A favourite of Napoleon

Front matter

illilii?'''

sl^ili

ORG

Introduction

Memoirs ....

. 35

. 224

. 263

Appendix ....

. 281

Index ....

. 318

INTRODUCTION

Eugene de Mirecourt, whose les Contemporains recently excited so much scandal, has consecrated a sympathetic and annotated little volume to Mile. George.^ He has certainly read Valmore's work, of which he reproduces whole passages. In their Galerie historique de la Comedie-Fi^an^aisei' MM. de Manne and Menetrier have written a less benevolent biography of the tragedienne. With these documents, the memoirs of Alexandre Dumas, articles of the period, le Monde JDi^amatique, Theophile Gautier's VHistoire de Vai^t dramatique, his Roinantic Portraits and his work on les Belles Femmes de Paris, it is easy to reconstruct the life of the woman and artiste, and trace a faithful and life-like portrait of her.

Mile. Marguerite-Josephine Weymer, called

^ Eugene de Mirecourt, les Contemporains. Portraits el silhouettes au dix-neuviane siecle, 3rd edition. Librairies des contemporains, Mademoiselle George, one vol. in 32, 1870.

"^ Galerie historique de la Comedie-Frangaise potir servir de complement a la troupe de Talma, by E.-D. de Manne and C. Menetrier. Lyon, N. Scheuring, editeur, 1876.

George, was born on February 23, 1787, at the Theatre of Bayeux, during a performance of Tarhiffe and La belle Fermiere.

Her father, George Weymer, of German origm, had formed a httle nomad troupe, which went from to'vvTi to town playing comedy, vaudeville, and even tragedy. He was impixsario and chef d'orchestre. His wife took the parts of soubrettes. Her maiden name was Verteuil, and her nephew was for a long time secretary of the Comedie- Fran^aise. The father and mother of Mile. George were modest, conscientious, honest artistes, full of devotion and heart, and their daughter preserved a gratitude and tenderness for them which did all three credit.

At five years of age Georgette Weymer appeared in les Deux chasseurs et la Laitih^e at the Amiens Theatre, of which her father had become manager. She soon played with the celebrated Dugazon ; and finally INIlle. Raucourt, who was passing through Amiens, was astonished at the beauty and exceptional abilities of the young Weymer. She persuaded her father to trust the girl to her keeping, and took her to Paris to give her lessons and prepare her for her debut at the Comedie- Fran9aise.

Mile. George obtained her ordre de debut on November 23, 1802. She was sixteen, and made her debut in the part of Clytemnestra.

The choice of this part for the debut of such a young girl would be inexplicable if one did not recall the precocious and sculptural beauty of the debutante. Further, Mile. Dumesnil and Mile. Raucourt had recognised that her vocation destined her for the great maternal roles of tragedy.

AU this first part of Mile. George's career, her visits to INIlles. Clairon and Dumesnil, her debuts, the appreciation of the public, of GeofFroy, whose habitual severity had been disarmed by her beauty and talent, the rivalry with IMlle. Duchesnois, the good comradeship of Talma, the picture of the Comedie-Francaise under the Consulate, her relations with Prince Sapieha, her amours with Bonaparte, all this is related in the Memoirs with a vivacity and a freshness of recollection which we are unwilling to spoil.

Although their author makes no pretension to judge the marvellous period of the Consulate, the very simphcity of her narrative allows us to guess the charm of those beautiful years from 1802 to 1804, the most beautiful perhaps which France has ever known. She was at last freed from the sectaries of the Revolution. Victorious abroad, France was rising from her ruins, was organising herself anew, and once more beginning to live and to hope. An intelligent and practical policy, which was not formed by Rousseau's school of sophisms, was re-establishing security, confidence, and credit in the interior. It was a magnificent reawakening of all the social forces which the Terror had suppressed and neutralised in blood and mire. How understandable is the admiration which the First

Consul inspired ! " He is my hero ! " cried the sexagenarian Sophie Arnould from her retreat at Paraclet.

The enthusiasm experienced by George for the incomparable, immense (that is her word) being Bonaparte, was in accordance with the universal sentiment which was expressed by frantic applause whenever the First Consul entered his box at the Theatre-Fran^ais.

