"Est-il quelqu'un que votre voix n'enchante? S'en trouve-t-il une aussi touchante, Un autre allant si droit au cœur?" The flexibility of her voice appears to have been quite extraordinary. Melodious, soft, and caressing in rôles like Iphigénie or Monime, it became so powerful and sonorous in such parts as Phèdre, Roxane, and Hermione that, it is said, when the door of the box at the end of the _salle_ happened to be open, it could be heard at the Café Procope, over the way. "The recitation of actors in tragedy," says the anonymous author of the _Entretiens galants_, "is a kind of chant, and you will readily admit that the Champmeslé would not please you so much, if her voice were less agreeable. But she has learned to modulate it with so much skill, and she lends to her words such natural tones, that it would seem that she really has in her heart the passions she expresses with her mouth." In pathetic passages, we are told, she drew tears from the eyes of the most hardened playgoers. "It was amusing to watch the ladies sighing and drying their eyes and the men laughing at them, while they themselves were hard put to restrain their emotion." There seems to be some difference of opinion as to whether Mlle. de Champmeslé was strictly beautiful. According to the Brothers Parfaict, "her skin was not clear, and her eyes were very small and round." On the other hand, she was "of a fine shape, well made and noble," and "her defects were, so to speak, counterbalanced by the natural graces spread over her whole person." Louis Racine, though he denies her talent, admits that she was handsome; while Madame de Sévigné tells us that she was "almost plain," but "adorable upon the stage." However that may be, she did not lack for admirers, and Racine, who, two years before, had lost his mistress, the beautiful Mlle. du Parc--the actress who had in turn rejected the addresses of Molière, Pierre Corneille, and La Fontaine--speedily fell in love with her, and installed her in the vacant place in his affections, M. de Champmeslé accepting his dishonour with fashionable complacency. Henceforth, as Molière had written for his wife, Racine wrote for his mistress, who created all his great heroines, and "investing them with her own charm, became in truth the _collaboratrice_ of the poet." "Bénissons de l'amour l'influence divine, C'est à toi, Champmeslé, que nous devons Racine, Il écrivait pour toi, de te plaire occupé, Son vers coulait plus doux de son cœur échappé." [Illustration: JEAN RACINE From an engraving by VERTUE]