* Addison gives some such description of the French opera in No. 29 of the "Spectator."
Having told you what others say of this brilliant spectacle, I will now tell you what I have seen myself. Imagine an inclosure fifteen feet broad and long in proportion; this inclosure is the theatre. On its two sides are placed at intervals screens, on which are grossly painted the objects which the scene is about to represent. At the back of the inclosure hangs a great curtain painted in like manner, and nearly always pierced and torn, that it may represent at a little distance gulfs on the earth or holes in the sky. Every one who pa.s.ses behind this stage or touches the curtain produces a sort of earthquake, which has a double effect. The sky is made from certain bluish rags suspended from poles or from cords, as linen may be seen hung out to dry in any washerwoman"s yard. The sun (for it is seen here sometimes) is a lighted torch in a lantern. The cars of the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses are composed of four rafters, squared and hung on a thick rope in the form of a swing or seesaw; between the rafters is a cross-plank on which the G.o.d sits down, and in front hangs a piece of coa.r.s.e cloth well dirtied, which acts the part of clouds for the magnificent car. One may see toward the bottom of the machine two or three stinking candles, badly snuffed, which, while the great personage dementedly presents himself, swinging in his seesaw, fumigate him with an incense worthy of his dignity. The agitated sea is composed of long lanterns of cloth and blue pasteboard, strung on parallel spits which are turned by little blackguard boys. The thunder is a heavy cart, rolled over an arch, and is not the least agreeable instrument one hears. The flashes of lightning are made of pinches of rosin thrown on a flame, and the thunder is a cracker at the end of a fusee. The theatre is furnished, moreover, with little square trap-doors, through which the demons issue from their cave. When they have to rise into the air, little devils of stuffed brown cloth are subst.i.tuted, or perhaps live chimney-sweeps, who swing suspended and smothered in rags. The accidents which happen are sometimes tragical, sometimes farcical. When the ropes break, then infernal spirits and immortal deities fall together, laming and sometimes killing each other.
Add to all this the monsters which render some scenes very pathetic, such as dragons, lizards, tortoises, and large toads, which promenade the theatre with a menacing air, and display at the opera all the temptations of St. Anthony. Each of these figures is animated by a lout of a Savoyard, who has not even intelligence enough to play the beast."
Saint Preux is also made to say of the singers: "One sees actresses nearly in convulsions, tearing yelps and howls violently out of their lungs, closed hands pressed on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, heads thrown back, faces inflamed, veins swollen, and stomach panting. I know not which of the two, eye or ear, is more agreeably affected by this display.... For my part, I am certain that people applaud the outcries of an actress at the opera as they would the feats of a tumbler or rope-dancer at a fair....
Imagine this style of singing employed to express the delicate gallantry and tenderness of Quinault. Imagine the Muses, the Graces, the Loves, Venus herself, expressing themselves this way, and judge the effect. As for devils, it might pa.s.s, for this music has something infernal in it, and is not ill adapted to such beings."
From this and similar accounts it will be seen that opera in France during the latter part of the eighteenth century had, notwithstanding Jean Jacques"s garrulous sarcasms, advanced a considerable way toward that artificial perfection which characterizes it now. Music was a topic of discussion, which absorbed the interest of the polite world far more than the mutterings in the politi-cal horizon, which portended so fierce a convulsion of the social _regime_. Wits, philosophers, courtiers, and fine ladies joined in the acrimonious controversy, first between the adherents of Lulli and Rameau, then between those of Gluck and Piccini.
The young gallants of the day were wont to occupy part of the stage itself and criticise the performance of the opera; and often they adjourned from the theatre to the dueling-ground to settle a difficulty too hard for their wits to unravel. The intense interest appertaining to all things connected with music and the theatre noticeable in the French of to-day, was tenfold as eager a century ago. Pa.s.sionate curiosity, even extending to enthusiasm, with which that worn-out and utterly corrupt society, by some subtile contradiction, threw itself into all questions concerning philosophy, science, literature, and art, found its most characteristic expression in its relation to the music of the stage.