On the other hand, these Memoirs are a document of unappreciable value, which disclose in an unexpected way an intimate and little-known side of Napoleon's character. The question has often been put, " What was the exact attitude of the Emperor towards women ? What was his manner of treating women ? " Rephes are contradictory ; and, it must be confessed, mostly unfavourable. Certainly he had for Josephine and IVIarie Louise a tenderness which amounted almost to blindness. But these two were Empresses : for him they were above their sex and above humanity. Very many other women passed in his life ; for, absorbed as he was in his political and military duties, and in his various labours, he was ardent and sensual. How did he behave with regard to those other women ? Stendhal has furnished us with terrible revelations. "He made them writhe beneath the lash of his contempt," he said, speaking of those "other women." Poor victims ! They thought they were marching to a triumph : they little dreamed of the humiliations which were awaiting them.

" Oh, Monster ! Horrible tyrant ! " are the cries after hard nights of trial, of Mme. Branchu, the vestal of the Opera, Miles. Duchesnois, Therese Bourgoin, Leverd, of the Theatre-Fran^ais, and the ladies of the Court whom the Imperial caprice had seemed to distinguish for an instant.

It must be confessed that, according to Stendhal and other historians, the new Caesar's manners were little less than those of a savage. Here we are far from the old French gallantry. Where have fled the graces of the eighteenth century? One can quite understand the feminine hatred, which, gathering secretly, burst out with fury in 1815. The women wished for the death of the Emperor, not because of the conscription, as they said, but because of the insulting disdain with which he had chastised them during his reign.

Now a question presents itself: Was Napoleon always so? Was this harshness towards women founded in the very depths of his nature ? I do not think so. The rudeness and violence was, to my mind, the unconscious result of a formidable tension of spirit, of superhuman toil.

In this regard the Memoirs of Mile. George afford us a decisive light which will rejoice the heart of friends of the great Emperor. After having read them one can no longer doubt that in his time Bonaparte was a tender, thoughtful lover, full of juvenile ardour, as much in love as an officer of twenty. It is in this sympathetic and entirely new aspect that George reveals him — that immense man really loved his beautiful tragedienne, and let himself be charmed by her fresh, loyal nature. He amused himself with her artless chatter ; in her company he experienced a relaxation of mind and a distraction which his nerves and brain at fever-pitch were in need of.

He liked to frolic with George like a great child, to tease the superb creature who at the beginning of the liaison he felt was entirely his. He laughed at her plebeian feet, as he placed a considerable value on delicacy of extremities with women. Happily George had admirable hands, the hands of a queen and a child; they obtained pardon for her feet, which were heavy and common. It is true that they had no ordinary weight to support.

Perhaps it will be said that to raise the value of her conquest it pleased George to exaggerate its charm ; that she has shown us a Bonaparte of phantasy, softened and embellished by the proud complaisance of her recollections ? I do not believe it. Napoleon's tenderness for her, and consequently the sensibility of which he was capable, seem to me a point absolutely demonstrated. The liaison continued from 1802 to 1808. Here it is not a question of a simple caprice vanishing after possession, nor of an attraction entirely sensual, where sentiment has no part. It was a veritable affection. It lasted till Napoleon's death. At St. Helena he spoke of her whom he had formerly called his beautiful Georgina, or his good Georgina.

In 1808, at the date where the Memoirs stop, the triumphant existence of Mile. George became suddenly clouded. The intrigues of MUe. Duchesnois, her rival, protected by M. de Remusat, became intolerable. The Emperor has changed ; he is no longer the lover of the first year of the Consulate. The unknown Bonaparte, who appears so full of charm in the Memoirs, is a little transformed with the grandeurs and cares of omnipotence. He is not separated from her, but George imagines herself to be nothing more than a habit to him. She knows that she is surrounded by rivals, and is humiliated at the thought of offering no more to her imperial lover than an intermittent distraction and a banal source of pleasure.

She listened then to the offers of the Russian ambassador, Count Tolstoy. She was carried away by the insistence of her lover. Count de Beckendorf He had promised to marry her, but he wished first of all to offer her to his master, Alexander I. In short, yielding to a sudden caprice, which twenty-four hours later she will regret, she sets off for St. Petersburg, on the evening of the fourth performance of Debrieu's A7iaxe7^jces, in which she should have played the part of Mandane (May 7, 1808). The performance was waited for in vain, and there was a great scandal at the Comedie. An order for the arrest of the fugitive was given, but she had already passed the frontier.

