m the disingenuousness of her own _Memoires d'Hippolyte Clairon_
(1798); and she had great difficulty in obtaining an order to make her
_debut_ at the Comedie Francaise. Succeeding, however, at last, she had
the courage to select the title-role of _Phedre_ (1743), and she
obtained a veritable triumph. During her twenty-two years at this
theatre, dividing the honours with her rival Mlle Dumesnil, she filled
many of the classical roles of tragedy, and created a great number of
parts in the plays of Voltaire, Marmontel, Saurin, de Belloy and others.
She retired in 1766, and trained pupils for the stage, among them Mlle
Raucourt. Goldsmith called Mlle Clairon "the most perfect female figure
I have ever seen on any stage" (_The Bee_, 2nd No.); and Garrick, while
recognizing her unwillingness or inability to make use of the
inspiration of the instant, admitted that "she has everything that art
and a good understanding with great natural spirit can give her."

CLAIRVAUX, a village of north-eastern France, in the department of Aube,
40 m. E.S.E. of Troyes on the Eastern railway to Belfort. Clairvaux
(_Clara Vallis_) is situated in the valley of the Aube on the eastern
border of the Forest of Clairvaux. Its celebrity is due to the abbey
founded in 1115 by St Bernard, which became the centre of the Cistercian
order. The buildings (see ABBEY) belong for the most part to the 18th
century, but there is a large storehouse which dates from the 12th
century. The abbey, suppressed at the Revolution, now serves as a
prison, containing on an average 800 inmates, who are employed in
agricultural and industrial occupations. Clairvaux has iron-works of
some importance.

CLAIRVOYANCE (Fr. for "clear-seeing"), a technical term in psychical
research, properly equivalent to lucidity, a supernormal power of
obtaining knowledge in which no part is played by (_a_) the ordinary
processes of sense-perception or (_b_) supernormal communication with
other intelligences, incarnate, or discarnate. The word is also used,
sometimes qualified by the word _telepathic_, to mean the power of
gaining supernormal knowledge from the mind of another (see TELEPATHY).
It is further commonly used by spiritualists to mean the power of seeing
spirit forms, or, more vaguely, of discovering facts by some supernormal
means.

_Lucidity._--Few experiments have been made to test the existence of
this faculty. If communications from discarnate minds are regarded