It was at this strange and picturesque period, when everything in politics, society, literature, and art was fermenting for the terrible Hecate"s brew which the French world was soon to drink to the dregs, that there appeared on the stage one of the most remarkable figures in its history, a woman of great beauty and brilliancy, as well as an artist of unique genius--Sophie Arnould. Her name is l.u.s.trous in French memoirs for the splendor of her wit and conversational talent; and a.r.s.ene Houssaye has thought it worthy to preserve her _bon-mots_ in a volume of table-talk, called "Arnouldiana," which will compare with anything of its kind in the French language. For a dozen years prior to the Revolution Sophie Arnould was a queen of society as well as of art; and in her elegant _salon_, which was a museum of art _curios_ and bric-a-brac, she held a brilliant court, where men of the highest distinction, both native and foreign, were proud to pay their homage at the shrine of beauty and genius. There might be seen D"Alembert, the learned and scholarly, rough and independent in manner, who deserted the drawing-rooms of the great for saloons where he could move at his ease.
There, also, Diderot would often delight his circle of admirers by the fluency and richness of his conversation, his friends extolling his disinterestedness and honesty, his enemies whispering about his cunning and selfishness. The novelist Duclos, with his keen power of penetrating human character, would move leisurely through the throng, picking up material for his romances; and Mably would talk politics and drop ill-natured remarks. The learned metaphysician Helvetius, too, was often there, seeking for compliments, his appet.i.te for applause being voracious; so insatiable, indeed, that he even danced one night at the opera. It was said that he was led to study mathematics by seeing a circle of beautiful ladies surrounding the ugly geometrician Maupertuis in the gardens of the Tuileries. Dorat, who wasted his time in writing bad tragedies, and his property in publishing them; the gay, good-hearted Marmontel; Bernard--called by Voltaire _le gentil_--who wrote the libretto of "Castor et Pollux," esteemed for years a masterpiece of lyric poetry; Rameau, the popular composer, in whose pieces Sophie always appeared; and Francoeur, the leader of the orchestra, were also among her guests. J. J. Rousseau was the great lion, courted and petted by all. When Benjamin Franklin arrived in Paris, where he was received with unbounded hospitality by the most distinguished of French society, he confessed that nowhere did he find such pleasure, such wit, such brilliancy, as in the _salon_ of Mile.
Arnould. M. Andre de Murville was one of the more noteworthy men of wit who attended her _soirees_, and he became so madly in love with her that he offered her his hand; but she cared very little about him. One day he told her that if he were not in the Academie within thirty years, he would blow out his brains. She looked steadily at him, and then, smiling sarcastically, said, "I thought you had done that long ago." Poets sang her praises; painters eagerly desired to transfer her exquisite lineaments to canvas. All this flattery intoxicated her. She wished to be cla.s.sed with Ninon, Lais, and Aspasia, and was proud to be the subject of the verses of Dorat, Bernard, Rulhiere, Marmontel, and Favart. Sophie"s wit never hesitated to break a lance even on those she liked. "What are you thinking of?" she said to Bernard, in one of his abstracted moods. "I was talking to myself," he replied. "Be careful,"
she said archly; "you gossip with a flatterer." To a physician, whom she met with a gun under his arm, she laughed aloud, "Ah, doctor, you are afraid of your professional resources failing." Her racy repartees were in every mouth from Paris to Versailles, and she was in all respects a brilliant personage among the intellectual lights of the age.
In the Rue de Bethisy, Paris, stood a house, the Hotel de Chatillon, from the window of one of whose rooms a.s.sa.s.sins flung the gory head of the great Admiral de Coligni down to the Duke de Guise on the night of Saint Bartholomew, 1572. In that same room was born, February 14, 1744, Sophie Arnould, the daughter of the proprietor, who had transformed the historic dwelling into a hostelry. She grew up a bright, lively, and beautiful child, and was conscious from an early age of the value of her talents. Anne, as she was then called (for the change to Sophie was made afterward), would say with exultation: "We shall be as rich as princes.
A good fairy has given me a talisman to transform everything into gold and diamonds at the sound of my voice."
