting-poetaster is with you still at Goodwood and has had the insolence to brag of favours from me — vain coxcomb ! I did, indeed, by the persuasion of Mr. Swiney and his assistance an- swer the simpleton's letter — fob! He did well, truly, to throw my letter into the fire, otherwise it must have made him appear more ridiculous than his amour at Bath did, or his cudgel playing with the rough young Irishman. Saucy jackanapes! To give it for a reason for the burning of my letter that there were expressions in it too passionate and tender to be shown! I did in an ironical way (which the booby took in a literal sense) compli- ment both myself and him on the success we shared mutually on our first appearance on the stage, and that which he had (all to himself) in the part of Carlos in 'Love Makes a Man,' when with an un- daunted modesty he withstood the attack of his foes armed with cat-calls and other offensive weapons. I did indeed give him a little double meaning touch on the expressive and graceful motion of his hands and arms as assistants to his energetic way of deliv- ering the poet's sentiments, and which he must have learned from the youthful manner of spreading plasters when he was apprentice. These, I say, were the true motives to his burning the letters, and no passionate expressions of mine." The man, or "jackanapes," referred to in this sar- castic screed was probably an actor and writer named Hallam, who is remembered as having 154 Margaret Woffington and David Garrick brought English companies to New York in the Colonial period. If Hallam were really the of- fender against Peg's good name, he met a merited end, for he was killed by the formidable Macklin, who thrust a cane-ferrule through his eye into the brain in a green-room quarrel. The manslaughter was accidental, Macklin having no other intention than to hasten his exit from the room, and when the case came up for trial in the Old Bailey, a verdict of not guilty on the charge of murder was rendered. Even after their separation, Woffington and Gar- rick held to their engagement to wed. She was living in a suburban home, and he near Covent Gar- den ; but the actress, always sincere in her affections, did not dream that her lover possibly had repented of his promise. The date set for their wedding drew near, and with its approach, Garrick became more and more moody. He made the attentions of a Lord Darnley the pretext of reproaches, but Peg, whose conscience was doubtless clear, took them good-naturedly, as was her wont with David's tem- pers. Finally, he appeared with the wedding ring, and tried it on her finger, which it fitted perfectly. She complimented him upon his taste, and ran on with Woffingtonian pleasantries, to which his spirits did not rise. At last she asked him the cause of his de- pression. He alleged a bad night of sleeplessness. "And pray was it this" — holding up the ring — "which has given you so restless a night?" I5S Great Love Stories of the Theatre "Well, to tell you the truth, my dear," he an- swered sourly, "as you love frankness, it was; and in consequence of it, I have worn the shirt of Dejanira for these last eight hours." Then Peg's Irish spirit arose — and who can blame her? "Then, sir, get up and throw it off," she advised cuttingly, her black eyes flashing. "I could guess the cause of your dejection. You regret the step you are about to take." Garrick did not answer, and Woffington, after waiting for his reply, went on : "Well, sir, we are not at the altar, and if you pos- sessed ten times the wealth, fame and ability that the world gives you credit for, I would not, after this silent but eloquent confession, become your wife. From this hour I separate myself from you, except in the course of professional business or in the pres- ence of some third person." He tried to make a defense, but her indignation ruled the scene, and the English Roscius sank into humiliated insignificance before the righteous fury of an actress scorned. As soon as Woffington reached her home, she returned everything that Gar- rick had given her. He replied in kind, but some- time later she remembered an expensive pair "of diamond shoe-buckles, and reminded him politely by note that they were still in his possession. His an- swer was to the effect that they were all he had to remind him of his happy hours with lovely Peggy, 156 Margaret Woffington and David Garrick and therefore he hoped she would permit him to keep them. Woffington was too proud to ask a second time; Garrick retained the precious buckles, and the cofifee-house wits had one more topic for gibes at the meanness of their first actor. Woffington then became a "co-star," according to the jargon of the present day, with Spranger Barry, a tragic actor new-come from Ireland, whose riv- alry, for a time, gave Garrick many apprehensions. He was called "the silver-tongued," and so great was his popularity and success that Garrick was forced to abandon certain roles, such as Othello and Hotspur, to him. This strong competition caused Garrick, then an actor-manager, to attempt to woo Woffington over to his side again, professionally at least, but she had been wounded too deeply to for- give. Stung by her repulse of his offers, he under- took reprisals with the pen, in a wholly despicable manner, and as an epilogue to his sentimental bal- lads to Peggy, of his early days, he printed a set of verses which began: I know your sophistry, I know your art, Which all your fools and dupes control ; Yourself you give without your heart — All may share that — but not your soul. He could be a very mean little man when he chose, this same great David Garrick. Poor Peg Woffington had a nobler soul than he. She never married, but kept on playing year after year— one of the best-loved actresses who ever 157 Great Love Stories of the Theatre stepped upon the English stage — and became almost as able in tragic as in comic roles. On May 3, I757) she made her last appearance, as Rosalind in "As You Like It." Her strength had been failing rap- idly, and though she went through the drama with her usual sprightliness, when she appeared to speak the epilogue, she collapsed. At the last lines — "If I were among you, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me" — her voice failed; she tottered, called out, "Oh, God! Oh, God!" and stumbled to the wings, where she fell helpless. The storm of applause which broke out — her last curtain call — was never an- swered. Pretty Peggy recovered from that stroke, which proved to be paralytic, enough to spend the few re- maining years of her life in charitable ministrations among the poor. She became religious, advised young girls against the stage, saying, "There is no position in life so full of incessant temptations," set- tled her fortune upon her mother and sister, and died March 28, 1760. The elegy with which John Hoole, a poet now forgotten, mourned her death expressed the senti- ment of thousands. The tribute is worth a quatrain's quotation : Farewell, the glory of a wondering age, The second Oldfield of a sinking stage ; Farewell, the boast and envy of thy kind, A female softness and a manly mind. 158 GREAT -LOVE STORIES OF THE THEATRE VII THE FAVARTS AND MAURICE DE SAXE 44^^ HE is possessed by the demon of conjugal ^^\ love," Maurice de Saxe complained of Jus- tine Favart, a pretty soubrette of Louis XV's reign. For that virtue, strange to the liber- tine eighteenth century, she and her devoted hus- band, Charles-Simon Favart, suffered incredibly, enduring imprisonment, exile, and spiritual torture. Their loyal attachment was pursued a I'outrance by conscienceless debauchery, which at last hunted it to death. Persecution rather than passion is the theme of their story. It contains plotting and cunning vil- lainy enough for a dozen melodramas. Charles and Justine Favart would have offered the one solitary example of happy marriage on the wanton stage of their day if they had been permitted to work out their own destinies. He was a clever librettist and versifier, a writer of vaudevilles and comic operas; she was a singing actress and dancer of piquant charm. They were colleagues and col- laborators as well as lovers, and they tried to live according to a creed of conjugal fidelity. But they were born in the wrong age; they were unable to i6i Great Love Stories of the Theatre cope with the evil genius of their period — incar- nated for them by the redoubtable Maurice de Saxe. That historic figure is the villain in the ro- mance of the Favarts. Heroic he may be in the other aspects of his adventurous life, but in this epi- sode he is merely base — a satyr with the craft of a wolf. Maurice of Saxony, Marshal of France, hero of Fontenoy, beau sabreur, the greatest Lothario of a lecherous age, appears here as an unmitigated beast. He deserves a lengthy introduction, how- ever, being one of the most interesting characters that can be found among the world's famous black- guards. An illegitimate son of Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, he began life as a sol- dier of fortune, and through skill in the arts of war and love he became one of the mightiest men in Europe. When twelve years old he carried a mus- ket at Malplaquet. At seventeen he was in com- mand of a regiment of cuirassiers. He appeared in Paris, with his sword for sale, when twenty-two, and entered upon a brilliant career of martial and amorous conquests. Maurice was regarded as the strongest and most handsome man of his time. As a soldier he was im- peccable; as a roue he was unsurpassed. Though untutored, with barrack-room manners that gained for him the sobriquet of "wild boar" in the salons of Paris, he was the pursued and the pursuer of women, par excellence. Don Juan is hardly to be 162 The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe mentioned in the same class with Maurice de Saxe. His liaison with Adrienne Lecouvreur, the great tragic actress, is conventional when compared with his rapacious quest of the more obscure Justine Fa- vart. Charles-Simon Favart was the son of a Parisian pastry-cook, who inherited from his father a pen- chant for writing verses. Well educated and look- ing forward to a literary career, he was forced to abandon his ambitions to manage the paternal bakery; but he tried to break the monotony of culi- nary endeavour by wooing the muse, and not with- out some success. Finally a vaudeville, accepted by the Opera-Comique, freed him from his humble traffic. This piece, called "Les Deux Jumelles" ("The Twins"), was produced on March 22, 1733. The next day he was at his shop as usual, in the full re- galia of a cook, when a coach drove up to the door and a richly dressed man asked him for the author Favart. Replying that he would summon that gifted gentleman, Favart dashed upstairs, removed his farinaceous costume, donned conventional attire, and then returned, in propria persona, to present himself to the visitor. He soon learned that good-luck had found him out. The caller proved to be a wealthy farmer- general with a passion to patronise the arts ; he had attended the premiere of "Les Deux Jumelles," and had been pleased with it, had learned upon inquiry 163 Great Love Stories of the Theatre that the author was a youth of no means, and had come to put his feet on the road to Parnassus. "I, too, have been on bad terms with Fortune," this philanthropist explained, "but she has ended by caressing me, and I can find no better way of using her favours than to employ them to the advan- tage of the arts." The financier made his promise good, and through his generous patronage Favart was able to give his entire attention to playwriting. During the next few years he provided the minor theatres of Paris with more than twenty pieces, one of which, "La Chercheuse d'Esprit," given at the Opera- Comique in 1741, had such an unusual success that the author threw aside the anonymity under which he had been working. In 1744 his talent was recog- nized by an appointment as manager of the Opera- Comique. Not long after Favart had entered upon his new duties, he received a letter from a woman who sought an engagement for her daughter, a singer and dancer. He answered in an encouraging tone, and in the due course of events mother and daughter presented themselves. That one interview was all Favart needed to be certain that he had found a jewel. The girl was Marie-Justine-Benoit Duron- ceray, then in her eighteenth year, vivacious, pretty, and accomplished. Favart engaged her at once, and provided her with a role in the vaudeville he was then writing to celebrate the marriage of the 164 The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe Dauphin with the Infanta Maria Theresa— "Les Fetes Publiques," it was called. Under the name of Mile. Chantilly, which she retained for profes- sional uses, Justine made her debut, and was very successful, her piquant personality delighting the frequenters of the Opera-Comique. It seems to have been a case of love at first sight between Favart and Justine. His heart, at any rate, was lost to the young soubrette without delay, and instead of taking advantage of his position by exact- ing from her the droit du directeur and making her his mistress — the customary thing then — he pro- posed honorable marriage. They were wedded December 12, 1745, in the church of St. Pierre-aux- Boeufs, a favourite altar for couples who wished to keep their union secret. Justine's father was not present at the ceremony, his consent being given in writing — a fact which was brought up years after- ward to ruin them. To illustrate Favart's simple, honest temperament and his absolute devotion to Justine, a letter written to her in their period of betrothal may be quoted. It has a winsome ring: "Take care of your health ; remember that mine is involved in it. You will take more care of your- self if you have any regard for me, who love you more than life; though do not take offense, for my very sentiments are your eulogy. Your talents se- duce me, but your virtue binds me." They were wedded in the face of adversity. Fa- 165 Great Love Stories of the Theatre vart's vaudevilles and Justine's singing had acquired such a vogue at the Opera-Comique that the Come- die-Frangaise and the Comedie-Italienne, jealous of rivalry, conspired together for the suppression of that house, and shortly after the marriage their in- trigues were successful. This act of official injus- tice was tempered by permission for Favart to open a theatre at the fair of St. Laurent for a brief season, and there he transferred his company, putting on a pantomime called "Les Vendages de Tempe," in which Justine was again successful. But when that engagement was over the Favarts found their occu- pation gone. Enter then, Maurice de Saxe, dis- guised as a generous patron. This was fifteen years after the death of Adrienne Lecouvreur. Maurice was now Marshal of France and commander-in- chief of Louis XV's armies, and was waging the war of the Austrian succession. The Marshal of France, whom Favart had met at some literary salon not long before, was a great fre- quenter of the theatre. Such was his zeal for the stage, and its women, that he encouraged troupes to follow his armies on campaigns. He proposed to the author-manager, therefore, that he organise a company to go with the French army into Flanders, where the destiny of the Austrian crown was about to be decided. One troupe of the kind, managed by a rival, was already in the field, and Favart, though low in funds and uncertain of prospects, hesitated, fearing the professional jealousy which 1 66 The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe would result from his competition. Then Maurice promised to transfer the other players to Marshal Loewenthal's division and attach Favart's to his own, under his personal protection. Favart saw in this offer only a godlike beneficence — he was curiously blind to evil — and accepted gladly. His official appointment as entertainer to Maurice and his warriors on the battlefields was couched by the patronising commander-in-chief in the following terms : "The favourable report that has been made about you, monsieur, has induced me to choose you, in pref- erence to all others, in order to give you the exclu- sive management of my comedy company. I am persuaded that you will use every endeavor to ensure its success; but do not imagine that I look upon it merely as an object of amusement; it enters into my political views and into the plan of my military operations. I will advise you what you will have to do in this respect when occasion arises, and, in the meantime, I count upon your discretion and punc- tuality. You are from this moment at liberty to make all your arrangements for opening your thea- tre in Brussels in the month of April next." Accordingly, Favart leased a theatre in Brussels and organised a company. Upon Maurice's entry into that city a terrific peal of thunder was heard, and the people began to construe it as an evil omen for the French arms. Favart, however, as military vaudevillist, undertook to dispel that superstition 167 Great Love Stories of the Theatre with verses, which may be Englished, in part, as fol- lows: Is this our brave general Ushered in by Bellona? It seems the great marshal In propria persona. But no ! I can see by the glance of his eye 'Tis the godhead of wars; — By the bolt and the wrath of the sky Zeus announces grim Mars.* Favart's company gave their first performance that evening, and were received with enthusiasm. An officer who thought these festivities inappro- priate for the opening of a serious campaign asked the author-manager with a sneer what service a mere poet could be to an army, and received the proud answer: "To celebrate the exploits of our soldiers and satirise the enemy." Although his headquarters were in Brussels, Fa- * Est-ce la notre general Que ramene Bellone? — Eh ! oui, c'est ce grand marechal, C'est lui-meme en personne. — Non; je le vois a ses regards C'est le Dieu de la guerre, Et Jupiter announce Mars Par un coup de tonnerre. 1 68 The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe vart's contract compelled him to follow Maurice's army with his entire company, of which Justine was the star. This entailed many hardships; rations were not abundant, and the means of transportation were primitive. At one time Favart passed three days and nights without sleep save for occasional naps leaning against a tree, ankle-deep in water. The players were subject to the terrors as well as the privations of war, for the enemy's cavalry — savage Croats and Pandours — were always hovering on the flanks of the army and ravaging the country almost within a musket-shot of the French lines. For pro- tection against attack, thirty men were told off as the company's escort. Upon one occasion the little caravan was waylaid by a troop of hussars four times their number; the fighting was bitter hand-to-hand work, and when reinforcements arrived to save the players, only six members of the escort survived. He who came off most happily among those gallant soldiers had not less than four saber wounds to his credit. Maurice did all in his power to make this adven- turous life easy for his proteges. His gifts were generous, some of the items recorded in Favart's memoirs including three horses for their coach, a camp-bed of red satin, and twenty-five bottles of Hungarian wine. The marshal also informed Fa- vart that he might draw upon him for whatever moneys he needed. In his simplicity the librettist believed that these kindnesses were tributes to his 169 Great Love Stories of the Theatre own literary and dramatic genius, though in reality they were to win the good graces of Justine. In October, 1746, when the army of allied English and German troops was close at hand, Maurice sent for Favart, who had erected a theatre in the market- place of a small town occupied by the French, and said: "To-morrow I shall give battle, but as yet I have issued no orders to that effect. Announce it this evening at the performance, in couplets suitable to the occasion. Until then let nothing be said." Favart obeyed to the letter, and his song was sung by Justine between the two vaudevilles of the even- ing. Maurice's staff was amazed at this issuance of a general order for battle through the medium of a topical ballad, but the marshal, who sat in a box, smilingly acquitted Favart of madness and con- firmed the news. Two days later the battle of Rou- coux was fought and the enemy was routed. All this time Favart had been living in a fool's paradise, drinking in the favor of the marshal. Maurice, although fifty years old and glutted with mistresses from his youth, was endeavouring to se- duce Justine under the very eyes of her trusting, un- suspicious husband. The companies that followed Maurice's armies, at his own solicitation and ex- pense, were seraglios for this Turk, and his lecherous intentions had centered chiefly upon the young sou- brette. He had admired her ever since her debut in Paris, had made Favart this offer as a means of 170 / I The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe winning her, and had been exerting all his arts of fascination, reputed irresistible, upon her while Favart was celebrating his glory in fluent, graceful verse. Justine, however, reversed precedent; she abominated the marshal, and when compared with her adored husband this paramour of queens filled her with intense disgust. All of which is made clear in an ill-spelled letter from Maurice to his sister, the Princess Von Holstein, dated March lo, 1747, that — in its printable section — reads as fol- lows: "Finally, I want to tell you that for three years I have been in love with a little girl who treats me badly, and who has turned my head completely; I wrote you something about her last year. She is possessed by the demon of conjugal love. I have tried two or three times to seduce her." To Justine herself, about the same time, he wrote : "I take leave of you ; you are an enchantress more dangerous than the late Madame Armide. Whether as Pierrot, whether under the guise of Love, or even as a simple shepherdess, you are so excellent that you enchant us all. I have seen myself on the point of succumbing — I, whose fatal art affrights the world. What a triumph for you had you been able to make me submit to your laws! I thank you for not hav- ing used all your powers; you might well pass for a young sorceress, with your shepherd's crook, which is nothing else than the magic wand with which the poor prince of the French, who, I fancy, 171 Great Love Stories of the Theatre they called Renaud, was struck. Already I have seen myself surrounded with flowers and fleurettes, fatal equipment for the favourites of Mars. I shud- der at it; and what would the King of France and Navarre have said if, in place of the torch of his vengeance, he had found me with a garland in my hand?" This high-flown epistle, doubtless written for the illiterate marshal by a cultured aide-de-camp, ends with a quatrain of verses, ostensibly original, but in reality pilfered from Voltaire. Maurice had neither an amorous nor a literary conscience. The outcome of this wooing is in doubt; some of the biographers hold that Justine escaped the mach- inations of Maurice; but the most reliable evidence indicates that she succumbed, through fear for her- self and her husband. Then, still "possessed by the demon of conjugal love," she became stricken with remorse. Maurice's return to Paris in the winter of 1747 gave her an opportunity to renounce her slavery, and when he reappeared in the field she firmly refused to resume the degrading relationship with him. The sultanic marshal went into battle with the repulse still rankling in his bosom, smashed the allies at Lawfeld, and then returned to break the spirit of his rebellious odalisque. Harassed by importunities, Justine at last took the horrible story to her husband, freely confessing her fault and asking for his protection. Favart was broad-minded enough to see that he himself was 172 The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe partly culpable by having brought his young wife within the reach of the libertine Maurice. He for- gave her freely, and that night they slipped away from the army together, going to Brussels, where Justine, who was ill, was placed under the chaper- onage of a friendly duchess. Favart then went back to his company to forget his shame in his work, having no recourse, as a humble playwright, against such depredations on the part of the noble Maurice. The letter which he wrote to her immediately after his return is an eloquent comment upon the situa- tion: "I have arrived in good health, my dear little buffoon; your own occasions me much uneasiness. Send me the surgeon's certificate, that I may show it to the marshal. The gossip of the troupe has caused a report to be circulated that your illness is only an awkwardly devised piece of trickery to con- ceal your fears and my jealousy. I replied that there was no cause for jealousy, and that to suspect you was to insult you. M. de La Grolet [a surgeon in Brussels] is to be consulted as to whether you are in a fit state to rejoin the army, and a threat has been conveyed to me that you shall be brought here for- cibly by grenadiers, and that I shall be punished for having invented the story of your illness. For my- self, I care little for their threats; but I cannot for- give myself for having brought you to a country where you are exposed to such tyranny. ... If any attempt be made to send you back, implore as- 173 Great Love Stories of the Theatre sistance of the Duchesse de Chevreuse; she has too keen a sense of justice to refuse you her protection in a matter of such importance, and the kindness with which she has honoured us is a sure proof of that. She can tell M. de La Grolet that your health does not permit of your undertaking so trying a jour- ney. Against such testimony nothing can prevail. Finally, my dearest, although your presence is neces- sary here for the sake of the performances, and I am burning with impatience to see you once more, your health, more precious than all our other interests, more dear to me than life itself, must be preferred to everything. Send news of yourself as soon as pos- sible to your affectionate husband." Rage, first, and then despair, were the moods of the temperamental marshal when he learned that Justine had escaped him. An officer entered his tent to inform him that a bridge which kept his di- vision in touch with Loewenthal's had been carried away by floods, and found the Mars of France sit- ting dejectedly upon his bed, hair dishevelled, clothes in disorder — the picture of lost hope. "The misfortune is undoubtedly great," said the officer consolingly, "but it can be repaired." "Ah, my friend!" cried Maurice, "there is no remedy. I am undone!" "The loss of the bridge will perhaps not have the results that you fear," the officer argued politely. Then the marshal lost his temper. "Who could have supposed that you were talking 174 The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe of lost bridges?" he roared. "That is an inconven- ience which may be repaired in a few hours. But the Chantilly has been taken from me!" After a time, however, the marshal's anger seemed to subside; his verbal abuse and threats of dismissal, hurled against the uneasy Favart, ceased altogether. The performances went on as before, without Justine, and the incident was apparently forgotten. But in the following autumn, when the war was over and Maurice had leisure to devote to his private feuds, a peculiar train of events began which caused the Favarts to imagine that they were being pursued by a cruel, inscrutable fate. Resent- ing a defeat in love as bitterly as in war, the marshal hunted them down without mercy, drove them into traps, mastered their petty lives as if he were an in- carnate destiny — and not until he had the girl within his grasp again did either of them see him in his true light as a treacherous betrayer. Their faith in him as a patron was quite pathetic. Favart, it will be remembered, had leased a thea- tre in Brussels at the beginning of the campaign. He had paid the annual rental of 500 ducats with due regularity, but when Brussels was restored to the Austrian sway, under the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the proprietors — two sisters named Myesses — brought suit against him for mythical arrears of rent, amounting to 20,000 francs, and secured an order from the reorganised courts for a confiscation of his property and his arrest. Favart fled across the 175 Great Love Stories of the Theatre border in order to escape imprisonment and wrote to Maurice (who was really the instigator of the prose- cution), asking his aid. The marshal answered his letter with apparent good feeling, and then prompted the Myesses sisters to apply for his arrest in the French courts. The course of the intrigue that followed is tor- tuous, yet excessively dramatic. Among other things, it illustrates one of the causes of the French Revolution, even then beginning to ferment — the power for injustice and evil which the whims of a nobleman could exert over the lives of private citi- zens. Thenceforward until the