Adrienne's phenomenal success was, in a great measure, due to the fact that she had the courage and good sense to break with the old traditions of the theatre, and abandon this stilted and artificial style of elocution for simpler and more natural modes of speech. "The charming Lecouvreur," wrote the Italian actor Riccoboni, the _jeune premier_ of the Comédie-Italienne, in his didactic poem, _Dell' arte rappresentativa_, "is the only one who does not follow the road along which all her comrades run at full speed. If she happens to weep or complain without terrifying us, as the others do by their bawlings, she touches the heart so profoundly, that we become affected with her."[70] This natural style of delivery seems to have been originally imposed upon Adrienne by her physique, which was more delicate than vigorous. Her voice, though singularly pleasing, was not remarkable for extent and power, like Mlle. de Champmeslé's, but she used it with such consummate skill as to vary its modulations according to the sentiments she desired to express. "Although her voice is very weak," says the author of the _Lettres historiques_, "she pleased the public at first, and continues to please it; because it finds in her a novel style, natural and the more agreeable, in that she has studied how to control it and to proportion it to her strength; and thus one might say that the weakness of her chest has contributed to this kind of perfection." The _Mercure_, of March 1730, confirms the anonymous writer: "She had not many tones in her voice, but she knew how to lend to them infinite variety." Moreover, she seems to have possessed the rare gift of clearness of pronunciation, "the orthography of the actor's art," and seldom indeed had so pure and distinct a delivery been heard upon the stage. For this last qualification Adrienne was indebted to the counsels of César du Marsais, the grammarian-philosopher, as, when she first appeared on the stage of the Comédie-Française, her pronunciation was far from perfect; she understood the true meaning of the words of her parts, but delivered them in a way which considerably discounted their value, and thus, according to Régnier, touched the hearts, and irritated the ears of the more fastidious critics at one and the same time. D'Allainval relates that on the evening of her _début_, while the theatre was ringing with the applause of the delighted audience, an elderly man, seated at the back of a box, refrained from joining in the general enthusiasm, and contented himself with remarking from time to time, in a low tone, "_Bon, cela!_" His behaviour was much commented upon by those who sat near him, and duly reported to Adrienne, who, on learning that it was Du Marsais, became curious to learn the reason of the qualified approval of one who appeared to be a critic of some discernment, and accordingly sent him a very courteous note inviting him to dine with her _tête-à-tête_.