from the sharpness of that lady’s tongue. She was particularly severe
upon the famous _danseuse_ Mlle. Guimard, the subject of our next
sketch, whose many wealthy conquests would appear to have excited her
jealousy. Mlle. Guimard, though the very embodiment of grace and
elegance upon the stage, was slender almost to attenuation, and Sophie
dubbed her “_la squelette des Grâces_.” Seeing her one evening
performing a _pas de trois_ with two male dancers, she declared that it
put her in mind of a couple of dogs quarrelling over a bone. On another
occasion, when the _danseuse’s_ well-known _liaison_ with Jarente,
Bishop of Orléans, the holder of the _feuille_ of benefices, happened to
be the subject of conversation, she remarked: “I cannot conceive why
that little silk-worm is so thin; she lives upon such a good leaf
(_feuille_).”
Another butt of her sarcasm was Mlle. Beaumesnil, who, after gallantries
innumerable, married a singer of the Opera, named Belcourt. By that time
her charms were on the wane, and, making a virtue of necessity, she
became a model wife. One day, some one speaking of her early career,
observed that she had then been like a weather-cock, veering round to a
new lover every day. “Just so,” answered Sophie, “and very like a
weather-cock in this also, that she did not become fixed till she was
rusty.”
But Sophie was very far from confining her witticism to her comrades of
the Opera; no one was safe from her shafts. When the intriguing old Duc
de la Vauguyon, the Dauphin’s governor, who had done his best to sow
dissension between that prince and Marie Antoinette, died, he was
regretted by no one. The day after his death, the opera of _Castor et
Pollux_ was played. In this piece there was a ballet of devils, which on
this particular evening went all wrong, whereupon Sophie observed that
the devils were so much upset by M. de la Vauguyon’s arrival among them
that their heads were turned.
M. de Boynes, who succeeded the Duc de Choiseul-Praslin as Minister of
Marine, in 1760, was an honest and well-meaning man, but entirely
ignorant of the duties of that important post. One evening he appeared
at the Opera, where the scene on the stage represented a ship on a
stormy sea. “Oh, how fortunate!” exclaimed Sophie. “He has come here to
get some idea of the Navy.”
Better perhaps was her remark about the Abbé Terrai, the detested
Comptroller-General of Finance, whose expedients for raising money
excited so much indignation in the last years of Louis XV. The abbé, who
suffered from a defective circulation, was seen, one bitter winter’s
day, with his hands hidden in a huge muff. “What need has he of a muff?”
asked the actress. “Are not his hands always in our pockets?”
The Ministers, indeed, seem to have been very favourite objects of
Sophie’s sarcasm. On being shown a snuff-box, with the head of the Duc
de Choiseul on one side, and that of Sully, the great Minister of Henri
IV. on the other, she exclaimed: “_Tiens!_ they have put the receipts
and the expenses together.”
* * * * *
The _liaison_ between Sophie and the Comte de Lauraguais was, as might
be expected, from the singular character of the latter, not untroubled
by storms. The count, though honestly attached to his mistress, was
jealous, suspicious, headstrong, and passionate, always full of some new
and frequently wild project or other, with which he expected her to
sympathise, while the slightest opposition to his wishes was sufficient
to throw him into such paroxysms of rage that it was dangerous to
approach him.[21] At times, he led poor Sophie a terrible life, and over
and over again she was on the point of leaving him. At last, in the
autumn of 1761, after their irregular union had lasted about three
years, it came temporarily to a close.
Lauraguais had written a tragedy on the not very novel subject of
Iphigenia in Tauris.[22] He had dedicated it to Voltaire, and, so soon
as it was completed, set out for Ferney, to read it to the Patriarch. It
would appear that, for some time past, the count’s vagaries had been
more than usually difficult to endure--possibly the labours of
composition had not been without their effect upon his temper. Any way,
Sophie resolved to profit by this moment of liberty, and no sooner had
her tyrannical lover left Paris, than she ordered her coach--a present
from the absent Lauraguais--threw into it pell-mell everything portable
that she had ever received from him: jewellery, plate, lace, porcelain,
and so forth, placed the two children whom she had borne him on the top,
and despatched the whole cargo to the Hôtel de Lauraguais, Rue de Lille,
with a note for Madame de Lauraguais, in which she stated that “having
resolved to recover her freedom, she did not wish to retain anything
which might serve to remind her of her unhappy love-affair.”[23] Madame
de Lauraguais, who was a good and long-suffering woman, accepted the
children, “regretting very much that they were not her own,” but sent
back the coach and the rest of its contents.