marshal's death, the Favarts were like puppets pursued by Nemesis in a Greek tragedy. While Favart was dodging the Brussels police and endeavouring, from the French side of the frontier, to appeal his case and regain control of his confis- cated property, Justine was living in Paris; and again, weak rather than sinful, she had surrendered to Maurice. He installed her in a dwelling spe- cially furnished for her benefit, and kept her there in a kind of captivity. Favart managed to find her, however, upon a stealthy visit to Paris, and crept into the house by night like an outlaw to bolster up her courage for a second defiance of the marshal. So she took advantage of her jailer's brief absence from Paris to abandon her sumptuous prison and seek refuge in the home of her mother-in-law, whence she wrote to Maurice, according to an old account 176 The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe of the episode which was found in the Bastille when sacked by the revolutionists, that "it was no longer possible for her to live in sin," and that "her salvation was dearer to her than all the fortunes in the world." Poor Justine! She was merely a weak, pretty, wretched girl who wanted nothing more than to be a good wife — but she was like wax in the hands of the accomplished seducer. Favart forgave her a second time, however, and they resolved to make a brave stand together against fate and the marshal. Then began the third and most brutal campaign in Maurice's amorous conquest. He brought all his power into play; the more stubborn the Favarts' re- sistance, the more dogged became his aggression. He first wrote to the authorities, urging Favart's ex- tradition to Brussels. Then he sent the following missive to Justine: "I am informed, mademoiselle, that the Demoi- selles Myesses intend to prosecute Favart, in virtue of the decree which they obtained against him in Brussels. I think that it will be advisable for you to get away, and as you are not happily situated, I offer you an allowance of 500 livres, which will be paid to you every month until your affairs have taken a favourable turn. Have the kindness to in- form me of your decision in this matter, and the place that you or Favart have chosen for your re- treat." Favart answered this letter himself, declining the 177 Great Love Stories of the Theatre marshal's offer, with his very humble thanks. However bitterly he felt toward Maurice, he must perforce conceal the resentment and be glad that he was alive. Of Maurice's plots, moreover, he was still unaware; and in this reply he asked for protec- tion against the Brussels courts, and for advice in the dilemma. Maurice told him to escape while the coast was clear, and the worried writer, struggling in the maze of intrigue like a fly in a spider's web, accepted his word as sooth. Though penniless, he was too proud to take the marshal's proffered loans; his old mother borrowed 50 louis for him from an actress at the Comedie-Frangaise, and with these limited funds he fled to Strasburg. The day after he left Paris a lettre de cachet was issued against him at Maurice's request. Favart remained in hiding four months, and, now suspicious of Maurice, did not answer to lures held out for his inveiglement to Paris — and the Bastille. His family was penniless for a time, but Justine baf- fled poverty by securing an engagement with the Comedie-Italienne, her return to the Parisian stage, on August 6, 1749, being a complete triumph. A month later she wrote to her husband: "The marshal is still furious against me; but I am quite indifferent to that. He has just written a let- ter to Bercaville [his secretary], wherein he charges him to tell our mother that, if you come to Paris, and she has any affection for you, of which he has 178 The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe no doubt, she must send you away instantly; and that this counsel was a last mark of his kindness for her. That as for Mile. Chantilly, she is deserving of no consideration at his hands — a fact which ought not to occasion you any vexation. "Your friends are under the impression that you are travelling in France for your own diversion. If you wish it, I will consign my debut to all the devils and set out at once to join you. . . . If it be not possible for us to remain here, we will go away and end our days tranquilly in some foreign country. I am forever your wife and sweetheart." All this time, Justine had been under surveillance, at the marshal's orders. Meusnier, the police agent entrusted with the affair, says in his memoirs : "I received orders to keep her under observation, in such a way as to be able to render an account of all her actions and movements, while the marshal, on his side, worked to thwart all of her plans." Then the marshal played his trump card and brought the melodrama to an appropriate climax. Justine's father, M. Duronceray, whose consent to the marriage had been given in writing, was a chronic drunkard, who had been confined in an in- stitution of restraint at his daughter's request. Maurice secured his release and brought him to Paris as the tool in a scheme which is beneath con- tempt. The old man, angry with his daughter for the precautions she had taken to save him from an alcoholic grave, was worked upon by the marshal's 179 Great Love Stories of the Theatre agents until he filed an accusation against Justine, charging that her marriage with Favart was illegal, denying his consent to it, and asserting that the docu- ment which purported to come from him had been forged. Under the marriage laws of France, this was a very serious offense; and coming from the girl's father, with Maurice's backing, the accusation was given due weight by the courts. Accordingly, a lettre de cachet was issued for Justine's arrest and imprisonment. Once more she was within the ogre's clutches. To prevent public suspicion of his part in the af- fair, Maurice had the old man plied with drink until he made a demonstration against Justine in a cafe, telling his fancied grievances to all who would listen. The next day this terrible father went to the Come- die-Italienne and denounced his daughter before her colleagues — causing Justine's rival in the com- pany to fall upon his neck with sympathetic tears. After these Balzacian intrigues the lettre de cachet was enforced; Justine was arrested by Maurice's henchman, Meusnier, and taken to a convent on the borders of Normandy. She informed her husband of the situation in the following letter: "They have brought me to the convent of Les Grands-Andelys, the Ursulines, situated twenty-two leagues from Paris. I have seen the lettre de cachet; it is my father who has caused me to be placed here. Do not lose an instant; send all our papers to the minister, M. d'Argenson, and especially my father's 1 80 The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe consent, signed with his own hand ; it is in the keep- ing of the cure of Saint-Pierre-aux Boeufs. Collect our witnesses and take them with you to the minister. If it is my father who is persecuting us in this way, the truth will be revealed, and we shall speedily have justice done us. If this trouble is due to some of our enemies, they may do as they please; their in- fluence may perhaps be sufficient to separate us for life, but they can never prevent us loving one another, nor break the sacred and honourable tie which binds our hearts together." The marshal, attributing her arrest to religious zealots, sent Justine this note of hypocritical condo- lence and veiled suggestion: "Favart ought to feel highly flattered that you should sacrifice for him fortune, pleasure, glory, everything, in short, that might have made the hap- piness of your life. I hope that he will be able to compensate you for it, and that you will never feel the sacrifice which you are making. . . . You would not make my happiness and your own. Per- haps you will make your own unhappiness and that of Favart. I do not wish it, but I fear it." Justine was soon transferred to another convent which was a place of detention for state prisoners, and here she was treated like a criminal, though at the Ursulines she had been given every attention. Then her courage began to fail ; day by day her spirit came closer to the breaking point. She exchanged letters with Maurice, writing in this vein: i8i Great Love Stories of the Theatre "Life is a burden to me; I loathe it. I desire to die, in order that everyone may be satisfied; I am living in a state of despair. Never can I recover from the blow which has brought all this on me." He would reply in the following strain: "The great attachment that you entertain for Fa- vart and his relatives is very praiseworthy; but I doubt whether it is advisable to manifest it so clearly, since it is certain that it is this same great attachment which has placed you in the vexatious position in which you now find yourself." In order to discourage her still further, the mar- shal, lying like the trooper that he was, accused Fa- vart, the constant husband, with marital infidelity, thus: "The race of poets does not take things so much to heart. Voltaire has produced two tragedies since the death of Madame du Chatelet, though it was said he was dead also because he was believed to be much attracted to that lady. But to die, malpeste! an au- thor's feelings do not carry him as far as that; they are too familiar with fiction to love reality up to that point." After Justine had endured prison life a few months, Maurice held out to her a hope of release with exile. She answered: "I await news from day to day with the utmost impatience since you have given me hope of being able to leave this villainous house. Every time that the bell rings, I have terrible palpitation of the 182 The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe heart. I believe it is some one come to fetch me. I bound to the door, and when I find it is not I whom they seek I return, covered with confusion, to my little cell and weep, like a child who has been beaten for ten or twelve days. That is the life I am lead- ing. When I leave here, I shall imagine that I am seeing daylight for the first time. . . . Mon- seigneur, I implore you in mercy to take me from this place." The other Favarts were of sterner stuff than the soft little actress. Hearing of Justine's negotia- tions with the marshal, her sister-in-law wrote to her: "It was not necessary to ask the advice of my brother. You ought to know him well enough to be sure that he would not give you any counsel differ- ent from that which he has always given. He knows. of no arrangement that can be made with infamy; the most cruel punishments would not terrify him; nor could he be seduced by the most brilliant advan- tages. He escaped for a time from the rest of the evils prepared for him, and did not do so for his own sake. The loss of you had rendered his life odious to him, but he yielded to our alarms; he feared the despair of a mother and a sister already afflicted by the misfortunes which had overtaken him. . . . He has lost, through these continual persecutions, his friends, his protectors, his property, his talents, his health, and all his resources. Nev- ertheless, he will consider all atoned for when he 183 Great Love Stories of the Theatre finds in you sentiments worthy of him. He does not ask to be their object; honour alone must determine you. Content with loving you, he demands noth- ing in return, knowing, by sad experience, that the heart is not to be commanded. If it be true that you have been detained by force, now that you are free you will find with us a poor but honourable asy- lum. . . ." But Justine was no such Spartan. In January, 1750, after she had been under arrest three months, she surrendered to the inevitable. She was released and exiled to the provincial town of Issoudun, where Maurice took possession of her, according to the agreement which was the only way she could secure her freedom. Threats of Favart's death, however, played a part in her pitiful, despairing ac- ceptance of the marshal's gross terms of capitula- tion. And then the romance of the Favarts, so genuine and so out of keeping with its century, died of dis- illusion. The starving, hunted librettist cast off his wife when he learned of her last compulsory infi- delity; he came to the decision that for such a woman he had suffered enough. In June, 1750, the lettres de cachet against them were revoked, and they were permitted to return to Paris ; but Favart came with- out joy, saying to a friend who had sheltered him in Strasburg: "It seems that they are tired of persecuting me; my exile is over, but I am none the happier fOTthat; 184 The Favarts and Maurice de Saxe my sorrows are of a kind that can only end with my life." When he met Justine it was without reproaches, but with a cold indifference. Favart had too great a heart to cherish a bitter resentment against his wife; he forgave her, and yet he could not forget, for the old love had burned itself out, leaving the ashes of shame behind. The poet had lost faith in his ideal of love; he wrote to a friend: "Fly from love as from the greatest of evils." A few months after the persecution of the Fa- varts ceased, Maurice de Saxe, who was responsible for it all, died of wounds received in a duel with the Prince de Conti, according to rumour; but that fitting end was too late for his victims, whose love he had killed before being called to his last account. Friendship alone survived in the wreckage wrought by his evil passion. The Favarts resumed their pro- fessions on the stage, and were stanch, sympathetic counsellors, even collaborators, but no longer man and wife. Justine held public favour in the lyric drama for twenty years, brought about some notable reforms in costuming, and became famed as the most versatile comic opera player of the period. She died in 1772, while her husband survived her by two decades, fecund of libretti to the end. A ver- sion of their story has been staged in Offenbach's op- eretta, "Mme. Favart." Justine Favart met death more bravely than she had resisted Maurice de Saxe; there was a gay irony, 185 Great Love Stories of the Theatre typical of her character, in her last moments. When a neighbour, grotesquely attired, entered the chamber, she said smilingly, with an allusion to one of the standard roles of pantomime: "I think I see the clown of Death." Before administering the last sacrament, the priest demanded a renunciation of her profession, which was still under the church's ban, but she firmly refused. At last a friend came to her with the news that her salary would be con- tinued as an official pension, in case of her retire- ment; so she turned to the stern priest and mur- mured: "Very well, now I can renounce it." Having received absolution, she composed her own epitaph and set it to a dance tune ; she was humming the lilt when her breathing stopped. 1 86 GREAT LOVE STORIES OF THE THEATRE VIII "PERDITA" ROBINSON AND HER PRINCE ^^T^JERDITA" and "Florizel" they called one T"^ another during a brief honeymoon of sentimental raptures. They had full right to these sobriquets, for she was one of the love- liest princesses that ever graced Shakespeare's ro- mance of Bohemia's sea-coast; and he was none other than Prince of Wales, afterward to be known as George IV of Great Britain and The First Gentle- man of Europe. Florizel wooed impetuously, and Perdita re- sisted meltingly ; they exchanged innumerable letters and countless vows — for both were very young; she abandoned the stage to flaunt the tokens of his high- born favour, hoping to become a second Eleanor Gwyn; and then her Prince Charming tossed his handkerchief to another flame, leaving his nig- gardly and prudish father to settle a little expense item of a bond for 20,000 pounds as well as he might. In its mingling of sentimentality and self-seeking, of sighing ardours and brutal dismissal, the romance is typically Hanoverian throughout. Mary Robinson's most successful stroke in per- 189 Great Love Stories of the Theatre petuating her name was when she became the light- o'-love of an heir apparent to the English crown. She is also to be remembered as an actress and a woman of letters, but the proper definition of her is as a brilliant adventuress, with the triumphant fascination and allure of her type — and yet an ad- venturess with ideals. Accepted from this point of view, her picturesque character comes into focus with vivid colouring; but to take her, as some biog- raphers have done, for a conventional injured hero- ine, weakly misplacing faith in princes, is to trans- form the piquancy of her story into mawkishness. She herself forestalled, in large measure, the ver- dict of posterity by making full confession; her own biography, written with the practised pen of a liter- ary lady, is the most prolific source of data regard- ing the liaison. This fervid chronicle, frankly granting the facts yet glossing over or ornamenting the motives, must be read, however, largely as a plea for the defense, not as absolute evidence. The words are those of a Clarissa Harlowe, but behind them there is an experienced woman of the world. In these qualifications there is no thought of extenua- tion for George Prince; the episode with Perdita, which was practically the first of his follies, reveals him plainly as the rhapsodic cad of youth that begot the flamboyant "bounder" of manhood. This make-believe Perdita seems to have been predestined to adventure. Her father, a Captain Darby, was a ship-owner who attempted to colonize 190 GEORGE IV., AS PRINCE OF WALES "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince the bleak coast of Labrador for whale fisheries, in which speculative emprise he sank the savings of his more commonplace cruises. He would return from his exile at intervals years apart to visit the wife and child whom he had left with a small al- lowance to the dubious existence of London lodg- ings, and hurriedly flit back oversea again. He disappears from Mary's story at her fourteenth year, laying upon the mother, as he sails for America, this terrifying charge : "Take care that no dishonour falls upon my daughter! If she is not safe at my return, I will an- nihilate you!" His melodramatic exit might be considered, in an equally melodramatic mood, as a departing father's premonition of his child's fate; but as the paternal instinct was not strong in Captain Darby, and as he himself had the rake's insight into femi- nine character, it may be interpreted as a glimpse of the siren already budding in the maid. Mary met with glittering dishonour, but the wild captain failed to annihilate his wife on account of it; the natives of Labrador, rather, placed the responsi- bility where it belonged by annihilating his colony. Although poor, the Darbys were well connected, and when Mary's precocity took a theatrical turn, she found friends willing and able to help her. The dancing teacher in her school was also the bal- let master at Covent Garden; he introduced her to Thomas Hull, actor-manager of that theatre, who 191 Great Love Stories of the Theatre after admiring her virginal charm and the purity of diction with which she recited passages from Nicholas Rowe's "Jane Shore," presented her to Garrick. The great Davy, also captivated, imme- diately proposed to coach her in the role of Cor- delia, so that she might play opposite him in "King Lear." Garrick was then nearly sixty, and close to his retirement, but the spirit of youth and memories of his favourite leading woman, Susannah Gibber, came back to him at the sight of fragrant Mary Darby. Her dramatic career might have begun at once but for her mother's reluctance and the ingratiating advances of a young man named Thomas Robinson, an embryo lawyer, who pretended to be heir to a handsome fortune. He was debonair; his prospects seemed bright; his courtship was skillful; and so in her sixteenth year Mary put away her maiden name and her studies with Garrick to become Mrs. Rob- inson. These annals of Perdita's novitiate in life must be recited, for though apparently trivial they form an exposition to the dramatic episode with Florizel. It is, indeed, curiously interesting to see how she progressed, step by step, deviously and yet none the less definitely, as if led by a wayward fate, to the position of a prince's mistress. Robinson was a poor husband for Mary, and if, as she relates, the match was hardly more than a marriage of convenience on her part, the choice dis- 192 "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince plays particularly bad judgment. He had the youthful vices of extravagance and dissipation; he liked to cut a dash and mingle with the fastest bucks in London; and in these desires he was aided and abetted, though she admits it not, by his girl-wife. They trailed about together through Ranelagh, Vauxhall and the Pantheon Gardens, resorts where the gay world of London congregated, and fell in with a mad, bad crew of roues whose leaders were "the wicked" Lord Lyttelton, Captain Ayscough, and George Robert ("Fighting") Fitzgerald. These gentlemen did their best to seduce her, Lyt- telton by the crafty method of causing Robinson to waste his substance in riotous living and by carrying tales of his infidelities to Mary; Fitzgerald by the romantic device of an attempted abduction. She was discreet enough, however, to cajole and bafHe them. Mrs. Robinson describes her debut into gaiety as follows : "The first time I went to Ranelagh my habit was so singularly plain and Quaker-like that all eyes were fixed upon me. I wore a gown of light brown lustring with close round cuffs (it was then the fashion to wear long ruffles) ; my hair was without powder, and my head adorned with a plain round cap and a white chip hat, without any ornaments whatever." Here and in many other passages she artlessly ex- poses her obsession with dress ; every important event 193 Great Love Stories of the Theatre of her life has its paragraph on costume. Her memoirs are so utterly feminine in this respect that they provoke the usual masculine smile. Her vanity has, indeed, some justification, for her clever taste did away vi^ith certain absurdities of costuming on the stage ; while in her unprofessional public ap- pearances she was the fashion-plate of the town. Mrs. Robinson soon discovered that her husband's great expectations were an imposture, and that he was merely the illegitimate son of a crabbed old gentleman in Wales who became less and less inclined to do anything for him. For diplomatic reasons the gay young pair visited this relative by the left hand, who had the courtesy title of "uncle"; and Mary found him friendly, but not generous. The sister-in-law, moreover, was hostile — because of the jealousy of dress, according to the bride. "Miss Robinson rode on horseback in a camlet safeguard, with a high-crowned bonnet," she states. "I wore a fashionable habit and looked like some- thing human. Envy at length assumed the form of insolence, and I was taunted perpetually on the folly of appearing like a woman of fortune." They returned to London with neither donations nor promises as reward for their sojourn of painful duty, and took a house in a fashionable district, fur- nishing it with "peculiar elegance." How did this pair of foolish butterflies manage to make such a display without visible means of support? That question has never been definitely answered. Mrs. 194 "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince Robinson remarks that "I frequently inquired into the extent of his finances, and he as often assured me that they were in every respect competent to his ex- penses." She leaves it to be understood that his funds came from that vague and ominous quarter known as "the Jews," but if so, the money-lenders gave him an unprecedented amount of rope with which to hang himself. There is good reason for the suspicion that the future Perdita was herself talented in the art of living luxuriously on nothing a year, and that when she could not get credit from trades-people she had no scruples about accepting "loans" from men of Lord Lyttelton's type, who were willing to hold as security certain hopes of an ultimate surrender — collateral upon which cool Perdita never permitted them to realize. There is even a report to be found in the pamphlets of the time that she had snared a member of the usurious tribe itself in the web of her captivation, but no means now remain of establishing this as fact. Finally the inevitable crash came; the peculiarly elegant household furnishings were seized, and Robinson was lodged in a debtor's prison. Perdita went through this time of trial with the white plume of wifely devotion flying. She marched off to jail with her husband, and. there did the work of copy- ing documents, offered by their "uncle" at a guinea a week, which was scorned by the lazy young was- trel. She also found time for her first literary ef- fort — a long poem called "Captivity," which was 195 Great Love Stories of the Theatre published under the patronage of a duchess. After a few months of this bitter experience Robinson was tention to the stage, for she now had a baby to sup- released, and then Mary once more turned her at- port as well as a husband. William Brereton, leading man at Drury Lane, introduced her to Richard Brinsley Sheridan, who had just acquired an interest in that house; the author-manager gave her a hearing in the lines of Cordelia and Juliet, and promptly engaged her. Garrick, now retired, undertook to prepare her for the debut; she was the last of his pupils, and as such she did him full honour. After a month's study she made her first appearance on the stage, December lo, 1776, as Juliet, with Brereton as Romeo. Her arch young beauty and neat declamation were re- ceived with enthusiasm by the audience; Garrick and Sheridan were delighted with her playing. In her autobiography this important event is chroni- cled from the sartorial point of view: "My dress was a pale pink satin, trimmed with crepe, richly spangled with silver; my head was ornamented with white feathers, and my monu- mental suit for the last scene was white satin, and completely plain, excepting that I wore a veil of the most transparent gauze, which fell quite to my feet from the back of my head, and a string of beads around my waist, to which was suspended a cross appropriately fashioned." A few weeks later she appeared as Statira in Na- 196 "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince thaniel Lee's "Alexander the Great," of which oc- casion she leaves this record: "My dress was white and blue, made after the Persian costume; and, though it was then singular on the stage, I wore neither a hoop nor powder. My feet were bound with sandals, richly orna- mented; and the whole dress was picturesque and characteristic." Then came the role of Amanda in Sheridan's new comedy, "A Trip to Scarborough." The piece was discovered by the audience to be an adaptation of Vanbrugh's "Relapse," and was hissed. Mrs. Rob- inson has something more pertinent than usual to say of that premiere: "I was terrified beyond imagination when Mrs. Yates, no longer able to bear the hissing of the au- dience, quitted the scene, and left me alone to encoun- ter the critic tempest. I stood for some moments as if I had been petrified. Mr. Sheridan, from the side wing, desired me not to quit the boards; the late Duke of Cumberland, from the stage box, bade me take courage. 'It is not you, but the play they hiss,' said his Royal Highness. I curtsied ; and that curtsey seemed to electrify the whole house, for a thundering peal of encouraging applause followed. The comedy was suffered to go on, and is to this hour a stock play at Drury Lane Theatre." She soon became the favourite of the day; she re- ceived a large salary, upon which her scamp of a husband drew freely for his needs at the gaming 197 Great Love Stories of the Theatre table; and was feted on all sides. She had suddenly attained her ideal, which was "celebrity and for- tune," and though her autobiography complains of her husband's neglect, it is not certain that she really regretted it. Various noble and wealthy personages tempted her to leave him, but she clung to her repu- tation for dear life. Sheridan was the only man who made an impression upon her; she seems to have been genuinely smitten with the dramatist, whose attitude toward her was only that of the friend and adviser. She writes of him in this strain: "He continued to visit me frequently, and always gave me the most friendly counsel. He knew that I was not properly protected by Mr. Robinson, but he was too generous to build his gratification on the detraction of another. The happiest moments I then knew were passed in the society of this distin- guished being. . . . He saw me ill-bestowed upon a man who neither loved nor valued me; he lamented my destiny, but with such delicate pro- priety that it consoled while it revealed to me the unhappiness of my situation." Mrs. Robinson's star was on the ascendant for several years; then the influence of the Prince of Wales diverted it from its orbit of the stage and it became a gorgeous comet of adventure. On No- vember 20, 1779, she made her first appearance as Perdita in "A Winter's Tale," and on December 3 the drama was repeated, by royal command. George IH, who thought that Shakespeare was "sad 198 "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince stuff," nodded sleepily in his chair; Queen Char- lotte watched the performance with rigid austerity; but the Prince of Wales, then a spirited boy tugging away from the parental leading-strings, was trans- formed by the magic wand of romance into Florizel. In the green-room before the play "Gentleman" Smith, who was cast for Leontes, remarked laugh- ingly to Perdita: "By Jove, Mrs. Robinson, you will make a con- quest of the Prince, for to-night you look handsomer than ever." The jest was prophetic; and after the perform- ance the entire company was in an excited flutter of gossip over Mrs. Robinson's great catch. Let Per- dita herself tell how the inflammable Prince took fire: "I hurried through the first scene, not without much embarrassment, owing to the fixed attention with which the Prince of Wales honoured me. In- deed some flattering remarks which were made by his Royal Highness met my ear as I stood near his box, and I was overwhelmed with confusion. The Prince's particular attention was observed by every- one, and I was again rallied at the end of the play. On the last curtsey, the royal family condescend- ingly returned a bow to the performers ; but just as the curtain was falling, my eyes met those of the Prince of Wales ; and with a look that I never shall forget, he gently inclined his head a second time; I felt the compliment and blushed my gratitude." 