the aforegoing portrait is confirmed by other contemporary evidence. Examined in detail, it would appear that Armande's features were far from perfect, but that the ensemble was fascinating to a very remarkable degree. Mlle. Poisson, in a Lettre sur la vie et les œuvres de Molière et les comédiens de son temps, which she contributed to the Mercure of 1740, describes her as "of middle height," with "very small eyes," and "a large flat mouth"; but adds that she had "an engaging air," and "performed every action with grace." The elder Grandval is in accord with Mlle. Poisson: "Without being beautiful, she was piquant and capable of inspiring a grande passion." While a bitter enemy of Armande, the anonymous author of La Fameuse Comédienne, while denying her "aucun trait de beauté" is fain to admit that her appearance and manners rendered her very amiable in the opinion of many people, and that she was "very affecting when she wished to please."

That Armande should have triumphed so completely over physical deficiencies was probably due, to some extent, to the perfection of her toilettes. "No one," the brothers Parfaict tell us, in their Histoire du Théâtre Français, "knew better than she how to enhance the beauty of her face by the arrangement of her coiffure, or of her figure by the fashion of her costume." And Mlle. Poisson records that she "showed most remarkable taste and invariably opposed to the mode of the time." She seems indeed to have had some claim to be considered the arbitrix of feminine taste in dress, for the Mercure galant of 1673 ascribes to her the credit of a radical reform in ladies' toilettes, nothing less than the substitution of gowns, "tout unis sur le corps, de la manière que la taille parait plus belle," for the majestic but somewhat heavy costume hitherto in vogue, which concealed beneath its too ample folds the graceful lines of the figure.

If Armande, as a woman, was an object of admiration to her contemporaries, as an actress, she aroused in them something very like enthusiasm. It would indeed have been a matter for surprise had it been otherwise, since she enjoyed advantages which fall to the lot of very few. She came of a family which had already contributed several finished performers to the French stage, and "had in her blood the passion and instinct of the theatre." With her charm of manner and exquisite taste in dress, she combined many accomplishments: "she had a very pretty voice, sang with great taste in both French and Italian, and danced ravishingly." She had received a long and careful training from one who was perhaps an even better teacher than he was an actor, and who was as ambitious for her success as for his own. And, finally, nearly all her parts—certainly all her more important parts—were written by Molière with the express object of enabling her to display her abilities to the best advantage.

Lacking the dignity and strength required to give adequate expression to the greater passions, she wisely refrained from attempting any important rôles in tragedy, and in Racine's Alexandre and the Attila of Corneille we find her allotted only minor parts. But at the Palais-Royal comedy was, of course, the staple fare, and in "la rôles de femmes coquettes et satiriques," which accorded so well with her own temperament, and also in those of ingénues, Armande had no superior in her day and probably very few since. Her acting is said to have been characterised by great judgment, while her by-play was remarkably effective. "If she but retouches her hair, or rearranges her ribbons or her jewellery, these little fashions conceal a satire judicious and natural, and throw ridicule upon the women she wishes to represent." Moreover, she had the rare gift of being able to change at will the character of her voice, and "had a different tone for every part she undertook."

Molière's wise reluctance to allow his young wife to challenge the verdict of the public until he had done everything in his power to ensure her success, delayed Armande's first appearance on the stage for fifteen months after her marriage, when she made her début as Élise in the Critique de l'École des femmes (June 1, 1663), a reply to the attacks of Donneau de Visé and other critics upon the play produced at the Palais-Royal the previous December. The part allotted to her, which is that of a self-possessed young woman, with a good deal of shrewd common-sense, a turn for irony of a rather caustic brand, and not too much consideration for the feelings of others, suited her admirably—perhaps rather more so than poor Molière at that time imagined—and secured her a somewhat similar rôle in the delightful Impromptu de Versailles, played before the Court in the following October, where she figures in the cast as a "satirical wit." She did not play in the Mariage forcé (January 29, 1664), as, ten days earlier, she had borne Molière a son, to whom, as we have mentioned, Louis XIV. and Henrietta of England stood sponsors; but in the following spring we find her in the first of her long list of important rôles.

At the beginning of May 1664, Louis XIV. entertained the Queen-mother, Anne of Austria, and his own consort, Maria Theresa, with a brilliant and sumptuous fête, or rather succession of fêtes, at Versailles, which was then, of course, still only the little country-house built by Louis XIII., occupying to-day the bottom of the Cour de Marbre. The fêtes, which were denominated Les Plaisirs de l'Ile enchantée, as the plan adopted was suggested by the sixth and seventh cantos of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, which describe the sojourn of Rogero (impersonated by the King) in the isle and palace of the enchantress Alcena, began on the 7th of the month and lasted a week; stately processions, tilting, displays of fireworks, balls, and magnificent banquets alternating with theatrical performances. On the 8th, Molière's troupe gave a comedy ballet, called the Princesse d'Élide, composed for the occasion, by their chief, at the special request of the King, and the rôle of the princess was taken by Armande. The play, the subject of which was borrowed from the Spanish dramatist Moreto's El Desden con el Desden (Scorn for Scorn), is the story of a fair princess, who until then had professed to despise love and had driven her innumerable suitors to despair, but who suddenly finds herself wounded to the heart by the skilfully feigned indifference to her charms shown by Euryale, Prince of Ithaca, who ultimately succeeds in winning her hand. Though far from being one of Molière's happiest efforts, as it was hastily strung together—the first act and the commencement of the first scene of the second are in verse, and the rest in prose—while the author's natural flow of wit and humour was checked by the necessity of accommodating himself to courtly conventions, it met with a very favourable reception, and, moreover, served to establish Armande's reputation as an actress. This was, no doubt, Molière's intention, as the whole play appears to have been conceived expressly to bring into relief the young lady's various accomplishments—her taste in dress, her charming voice, and her graceful dancing—and the enamoured Euryale declaims in her honour a portrait of the most flattering description: "She is, in truth, adorable at all times; but at that moment she was more so than ever, and new charms redoubled the splendour of her beauty. Never was her face adorned with more lovely colours; never were her eyes armed with swifter or more piercing shafts. The sweetness of her voice showed itself in the perfectly charming air which she deigned to sing; and the marvellous tones she uttered penetrated to the very depth of my soul and held all my senses in a rapture from which they were powerless to escape. She next showed a disposition altogether divine; her