roine of the day, the
goddess of society, the goal and aspiration of the used-up _roues_
of the aristocracy. Under Louis XIV., such popularity was an
impossibility to a woman of that sort, but society under the Regency
seemed to have awakened from the torpor and gloom of the later years
of the monarchy to a reign of unrestrained gayety and vice.

The first woman to infect the social atmosphere of the nobility with a
new form of extravagance and licentiousness was Adrienne Le Couvreur,
who was the heroine of the day during the first years of the Regency.
She was the daughter of a hatter, who had gone to Paris about 1702;
while employed as a laundress, she often gave proof of the possession
of remarkable dramatic genius by her performances at private
theatricals. In 1717, through the influence of the great actor Baron,
she made her appearance at the Comedie Francaise; the reappearance of
that favorite with Adrienne Le Couvreur as companion, in the plays of
Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire, reestablished the popularity of the
French theatre. Adrienne immediately became a favorite with the titled
class, was frequently present at Mme. de Lambert's, gave the most
sumptuous suppers herself, and was compelled to repulse lovers of the
highest nobility.

Her principal lovers were Voltaire, whom she nursed through smallpox,
spending many hours in reading to him, and Maurice of Saxony; she had
children of whom the latter was the father, and it was she who, by
selling her plate and jewelry, supplied him with forty thousand francs
in order to enable him to equip his soldiers when he proposed to
recover the principality of Courland. She was generous to prodigality;
but when she died, the Church refused to grant consecrated ground for
the reception of her remains, although it condescended to accept her
munificent gift of a hundred thousand francs to charity. Her death was
said to have been caused by her rival, the Duchesse de Bouillon,
by means of poisoned pastilles administered by a young abbe. In
the night, her body was carried by two street porters to the Rue de
Bourgogne, where it was buried. Voltaire, in great indignation at
such injustice, wrote his stinging poem _La Mort de Mademoiselle Le
Couvreur_, which was the cause of his being again obliged to leave
Paris.

The popularity of the Comedie Francaise declined after the deaths of
Baron and Adrienne Le Couvreur, until the appearance of Mlle. Clairon,
who was one of the greate