a great measure the result of her own goodness of heart. Soon after she
removed from Luzarches to Paris, her daughter Alexandrine died, leaving
behind her three children totally unprovided for. The ex-singer
heroically undertook the charge of her grandchildren, although she must
have been aware that the cost of their maintenance would leave her with
hardly sufficient to procure the barest necessaries. Still, by the aid
of the most rigid economy, she contrived to support both herself and
them until the summer of 1799, when François de Neufchâteau resigned
office, and the pension he had accorded her was discontinued. The
unfortunate woman was now almost penniless--it was at this time that
Belanger sent her the double louis which called forth the letter of
thanks we have already cited. Nevertheless, even when face to face with
starvation, her wit did not desert her, as will be seen by the following
letter, which she addressed to Lucien Bonaparte, the new Minister of the
Interior:
PARIS, _I Pluviôse, Year_ viii. (_January 21, 1801_).
“CITIZEN MINISTER,--I am called Sophie Arnould; a name perhaps
quite unknown to you, but formerly very familiar to the Theatre of
the Gods.
‘Je chantais, ne vous déplaise.’
...Since my earliest years, and without any other destiny than the
chance which governs so many things, twenty years of my life have
been consecrated to the Théâtre des Arts,[66] where some natural
talents, a careful education, and the most artistic teaching were
supported by the counsels of men of taste, scholars, artists, in a
word, of persons justly celebrated. As for myself, I had then to
recommend me, a suitable physique, an abundant youth, vivacity,
soul, a bad head, and a good heart. These were the auspices under
which I was fortunate enough to make my life illustrious, and to
gain, together with a sort of celebrity, glory, fortune, and many
friends. Alas! now Chance has turned against me. 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.
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. You see then,
Citizen Minister, how cruel it is, after so much happiness, to find
oneself reduced to so miserable a state, and, after having kindled
so many fires, to be to-day without even a log to burn on my own
hearth! For the fact is that, since the nation has placed me on its
Pension List, I have nowhere to sleep and nothing to live on. I
assuredly do not ask for riches, but only for enough to enable me
to finish my life and to avoid an unhappy old age. I have heavy
expenses, because, in my fortunate days, I was the support of the
unfortunate members of my family. That had to be, but my poverty
does not make them rich. Finally, Citizen Minister, I beg you to
come to my assistance and to continue those benefits which my
friend, François de Neufchâteau, when he became Minister, procured
for me. I owe this testimony to his heart....
“SOPHIE ARNOULD.”
Lucien Bonaparte’s reply to this letter was to promise Sophie a free
benefit at the Opera. He subsequently, however, withdrew this
permission, at the same time announcing his intention to make her, by
way of compensation, a grant of 6000 francs. But, in the then depleted
state of the Treasury, many months frequently intervened between a
promise and its performance; and the poor woman could only obtain a
portion of the money. Her condition was now pitiable, since not only was
she living in extreme poverty, but her health was failing rapidly. An
accident which she had met with some time before had induced a malignant
growth which defied medical treatment, and occasioned her terrible
suffering. In her distress, she begged Belanger to write to the
Minister, and the architect addressed to Lucien Bonaparte the following
pathetic letter:
_11 Messidor, Year_ x. (_June 30, 1802_).
“CITIZEN MINISTER,--I address this letter to you alone. It is
written from the bedside of the celebrated Arnould, who is now on
the point of death. [She did not die until four months later.] This
woman is dying in want of the necessaries which her state of
distress does not permit her to procure. You accorded her a benefit
performance at the Théâtre des Arts, for which some obliging
persons offered her 12,000 francs. You subsequently desired that
this permission should be withdrawn and, in exchange, offered her
6000 francs. She has only received 4000. The 2000 which are still
due would be of the greatest service to her; but to whom am I to
address myself to obtain the fulfilment of your promise? The
treasurer of the Théâtre des Arts declares that he must have a
special order from you, and that, without such order, he can hand
over nothing. And this unhappy woman, of whom Gluck said: ‘Without
the charm of the voice and elocution of Mlle. Arnould, my
_Iphigénie_ would never have been accepted in France’--this
unfortunate woman finds herself to-day deprived even of the means
of prolonging her life, for want of assistance! What would the
Moncrifs, the Rousseaus, the d’Alemberts, the Diderots, Helvétius,
the Baron d’Holbach, and all those celebrated men who so courted
her society (as you may find in their correspondence) have said to
this? What would Voltaire himself have said? he who, at the age of
eighty-four, had himself carried to her house, and inscribed these
verses on her bust:
“‘Ses grâces, ses talents ont illustré son nom;
Elle a su tout charmer, jusqu’à la jalousie.
