H. Noel Williams

“ Without knowing a single note of music, he could imitate the voice of every singer of the Opera and the sound of every instrument in the orchestra, so perfectly as to deceive even the most experienced ear. By himself, it was said, he could imitate an entire opera. This prodigy, Garat by name, aroused a perfect furore in fashionable, as well as in musical circles, and after Marie Antoinette had sent a coach and six to fetch him to Versailles, the enthusiasm of the ladies was raised to the highest pitch; they literally fought for him. ”

“ It is in the danse terre-à-terre that Mlle. Guimard charmed, for more than twenty-five years, a critical public, in the gavottes of Armide and in two hundred other dances. She was always new; I do not speak only of her feet, they count for little in comparison with the charm of body and head. It is that which is the perfection of the picture. She played perfectly both comedy and opéra-comique. ”

“ She remained an object of admiration and emulation for all the artistes, for those who had seen her, as for those who, in later times, knew her only by renown. She united, in fact, in the highest degree, two qualities usually disconnected: the rarest talent of the singer and the greatest art of the tragédienne. She was in every sense of the word an artiste of genius. ”

“ On her return to Paris, Madame Dugazon found herself, if it were possible, more the rage than ever, and so completely did her popularity eclipse that of her rivals, that, on the evenings on which she did not appear, the directors of the Comédie-Italienne—that nursery of pretty women—had the mortification to see the boxes empty and their theatre a desert. ”

“ As for celebrity, my name is still cited with some praise in association with those of Psyché, Thélaïre, Iphigénie, Eglé, Pomone, in a word, at the Théâtre des Arts. As for the friends, I can only say that I so well deserved them that I have only lost those whom death has taken from me, and those of whom the decemviral axe has deprived me.{95}
There is thus only inconstant Fortune which, without rhyme or reason, has given me the slip ... and in what circumstances too!... When I am too old for Love and too young for Death. ”

“ Mlle. Raucourt seemed as heartless as she was indifferent to public opinion. She passed from gallantry to gallantry; she ruined foolish young men and then laughed at their folly, cynically observing that “women were the most expensive of all tastes”; she flaunted her profligacy in the face of all Paris, and contracted immense debts, which there was no possibility of her being able to discharge. “In the space of a few months,” writes Grimm, “she astonished Court and town, as much by the excess of her irregularities as she had by the rare prodigy of her innocence. ”

“ How was it possible, she would inquire, for her to sing Alceste on Friday, after singing Didon on Tuesday? Did they wish to kill her? Dauvergne would innocently suggest that another actress should sing Didon, and that Madame Saint-Huberty should rest, that her voice might be fresh for Alceste. What! Allow another actress to sing Didon!—her own rôle!—her own creation! No one but herself should sing it, so long as she remained a member of the company. ”

“ I have heard them (her enemies) , it is true, seek to turn you into ridicule, accuse you of loving to save money, jeer at your simplicity, and laugh at you for driving about Paris in a hackney-coach. But I have also seen honest and excellent men love and admire you on account of this very simplicity. Do you think that one can see, without sympathy, without enthusiasm, an amiable and celebrated woman leave her house in a hackney-coach, when it would be easy for her to be drawn in the gilded chariot of vice and infamy? ”

“ Grimm, a far less partial observer, where Sophie is concerned, than the musical critic of the Mercure, is equally enthusiastic: “She renders the part of Iphigénie as it has perhaps never been rendered at the Comédie-Française, and she sings not only with all the charm that we have found in her for a long time past, but with an infinite precision, which is less common with her. It seems that the Chevalier Gluck has exactly divined the character and range of her voice and has assigned to it all the notes of her part.” ”

“ The ménage Despréaux-Guimard resided, in these last years, in the Rue de Ménars, where the ex-danseuse surrounded herself with a large circle of friends. Often the conversation turned on the past triumphs of Mlle. Guimard, when the younger members of the company would express their regret that it was impossible for them to form an idea of that marvellous talent which, for a whole generation, had so enchanted the patrons of the Opera, and would beg their hostess to give them a few steps of the ballets in which she had achieved her greatest successes. ”

“ A less popular actress, or one whose life outside the theatre was less notorious, might have incurred some risk of finding herself forgotten. But Sophie’s admirers were numerous and faithful, and when she had a part which suited her, and was in the humour to do herself justice, her singing and, more especially, her acting were so superior to her rivals that the house was invariably crowded. ”

“ I believe thee, so far as it is in me to believe that which does not depend on ourselves. See what it is to love people for themselves or their virtues. For myself, I am well assured that I shall love thee always, whatever may happen, because before I loved thee, I desired for thee all thy good qualities.... My beloved, when I think that nothing stands in the way of our happiness, my heart thrills with pleasure ”

“ It was a brilliant assembly; youth, beauty, talent, rank, and wealth were all represented there. The women especially were in full force, the queens of song and the stars of the dance: Duranceray, Beaumesnil, Sophie Arnould, Rosalie Levasseur, Laguerre, Heinel, Guimard, Peslin, Allard, Théodore, and a bevy of minor divinities, the demoiselles of the ballet and the ladies of the chorus, many of whose names, though unknown to dramatic fame, were already writ large in the annals of gallantry: the two Lilys, the blonde and the brunette; Lolotte, who had the finest horses in Paris ”