Accident brought her talent to light. It was then the fashion for ladies, after confessing their sins in Pa.s.sion Week, to retire for some days to a religious house, there to expiate by fasting the faults and misdemeanors committed during the gayeties of the Carnival. It chanced that when Anne was about twelve years old the Princess of Modena retired to the convent of Val-de-Grace, and in attending vespers heard one voice which, for power and purity, she thought had never been surpa.s.sed.
Fine voices were at a premium then in France, and the Princess at once decided that she had discovered a treasure. She inquired who was the owner of this exquisite organ, and was informed that it was little Anne Arnould. The Princess sent for the child, who came readily, and was not in the least abashed by the presence of the great lady, but sang like a nightingale and chattered like a magpie. The wit and beauty of the girl charmed the Princess, and she threw a costly necklace about her throat.
"Come, my lovely child," said she; "you sing like an angel, and you have more wit than an angel. Your fortune is made." As a result of the praises so loudly chanted by the Princess of Modena, the child was sent for to sing in the King"s Chapel, and, in spite of the aversion of Anne"s pious mother, who was afraid with good reason of the influences of the dissipated court, she was placed thus in contact with power and royalty. The beautiful Pompadour heard her charming voice, and remarked, with that effusion of sentiment which veneered her cruel selfishness, "Ah! with such a talent, she might become a princess." This opinion of the imperious and all-powerful favorite decided the girl"s fate; for it was equivalent to a mandate for her _debut_. The precocious child knew the danger of the path opened for her. To the remonstrances of her mother she said with a shrug of her pretty shoulders: "To go to the opera is to go to the devil. But what matters it? It is my destiny."
Poor Mme. Arnould scolded, shuddered, and prayed, and ended it, as she thought, by shutting the girl up in a convent. But Louis XV. got wind of this threatened checkmate, and a royal mandate took her out of the convent walls which had threatened to immure her for life. Anne was placed with Clairon, the great tragedienne, to learn acting, and with Mlle. Fel to learn singing. As a consequence, while she had some rivals in the beauty of her voice, her acting surpa.s.sed anything on the operatic stage of that era.
II.
When Anne Arnould made her first appearance, she a.s.sumed the name of Sophie on account of the softer sound of its syllables. Her _debut_, September 15, 1757, was one of most brilliant success, and in a night Paris was at her feet. Her genius, her beauty, her voice, her magnificent eyes, her incomparable grace and fascinating witchery of manner, were the talk of the city; and the opera was besieged every night she sang. Freron, in speaking of the waiting crowds, said, "I doubt if they would take such trouble to get into paradise." The young and lovely _debutante_ accepted the homage of the time, which then as now expressed itself in bouquets, letters, and jewels, without number, with as much nonchalance as if she had been a stage G.o.ddess of twenty years" standing.
Hosts of admirers fluttered around this new and brilliant light. Mme.
Arnould fretted and scolded, and watched her precious charge as well as she could; for when the opera received a singer, neither father nor mother could longer claim her. One of the besieging _roues_ said that Sophie walked on roses. "Yes," was the mother"s keen retort, "but see to it that you do not plant thorns amid the roses." Sophie"s fascinations were the theme of universal talk among the gay and licentious idlers of the court, and heavy bets were made as to who should be the victor in his suit. Among the most distinguished of the court rufflers of the period was the Comte de Lauraguais, noted for his personal beauty, wit, and daring, and for having written some very bad plays, which were instantly d.a.m.ned by the audience. He had run through a great fortune, and the good-humored gayety with which he won money from his friends was only equaled by the nonchalance with which he had squandered his own.