At St. Petersburg her success was immense. She charmed the Emperor Alexander, the Dowager- Empress and the Grand Duke Constantine. She made her debut at the Imperial Theatre in the part of Semiramis. After the performance the Emperor came to her dressing-room to congratulate her. " Madame," he said, " you wear the crown better han our great Catherine."

*' Sire, it is less heavy than that of All the Russias. ' The Emperor sent her a splendid cro^\Ti made from the model of that worn formerly by the Empress Catherine II.

Another evening, after Mcrope, the Emperor, wiping his eyes, said to her, " These are the first tears I have ever shed in a theatre."

Still, if she became Alexander's mistress, it was only a passing caprice. A certain party had hoped that George would replace Mme. Nariskine with the Tsar. The plan miscarried, but Alexander and the whole Court did not cease from loading the actress with attentions and presents.

If we can believe the memoirs of the Russian General Lowenstein, she extended her conquests even among the great ladies of the Russian Court. That is doubtless but an ugly calumny.

In the midst of these raptures and festivities the campaign of 1812 began. At St. Petersburg the battle of Moskow was regarded as a victory. The order to illuminate their windows was given to the inhabitants. In spite of the order George's windows remained closed without illuminations. " She is right," said the Emperor. " I do not wish her to be annoyed about it ; she is behaving like a good Frenchwoman."

Sojourn in Russia became impossible for her. She kept till death her passionate cult of Napoleon. She could not remain in St. Petersburg to listen to the tale of the terrible retreat of the great army. Some notes tell us of her departure for Sweden and her arrival at Stockholm. The Prince Royal, Bernadotte, received her as a queen and a friend. She rejoined the French Army at Dresden. Napoleon made her play with Talma, and the troupe of the Comedie-Francaise had been sent for post-haste. Every day she was received by the Emperor, who discoursed with her and Talma about the Theatre- Fran9ais, Corneille and Racine, on the eve of the battle of Leipsig.

By Imperial decree George was restored to all her rights as a member of the Society. Napoleon even commanded that she should be paid for her years of absence. It was a little excessive, and, as M. Frederic Masson remarked, the members never forgave her this favour, which savoured too much of favouritism and arbitrariness.

"During the Hundred Days," the eminent historian tells us, "she sent word to the Emperor that she had some papers to restore to him which singularly compromised the Duke of Otranto. Napoleon sent a trusted servant to her, and on his return he said : " She didn't tell you that she was in low water, I suppose ? "

" No, sire ; she only spoke of her desire to restore the papers herself to your Majesty."

" I know what that means. Caulaincourt spoke to me about it ; he told me, too, that she was in difficulties. You will give her twenty thousand francs from my purse."

Alexandre Dumas affirms that Mile. George solicited the honour of accompanying the Emperor to St. Helena. We do not know if this is a fact, but it would greatly redound to the credit of the lover of the First Consul. In the midst of treasons and defections, this proof of gratitude on the part of an actress would have been a beautiful thing.

After the fall of the Emperor, confronted with the Royalist hostilities of her comrades, George felt cruelly out of place at the Comedie- Fran9aise. She was dismissed by the Duke de Duras, superintendent of theatres, for bravely showing herself with a bouquet of violets in her corsage. The Government punished thus that innocent Bonapartist manifestation.

Mile. George went to play in the provinces. Five years later, Louis XVIII, who was a sensible man, recalled her to the Comedie, and gave her a benefit at the Opera. She played Britannicus. The reception was enormous. After this triumph it seemed as if she ought to resume her place as a member of the Society. But at the hands of Mile. Duchesnois and her partisans she again suffered from the intrigues and evil practices of former times. She preferred to play at the Odeon Semi- 7YimiSi 3Ierope} Clyteninestre, VOrphelin de la

Chine, les Macchabees of Guiraud.^ She afterwards appeared in Saul^^ Cleopdtre and Jeanne (TAfx ^ by Soumet. But soon a new triumphal career began to open out before her.

She became the admirable interpreter of the first romantic dramas. She created Christine, by Frederic Soulie ; ^ then the Christine of Dumas ; line Fete sous Neron, by Soumet ; ^ la MarcchaJe cCAncre, by Alfred de Vigny ; ^ Jeamie la Folle, by Fontan.''

