so far as to assert that she was positively ugly: "a real monster, like
her predecessor Mlle. Prévost," says one ungallant critic; while
Noverre declares that "Nature had denied her every imaginable grace,"
and that she was "neither tall, nor pretty, nor well-formed." But
whatever may have been her defects of face or figure, they did not
interfere with her professional success. "The moment she began to dance
people forgot her face. Besides, no one had time to see whether she was
ugly or beautiful, so light and rapid were her movements. Her skips and
twirls bewildered the audience. Then her countenance was changed,
transfigured. 'Then her black eyes were full of smiles and provocations,
while her laughing lips revealed her ivory teeth.' She did not seem to
dance for the public, but for herself, for her own pleasure. Never had
one imagined so many seductions, so many caprices, so much gaiety. 'It
would be vain,' says Cahusac, 'to seek a playfulness more frank, a
vivacity more natural.'"[104]
Not the least important factor in the success of the young _danseuse_
seems to have been the fashion of her skirt, which she had curtailed to
a point which the most daring of her predecessors had never even dreamed
of. This innovation was extremely popular with the younger patrons of
the Opera, but, on the other hand, alarmed the modesty of many of the
more conservative playgoers.
"Camargo," says Grimm, "was the first who ventured to abbreviate her
skirts. This useful invention, which gave amateurs an opportunity of
passing judgment upon the nether limbs of a _danseuse_, has since been
generally adopted, though, at the time, it promised to occasion a very
dangerous schism. The Jansenists in the pit cried out heresy and
scandal, and refused to tolerate the shortened skirts. The Molinists, on
the contrary, maintained that this innovation brought us nearer to the
spirit of the primitive Church, which objected to seeing pirouettes and
gargouillades hampered by the length of the petticoats. The Sorbonne of
the Opera held a great many sittings before it could decide which of the
contending parties adhered to the orthodox doctrine. Finally, it
pronounced in favour of the shortened skirts, but declared, at the same
time, as an article of faith, that no _danseuse_ should appear on the
stage _sans caleçon_. This decision has since become a fundamental
article of discipline, by the general consent of all the ruling powers
of the Opera and of all the faithful who frequent these holy
places."[105]
The regulation respecting the wearing of a _caleçon_ seems to have been
the result of a disaster which befell a young ballerina named Mariette,
who had the misfortune to have her habiliments torn away by a piece of
projecting framework, "_et posa pour l'ensemble devant toute la salle,
pendant une bonne minute au moins_." There was considerable difference
of opinion, Grimm tells us, as to whether Mlle. de Camargo conformed to
this order, which would have interfered with her freedom of movement,
and bets were freely made on the subject. But when, in order to decide
these wagers, some one ventured to question the _danseuse_, the lady
replied, "with a beautiful blush and her eyes modestly lowered," that
without such a "precaution" she would never have ventured to appear in
public. Henceforth at the Opera the _caleçon_ was known by the name of
"precaution."
In the meanwhile the triumphs of Mlle. de Camargo had begun to seriously
alarm Mlle. Prévost, who not only saw her professional pre-eminence
threatened by her former pupil, but had reason to fear that the
dancing-master, Blondi, hitherto her slave, regarded the young
_débutante_ with a rather more than friendly interest. Perceiving that
to attempt to eclipse her on the stage would only be to court certain
defeat, she had recourse to intrigue. She refused to continue the
lessons by which, she considered, the girl had already too greatly
profited; she relegated her to small and obscure parts, in which she had
no opportunity of displaying her talents, and even declined to allow her
to appear in a dance in which the Duchesse de Berri had expressed a
desire to see the young _danseuse_. Finally, she succeeded in banishing
her to the back row of the chorus.
With so powerful and unscrupulous an enemy to contend against, poor
Camargo might have remained "lost in the vulgar crowd of _filles
d'Opéra_" for the rest of her days, had not a fortunate accident enabled
her to assert her superiority again, and this time in a manner which it
was impossible for the ruling powers of the Opera to ignore.