Alcibiade en elle eut cru voir Aspasie,
Maurice, Lecouvreur, et Gourville, Ninon.’
“This woman, now so utterly forsaken, was once surrounded by men of
learning. She lived to help the unfortunate; she lived to leave
models and pupils to the stage, which she adorned and even created.
Eminent men have immortalised her talents and her wit; and yet this
woman is dying for want of means to procure remedies for the cruel
sufferings which she is enduring.”[67]
It is believed that this letter was the means of shaming the Minister
into paying the remainder of the sum due. Let us hope that such was the
case, and that the money was able to procure poor Sophie some relief in
her last hours. She died on Vendémiaire 30, Year xi. (October 22, 1802),
having previously received the last Sacraments from the hands of the
curé of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois.
She was buried the following day; in what cemetery is uncertain. The
Goncourts think it must have been at Montmartre, because all persons at
this period who died in the Ier Arrondissement were interred there.
But, as Mr. Douglas suggests, it is quite likely that Belanger or
Lauraguais might have caused her to be buried elsewhere.
II
MADEMOISELLE GUIMARD
According to a report of a police-inspector named Marais, published for
the first time in the _Revue rétrospective_ (vol. viii.), the real name
of this famous _danseuse_ was Marie Morel, and she was the natural
daughter of a Jew named Bernard, who died at the Châtelet, where he had
been imprisoned for debt, and a girl named Morel, of good bourgeois
family. There is no truth in this report, however, save so far as the
illegitimacy of the lady is concerned, as, from the registers of the
parish of Bonne-Nouvelle de Paris, it appears that she was the daughter
of one Fabien Guimard, inspector of the cloth manufactories at Voiron,
in Dauphiné, and of Marie Anne Bernard, and that she was born in the Rue
de Bourbon-Villeneuve, December 27, 1743.[68] The _acte de naissance_
describes Marie Anne Bernard as the _wife_ of Fabien Guimard, but,
though she called herself by the name of the father of her child, they
were, as a matter of fact, never married, as M. Campardon discovered in
the Archives Nationales a deed legitimating the _danseuse_, bearing date
December 1765, without doubt consented to by Guimard, in order to secure
his daughter’s succession to his property.[69]
In this deed, the demoiselle Marie Madeleine Guimard, making profession
of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, declares that she was
born of the illegitimate connection which formerly existed between the
sieur Fabien Guimard, inspector of the cloth manufactories at Voiron,
and the deceased Anne Bernard, her father and mother being both then
free and unmarried; but that, in the misfortune of her birth, she has
had the good fortune to be educated with great care, and that her father
being desirous of continuing the marks of tenderness and personal
affection that he has always manifested for her, and wishing to assure
her his property, has consented, in conjunction with his brother, priest
and canon of the diocese of Orléans, to accord to her letters of
legitimation, for the purpose of effacing the stain of her birth and
giving her the enjoyment of the privileges and advantages of legitimate
children.
And Louis XV., by his special grace, full power, and authority,
legitimates the said demoiselle Guimard, and, in the impressive language
of the ancient monarchy, declares that it is his royal will and pleasure
that she shall bear the name of Marie Madeleine Guimard, that she shall
be held, considered, and reputed, as he holds her, legitimate, that she
shall never be reproached with her birth and that she shall enjoy, in
the said quality, the same honours, prerogatives, rights, privileges,
franchises, and advantages as are enjoyed by his other legitimate
subjects.
In the above declaration, Madeleine speaks of her good fortune in being
educated with great care, and of the marks of tenderness and personal
affection she had received from her father. It would appear, however,
that the act of legitimation was a tardy act of reparation on M.