At the same time, Sophie wrote to Ferney the following letter:
“_Monsieur, mon cher ami_,--You have written a very fine tragedy, so
fine that I can no more understand it than your other proceedings. You
have gone to Geneva, to receive a crown of the laurels of Parnassus from
the hands of M. de Voltaire, leaving me alone and abandoned to myself. I
profit by my liberty, that liberty so precious to philosophers, to leave
you. Do not take it ill that I am weary of living with a madman who
dissected his coachman, and who wished to act as my _accoucheur_, with
the intention of dissecting me also. Allow me, therefore, to remove
myself out of reach of your philosophic bistoury.”[24]
When the Comte de Lauraguais received the aforegoing epistle he was so
overcome that he clutched his valet by the shoulder, exclaiming:
“Support me, Fabien; this blow is more than I can bear!” Then, bidding a
hasty adieu to Voltaire, he posted off to Paris and tried, by promises,
threats, and every means he could think of, to induce his mistress to
return to him. All his efforts were, however, fruitless, and soon
afterwards Sophie placed the _comble_ upon his misery by “coming to an
arrangement” with M. Bertin, a wealthy financier.[25]
The gallantry of the eighteenth century, it should be understood, had
its etiquette, which was strictly observed by all who wished to be
thought men of honour. Before even approaching Sophie on the matter, M.
Bertin wrote to the Comte de Lauraguais, to inform him that, having been
given to understand that all was at end between the count and Mlle.
Arnould, he proposed to take the lady in question under his protection,
if she were willing to honour him by accepting it. Sophie consented, on
certain conditions; Lauraguais sorrowfully withdrew, and M. Bertin gave
a supper-party, at which he formally presented Mlle. Arnould to his
friends.
M. Bertin was not only rich and generous, but easy-going, good-tempered,
and practical; in fact, the very antithesis of his erratic predecessor.
He had lately been cruelly deceived by Mlle. Hus, a star of the
Comédie-Française, his admiration for whom is said to have cost him
something like a million livres, and his heart positively yearned for
sympathy and affection. But alas! Sophie had none to give him. It was in
vain that he paid her debts; that he provided a handsome dowry for one
of her sisters; that he commissioned a celebrated coachbuilder of the
singular name of Antechrist to construct for her an equipage which was
the envy and admiration of all the ladies in Paris; that he loaded her
with diamonds. The actress soon decided that poor M. Bertin was dull,
wearisome, altogether insupportable, and began to look about for fresh
conquests.
She had not far to look. So soon as it was known that the adorable Mlle.
Arnould was no longer inaccessible, all the admirers whom the jealous
transports of Lauraguais had kept at a respectful distance flocked
around her, and Sophie, having broken with the man who had possessed her
heart, threw scruples to the winds, and bestowed her favours upon
several gallants, varying in social position--or, at least, so M. de
Sartines’s inspectors reported--from the Prince de Conti to a handsome
young _friseur_, who called daily to dress the lady’s hair.
But, in spite of these “_passades_” and the lavish generosity wherewith
her titular protector sought to gain her affections, love for Lauraguais
still smouldered in Sophie’s breast, and, at the beginning of the
following year, only a few days after the enamoured M. Bertin had
bestowed upon her the sum of 12,000 livres, by way of a New Year’s gift,
all Paris was astonished to hear that she had thrown over the financier
and returned to the count.