One evening she had to appear amid a group of demons, on whose entrance
the dancer Dumoulin was to execute a _pas de seul_. The demons trooped
in, and the orchestra struck up the opening bars of Dumoulin's solo; but
the dancer, for some reason, did not appear. Mlle. de Camargo saved the
situation. Leaving the other _figurantes_, she sprang to the middle of
the stage, improvised the step of the absent Dumoulin, and danced so
magnificently as to send all the spectators into transports of
enthusiasm. Mlle. Prévost, beside herself with passion, vowed that she
would ruin her youthful rival, but it was too late; "Terpsichore was
dethroned, and Mlle. de Camargo crowned queen of the Opera."
"Yesterday," writes Adrienne Lecouvreur to one of her friends, "they
played _Roland_ (an opera by Quinault and Lulli). Mlle. Prévost,
although she surpassed herself, obtained very meagre applause in
comparison with a new _danseuse_ named Camargo, whom the public idolise,
and whose great merit is youth and vigour. I doubt whether you have seen
her. Mlle. Prévost protected her at first, but Blondi has fallen in love
with her, and she is consequently annoyed. She appeared jealous and
discontented at the applause of the public, which has now reached such a
pitch of enthusiasm that the Prévost will be foolish if she does not
make up her mind to retire."
Mlle. Prévost did, in fact, retire shortly after this letter was
written, and Mlle. de Camargo, left mistress of the field, used her
victory to such good purpose that in two years' time she had completely
revolutionised the ballet. No longer did the spectators sit bored or
indifferent through the languishing attitudes and mechanical gestures
which composed the old ballet--that solemn ceremony in which _le Grand
Monarque_ and the lords and ladies of his Court had occasionally deigned
to take part. "With disdainful foot she thrust into the abyss of
oblivion minuet, saraband, and courant, and replaced by rapidity,
agility, and lightness all the antics that had been admired before her
time, but which appeared no longer endurable once one had seen
her."[106] Yet she owed much to her teachers--to Mlle. Prévost, to
Blondi, and to Dupré--and the style of dancing which she now brought
into fashion seems to have been a combination of all that was best in
their different methods, joined to a vivacity and piquancy entirely her
own. She excelled in gavottes, rigaudons, and in all of what were known
as the "_grands airs_," and also in the graceful Basque dances, which
she substituted for the gargouillade, judging the latter to be
unsuitable for women. But her greatest triumph was a certain minuet step
which she executed along the edge of the footlights, first from right to
left, and then back again. "The public awaited it with impatience,
watched it with intense interest, and applauded it rapturously." Many
persons would come to the Opera solely to witness this performance, and
leave as soon as it was over.
The prestige of Mlle. de Camargo was at this time so great that the
ovations she received were not confined to the theatre. One evening,
while walking in the Tuileries Gardens, she was addressed by the wife of
Maréchal de Villars, who engaged her in conversation "for a good quarter
of an hour." Meanwhile, all who happened to be promenading in the
gardens flocked to the spot, formed a circle round the two ladies, and
began to clap their hands, "as much to testify their admiration for the
_danseuse_, as to show Madame de Villars how highly they approved of her
affability."
Like the famous Arlequin, Dominique, Mlle. de Camargo was very gay while
on the stage and very reserved and quiet the moment she had quitted it.
While dancing, one of her admirers declares, she seemed "the very
priestess of pleasure and of love." But no sooner had she retired into
the wings, than she became "melancholy and even sad," while her
countenance was "expressive of the most profound _ennui_." To her
colleagues she seldom spoke, unless they happened to address her, when
she responded with dignified courtesy, as became the collateral
descendant of a cardinal, the niece of a Grand Inquisitor,[107] and the
possessor of thirty-two quarterings. However, as she was good-natured
and obliging, her comrades treated the queenly airs it pleased her to
assume with amused indulgence, and she was not unpopular among them.
