But beautiful as Mlle. Gaussin undoubtedly was, and excellent as was her acting in Zaïre and other pathetic parts, she fell very far short of the standard to which her gifted predecessor had attained; nor was it until August 1737 that an actress worthy to assume the mantle of Adrienne arose. This was Marie Françoise Dumesnil, who, like Adrienne, had begun her career at theatres in the East of France, and, like her, singularly enough, had received her invitation to Paris while playing at Strasburg. Her style, which was marked by a high degree of truth to Nature, refinement, and technical skill, combined with a real enthusiasm for her art, excited general admiration, and her _début_ was brilliantly successful. In the classic répertoire her most celebrated rôles were Cléopâtre, Clytemnestre, and Phèdre; while her most successful creation was Mérope (February 20, 1743), when, according to Voltaire, she kept the audience in tears for three successive acts.[151] After this triumph--the greatest of her career--it may well have been supposed that Mlle. Dumesnil was destined to maintain her supremacy for many years to come. Nevertheless, ere six months had passed, she found her proud position challenged by a most formidable rival. Claire Joseph Lerys--for that was the name of this rival, and of the greatest, or, at least, the most celebrated tragic actress of the eighteenth century, though she styled herself Claire _Josèphe Hippolyte_ Lerys _de Latude-Clairon_, and is known to fame under the last of these names--was born at Condé, a little town of Hainaut, on January 25, 1723. Her father was one François Joseph Desiré Lerys, a sergeant in the Régiment de Mailly; her mother, a working-woman, Marie Claire Scanapiecq by name; and she was a natural child, a fact which she omits to mention in the French edition of her _Mémoires_, though she is more candid in the German edition.[152] The circumstances attending her birth, which she has herself recounted, were, it must be admitted, highly significant of her future career:--