He was a member of the Academy of Sciences, and enjoyed lounging in fashionable saloons and behind the scenes at the opera. Lauraguais had the temerity to attempt to carry off the young beauty, but, the enterprise failing, he had recourse to another expedient. One evening, supping with some friends, the conversation turned naturally on the star which had just risen, and there was much jesting over the maternal anxiety of Arnould _mere_. Lauraguais, laughing, instantly offered to lay an immense wager that within fifteen days Mme. Arnould would no longer attend Sophie to the opera. The bet was taken, and the next day a handsome but modest-looking young man, professing to be from the country, applied at the Hotel de Chatillon for lodgings. The fascinating tongue of young Duval (for he represented that he was a poet of that name, who hoped to get a play taken by the managers) soon beguiled both mother and daughter, and he began to make love to Sophie under the very maternal eyes. The romantic girl listened with delight to the protestations and vows of the young provincial poet, though she had disdained the flatteries of the troops of court gallants who besieged the opera-house stage when she sang. The _finale_ of this pretty pastoral was a moonlight flitting one night. The couple eloped, and the Comte de Lauraguais won his wager that Mme. Arnould would not longer accompany her daughter to the opera, and with the wager the most beautiful and fascinating woman of the time.
Sophie, finding herself freed from all conventional shackles, gave full play to her tastes, both for luxury and intellectual society. Her house, the Hotel Rambouillet, was transformed into a palace, and both at home and in the green-room of the opera she was surrounded by a throng of n.o.blemen, diplomats, soldiers, poets, artists--in a word, all the most brilliant men of Paris, who crowded her receptions and besieged her footsteps. The attentions paid the brilliant Sophie caused terrible fits of jealousy on the part of Lauraguais, and their life for several years, though there appears to have been sincere attachment on both sides, was embittered by quarrels and recriminations. Sophie seems to have been faithful to her relation with Lauraguais, though she never took pains to deprecate his anger or avert his suspicions. Discovering that he was intriguing with an operatic fair one, she contrived that Lauraguais should come on her _tete-a-tete_ with a Knight of Malta. To his reproaches she answered, "This gentleman is only fulfilling his vows as Knight of Malta in waging war upon an infidel" (infidele). At last she tired of leading such a fretful existence, and took the occasion of the Count"s absence to break the bond. She filled her carriage with all of his valuable gifts to herself--jewelry, laces, and two children--and sent them to his hotel. The message was received by the Countess, who gladly accepted the charge of the little ones, but returned the carriage and its other contents. On Lauraguais"s return he was thrown into the deepest misery by Sophie"s resolve; but, although she was touched by his pleading and reproaches, she remained inflexible. She accepted, however, a pension of two thousand crowns which his generosity settled on her. We are told that the sentimental Countess joined with her husband in urging Sophie, who at first refused to receive Lauraguais"s bounty, to yield, saying that her admiration of the lovely singer made her excuse his fault in being unfaithful to herself, and that the children should be always treated as her own. Such a scene as this would be impossible out of the France of the eighteenth century.
The number of Sophie Arnould"s _bon-mots_ is almost legion, and her good nature could rarely resist the temptation of uttering a brilliant epigram or a pungent repartee. Some one showed her a snuff-box, on which were portraits of Sully and the Duke de Choiseul. She said with a wicked smile, "Debit and credit." A Capuchin monk was reported to have been eaten by wolves. "Poor beasts! hunger must be a dreadful thing,"
e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed she. A beautiful but silly woman complained to her of the persistency of her lovers. "You have only to open your mouth and speak, to get rid of their importunities," was the pungent answer. She effectually silenced a c.o.xcomb, who aimed to annoy her by saying, "Oh!
wit runs in the street nowadays," by the retort, "Too fast for fools to catch it, however." Of Madeleine Guimard, the fascinating dancer, who was exceedingly thin, Sophie said one night, after she had seen her dance a _pas de trois_ in which she represented a nymph being contended for by two satyrs, "It made her think of two dogs fighting for a bone."*
* This _mot_ the Paris wits have revived at the expense of Mlle. Sara Bernhardt.
One day Voltaire said to her, "Ah! mademoiselle, I am eighty-four years old, and I have committed eighty-four follies" (_sottises_). "A mere trifle," responded Sophie; "I am not yet forty, and I have committed more than a thousand."