Although, as we have mentioned, the young _danseuse_ had no pretensions
to beauty, she was nevertheless capable of arousing _grandes passions_,
and her adorers were many. For two years, however, after her first
appearance at the Opera, the "frigid dignity" of her demeanour and the
unsleeping vigilance of the worthy M. de Cupis kept them at a distance,
until all, save one, perceiving that their efforts were fruitless, had
retired from the field. The exception was Jean Alexandre Théodose, Comte
de Melun, who loved the lady with a passion which no rebuffs could
extinguish, no difficulties subdue. His persistence was rewarded; Mlle.
de Camargo took pity upon him, and granted him a rendezvous, which was
followed by others; and, finally, one fine night, in the month of May
1728, the amorous nobleman made off with both her and her sister Sophie,
aged thirteen, who also danced at the Opera, and conveyed them to his
hotel in the Rue des Coutures Saint-Gervais. Sophie, it appeared, had
refused to be separated from her sister, and had threatened to raise an
alarm, if she were not eloped with too.
[Illustration: MADEMOISELLE DE CAMARGO
From the painting by LANCRET, in the Wallace Collection, at Hertford
House]
This affair caused an immense sensation; poor M. de Cupis was furious;
so odious an act of violence, he considered, justified an appeal for
redress to the very highest authority in the land, and, sitting down at
his desk, he forthwith indited to the Prime Minister, Cardinal de
Fleury, the following eloquent petition:--
* * * * *
"TO HIS EMINENCE, MONSEIGNEUR LE CARDINAL
DE FLEURY
"MONSEIGNEUR,--Ferdinand Joseph de Cupis, _alias_ Camargo, écuyer,
seigneur de Renoussart, represents with the deepest respect to Your
Eminence, that, descended from one of the noblest families of Rome,
which has given to the Roman Church an Archbishop of Trani, a Bishop of
Ostia, and a Cardinal with the title of Saint-John _ante Portam
Latinam_, doyen of the Sacred College, in the year 1577, under the
pontificate of Leo X., and finding himself deprived of means, by the
misfortunes, the lawsuits, and the ravages of war which his fathers had
experienced, he avoided with more care than death anything derogatory to
his birth and his ancestors, in whose nobility there has never been any
change, not even through alliances, the petitioner being in a position
to prove sixteen quarterings on both his father and mother's side, since
the family of Cupis quitted Rome....
"Unable to maintain his rank, and burdened with seven children, he has
sighed, yet without murmuring, against his lot. He has striven to
develop the different talents of his children, and to instruct them in
those liberal arts which might enable them, without derogating from
their birth, to supply the needs of life and escape from want, while
awaiting more prosperous days. One he has had instructed in music,
others in painting, and others again in dancing. Among the last, there
are two girls, now aged eighteen and thirteen years respectively.
"As the late King, of glorious memory, decreed that any one might be
connected with the Opera without loss of dignity, the petitioner, having
been persuaded and even constrained by persons who had perceived the
great talents of the elder, could not refuse his consent to their
entering the Opera, although on condition that either he or his wife
should conduct them thither, and, in like manner, resume charge of them
at the conclusion of each performance. In short, the elder, who has now
performed for three years,[108] has always behaved with perfect
propriety, and this conduct has been as universally admired as her
dancing.
"But, for the last three years, M. le Comte de Melun has had recourse to
the arts of seduction and of methods alike unworthy of himself and of
the petitioner.... He dared to propose to the petitioner that he should
be a consenting party to his daughter's dishonour, in return for which
he offered to surrender to him the salary which she received at the
Opera. The petitioner, having treated such a proposition as it deserved,
the count found means to introduce himself, on several nights, into his
daughters' apartment, and, finally, on the night of the 10th to 11th of
the month of May, he carried them both off, and, at this moment, retains
them at his hôtel in Paris, Rue de la Couture Saint-Gervais (_sic_).
"The petitioner, thus dishonoured no less than his daughters, would have
taken proceedings in the ordinary way, if the ravisher had been a
private individual; and the laws established by his Majesty and his
august predecessors provide that abduction should be punished with
death. It is a double crime. Two sisters are carried off, aged
respectively eighteen and thirteen years.
"But the petitioner, having to deal with a person of the rank of the
Comte de Melun, is obliged to have recourse to the maker of the laws,
and trusts that the King in his bounty will see that he has justice, and
will command the Comte de Melun to espouse the elder daughter of the
petitioner and to furnish the younger with a dowry.
