The popular version of the incidents of Adrienne's death was as follows. One night, when she was playing the part of Phèdre, she saw in a box close to the stage the Duchess de Bouillon, who, she knew, was endeavouring to replace her in the affections of Count de Saxe; and the sight of this woman made her deliver with exceptional energy these indignant lines:-- "Je sais mes perfidies, OEnone, et ne suis pas de ces femmes hardies Qui, goûtant dans le crime une tranquille paix, Ont su se faire un front qui ne rougit jamais." As the Duchess de Bouillon, according to Mdlle. Aïssé, was capricious, violent, impulsive, and much addicted to love affairs, she might well be considered one of those "brazen women who, finding an untroubled calm in crime, succeed in acquiring a brow that knows no blush." It may readily be believed, too, that Adrienne made every point tell, so that the duchess, brazen-faced as she might be, would feel wounded to the quick. So appropriate were the verses and so clear was the intention of the much-loved actress in applying them, that the audience, in full sympathy with her, applauded to the point of wild enthusiasm. Voltaire, on the other hand, wrote in a manuscript note appended to Mdlle. Aïssé's narrative: "She died in my arms of inflammation of the bowels, and it was I who caused the body to be opened. All that Mdlle. Aïssé says on the subject is mere popular rumour without any foundation." If the French clergy objected usually to bury actors and actresses with religious rites, they were scarcely likely to make an exception in favour of an actress who had died in the arms of Voltaire. Her body, then, was thrown "à la voirie," as the author of _Candide_ puts it, or, to be exact, was buried somewhere on the banks of the Seine, in the neighbourhood of a wharf, the interment being made secretly and at midnight, as though poor Adrienne had been a criminal. The Abbé Languet, Curé of Saint-Sulpice, the parish to which Adrienne Lecouvreur belonged, after taking the orders of the Archbishop, had refused to admit her body to the cemetery, and all hope of a Christian burial was then abandoned. The intolerance of the archbishop and of the priest provoked from Voltaire some indignant verses, beginning as follows:-- "Ah, verrai-je toujours ma faible nation, Incertaine en ses voeux, flétrir ce qu'elle admire; Nos moeurs avec nos lois toujours se contredire; Et le Français volage endormi sous l'empire De la superstition?"[D] [D] Voltaire's lines do not lend themselves easily to translation:--"Ah, must I ever see my weakly nation, inconstant in its loves, degrade that which it admires;--our morals ever at variance with our laws;--the quick-witted Frenchman drugged by superstition?"