You felt horror to
the very marrow of your bones, and your eyes filled with tears of
emotion and anxiety. Masterly was the regular breathing that indicated
slumber, and the stiff fingers when she washed her hands and smelt them
to see if there were blood upon them. But Mme. Favart, who with artistic
self-restraint co-ordinated herself into the whole, without any
virtuosity at all, produced no less an effect upon me. As the leading
character in Feuillet's _Julie_, she was perfection itself; when I
saw her, it seemed to me as though no one at home in Denmark had any
idea of what feminine characterisation was. What had been taken for such
(Heiberg's art, for instance,) only seemed like a graceful and brilliant
convention, that fell to pieces by the side of this.
The performances at the _Theatre Francais_ lasted longer than they
do now. In one evening you could see Gozlan's _Tempete dans un verre
d'Eau_, Augier's _Gabrielle_, and Banville's _Gringoire_.
When I had seen Mme. Favart and Regnier in _Gabrielle_, Lafontaine
as Louis XI, his wife as Loyse, Mlle. Ponsin as Nicole, and Coquelin, at
that time still young and fresh, as Gringoire, I felt that I had enjoyed
one of the greatest and most elevating pleasures the world had to offer.
I went home, enraptured and enthusiastic, as much edified as the
believer returning from his church.
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