This was but the prelude of more brilliant successes. Under Harel's direction, at the Porte-Saint- Martin, the great tragedienne became, with Frederick liCmaitre, the highest incarnation of romantic drama, and was successively Marguerite de Bourgogne in la Tour de Nesle (March 29, 1832), Lucrece Borgia (February 12, 1833), Marie Tudor (November 17, 1833), and the Marquise de Brinvilliers. In the Appendix will be read some beautiful pages by Victor Hugo dedicated to her.

2 November 9, 1822, Mile. George played in le Comte Julien of Guiraud, and de Liaidi^re's Jane Shore, Api*il 2, 1824.

3 Cleopdtre, July 2, 1824; Jeanne d'Arc, May 14, 1825. * October 13, 1829.

•'• Une Fete sous Neron, October 29, 1829; Christine, by A. Dumas, March 30, 1829.

^ The first performance of la Marechale d'Ancre took place on June 25, 1830. On June 21 the piece had to be interrupted after the second act because of the indisposition of Mile. George. The real premiere took place on June 25. The drama was coldly received.

'■ Jeanne la Folle, August 28, 1829.

In spite of this incomparable repertoire, little by little the public abandoned the Porte-Saint-Martin. The fusillades in the rue Transnonain and at Cloitre-Saint-Merry absorbed all their attention. Harel finally succumbed. The prohibition of Balzac's Vautrin, on the morning of the first performance, led to the closing of the theatre.

After a great tour in Italy, Austria, and Russia, Mile. George gave at the Italiens some performances of Biitannicus and JLucrece Boi^gia (January 1843). They were a very great success.

At the Odeon, under the Lireux management, George played Marie Tudor v^ith Mme. Marie Dorval, for whom she had a great friendship,^ then la Chambre Ai^dente at the Gaiety, and la Tour de Nesle with Frederick Lemaitre, at the Porte- Saint- Martin. ^

It is known that Frederick Lemaitre, perhaps the greatest comedian who ever existed, had a detestable character. He was fond of tippling, but played admirably even when he was drunk. He was quite unbearable under the influence of several bottles of champagne or Burgundy. One evening he had to play with George ; he declared that he would not appear on the stage unless a certain sum due on his salary was paid to him. All the protestations of the manager and George's tears were useless. The hour for beginning the performance arrived. In those days there was never much money in a manager's chest. So

1 January 1844. ^ December 1844.

as not to lose the performance Marguerite de Bourgogne sacrificed herself. She sent her jewellery to the pawn-shop, and gave Frederick the sum lent. Never was Buridan more magnificent, he surpassed himself; but it is probable that George never managed to redeem her diamonds so generously pledged.

The moment was approaching when Mile. George would be forced to retire. A stoutness which she had never been able to check rendered her walk painful and heavy. She had become enormous. Her voice, which had formerly been so touching, was cracked. Her gestures had little by little lost their majesty. After a short appearance in historical repertoire, and several unfortunate attempts in the provinces, George was obliged to renounce the theatre.

It was on May 27, 1849, that she gave her farewell performance. Mile. Rachel had consented to appear with George. It was a memorable evening, which provided the presence of Clytemnestra and the creator of Lucrece Borgia, and Mile. Rachel, who had immediately won since her initial appearance the first place in the Theatre-Fran9ais.

Rachel, whom we saw in China and in the first performance of Diane, has left us such great recollections ; she had been so admirably trained by Eugene Delacroix, one of our dear and favourite masters ; Rachel, in short, seemed to us such a luminous and sculptural figure, that it is hard for us to admit the malicious tales to which this meeting of the two tragedy actresses gave rise. Up till now we have practically followed Mirecourt's brochure. We Avill now borrow from him with due reserve the actual text of this famous battle.

" The battle," he said, " took place at the Italiens. Rachel played the part of Eriphyle, in Iphigenia in Aulis^ and George filled the part of Clytemnestra. Mile. Felix was literally squashed. Pale and trembling she followed, in the wings, book in hand, the tirades of Clytemnestra, and tore her hair in despair, exclaiming, ' Heavens ! I shall never reach that ; what vigour ! '

" At the moment when Mile. George appeared, a furious hissing arose from a certain part of the orchestra where young Felix was sitting. ' That is not meant for me, surely ? ' said Clytemnestra to the house majestically.

