The almost fanatical admiration which Voltaire cherished for the actress was no doubt, in part, due to the fact that she had contributed so largely to the success of his plays. If Collé is to be believed, she "made" his _Orphelin de la Chine_, while as the tender and fiery Aménaïde of _Tancrède_ (September 3, 1760), she appears to have held the audience absolutely enthralled. "Ah! _mon cher maître_," writes Diderot to the exile of Ferney, "if you could see her crossing the stage, half-leaning upon the executioners who surround her, her knees giving way beneath her, her eyes closed, her arms hanging down, as though in death; if you could hear her cry on recognising Tancrède, you would be convinced, more than ever, that silence and pantomime have sometimes a pathos which all the resources of oratory cannot attain. Open your portfolios and look at Poussin's _Esther paraissant devant l'Assuérus_: it is Clairon on her way to execution."[170] The _Mercure_--the staid _Mercure_, so chary of its praise--can find no word to describe her acting but that of sublime. The advocate Barbier, voicing the opinion of the average playgoer, declares that "Mlle. Clairon carried the talent of tragic declamation to a point which had never been witnessed before"; while d'Alembert writes: "Mlle. Clairon has been incomparable and beyond anything that she has yet attained to." To the great disappointment of the public, the health of Mlle. Clairon necessitated the temporary withdrawal of the play after the thirteenth performance, and, when it was revived in the following January, the enthusiasm with which it was received was almost indescribable. * * * * * Simultaneously with her celebrity as an actress, Mlle. Clairon enjoyed a celebrity of another, and far less enviable, kind. "Love," she remarks, in her _Mémoires_, "is one of Nature's needs; and I satisfied it." She did indeed. "Hardly had she appeared on the [Paris] stage," writes La Janière to the Lieutenant of Police, in the report to which we have already had occasion to refer, "than every one began to fight for her, and the crowd of lovers was so great that, in spite of her inclination towards gallantry, she was embarrassed to choose among them." There were princes and dukes; there were marquises, and barons, and counts; there were impecunious chevaliers and wealthy farmer-generals; there were dashing cavalry-officers and sober presidents of the Parliament; there were actors and men of letters. And few indeed--that is to say, few who possessed any passport to her favour: high rank, a handsome presence, a pretty wit, or, best of all, a well-lined purse and a disposition to empty it at her feet,[171] seemed to have sighed in vain.