Du Marsais came, but, before sitting down to table, he begged the actress to do him the favour of reciting a tirade from one of her favourite rôles. Adrienne readily consented, but was not a little surprised at only obtaining for her trouble an occasional "_Bon, cela_." Mortified by her guest's comparative indifference to her talents, she inquired in what she had failed to please him. "Mademoiselle," replied Du Marsais, "so far as my judgment goes, no actress has ever given promise of greater talents than yours, and, in order to eclipse probably all your predecessors, I will venture to promise that all that is required on your part is to give to each word the exact emphasis necessary to express its meaning." Adrienne begged the grammarian not to be sparing of his advice, and, following it religiously, soon succeeded in correcting her faulty pronunciation. It must not be supposed that Adrienne was able to effect the overthrow of a style of elocution which had reigned almost unchallenged since the foundation of the Comédie-Française without encountering strenuous and, in some cases, acrimonious opposition from its many champions. Mesdemoiselles Duclos and Desmares, prompted, no doubt, as much by jealousy of the newcomer as by loyalty to the traditions in which they had been trained, were particularly bitter in their resistance, and, supported by the Quinault coterie,[71] did not confine themselves to legitimate protests or to sustaining against her promising _débutantes_, but subjected the young actress to a variety of petty persecutions. Régnier, in his _Souvenirs et études du théâtre_, cites a number of extracts from the registers of the Comédie, from which it appears that a favourite practice of Adrienne's enemies was to cause her to be fined on all kinds of pretexts: for being late for rehearsal, for not wearing the costume prescribed for her part, and so forth. On one occasion, a kind colleague inquired if she were aware that the anagram of her name was _Couleuvre_ (viper); and during the run of Voltaire's _Hérode and Mariamne_, Mlle. de Seine, who, two years later, became the wife of Quinault-Dufresne, carried her insolence so far that the Gentlemen of the Chamber, within whose jurisdiction the theatre lay, were obliged to interfere, and direct the _semainiers_, as a number of players who governed the theatre in rotation were called, "to deduct the sum of one hundred livres from the share of Mlle. de Seine, for unseemly behaviour towards Mlle. Lecouvreur, and to give her warning that she would be dismissed from the troupe in the event of a repetition of the offence."