199 Great Love Stories of the Theatre Among Mrs. Robinson's green-room acquaint- ances was Lord Maiden, afterwards Earl of Essex, an intimate of the Prince. A few days later he brought her a note "of more than common civility," signed "Florizel." She refused to believe Mai- den's assertion that it came from the Prince of Wales; and soon another missive followed, stating that if she were still sceptical of Florizel's identity, she should attend a concert in Covent Garden, at which one of Handel's oratorios was to be played, for confirma- tion. Eager for this escapade, she took a prominent box in the balcony, and as soon as she appeared the Prince began to flirt with her outrageously, in this manner: "He held the printed bill before his face, and drew his hand across his forehead, still fixing his eyes on me. I was confused and knew not what to do. My husband was with me, and I was fearful of his observing what passed. Still the Prince con- tinued to make signs, such as moving his hand on the edge of the box as if writing, then speaking to the Duke of York (then Bishop of Osnaburgh), who also looked towards me with particular atten- tion. I now observed one of the gentlemen in wait- ing bring the Prince a glass of water; before he raised it to his lips he looked at me." This exchange of soft glances could not escape public attention. Mrs. Robinson admits that the incident was referred to in the "diurnal prints," but she fails to record the journalistic impression, which 200 "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince was to her disadvantage, as may be seen from this paragraph : "A circumstance of rather an embarrassing na- ture happened at last night's Oratorio. Mrs. R , decked out in all her finery, took care to post herself in one of the upper boxes, immediately op- posite the Prince's, and by those airs peculiar to herself contrived at last so to basilisk a certain heir- apparent that his fixed attention to the beautiful object above became generally noticed, and soon after astonished their Majesties, who, not being able to discover the cause, seemed at a loss to account for the extraordinary effect. No sooner, however, were they properly informed than a messenger was in- stantly sent aloft desiring the dart-dealing actress to withdraw, which she complied with, though not without expressing the utmost chagrin at her morti- fying removal." The Prince was then in his nineteenth, and Mrs. Robinson in her twenty-first year. She would have the world believe that on both sides it was a case of love at first sight; to her the Prince was a young hero out of a story-book : "I was not insensible to all his powers of attrac- tion. I thought him one of the most amiable of men. There was a beautiful ingenuousness in his language, a warm and enthusiastic adoration ex- pressed in every letter which interested and charmed me." A heated correspondence ensued; letters signed 20 1 Great Love Stories of the Theatre "Florizel" and "Perdita" were exchanged almost daily, with Maiden serving as the go-between. She would not grant an immediate interview, as the Prince desired, and his infatuation was spurred to greater absurdities by her aloofness. He sent her his portrait in miniature, accompanied by a heart cut out of paper which had the emblems, obverse and reverse, "Je ne change qu'en mourant," and "Unalterable to my Perdita through life." So the affair went on through the winter and spring of 1780, Florizel's passion increasing and Perdita's coyness slowly waning. Finally, to demonstrate his generous intentions, the Prince inclosed in one of his letters a bond for 20,000 pounds, made pay- able to her at his majority; this guarantee was un- sought by her, yet she carefully refrained from re- turning it. Then the climax was at hand. She says: "The unbounded assurances of lasting affection which I received from his Royal Highness in many scores of the most eloquent letters, the contempt which I experienced from my husband, and the per- petual labour which I underwent for his support, at length began to weary my fortitude. Still, I was reluctant to become the theme of public animadver- sion, and still I remonstrated with my husband on the unkindness of his conduct." The first meeting of Perdita and Florizel was now arranged, after much negotiation. She re- jected Maiden's suggestion that she come to the 202 "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince Prince's rooms, dressed as a boy; formality, slie in- sisted, should mark the first interview, at least. Then the accommodating young lord offered his own house in Mayfair, but the Prince feared the vigilance of his tutors. He w^as living with his younger brother in a lodge by Kew Palace, suppos- edly absorbed in serious studies, and a nocturnal appointment in the groves of that semi-sylvan re- treat was at last decided upon. In her description of this meeting, Mrs. Robinson becomes rhapsodic: "At length an evening was fixed for this long- dreaded interview. Lord Maiden and myself dined at the inn on the island between Kew and Brentford. We waited the signal for crossing the river in a boat which had been engaged for that purpose. Heaven can witness how many conflicts my agitated heart endured at this most important moment! I admired the Prince; I felt grateful for his affection. He was the most engaging of created beings. I had corre- sponded with him during many months, and his elo- quent letters, the exquisite sensibility which breathed through every line, his ardent professions of adora- tion, had combined to shake my feeble resolution. The handkerchief was waved from the opposite shore ; but the signal was, by the dusk of the evening, rendered almost imperceptible. Lord Maiden took my hand, I stepped into the boat, and in a few min- utes we landed before the iron gates of Old Kew Palace. The interview was but for a moment. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York 203 Great Love Stories of the Theatre (then Bishop of Osnaburgh) were walking in the avenue. They hastened to meet us. A few words, and those scarcely articulate, were ut- tered by the Prince, when a noise of people ap- proaching from the palace startled us. The moon was now rising; and the idea of being over- heard, or of his Royal Highness being seen out at such an unusual hour, terrified the whole group. After a few more words of the most affectionate na- ture uttered by the Prince, we parted ; and Lord Mai- den and I returned to the island. The Prince never quitted the avenue, nor the presence of the Duke of York, during the whole of this short meeting. Alas! my friend, if my mind was before influenced by es- teem, it was now awakened to the most enthusiastic admiration. The rank of the Prince no longer chilled into awe that being who now considered him as the lover and the friend. The graces of his per- son, the irresistible sweetness of his smile, the tender- ness of his melodious yet manly voice, will be remem- bered by me till every vision of this changing scene shall be forgotten." The place was apt for wooing, in spite of the first interruption, and Perdita's trips across the river be- came more and more frequent. She would have us believe that Maiden and the juvenile bishop were al- ways with them, but it may be inferred that they served as sentinels rather than chaperons. Occa- sionally Florizel would burst into song, like any col- legian of to-day: 204 "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince "He sang with exquisite taste, and the tones of his voice, breaking on the silence of the night, have often appeared to my entranced senses like more than mortal melody. Often have I lamented the distance which destiny had placed between us. How would my soul have idolised such a husband! Alas! how often, in the ardent enthusiasm of my soul, have I formed the wish that that being were mine alone ; to whom partial millions were to look up for protec- tion." Their secrecy did not prevent the attachment from becoming a public scandal. It even began to figure in the Hanoverian councils of state, for the Prince was about to be given a separate establishment, and popular opinion of his allegiance to a married woman was dreaded by George III. After the fur- tive amour had gone on for a year, Mrs. Robinson retired from the stage. May 31, 1780, in order that she might more fittingly adorn her new station as the heir apparent's mistress. Her husband was now ut- terly cast off, and he accepted the situation with his usual complaisance, doubtless secure in the faith that through his wife-in-name-only he now had access to the royal treasury whenever he was pressed by cred- itors. Then Perdita and Florizel cast caution to the winds, appearing together at theatres, balls and mili- tary reviews with enraptured indiscretion. Mrs. ; Robinson proudly recalls one incident in which the Prince gave public proof of his amorous favor, as follows : 205 Great Love Stories of the Theatre "On the 4th of June, I went, by his desire, into tlie Chamberlain's box at the birth-night ball; the dis- tressing observation of the circle was drawn toward that part of the box in which I sat by the marked and injudicious attentions of his Royal Highness. I had not arrived many minutes before I witnessed a singu- lar species of fashionable coquetry. Previous to his Highness's beginning his minuet, I perceived a woman of high rank select from the bouquet which she wore two rosebuds, which she gave to the Prince, as he afterwards informed me, 'emblematical of her- self and him.' I observed his Royal Highness im- mediately beckon to a nobleman, who has since formed a part of his establishment, and, looking most earnestly at me, whisper a few words, at the same time presenting to him his newly acquired trophy. In a few minutes Lord C entered the Chamber- lain's box, and, giving the rosebuds into my hands, informed me that he was commissioned by the Prince to do so. I placed them in my bosom, and, I confess, felt proud of the power by which I thus publicly mortified an exalted rival." Perdita was far from being the shy and modest violet that she pretends to have been in her autobiog- raphy; evidence more reliable than her own shows that she courted stares and basked in the attentions of the crowd. Notoriety, in fact, was the meat upon which her soul fed. In the piquant volumes of an- ecdotage left by Miss Laetitia Hawkins, daughter of the literary Sir John who was a friend of Dr. John- 206 "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince son, particular attention is paid to her amazing rep- ertory of costume, in this vivid paragraph : "When she was to be seen daily in St. James' Street and Pall Mall, even in her chariot this varia- tion was striking. To-day she was a paysanne, with her straw hat tied to the back of her head, looking as if too new to what she passed to know what she looked at. Yesterday she, perhaps, had been the dressed belle of Hyde Park, trimmed, powdered, patched, painted to the utmost power of rouge and white lead; to-morrow she would be the cravatted Amazon of the riding-house; but, be she what she might, the hats of the fashionable promenaders swept the ground as she passed." The Prince of Wales reached his eighteenth birth- day August 12, 1780; and on January i, 1781, he was established in bachelor apartments of his own. He was granted this liberty by his father on condition that he break off with Perdita; he entertained the suggestion cordially because his fickle heart had already been caught by another pretty face; and so Perdita's reign neared its end. About six months later the blow fell. She had no fair warning; two days after a rendezvous with the Prince at Kew, when his love had seemed to her "as boundless as it was undiminished," she received a note from him announcing that they "must meet no more." Poor Perdita's bubble of iridescent fortune burst so suddenly that she could hardly believe it. "I call Heaven to witness," she cries, "that I was totally 207 Great Love Stories of the Theatre unconscious why this decision had taken place in his Royal Highness's mind." Her letters asking for an explanation remained unanswered. In despair she decided upon a personal appeal, and so she set out for a journey in her phaeton from London to Wind- sor, where the Prince was preparing for a ball in honour of his nineteenth birthday. It was a trip not without peril ; a highwayman grasped at her ponies' reins on Hounslow Heath, but she drove on reck- lessly and escaped. When she reached Windsor she asked for an audience with the Prince; but after she had waited for hours she received word through a secretary that he was too busy to be disturbed. She consulted with Lord Maiden, to no avail ex- cept to hear him declare the fires that had long smouldered for her in his own bosom; she wrote to the Prince again and again, without reply; and at last she surrendered to the inevitable and bade her romance farewell. She had a brief after-glow of hope when a message came that the Prince would see her in the house of Lord Maiden, but it only il- luminated Florizel's utter hardness of heart. She says: "After much hesitation, by the advice of Lord Maiden, I consented to meet his Royal Highness. He accosted me with every appearance of tender at- tachment, declaring that he had never for a moment ceased to love me, but that I had many concealed enemies who were exerting every effort to under- mine me. We passed some hours in the most 208 "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince friendly and delightful conversation; and I began to flatter myself that all our differences were ad- justed. But what words can express my surprise and chagrin when, on meeting his Royal Highness the very next day in Hyde Park, he turned his head to avoid seeing me, and even affected not to know mel" In this manner Florizel closed the book of love with Perdita. The account might have been settled in a more graceful manner; but the private life of The First Gentleman of Europe is a long sequence of such broken vows. Mrs. Robinson was now in a difficult position. She had given up her profession and acquired debts of about 7,000 pounds through faith in the Prince's constancy. As soon as the news of her dismissal got abroad, her creditors swooped down upon her with rapacity. She was advised against returning to the stage on the theory— utterly mistaken according to modern examples — that the public would not toler- ate her after the liaison with the Prince. Florizel's treasured letters now had negotiable as well as sen- timental aspects, and she did not have any scruples about using them to her advantage. The Prince's royal papa, always dreading a scandal, promptly came to time, as this letter of his, written to Lord North August 28, 1781, bears witness: "I am sorry to be obliged to open a subject that has long given me much pain, but I can rather do it on paper than in conversation ; it is a subject of which 209 Great Love Stories of the Theatre I know he is not ignorant. My eldest son got last year into a very improper connection with an act- ress and woman of indifferent character through the friendly assistance of Ld. Maiden ; a multitude of let- ters past [sic], which she has threatened to publish unless he, in short, bought them of her. He had made her very foolish promisses [sicj, which, undoubt- edly, by her conduct to him she entirely cancelled. I have thought it right to authorize the getting them from her, and have employed Lieut.-Col. Hotham, on whose discression [sic] I could depend, to man- age this business. He has now brought it to a con- clusion, and has her consent to get these letters on her receiving 5,000 pounds, undoubtedly an enor- mous sum; but I wish to get my son out of this shameful scrape. I desire you will therefore see Lieut.-Col. Hotham and settle this with him. I am happy at being able to say that I never was person- ally engaged in such a transaction, which perhaps makes me feel this the stronger." With this price of peace, 5,000 pounds, Mrs. Rob< inson's creditors were satisfied, but what of current expenses? The Prince's bond for 20,000 pounds still remained; it had not come to maturity, but it was a tangible asset. Close-fisted George IH re- belled at paying its face value, and sent a cabinet minister, Charles James Fox, to adjust the demand. The latter undertook the commission with enthu- siasm; he languished at the feet of Mrs. Robinson as an admirer for some time; and finally compro- 210 "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince mised the matter for an annuity of 500 pounds, one- half of which was to descend to her daughter after her death. So it was apparent that Perdita was an excellent business woman, and fared very well from the Prince's shabby treatment of her, in the long run. The old love being off, she was not slow in find- ing a new. Before the bond claim had been settled she formed an alliance with Colonel Banastre Tarle- ton, the cavalry officer who was much cursed by the revolutionists in the southern states of America for his brutal military efficiency. This amour, which went to the length of joint housekeeping, was more permanent than that with Florizel; it lasted for almost sixteen years, during which time Mrs. Rob- inson devoted herself assiduously and rather success- fully to literary endeavour. Her writings deserve some comment. She has a list of seventeen titles to her credit, including eight collections of poems, a tragedy in verse, a sonnet sequence, a three-decker novel, and four shorter ven- tures in fiction. She also helped Tarleton with his "History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America." Her auto- biography, of course, is now her best-known work. In her life-time her poems were "best sellers" be- cause into their amatory strains the public chose to read frequent allusions to the false Prince. Mrs. Robinson may be said to have lived three lives — as actress, adventuress and lady of letters, each with a rather passionate completeness. Her 211 Great Love Stories of the Theatre career on the stage, though brief, won for her hon- ourable mention in such standard histories as those of Genest and Dr. Doran. In proof of its comprehen- sive activity, her list of interpretations are worthy of note. From debut to retirement they are as fol- lows: Juliet in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," "Sta- tira in Nathaniel Lee's "Alexander the Great," Amanda in Sheridan's "A Trip to Scarborough," Fanny Stirling in Colman and Garrick's "A Clan- destine Marriage," Ophelia in Shakespeare's "Ham- let," Lady Anne in Shakespeare's "Richard III," The Lady in Milton's "Comus," Emily in Hannah Cowley's "The Runaway," Araminta in Sir John Vanbrugh's "The Confederacy," Octavia in Dry- den's "All for Love," Lady Macbeth in Shakes- peare's "Macbeth," Palmira in an adaptation of Voltaire's "Mahomet," Miss Richly in Mrs. Sheri- dan's "The Discovery," Alinda in Robert Jephson's "The Law of Lombardy," Cordelia in Shakespeare's "King Lear," Jacintha in John Hoadly's "The Sus- picious Husband," Portia in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," Fidelia in Wycherley's "The Plain Dealer," Viola in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," Perdita in Shakespeare's "A Winter's Tale," Rosalind in Shakespeare's "As You Like It," Oriana in George Farquhar's "The Inconstant," Imogen in Shakespeare's "Cymbeline," Mrs. Brady in Garrick's "The Irish Widow," and Eliza Camply in Lady Craven's "The Miniature Picture." 212 "Perdita" Robinson and Her Prince She died December 26, 1800, at the age of forty- two, after a long period of invalidism. Her death- bed request was that "two particular persons" should receive a lock of her hair; they were, presumably, the Prince of Wales and Colonel Tarleton. There is no means of knowing that her last sentimental wish was fulfilled; but if so, one might speculate with some melancholy profit upon the Prince's feel- ings — provided he had any at all — when he inher- ited that tress from his one-time Perdita's coiffure, seductive and radiant in the long-ago, now lifeless and ashen-gray. 213 GREAT LOVE STORIES OF THE THEATRE IX MLLE. GEORGES AND NAPOLEON IN the prosperous days of the Consulate, when Napoleon took an ail-too brief respite from war and led France along the brilliant paths of peace, a girl of tender youth and statuesque beauty made a triumphant debut at the Theatre Frangais, playing the grand roles of tragedy. The First Con- sul, always a connoisseur and a constructive patron of the stage, came, saw and was conquered; the young actress bewitched the Man of Destiny. Thenceforward Mile. Georges, as this debutante was known, added to her artistic prestige the gla- mour of historic fame; she will always be remem- bered as "a favourite of Napoleon." The relationship between the masterful Corsican and the actress was more than a sordid and venal liai- son. Napoleon was notorious for callous amours; there was little romance in his numerous loves ; and yet a thread of idyll, of pretty sentiment, altogether strange to his grim character, runs through the story of his dalliance with Mile. Georges. To him she was "my little Georgina," tenderly petted and ca- ressed while the relationship endured and ever afterward held in affection. For her the association 217 Great Love Stories of the Theatre meant reverence, high patriotism, hero-worship; she gave a devoted passion that typified the idolatry of the whole nation. Other women upon whom the Napoleonic fancy settled in a brief caprice — Mme. Branchu, known as "the vestal of the Opera"; Miles. Duchesnois, Bourgoin and Levard of the Theatre Frangais; and various beauties of the court — cried out upon their paramour as a monster and a tyrant after their dismissal; but not so with Mile. Georges. Between her and the First Consul, afterward Em- peror, it was a matter of sentiment, free with her from self-seeking, and with him from brutality. Ten years after the liaison had been broken off, in the Hundred Days which ended with Waterloo, she sent word to the Emperor that she had certain papers compromising the Duke of Otranto (Fouche). When his emissary returned from the appointment with her. Napoleon asked: "She didn't tell you that she was in low water, I suppose?" "No, Sire, she merely spoke of her desire to re- store the papers to your Majesty." "I understand. I also know that she is in diffi- culties. You will give her 20,000 francs from my purse." That was at a time when Napoleon needed all the sinews of war at his command, but he was quick to make a tactful sacrifice for the sake of his one-time "little Georgina." And she, after Waterloo, when Napoleon saw nothing but treason and desertion 218 MLLE. GEORGES Mile. Georges and Napoleon about him, requested the honour of accompanying him into his exile upon the lonely, heat-smitten rock of St. Helena. In very truth, neither of them had forgotten, though ten tumultuous years of wars and passions had passed since their romantic days. Each was ready to give aid and support in the other's hour of need, for the sake of their sweet memories ; and no matter what else may be said of Napoleon's or Mile. Georges' morals, toward one another they displayed a loyalty worthy of an emperor and a player-queen. Mile. Georges was born February 23, 1787, her father being manager and orchestra leader of a nomadic provincial troupe in which her mother played soubrette roles. Baptismally, the future favourite of Napoleon was Marie-Josephine Wey- mer, but as her sobriquet of the theatre she chose her father's given name of Georges and by it alone she was known. She went on the stage at the age of five, and displayed such talent as a child that she became the special protegee of Mile. Raucourt, a veteran of the Theatre Frangais, under whose aus- pices she made her debut at that famous playhouse, November 23, 1802, as Clytemnestra in Racine's "Iphigenie en Aulide." She was then only sixteen years old. Within a single season, however, she was transformed from a timid country maiden into a leading tragedienne, courted by princes and toasted for her beauty by all Paris. Even in her novitiate she was introduced into the 219 Great Love Stories of the Theatre Napoleonic circle. Mile. Raucourt had the entree into consular society, and being an inveterate gadder whirled her young prodigy about with her to din- ners and receptions where the notables congregated. Although Mile. Georges did not meet Napoleon until after her debut, she was in touch with his family as a student. The following passage in her memoirs curiously foreshadows the romance to come: "There were incessant visits ; the ministers came, then all the family of the First Consul — Lucien [Napoleon's brother], who, like the First Consul, only loved tragedy; the eminent Mme. Bacchiochi, a thin and delicate woman who was very much in the Consul's confidence. We often lunched at her house with the Consul's mother and Lucien. Then afterward I had to recite. Lucien used to take part in the performances, giving me my cues and fre- quently playing whole scenes by himself." The debuts of new actresses at the Theatre Fran- gais were great events at the time, because of the keen interest which Napoleon took in that institu- tion. Mile. Georges' premiere was stormy; the crowded house was divided into two camps — one, the adherents of Mile. Raucourt and her neophyte, the other partisans of M. Legouve, who had coached a rival. Mile. Duchesnois. The First Consul was present with Josephine; here he first saw the beauty which he afterward wooed and possessed. Mile. Georges was supported by the great Talma, 220 Mile. Georges and Napoleon who became her life-long friend. She made a favourable impression in her first scene, but then, feeling the suppressed animosity of her rival's friends and of a clique banded against Talma, stage- fright descended upon her. She struggled along bravely, however, receiving messages from her in- structress, who occupied a box, after every scene. Mile. Raucourt's communications ran in this strain: "It is going well. Keep firm. There is a cabal. Don't be afraid, but keep on trembling just the same." In the fourth act she was interrupted with mur- murs of disapproval. For a moment the girl lost her head; then she heard Mile. Raucourt call out, "Begin again, Georgina"; she saw the First Consul join in applause friendly to her; and after two at- tempts, she carried the speech through above the uproar, during which some of her supporters under- took to punch the heads of the hissing foe. It ended as a success; the First Consul and Josephine sent compliments to Mile. Raucourt upon her talented pupil. The debut was chronicled by M. Geoffroy, the , dramatic critic of the Journal des Debats, as fol- lows: "Preceded upon the stage by an extraordinary reputation for beauty. Mile. Georges has not ap- peared beneath her reputation; her face unites to French graces the regularity and nobility of Grecian forms ; her figure is that of the sister of Apollo when 221 Great Love Stories of the Theatre she advances on the banks of Eurotas, surrounded by her nymphs and raising her head above them. Her whole person is made to be offered as a model to Guerin's chisel. When she caused the first line of her part to be heard, the ear w^as not as favourable to her as the eyes; the inseparable trouble of such a moment had altered her voice, naturally flexible, wide of compass and sonorous ; some defects which could be remarked in the acting and diction must be attributed to the same cause, all of which, how- ever, can be easily corrected. A girl of sixteen who appeared for the first time before such a large and imposing assembly could not have the full use of her faculties ; it is sufficient that in the first appear- ance she showed the happiest disposition and the germ of a great actress. One must wait and not ex- tinguish by carping severity a good talent ready to develop itself. Her very faults have a noble origin; they belong to an impetuosity and an ardour which she does not yet know how to regulate, which pre- cipitate her delivery and movements; for in that beautiful body there is a soul impatient to pour itself out. She is not a statue of Parian marble; she is Pygmalion's Galatea, full of warmth and life, and in some way oppressed by the crowd of new sensa- tions which are rising in her bosom." Then came new roles in other tragedies — "Tan- crede," "L'Orpheline de la Chine," and "Phedre" — all of them received with enthusiasm. The girl- tragedienne became the idol of Paris ; she was feted 222 Mile. Georges and Napoleon like a princess. Josephine sent her a cloak for the costume in "Phedre"; Napoleon contributed a purse of 3,000 francs after seeing the performance. But with all this success she kept on living like a simple bourgeois maiden with her parents. Lucien Bona- parte ofifered her a handsome establishment— under the usual conditions — but she declined. "What is the good of your house to me without my people?" is the comment made upon Lucien's proposal in her naive memoirs. "Why, I should die there! I don't want it and refuse it with all my heart." A Polish nobleman, Prince Sapieha, became in- terested in her, in a platonic way, and showered gifts upon her, even providing a handsome establishment, with horses and a carriage, for herself and family. According to the etiquette of the day, his tributes were "to the artiste," and they were accepted by Mile. Georges "as an artiste." The prince seems to have taken a generous paternal interest — and only that — in the girl ; and certainly he did much to make her early career comfortable. She was, of course, besieged by more selfish ad- mirers. One of them announced himself at her dressing room as Mr. Curling Papers, declared him- self a hair-dresser, and asked permission to arrange her coififure. This was granted, in order to get rid of him, and then he was shown the door. But when Mile. Georges' maid removed the curling papers which the apparent madman had used, she found 223 Great Love Stones of the Theatre that they were 500 franc notes — twenty in all. Mr. Curling Papers was some amorous banker incog. But this Zeus of the counting room found Mile. Georges no easy Danae responsive to his shower of gold. All this time Napoleon was much in the girl's mind; he was her chosen hero. She had almost lost her heart to the First Consul from seeing him in his box at her performances. By quoting in her me- moirs a conversation between herself and Prince Sa- pieha, she practically confesses as much: "Is the First Consul, then, so fond of tragedy?" asked her patron. "He goes nearly every time." "It is true, but Talma always played with me," she answered, "and the First Consul is very fond of Talma. As for me, I feel more animated when I see him in his box, and he knows it. He must see himself sometimes among those great heroes; I am sure he talks with them. He is so great, too; gran- deur suits him so well, and how handsome he is! I should like to see him and speak to him. I am told his voice and speech are very soft. And what a pretty little hand! It is seen to perfection, for he places it in front of his box." "My dear, you are mad about your First Consul." "No, I am not mad about him," she protested. "I like and admire him the same as everybody else. You see, when he enters his box, the women rise and applaud him, but still they are not mad about him. It is the enthusiasm of delirium." 