st heads and one of the most mobile countenances imaginable, and,
however impetuous his acting became, always kept dignified, which
seems to me a prime quality in a tragic actor. He was a very good man,
and the best tempered individual in the world. It was his custom to
make no fuss in society; in order to make him respond, it needed
something in the conversation which would stir one of his deepest
interests, and then he was well worth listening to, particularly when
he talked about his art. Comedy was perhaps better off still for
talent than tragedy. I often had the good fortune to see Preville on
the stage. There, indeed, was the perfect, the inimitable artist! His
acting, so clever, so natural, and so full of fun, was at the same
time most varied. He would play in turn Crispin, Sosie, and Figaro,
and you would not know it was the same man, so inexhaustible were his
comic resources. Dugazon, his successor in humorous parts, would have
been an excellent comedian if a desire to make the public laugh had
not often led him into being farcical. He played certain parts of
valets admirably. Dugazon behaved villainously in the Revolution: he
was one of those who went for the King to Varennes, and an eyewitness
told me that he had seen him at the carriage door with a gun on his
shoulder. Be it observed that this man had been overwhelmed with
favours by the court, and especially by the Count d'Artois.

I also witnessed Mlle. Contat's first appearance. She was extremely
pretty and well made, but did her work so badly at first that no one
foresaw what a fine actress she was to become. Her charming face was
not sufficient to protect her from hisses when she played the part
confided to her by Beaumarchais, of Susanna in "The Marriage of
Figaro." But from that moment on she advanced further and further on
the path of success.

At a period when all of the great actors were beginning to age, a
young talent arose that to-day is the ornament of the French stage:
Mlle. Mars was then playing the parts of young girls in the most
highly accomplished manner; she excelled in that of Victorine in "The
Unwitting Philosopher," and in a dozen others in which she never had
an equal. For it was impossible for any one else to be so true to life
and so affecting; it was nature at its best. Fortunately, that face,
that figure, that bewitching voice are so perfectly preserved that
Mlle. Mars has no age, nor, I believe, ever will have, and the public