This all-supreme sway of love and its attributes, left its impression and lasting effect upon the physiognomy of the mistress; in the early part of the century, the mistress was chosen from the respectable aristocracy and the nobility; gradually, however, the limits of selection were extended until they included the _bourgeoisie_ and, finally, the offspring of the common _femme du peuple_. A woman from any profession, from any stratum of society, by her charm and intelligence, her original discoveries and inventions of debauch and licentiousness, could easily become the heroine of the day, the goddess of society, the goal and aspiration of the used-up _roués_ of the aristocracy. Under Louis XIV., such popularity was an impossibility to a woman of that sort, but society under the Regency seemed to have awakened from the torpor and gloom of the later years of the monarchy to a reign of unrestrained gayety and vice. The first woman to infect the social atmosphere of the nobility with a new form of extravagance and licentiousness was Adrienne Le Couvreur, who was the heroine of the day during the first years of the Regency. She was the daughter of a hatter, who had gone to Paris about 1702; while employed as a laundress, she often gave proof of the possession of remarkable dramatic genius by her performances at private theatricals. In 1717, through the influence of the great actor Baron, she made her appearance at the Comédie Française; the reappearance of that favorite with Adrienne Le Couvreur as companion, in the plays of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire, reëstablished the popularity of the French theatre. Adrienne immediately became a favorite with the titled class, was frequently present at Mme. de Lambert's, gave the most sumptuous suppers herself, and was compelled to repulse lovers of the highest nobility. Her principal lovers were Voltaire, whom she nursed through smallpox, spending many hours in reading to him, and Maurice of Saxony; she had children of whom the latter was the father, and it was she who, by selling her plate and jewelry, supplied him with forty thousand francs in order to enable him to equip his soldiers when he proposed to recover the principality of Courland. She was generous to prodigality; but when she died, the Church refused to grant consecrated ground for the reception of her remains, although it condescended to accept her munificent gift of a hundred thousand francs to charity. Her death was said to have been caused by her rival, the Duchesse de Bouillon, by means of poisoned pastilles administered by a young abbé. In the night, her body was carried by two street porters to the Rue de Bourgogne, where it was buried. Voltaire, in great indignation at such injustice, wrote his stinging poem _La Mort de Mademoiselle Le Couvreur_, which was the cause of his being again obliged to leave Paris.