224 Mile. Georges and Napoleon Then came the first meeting— at Napoleon's own command. One evening, upon returning home after a performance as Clytemnestra, she found the First Consul's chief valet, Constant, waiting for her with the polite request that she visit his master the next evening at Saint-Cloud, to receive his congratu- lations. She was sophisticated enough to under- stand all the possibilities which that message con- tained, and maiden embarrassment overwhelmed her. She did not know what answer to make, but finally, as she says, "I confess curiosity settled it, or self-love; how do I know?" She did not have a performance the next evening, but she went to the theatre and waited in a box. At eight o'clock Constant appeared and quietly es- corted her into a carriage. Often during the long drive she said to the valet: "I am dying of fear. You would do well to take me back home and to tell the First Consul that I am indisposed. Do that, and I promise you to come another time." They reached the palace by a secluded garden ap- proach, and entered through an open French win- dow at which Roustan, Napoleon's Mameluke body- guard, was waiting. Then Mile. Georges found herself in a large, brilliantly lighted boudoir. Presently a door opened noiselessly; the First Con- sul stood before her in the familiar costume — green uniform with red facings, white satin knee-breeches, silk stockings, his hat under his arm. 225 Great Love Stories of the Theatre He took her by the hand graciously, seated her on a sofa, raised her veil and carelessly threw it on the floor, and then began an amiable conversation. Mile. Georges records his method of breaking the ice and putting her at ease in this fashion: "How your hand trembles! Are you afraid of me, then? Do I seem terrible to you? I found you exceedingly beautiful yesterday, madame, and I wished to compliment you. I am more amiable and polite than you, as you see." "How is that, monsieur?" "I sent you a remittance of three thousand francs after seeing you in 'Emilie,' as a proof of the pleas- ure you gave me. I hoped you would ask permis- sion to present yourself to thank me. But the beau- tiful and haughty Emilie did not come." "I did not dare to take the liberty." "Oh, a poor excuse! Were you afraid of me?" "Yes." "And now?" "Still more." He found her timidity amusing, and with pleas- ant, informal talk tried to assure her that he was no ogre. Then he began to quiz her on all the details of her life, leading up to a demand whence came the expensive gown she was wearing. Without reserve she told him of Prince Sapieha's platonic attentions. "That is good; you do not lie," he said. "You will come and see me again, and will be very dis- creet. Promise me." 226 Mile. Georges and Napoleon He made his intentions as a lover manifest, in a delicate manner, but she, though fascinated in spite of her modesty, begged for a little indulgence, prom- ising to return the next evening if he wished. He respected her timidity, and so they talked on, in a lover-like vein, until five o'clock in the morning, when she said: "I should like to go." "You must be tired, my dear Georgina. Good- by until to-morrow, then. You will come?" "Yes, gladly. You are too kind and gracious for one not to love you, and I love you with all my heart." He put on her shawl and veil, and kissed her good-night on the forehead. Then, like a silly child, she burst out laughing, with the words : "You have just kissed Prince Sapieha's veil." Her tactless remark unleashed the Napoleonic storm of wrath. He tore the veil into bits; he trampled the shawl underfoot. A little crystal ring, inclosing some of Mile. Raucourt's grey hairs, was jerked from her finger and crushed by his heel. After the outbreak the tyrant resumed his aspect of wooer, saying: "Dear Georgina, you must not have anything ex- cept what comes from me." He rang for Constant and gave orders. A white cashmere shawl and lace veil were brought to re- place the offending gifts of Prince Sapieha, and in her ears, as recompense for the shattered keep-sake 227 Great Love Stories of the Theatre ring, he placed two superb diamonds. Then he sent her away, after compelling her to repeat her promise for the next day. Upon the homeward drive the sedulous valet fell asleep, snoring terrific- ally, but the girl was far from slumber. She was facing the crisis of her life and trying to think it out sanely. "I thought the Consul very charming, but very violent," say her memoirs. "It is to be nothing but an existence of slavery. I am going to give myself without the least hope of liberty, and I am very fond of my independence. Shall I return to-mor- row, as I promised him? I am undecided. He pleases me; I find him so kind and gentle with me. But how do I know it is not a caprice? It would be very sad and humiliating to be deserted." She discussed the problem with Talma during the day. He told her that she was mad to hesitate. "But he is the First Consul and I am a strolling player," she answered. "He thinks of nothing but glory, and do you believe that glory goes with love? No; I want some one to be in love with me. Should I be happy if I came to love the Consul, to be near him only when he orders, when it pleases him! See, Talma, it is slavery." "Well, then, get married." "That's nice adyice to give me. I fear slavery, and you wish me to marry!" So Talma delivered his ultimatum and she ac- cepted it. 228 Mile. Georges and Napoleon "You will go this evening to Saint-Cloud. It is your destiny; follow it. If you do not go, you will do something stupid which will be very serious for you." Thus, urged by her great colleague, she kept her promise to Napoleon, and when the carriage ar- rived at the palace she found him waiting for her. To quote again from her memoirs, a document of historical value: "He loaded me with tenderness, but with such delicacy, with such a restrained ardour, always re- specting the modest emotions of a young girl. My heart experienced an unknown feeling; it beat with force. I was attracted in spite of myself. I loved the great man who was surrounding me with such consideration, who was not rough in his desires, who waited the will of a child and bowed to her caprices." She informed him that in spite of his high station, she did not intend to be a plaything; he answered that she would be his "favourite plaything." And again he yielded to her pleas for postponement. A rendezvous was fixed for the next night, after she had appeared in Corneille's "Cinna," the perform- ance of which he would attend. When she came upon the stage the First Consul had not arrived. She looked at his empty box, and her heart sank. Feeling herself already abandoned, she began to bungle the role in her despair. Fi- nally, however, she heard frantic applause ; the peo- 229 Great Love Stories of the Theatre pie's hero had entered. Then her playing seemed inspired. Again the carriage drive by night to Saint-Cloud; again the quiet boudoir and the waiting lover. The time for surrender had come, and she yielded to it gladly. When they parted at dawn she said: "I am afraid of loving you too much. You are not made for me, I know, and I shall suffer. That is written — you will see." Almost every night Constant called for her with the carriage, and as the liaison progressed she found that her mighty lover's passion increased rather than waned. She was discreet, as Napoleon had warned her; Talma, also an idolator of the Consul, was her only confidant; and yet people began to gossip. Her colleagues at the theatre were envious ; acquaint- ances came to ask her to plead their interests with the ministry. According to the lax moral code of the time. Mile. Georges was being signally hon- oured. And as for Napoleon himself, his amours were always discreetly overlooked by his household. The affair with Mile. Georges, however, succeeded in arousing the jealousy of the complaisant Jose- phine. In the memoirs of Mme. de Remusat, a court lady who was intimate with the consular family, this passage occurs: "Mme. Bonaparte soon learned from the spying of her valets that Mile. Georges had been, for sev- eral evenings, introduced secretly into a small, re- 230 Mile. Georges and Napoleon mote set of apartments in the chateau. This discov- ery inspired her with real uneasiness; she told me about it with genuine emotion, and began to shed a great many tears, which seemed to be more abun- dant than that passing occasion deserved. "One evening Mme. Bonaparte, more overcome than usual by her jealousy, kept me with her and conversed about her troubles. It was one o'clock in the morning, and we were alone in the salon. The most profound silence reigned. All of a sud- den she got up. " 'I can't stand it any longer,' she exclaimed. 'Mile. Georges is certainly up there, and I am going to surprise them.' Rather troubled by this sudden resolution, I did my best to deter her from it, but without success. 'Follow me,' she said, 'we will go up together.' "Then I represented to her that such espionage, being scarcely suitable on her part, would be intol- erable on mine. She would listen to nothing, and pressed me so much that in spite of my repugnance I yielded to her will, saying, however, to myself that our expedition would amount to nothing. "So there we were, both marching silently — Mme. Bonaparte first, very excited, I behind, slowly climbing the carpetless staircase that led to Bona- parte's room. In the middle of our journey a light noise was to be heard. Mme. Bonaparte turned back. 231 Great Love Stories of the Theatre " 'Perhaps it is Roustan,' she said, 'Bonaparte's Mameluke, who is guarding the door. The wretch is capable of throttling both of us.' "At that word I was seized with a fright which, ridiculous as it doubtless was, prevented me from listening any more; so without thinking that I was leaving Mme. Bonaparte in cruel obscurity, I de- scended with the candle which I was holding in my hand, and returned as quickly as I could to the salon. She followed a few minutes afterward, astonished at my sudden flight. When she saw my frightened face, she began to laugh, and so did I ; but we re- nounced our undertaking. I left her, saying that the strange fright she had given me had been useful to her, and that I had been very wise to yield to it." Once in their honeymoon period Napoleon cast his nocturnal caution aside, inviting Mile. Georges to accompany him on a little outing in the country. Constant called for her at nine o'clock in the morn- ing and drove her to Butard, a hunting place not far from Saint-Cloud. Napoleon arrived shortly after- ward, escorted by Caulaincourt, Junot, Bessieres and Lauriston. After partaking of the usual breakfast coffee in a little pavilion, the Consul and the act- ress, arm-in-arm, took a simple-hearted lovers' stroll in the woods. She was overwhelmed with the honour, but Napoleon was proud of his young mis- tress, ordering her to raise her veil as they passed by the four stiffly saluting aides-de-camp, each of a gen- eral's rank. 232 Mile. Georges and Napoleon He said to her on this occasion: "At last I see you in daylight; it is not unfavour- able to you." "You are very good to think so," she answered. "Come, come, no false modesty 1 Ah, my dear, there are so many women who deceive you by can- dle-light; and you theatrical people with your rouge are practically masked. But to rise at nine and drive three leagues into the country is an ordeal, and you have sustained it victoriously. You are just as I desired to see you." They sky-larked like any pair of bourgeois sweet- hearts during their ramble. It was cold, so he chal- lenged her to a race. The paths were strewn with dead limbs which caught in her skirts, so he kneeled down to clear them away. He was gay; she was happy. That was doubtless the most charming, the most perfect day in their romance. Mile. Georges continued to live quietly, in spite of her lofty connection ; yet she was often sought out by distinguished men. Talleyrand was friendly with her; visiting potentates, like the Prince of Wiirtemberg, called upon her behind the scenes and brought her presents. A mysterious Captain Hill of the British army brought her an avowal of passion from the Prince of Wales, promising her a life of luxury if she would leave France. Scorning the marvelous jewels which the soldier offered, on behalf of his high-born master, Mile. Georges has- tened to inform Napoleon of the episode. 233 Great Love Stories of the Theatre "Dear Georgina," he said, "perhaps they wanted to bring to life another Judith." "You will never be a Holofernes," she declared. "Reassure yourself; I knew all. You will never see that man again." When Napoleon changed his residence from Saint-Cloud to the Tuileries, a special suite was ar- ranged for Mile. Georges above the state apart- ments, to which, two or three times a week, she was escorted by Constant, through dark passages and up winding stairs. In her company. Napoleon forgot the cares of empire in a kind of boyish merriment. On a certain evening she came wearing a wreath of white roses. He crowned himself with it — even as he was soon to crown himself Emperor — and ex- claimed, as he studied himself in the mirror: "Ha, Georgina; how pretty I am! I look like a fly in milk." Another time, when she entered the suite, con- trary to expectation, she found it empty. She called out for her lover, but received no answer. Then^ at a hint from the valet, she looked under some cushions, to find Napoleon hidden there, laughing like a school-boy. A pretty lovers' ritual marked the intrigue. They exchanged miniatures, and wore them at their breasts in lockets. She asked for a wisp of his hair, and he submitted to the scissors, protesting merrily. She promised to cut off only four hairs, but when he saw her trophy he exclaimed: 234 Mile. Georges and Napoleon "Oh, the lying little wretch! It is enormous." After two years of this happy relationship, affairs of state drifted them slowly but inevitably apart. War clouds were lowering on the horizon ; England was about to renew the death-grapple with France ; Napoleon was marshalling his hosts in camp at Bou- logne, preparing for an invasion across the channel; and was also planning for his coronation as Em- peror. An evening came when he sent for her to say good-by for a while; he was going to Boulogne to inspect his troops. "Don't you experience any pain in seeing me go away?" he asked. Then, according to her story: "He placed his hand on my heart and pretended to tear it out, saying to me in a half-angry, half- tender tone: " 'There is nothing for me in this heart.' "Those were his very words. I was on the rack, and would have given everything in the world to cry, but I did not even want to. We were on the carpet near the fire. My eyes were fixed on the fire and the shining andirons, and remained fixed there like a mummy's. Whether it was the glow of the fire, of the irons, or of my feelings, two great, enor- mous tears fell on my breast, and the Consul, with a tenderness I am unable to express, kissed them. I was so touched to the heart with this proof of love that I began to sob with real tears." Before Napoleon left her that evening, he stuffed her lap full of bank-notes, saying, "I don't want my 235 Great Love Stories of the Theatre Georgina to be without money in my absence.' When she counted them she found that he had giver her 40,000 francs. She was lonely during his absence; the Theatre Frangais appeared empty to her when the First Con- sul was not in his box; the doom of her first love seemed to be ringing in her ears. To Talma she made the threat that if Napoleon did not receive hei upon his return, she would leave Paris. She kept her word, but not immediately. She saw him again, and often, but with arrangements for the coronation on his mind, he was not as atten- tive and devoted as before. Little lovers' disagree- ments arose; once a fortnight passed without his sending for her, and so when Constant appeared with the usual message, she declined. The next day she attended a performance at the Theatre Fran- gais, sitting in a box opposite Napoleon's. Pres- ently Murat, the gallant cavalry officer, joined her. "Cast your eye on the Consul's box," said Murat, "He looks at you often, pretending to listen to 'Les Femmes Savantes.' " "Ah, I am very flattered, I assure you," she an- swered flippantly, "but as a matter of fact it doesn't interest me at all." "Has there been a quarrel, then?" "One has not the right to quarrel with the Con- sul, but one has the right to remain one's own self, That is what I am doing." "Come, wrong-headed one," he advised, "you re- 236 Mile. Georges and Napoleon fused yesterday, did you not? You will consent to- morrow." Then he suggested a drive in the Bois, and she ac- cepted, taking a jealous pride in leaving the theatre under the very eyes of Napoleon with one of his generals. He sent for her the next day, and she obeyed, but with no joy in her heart. She was cold and serious, though he was as gay as usual. A few days later he asked her to come again. This time he had a paternal, and not a lover's manner. He said: "My dear Georgina, I have to tell you something which will grieve you. I shall not be able to see you for some time to come. Well, have you noth- ing to say?" "No, I was expecting it," she replied. "I should have been mad to believe that I could have occu- pied a place, I do not say in your heart, but in your thoughts. I have been a simple distraction; that is all." "It is charming of you to say that; you prove your attachment, and I love to know you love me. But I will see you again, I promise you." "I shall not profit by your kindness. I shall go away." "You will not make that mistake. You would lose your future." "My future! I have none. It matters very little to me; I shall go away." She took her troubles to Talma, and received his 237 Great Love Stories of the Theatre kindly comfort. A month later Napoleon crownf himself Emperor. She rented some windov which afforded a view of the procession, saw h( imperial lover drive past in his gilded carriage wil Josephine by his side, and then went home sayin to herself: "It is all over." Her love burned out into ashes then; she realize that the end had come, and undertook to cure h( heart-break with work and distractions. Fi\ weeks later the Emperor sent for her, and she foun him apparently unchanged; but these visits, ui sought by her, became less and less frequent. F nally, when a lady of Josephine's retinue — the sarr Mme. de Remusat whose memoirs were quote above — was named by gossips as Mile. George successor, they ceased altogether. In May, 1808, Mile. Georges carried out he threat of deserting Paris. Attracted by offers c engagements and imperial favour in St. Petersbur — these glittering inducements were held out b Count Tolstoy, the Russian ambassador — she set 01 for that northern capital. Napoleon ordered her a: rest, but she crossed the frontier before his comman could be carried out. Her artistic success in St. Petersburg was as grei as it had been in Paris, and, having put her aflfectio for Napoleon out of her heart, her amorous coi quests were also extensive. Her patriotic worshi remained loyal, however, and in 181 2, when S Petersburg celebrated the withdrawal of the inva( 238 Mile. Georges and Napoleon ing French from Moscow, she refused to illuminate her windows, according to the general order of the Czar, who remarked: "She is behaving like a good Frenchwoman." While the Grand Army was on its terrible retreat she left St. Petersburg for Sweden. After a brief stay in Stockholm, she journeyed to Dresden, then in possession of the French, and there, as friends, she and Napoleon met again. He sent for the com- pany of the Theatre Frangais and ordered a reper- tory of his favourite tragedies, with Mile. Georges in her greatest roles. After the performances he would talk with his one-time sweetheart and with Talma, the admired tragedian, of Corneille and Racine, and the brilliant days at the Theatre Fran- gais under the Consulate. Such was his diversion upon the very eve of the battle of Leipsic. Napoleon ordered Mile. Georges' restoration to all her rights in the Comcdie, which she had for- feited by her desertion to Russia, with full salary for her years of absence. After her offer to share his exile had not been accepted by the British authori- ties she resumed her career in Paris, though she was dismissed from the Comedie for five years, soon after the new royalist regime came into power, be- cause she appeared with a bouquet of violets — which were under the ban as a Bonapartist flower. When pardoned she appeared again at the Frangais and its companion theatre, the Odeon. Her middle career was identified with the heyday of the roman- 239 Great Love Stories of the Theatre tic drama; and her mature beauty was thus cele- brated by Theophile Gautier: "The arc of her eyebrows, traced with incompar- able purity and fineness, stretches over two black eyes full of fire and tragic brilliance; the nose is narrow and straight, cut with oblique nostrils pas- sionately dilated, and joins the forehead with a line of magnificent simplicity. The mouth is powerful, bent at the corners, and superbly disdainful, like that of an avenging Nemesis waiting the hour to unchain her lion with the brazen talons. This mouth, however, has charming smiles, expanding with quite imperial grace, and one would not re- mark, when she wishes to express tender passions, that she had just launched an ancient imprecation or a modern anathema. . . . "Mile. Georges seems to belong to a prodigious and vanished race. She astonishes you as much as she charms you. One would call her a wife of Ti- tan, a Cybele, a mother of gods and men, with her crown of embattled towers. Her construction has something Cyclopean and Pelasgian. One feels on seeing her that she remains like a column of granite to bear witness to an annihilated generation, and that she is the last representative of the epic type. She is an admirable statue to place upon the tomb of tragedy, buried forever." She gave a farewell performance May 27, 1849, appearing as Clytemnestra, the occasion being marked by an artistic clash with the rising Rachel, 240 Mile. Georges and Napoleon who was also on the bill. On December 17, 1857, she had a genuine farewell, playing Cleopatra in "Rodogune." She died January 11, 1867, at the age of eighty, her last years having been spent in poverty. Emperor Napoleon III assumed the expenses of her burial in the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, as a senti- mental heritage from his greater namesake. Throughout her long life the glamour of Napo- leon's love for the stately young girl she had been clung to her. She spoke of him often, and always with reverence. "But it was not the lover she evoked," wrote Frederic Masson, "it was the Emperor. She no longer saw the man he had been for her, but the man he had been for France, like those nymphs who, honoured for an instant by the caresses of a god, never regarded his visage, dazzled as they were by the blinding light of his glory." 