Among the adorers whom Adrienne rejected, and whose friendship she nevertheless succeeded in retaining through life, was the Marquis de la Chalotais, whose famous quarrel with Madame du Barry's _protégé_, the Duc d'Aiguillon, convulsed all France during the last years of Louis XV. The future Advocate-General of the Parliament of Brittany was, at the time when he made Adrienne's acquaintance, a gay young abbé and a great frequenter of the Comédie-Française, where he paid assiduous court to its chief divinity, but without obtaining anything save her friendship and esteem. Having succeeded to the family title and become Advocate-General at Rennes, he continued to correspond with his former enchantress, and was in the habit of sending her a present every year. Only nine days before her death, Adrienne wrote him a charming letter, thanking him for his gift and assuring him of her lasting regard:-- * * * * * "When one has been acquainted with a person for ten or twelve years, and has a kind of attachment for him which is proof against separation and ought not to injure any one, one may speak without restraint. I assure you, then, that I love you as much as I esteem you, that I pray for your happiness and that of all belonging to you, and I entreat you to retain for me remembrance and more." * * * * * In his letter, La Chalotais had expressed regret that it was impossible for him to take lessons in declamation from Adrienne; and the actress concludes by very modestly defining her own method of elocution, and giving her friend some very excellent advice on the subject:-- * * * * * "You say that you would like me to teach you the art of declamation, of which you stand in need. You have then forgotten that I do not declaim. The simplicity of my acting is my one poor merit; but this simplicity, which chance has turned to my advantage, appears to me indispensable to a man in your profession. The first requisite is intelligence, and that you have; the next, to allow beneficent Nature to do her work. To speak with grace, nobility, and simplicity, and to reserve all your energies for the argument, are what you will say and do better than any man." * * * * * An admirer whom Adrienne had infinitely more difficulty in persuading to be content with friendship than La Chalotais was Voltaire's faithful ally, d'Argental. D'Argental, who was then a lad scarcely out of his teens, conceived for the actress a most violent passion, and, though the latter repeatedly assured him that friendship was all she had to bestow, for long refused to abandon hope.