Besides possessing capacity as an actress, she could
write very good verses, she was clever at painting in miniature, and,
most remarkable quality of all, she was possessed of prodigious muscular
strength. It is recorded of Mademoiselle, that she could roll up a
silver plate with her hands, and that she covered herself with
distinction in a trial of strength with no less a person than the famous
soldier, Marshal Saxe.
Nobody who is at all acquainted with the social history of the
eighteenth century in France, need be told that Mademoiselle Gautier had
a long list of lovers,--for the most part, persons of quality, marshals,
counts, and so forth. The only man, however, who really attached her to
him, was an actor at the Theatre Francois, a famous player in his day,
named Quinault Dufresne. Mademoiselle Gautier seems to have loved him
with all the ardour of her naturally passionate disposition. At first,
he returned her affection; but, as soon as she ventured to test the
sincerity of his attachment by speaking of marriage, he cooled towards
her immediately, and the connection between them was broken off. In all
her former love-affairs, she had been noted for the high tone which she
adopted towards her admirers, and for the despotic authority which she
exercised over them even in her gayest moments. But the severance of
her connection with Quinault Dufresne wounded her to her heart.
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