241 GREAT LOVE STORIES OF THE THEATRE X THE FOLLIES OF "BECKY" WELLS. THE loves of famous actresses run a wide gamut of themes — from the sentimental to the tragic, from the ecstatic to the pathetic. In the life-stories of these dear, dead women there is only one phase of broad human appeal lacking, that of humour, which is naturally alien to the grand pas- sion. But in the escapades of "Becky" Wells, a bi- zarre, moon-struck comedienne of the late Geor- gian period, that element is to be found. Its mirth is a little grotesque, perhaps, its laughter strained and high-pitched, close to the tears of hysteria; but humour it remains. For Becky was the merriest, maddest eccentric that ever walked the borderland between cleverness and insanity. She was a very popular player in London at the close of the eighteenth century. Her success was intermittent, but her undoubted talent might have won enduring and respectful regard if her own un- balanced exploits had not muddled her career into a tragi-comedy. As it is, her memory is chiefly pre- served by her own amazing memoirs, as well as in the autobiographical accounts of James Bernard, a minor actor, and Frederick Reynolds, a minor play- 245 Great Love Stories of the Theatre wright of her times ; and that less as an actress than as a crack-brained elf whose adventures were almost too absurd to be true. Professionally, she was an expert in roles of the ingenue and comic simpleton type. Her greatest characters were Becky Chadwallader in Samuel Foote's "Author," produced in 1780, and Cowslip in O'Keefe's "Agreeable Surprise," staged in 1781. So completely were these parts identified with her that the sobriquets of "Becky" and "Cowslip" fol- lowed her through life. She also appeared in such forgotten plays as Ticknell's "The Camp," Col- man's "The Jealous Wife," David Garrick's "The Irish Widow," and Hoadly's ''The Suspicious Husband." The loftier realms of the drama she invaded as Imogen in Shakespeare's "Cymbeline," Lady Randolph in John Home's "Douglas," and the name-part of Rowe's "Jane Shore," with excel- lent effect. Incidentally, she was the original Ce- cilia Loftus, for her "imitations" were a staple at- traction of the British stage as long as she flourished before the footlights. That record will summarise her histrionic career; now for her escapades. Becky was born in 1759, her maiden and ungar- nished name being Mary Davies. Her mother went on the stage to find a means of livelihood for their family, after the head of the house had made a sudden transition from humble toil to raving lunacy; and she followed the maternal example when very young. The girl played Juliet in the 246 The Follies of "Becky" Wells provinces when she was eighteen, and promptly married her Romeo, a fledgling actor named Wells. The bestowal of his name was almost the only hus- bandly duty which he fulfilled toward her, for soon after the wedding, according to her memoirs, he sent her back to her mother with this note : "Madam: As your daughter is too young and childish, I beg you will for the present take her again under your protection ; and be assured I shall return to her soon, as I am now going on a short journey, and remain, yours, etc." Becky does not seem to have missed him in the slightest degree; he never returned to her, for he had eloped with one of her bridesmaids; she went on her own way in single blessedness, and pros- pered accordingly. Portraits of her at that period show an engaging sprite of faery beauty, blonde, laughing, roguish-eyed, half simple and half shrewd of expression. James Bernard, who cast her for Becky Chadwallader in "Author" merely because she was girlish and pretty, says that he dispelled her doubts concerning her ability to play the role by advising her to put her thumb in her mouth and look like her usual self. By this method, he as- sured her, she would completely realize the play- wright's ideal. She obeyed and scored a hit which soon took her out of the provinces and into London. Becky's amours began with Edward Topham, an officer in the Life Guards who had a happy knack of dashing ofif epilogues and prologues, and also an 247 Great Love Stories of the Theatre established reputation for eccentricity. His clothes were always at the opposite extreme from the reign- ing fashion ; his poses were notorious at all the clubs. Topham permitted his playwright friend, Freder- ick Reynolds, to clap him, a character ready made, into farce after farce; and he seemed to enjoy this advertisement of his foibles. After he and Becky began to keep house, without any pretense at the proprieties, Topham founded a daily newspaper called The World. His editorial policy was revolutionary; he was the first of the yellow journalists. He revelled in scandals and im- pertinent gossip, served up in the elegancies of his graceful style; he published a serial comic story which increased the circulation by i,ooo copies a day, which was flamboyant prosperity for a primi- tive Georgian paper; and he followed it with a pro- longed correspondence upon fistic affairs between the gladiators, Humphreys and Mendoza. Obvi- ously, he was born too soon, this fellow Topham. Becky was his associate editor; she not only wrote for The World but also attended to its literary and business direction when he went into the country to recreate his overtaxed brain, as he frequently did. From his rural retreat he would write to her such notes as these: "I hear with great pleasure that the numbers of The World printed on Friday were 2,600. There's credit for you, you old Pud." — "Take care of your- self, and when you have been quiet some time, take 248 The Follies of "Becky" Wells care of The World." — "Simon can be of use, I see, and seems to have a knack of writing fashionable fiddle-faddle; in regard to which you may promise him, if he does well, he shall have the special priv- ilege of mentioning himself." At the trial of Warren Hastings, before the House of Lords, Becky sat in the press gallery every day busily taking notes ; and before she went to the the- atre in the evening she dictated a full report of the speeches and proceedings to clerks in The World of- fice. That was no small "assignment," and journal- ists of to-day, if they had access to the musty old files of The World, would congratulate Becky's shade upon her skill in "covering" it. Another manifesta- tion of her literary talent was collaboration with Topham upon a farce called "The Fool," the best parts of which, he acknowledged like a gentleman, were of her invention. Meanwhile her popularity with theatre-goers waxed mightily, in proof of which one Anthony Pasquin, a versifier of the period, may be quoted. He paid tribute to her in his "Children of Thespis," as follows : "Come hither, ye sculptors, and catch every grace That Fate Interwove In a heaven-formed face; For 'tis Wells, the resistless, that bursts on the sight, To wed Infant rapture and strengthen delight. When she smiles, Youth and Valour their trophies resign; When she laughs she enslaves — for that laugh Is divine." But with her success, Becky's eccentricities began 249 Great Love Stories of the Theatre to develop amain, possibly accelerated by her associa- tion with Topham. For instance, she suffered from a delusion that every man she met, or saw at a dis- tance, fell in love with her out of hand. More than that, she was for having Topham challenge them all, and fight with them by the half-dozens, for daring to look upon her with eyes of languishing adoration. George III was among her imaginary victims, and when that addle-pated monarch took a sea-voyage along the English coast, at medical advice, she pur- sued him loyally in a hired yacht. The king was pleased at first by this evidence of devotion; he would hang over the bulwark watching Becky's sail by the hour, nodding his paretic head solemnly and exclaiming: "Mrs. Wells — Wells — Wells! Good Cowslip — fond of the water, eh?" Finally, how- ever, he became bored and then alarmed, for Becky's yacht hovered near his with such nagging persistence that he had doubts as to whether it were a delusion or reality. According to James Bernard: "Whenever his Majesty cast his eye over the blue element, there was the bark of Becky, careering in pursuit of him; the infatuated woman reposing on the deck in all the languor and sumptuousness of Cle- opatra. The royal attendants now began to suspect her motives, and the sovereign became so annoyed at his eternal attendant that whenever he espied a sail he eagerly enquired: 'It's not Wells, is it?' or on perceiving the dreaded boat: 'Charlotte, Charlotte, here's Wells again!' " 250 The Follies of "Becky" Wells In 1790 Becky was arrested for debt. She is careful to explain in her memoirs that this pecuniary difficulty resulted from her generosity in lending an undesirable brother-in-law money enough to edu- cate him as a surgeon and send him to India; but whatever the cause she was in almost constant fear of the bailiffs through the rest of her life. Topham was not in London when she was apprehended, so she sent for his companion, Frederick Reynolds. That gentleman fulfilled his obligation of friendship toward Topham first by securing her release from prison and then by eloping with her. To escape her other creditors they went into hiding in remote farm-houses, and then, tiring of seclusion, they voy- aged to France. Topham seems to have counted himself well rid of Becky, whose vagaries were be- coming too expensive, and to have held Reynolds, as his rescuer, in higher esteem than ever. He made an arrangement with her creditors, however, which permitted her return to London, and politely noti- fied Reynolds that he might bring his prize home. Having found France, then in the throes of revolu- tion, no paradise, they did not delay in terminating their romantic exile. Becky went back to the stage immediately; but, as Reynolds deposes: "Within a few months of our arrival in London, the wild and eccentric character of my fair fellow- traveller, which had lately been subdued by her pecuniary distresses, again broke forth with addi- tional violence. In a romantic spot in Sussex she 251 Great Love Stories of the Theatre formed a hermitage, and like Charles the Fifth or Madame de la Valliere, she determined, in the full blaze of her power and beauty, to lead a life of se- clusion." Her brief experiment as an anchorite was chiefly remarkable for a fete champetre, which she gave to satisfy the curiosity of the country-side before going into complete retirement. The "quality" of the county was invited to attend, in masquerade cos- tumes, and Becky entertained them with a tour de force of her theatrical talents, singing, dancing, act- ing, and imitating. She became the toast of all the neighbourhood squires; never was there a livelier or more popular hermit. Then she went back to the glitter of the London stage, and for a while she flut- tered gayly on the crest of her fame. Suddenly, however, she startled Reynolds with the announce- ment that she had discovered she was mad, and made him accompany her to the sanitarium of Dr. Willis, in Lincolnshire. This was the physician who had treated George Ill's tottering reason with some suc- cess, and who, though regarded as a quack by his colleagues, seems to have had excellent modern methods for handling neuropathic and psychiatric cases. Becky lived in one of the farm-houses of Dr. Wil- lis's estate as a patient for several months, visited oc- casionally by Reynolds ; and then, at her insistence, he took her for another journey into the wilds. They went to a desolate district on the coast of Nor- 252 The Follies of "Becky" Wells folk, populated by smugglers. The inhabitants were in some doubt as to the character of these well- dressed strangers, and it was believed that they were either government spies or refugees from France. Becky decided to satisfy their curiosity in full meas- ure; she announced that she was Queen Marie An- toinette and that her companion was the Dauphin. The peasantry believed her devoutly; Reynolds writes : "I was much astonished to see the farmer, his wife, and all his dependents, and many of the neighbour- ing peasantry, advance toward me, bowing and curt- seying with the most profound respect. Becky ac- companied this grotesque and outlandish group ; and to the increase of my amazement began with much seriousness and theatrical gesture to address them in broken English. The surrounding confusion was such that I could catch nothing except the fre- quently repeated words, 'Dauphin' and 'Jacobin.' But not a syllable she uttered seemed to be lost upon her awe-struck auditors, who continued to approach towards me with ever lower and more awkward obeisances; when the farmer, advancing before the others, motioned them to keep back, and then falling on his knees, he hastened to disburthen his brain by exclaiming in a voice of thunder: 'Dang the Ja- cobites ! Long live the Dolphin !' " They held royal court for an evening, with hand- kissings and genuflections; but when the manager of a small theatre ten miles distant dashed up to im- 253 Great Love Stories of the Theatre plore a "royal command" for a performance, they decided that the jest was becoming too notorious. That night Marie Antoinette and the Dauphin se- cretly abdicated and fled. How Becky separated from Reynolds is unknown; perhaps she was arrested for debt too often to suit his fancy; but at any rate, the affair died a natural death. One night, for old time's sake, she went to see a performance of his play, "How to Get Rich," and as she arose to leave, after the final curtain, a man who had been sitting in the adjoining box cour- teously remarked that he had refrained from inter- fering with her pleasure, but that he must now do his duty and escort her to the Fleet prison. In that grotesque institution, whose humours and hideous- ness are perpetuated in the pages of Charles Dickens, she met her second matrimonial fate. Shortly after she had been placed in pawn there, Joseph Sumbel was added to its assemblage of char- acters. He was a young Oriental Jew whose father had been prime minister to the Sultan of Morocco, He was rich, and his sojourn in the Fleet was not brought about by debt but by a contempt of court, in stubbornly refusing to settle with his brother over a disputed inheritance. Sumbel entered the Fleet like an eastern prince, attended by a gorgeous reti- nue of Moorish servants ; and Becky, looking on from the gallery, was much impressed by the sight. Sumbel's eye must have caught hers, as she stared in admiration, for within a few days she received an 254 The Follies of "Becky" Wells invitation to dine with him, suitably chaperoned, in his quarters. It was not long before he had pro- posed marriage and had been accepted, provision- ally; Becky informed him that since she did not know whether her husband were living or dead there might be some barrier to their union. They consulted lawyers who were unable to find any trace of the missing Mr. Wells, and who advised that the only way in which to make the wedding legal was for Becky to espouse the religious faith of her be- trothed. This she did, and so the two strange beings were married in the Fleet. Becky says that four rooms were illuminated for the occasion, that the ceremonies lasted for a week, and that the net cost of the nuptials was 500 pounds. The Morning Post of October 16, 1797, chronicled the event, in part, as follows : "On Thursday evening last the marriage ceremony in the Jewish style was performed at the Fleet, unit- ing Mrs. Wells, late of Covent Garden theatre, to Mr. Sumbel, a Moorish Jew, detained for debt in that prison. The bridegroom was richly dressed in white satin and a splendid turban with a white feather; the bride, who is now converted to a Jewess, was also attired in white satin, and her head dressed in an elegant style, with a large plume of white feathers. Mr. Sumbel's brother assisted at the cere- mony, dressed in pink satin and a rich turban and feather. The apartments were brilliantly illu- minated with variegated lamps, according to the 255 Great Love Stories of the Theatre customs of the Jews. The rest of the company who attended were Jews, in their common habiliments — as old-clothesmen. But with the exception of the guests, everything had the appearance of eastern grandeur." That account must have been substantially accu- rate, even though it has a flavor of the Arabian Nights, for Mr. Sumbel saw fit, in a letter to the editor, to correct only the statement that he was im- prisoned for debt instead of contempt of court. But Becky was aggrieved by a suggestion in the article, omitted in the quotation, to the effect that her con- version was more a matter of notoriety-seeking than of conviction ; she wrote to the Morning Post in this vein: "Sir: — In your paper of Thursday last it was said — 'Mrs. Wells was always an odd genius, and her becoming a Jewess greatly gratifies her passion for eccentricity.' In answer to this, I beg the favour to insist in your paper that it is not any passion for eccentricity that has induced me to embrace the Israelitish religion — it is studying and examining, with great care and attention, the Old Testament, that has influenced my conduct. Excuse me for giv- ing you the trouble, but I beg you will insert the fol- lowing passage from that book: " 'Thus saith the Lord of Hosts : In those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold of all the languages of the nations, even shall take hold of 256 The Follies of "Becky" Wells the skirt of a Jew, saying, we will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.'— Zechariah, ch. viii, verse 23. "By giving the above a place you will much oblige, "Your humble servant, "Leah Sumbel (late Mary Wells)." A few days after the wedding they were freed, for Becky persuaded her new husband to bend his stub- born neck and purge himself of his contempt by set- tling with his brother, to the tune of 20,000 pounds, and to pay her own debts in addition. Then they took a house in Pall Mall and established themselves in almost regal state. She soon discovered, how- ever, that being the wife of an Oriental plutocrat was no bed of roses. He displayed a furious jeal- ousy, possibly with some cause, for Becky could never make her eyes behave. If she dared to look across the footlights into the audience at the theatre, he would knock her down as soon as they returned home. If a servant or tradesman even so much as touched her hand, he was promptly crushed to earth. He gave her costly jewels, but — "Though the diamonds I wore, of immense value, were allowed me on state days and bonfire nights, on my return home they were taken from me (not in the most delicate manner) and committed to the care of the iron chest. I was, on no pretense whatever, allowed to see them except in his presence; and as to money, I was never sufifered to receive even a shil- ling in my pocket, for fear I should run away." 257 Great Love Stories of the Theatre Sumbel, in short, was madder than Becky; the man was really a raging lunatic, but being a little cracked herself, she did not notice it at first. His violence was not limited to her, and presently, fear- ing prosecution for an assault, he went into hiding in an obscure cottage. When this life became mo- notonous, she persuaded him to make a journey into Yorkshire; but travelling incognito, without his Moorish entourage and in English dress, irritated him extremely; and his only consolation, she de- clares, was to don his eastern attire after they had found shelter for the night in some wayside tavern, and to sit cross-legged on the floor, while the land- lord and servants stood at gaze, awe-stricken and speechless. They managed to get along together for a while, however; and there was even an interval of perfect domestic peace when nothing happened to perturb Becky except the flooring of a servant or two, now and then. But finally Sumbel tired of London and decided to return to Morocco. He spent 20,000 pounds, Becky declares, in brass cannon as a gift to the Sultan ; bought expensive presents for other not- ables among the Moors ; and rehearsed her carefully in the various exotic ceremonies which she would have to go through with on her arrival at Mogadore. Then, after all preparations had been made, she rebelled against expatriation. He tricked her into coming aboard the vessel which he had chartered, 258 The Follies of "Becky" Wells and would have sailed away with her, willy-nilly, if she had not discovered his plot at the nick of time and gone ashore in a tender. He abandoned the voyage, but occupied himself with threatening to kill her and then commit suicide. Once he fired a pistol at her as she lay in bed, upon which she had him bound over to keep the peace and then deserted him. Pleas for forgiveness, protestations of affec- tion, and attempts to have her incarcerated in a mad- house all failed him, so he gave up in disgust and divorced her. His method of securing a legal separation was peculiar; all that he did was to hand her a slip of paper upon which was written the first verse of the twenty-fourth chapter of Deuteronomy: "When a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it comes to pass that she hath no favour in his eyes because he hath found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house." The London newspapers commented upon this do- mestic disaster as follows: "Mr. Sumbel, the Moorish Jew who about a year ago married Mrs. Wells, has lately stated in a public advertisement that Mrs. Wells is not his wife, and that he will not pay any debts she may contract. The grounds he gives are, first, that the ceremony was not a legal Jewish marriage; secondly, that Mrs. Wells was not capable of becoming a Jewess, with- out which no marriage could take place; and thirdly, 259 Great Love Stories of the Theatre that she has broken the Sabbath and the Holy Feast, by running away from Mr. Sumbel in a post-chaise and eating forbidden fruit — namely, pork griskin and rabbits." Becky promptly wrote to the editors, defending herself against the more serious charges, declaring that she herself would bring suit for divorce and maintenance because of Sumbel's wicked and in- human treatment of her; and concluding: "Mr. Sumbel himself eats pork, and even rabbits, which shocked Mrs. Sumbel much." Then he refused to pay the rent on their house, de- claring that she was responsible for its lease. He was sued by the landlord ; his counsel argued in his defense that he was not a Jew but a Mohammedan, but failed to cloud the issue ; and a verdict was ren- dered against him. But rather than settle the bill, he quickly drew all his money out of the London banks, secured a passport, and took ship to Denmark. Thus Sumbel passed out of Becky's life; she dis- poses of him in this whimsical paragraph: "I have since learned from a gentleman that he went to Altona in Denmark, where he built a large street at his own expense ; and that for the last years of his life his sole amusement was fishing; but the place where he enjoyed that amusement was rather singular. He had a very long room built for the purpose, in which was a large reservoir of water that contained fish of various descriptions; and he would sit whole days angling in it. If the fish did 260 The Follies of "Becky" Wells not bite quick enough to suit his Moorish temper, the water was let off, and they were beaten to death with a large stick." Becky began to go down hill after Sumbel's dis- appearance, although her memoirs indicate that she endured the vicissitudes of her stormy destiny cheer- fully enough. Hers was a buoyant spirit, and the only deep grief of her life was over her separation from her three daughters, who were carefully raised by their illustrious father, Mr. Topham. She was devoted to these girls, who had all of their mother's beauty and charm, whenever she remembered about them. Upon getting rid of Sumbel she made a trip into the country to see them, but Topham, with all the virtue of the reformed rake, ordered her away. She roamed about the roads near their house in hope of catching a glimpse of them until she had worn out her last pair of shoes, when she gave up in de- spair and returned to London. Arrests for debt now became more frequent, and engagements fewer. Her memoirs, written with the collaboration of some hack, were published by subscription in 1811, but she had spent the proceeds before the edition came from the press. She had to appeal to the Theatrical Fund for relief, which was freely granted. Then poor Becky dropped out of sight and London knew her no more as a public char- acter. Ten years later James Bernard, returning from a long sojourn in America, met her near Westminster 261 Great Love Stories of the Theatre Bridge, London. He describes that strange en- counter as follows: "Though old and faded, she was still buoyant and loquacious. A young, rough-looking male com- panion was with her, whom she instantly quitted to welcome me home. After about five minutes' con- versation on past and present times, I begged not to keep her from her friend any longer. 'Friend!' she replied, putting a construction on the word which I by no means intended. 'He's no friend! He's my husband!' It was now my turn to stare; and I in- quired whether he was in the profession. She took him by the hand, and dancing up to me through the stream of coal-heavers, porters and men of business that were passing, sang with great good-humour: " 'And haven't you heard of the jolly young waterman, That at Westminster bridge used to ply?' " That glimpse of Becky, cheerful in adversity, is the last trace of her which posterity can find. Five years afterward she was reported as dead. Doubt- less she passed into the presence of the Great Prompter, after pitifully bungling the farce of life, in some sailors' lodging house, with a song on her lips. 262 GREAT LOVE STORIES OF THE THEATRE XI DORA JORDAN AND THE DUKE OF CLARENCE •'•TTAD he left me to starve, I never would I I have uttered a word to his disadvan- tage." Of such tenderness was the fidelity of Dora Jor- dan, even in the anguished hour of her dismissal by the paramour with whom she had lived in conjugal, if not marital, happiness, for twenty years. He was the Duke of Clarence, afterward William IV; she was a comedienne; but in that poignant crisis the player is revealed as far more noble than the man of royal blood. Of all actresses whose names are as- sociated in illicit union with the titled great Mrs. Jordan is, in fact, the most worthy of respect. To her honours as an artist, there may be added, in no less degree, that homage due a lofty spirit of de- voted womanhood and maternal sacrifice. She sat at this Duke's table as the matron of his house with such dignity that prudes and princes alike accepted her as wife rather than mistress. She bore him ten children, and was to them all that the name of mother could mean. She supported the es- tablishment when his own income was insufficient. For their common needs and for the generous en- 265 Great Love Stories of the Theatre dowment of their brood, she slaved at her profession long after she had wearied of the player's fame. When she was bluntly told to go, she made no out- cry, published no letters, wrote no memoirs; but withdrew in quiet grief, giving her betrayer com- plete absolution. A few years later she died, a wretched recluse, almost in want, the rich earnings of a prosperous career drained away by her beloved, devouring children. Dora Jordan is not to be considered, however, merely as a pathetic instance of royal ingratitude; apart from that chapter of her life, she was one of the greatest and most successful actresses of the English stage. For three decades her name was magic by which the managers could conjure up crowded houses at will ; and in competition with the dominating Mrs. Siddons she held her ground in the public favour with ease. To the tragic muse of "the incomparable" she triumphantly opposed the comic ; and if her more famous rival was the Melpo- mene of the time, she was just as genuinely the Tha- lia — a sobriquet, indeed, by which she was widely known. Curiously enough, in spite of her brilliant public and romantic private life she has been neglected by latter-day annalists, where actresses of less talent and achievement have found biographers by the score. That very neglect, however, makes her all the more grateful as a theme. Before her story is taken up in detail, she may be 266 Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clarence introduced as an artist, in the estimate of Charles Lamb, who wrote of her in his essay, "On Some of the Old Actors" : "Those who have only seen Mrs. Jordan within the last ten or fifteen years can have no adequate idea of her performances of such parts as Ophelia, Hel- ena in 'All's Well that Ends Well,' and Viola. Her voice had latterly acquired a coarseness, which suited well enough with her Nells and Hoydens, but in those days it sank, with her steady, melting eye, into the heart. Her joyous parts — in which her memory now chiefly lives — in her youth were out- done by her plaintive ones. There is no giving an account how she delivered the disguised story of her love for Orsino. It was no set speech that she had foreseen, so as to weave it into a harmonious period, line necessarily following line, to make up the music— yet I have heard it so spoken, or rather read, not without its grace and beauty— but, when she had declared her sister's history to be a 'blank,' and that she 'never told her love,' there was a pause, as if the story had ended— and then the image of the 'worm in the bud' came up as a new suggestion— and the heightened image of 'Patience' still fol- lowed after that, as by some growing (and not me- chanical) process, thought springing up after thought, I would almost say, as they were watered by her tears. . . . She used no rhetoric in her passion; or it was Nature's own rhetoric, most legitimate then, when it seemed altogether without rule or law." 267 Great Love Stories of the Theatre Mrs. Jordan, like Peg Woffington and a long line of London's favourite comediennes, was born in Ire- land. She inherited the theatrical temperament from her mother, and in her sixteenth year (1777) she made her debut in Dublin, playing Phoebe in "As You Like It." There, at the outset of her ca- reer, professional success was joined with personal misfortune. The manager of the Dublin theatre, one Richard Daly, was an unmitigated scoundrel who practised upon the innocent girl a system of seduction in which, through long experience, he was an adept. By frequent advances of salary he in- volved her in debt, and then threatened her with prison until she succumbed. By this vile means he held her in serfdom for several years, but at last, in 1782, with her mother, brother and sister, who were dependent upon her, she fled like a criminal to England, in order to place herself beyond hisl^ clutches. Tate Wilkinson, of the discursive "Wandering Patentee," was her salvation. She and her people were almost destitute when application for an en- gagement was made to him at Leeds ; he recognized the mother as having played Desdemona to his Oth- ello in Dublin twenty-four years before, and was charitably disposed. Did she play tragedy, comedy, or opera? he asked. "All," she replied mildly, with no pretense to special merit for such versatility. Tate gasped politely, hemmed and hawed, thought it over, and then demanded an example of her qual- 268 tee Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clarenc ity— a few lines from any role she might choose. She begged to be spared an immediate trial, because of her fatigue and nervousness, but the tactful Tate, ap- parently acceding, ordered a bottle of wine, began to gossip about old days in Dublin, and soon, under the influence of his geniality, she was reciting Ca- lista, in Rowe's "The Fair Penitent," across the table. Then the manager's doubts vanished ; it was arranged forthwith that she should have an engage- ment at fifteen shillings a week, and should make her first appearance a few days later as Calista. She stipulated, or her mother did for her, that after the tragedy had ended she should sing the ballad of "The Greenwood Laddie," and although Tate had observed no symptoms of comic facility in his "dis- covery," he consented, with some reluctance, to this peculiar arrangement. When the day of test came, he was pleasantly surprised, as he admits in "The Wandering Patentee": "I was not only charmed, but the public also — and still more at what I feared would spoil the whole, the absurdity of Calista, after her death, jumping forth and singing a ballad ; but on she came, in a frock and a little mob cap, and sang the song with such efifect that I was fascinated — for mana- gers do not always meet with jewels, but when they do, and think the sale will turn out for their own advantage, you cannot conceive, reader, how it makes their eyes sparkle." For the next three years she was a popular lead- 269 Great Love Stories of the Theatre ing woman at Leeds and the other provincial thea- tres on the York circuit, in which Wilkinson had an interest. She received her nom de theatre of Dora Jordan, as well as her introduction to English au- diences, from that manager, according to tradition. Her true name was Dorothy Bland, and she had been accustomed to play either as Miss Francis or Miss Phillips, cognomens taken in recognition of her mother's side of the house. Fear of giving of- fense to her relatives — remittances and legacies from whom were hoped for but never received — caused a decision to revise her nomenclature. Dorothy was naturally contracted to Dora, and Wil- kinson, more by accident than design, did the rest. He is quoted by an associate as telling how he hap- pened to officiate at the mummer's baptismal font, in this fashion: "Why, I said, my dear, you have crossed the water, so I'll call you Jordan; and, by the memory of Sam! if she didn't take my joke in earnest and call herself Jordan ever since." The persuasion of "Gentleman" Smith, from Drury Lane, who was gratifying his sporting tastes by a visit to the races at York, turned Mrs. Jordan's ambition toward the London stage. In the autumn of 1785 she secured a modest engagement at Drury Lane to play "second parts" to Mrs. Siddons in tragedy, on a salary of four pounds a week. Hardly more than a month had passed when, through her appearance as Peggy in "The Country Girl" 270 ice Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clareni (adapted by Garrick from Wycherley's "The Coun- try Wife"), she established herself as an independent favourite. One of the newspaper reviewers took this measure of her endowments: "She is universally allowed to possess a figure, small perhaps, but neat and elegant, as was remark- ably conspicuous when she was dressed as a boy in the third act. Her face, if not beautiful, is said by some to be pretty, and by some pleasing, intelligent, or impressive. Her voice, if not peculiarly sweet, is not harsh ; if not strong, is clear, and equal to the extent of the theatre. She has much archness, and gave every point of the dialogue with the best comic effect. She is a perfect mistress of the jeu de thea- tre, and improved to the uttermost all the ludicrous situations with which 'The Country Girl' abounds. From such premises there is and can be but one con- clusion, that she is a most valuable acquisition to the public stock of innocent entertainment." James Boaden, the only satisfactory chronicler of her life, speaks of her, "when she burst upon the metropolis," in this manner: "Perhaps no actress ever excited so much laughter. The low comedian has a hundred resorts by which risibility may be produced. In addition to a ludi- crous cast of features, he may resort, if he chooses, to the bufifoonery of the fair; he may dress himself ridiculously; he may border even upon indecency in his action, and be at least a general hint of double entendre, to those whose minds are equally impure. 