" All the spectators arose with a leap of angry protestation. Two hundred bouquets fell at the feet of the famous tragedienne, and for five minutes the cheers hindered the continuance of her part. When Rachel appeared after this ovation, which had been provoked by the imprudence of her partisans, her eye was burning with anger. She ventured to say to some one behind the scenes, letting escape a gesture of disdain, ' Remove those flowers, one can't walk for them.'

" A burst of hissing, better supported than the first, greeted this insolent whim. Nobody protested.

" ' The case is judged,' said Victor Hugo. ' We have come to see the statuette alongside the statue. What a reduction ! ' "

Mile. Felix, in virtue of promises on the bills, ought to have played le Moinemi de Lesbie at the end of the evening. Furious at the humiliation which she had had to endure, she went up to her dressing-room, resumed her ordinary costume, and disappeared. Instead of the piece announced, the public were begged to be kind enough to listen to a grand air by Mme. Viardot.

" Certainly," was the cry from the house. " We accept the nightingale in place of the sparrow ! "

We do not forget that, for reasons perhaps easy to guess, Mirecourt was an implacable enemy of Rachel. There was bound to be in his account not a little phantasy and exaggeration. Theophile Gautier, in his pamphlet, relates none of the incidents of which Mirecourt speaks. However, in an article in Profils et Grimaces, which we reprint in the Appendix, Auguste Vacquerie, who did not love Rachel, is just as affirmative as the pamphleteer. In fact, a letter which will be found further on in George's correspondence mentions the refusal of Rachel to play le Moineau de Lesbie, and an acrimonious dispute on the part of Hermione with regard to her illustrious predecessor.

After this performance Mile. George was appointed an inspectress of the Conservatoire.

On December 17, 1857, she had her real farewell performance at the Comedie-Fran9aise.

She played Rodogune, and was still able to give an admirable rendering. A whole generation, which had never had the chance of applauding her, was profoundly moved by the nobility of her diction and gestures, " and the sculptural and still truly grandiose aspect of her person."^

" She has more than the beauty of old age," wrote M. Edouard Thierry, " she has the old age of beauty."

After this performance, which had been a veritable triumph for her, she was never again to appear before the public. Her last years were hard. Very generous to all those around her, she had kept nothing of her fortune of former times. I believe the Government of the Second Empire gave her a pension.^

She spoke of Napoleon with a respectful and catching emotion. " But," said M. Frederic Masson excellently, " it was not the lover she evoked, but the Emperor. And, cettejille (doesn't the word seem a little hard ?), not from the modesty of an old woman — for she spoke freely

1 Jour7ial intime de la Comedie-Frangaise, 1852-1871, by George d'Heylli.

" I have been told — but I am not able to affirm the fact — that for the Universal Exhibition of 1855 she obtained the concession of the little chalets de necessite. A sad compensation for a queen of beauty and tragedy ! Alas^ poor Clytemnestra ! poor Marie Tudor I

As is often the case with prodigals^ she had much material order, her account books are admirably kept. Nearly every day ten centimes figure for snuff, of which she consumed a great quantity^ like all the people of her time.

and crudely of her other lovers — but from a sort of respectfid fear, seemed no longer to recall the fact that he had found her beautiful, and had told her so. 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."

M. Ludovic Halevy tells us that one day, at the Tuileries, being at the ministry of the Imperial household, he received a visit from George, who came as a suppliant.

It was the hour of mounting guard. The drums were beating. The Emperor Napoleon III appeared on the terrace of the Tuileries to receive the guard, which was about to go on duty. George placed herself at the window, attracted by the spectacle. She turned round quite moved, with tears in her eyes. " Ah ! " she exclaimed, " I have seen that very often — in former times— under the other''

" When I die," George had said, " I should like to be buried in Rodogune's cloak."

She died at Passy, 3 rue de Ranelagh, on January 11, 1867. She was eighty years old.

The Emperor took on himself the expenses of her burial, which took place in the cemetery of P^re-Lachaise.

Let us now try to form an impartial judgment of her talent and character as woman and artiste.

