s "the profoundest instinct of her being"; and she once
wrote: "What could one do in the world without loving?"

Still, through these ten years she seems to have loved only that she
might be unhappy. There was a strange twist in her mind. Men who were
honorable and who loved her with sincerity she treated very badly. Men
who were indifferent or ungrateful or actually base she seemed to
choose by a sort of perverse instinct. Perhaps the explanation of it is
that during those ten years, though she had many lovers, she never
really loved. She sought excitement, passion, and after that the
mournfulness which comes when passion dies. Thus, one man after another
came into her life--some of them promising marriage--and she bore two
children, whose fathers were unknown, or at least uncertain. But, after
all, one can scarcely pity her, since she had not yet in reality known
that great passion which comes but once in life. So far she had learned
only a sort of feeble cynicism, which she expressed in letters and in
such sayings as these:

"There are sweet errors which I would not venture to commit again. My
experiences, all too sad, have served to illumine my reason."

"I am utterly weary of love and prodigiously tempted to have no more of
it for the rest of my life; because, after all, I don't wish either to
die or to go mad."

Yet she also said: "I know too well that no one dies of grief."

She had had, indeed, some very unfortunate experiences. Men of rank had
loved her and had then cast her off. An actor, one Clavel, would have
married her, but she would not accept his offer. A magistrate in
Strasburg promised marriage; and then, when she was about to accept
him, he wrote to her that he was going to yield to the wishes of his
family and make a more advantageous alliance. And so she was
alternately caressed and repulsed--a mere plaything; and yet this was
probably all that she really needed at the time--something to stir her,
something to make her mournful or indignant or ashamed.

It was inevitable that at last Adrienne Lecouvreur should appear in
Paris. She had won such renown throughout the provinces that even those
who were intensely jealous of her were obliged to give her due
consideration. In 1717, when she was in her twenty-fifth year, she
became a member of the Comedie Franchise. There she made an immediate
and most brilliant impression. She easily took the leading place. She
was one of the glories of Paris, for s