Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/242

 366 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS mittee denouncing in the bitterest terms the avarice and rapacity of M. Felix. But when Rachel became competent to deal on her own behalf, she proved her- self every whit as exacting as her sire. She became a societaire in 1843, entitled to one of the twenty-four shares into which the profits of the institution were di- vided. She was rewarded, moreover, with a salary of forty-two thousand francs per annum ; and it was estimated that by her performances during her congd of three or four months every year she earned a further annual income of thirty thousand francs. She met with extraordinary success upon her provincial tours ; enormous profits resulted from her repeated visits to Holland and Belgium, Ger- many, Russia, and England. But, from first to last, Rachel's connection with the Francais was an incessant quarrel. She was capricious, ungrateful, unscru- pulous, extortionate. She struggled to evade her duties, to do as little as she pos- sibly could in return for the large sums she received from the committee. She pretended to be too ill to play in Paris, the while she was always well enough to hurry away and obtain great rewards by her performances in the provinces. She wore herself out by her endless wanderings hither and thither, her contin- uous efforts upon the scene. She denied herself all rest, or slept in a travelling carriage to save time in her passage from one country theatre to another. Her company complained that they fell asleep as they acted, her engagements deny- ing them proper opportunities of repose. The newspapers at one time set forth the acrimonious letters she had interchanged with the committee of the Frangais. Finally she tended her resignation of the position she occupied as socidtaire ; the committee took legal proceedings to compel her to return to her duties ; some concessions were made on either side, however, and a reconciliation was patched up. The new tragedies, " Judith " and " Cleopatre," written for the actress by Madame de Girardin, failed to please, nor did success attend the production of M. Romand's "Catherine II.," M. Soumet's "Jeanne d'Arc," in which, to the indignation of the critics, the heroine was seen at last surrounded by real flames ! or " Le Vieux de la Montagne " of M. Latour de St. Ybars. With better fort- une Rachel appeared in the same author's " Virginie," and in the "Lucrece" of Ponsard. Voltaire's " Oreste " was revived for her in 1845 tnat she might play Electre. She personated Racine's "Athalie" in 1847, assuming long white locks, painting furrows on her face, and disguising herself beyond recognition, in her determination to seem completely the character she had undertaken. In 1848 she played Agrippine in the " Britannicus" of Racine, and dressed in plain white muslin, and clasping the tri-colored flag to her heart, she delivered the " Marseillaise " to please the Revolutionists, lending the air strange meaning and passion by the intensity of her manner, as she half chanted, half recited the words, her voice now shrill and harsh, now deep, hollow, and reverberating — her enrapt- ured auditors likening it in effect to distant thunder. To the dramatists who sought to supply her with new parts, Rachel was the occasion of much chagrin and perplexity. After accepting Scribe's " Adrienne Lecouvreur" she rejected it absolutely only to resume it eagerly, however, when she learned that the leading character was to be undertaken by Mademoi-