When Anne Arnould made her first appearance, she assumed the name of
Sophie on account of the softer sound of its syllables. Her _début_,
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. Fréron, in speaking of the waiting crowds, said, "I
doubt if they would take such trouble to get into paradise." The young
and lovely _débutante_ 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 goddess 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 _roués_ 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 damned 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 _mère_. 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 Hôtel de Châtillon 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 Hôtel 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
noblemen, 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 _tête-a-tête_ 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" (infidèle). 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,"
ejaculated 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 coxcomb, 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 butt 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 accumulated 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. Abbé 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 competition,
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 Grétry. 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
nobler vehicle for art-expression. On her association 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 illustration of Æsop's fable of
the lion put to flight by an ass.*
* 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
"Orphée" and "Alceste" than in the first, and rose again to the topmost
wave of court favor. When "Orphée" 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, "Iphigénie 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 principal 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 substitute Mile. Levasseur
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.