"Que direz-vous, race future, Lorsque vous apprendrez, la flétrissante injure Qu'à ces arts désolés font des hommes cruel! Ils privent de la sépulture Celle qui dans la Gréce aurait eu des autels. Quand elle était au monde, ils soupiraient pour elle; Je les ai vu soumis, autour d'elle empressés: Sitôt qu'elle n'est plus, elle est donc criminelle! Elle a charmé le monde et vous l'en punissez!" The annual closing of the theatre took place on March 24, when Grandval, as the youngest _sociétaire_, pronounced, according to custom, before the assembled company, an _éloge_ upon their deceased colleague. This _éloge_ had been written by Voltaire himself, and with it we may appropriately conclude our sketch of this celebrated actress, who was not only a great artist, but a noble, high-souled, and cultured woman, who had all the feminine virtues, save one, for the lack of which, when we pause to consider the temptations of her profession, the moral standard of the age in which she lived, and the generosity and devotion she displayed towards those who had won her heart, we shall find it difficult not to pardon her:-- "I feel, Messieurs, that your regrets recall that inimitable actress, who might almost be said to have invented the art of speaking to the heart and of presenting sentiment and truth where once had been shown little but artificiality and declamation. "Mlle. Lecouvreur--permit us the consolation of naming her--made one feel in every character which she impersonated all the delicacy, all the soul, all the decorum that one could desire: she was worthy to speak before you, Messieurs. Among those who deign to listen to me are several who honoured her by their friendship; they are aware that she was the ornament of society, as well as of the theatre; while those who knew her only as the actress can readily judge, from the degree of perfection to which she had attained, that not only had she an abundance of wit, but that she further possessed the art of rendering wit amiable. "You are too just, Messieurs, not to regard this tribute of praise as a duty: I dare even to say that, in regretting her, I am merely your interpreter."[101] IV MADEMOISELLE DE CAMARGO The Abbé d'Allainval, in his _Lettre à Mylord ... sur Baron et la demoiselle Lecouvreur_, reminds his mythical correspondent that he had found in Paris four wonders: (1) The Tuileries. (2) The acting of the demoiselle Lecouvreur. (3) The dancing of the demoiselle Camargo. (4) The voice of the demoiselle Lemaure. It is of the third of these wonders that we are now about to speak.