271 Great Love Stories of the Theatre But the actress has nothing beyond the mere words she utters, but what is drawn from her own hilarity, and the expression of features, which never submit to exaggeration. She cannot pass by the claims of her sex, and self-love will preserve her from any willing diminution of her personal beauty. How exactly had this child of nature calculated her ef- ficacy, that no intention on her part was ever missed, and, from first to last, the audience responded uni- formly to an astonishment of delight. In the third act they more clearly saw what gave the elasticity to her step. She is made to assume the male attire; and the great painter of the age [Sir Joshua Rey- nolds] pronounced her figure the neatest and most perfect in symmetry that he had ever seen." Then for twenty-four busy years she enjoyed un- interrupted popularity. Although her special talent was for comedy, particularly in romping, hoydenish and "breeches-roles," she ran through almost the entire repertory of the British stage, playing the ephemerae of the day, the comic masterpieces, and the standard tragedies. Her "takings" were enor- mous for the time; her second season alone brought 5,000 pounds into the coffers of Drury Lane. She was admired by the cognoscenti as well as by the mob. Macready said: "With a spirit of fun that would have outlaughed Puck himself, there was a discrimination, an identity with her character, an artistic arrangement of the scene, that made all seem spontaneous and acci- dental, though elaborated with the greatest care." 272 Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clarence Leigh Hunt wrote this critical appreciation of her contagious laughter: "Her laughter is the happiest and most natural on the stage; if she is to laugh in the middle of a speech, it does not separate itself so abruptly from her words as with most of our performers. . . . Her laughter intermingles itself with her words as fresh ideas afford her fresh merriment; she does not so much indulge as she seems unable to help it; it increases, it lessens, with her fancy; and when you expect it no longer, according to the usual habits of the stage, it sparkles forth at little intervals as recol- lection revives it, like flame from half-smothered embers. This is the laughter of the feelings ; and it is this predominance of heart in all she says and does that renders her the most delightful actress in the Donna Violante of 'The Wonder,' the Clara of 'Matrimony,' and in twenty other characters." In 1787 Mrs. Jordan formed an alliance, so stead- fast for a time that it was regarded as a marriage, with Richard Ford, a hybrid barrister-actor. Three years later the Duke of Clarence, just returned from that service in the navy which afterward gave him the appellation of "The Sailor King," fell in love with her and began to woo in a downright nautical fashion. His offers were flattering, and Mrs. Jor- dan, feeling insecure in the unkept promises of Ford, who had proved to be a worthless parasite on her bounty, gave them careful consideration. She af- forded the latter an opportunity to merit her con- tinued matronly devotion by marrying her, accord- 273 Great Love Stories of the Theatre ing to his professed intention; but he, with a hint of venal purpose, chose rather to cater to the ducal in- terest by waiving his pledge. Boaden explains his heroine's action in this change of protectors, as fol- lows: "Mr. Ford was elevated by some persons into an injured and deserted man; they neither knew him, nor his privity to the advances made by the noble suitor. They had never seen him at the wing of the theatre, and thrown their eyes, as he must have done, to the private boxes. Mrs. Jordan was not a woman to hoodwink herself in any of her actions — she knew the sanctions of law and religion as well as anybody — this implies that she did not view them with in- difiference. And had Mr. Ford, as she proposed to him, taken that one step farther, which the Duke could not take, the treaty with the latter would have ended at the moment." In 1790 Mrs. Jordan became the morganatic Duchess of Clarence, and for two decades the con- nection was so domestic and so permanent that all England regarded it with toleration. The couple seemed more truly husband and wife than thousands of others whose union was of Book and ring, as well as "in the sight of Heaven." The Duke was then rated as of small political im- portance, for not until the death of the Duke of York, in 1827, did he become the heir presumptive. With his two older brothers between him and the crown, he was thought to be out of the running; he 274 Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clarence had to content himself with the trivial function of Ranger of Bushey Park, not far from London; and — what was more embarrassing — with an unprincely income. At Bushey, therefore, Mrs. Jordan took up residence with him, enjoying country life be- tween theatrical engagements and rearing lusty children, in whom he took as keen a family interest as she. Her other offspring — she had borne one daughter to the evil Daly and three to the caitiff Ford — were with her, accepted by the Duke without a trace of step-fatherly grudge. There was room for all, including the ten young ducal scions who blessed the liaison, in capacious Bushey House. That mansion was indeed a happy home, with "olive-branches" enough to found a village. Contemporary gossip had it that the Duke allowed Mrs. Jordan i,ooo pounds a year; but whatever the sum, she spent all, and as much again of her own earnings, for the maintenance of the establishment and the support of her children. Old George HI is said to have advised his son in the matter of finances : "Hey! hey-! What's this? What's this? You keep an actress — keep an actress, they say." "Yes, sir." "Ah, well, well! how much do you give her, eh?" "A thousand a year, sir." "A thousand! A thousand! Too much, too much! Five hundred quite enough, quite enough." Then, according to this probably apocryphal an- 275 Great Love Stories of the Theatre ecdote, the Duke wrote to Mrs. Jordan suggesting such a reduction of her income. All the satisfac- tion he received from her in regard to the proposed economy was a strip torn from the bottom of a play- bill, carrying the motto : "No money returned after the rising of the curtain." That ribaldry, however, does not sound at all like Dora Jordan. The Duke certainly drew freely upon his mis- tress's personal funds, though for domestic, not was- trel, purposes. Journalistic paragraphers boldly satirised his dependence upon her salary. In 1791 one of the newspapers printed this item: "The connection between Little Pickle and her new FRIEND has been paragraphed in every pub- lic shape, and unless something extraordinary should ever occur, may now be dropped. We have only to add that, as Banker to her Highness, he actu- ally received her week's salary from the Treasurer on Saturday last!!!" In that incident a rhymster masquerading as "Pindar Junr," found inspiration for a pungent epi- gram: "on a certain person's receiving a theatrical salary" "As Jordan's high and mighty squire Her play-house profits deigns to skim, Some folks audaciously enquire If he keeps her, or she keeps him!" 276 Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clarence Mrs. Jordan came to consider her work in the theatre merely as a means of securing domestic ease for herself and family, although it is of record that as soon as she set foot on the stage, all of the spirit and enthusiasm of youth returned to her, and she acted as if inspired. In letters to friends she would speak of her tours as "prosperous cruises"; and in 1809 she wrote to Boaden: "I am quite tired of the profession. I have lost those great encitements, variety and emulation. . . . Without these it is mere money-making drudgery. . . . From the first starting in life, at the early age of fourteen, I have always had a large family to support. My mother was a duty. But on brothers and sisters I have lavished more money than can be supposed, and more, I am sorry to say, than I can well justify to those who have a stronger and prior claim on my exertions." The Duke did all in his power to make a fair re- turn for her affection and her toil. He read dramas which were submitted to her in manuscript; he played the devoted husband admirably; he insisted that his friends should receive her on equal terms with himself. Visitors to Bushey were numerous, and they all came away declaring that they had seen the finest family in England. In this letter of the Duke, answering an inquiry regarding Mrs. Jor- dan's health, there is the manner of honest conju- gality: "The papers have on this occasion told the truth, 277 Great Love Stories of the Theatre for she was last week for some hours in danger; but now, thank God, she is much better, and I hope in a fair way of perfect recovery. It is my present in- tention to set out on the 23rd inst. for the seaside, in order that Mrs. Jordan may bathe for six weeks. As the place we mean to go to is no great distance from the Isle of Wight, and if you have nothing better to do, I shall be very happy to see you there, and Mrs. Jordan has likewise desired me to say as much." When entertainments were given at Bushey, Mrs. Jordan rose to the occasion as if born the great lady. If the duke could be the true yeoman husband, she was equally the Duchess in the presence of society. Take, for example, this excerpt from a newspaper account of the celebration in honour of the Duke's forty-first birthday, which names her as surrounded by the Hanoverian court: "At seven o'clock the second bell announced the dinner, when the Prince of Wales took Mrs. Jor- dan by the hand, led her into the dining-room, and seated her at the top of the table. The Prince took his seat at her right hand, and the Duke of York at her left, the Duke of Cambridge sat next to the Prince, the Duke of Kent next to the Duke of York, and the Lord Chancellor next to his Royal High- ness. The Duke of Clarence sat at the foot of the table. . . . The Duke's numerous family were introduced, and admired by the Prince, the royal Dukes, and the whole company; an infant in arms, 278 Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clarence with a most beautiful white head of hair, was brought into the dining-room by the nursery niaid." Among her stage associates Mrs. Jordan, who was singularly free from the player's characteristic vanity, deported herself with earnest simplicity, as if she had no associations with the great world. Occasional sarcastic comment upon her royal con- nection was, of course, inevitable, no matter how uninvited. Once, when she displayed some dissat- isfaction at rehearsals, the manager remarked: "Why you are quite grand, madam— quite the Duchess to-day." "Very likely," she answered, "for you are not the first person to-day who has condescended to honour me sarcastically with the title." That very morning, in fact, she had discharged an Irish maid for impertinence, and had been berated violently. Biddy had banged one of the shilling- pieces of her wages down upon a table and had screamed : "Arrah, now, honey! With this thirteener won't I sit in the gallery! — and won't your Royal Grace give me a curtsey! — and won't I give your Royal Highness a howl, and a hiss into the bargain!" Another choice anecdote of Mrs. Jordan tells how she brought an austere revivalist into a mood of indulgence for her anathematised profession. He had seen her giving alms in the streets of Chester to a poor widow, and stepped up to her, offering his hand, with the words : 279 Great Love Stories of the Theatre "Lady, pardon the freedom of a stranger, but would to God the world were all like thee." She drew back mischievously, and declared: "No, I won't shake hands with you." "Why?" "Because you are a Methodist preacher, and when you know who I am, you'll send me to the devil !" The minister protested his complete sympathy with her and her deeds of charity, but she answered: "Well, well, you are a good old soul, I dare say; but I don't like fanatics, and you'll not like me when you know who I am." "I hope I shall." "Well, then, I'll tell you. I am a player, and you must have heard of me. My name is Mrs. Jordan." He was staggered by the announcement, but with a sad clerical smile he still held out his hand, saying : "The Lord bless thee, whoever thou art. His goodness is unlimited. He has bestowed on thee a large portion of His spirit. And as to thy calling, if thy soul upbraid thee not, the Lord forbid that I should." He then gave her his arm and escorted her to her lodgings. In parting he shook hands with her again, and added: "Fare thee well, sister. I know not what the prin- ciples of thy calling may be; thou art the first I ever conversed with. But if their benevolent practises equal thine, I hope and trust, at the Great Day, the 280 Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clarence Almighty will say to each— Thy sins are forgiven thee." In 1809 it was reported that Mrs. Jordan and the Duke of Clarence had separated after a quarrel. She serenely denied the rumour, and wrote to a friend in this strain: "With regard to the report of my quarrel with the Duke, every day of our past and present lives must give the lie to it. He is an example for half the husbands and fathers in the world; the best of masters, and the most firm and generous of friends. I will, in a day or two, avail myself of your kind offers to contradict these odious and truly wicked reports." Two years afterward, however, out of a clear sky, the fate of all princely paramours crashed down upon her, and the home of so many affectionate ties crumbled like a house of sand. She was playing at Cheltenham when a letter came from the Duke, ask- ing her to meet him at Maidenhead — to exchange ultimate farewells. After receiving this death- sentence to her happiness, she passed from one faint- ing fit into another, but she would not cancel the night's performance, which was to be the last of the engagement, and bravely rallied her strength to go through with it. The piece was "The Devil to Pay" (ominous title), a scampering farce in which she played Nell, a character with which her comic genius had long been identified. She kept up the pretense of gaiety 281 Great Love Stories of the Theatre until a scene in which Nell, accidentally intoxicated, breaks out into a gale of riotous laughter. Here poor "Thalia's" mirth failed her; when she at- tempted to laugh, she began to sob bitterly, and was unable to control her grief. Only the resourceful- ness of Jobson, the actor who was playing opposite her, saved the scene; he deftly altered his lines to meet the situation, remarking: "Why, Nell, the conjuror has not only made thee drunk; he has made thee crying drunk." As soon as the curtain fell, Mrs. Jordan hurried to her coach, without stopping to change her stage costume, and went to keep her last appointment with the Duke. What words were spoken, what tears were shed, at that forlorn interview are unknown; at any rate, it was, definitely and finally, the end. The Duke's sudden abandonment of Mrs. Jordan has never been satisfactorily explained; his most unctuous biographers either get up a weak case for him, or gloss over the incident altogether. His desire to make a wealthy marriage, in order to strengthen his social and political position, is believed to have been the cause of her dismissal; for he is known to have canvassed the field of eligible English heiresses, about that time, not halting at commoners if the dowry seemed promising, and to have pro- posed to a few of them in vain before he married Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen in 1818. Mrs. Jor- dan's letters to Boaden illuminate chiefly the emo- tional side of the episode; they show her heart as 282 Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clarence pure gold. These confidences, written immediately after the parting, deserve extended quotation; they present a stricken woman, heroically trying to de- fend a still-beloved traitor: "My mind is beginning to feel somewhat recon- ciled to the shock and surprise it has lately received ; for could you or the world believe that we never had, for twenty years, the semblance of a quarrel! But this is so well known in our domestic circle, that the astonishment is the greater! Money, money, my good friend, or the want of it, has, I am convinced, made him, at this moment, the most wretched of men; but having done wrong, he does not like to retract. But with all his excellent quali- ties, his domestic virtues, his love for his lovely children, what must he not at this moment suffer! "All his letters are full of the most unqualified praise of my conduct; and it is the most heartfelt blessing to know that, to the best of my power, I have endeavoured to deserve it. I have received the greatest kindness and attention from the Regent, and every branch of the Royal Family, who, in the most unreserved terms, deplore this melancholy busi- ness. The whole correspondence is before the Re- gent, and I am proud to add that my past and pres- ent conduct has secured me a friend who declares he will never forsake me. 'My forbearance,' he says, 'is beyond what he could have imagined!' But what will not a woman do who is firmly and sincerely at- tached? Had he left me to starve, I never would 283 Great Love Stories of the Theatre have uttered a word to his disadvantage. . . . And now, my dear friend, do not hear the Duke of Clarence unfairly abused. He has done wrong, and he is suffering for it. But as far as he has left it in his own power, he is doing everything kind and noble, even to the distressing himself." "I fear I must have appeared unmindful of your many kindnesses, in having been such a length of time without writing to you; but really, till very lately, my spirits have been so depressed, that I am sure you will understand my feelings when I say, it cost me more pain to write to those interested about me than to a common acquaintance; but the constant kindness and attention I meet with from the Duke, in every respect but personal interviews (and which depends as much on my feelings as his), has in great measure restored me to my former health and spirits. Among many noble traits of goodness, he has lately added one more, that of exonerating me from my promise of not returning to my profession. This he has done, under the idea of its benefiting my health, and adding to my pleasures and comforts." "I lose not a moment in letting you know that the Duke of Clarence has concluded and settled on me and my children the most liberal and generous pro- vision; and I trust everything will sink into obliv- ion." Whatever that "liberal and generous provision" 284 Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clarence was, Mrs. Jordan remained on the stage. Her vast flock of children— five lordling sons of expensive education, and nine daughters in need of marriage portions — demanded unflagging industry of her. For the next four years (1811-1815) she kept on in the harness of her art. Other things arose to harass her; two of her most cherished sons, who had served with distinction in the Peninsular campaign, were court-martialed for insubordination and sent out to India; while the dissolute husband of her eldest daughter, born of her Irish misfortunes — a Mr. Alsop — drained her income and involved her in financial entanglements. In the autumn of 181 5 she retired from the stage and went to France; and in July, 1816, she died at Saint-Cloud, aged fifty- four. Toward the end she seemed to be in need of funds, and her total estate was valued at less than 300 pounds. When the news of her death, in apparent poverty, became public, a hue-and-cry of criticism was raised against the Duke of Clarence, and the subsequent scandal went on for about twenty years, bringing him to the throne as William IV (1830) in no fa- vourable light. He was defended against the charge of ingratitude, of course; his own private secretary, an official of the mint, undertook to prove to the nation that his settlement upon Mrs. Jordan and her children was 2,300 pounds per annum, and that it would have been 4,400 pounds if she had not continued on the stage; also, that she had signed in 285 Great Love Stories of the Theatre blank, for a member of her family (presumably Al- sop), certain notes which had been treacherously filled out for huge sums, the payment of which had exhausted her resources. Another pleader for the crown declared that Mrs. Jordan merely "took a whim to affect poverty." These financial aspects of the lamentable affair would become tiresome if the conflicting documen- tary evidence, pro and con, were to be recited at length; and William IV, moreover, is too dead a king to waste time over, either in exoneration or con- demnation. Mrs. Jordan's lack of ready funds, in her last, sad days, doubtless was due largely to her generous sense of duty toward her children, who were too numerous for even a royal treasury to sup- port in the sumptuous manner to which they were born. The brood of Bushey Park, named Fitzclarence, may be given biographical record as follows: George Augustus Frederick Fitzclarence, created Earl of Munster in 1831 ; Henry Fitzclarence, cap- tain in the British army, died in India, in 1817; Lord Frederick Fitzclarence, Lieutenant-General, and Colonel of Thirty-sixth Regiment of Foot; Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence, Commander of the Royal Yacht; Lord Augustus Fitzclarence, Rector of Ma- pledurham and Chaplain to the King; Lady Sophia Fitzclarence, married Lord De L'Isle and Dudley in 1825; Lady Mary Fitzclarence, married General Fox in 1824; Lady Elizabeth Fitzclarence, married 286 Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clarence the Earl of Errol in 1824; Lady Augusta Fitzclar- ence, married (first) Hon. J. K. Erskine in 1827; and (second) Lord John Frederick Gordon in 1836; and Lady Amelia Fitzclarence, married Viscount Falkland in 1830. The four daughters by Mrs. Jordan's earlier liai- sons naturally led more obscure lives. She pro- vided each, however, with a marriage portion of 10,000 pounds, and one of them achieved the dis- tinction of mating with a general. The Fitzclar- ences preyed upon their royal father — though they found his cupboard bare enough — after their mother's death; but the eldest son, honoured above the others by being made an earl, found life not to his liking and committed suicide. The rest re- ceived handsome annuities from Queen Victoria when she came to the throne in 1837. This pay- ment of their father's domestic debt and peace-of- fering to the shade of their ill-treated mother was much applauded by the nation. There is an element of the uncanny in Mrs. Jor- dan's end; her death itself is clouded by mystery. Her only companion in France was the former gover- ness of her children. This woman wrote to one of the daughters, Lucy, announcing Mrs. Jordan's death; three days afterward another letter was received from her, stating that Mrs. Jordan was still alive, earlier advices to the contrary notwithstanding, but that she was critically ill ; then came a third, repeat- ing the bulletin of death. General Hawker, the 287 Great Love Stories of the Theatre daughter's husband, started for France at once, ar- riving at Saint-Cloud several days after the burial. So far as identification was concerned, the ex-gov- erness was the only person who could testify at first hand; and her own letters argue that she was not particularly reliable. So it was not strange that rumours should spread, denying her death. Many people even declared that they had seen her in London; and for a time Mrs. Jordan was, like Oscar Wilde only a few years ago, celebrated as a revenant, legally dead and yet walking the earth in the very flesh. All this might be dismissed as old wives' tales if matter- of-fact James Boaden, her friend for eighteen years and her loyal biographer, did not corroborate them with his personal testimony. He, too, saw Mrs. Jordan after her death and interment at Saint- Cloud. He says : "Indeed, about the period in question there was a notion that, so far from her being dead, Mrs. Jor- dan had been met by various persons in London, and I myself was very strongly impressed with a notion that I had seen her. The dear lady was not an every-day sort of woman. Not that there were not persons who resembled her; for some such I knew who had more than a slight resemblance in features, and who, to enhance their own attractions, copied her smile, and a peculiar action of the mouth, which was full of effect, and pointed an ironical sentence. But there is a physiognomy so minute, 288 Dora Jordan and the Duke of Clarence if we will observe, as to decide the almost indifferent actions of the human character. She was near- sighted, and wore a glass attached to a gold chain about her neck; her manner of using this to assist her sight was