For a time Mile. Arnould suffered under a loss of court favor, owing to her having made Mme. Du Barry the b.u.t.t of her pointed sarcasms. A _lettre de cachet_ would have been the fate of another, but Sophie was too much of a popular idol to be so summarily treated. She, however, retired for a time from the theatre with a pension of two thousand francs, having already acc.u.mulated a splendid fortune. Instantly that it was known she was under a cloud, there were plenty to urge that she never had any voice, and that her only good points were beauty and fine acting. Abbe Galiani, a court parasite, remarked one night, "It"s the finest asthma I ever heard."
In 1774 the great composer Gluck, whose genius was destined to have such a profound influence on French music, came to Paris with his "Iphigenie en Aulide," by invitation of the Dauphiness Marie Antoinette, who had formerly been his musical pupil. The stiff and stilted works of Sully and Rameau had thus far ruled the French stage without any compet.i.tion, except from the Italian operettas performed by the company of Les Bouffons, and the new school of French operatic comedy developed into form by the lively genius of Gretry. When Gluck"s magnificent opera, constructed on new art principles, was given to the Paris public, April 19, 1774, it created a deep excitement, and divided critics and connoisseurs into opposing and embittered camps, in which the most distinguished wits, poets, and philosophers ranged themselves, and pelted each other with lampoons, pamphlets, and epigrams, which often left wounds that had to be healed afterward by an application of cold steel. In this contest Sophie Arnould, who had speedily emerged from her retirement, took an active part, for Gluck had selected her to act the part of his heroines. The dramatic intensity and breadth of the German composer"s conceptions admirably suited Sophie, whose genius for acting was more marked than her skill in singing. The success of Gluck"s "Iphigenie" gave the finishing stroke to the antiquated operas of Rameau, in which the singer had made her reputation, and offered her a n.o.bler vehicle for art-expression. On her a.s.sociation with Gluck"s music Sophie Arnould"s fame in the history of art now chiefly rests.
Gluck, like all others, yielded to the magic charm of the beautiful and witty singer, and went so far as to permit rehearsals to be held at her own house. On one occasion the Prince de Hennin, one of the haughtiest of the grand seigneurs of the period, intruded himself, and, finding himself unnoticed, interrupted the rehearsal with the remark, "I believe it is the custom in France to rise when any one enters the room, especially if it be a person of some consideration." Gluck"s eyes flashed with rage, as he sprang threateningly to his feet. "The custom in Germany, sir, is to rise only for those whom we esteem!" he said; then turning to Sophie, who had been stopped in the middle of an air, "I perceive, madame, that you are not mistress in your own house. I leave you, and shall never set foot here again." Sophie is credited with having commented on this scene with the remark that it was the only case where she had ever witnessed a personal ill.u.s.tration of aesop"s fable of the lion put to flight by an a.s.s.*
* An English wit some years afterward perpetrated the same witticism on the occasion of Edmund Burke"s leaving the House of Commons in a rage, because he was interrupted in one of his great speeches by a thick-witted country member.
It is pleasant to know that the Prince de Hennin was obliged to make a humble apology to Gluck, by order of Marie Antoinette.
Sophie Arnould appeared with no less success in Gluck"s operas of "Orphee" and "Alceste" than in the first, and rose again to the topmost wave of court favor. When "Orphee" was at rehearsal at the opera-house, it became the fashion of the great court dignitaries and the young chevaliers of the period to attend. Gluck instantly, when he entered the theatre, threw off his coat and wig, and conducted in shirt-sleeves and cotton nightcap. When the rehearsal was over, prince and marquis contended as to who should act the part of _valet de chambre_. The composer at this time was the subject of almost idolatrous admiration, for it was at a later period that the old quarrels were resumed again with even more acrid personalities, and Piccini was imported from Italy by the Du Barry faction to be pitted against the German. Gluck returned from Germany, whither he had gone on a visit, to find the opposition cabal in full force, and the merits of the Italian composer lauded to the skies by the fickle public of Paris. But the former"s greatest opera, "Iphigenie en Tauride," was produced, and gave a fatal blow to Piccini"s ascendancy, though his own opera on the same subject was afterward given with great care. On the latter occasion Mile. Laguerre, the princ.i.p.al singer, appeared on the stage intoxicated, and was unable to get through the music successfully. "This is not "Iphigenia in Tauris,"" said witty Sophie Arnould, "but Iphigenia in Champagne."
