Almost to the last Justine seems to have cherished a vague hope that she would ultimately recover, and, for a long time, refused to pronounce the renunciation of her profession which the curé of her parish demanded, according to custom, before administering the last Sacraments. Nor was it until, through the influence of Voisenon, she had obtained a promise from the Gentlemen of the Chamber that her salary should be preserved to her, under the form of a pension, in case of retirement, that she yielded, and exclaimed, smiling: "Oh! for the moment, I renounce it." She then received the Sacraments and, profiting by a short respite from pain, composed her own epitaph, which she set to music. She died on April 21, 1772, at four o'clock in the morning, in her forty-sixth year, and was buried the same day in the church of Saint-Eustache. Favart survived his talented wife just twenty years, and died in May 1792. Towards the end of his life, he became almost blind, notwithstanding which he continued to work for the theatre, besides keeping up an active correspondence with the Italian dramatist Goldoni, who came to Paris to visit him in 1791. The most successful of his later pieces was _La Belle Arsène_, music by Monsigny, produced in 1775. Of his children by Justine, the only one to call for notice here is his second son, Charles Nicolas Joseph Favart. Born in 1749, at the age of twenty-one he was admitted a _sociétaire_ of the Comédie-Française, where he remained for fifteen years. Though but a moderate actor, he was a successful dramatist; his best works were _Le Diable boiteux, ou la Chose impossible_ (1782); _Les Trois Folies_ (1786); _Le Mariage singulier_ (1787); and _La Vieillesse d'Annette et Lubin_ (1791), the last in collaboration with his father. His son, Antoine Pierre Charles Favart (1780-1867), entered the Diplomatic Service, where he gained some little distinction. He assisted Dumolard in editing the _Mémoires_ of his grandfather, collaborated in a couple of plays, and was an amateur painter of some talent. VI MADEMOISELLE CLAIRON For more than seven years after the death of Adrienne Lecouvreur, her place as a tragic actress remained unfilled. During these years, several capable _tragédiennes_ appeared, notably Jeanne Gaussin, a beautiful brunette with a rich and sympathetic voice, who created the part of Zaïre in Voltaire's tragedy of that name (August 13, 1732), and moved the delighted poet to address her in the following verses:-- "Jeanne Gaussin, reçois mon tendre hommage; Reçois mes vers au théâtre applaudis; Protège-les: _Zaïre_ est ton ouvrage; Il est à toi, puisque tu l'embellis. Ce sont tes yeux, ces yeux, si pleins de charmes, Qui du critique ont fait tomber les armes."[150]