Her principal lovers were Voltaire, whom she nursed through smallpox, spending many hours in reading to him, and Maurice of Saxony; she had children of whom the latter was the father, and it was she who, by selling her plate and jewelry, supplied him with forty thousand francs in order to enable him to equip his soldiers when he proposed to recover the principality of Courland.  She was generous to prodigality; but when she died, the Church refused to grant consecrated ground for the reception of her remains, although it condescended to accept her munificent gift of a hundred thousand francs to charity.  Her death was said to have been caused by her rival, the Duchesse de Bouillon, by means of poisoned pastilles administered by a young abbe.  In the night, her body was carried by two street porters to the Rue de Bourgogne, where it was buried.  Voltaire, in great indignation at such injustice, wrote his stinging poem La Mort de Mademoiselle Le Couvreur, which was the cause of his being again obliged to leave Paris.

The popularity of the Comedie Francaise declined after the deaths of Baron and Adrienne Le Couvreur, until the appearance of Mlle. Clairon, who was one of the greatest actresses of France.  Born in Flanders in 1723, at a very early age she had wandered about the provinces, from theatre to theatre, with itinerant troupes, winning a great reputation at Rouen.  In 1738 the leading actresses were Mlle. Quinault, who had retired to enjoy her immense fortune in private life, and Mlle. Dumesnil, the great tragedienne.  When Mlle. Clairon received an offer to play alternately with the favorite, Mlle. Dumesnil, she selected as her opening part Phedre, the role de triomphe of her rival.

The appearance of a debutante was an event, and its announcement brought out a large crowd; the presumption of a provincial artist in selecting a role in which to rival a great favorite had excited general ridicule, and an unusually large audience had assembled, expecting to witness an ignominious failure.  Mlle. Clairon’s stately figure, the dignity and grace of her carriage, “her finely chiselled features, her noble brow, her air of command, her clear, deep, impassioned voice,” made an immediate impression upon the audience.  She was unanimously acknowledged as superior to Mlle. Dumesnil, and the entire social and literary world hastened to do her homage.

Mlle. Clairon did as much for the theatre as did Adrienne Le Couvreur, especially in discarding, in her Phedre, the plumes, spangles, the panier, the frippery, which had been the customary equipments of that role.  She and Lecain, the prominent actor of the day, introduced the custom of wearing the proper costume of the characters represented.  The grace and dignity of her stage presence caused her to be sought by the great ladies, who took lessons in her famous courtesy grande reverence, which was later supplanted by the courtesy of Mme. de Pompadour.