Mademoiselle Dumesnil retired, as we have said, in 1776. The stage was next not unworthily occupied by Mdlle. Raucourt. But meanwhile there sprang up two young creatures destined to renew the rivalry which had existed between Clairon and Dumesnil. While these were growing up the French Revolution, which crushed all it touched, touched the Comédie Française, which fell to pieces. It pulled itself together, after a manner, but it was neither flourishing nor easy under the republic. The French stage paid its tribute to prison and to scaffold. When the storm of the Revolution had swept by, that stage became once more full of talent and beauty. Talma reappeared, and soon after three actresses set the town mad. There was Mdlle. Georges, a dazzling beauty of sixteen, a mere child, who had come up from Normandy, and who knew nothing more of the stage than that richly dressed actors there represented the sorrows, passion, and heroism of ancient times. Of those ancient times she knew no more than what she had learned in Corneille and Racine. But she had no sooner trod the stage, as Agrippina, than she was at once accepted as a great mistress of her art. Her beauty, her voice, her smile, her genius and her talent, caused her to be hailed queen; but not quite unanimously. There was already a recognised queen of tragedy on the same stage, Mdlle. Duchesnois. This older queen (originally a dressmaker, next, like Mrs. Siddons, a lady’s-maid), was as noble an actress as Mdlle. Georges, but her noble style was not supported by personal beauty. She was, perhaps, the ugliest woman that had ever held an audience in thrall by force of her genius and ability alone. While song-writers celebrated the charms of Mdlle. Georges, portrait-painters, too cruelly faithful, placed the sublime ugliness of Mdlle. Duchesnois in the shop windows. There she was to be seen in character, with one of the lines she had to utter in it, as the epigraph: Le roi parut touché de mes faibles attraits. Even Talleyrand stooped to point a joke at her expense. A certain lady had no teeth. Mdlle. Duchesnois _had_, but they were not pleasant to see. ‘If,’ said Talleyrand, alluding to the certain lady, ‘If Madame ---- had teeth, she would be as ugly as Mdlle. Duchesnois.’