At first, the public was inclined to applaud what it was pleased to
consider the rare disinterestedness of the lady in preferring a
comparatively poor admirer to an exceptionally wealthy one. But when it
became known that poor Bertin’s brief reign had cost him over 100,000
livres, exclusive of the New Year’s gift mentioned above, it veered
round, and Bachaumont reports that the general impression was that the
financier had been very hardly treated. He himself expresses the opinion
that the favoured lover was in honour bound to indemnify the abandoned
one for the very large sums he had expended on the capricious Sophie,
and that, as this had not been done, Mlle. Arnould must be held to have
gained the affection of tender and susceptible hearts on false
pretences, and must therefore--morally at least--“be relegated to the
crowd of women from whom she had been drawn.”[26]
It is only fair to Lauraguais to say that, very soon after this was
written, he gave the lie to the rumour that Sophie’s _liaison_ with
Bertin had been nothing but an ingenious speculation on the part of that
lady, by refunding to his discomfited rival all that he had disbursed on
her behalf, so that, in the end, the financier “lost nothing except the
most charming woman in Paris.”
* * * * *
The second stage of the liaison between Sophie and Lauraguais was not
less stormy than the first; in fact, it might quite as appropriately be
called a renewal of hostilities as a renewal of love. A week or two of
bliss, and then their quarrels recommenced, more frequent and more
violent than before. After what had passed, the count felt that he had
the right to be suspicious, and he took the fullest advantage of it.
Almost every day there were angry accusations, indignant denials, bitter
reproaches, and floods of tears, followed by apologies, vows of
amendment, and reconciliation. Never was there a more singular pair of
lovers. They seem to have been perpetually separating and coming
together again, for, though life with one another was intolerable, they
were even more unhappy apart; while if any misfortune happened to befall
either of them, however strained their relations at the time might be,
all grievances were straightway forgotten. An instance of this occurred
towards the end of the following year.
The practice of inoculation for the small-pox, which had been introduced
into England by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu early in the eighteenth
century, had hitherto made but little progress in France,
notwithstanding the fact that it had had several distinguished
advocates, including Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Towards the
year 1763, however, a strong movement in its favour took place, in
consequence of which the Parliament of Paris, on the requisition of the
Advocate-General, Joly de Fleury, passed a decree prohibiting
inoculation until the Faculties of Medicine and Theology should have
pronounced a definite opinion on the subject.
The decree roused the indignation of Lauraguais, who was one of the
warmest supporters of the innovation, and his indignation vented itself
in a _Mémoire sur l’inoculation_, wherein M. Joly de Fleury was very
roughly handled. This memoir he read before the Académie des Sciences,
of which he was a member, and demanded permission to print it. The
Academy at first demurred, but ultimately gave its consent, on the
understanding that the references to the Advocate-General should be
expunged. Apparently this condition was not observed, for the
publication of the memoir was followed by an acrimonious correspondence,
ending with a _lettre de cachet_, which directed that M. le Comte de
Lauraguais should be conveyed to Metz and imprisoned in the citadel
during his Majesty’s pleasure.[27]
On learning of the arrest of her lover, Sophie was in despair. She
closed her salon and put on mourning. The few friends who were permitted
to intrude upon her sorrow found her dissolved in tears, and went about
declaring that nothing so pathetic had ever been seen before. The Abbé
de Voisenon wrote to the imprisoned count, describing in touching
language the actress’s grief, and felicitating him on having found a
faithful mistress at the Opera; a piece of good fortune, said the abbé,
so remarkable that it ought to go far to console him for his captivity:
“Ne te plains pas de ton malheur,
Du cœur de La Vallière il te fournit la preuve,
On assure qu’Arnould se souvient d’être veuve
Et que de sa constance elle fait son bonheur.”
Lauraguais’s family and friends did everything in their power to procure
his release; but both Louis XV. and Choiseul had come to regard that
nobleman as a public nuisance, and turned a deaf ear to their appeals.
And so the count remained for some four months at Metz, and might have
remained a good deal longer, had not a fortunate chance enabled Sophie
to intervene on his behalf.
On November 2, the opera of _Dardanus_ was played before the Court, at
Fontainebleau, Sophie taking the part of the heroine Iphise, one of her
most successful impersonations. On this occasion she appears to have
surpassed herself, and even the bored King was moved to something like
admiration. Profiting by the impression she had created, without waiting
to doff the robes of Iphise, she begged for a few minutes’ conversation
with the Duc de Choiseul, and, throwing herself at his feet, besought
him to release her lover. “The heart of the gallant and all-powerful
Minister was touched, and he had not the courage to refuse to this
beautiful and tearful Iphise the return of her Dardanus.”[28]
Lauraguais returned more infatuated than ever. Gratitude had redoubled
his love for his mistress; never had she appeared to him more adorable.