Through some intrigue Gluck was persuaded to subst.i.tute Mile. Leva.s.seur for Mile. Arnould in the interpretation of his last great operas; so Sophie, enraged and disheartened, but to the gratification of the myriads of people whom she had offended by her cutting witticisms, which had been showered alike on friends and enemies, retired to private life, and thenceforward rarely appeared on the stage.
III.
Interest will be felt in some of Sophie Arnould"s more distinguished art contemporaries. Among these, the highest place must be given to Mme.
Antoinette Cecile Saint Huberty, _nee_ Gavel. Born in Germany of French descent, she made her first appearance in Paris in a small part in Gluck"s "Armide." Small, thin, and unprepossessing in person, her power of expression and artistic vocal-ism won more and more on the public, till the retirement of Sophie Arnould and Mile. Leva.s.seur, and the death of Laguerre, left her in undisputed possession of the stage. When Piccini"s "Didon," his greatest opera,* was produced, she sang the part of the _Queen of Carthage_.
* "Didon," differing widely from the other operas of Piccini, was modeled after the new operatic principles of Gluck, and was a magnificent homage on the part of his old rival to the genius of the German. Indeed, although the adherents of the two musicians waged so fierce a conflict, they themselves were full of respect and admiration for each other. Gluck always warmly expressed his appreciation of Piccini"s "felicitous and charming melodies, the clearness of his style, the elegance and truth of his expression."
What Piccini"s opinion of Gluck was is best shown in his proposition after Gluck"s death to raise a subscription, not for the erection of a statue, but for the establishment of an annual concert to take place on the anniversary of Gluck"s death, to consist entirely of his compositions--"in order to transmit to posterity the spirit and character of his magnificent works, that they may serve as a model to future artists of the true style of dramatic music."
Marmontel, the poet of the opera, had already said at rehearsal, "She expressed it so well that I imagined myself at the theatre," and Piccini congratulated her on having been largely instrumental in its success.
As _Didon_ she made one of her greatest successes. "Never," says Grimm, "has there been united acting more captivating, a sensibility more perfect, singing more exquisite, happier by-play, and more n.o.ble _abandon_." She was crowned on the stage--an honor hitherto unknown, and since so much abused. The secret of her marvelous gift lay in her extreme sensibility. Others might sing an air better, but no one could give to either airs or recitatives accentuation more pure or more impa.s.sioned, action more dramatic, and by-play more eloquent. Some one complimenting her on the vivid truth with which she embodied her part, "I really experience it," she said; "in a death-scene I actually feel as if I were dead."
It has been said that Talma was the first to discard the absurd costumes of the theatre, but this credit really belongs to Mme. Saint Huberty.
She studied the Greek and Roman statues, and wore robes in keeping with the antique characters, especially suppressing hoops and powder. This singer remained queen of the French stage until 1790, when she retired.
During the time of her art reign she appeared in many of the princ.i.p.al operas of Piccini, Salieri, Sacchini, and Gretry, showing but little less talent for comedy than for tragedy. She retired from public life to become the wife of the Count d"Entraignes. Her tragic fate many years afterward is one of the celebrated political a.s.sa.s.sinations of the age.
Count d"Entraignes at this time was residing at Barnes, England, having recently left the diplomatic service of Russia, in which he had shown himself one of the most dangerous enemies of the Napoleonic government in France. The Count"s Piedmontese valet had been bribed by a spy of Fouche, the French Minister of Police, to purloin certain papers. The valet was discovered by his master, and instantly stabbed him, and, as the Countess entered the room a moment afterward, he also pierced her heart with the stiletto recking with her husband"s blood, finishing the shocking tragedy by blowing out his own brains. Thus died, in 1812, one who had been among the most brilliant ornaments of the French stage.
