COUVREUR, (ADRIENNE LE) Daughter of a Hatter, at Fismes, in Champagne. Born 1695; died 1730, aged 33;
One of the most celebrated French actresses, had the taste to strike out a new road to excellence, by following simple nature in tragedy. After having acted some time at Paris, she went to Strasburgh, but returned in 1717. Expression and grace supplied what was wanting of beauty in her person. She is said to have had all the intelligence, art, and address of Mademoiselle Clairon, with more sensibility. She was attached to the Marshal de Saxe, and from youth till the time of her death lived with him. This famous hero wrote to her once from Courland, to enquire some means of borrowing money for him; and, without hesitation, she sold her plate and jewels, and sent him 40,000 livres.
With feeble health, and a taste for study and retirement, Madame le Couvreur found herself obliged to accept the invitations of people, who, as she complains, wanted to know her only from curiosity, and be presented to her because some people of distinction did her that honour; or pass for impertinent and conceited. "Not," adds she, in one of her letters, "that I want gratitude or a desire to please; but I find that the flattery of fools is not so gratifying as it is common, and that it becomes a burthen, when it must be bought by reiterated compliances."
CRESILLA,
A female sculptor of early Greece, who having, in competition with others masters, to form seven Amazons