“ Never have I seen combined in the same actress more grace, more truth of sentiment, dignity of expression, intelligence, and fire. Never have I seen grief more charmingly expressed. She can depict the deepest horror without her countenance losing one feature of its beauty. She would be twice as great an actress as Mlle. Le Maure, [9] if she only possessed two-thirds of her voice, and Mlle. Le Maure will always be regarded as a great artiste. I speak of Mlle. Sophie Arnould, who is not yet nineteen years old. ”

“ Mlle. Sainval had been far more popular than her rival, whose relations with the Duc de Duras had caused her to be regarded as a minion of the Court, and the habitués of the pit now, almost to a man, declared in her favour. Madame Vestris’s appearance on the stage was the signal for a storm of hisses; while, on the other hand, the younger sister of the disgraced actress was received with tumultuous cheering, and when, one evening, in the character of Aménaïde, in Tancrède, she pronounced the line,
“L’injustice à la fin produit l’indépendance,”
the applause absolutely shook the theatre. ”

“ Madness became on a sudden the fashionable disease. In the salons a host of young women found occupation in playing the part of Nina, and some of them appeared to have worked themselves into a condition bordering on lunacy. The critics essayed in vain to combat this ridiculous infatuation. They pronounced the subject monstrous, the libretto insipid, the music detestable, and loudly bewailed the decay of art upon the stage. They might have saved their paper and ink. The public continued to applaud and to weep, and the receipts of the Comédie-Italienne to increase. ”

“ Gluck sprang from his seat, walked up to the speaker, and, looking him full in the face, replied: “It is the custom in Germany, Monsieur, to rise only for those whom one esteems.” Then, turning to Sophie, he added: “Since I perceive, Mademoiselle, that you are not mistress in your own house, I leave you and shall return no more.” ”

“ And what a début it was! Never in the whole history of the theatre had so young an actress secured so brilliant, so extraordinary, a triumph. “Before the tragedy began,” says Grimm, “Brizard himself harangued the pit, demanded its indulgence for a budding talent, and assured it that his pupil, formed by the criticisms of the public, would one day be its work. The pit, which loves to the point of folly actors to address it, particularly when they call it the arbiter of tastes and of talents, warmly applauded the harangue of Achates Brizard. ”

“ No one seems to have expected this opera to succeed. The composer himself believed its failure inevitable. The evening of the first representation, when he was about to start for the theatre, his family refused to accompany him, and, aware of his extremely sensitive nature used every persuasion to induce him to remain at home. His wife, his children, his friends were in tears. “One would have imagined that he was on his way to the scaffold.”
Piccini endeavoured to reassure them. “My children,” said he, “we are not in the midst of barbarians, but of the politest people in the world. ”

“ Arnould to follow his music, M. Larrivée not to sing through his nose, M. Legros to endeavour to express something at least of the dignity and nobility which one was accustomed{63} to associate with the great champion of the Greeks, and the chorus to endeavour to look and move a little less like automata. “Look you, Mademoiselle!” he would cry, purple with passion, when Sophie or some other actress proved more than usually contumacious, “I am here to make you perform Iphigénie. If you are willing to sing, nothing can be better. If you are not willing to do so, do not trouble. ”

“ To see the actress in the midst of her guests must have been a useful object-lesson for any lady who aspired to social popularity. “With what art she knew how to talk to some the language of the Court of Marie Antoinette, to the generals of their victories, to the orators, to the financiers, of their ambitions or their affairs; to salute a marquis of thirty-six quarterings with a sweeping courtesy, to carve an epigram, to improvise a quatrain, to analyse a play!... ”

“ But Mlle. Guimard, ‘la belle damnée,’ as M. Marmontel calls her, drew upon her the attention of all by a chariot of exquisite elegance, very worthy to contain the Graces and the modern Terpsichore. What has particularly engaged the attention of the public are the significant Arms that this celebrated courtesan has adopted. In the midst of the shield one sees a mark of gold, from which springs a mistletoe. The Graces serve as supporters, and Cupids crown the design. The whole emblem is most ingenious. ”

“ We should believe ourselves guilty of ingratitude, were we not to imitate you, in seconding your humanity; were we not to return the pensions which your munificence has lavished upon us. Apply these revenues, Monseigneur, to the relief of the many suffering military men, the many poor men of letters, the many unhappy servants, whom M. le Prince de Guéménée drags into the abyss with him. ”

“ There is nothing, even to the garden, which does not charm and astonish by its wholly novel taste. The apartments seem to owe their different charms to magic; riches without confusion, gallantry without indecorum; they show us the interior of the Palace of Love, embellished by the Graces. The bedchamber invites repose; the salon, pleasure; the salle-à-manger, gaiety; the forms are ingenious, without, however, there being any recourse to the extravagance of contrast, which is so often abused. A hothouse in the interior of the apartment takes the place in the winter of a garden ”

“ In the etching in question one sees, under a toque with sky-blue plumes, a woman, with a death’s head crowned with false hair, and a bony neck, raising in the air a consumptive leg and waving her arms, at the ends of which are phalanxes of little bones in place of fingers. [91]
On her return to Paris, from England, in the summer of 1789, Mlle. Guimard married Jean Étienne Despréaux, the dancing-master and poet, who had been for some years an intimate friend, though not, it would appear, a lover. ”