Declaring that it was his intention to consecrate to her alone the
liberty which he owed to her, he installed himself at Sophie’s house, as
in the early days of their _liaison_, and refused even to see his
unfortunate wife, whom he unjustly suspected of having been a trifle
lukewarm in her efforts to obtain his release. This was a little too
much for the endurance even of that long-suffering lady, and, soon
afterwards, she sought and obtained a judicial separation.
His few months’ imprisonment at Metz would appear to have exercised a
chastening effect upon the volatile count, as, for the next three or
four years, though quarrels were still of frequent occurrence, there was
no open rupture between the lovers. During this period, two more
children were born to them: a son, Antoine Constant, who subsequently
entered the army, rose to be colonel of a regiment of cuirassiers, and
was killed at the battle of Wagram; and a daughter, Alexandrine Sophie,
of whom we shall have something to say later on.
Perhaps the comparative harmony which now reigned between this singular
pair was the result of a tacit understanding that they should forgive
and forget. At any rate, they were very far from being all in all to one
another during these years. Some doubt seems to have existed as to
whether Alexandrine Sophie, born March 7, 1767, had not the right to
claim an even more illustrious descent than that of the Brancas; for,
though M. de Lauraguais recognised the child as his, the assiduous
attentions paid by the Prince de Conti to her mother rendered it quite
possible that she had royal blood in her veins. On his side, the count
indulged in several “_passades_,” one of which, with a certain Mlle.
Robbi, a colleague of Sophie, threatened to develop into a more
permanent connection. Finally, in the spring of 1768, the union was
again dissolved, Lauraguais being, on this occasion, the one to sever
the knot.
On February 26 of that year, a young German _danseuse_, Mlle. Heinel by
name, who had already achieved a reputation in Vienna, made her
appearance at the Opera, and created a great sensation. “Mlle. Heinel,”
says Grimm, “afflicted with seventeen or eighteen years, two large,
expressive eyes, and two well-shaped legs, which support a very pretty
face and figure, has arrived from Vienna and made her _début_ at the
Opera in the _danse noble_. She displays a precision, a sureness, an
aplomb, and a dignity of bearing comparable to the great Vestris. The
connoisseurs of dancing pretend that, in two or three years, Mlle.
Heinel will be the first _danseuse_ in Europe, and the connoisseurs of
charms are disputing the glory of ruining themselves for her.”[29]
In a letter written some months later, Grimm becomes quite ecstatic over
the beauty and talent of his young compatriot:
“Her grace and dignity make of her a celestial creature. To see her, I
do not say dance, but merely walk across the stage, is alone worth the
money that one pays at the door of the Opera.”[30]
The charms of this “celestial creature” proved more than the
susceptible heart of M. de Lauraguais could withstand, and we read in
the _Mémoires secrets_, under date March 28, 1768:
“Her (Mlle. Heinel’s) attractions have so captivated M. le Comte de
Lauraguais as to cause him to forget those of Mlle. Arnoux (sic). He has
given her, as a wedding-present _à l’Allemand_, 30,000 livres, 20,000
livres to a brother, to whom she is much attached, an exquisite set of
furniture, a coach, and so forth. It is computed that the _première_
cost this magnificent nobleman 100,000 livres.”
Sophie appears to have been anything but heart-broken at the desertion
of her eccentric lover--probably she was as anxious to be rid of him,
for a season, as he was to leave her--and, less than a year later, we
find her corresponding with him in the friendliest manner. By that time
the count had had more than enough of the society of Mlle. Heinel,
concerning whom Sophie has many spiteful things to say. She herself, she
informs him--perhaps with a view of exciting his jealousy--is receiving
great attention from the Prince de Conti, who often invites her,
together with other past, present, and potential members of his
seraglio,[31] to his box at the Opera, where he invariably greets her
with a kiss upon the chin.[32]
Sophie’s life at this period affords us very little that is edifying to
contemplate, and much that is the reverse. Her apartment in the Rue du
Dauphin was the rendezvous of many wits and men of letters: Marmontel,
Crébillon _fils_, Dorat, Voisenon, and the Abbé Arnaud; but it was also
frequented by nearly all the fashionable libertines of the day, and “her
table was an altar of free life and free love.” “Foreign Ambassadors
covered her with diamonds, Serene Highnesses threw themselves at her
feet, dukes and peers sent her carriages, and Princes of the Blood
deigned to have children by her.”[33] Unlike the majority of her
colleagues, who clung tenaciously to the few poor shreds of reputation
that were left them, Sophie appears to have been perfectly indifferent
to public opinion, and jested cynically with comparative strangers on
the depraved life she was leading.