extraordinarily peculiar. I was tak- ing a very usual walk before dinner, and I stopped at a bookseller's window on the left side of Picca- dilly, to look at an embellishment to some new pub- lication that struck my eye. On a sudden, a lady stood by my side, who had stopped with a similar impulse; to my conviction it was Mrs. Jordan. As she did not speak, but dropped a long white veil immediately over her face, I concluded that she did '" not wish to be recognised, and therefore, however I should have wished an explanation of what so sur- prised me, I yielded to her pleasure upon the occa- sion, grounded, I had no doubt, upon sufficient rea- sons. "When I returned to my -own house, at dinner time, I mentioned the circumstance at table, and the way in which it struck me is still remembered in the family. I used, on the occasion, the strong language of Macbeth, 'If I stand here, I saw her.' It was but very recently I heard, for the first time, that one of her daughters, Mrs. Alsop, had to her entire conviction, met her mother in the Strand, after the report of her death ; that the reality, or the fancy, threw her into fits at the time ; and that to her death she believed she had not been deceived. With her, indeed, it was deemed a vision, a spectral 289 Great Love Stories of the Theatre appearance at noon-day, which I need not say was not my impression in the rencontre with myself." What might have been disclosed if Mr. Boaden had not been too polite to speak to the apparition? The incident with its flavor of Poe, sends one's imagination groping in the dark for an answer. Mrs. Jordan's influence, like her physical form, seemed to live after her ; she was not soon forgotten, either in London or at her old home of Bushey. Ten years after her death, Charles Mathews, the elder, called upon the Duke, who was then married, to receive felicitations upon his performance of the day before. He was ushered into the room where the ducal couple had breakfasted, and his attention was immediately fastened upon a life-sized portrait conspicuously placed over the chimney-piece. It was a speaking likeness of Dora Jordan. The Duke had kept her — in counterfeit — by his hearth-stone, even though a German Princess had filled her place! The actor stared impolitely, but no offense was taken. His host expressed a hope that no one else in the world had so good a portrait of Mrs. Jordan, and then, after a pause, he said with deep feeling: "She was one of the best of women, Mr. Mathews." So the spirit of the woman who had been ban- ished was still strong at Bushey House, after all. 290 GREAT LOVE STORIES OF THE THEATRE XII MARIE DORVAL AND ALFRED DE VIGNY ALFRED DE VIGNY was a poet bom to the wreath of bays. Handsome, aristocratic, reserved, sensitive and spiritual, he may be called the Milton of French literature. His was a rich and splendid imagination which dwelt in serene heights above the sordid world. Marie Dorval was an actress born in a troupe of roving players. A fascinating, impulsive, undisci- plined personality, with a great gift for violent emo- tional acting, she became a tragedy queen, a Mrs. Siddons, of the Parisian stage. She was, for a time, a rival in the Comedie-Frangaise of Miles. Mars and Georges, whose fame, however, has been more enduring than hers. Like them, she was a woman of notorious love affairs. The destinies of these two, the austere poet and the ardent actress, crossed, and there ensued a ro- mance, a "grand passion," which makes one of the most absorbing stories to be found in theatrical memoirs. It is exotic and bizarre; it begins in idyll and ends in tragedy; it contains contradictions of temperament which a novelist of psychological bent 293 Great Love Stories of the Theatre might seize upon as material for a master-work of analysis in the human heart. Vigny achieved youthful fame, with a poem called "£loa," which tells of a sentimental angel who became fascinated by the sins and agonies of Satan. Curiosity causes her to visit him; compas- sion turns into love; and though recognising his malignant nature, she surrenders to his seductions. Clasped in the arms of the outcast archangel, the fair, frail £loa sinks downward toward Hell, while the faithful seraphim look on in tears. That work of his imagination Vigny, through his liaison with Marie Dorval, was destined to live out in personal experience, with the roles reversed; he himself was his own angelic Eloa, and the act- ress the destructive spirit. For a time theirs was an inspiring and stimulating love; Vigny's most brilliant and productive years were those spent with Mme. Dorval; but it ended with a brutal shock of disillusion and a long aftermath of disgust. The poet's dream was shattered beyond repair, and wounded to the soul, he withdrew into a retirement that endured until his death twenty-eight years afterward. The world heard little from him after his break with Mme. Dorval ; his career was inter- rupted; and only posthumous publication of his poems renewed his fame. Then, in a magnificent work called "La Colere de Samson," he seemed to be hurling from the grave a last, bitter cry of con- tempt at the woman who had betrayed his devotion. 294 \1 \1).\M K HOHX'AI.. MADAME DORVAL Marie Dorval and Alfred de Vigny Vigny sprang from a family of the petit no- blesse which had survived the French Revolution. In 1 8 14, when but seventeen years old, he entered the army. Boyish portraits of him in the scarlet and gold of a King's Musketeer reveal a gracious, win- some character — a debonair soldier with the gentle heart of a poet. He remained in the service until his thirtieth year, when he resigned his commission as captain to devote himself entirely to the literary career in which, between campaigns, he had already made notable progress. Two years afterward, he encountered the fateful Dorval. Of this actress's early history, it may be said that she passed directly from the cradle to the stage; that at the age of twelve she was married to a man old enough to be her grandfather, who disappears from her memoirs at an early date; that after much pro- vincial experience she hazarded a debut in Paris, when twenty years old (1818), in "Pamela"; and that she rapidly rose to a commanding position on the French stage. The impression which she made upon Jules Janin, the leading critic of the time, at the occasion of her first decided success — in "Thirty Years, or A Gambler's Life" — may be recorded. He wrote : "The budding Mme. Dorval had a personality to justify the strongest sympathies. She was frail, im- ploring, timid ; she wept amazingly, with desolation, with agonies, with an overwhelming delirium." In a flagrant melodrama called "The Incendiary," 295 Great Love Stories of the Theatre Dorval touched the spark to Vigny's heart. Her role was that of a devout girl, the tool of a plot- ting prelate, who burns down a factory owned by an enemy of the church, believing that her crime will find merit in heaven. The climax came in a scene where the girl, under arrest, comprehends the enor- mity of her offense, and confesses to a village cure. "Crouched down upon her knees like a repentant Magdalene," says a chronicler of the period, "Dor- val stared at the cure with great, dim eyes ; she wept; she mourned like a frenzied woman suddenly smit- ten with conscience; and through the twelve min- utes of the scene, the audience was breathless with emotion. It was a triumph of hallucination and mysticism upon the stage." Himself a mystic, Vigny became enraptured with Dorval, as she appeared in this drama, and at- tended the performance night after night. It seems that he had already made her acquaintance; the previous season, upon seeing her at the premiere of Casimir Delavigne's "Marino Faliero," May 30, 1829, he had demanded an introduction, and had an- nounced himself an admirer of her art. At this time Vigny was making Shakespeare known to the French stage by poetic translations, and even before the production of "The Incendiary," he had presented Dorval with a copy of his version of "Oth- ello" — in which Mile. Mars was playing Desde- mona — dedicated to her in sonorous verses. When his infatuation began, through the agency of 296 Marie Dorval and Alfred de Vigny that play of ominous title, Vigny had been mar- ried for several years to a hypochondriacal English- woman— Lydia Bunbury— for whom he always showed the most chivalrous regard, but whom he did not love. A worshipper of all things English, he had carried his philanglican tendencies to the absurdity of this conventional, mismated union, in which there was no ardour on either side. Dorval herself had been a wife, a mother, and a free adventurer in the realms of love. Though a little younger than Vigny, she was infinitely more sophisticated. He was a cold, chaste dreamer, as naive as a child ; she was a woman ot vast experi- ence, practised in the amorous arts of which he was a fastidious novice. She was all emotion; he all imagination. Yet the adoration which he offered lifted her for a time to his own spiritual level. As one of Vigny's biographers puts it: "When at the age of thirty-two she saw kneeling at her feet this gentleman of ancient lineage, his charming face framed in his blonde and curly hair and delicately lighted up by the tender azure of his eyes, she experienced a sentiment she had never felt before. It seemed to her as if a cup of cool well- water had been lifted to her burning lips." And so, for several years they remained like a be- trothed couple, in a pure, sentimental relationship — a poet and his muse, a nun and Sir Galahad. The wits of Paris sneered or smiled, but the lovers heeded not. Through the feverish whirl of theat- 297 Great Love Stories of the Theatre rical life they drifted along like a pair of angelic creatures in one of Vigny's own poems. Temperamentally, they were as dissimilar as could be imagined. Dorval was animated, expansive, frank, unrestrained. Vigny was cold, self-con- tained, irreproachable of manners, impeccable of habit. Sainte-Beuve declared that "he lived in a perpetual, seraphic trance." This friendship, there- fore, was like linking Carmen to a puritan. Intellectually and emotionally, however, they were akin; or at least, they had points of contact which explain this platonic beginning. Both of them had a strain of religious mysticism in their natures; both had the same artistic predilections; for Vigny's poetry was all in the key of grief, pity and tenderness, while she excelled upon the stage in the depiction of those very emotions. Like the Breton race from which she came, Dorval was superstitious. Vigny, on his part, had a kind of blind, superstitious faith in destiny. His youth had been nurtured on the Scriptures, and she always turned in her hours of trouble to the Psalms or the Imitation of Christ. Yet there was also this vital difference between them : her emotions tended toward immediate ex- pression in action, and his toward repression in dreams. She was an actress with the moral malaria of Paris in her blood; he was a poet ot the ideal. These anomalies are to be taken into account in ex- plaining the catastrophe of their romance. 298 Marie Dorval and Alfred de Vigny Vigny's courting was typical of the man, and it piqued Dorval's interest keenly, for she was ac- customed to being pursued by rough hunters of women. His attentions were delicate; his discre- tion was scrupulous. There were, at first, no pro- testations of love or friendship; no bouquets at the theatre; no sentimental excursions; no compromis- ing rendezvous. After their separation, Dorval once said : "He never once asked me out to dinner." His gifts were those of critical praise in the reviews ; his confidences concerned his art and her own. In the Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 831, he wrote of her: "Mme. Dorval has the secret of the most poignant tears, the most penetrating emotions, in tragedy; and she has just proved that the easy tone and finished style of comedy are also familiar to her. She seems like an actress from Covent Garden or Drury Lane, with all the profound reveries and feeling of Mis- tress Siddons; and now she has added to this tragic gift (the greatest in the theatre) another of subtle observation of manners. Hers is a well-rounded talent, of which the future is indeed vast." Dorval maintained an establishment in Paris where she reared her three children with fond ma- ternal care, and there Vigny came to see her, by appointment, or when he was certain to find her alone. The talk of their tete-a-tetes ran to literary and theatrical topics, though personal confidences doubtless played a part in this platonic wooing. From Vigny there came no hint of passion, no sug- 299 Great Love Stories of the Theatre gestion of a relationship other than the intellectual. The actress was captivated by this respectful homage; after her experiences with the rapacious males of her circle, adoration as a muse came to her as a fresh and precious tribute. She was flattered; she felt a secret pride in being treated like a duch- ess, in being addressed as "my angel" by a rapt-eyed poet. With this delightful comradeship she expe- rienced, for a time, a return to the long-lost purity of maidenhood. Alexandre Dumas, the elder, had been one of Dor- val's light-o'-loves before Vigny came upon the scene, and when she followed the poet into the realms of the ideal, the old musketeer of the pen still besieged her with advances. There is on record a letter from Dorval to Dumas, written two years after her friendship with Vigny began, which proves her temporary regeneration. "You may depart without seeing me," she said, "and I will accept your adieux; or you may come to visit me, and I will receive you as a friend, ill from a disease which though painful is not of long dura- tion. I promise to see you upon your return, if you will promise, on your part, to love me only as M. de Vigny loves me." Under the influence of Dorval, Vigny became a dramatist. He had already made a debut upon the Parisian stage, before he fell in love with her, by his translations of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," "Romeo and Juliet" and "Othello," yet 300 Marie Dorval and Alfred de Vigny these were tributes from a poet to his master rather than indications of a definite bent toward the theatre. Naturally, however, his interest in the actress led him to undertake vehicles for her use, and so he ventured out of the peaceful realms of poetry into the battlefields of the drama. With her in mind for the heroine, he wrote, first of all, a melodrama in prose called "La Marechale d'Ancre." It was a poison-and-dagger story of the seventeenth century, reeking with the plots and counterplots of Concini and Borgia. He was un- able to place her in the leading role, however, and when the piece was finally produced several years afterward, at the Odeon, the second endowed theatre of Paris, Mile. Georges, her rival, was the central figure. Vigny was greatly chagrined by the in- trigues which defeated his purpose; how he made amends to her the following letter tells : "I am sending you two copies of 'La Marechale d'Ancre,' madame. It is a poor corpse which might have revived under your interpretation, but that happy event was not in the cards. I will come to dine with you to-night, according to your gracious invitation, and am. Your thousand-times devoted "De Vigny." Thus Vigny's first play for Dorval was ill- starred, from his lover's point of view. Before he wrote another, their platonic dalliance had become 301 Great Love Stories of the Theatre a fierce liaison of passion. His dream had been for a bond of the spirit, not of the flesh — but one does not play with fire and remain unscorched, particu- larly when the flame is a woman of Dorval's tem- perament. She finally wearied of intellectual love, and began to fret against the platonic ideal. Her impulsive emotions at last refused to be content with elusive sentimentalities. Shortly after the "Marechale d'Ancre" episode, Dorval is known to have exclaimed to some of her companions of the theatre, in a fit of petulance: "Would that M. de Vigny were human!" That was the beginning of the end. Her rule as muse was nearly over, and her reign as mistress was about to begin — at her own prompting. The only wonder of it all is that the event was postponed so long. One night when she was nervously over- wrought — according to the anecdote of a player of the period who knew her well — she looked Vigny full in the eyes, and asked with provoking mockery: "When will the parents of Monsieur the Count come to ask my hand in marriage?" She did not have to repeat the cynicism a second time. Vigny folded his wings and came down to earth at once. They went into a honeymoon which continued for months, a trance of amorous delights, tempered and refined by the mysticism in which both were adepts. Mme. de Vigny — the perpetually ill and complain- ing Lydia Bunbury — knew of her husband's in- 302 Marie Dorval and Alfred de Vigny trigue and condoned it; Mme. Dorval was respon- sible to no one for her liberties with the moral code; and so the liaison flourished openly. Paris ex- claimed "At last!" and made epigrams about the virtue of poets. By that time— the year was 1833— Dorval had lost her youthful charm; she was no longer beau- tiful ; but she had a personal fascination which tran- scended physical perfections. In Vigny's journal, published after his death, there is a description of her which reveals the depths of his infatuation. He makes it impersonal, but Dorval is written in every line: "An inspired actress is charming to watch at her toilet before going upon the scene. She talks of everything under the sun with ravishing exaggera- tion; she loses her head over trifles; cries, laughs, groans, smiles, becomes angry, caresses— all in a single minute. She says she is sick, suffering, well, weak, strong, gay, melancholy— and she is nothing of the kind. She is impatient as a blooded race- horse at the barrier; she shows off her paces; looks in the mirror, puts on her rouge, removes it again. She tests and heightens her expression; she tests her voice by speaking loud; she tests her soul by passing through all the sentiments; she intoxicates herself with the art of the scene in advance." During his first raptures, Vigny wrote for Dorval a one-act comedy sketch called "Quitte pour la Peur," which she played at a benefit in her own 303 Great Love Stories of the Theatre behalf, May 30, 1833. After this trifle, which was successful, his stimulated genius busied itself with a greater work, which was rapidly completed and which marks his high-tide as a dramatist. This was the tragedy of "Chatterton," written at fever-heat in seventeen days. Into the mournful story of the English boy-poet, Vigny put all of his high faith in the poetic mission, but into the role of Kitty Bell, the young woman who befriends Chatterton in his garret, he put Dorval, as he saw her with love- dimmed eyes. His own stage directions describe the role, which became Dorval's greatest achieve- ment, as follows : "Kitty Bell, a young woman, gracious and ele- gant by nature more than by education; reserved, religious, timid of manner, trembling before her husband, unreserved only in her maternal love. Her pity for Chatterton is growing into love; she feels it and struggles against it; the constraint which she imposes upon herself becomes more and more severe. Everything must indicate, as soon as she steps upon the stage, that an unexpected shock, a sudden terror, might cause her instant death." Baffled in his intention to see Dorval in "La Marechale d'Ancre," Vigny, now the masterful lover where before he had only been the reserved admirer, took a firm stand in the case of "Chatter- ton." His influence had just secured for his mis- tress an engagement with the Comedie-Francaise, and he declared that no one in the company, not 304 Marie Dorval and Alfred de Vigny even the great Mars or Georges, was capable of playing Kitty Bell— no one but his beloved Dorval. Pressure was brought to bear upon him, but he re- fused to change his decision, insisting upon his author's privilege to select the leading player ac- cording to his own wishes. The intrigue which fol- lowed ran up to the throne of Louis Philippe him- self, but without any effect upon the consecrated lover. Dorval, though a favourite with the public for years, through her engagements at the Porte St. Martin, had not yet been granted the intimacy, the confidence, and the admiration of her colleagues in the "house of Moliere." To them she was still an interloper; and Mile. Mars, seeing in her a growing rival, never lost an opportunity of defeating this up- start of the boulevards. Mars, moreover, had power in high places. So when it was announced that the author of "Chatterton," from which much was ex- pected, had gone over the heads of Mars and Georges, and selected Dorval as the creator of the role of Kitty Bell, the director and the trustees of the national theatre set up a great cry of scandal. Then Vigny delivered this ultimatum: "Whether it be scandalous or not, such is my will, and I intend that it shall be carried out. Otherwise, my piece will go to join Mme. Dorval at the Thea- tre Porte St. Martin." Several days afterward, the minister of the Beaux- Arts department, under whose jurisdiction the 305 Great Love Stories of the Theatre Comedie-Frangaise fell, met Vigny in the foyer of the Opera, and began diplomatic negotiations : "It seems. Monsieur the Count, that you are on the eve of a great success. I congratulate you upon the happy event, and also upon having Mile. Mars as your principal interpreter." "Will your excellency permit me to say," re- marked Vigny haughtily, "that he has been mis- informed? It is not Mile. Mars but Mme. Dorval who will create the role of Kitty Bell, and I can as- sure you that she will be magnificent." "Mile. Mars, however, has certain rights, and royal interest," protested the minister. "Perhaps Mme. Dorval may not have won them yet, but they will be hers the day after, I swear to you." Then Louis Philippe, strongly prejudiced in favour of Mile. Mars, took a hand in the affair. Vigny was invited to a ball at the Tuileries, and between two dances, the bourgeois King conde- scended upon him in this subtle manner: "Permit me, M. de Vigny, to present my felici- tations upon the success which is in store for you, and also for your happy choice of Mile. Mars as interpreter. She is an admirable actress, and we will go, the Queen and I, to applaud her in this new creation." But the poet failed to truckle to royalty. "If Your Majesty will deign to pardon me," Vigny answered, "it is not to Mile. Mars that I have 306 Marie Dorval and Alfred de Vigny confided the role of Kitty Bell. I have thought it necessary to pass her by in favour of Mme. Dorval, a great actress herself and one who possesses pre- cisely the grace, the poetry and the passion with which I have endowed my heroine." Then with cutting hauteur, Louis Philippe re- plied: "I hope that your determination may prove pro- fitable to you — but I fear that it will not be very ac- ceptable in the theatre." Upon that score the King was a true prophet. All the people in the cast of "Chatterton" were conspir- ing against Dorval, and they did not hesitate to show their discontent to the author at rehearsals. Dorval and Vigny had to endure many an afifront or double entendre in order to make headway with the work. One day the players found installed upon the stage the traditional spiral staircase down which Kitty Bell fell to her death. A cry of de- rision went up. "What is that machine for?" they exclaimed. "That machine," Dorval answered good-na- turedly, "is the staircase down which I must tum- ble (degringoler) in order to die at the bottom. It is a beautiful scene; you will see." The company exchanged winks, and went out singing: "Tra la la la, elle degrtngole, comme a la Porte St. Martin." Thus did the dwellers in the "house of Moliere" 307 Great Love Stories of the Theatre hoot at scenic realism as worthy only of the lurid melodramas produced at the Porte St. Martin, whence Dorval had come. The players rehearsed with their usual zeal, though their frigid attitude toward the author and the interpreter of Kitty Bell was maintained. "De- gringoler" became a catch-word of derision with them, and they waited impatiently to see Dorval perform the acrobatic feat of tumbling down a spiral stairway, as the climax of a tragic scene. "Will you degringolez this morning, madame?" M. Joanny, who was cast for the role of the Quaker husband, John Bell, would ask with sarcasm. "No, monsieur, not to-day." "Good; we will have patience." The day for the dress rehearsal came, and still Dorval had not performed the de gringo lade. "Do you degringolez to-day?" inquired the ironic Joanny. "I'll try." "Very well, madame." But when the cue came, Dorval quietly picked up her skirts and tripped down the stairs in regulation manner. She seated herself upon the last step, smiled at Joanny, and said : "This is the spot where I die." "But, madame," he objected, "I want to see your degringolade in order to determine my own attitude of horror." "Bah! To look on while some one dies is not 308 Marie Dorval and Alfred de Vigny such an unusual or difficult thing. Everyone knows how, my dear fellow, and after having listened to me, with all your talent in your own role, you will not be embarrassed by seeing me die. In short, monsieur, if you must know, I intend to keep secret until the first performance the movement of this scene upon which we — the author and I — are count- ing. It must be an effect of complete surprise." Dorval and Vigny attained their end. The sur- prise was sudden and overwhelming. When "Chatterton" had its premiere, in June, 1834, Tout-Paris was present. Political passions, literary jealousies and amorous intrigues rubbed elbows in the foyers and whispered in the loges. The King himself, with all his court, was in the au- dience. The play was successful from the opening scene, though it ventured farther into the field of pure thought and submerged feeling than that audience, accustomed to the gross melodrama of the romantic school, had ever gone before. Written in the sim- plest prose, it was steeped with the mystical pas- sion, subtle, silent, never expressed, between Chat- terton and Kitty Bell. As the Quakeress, Dorval was admirable; she completely realised the words of Kitty Bell's husband : "The peace that reigns about you has been as dangerous to the spirit of this dreamer as sleep would be beneath the white tube- rose." But while the applause grew, there was with it a 309 Great Love Stories of the Theatre feeling of restraint; the mysterious denouement, known only to the actress and her lover, was anx- iously awaited. At last the episode came when Kitty Bell, feeling a premonition of tragedy, rushes feverishly up the spiral stair to throw open the door of Chatterton's room. As she saw the poet's life- less body, Dorval recoiled in horror, with a piercing scream; then, half-swooning, she tottered backward against the balustrade, and fell, or rather glided, down the steep, winding flight, like a wounded dove, reaching the bottom in her death-agony. The audience, recovering from the supreme thrill of that tragic moment, burst into a wild tempest of applause for Dorval. As the conquering actress advanced to the footlights, hand in hand with the children in the play, to receive the homage, a bou- quet of flowers, thrown from the royal box, fell at her feet. Even Louis Philippe, the prejudiced monarch, had succumbed to her genius. And when Dorval went toward her dressing room after the curtain had fallen, glowing with the tri- umph of the evening, she encountered Joanny, who had played the Quaker husband with great au- thority, waiting to greet her. "I have come to ask your pardon, madame," he said. "You were sublime to-night, and I shall never forget the expressive spectacle which you have just given us." The impulsive Dorval embraced her reformed enemy affectionately, crying: 310 Marie Dorval and Alfred de Vigny "My dear, clever colleague, you are as great in heart as in talent!" With which she gave him the flowers that had fallen from the royal box. The next morning the dramatic critics raved about "Chatterton" and Dorval. As is often the case in Parisian journalism, Vigny reviewed his own play for one of the newspapers; and here was his rhapsody upon his mistress: "She constantly recalls the maternal virgins of Raphael. Without effort she takes poses like them; like them, also, she carries, holds or puts down her children, who never seem to be separated from their gracious mother, offering to artists' eyes groups worthy of their study, which appear unstudied. Her voice is tender unto sorrow and despair; her soft and melancholy words are those of forlorn pity; her gestures those of ministering devotion; her glances never stop asking heaven for mercy in mis- fortune; her hands are always ready to clasp them- selves in prayer. One feels that the impulses of her heart, restrained by duty, will be mortal as soon as love and terror have conquered her reserve. Noth- ing could be more innocent and naive than her ruses and coquetries to persuade the Quaker to talk of