No record of Sophie Arnould"s artistic a.s.sociates is complete without some allusion to the celebrated dancers Gaetan Vestris * and Auguste, his son. Gaetan was accustomed to say that there were three great men in Europe--Voltaire, Frederick the Great, and himself. In his old age he preserved all his skill, and M. Castel Blaze, who saw him at the Academie fifty years after his _debut_ in 1748, declares that he still danced with inimitable grace.
* Mme. Vestris, the last of the family, and the first wife of the English comedian Charles Mathews, was the granddaughter of Gaetan.
It is of Gaetan that the story is told in connection with Gluck, when the opera of "Orphee" was put in rehearsal. The dancer wished for a ballet in the opera.
"Write me the music of a chacone, Monsieur Gluck," said the G.o.d of dancing.
"A chacone!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the astonished composer; "do you think the Greeks, whose manners we are endeavoring to depict, knew what a chacone was?"
"Did they not?" said Vestris, amazed at the information; then, in a tone of compa.s.sion, "How much they are to be pitied!"
Gaetan retired from the stage at the successful _debut_ of Auguste, but appeared again from time to time to show his invulnerability to time. On the occasion of his son"s first appearance, the veteran, in full court dress, sword, and ruffles, and hat in hand, stepped to the front by the side of the _debutante_. After a short address to the public on the importance of the ch.o.r.eographic art and his hopes of his son, he turned to Auguste and said: "Now, my son, exhibit your talent. Your father is looking at you." He was accustomed to say: "Auguste is a better dancer than I am; he had Gaetan Vestris for a father, an advantage which nature refused me." "If," said Gaetan, on another occasion, "le dieu de la danse" (a t.i.tle which he had given himself) "touches the ground from time to time, he does so in order not to humiliate his comrades."
* This boast of Gaetan Vestris seems to have inspired the lines which Moore afterward addressed to a celebrated _danseuse_:
".... You"d swear, When her delicate feet in the dance twinkle round, That her steps are of light, that her home is the air, And she only _par complaisance_ touches the ground."
The son inherited the paternal arrogance. To the director of the opera, De Vismes, who, enraged at some want of respect, said to him, "Do you know who I am?" he drawled, "Yes! you are the farmer of my talent." On one occasion Auguste refused to obey the royal mandate, and Gaetan said to him with some reproof in his tones: "What! the Queen of France does her duty by requesting you to dance before the King of Sweden, and you do not do yours! You shall no longer bear my name. I will have no misunderstanding between the house of Vestris and the house of Bourbon; they have hitherto always lived on good terms." It nearly broke Auguste"s heart when one day during the French Revolution he was seized by a howling band of _sans culottes_ and made to exhibit his finest skill on the top of a barrel before this ragged mob of liberty-loving citizens!
The fascinating sylph, Madeleine Guimard, broke almost as many hearts and inspired as many duels as the charming Sophie Arnould herself.
Plain even to ugliness, and excessively thin, her exquisite dancing and splendid eyes made great havoc among her numerous admirers. Lord Byron said that thin women when young reminded him of dried b.u.t.terflies, when old of spiders. The stage a.s.sociates of Mile. Guimard called her "L"araignee," and Sophie Arnould christened her "the little silkworm,"
for the sake of the joke about "la feuille." But such spiteful raillery did not prevent her charming men to her feet whom greater beauties had failed to captivate. Houdon the sculptor molded her foot, and the great painters vied for the privilege of decorating the walls of her hotel.
When she broke her arm, ma.s.s was said in church for her recovery, and she was one of the reigning toasts of Paris. Among the numerous _liaisons_ of Mile. Guimard, that with the Prince de Soubise is most noted. After this she eloped with a German prince, and the Prince de Soubise pursued them, wounded his rival, killed three of his servants, and brought her back to Paris in triumph. After a great variety of adventures of this nature, she married in 1787 a humble professor of dancing named Despriaux. Lord Mount Edgc.u.mbe saw her in 1789 at the King"s Theatre in London. "Among them," he writes, referring to a troupe of new performers, "came the famous Mile. Guimard, then nearly sixty years old, but still full of grace and gentility, and she had never possessed more."
IV.