"In no other way can he make reparation for so terrible an
outrage."[109]
* * * * *
The only effect the recital of the noble dancing-master's wrongs
produced on the Cardinal seems to have been one of amusement; and,
though, a week later, Mlle. Sophie returned to her indignant father, the
elder sister, whom the rules of the Opera emancipated from parental
control, remained at the Comte de Melun's hôtel. That nobleman, however,
did not long enjoy a monopoly of the lady's favours, while her
extravagance annoyed as much as it astonished him. He therefore secured
to her an income of 1500 livres, and courteously intimated that they
must part.
The notorious Duc de Richelieu, who regarded himself as the principal
cause of the ballerina's rupture with Melun, and desired to make amends,
took the count's place; to be, in his turn, succeeded by the Marquis de
Sourdis, for whom Mlle. de Camargo is said to have conceived "_une belle
passion_." The marquis's predilection for the ladies of the Opera had
already made serious inroads on his patrimony; but this did not prevent
him from lavishing the most costly presents upon his inamorata. Before,
however, he had succeeded in quite ruining himself, he was confronted by
a rival whose pretensions it was impossible for him to oppose.
The rival in question was a Prince of the Blood, Louis de Bourbon, Comte
de Clermont, third son of Louis III. of that name and Mlle. de Nantes,
legitimated daughter of _le Grand Monarque_ and Madame de Montespan.
Born in 1709 and destined for the Church, or, more strictly speaking,
for the emoluments thereof, he had been tonsured in infancy and loaded
with benefices. Before he had completed his eighth year, he found
himself in possession of the revenues of the rich abbey of Bec-Hellouin,
in Normandy, to which by the summer of 1733, the date when he made Mlle.
de Camargo's acquaintance, had been added some half-dozen others, with
an aggregate income of over 200,000 livres.
A curious figure was this descendant of the Great Condé; "_moitié
plumet, moitié rabat_," monk by profession and soldier by choice; "owing
two million livres in Paris and changing his mistress every day"; now
regulating the affairs of one of his abbeys, now scandalising the devout
by some _liaison_ with Opera girl or courtesan, anon distinguishing
himself in battle; witty, affable, generous, brave, magnificent in his
pleasures, and a lover and patron of literature; the only prince of his
house then living in whom could be traced a resemblance to their
illustrious ancestor.
Mlle. de Camargo had by this time acquired the reputation of being a
somewhat expensive luxury, even for a prince. Accordingly, before
"taking her into his service," the count-abbé desired to rid himself of
two other ladies, both of whom had claims upon his attention and his
purse. One was the Duchesse de Bouillon, poor Adrienne Lecouvreur's
enemy; the other, a siren of humble birth, named Quoniam, with whom he
had carried on an intermittent _liaison_ since he was sixteen. On the
principle that exchange is no robbery, it was arranged that the duchess
and the Marquis de Sourdis should console each other; while Clermont
experienced but little difficulty in persuading his nephew, the Prince
de Conti, a promising young gentleman of seventeen, to take Mlle.
Quoniam off his hands. The latter arrangement led to much unpleasantness
in high circles, for the Prince de Conti had two years before taken unto
himself a wife, in the person of Mlle. de Chartres, daughter of the late
Regent and sister of the devout Duc d'Orléans. The duke and his mother,
the dowager-duchess, were furious, and it was rumoured that they had
obtained a _lettre de cachet_, in virtue of which Mlle. Quoniam had been
spirited away to a convent. "This news," writes Barbier in his
_Journal_, "was general in the fashionable world; however, it is not
true. On Sunday, August 5, Mlle. Quoniam went to the Opera and took a
seat in a box. So soon as the young men in the pit caught sight of her,
they clapped their hands to show how delighted the public were to find
that the rumour was unfounded. In the evening, she went to the
Tuileries. All the princesses of the House of Condé were there, which
caused the people to form themselves into two lines as they passed by.
They did the same for Mlle. Quoniam, and congratulated her by their
gestures."[110]
With the Comte de Clermont, Mlle. de Camargo reached the highest point
of her fortunes. Her lover could refuse her nothing. When his monastic
revenues proved inadequate to satisfy her caprices, he ran into debt,
and when his credit was exhausted, he had recourse to stratagems to
obtain money from his mother. The Duchesse de Bourbon, having promised
to settle the claims of some of his most clamorous creditors, the count
instructed his steward, Moncrif, the Academician, to make out a
statement showing a total liability of 80,000 livres, whereas the debts
in question did not amount to much more than half that sum. The balance
he was to remit to Mlle. de Camargo with his Highness's compliments.
