Although not the greatest, Adrienne Lecouvreur is perhaps the most interesting, and certainly the most sympathetic, figure in the history of the French stage. She was the first actress to enjoy not only renown in the theatre, but consideration in society; she was beloved by the greatest soldier of her time; she was on terms of the closest friendship with the greatest poet, and inspired him to a most touching elegy; while the terrible suspicion attaching to her death and the deplorable scandal connected with her burial have invested her with a halo of romance. She seems, moreover, to possess an attraction for French writers which is shared by no other actress. She has found a well-informed contemporary biographer in the dramatist d'Allainval; Sainte-Beuve has given her a place in his _Lundis_, and Michelet one in his _Histoire de France_; Lemontey pronounced an eloquent _éloge_ of her before the Academy; Régnier has allotted her a chapter in his _Souvenirs et études du théâtre_, and M. Larroumet has consecrated to her a fine study in his _Études de littérature et d'art_. Finally, she has been made the subject of a famous tragedy,[61] in which the heroine was impersonated by the greatest French actress of the nineteenth century, Rachel.
Within recent years, interest in Adrienne Lecouvreur has been greatly stimulated owing to the publication by M. Georges Monval, the learned archivist of the Comédie-Française, of a collection of the actress's letters, preceded by an admirable biography, containing much information about the early part of her theatrical career, of which, up to that time, little or nothing was known. These letters, besides affording us a valuable insight into Adrienne's character, contain, in the opinion of eminent French critics, some truly exquisite pages, which entitle the writer to a place beside the Caylus, the Staals, the Aïssés, and other mistresses of the language of her time.
Adrienne Lecouvreur was born on April 5, 1692, at Damery, a little town of Champagne, overlooking the smiling valley of the Marne. Her father was a journeyman hatter, named Robert Couvreur;[62] her mother's name was Marie Bouty. Soon after Adrienne was born, her parents removed to Fismes, between Rheims and Soissons, and, about the year 1702, migrated to Paris, where they resided in the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Prés, close to the Comédie-Française, the little girl being sent to the Couvent des Filles de l'Instruction Chrétienne, Rue du Gindre, one of the convents at which a certain number of poor children received a free education.