All her contemporaries are agreed in celebrating her marvellous beauty. Before her debuts, when she appeared on the balcony of the Comedie- Fran^aise, the public applauded her entry. She had to rise to thank the crowd of anonymous admirers.

As the critic GeofFroy remarks, " One dreams involuntarily of the enthusiasm of the old men of Troy when Helen passed before them with the radiant prestige of her irresistible charm."

In les Belles Femmes de Pa?is, Theophile Gautier has dedicated to George one of his most admirable pages. He compares her to an Isis of the bas-reliefs of iEgina. He speaks of her superbly disdainful mouth like that of an avenging Nemesis, waiting for the hour to unmuzzle her lion with brazen claws. After having said that one of her bracelets would make a girdle for a woman of less stature, he adds that her arms were very white and clear, terminated by wrists of an infantile delicacy and by sweet little hands broken by dimples, regular little royal hands, made to carry the sceptre and gi'asp the sword-hilt of iEschylus and Euripides.

This marvellous portrait describes her better, perhaps, than even the painters themselves inspired by the tragedienne.

The portrait by Lagrenee, the date of which we cannot fix with precision, shows us a Clytemnestra or an Emilia already very robust and very imposing. The painter has not forgotten the lines of the arms and the delicacy of the hands. It is understood that the feet are not to be mentioned, so as not to vex Napoleon.

In the portrait which he made of her,^ Gerard has concealed the embonpoint of his model ; he has reduced and refined her a little. The portrait is only a bust, but the head has the radiance, the sweet majesty, and the smile of an ancient goddess.

In his memoirs, Alexandre Dumas, who was for a little George's lover, tells us that she did not disdain to show herself without covering in taking her bath, proud of offering to the glances of her admirers the pure forms of her marble-like nudity.

Everything passes, alas ! and inflexible time has no respect for masterpieces either of art or of human beauty. A deplorable obesity invaded this woman's body, which the perfection of its lines should have protected. In the last years of her life, the goddess seemed like a sort of mastodon. Her face alone preserved some traces of majesty.

Now what was the artiste's talent ? Unfortunately nothing remains of actor or actress. Some recollections of contemporaries and nothing more. Was George, as MM. de Manne and Menetrier say, a mediocre artiste without great originality, more adapted to play drama than tragedy ? Was she on

^ Gerard's portrait belonged to Vivant-Denon, the witty superintendent of museums of the First Empire^ and the author of the adorable tale, Pas de lendema'm. At the sale which took place after the decease of Denon, in 1826, the portrait of George was purchased for a ridiculous price (2010 francs) by the painter Perignon. It belongs now to the Countess de Pourtales.

the contrary the inspired artiste, touching and sublime, whom Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas have celebrated ? She interpreted their works ; unconsciously they may have slightly forced the note of admiration.

I estimate that the truth can be found between these two appreciations.

At sixteen George made the old Dumesnil weep, in reciting the tirades of Clytemnestra. Her professor, Mile. Raucourt, who was herself a great tragedienne and woman of ability, judged that her pupil's talent called her to play the great maternal roles of tragedy. Family affection was much stronger in George than the sense of love. She was bound to be a Clytemnestra, a Merope, a magnificent Idame, if to her talent one adds the beauty of her person, the vigour and power of her gestures and her voice. When she approached the Romantic drama, to which she had brought that firmness of diction which the study of tragedy alone gives, she must have been truly splendid in Marguerite de Bourgogne, in Lucrece Borgia, in Marie Tudor. But she could never have had the tragic acuteness, nor that which I should call the ancient distinction, the plastic sculptural lines of Rachel, nor the unrivalled sovereign grace and artistic intelligence of Sarah Bernhardt.

To define George's talent is to speak at the same time of her character. She had never had a child of her own, but maternity was her vocation. She was thoroughly good and generous, incapable of malice or rancour. There is not a bitter line or cruel word in her Memoirs. I seem to see them issuing from her with an amiable and sweet smile. Victor Hugo said, in speaking of Queen Anne, '' She was proud of being fat" ^ I believe that the saying could be applied to George. Sardou's letter, which will be found further on, states that in her last years on the stage she preserved a great air and great dignity. Once retired from the stage she became negligent and more and more heavy. She became the " fat mamma " of whom Sardou speaks at the end of his letter.