Chatterton. She is gentle and modest up to the sur- prising outburst of energy, of tragic grandeur, of un- expected inspiration, when fright, at the climax, brings out all her loving woman's heart. She is poetic in every detail of this role, which she caresses 311 Great Love Stories of the Theatre fondly. In fine, she proves herself the most accom- plished talent of which the Theatre-Fran§ais can boast." Thus were the names of Dorval and Vigny united before the public gaze with the brilliant ritual of a great dramatic triumph. With "Chat- terton" their love rose to its zenith — and shortly thereafter fell to its ruin. It would seem as if Dorval's passion for Vigny should have been strengthened by their artistic union upon the boards. She owed her strongest role to him; and more than that, to his influence, and his fidelity in the face of intrigue, she owed an estab- lished position, on equal terms with Mars and Georges, in the Theatre-Frangais. But at the very time when she should have been most loyal, she turned traitor, through one of the curious contradictions of character not uncommon among women of her type. While still loving Vigny, she deceived him. He discovered her trea- son, in December, 1835, renounced her absolutely, and hid his heart-break in a grim, stern retirement, whence he never emerged. The facts in the case are more or less obscure. The gossips of that time held that Dorval had yielded to the importunities of Alexandre Dumas. Jules Sandeau, a man of letters who had been the bel ami of George Sand, and from whom that writer had taken part of her pen name, has also been men- tioned in connection with the incident. There is 312 Marie Dorval and Alfred de Vigny better ground, however, for believing that in a mo- ment of abandon, while on a provincial tour, Dorval began a fugitive affair with a handsome young actor, M. Gustave, afterwards called M. Melingue, whom she discovered at Rouen and helped to a ca- reer on the Parisian stage. No matter who the man was or what his station, the one definite, vital fact in this sordid aspect of the romance is that Dorval recklessly inflicted upon her poet-lover a wound that never healed and that he never forgave. For some months before the rupture, it had been common scandal that Dorval was resuming her old wanton habits, and Vigny was sneered at as a deceived lover, until he swept the actress out of his life. There is extant, in the hands of a Parisian col- lector of autographs, a brief series of letters which discloses the awakening of his jealousy, the first pangs of his agony. They even hint at condonation, on his part, of one or two offenses before his pride mastered his love and caused him to leave her for- ever. A few quotations from these documents will throw a little light upon this poet's tragedy: "Upon returning from your home, at one o'clock — I have come back a thousand times more heart- broken than in all these past days. How you wound, how you torture me, my beautiful angel! My poor, dear sweetheart, how you are humiliating me! You think that you will have Louise [a maid or companion] write to me occasionally while you are on tour? If you wish to kill me with chagrin. Great Love Stories of the Theatre that is the right way. No, no, no! I must have your own handwriting, the trace of your own arm upon the paper, every day — every day of my life. . . . Ah ! what cruelty to accuse me of not having been of enough service to you in the theatre! You know my life — could I have done more? You are going to see presently, if you will give me confidence in yourself, what I shall do for you. ... I beg of you, my beautiful Marie, instead of frightening and threatening me as you did to-night, to reassure me of the future, so that I may be able to think and write for you." He kept his promise; he wrote "Chatterton" for her; he secured for her an engagement with the Comedie-Francaise so that she might be free of pro- vincial tours. But still she failed him. The morning after that piteous letter had been written, he awoke to send another: "I was overpowered with fatigue last night, and slept heavily. I was astonished to awake and find my pillow, my cheeks, my eyes, wet with tears. I had dreamed some horrible thing that made me weep. You made me unhappy last night, my beau- tiful angel; it is indeed yourself who should not be jealous. I love you greatly, and with a continual apprehension." Later, while she was still on tour, he wrote : "The other day, when I went to see Volnys at the Theatre-Frangais, I felt a veritable fright at being there without seeing you, and I was obliged to de- 314 Marie Dorval and Alfred de Vigny sert my loge. I shall go no more to the Frangais. What were you doing that night? Who knows if you were not in flirtatious conversation with some new lover? Take care! I will know it. Take carel" Such letters as these mark the suffering of Vigny before he turned in rebellion and threw off the yoke. In one place he asks pathetically: "Do you still remember the color of my eyes?" — that being the first thing, according to amorous lore, which lovers forget. But after his emancipation, when in his bitter re- tirement he blasted Dorval's memory with the ma- jestic "Colere de Samson," what a contrast! He sang, in the stately rhymes of the classic French alexandrine, here given in English blank verse: A strife eternal rages in this world, In every place upon which God looks down, Between the wiles of Woman and the heart of Man ; For she's a thing impure in flesh and soul That preys upon Man's need for gentle love. Thrice she has sold the secrets of my life. And thrice has wept for me deceitful tears, Which could not hide the rage within her eyes. Shamed as she was still more than deep-amazed To find herself discovered yet forgiven.* * Une lutte eternelle en tout temps, en tout lieu, Se livre sur la terre, en presence de Dieu, Great Love Stories of the Theatre Vigny refused Dorval the satisfaction of know- ing that he remembered her, even in this fash- ion, and held the poem for publication after his death (1863). On her part she soon repented of her infidelity, and when she found that the poet was lost to her forever, she was inconsolable — for a time. George Sand, in "The Story of My Life," tells of Dorval's hysteria, of her black disgust with life, of her threats to abandon the stage. This mood finally passed, however, and she went on in the old reckless way. But she could never forget Alfred de Vigny, and on her death-bed (1849) she committed to her daughter's care a package of his love-letters, which she had kept for fifteen years, wfth a solemn injunc- tion that they should never be published. And the man who would have been with her at the end, if she had appreciated his devotion in the proper manner, did not even emerge from the seclusion of his retire- ment to attend her funeral. It was indeed a tangled, sorry web of life and love that this actress and this poet wove together. Entre la bonte d'Homme et la ruse de Femme, Car la femme est un etre impur de corps et d'ame. Trois fois elle a vendu mes secrets et ma vie, Et trois fois a verse des pleurs fallacieux Qui n'ont pu me cacher la rage de ses yeux, Honteuse qu'elle etait plus encore qu'etonnee De se voir decouverte ensemble et pardonnee. 316 INDEX INDEX "Adrienne Lecouvreur," by Scribe and Legouve, m, 129, 132, 133. "Agreeable Surprise," O'Keefe's, 246. AVsse, Mile., 117, 150. "Alchemist," Ben Jonson's, 9. "Alcibiades," Otway's, 68. "Alexander the Great," Nathaniel Lee's, 197, 213. Alice Piers in Orrery's "Black Prince," 13. Alinda in Jephson's "Law of Lom- bardy," 212. "All for Love," Dryden's, 212. "All Mistaken," James Howard's, 12. "All's Well that Ends Well," Shakespeare's, 267. "Almanzor and Almahide," Dry- den's, 14, 15. Almeria in Congreve's "Mourning Bride," 93, 94, 96, 97, 107. Amanda in Sheridan's "Trip to Scarborough," 197, 212. "Amendments," etc., Congreve's, 95. "Amorous Widow," Thomas Bet- terton's, 104. "Amours de Venus et Adonis," Donneau de Vise's, 31. "Andromaque," Racine's, 31, 35. Angelica in Congreve's "Love for Love," 93, 94, 95, 96, 103, 107. Angeligue in Moliere's "George Dandin," 114. "Animadversions on Mr. Congreve's Amendments," anon., 95. "Annales Dramatiques," Abbe de Laporte's, 32. Anne, Queen, 81. "Apology," Colley Cibber's, 26, 58, Aramtnta in Congreve's "Old Bachelor," 91, 92, 107. Araminta in Vanbrugh's "Con- federacy," 212. 3 Argental, Comte d', 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 130, 134, 137. Argenson, Comte d', i8o. Aston, Anthony, 102. "As You Like It," Shakespeare's, 158, 212, 268. "Athalie," Racine's, 49. "Atheist," Otvya>-'s, 80. "Authentic Memoirs," Mrs. Old- field's, 105. "Author," Samuel Foote's, 246. Austrian Succession, war of, 166. Axalla in Rowe's "Tamerlane" 93. Ayscough, Captain, 193. B Bacchiochi, Mme., 220. "Bajazet," Racine's, 30, 44. Banks, John, 70. Baron, Michel, 35. Barry, Elizabeth, 55-81, 86, 107. Barry, Robert, 56. Barry, Spranger, 70, 157. Beauclerk, Charles, 16, 20. Beauclerk, James, 19, 20. Beaumont and Fletcher, 9, 12, 59. Becky Chadwallader in Foote's "Author," 246, 247. Behn, Mrs. Aphra, 21, 57, 67. Belgrade, siege of, 25. Bellair, in Etherege's "Man of Mbde," 65. Bellario in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Philaster," 12. Belvidera in Otway's "Venice Pre- served," 71. "Berenice," Racine's, 30, 43, 44. Berenice in Racine's "Berenice," 30. Bernard, James, 245, 247, 250, a6i. Bernhardt, Sarah, 29, 98, iii. Bessieres, Marshal, 232. Betterton, Thomas, 68, 103. "Black Prince," Earl of Orrery's, 13- Boaden, James, 270, 271, 277, 282, 287, 289, 290. 19 Index Boileau, 36, 40, 41, 43. 44, 45> 49- Bonaparte, Josephine. See Josephine. Bonaparte, Lucien, 220, 223. Bonaparte, Napoleon. See Napo- leon. Boswell, James, 150. Bouillon, Duchesse de, 46, 47, 130, 131, 132. Bouret, Abbe, 131, 132, 133. Bourgogne, Hotel de, 31, 32, 35, 43, 46. 47- Bourgoin, Mile., 2i8. Boyer, Abbe, 31. Bracegirdle, Anne, 81, 85-107. Branchu, Mme., 218. Brereton, William, 196. Brie, Mile, de, 47. Buckhurst, Charles, Lord, 10, 11, 12, 14, 66. Buckingham, Duke of, 2, 66. Bunbury, Lydia (Comtesse de Vigny), 297, 302. Burford, Earl of, 20. Burke, Miss Billie, 8. Burlington, Lord, 86, 87. Burnet, Bishop, 25, 60, 61. Calista in Rowe's "Fair Penitent," 269. "Camp," Ticknell's, 246. "Captivity," Mary Robinson's, 195. Carwell, Mrs. See Querouaille, Louise de. Castlemaine, Countess of, 2, 7, 12, 13, 18. 19, 22. "Catiline," Ben Jonson's, 9. Catherine of Braganza, Queen, 13. Caulaincourt, General, 232. Champmesle, Marie de, 29-51, 56. Champmesle, Sieur de, 30, 36. Chantilly, Mile. See Favart, Jus- tine. Chapelle, Claude Emmanuel Luil- lier, called, 37. Charles I, 44. Charles II, 1-26, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 64, 79- Charles V, Emperor, 252. Charlotte, Queen, 199. Chatelet, Mme. du, 182. Chatterton, Thomas, 79. "Chatterton," Vigny's, 304, 305, 307, 309, 311, 314. "Chercheuse d'Esprit," Charles Fa- vart's, 164. Chevillet. See Champmesle, Sieur de. Chevreuse, Duchesse de, 174. "Children of Thespis," Anthony Pasquin's, 249. Churchill, Sarah, 106. Gibber, CoUey, 25, 5S, 87, 91, 93. Cibber, Susannah, 192. "Cinna," Corneille's, 229. Clairon, Mile., 120. "Clandestine Marriage," by Colman and Garrick, 212. Clarence, Duke of (afterward Wil- liam IV), 265-290. Clavel, 114, 115, 116, 117, 137. Cleopatra in Corneille's "Rodo- gune," 241. Clermont-Tonnerre, Comte de, 39, 40, 48. Cleveland, Duchess of. See Castle- maine, Countess of. Cleveland, Duke of, 19. Clive, Kitty, 152, 153. Clytemnestra, in Racine's "Iphi- genie," 219. "Colere de Samson," Vigny's, 294, 31.5- Collier, Jeremy, 94. Colman, George, 246. Comedie-Fjangaise, 30, 47, 114, 119, 135, 136, i66, 178, 239, 293, 304, 306, 314. Comedie-Italienne, 166, 178, 180. "Comical Revenge," Etherege's, 65. "Comparison between the Two Stages," Charles Gildon's, io2. "Comus," Milton's, 212. "Confederacy," Vanbrugh's, 212. Congreve, William, 65, 85-107. Constant, valet of Napoleon, 225, 227, 230, 232, 234, 236. "Constant Couple," Farquhar's, 143, 144. Consulate, the, 217. Conti, Prince de, 185. Cordelia in Shakespeare's "King Lear," 192, 196, 212. Corneille, Pierre, 29, 33, 43, 44, 46, 68, 114, H9, 239- "Country Wife," William Wycher- ley's, 271. "Country Wife," Wycherley's, 271. Covent Garden, 299. Cowley, Hannah, 212. Cowslip in O'Keefe's "Agreeable Surprise," 246. 320 Index "Cymbeline," Shakespeare's, 212, 246. Craven, Lady, 212. Crebillon, Prosper Jolyot de, 114. Crosman, Henrietta, 5. Curll, Edmund, 57. Cumberland, Duke of, 197. Cydaria in Dryden's "Indian Em- peror,'' 12. Cynthia in Congreve's "Double Dealer," 93, 107. D Daly, Richard, 268, 275. Darby, Captain, 190, 191. Darnley, Lord, 155. Davenant, William, 56. Davies, Tom, 93, 95. Davis, Mary or Moll, 2, ii, 13. Defoe, Daniel, 17. Delavigne, Casimir, 296. Desdemona in Shakespeare's "Othel- lo," 268. Des CEillets, Mile., 31, 32, 45. Desmares, Marie. See Champ- mesle, Marie de. Despreaux. See Boileau. "Deux Jumelles," Charles Fa- vart's, 163. "Devil to Pay," by Charles Coffey, Mottley and Theophilus Cibber, 281. Devonshire, Duke of, 20, 86. Dickens, Charles, 254. "Discovery," Mrs. Sheridan's, 212. "Don Carlos," Otway's, 68. Donna Violante in Mrs. Centlivre's "Wonder," 273. Doran, John, 69, 88, 212. Dorimant in Etherege's "Man of Mode," 65. Dorset, Duke of, 86. Dorval, Marie, 293-316. "Double Dealer," Congreve's, 93. "Double Gallant," Earquhar's, 144. "Douglas," Home's, 246. Downes, John, 15. Draxilla in Otway's "Alcibiades,'' 68. Drury Lane, theatre in, 12, 147, 196, 197, 270, 272, 299. Dryden, John, 10, 12, 14, 15, 91, 94, 212. Duchesnois, Mile., 2i8, 220. Duke's playhouse, the, 7, 65, 68. Dumas, Alexandre, 300, 312. Duparc, Mile., 33. Duronceray, Marie Justine Benoit. See Favart, Justine. Dumesnil, Mile., 153. Edgehill, battle of, 21. Edward HI, 13. "Elder Brother," by Beaumont and Fletcher, 9. "filectre," Crebillon's, 114. Elector of Saxony, Augustus II, 128, 162. Eliza Comply in Lady Craven's "Miniature Picture," 212. "£loa," Vigny's 294. 6mily in Hannah Cowley's "Run- away," 212. £milie, in Corneille's "Cinna," 226. "English Humourists," Thackeray's, 99- "English Monsieur," James How- ard's, 8. "English Nell," Anthony Hope's, 4. "Entretiens Galants," anon., 34. "Esther," Racine's, 49. Etherege, George, 55, 56, 60, 63-67, 69. Evelyn, John, 18, 22, 24. "Fair Penitent," Rowe's, 93, 269. Fanny Stirling in Colman and Gar- rick's "Clandestine Marriage," 212. Farquhar, George, 143, 144, 212. Favart, Charles-Simon, 161-186. Favart, Justine, 161-186. "Feigned Courtesans," Mrs. Aphra Behn's, 21. "Femmes Savantes,'' Moliere's, 236. "Fete de Venus," Abbe Beyer's, 31. "Fetes Publiques," Charles Favart's, Fidelia in Wycherley's "Plain Dealer," 212. Fitzclarences, the, 286, 287. Fitzgerald, George Robert ("Fight- ing"), 193. Fitzgerald, Percy, 148. "Flora's Vagaries," Richard Rhodes', 13; Florimel in Dryden's "Secret Love," 10, II. "Fool," Edward Topham's, 249. Foote, Samuel, 246. 321 Index "Forced Marriage," Mrs. Aphra Behn's, 68. Fontenoy, battle of, 127, 162. Ford, Richard, 273, 274, 275. Fouciie. See Otranto, Duke of. "Fourberies de Scapin," Mollere's, 80. "Fox,'' Ben Jonson's, 9. Fox, Charles James, 210. Franche-Comte, conquest of, 45. "Friendship in Fashion," Otway's, 80. Garrick, David, 6, 141-158, 192, 196, 212, 246, 271. Gautier, Theophile, 240. Garth, Samuel, I02. Genee, Adeline, 153. Genest, John, 212. Geoffrey, Julien Louis, 221. "George Dandin," Moliere's, 114. George III, 198, 205, 210, 250, 252, 275. Georges, Mile., 217-241, 293, 301, 305, 312. Gildon, Charles, 102. Godolphin, Francis, Earl of, 106. Goldsmith, Oliver, 65. Gosse, Edmund, 65. Grafton, Duke of, 19. Greenwich, Countess of, 22. "Greenwood Laddie," ballad of, 269. Guerin, Pierre, 222. Gwyn, Nell, 1-26, 55, 189. H Halifax, Lord, 86. Hamilton, Duke of, 90. "Hamlet," Shakespeare's, 212. Handel, 200. Hart, Charles, 10, 12. Hastings, Warren, 249. Hawker, General, 287. Hawkins, Miss Lastitia, 206. Hawkins, Sir John, 206. Headington, Baron of, 20. Helena in Shakespeare's "All's Well that Ends Well," 267. Henrietta of England (Duchesse d'Orleans), 16, 44. "Henry Esmond," Thackeray's, 89. "Henry IV," Shakespeare's, 9. Hermione in Racine's "Andro- maque," 31, 32, 33. "Heroic Friendship," Otway's, 80. Hewitt, Beau, 65. Hill, Captain Richard, 89, 90. "History and Fall of Caius Marius,'' Otway's, 80. "History of His Own Times," Bishop Burnet's, 25. "History of the English Stage,"' Edmund Curll's, 57. "History of Campaigns of 1780 and 1781," etc., Tarleton's, 211. Hoadly, John, 212, 246. Hodgson, Mrs., 100. Holford, Mrs., 2. Home, John, 246. Hoole, John, 158. Horatio in Rowe's "Fair Penitent," 93- Howard, James, 8, 12. Howard, Robert, 12. "How to Get Rich," Frederick Reynolds', 254. Hughes, Peg, 23. Hull, Thomas, 191. "Humorous Lieutenant," by Beau- mont and Fletcher, 9. Hundred Days, the, 2i8. Hunt, Leigh, 273. Hyde Park duel, 90. I Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis', 298. Imogen in Shakespeare's "Cym- beline," 212, 246. "Inconstant," Farquhar's, 212. "Indian Emperor," Dryden's, 12. "Incendiary," by Antier and Com- berousse, 295, 296. Infanta Maria Theresa, 165. "Iphigenie en Aulide," Racine's, 30, 45,_ 219. "Irish Widow," Garrick's, 212, 246. Isabella in Orrery's "Mustapha," 57- J Jacintha in Hoadly's "Suspicious Husband," 212. James II, 23, 25, 67, 80. "Jane Shore," Rowe's, 192, 246. Janin, Jules, 295. Jansenism, 47, 49. "Jealous Wife," Colman's, 246. Jephson, Robert, 212. Jerrold, Douglas, 4, 5, 15. 322 Index Joanny, Jean Baptiste Bernard Brisebarre, called, 308, 310. Jocaste in Voltaire's "CEdipe," 134. Johnson, Samuel, 99, 150, 151, 207. Jonson, Ben, 9. Jordan, Dora, 265-290. Josephine, 220, 221, 223, 230, 231, 232, 238. Journal des D^bats, 221. "Judgment of Paris," Congreve's, 100, 103. Junot, Marshal, 232. Juliet in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," 196, 212. "Julius Caesar," Shakespeare's, 9, 80. K Kean, Edmund, 70. Kester, Paul, 4. Killigrew, Thomas, 7. "King or No King," by Beaumont and Fletcher, 9, 12. "King Lear," Shakespeare's, 182, 212. King's playhouse, the, 6, 56. Klinglin, Frangois, Comte de, 118. Knepp, Mrs., 9, 12, 13. Kit-Kat Club, 94, loi, 103. Kitty Bell in Vigny's "Chatterton," 304, 308, 309. Lady Ann in Shakespeare's "Rich- ard III" 212. Lady Fainall in Congreve's "Way of the World," 98. Lady Froth in Congreve's "Double Dealer," 93. Lady Randolph in Home's "Doug- las," 246. Lady Sadlife in Farquhar's "Double Gallant," 144. Lady Wealthy in Howard's "Eng- lish Monsieur," 8. La Fare, Marquis de, 39, 40. La Fayette, Mme. de, 40, 46. La Fontaine, 33, 37, 39. Lamb, Charles, 267. Laporte, Abbe de, 32. Laroque, Louis Regnault Petit- Jean, sieur de, 31. Larroumet, Gustave, 48, 116. Lauriston, Marshal, 232. Lamnia in Rowe's "Fair Penitent," 93- La Valliere, Mme. de, 252. Lawfeld, battle of, 172. "Law of Lombardy," Jephson's, 212. Lecouvreur, Adrienne, in-137, 163, 166. Lee, Nathaniel, 197, 212. Legouve, Gabriel, m, 129. Le Grand, Marc-Antoine, 114. Leipsic, battle of, 239. Lemontej-, Pierre Edouard, 126. Lenclos, Ninon de, 40, 41, 42, 43. Leontes in Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale," 198. Le Roy, Philippe, 114. Leverd, Mile., 218. Little Gypsy in Mrs. Aphra Behn's "Rover," 57. Loewenthal, Marshal, 167, 174. Loftus, Cecilia, 246. London Magazine, the, 145. Lorraine, Duke of, 114. Louis Philippe, 305, 306, 307, 310. Louis XIV, 16, 30, 33, 44, 45, 47, 49, 50. Louis XV, 161, 166. "Love for Love," Congreve's, 93, 94, 95, "03- Lovelace, Lord, 86. "Love Makes A Man," Colley Cib- ber's, 154. Lyttelton, Lord, 193, 195. M "Macbeth," Shakespeare's, 212. Macklin, Charles, 147, 149, 150, 151, 155- Macready, William Charles, 272. "Mahomet," Voltaire's, 212. "Maid's Tragedy," by Beaumont and Fletcher, 9. Maintenon, Mme. de, 49. Maiden, Lord, 200, 202, 203, 204, 208, 210. Malplaquet, battle of, 162. Mandeville, John, 102. Manley, Mrs. Delariviere, lor. Manon Lescaut, u6. "Man of Mode," Etherege's, 65. Marais, Theatre du, 31. "Marechale d'Ancre," Vigny's, 301, 302, 304. "Mariamne,'' Voltaire's, 122. "Marino Faliero," Delavigne's, 296. Marlborough, Henrietta, Duchess of, 102, 103, 106. Marshall, Rebecca, 7. 323 Index Mars, Mile., 295. 296, 305, 306, 312. Marston Moor, battle of, 21. Massinger, Philip, 9. Masson, Frederic, 241. Mathews, Charles (the elder), 290. Maurice of Saxony. See Saxe, Maurice de. Mary II, 25. Mazarine, Duchess of, 2, 20, 22. "Monsieur de Pourceaugnac," Mo- liere's, 103. Medley in Etherege's "Man of Mode," 65. Melingue, Etienne Marin, 313. "Memoirs of the Celebrated Mrs. Woffington," 143. "Merchant of Venice,'' Shakes- peare's, 212. Mercure de France, the, 113. "Merry Wives of Windsor," Shakes- peare's, 9. Meusnier, police agent, 179. "Midsummer Night's Dream,'' Shakespeare's, 9. Millamant in Congreve's "Way of the World," 93, 97, 98, 107. "Miniature Picture," Lady Craven's, 212. Mirabel in Congreve's "Way of the World," 93, 97, 98. Mirida in James Howard's "All Mistaken," 12. Miss Richly in Mrs. Sheridan's "Discovery," 212. "Mistress Nell," George C. Hazel- ton's, 5. "Mithrldate," Racine's, 30, 45. "Mme. Favart," OfFenbach's, 185. Mohun, Lord, 90. Moliere, 33, 64, 103, 114. Moliere, Mile., 44, 47. Monime in Racine's "Mithridate,'' 30,. 4-5- . Monimia in Otway's "Orphan," 69. Monmouth, Duke of, 19, 20, 24. Morning Post, the London, 255. Mountford, William, 88, 89, 90. "Mourning Bride," Congreve's, 93, 94, 95. 96- Mrs. Brady in Garrick's "Irish Widow," 212. "Mrs. Dot," W. Somerset Maug- ham's, 8. Mrs. Loveit in Etherege's "Man of Mode," 65. Munster, Earl of, 286, 287. Murat, Marshal, 236. "Mustapha," Earl of Orrery's 7, 57. N "Nana-Sahib," Richepin's, 98. Napoleon, 217-241. Napoleon III, 241. Naseby, battle of, 21. Neilson, Julia, 5. "Nell Gwynne," Jerrold's, 4, 15. "New Atlantis," Mrs. Manley's, lOI. Nokes, James, 15. North, Lord, 209. Northumberland, Duke of, 19. O Octavia in Dryden's "All for Love,'' 212. Odeon, the 239, 301. "QEdipe," Voltaire's, 134. Offenbach, Jacques, 185. O'Keefe, John, 246. "Old Bachelor," Conereve's, 91, 93. "Old Bachelor," prologue to Con- greve's, 92. Oldfield, Nance , 81, 86, 104, 105, 107, 158. "On Some of the Old Actors," Lamb's, 267. Opera-Comique, the, 163, 164, 165, 166. Ophelia in Shakespeare's "Hamlet," 212, 267. Oriana in Farquhar's "Inconstant," 212. Orleans, Duchesse d'. See Hen- rietta of England. "Orphan," Otway's, 69, 70, 71, 80. Orrery, Earl of, 7, 57. "Orpheline de la Chine," Voltaire's, 222. Osmyn in Congreve's "Mourning Bride," 93, 96, 97. "Othello," Shakespeare's, 9. Otranto, Duke of (Fouche), 2i8. Otway, Thomas, 25, 55-81. Oxford, Earl of, 20. Palais-Royal, the, 31, 43. Paleologue, Maurice, n2. Palmira in Voltaire's "Mahomet," 212. "Pamela," comedy by Frangois de Neufchateau, 295. 324 Index Panthea in Beaumont and Fletcher's "King or No King," 12. Parfaict brothers, 34. Pasquin, Anthony, 249. Pegg, Katherine, 2, 19. Peggy in Garrick's "Country Girl," 270. "Peg WofEngton," Charles Reade's, 141, 142. Penn, Sir William, 12. Peninsular campaign, 285. Pepys, Samuel, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 25, 26, 59, 65. Perdita in Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale," 198, 212. "Phedre," Racine's, 29, 30, 35, 46, 47, 222. "Philaster," by Beaumont and Fletcher, 9, 12. Phcebe in Shakespeare's "As You Like It," 268. Pindar Junr., 276. "Plain Dealer," Wycherley's, 212. Plymouth, Earl of, 19. "Polycrate," Abbe Boyer's, 31. Pope, Alexander, io2. Portia in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice," 212. Porte St. Martin, Theatre de, 305, 307, 308. Portsmouth, Duchess of. See Que- rouaille, Louise de. Pradon, Nicolas, 46, 47. Pyrrhus in Racine's "Andromaque," 32. Querouaille, Louise de, z, 3, 16, 17, 19, 22. "Quitte pour la Peur," Vigny's, 303. Rachel, 70, in, 240. Racine, Jean Baptiste, 29-51, 56, 69, 119, 127, 219, 239. Racine, Louis, 33, 34, 48, 49, 50. Raucourt, Mile., 219, 220, 221, 227. Reade, Charles, 141. "Recruiting Officer," Farquhar's, 144. "Relapse,'' Vanbrugh's, 197. Remusat, Mme. de, 230, 231, 232, 238. Regency, the, in, 112. Rehan, Ada, 5. Restoration, the, 10, 55. Revel, Comte de, 40. Revue des Deux Mondes, 299. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 144, 272. Reynolds, Frederick, 245, 248, 251, 252, 253, 254. "Richard III," Shakespeare's, 147, 212. Richepin, Jean, 98. Rich, John, 144. Richmond, Duke of, 19. Roberts, Mrs., 2. Robinson, Mary ("Perdita"), 189- 213. Robinson, Thomas, 192, 193, 194, 195, 1961 197. 198, 199- Rochester, Earl of (John Wilmot), 55-63> 65, 68, 69. "Rodogune," Corneille's, 241. Rohan, Chevalier de, 122, 123. "Rollo," by Beaumont and Fletcher, 9- "Romeo and Juliet," Shakespeare's, 80, 212. Rosalind in Shakespeare's, "As You Like It," 158, 212. "Roscius Anglicanus," Downes', 15. Roucoux, battle of, 170. Roustan, Napoleon's Mameluke, 225, 232. "Rover," Mrs. Aphra Behn's, 57. Rowe, Nicholas, 93, 192, 240, 269. Roxane in Racine's "Bajazet," 30, 44,. "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife," by Beaumont and Fletcher, 9. "Runavpay," Hannah Cowley's, 212. Rupert, Prince, 23. Sainte-Beuve, 298. Samira in Robert Hovpard's "Sur- prisal," 12. Sandeau, Jules, 312. Sand, George, 312, 316. Sapieha, Prince, 223, 224, 226, 227. Saxe, Maurice de, n2, 118, 120, 121, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 134, 135, 137, 161-186. Saxe-Meiningen, Adelaide of, 282. Schulenberg, Erengard de, 2. "Scornful Lady," by Beaumont and Fletcher, 9. Scott, Sir Walter, 10. Scarsdale, Earl of, 86. Scribe, Eugene, in, 129. Scribe and Legouve, 132. 325 Index "Secret Love," Dryden's, lo. Sedpemoor, battle of, 20. Sedley, Charles, 11, 65, 66. Selima in Rowe's "Tamerlane," 93. Semanthe in Rowe's "Ulysses," 93. Sevigne, Charles de, 40, 41, 42, 43. Sevigne, Mme. de, 34, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, "7- Shakespeare, 9, 80, 147, 158, 196, 212, 246, 267, 296, 300. Shakespeare, Vigny's translations of, 300. Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 65, 196, 197, 198, 212. Sheridan, Mrs. Richard Brinsley, "She Would if She Could," Ethe- rege's, 65. Shirley, James, 9. "Short View," etc., Jeremy Collier's, .95- Siddons, Mrs. Sarah, 70, 266, 270, 299. "Silent Woman," Ben Jonson's, 9. Sir Fopling in Etherege's "Man of Mode," 65. Sir Harry JVildair in Farquhar's "Constant Couple," 143, 144, 145, 152. Smith, "Gentleman," 198, 270. "Soldier's Fortune," Otway's, 80. Southerne, Thomas, 91. "Squire Trelooby," by Congreve, Vanbrugh and Walsh, 103. St. Albans, Duke of, 20, 24, 25. Stael, Mme. de, 117. Statira in Lee's "Alexander the Great," 196, 212. Stella, Swift's, 104. "Story of My Life," George Sand's, 316. Sumbel, Joseph, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261. "Suspicious Husband," Hoadly's, 212, 246. "Surprisal," Robert Howard's, 12. "Sweet Nell of Old Drury," Paul Kester's, 5. Swift, Jonathan (Dean), 103, 104. Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 51. Sylvia in Farquhar's "Recruiting Officer," 144, 145. ) Talleyrand, 233. 326 Talma, 220, 221, 224, 228, 230, 236, 237, 239. "Tancrede," Voltaire's, 222. "Tamerlane," Rowe's, 93. Tarleton, Col. Banastre, 211, 213. Telemachus in Rowe's "Ulysses," 93- Tempest, Marie, 4. Tenison, Dr. Thomas, 24. "Their Majesties' Servants," Doran's, 88. Thackeray, William Makepeace, 99, 106. Theatre-Frangais, 217, 218, 219, 220, 236. 239. 312, 314. "Thirty Years, or a Gambler's Life," by Ducange and Dinaux, 295. Ticknell, Thomas, 246. "Tite et Berenice, Corneille's, 44. Tonnerre, M. de. See Clermont- Tonnerre. Topham, Edward, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 261. "Traitor," Shirley's, 9. "Trip to Scarborough," Sheridan's, 197, 212. "Triumph of Love," masque of, 103. "Twelfth Night," Shakespeare's, 212. U "Ulysses," Rowe's, 93. V "Valentinian,'' by Beaumont and Fletcher, 59. Valentine in Congreve's "Love for Love," 93, 95, 96, 98. Vanbrugh, John, 102, 103, 197, 212. Valincourt, Jean Baptiste Henri de Trousset de, 36. "Vendage de Tempe," Charles Favart's, 166. "Venice Preserved," Otway's, 25, 56, 71, 79, 80. Vere, Diana de, 20, 25. Victoria, Queen, 287. Vigny, Alfred de, 293-316. Villiexs, Barbara. See Castle- maine. Countess of. Viola in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," 212, 267. Violette, Mile., 153. "Virgin Martyr," Massinger's, 9. Vise, Donneau de, 31. Index Volnys, Leontine Fay, called Mme. 3147 Voltaire, 119, 121, 122, 123, 134, 135, 136, 137. 173. 182, 212. Von Holstein, Princess, 171. W Wales, Prince of (afterward George IV), 189-313- Walpole, Horace, 107. Walsh, William, 103. Walters, Lucy, 2, 19, 21. "Wandering Patentee," Wilkinson's, 268. Waterloo, battle of, ai8. "Way of the World," Congreve's, 93. 94, 95. 97- Wellbred in James Howard's "English Monsieur," 8. Wells, "Becky" (Mary) 245-262. Weymer, Marie Josephine. See Mile. Georges. Wilde, Oscar, 288. Wilkinson, Tate, 268, 269, 270. Willis, Dr., 252. William IV. See Clarence, Duke of. William of Orange, 67. Williams, Sir Charles Hanbury, 146. Wilraot, John. See Rochester, Earl of. "Winter's Tale," Shakespeare's, 198, 212. Woffington, Margaret ("Peg"), 6, 141-158, 268. "Wonder," Mrs. Centlivre's, 273. Worcester, battle of, 21. Wiirtemberg, Prince of, 233. Wycherley, William, 212, 271. York, Duke of, 19, 20. York, Duchess of, 57. 327 '^i'^tmmm^^m