On her release from Sainte-Pélagie, Mlle. Contat returned to the Comédie-Française, now called the Théâtre de l’Égalité, from which, in June 1795, she migrated, with her colleagues, to the Théâtre-Feydeau. After the bankruptcy of Sageret and the dispersal of the company he had formed, she accepted an engagement at the Bordeaux theatre, whither Fleury accompanied her. Here she not only acted, but frequently took part in _opéra-comique_, and, having an agreeable and well-trained voice, greatly delighted her audiences. The enthusiasm of the Bordelais, both inside and outside the theatre, reached such a pitch as to become positively dangerous for its object. Crowds gathered at the stage door to witness her departure at the end of a performance. They surrounded her, and followed her with such transports of delight that, at once flattered and alarmed, she would press close to Fleury’s side and say, with an air of comic gravity: “My friend, these people enchant me. Had we not better call the guard?” On the reconstitution of the Comédie-Française, in May 1799, Mlle. Contat resumed her place in the company, and speedily regained all her old popularity. Under the Directory and Consulate, indeed, she was more than ever adored by the public and particularly by the youth of the capital, “who, in their anxiety to applaud her, forgot to pay their tailors’ bills.” In these later years, Mlle. Contat, having become too “majestic” for the Elmires and Célimènes, had been compelled to abandon the _emploi_ in which she was still without a rival, to play young matrons. If she had been admirable in her former répertoire, in her new rôles she is said to have been absolutely inimitable, and, as Madame de Volmar, in the _Mariage secret_, Julie, in the _Dissipateur_, and Madame Evrard, in the _Vieux Célibataire_, to have reached the very perfection of her art. * * * * * The irregularities of Mlle. Contat’s youth, and the fact that she had a daughter and two sons--the paternity of at least one of whom seems to have been very much a matter of opinion--to remind the world of her lapses from the path of rectitude, did not deprive her of the friendship and esteem of many whose friendship and esteem were worth possessing. That this should have been the case was due to two reasons: first, to the fact that she had always been careful to observe some degree of decorum in her gallantries and to cause herself to be regarded rather as the victim of an excessive sensibility--a kind of Adrienne Lecouvreur, in fact--than as a lady of easy virtue; and, secondly, to the very high social qualities which she undoubtedly possessed--qualities in which she was surpassed by few of her contemporaries.