The Marshal was dead, but his death could not undo the evil he had done. Favart, who had loved his wife with all the strength of his nature, was generous enough to pardon a past in which circumstances had been so terribly against her. Instead of reproaching her, he preferred to forget, and in so doing acted wisely; for in Justine, as long as she lived, he found a devoted friend and a sure counsellor, on whose sympathy and advice he was always able to rely, and a companion whose irrepressible gaiety was proof against all the troubles and anxieties of both family and professional life. But his generosity went no further. If friendship had survived Justine's last infidelity, love had not. "Fly from love as from the greatest of all evils," he wrote to his friend at Strasburg; and, incredible as it may appear, when, not long afterwards, Justine, piqued, we may presume, by her husband's indifference, formed a _liaison_ with the eccentric little Abbé de Voisenon, Favart's friend and reputed collaborator, the poet--this man whom we have seen prefer persecution, exile, and misery to dishonour--so far from endeavouring to put a stop to an affair which amounted to a serious scandal, appears to have regarded it with the utmost complacency. * * * * * The removal of their persecutor left the Favarts free to resume their respective professions, and, on May 3, 1751, Justine reappeared on the stage of the Comédie-Italienne, in a piece entitled _Les Amants inquiets_, of which her husband was the author. At the beginning of the following year, on the death of Riccoboni's wife, she was allotted a full part in the company, to which she remained a tower of strength for nearly twenty years; her talents as an actress and a singer being rivalled by those which she displayed as a dancer, "turning the heads of the public and securing even the support of the women." Her versatility seems to have been truly amazing. "_Soubrettes_, heroines, country girls, simple parts, character parts, all became her," says Favart in his _Mémoires_; "in a word, she multiplied herself indefinitely, and one was astonished to see her play the same day, in four different pieces, parts of the most opposite character." Her powers of mimicry, too, particularly of the different dialects of France, have seldom been surpassed. Provincials whose accents she had borrowed could with difficulty be persuaded that she did not come from the same part of the country as themselves.