Moncrif, however, fearing the consequences to himself should the duchess
ever discover the trick which had been played her, revealed the plot to
the old lady, and so the ballerina never got the money. As for the
steward, he was promptly dismissed "for having abused his master's
confidence."
Such was the count's infatuation for his enchantress that he was "even
jealous of the pleasure which the public shared with him in seeing her
dance," and, in 1736, insisted on her quitting the Opera, to the despair
of all Paris. If we are to credit a report drawn up many years later by
the Police-Inspector Meusnier, for the edification of Madame de
Pompadour, "his passion tyrannised even over the quarter where she
resided, so that the neighbours did not dare to show themselves at their
windows or to glance in the direction of the Camargo's house."[111]
In July 1737, the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, with an annual
revenue of 160,000 livres, became vacant, by the death of old Cardinal
de Bissy. The Comte de Clermont had long had a covetous eye upon this
rich prize, and a substantial addition to his income was imperatively
needed, as Mlle. de Camargo's extravagance had reduced him to such
straits that, in the previous December, he had been forced to sell his
duchy of Châteauroux to Louis XV., who, some years later, conferred it
on his mistress, Madame de la Tournelle. Deeming, however, that, under
the circumstances, some concession to public opinion might be advisable,
he counterfeited a fit of devotion, separated from his mistress, who, on
a sudden, disappeared from Paris, and caused a report to be circulated
that she had been imprisoned by order of the King in Sainte-Pélagie. No
sooner, however, had the coveted abbey been conferred upon him, than
Mdlle. de Camargo reappeared upon the scene, and went to do the honours
of the Château de Berny, a charming country-house situated two leagues
from Paris, on the road to Orléans, which had been acquired by the monks
of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in 1686, with the price of the lands which
they had ceded to Louis XIV. for the enlargement of the park of
Versailles.
At Berny, Clermont erected a private theatre, upon whose stage the fair
châtelaine, we may presume, occasionally condescended to appear, though
Gaboriau is indebted to his imagination for the statement that she was
in the habit of dancing "_pour la plus grande joie des moines
ravis_,"[112] as the château was the private residence of the abbot, to
which his subordinates were never admitted. If they desired to see their
superior on business connected with the abbey, they had to present
themselves at his hôtel in the Rue de Richelieu.
Mlle. de Camargo presided over the Château of Berny for some four
years, when an obscure _figurante_ of the Opera, Mlle. Le Duc by name,
"a creature without intelligence, without manners, without principles,
without a soul,"[113] stole away the heart of the Comte de Clermont.
Mlle. Le Duc was the property of Président de Rieux, son of the
celebrated financier, Samuel Bernard, who, having purchased the lady's
affections at a great price, was naturally reluctant to surrender them.
To oppose himself to a Prince of the Blood in an affair of such
importance was more, however, than he had the courage to do; and so, one
day, while the president was dispensing justice in the Cour des
Enquêtes, Mlle. Le Duc bade farewell to the luxurious nest which the
luckless judge had furnished for her, and transferred herself and her
belongings to Berny.
Henceforth, the president lived only for revenge, and racked his brains
to discover some means whereby he might humble the pride of the Comte de
Clermont, and make the faithless Le Duc bitterly rue the day on which
she had so basely betrayed him. At length, he resolved upon the
following plan of campaign: he would invite Mlle. de Camargo to occupy
the vacant place in his affections, and surround her with such luxury,
array her in such toilettes, load her with such presents as would cause
Mlle. Le Duc to die of envy, and her monkish lover to gnaw his fingers
with vexation. He accordingly made overtures to the deserted ballerina,
which were promptly accepted; and one morning all Paris was talking of
the magnificent generosity of the Président de Rieux, who had sent his
new mistress a chastely-wrought bowl of solid gold, filled to the brim
with double louis.
The Comte de Clermont heard of the president's gift, and hastened to
accept the challenge. In the _Journal de Police_, under date March 1742,
we read:--