When, in 1689, the Comédie-Française, ousted from the Rue Mazarine, migrated to its new home in the Rue Neuve-des-Fossés-Saint-Germain, Mlle. de Champmeslé, in spite of advancing years, continued her triumphant career, her remarkable talents and enthusiasm enabling her to secure some measure of success for even the most insipid tragedy. Apart from revivals of the great masterpieces of Corneille and Racine, perhaps her most notable success was gained in the part of Judith in the Abbé Boyer's tragedy of that name, produced in March 1795, when she was in her fifty-fourth year. This play had a singular history. For some time it created a perfect _furore_, and the theatre could with difficulty accommodate the crowds which presented themselves nightly at the doors. "The seats on the stage," says Le Sage, "had to be given up by the men to the women, whose handkerchiefs were spread upon their knees, to wipe away the tears to be called forth by touching passages. The usual occupants of the seats had to be content with the wings. In the fourth act, there was a scene which proved particularly moving, and, for that reason, was called the '_scène des mouchoirs_.' The pit, where laughers are always to be found, made itself merry at the expense of these impressionable ladies, instead of weeping with them." Intoxicated by his success, the Gascon poet, in an evil hour for himself, determined to allow his work to be printed, and it was published during the Easter recess. It was, of course, eagerly bought, but no sooner did people begin to read the book, than they made the discovery that this tragedy, which the author's indiscreet admirers had been comparing to _Polyeucte_ and _Phèdre_, was, in truth, a most mediocre play, which clearly owed its phenomenal success to the religious nature of the subject and Mlle. de Champmeslé's brilliant impersonation of the Judæan heroine. The indignation of the public against the unhappy abbé, who, it seemed to consider, had perpetrated a kind of fraud at its expense, knew no bounds, and it was forthwith decided that _Judith_ must be driven with ignominy from the boards. Accordingly, when the curtain rose on Quasimodo Sunday--the usual evening for the reopening of the theatre--the players, whose appearance for so many nights had been the signal for prolonged applause, were received with a storm of hisses and derisive laughter. "Then," continues Le Sage, "Mlle. de Champmeslé, actress worthy of eternal remembrance, astonished to hear such a symphony, when her ears were accustomed only to applause, addressed the pit as follows: 'Gentlemen, we are rather surprised that you should receive so badly to-day a play which you applauded during Lent.' To which a voice replied: 'The hisses were at Versailles, at the sermons of the Abbé Boileau.'"[55]