he became the fashion outside the
theater. For the first time the great classic plays were given, not in
the monotonous singsong which had become a sort of theatrical
convention, but with all the fire and naturalness of life.

Being the fashion, Mlle. Lecouvreur elevated the social rank of actors
and of actresses. Her salon was thronged by men and women of rank.
Voltaire wrote poems in her honor. To be invited to her dinners was
almost like receiving a decoration from the king. She ought to have
been happy, for she had reached the summit of her profession and
something more.

Yet still she was unhappy. In all her letters one finds a plaintive
tone, a little moaning sound that shows how slightly her nature had
been changed. No longer, however, did she throw herself away upon
dullards or brutes. An English peer--Lord Peterborough--not realizing
that she was different from other actresses of that loose-lived age,
said to her coarsely at his first introduction:

"Come now! Show me lots of wit and lots of love."

The remark was characteristic of the time. Yet Adrienne had learned at
least one thing, and that was the discontent which came from light
affairs. She had thrown herself away too often. If she could not love
with her entire being, if she could not give all that was in her to be
given, whether of her heart or mind or soul, then she would love no
more at all.

At this time there came to Paris a man remarkable in his own century,
and one who afterward became almost a hero of romance. This was
Maurice, Comte de Saxe, as the French called him, his German name and
title being Moritz, Graf von Sachsen, while we usually term him, in
English, Marshal Saxe. Maurice de Saxe was now, in 1721, entering his
twenty-fifth year. Already, though so young, his career had been a
strange one; and it was destined to be still more remarkable. He was
the natural son of Duke Augustus II. of Saxony, who later became King
of Poland, and who is known in history as Augustus the Strong.

Augustus was a giant in stature and in strength, handsome, daring,
unscrupulous, and yet extremely fascinating. His life was one of
revelry and fighting and display. When in his cups he would often call
for a horseshoe and twist it into a knot with his powerful fingers.
Many were his mistresses; but the one for whom he cared the most was a
beautiful and high-spirited Swedish girl of rank, Aurora von
Konigsmarck. She was descended from a rough old field-ma