Mlle. de Champmeslé made her first appearance on the Paris stage on February 15, 1669, in _La Fête de Vénus_, an insipid pastoral, by the Abbé Boyer, in which she impersonated the goddess and was much applauded. In the early months of 1670 she secured two other triumphs. The first was in an "heroic comedy," called _Polycrate_, also by Boyer; and it spoke volumes for the talent and charm of the young actress that the audience should have been content to sit through and applaud five acts of what appears to have been an almost worthless play. Her second success was gained in _Les Amours de Vénus et Adonis_, a tragedy by Donneau de Visé, in which she again represented the goddess, and Robinet chanted her praises:--
"La belle déesse Vénus, Et dans ce rôle cette actrice Est une parfaite enchantrice."
But Mlle. de Champmeslé was but half satisfied with such successes. She was ambitious, and felt that at the Marais her talents had not sufficient scope. The old theatre, as we have said elsewhere, had now fallen on evil days; the pieces represented there seemed sorry stuff indeed in comparison with the comedies of Molière and the tragedies of Racine; it was the Palais-Royal and the Hôtel de Bourgogne which divided the suffrages of the playgoing public; the _salle_ in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple was at times well-nigh deserted. She knew that her true vocation was in tragedy; not in tragedy such as the third-class dramatists who wrote for the Théâtre du Marais penned, but in plays like the _Cid_ and _Polyeucte_, _Alexandre_ and _Andromaque_. On first arriving in Paris, she had had the good sense to recognise that her talents were as yet insufficiently developed to allow of her attempting the great rôles of Corneille and Racine; but now circumstances had changed. Her acting had had the good fortune to attract the attention of a member of the Marais troupe named Laroque, whose acquaintance she had made at Rouen. Laroque, as is not infrequently the case, though only a moderate performer, was an admirable instructor; and, perceiving in his young colleague great possibilities, had devoted much time and care to perfecting her in her art, and with the happiest results. Accordingly, at Easter 1670, Mlle. Champmeslé and her husband quitted the Rue Vieille-du-Temple for the Hôtel de Bourgogne. "Here she met Racine and glory."