In the spring of 1770, we find her accepting a new _amant en titre_, in
the person of Charles Alexander Marc Marcellin d’Alsace, Prince d’Hénin
et du Saint-Empire. The Prince d’Hénin was a dull, pompous man,
nicknamed, by a play on his title, “_le prince des nains_,” who seems to
have taken the actress under his protection merely because it was the
mode in those days to keep a mistress, and the more notorious the lady,
the greater the distinction she conferred upon her lover. His chief
recommendations, so far as Sophie was concerned, were that he was very
rich and disposed to allow her to do pretty much as she pleased, so
long as the admirers whom he chanced to encounter on his visits to her
house behaved towards him with the deference which he considered due to
his exalted rank.
Her apartment in the Rue du Dauphin not being large enough to
accommodate all the distinguished persons who desired to pay homage to
her, Sophie, about this time, removed to a more commodious one in the
Rue des Petits-Champs. This, in its turn, becoming too small for her
requirements, she made up her mind to have an hôtel built, and selected
a site in the Chaussée-d’Antin, immediately adjoining the hôtel of Mlle.
Guimard--the “Temple of Terpsichore,” as it was called--the erection of
which had half-ruined more than one of the adorers of “_la squelette des
Grâces_.”
In the Bibliothèque Nationale may be seen a drawing of the façade of the
proposed house, and plans of the _rez-de-chaussée_ and the first and
second floors. The drawing of the façade bears the following
inscription:
“Façade of a projected house for Mlle. Arnould in the Chaussée-d’Antin.
The house to be constructed side by side with that of Mlle. Guimard, and
to be of the same dimensions.--Bélanger.”
On the portico, which is supported by two Doric columns, may be seen the
figure of the Muse Euterpe, with the features of Sophie Arnould. The
plan of the second floor is inscribed: “Plan of the second floor of
Mlle. Arnould’s projected house, in which there are to be four small
rooms for the accommodation of the children.”
This palace never got beyond the paper stage, for Sophie fell in love
with the architect and the architect with her, in consequence of which,
we may presume, the Prince d’Hénin, or whatever wealthy admirer was to
have defrayed the expenses, declined to have anything further to do with
the scheme.
François Joseph Bélanger, the architect in question, was a charming man.
He was then about thirty years of age, handsome, good-tempered, witty,
and one of the most rising members of his profession.[34] Sophie loved
him dearly--for a time at least--though this did not prevent her
indulging in various passing fancies. Once, when he was temporarily out
of favour, she sent him his _congé_, and, at the same time, wrote to an
actor named Florence, inviting him to take the vacant place in her
affections. Bélanger, however, happening to call at her house at a time
when she was not at home, found the two letters on her desk, read them,
and promptly changed the envelopes. The result was that Florence
received the _congé_, instead of the avowal of love, and naturally
became very cold in his manner towards Sophie, who, deeply mortified,
turned for consolation to her faithful architect.
At one time a rumour was current that Sophie was about to become Madame
Bélanger, and, when questioned on the matter, the lady replied: “What
would you have? So many people are endeavouring to destroy my reputation
that I need some one who can restore it. I could not make a better
choice, since I have selected an architect!” The marriage, however, did
not take place, though that would not appear to have been the fault of
Bélanger. Notwithstanding the fact that a lady with so romantic a past,
and three fine children to prevent people forgetting it, was hardly the
kind of wife for a rising professional man, the architect would have
been only too willing to regularise their connection. But Sophie had no
mind to marry any one who was unable to satisfy all her caprices; and it
is probable that the rumour referred to was started and circulated by
her with the object of giving the lie to another, which was occasioning
her intense annoyance.[35]