“Men of letters and actresses,” remarks M. du Bled, “have always possessed an attraction for one another; interest, end, character, all create between them affinities which result in gallantry, in friendship, and in love; the former invent, the latter execute; glory, gain, success, and failure are their common lot; common also the place of triumph, the judge who awards the palm and the hisses.”[163] Mlle. Contat had many friends in the Republic of Letters, and her salon was one of the most brilliant literary resorts in Paris. Thither came Vigée, author of the successful comedies, _Les Aveux difficiles_, _La Fausse Coquette_, and _L’Entrevue_; Desfaucherets, the improviser of proverbs, whose play _Le Mariage secret_ was ascribed by the sycophantic courtiers of the Restoration to Louis XVIII., just as they ascribed to him Arnault’s _Marius à Miturnes_ and Lemierre’s pretty quatrain for a fan: “Dans les temps de chaleurs extrêmes Heureux d’amuser vos loisirs, Je saurai près de vous amener les Zéphirs, Les Amours y viendront d’eux-mêmes.” --Maisonneuve, the author of _Roxelane et Mustapha_; Arnault, whose once applauded tragedies have long since been forgotten, but whose _Souvenirs_ are still read with pleasure, one of the intimate friends of Bonaparte during the Directory and a confidant of the _coup d’État_ of the 18th Brumaire; and, finally, Lemercier, one of the most original figures of his time--Lemercier, with his half-paralysed body and brilliant wit[164] and feverish energy, perpetually indulging in the wildest pranks and attempting with equal ardour every branch of literature: poems, plays, fiction, and philosophy; a courageous and honest man, too, who declined to bow the knee to Napoleon and saw, in consequence, his works--his chief source of income--spitefully interdicted by the Imperial censors, and the doors of the Academy closed against him. Under the Empire, the reputation of Mlle. Contat rose, if possible, still higher. Napoleon greatly admired her acting, and she frequently played the leading parts in the theatrical troupe which followed his victorious armies and gave performances in the towns which he had conquered. On January 26, 1809, Mlle. Contat married Paul Marie Claude de Forges Parny, a retired captain of cavalry, brother--and not nephew, as Gaboriau and several writers state--of the poet, Evarest Désiré Parny.