Guimard’s part, very probably dictated by the approach of death, for his
neglect of the duties of a father, since no trace is to be found of his
having exercised any supervision over his daughter’s early years; and
the girl’s education, or at least the choregraphic part of it, seems to
have been undertaken at the expense of a M. d’Harnoncourt and the
Président de Saint-Lubin, two elderly roués, whose practice it was to
defray the education of young girls who happened to have caught their
fancy, with a view to making them their mistresses when they should have
reached a suitable age.
Whether either of these amiable old gentlemen received anything in
return for his trouble is problematical, for Madeleine Guimard was ever
fastidious; but, according to that highly unedifying work, _La Police
devoilée_, the president did not sigh altogether in vain.
* * * * *
In those days there was a _corps de ballet_ attached to the
Comédie-Française, some of the performances of which, notably _La Mort
d’Orphée, ou les Fêtes de Bacchus_ (June 1759), and _Vertumne et Pomone_
(April 1760), enjoyed a vogue comparable to the most successful ballets
of the Opera itself; and it was in this corps that Madeleine Guimard, in
virtue of the double protection of M. d’Harnoncourt and the Président de
Saint-Lubin, made her first appearance on the stage in 1758. She was
then in her sixteenth year, and is described, in the report of the
police-inspector Marais already referred to, as “_bien faite et déjà en
possession de la jolie gorge du monde, d’une figure assez bien, sans
être jolie; l’œil fripon, et portée au plaisir_.”
Of her professional career at the national theatre we have,
unfortunately, no details; the brilliant talents which made her so
celebrated in later years were probably as yet undeveloped, or, at any
rate, she was afforded no opportunity of displaying them. On the other
hand, we have a good deal of information, of a somewhat unedifying
nature, in regard to her private life. Her mother appears to have
exercised over the young _coryphée_ a commendable vigilance;
nevertheless, in September 1760, the girl was detected in an amorous
correspondence with a dancer of the Opera named Léger, whom, we learn
from a _Plainte rendue par la mère de Mlle. Guimard, danseuse à la
Comédie-Française, contre un sieur Léger, qu’elle accusait de vouloir
séduire sa fille_, had introduced himself into the house, under the
pretext of giving his inamorata lessons in her art.
The result of this _liaison_, if we are to believe the scandal-loving
scribes of the time, was a child, to which the _danseuse_ gave birth in
a barn, in the midst of winter, “_sans feu et sans linge_.”[70] The
story of the child is very probably apocryphal; at any rate, we hear
nothing further about it, though, of course, it may have died in
infancy. But there can be no doubt that Madeleine Guimard did live for a
time with Léger, and in great poverty too; for some years later, when
she had risen to fame and opulence, the poet Barthe, in his _Statuts
pour l’Opéra_, alludes to the episode in the following verses:
“Que celles qui, pour prix de leurs heureux travaux,
Jouissent à vingt ans d’un honnête opulence,
Ont un hôtel et des chevaux,
Se rappellent parfois leur première indigence
Et leur petit grenier et leur lit sans rideaux.
Leur defendons, en conséquence,
De regarder avec pitié
Celle qui s’en retourne à pié;
Pauvre enfant dont l’innocence
N’a pas encore réussi,
Mais qui, grâce à la danse,
Fera son chemin aussi.”[71]
The “widow” Guimard--the lady gave out that she was a widow, to account
for the non-appearance of the inspector of cloth manufactories--was not
nearly so ferocious a guardian of her daughter’s honour when the
_soupirant_ did not happen to be a poor devil of a dancer; and when, not
long afterwards, the wealthy financier, M. Bertin, of whose unfortunate
connection with Sophie Arnould we have spoken in our study of that
singer, appeared upon the scene and offered to furnish, for Mlle.
Madeleine’s accommodation, a handsome apartment near the
Comédie-Française, the fond mother seems to have regarded his advances
with complacency, if not with a warmer feeling.
In 1761, Mlle. Guimard quitted the Comédie-Française and accepted an
engagement at the Opera, to double Mlle. Allard, at the very modest
salary of 600 livres a year. Here, on May 9, 1762, she made her first
appearance, in the part of Terpsichore, in the prologue of the _Fêtes
Grecques et Romaines_, and obtained a great success. Her nimbleness and
her grace, though at that time perhaps a little affected, gained her
loud applause, which never failed her during the twenty-seven years of
her theatrical career.
The year which followed her _début_, Mlle. Guimard secured a genuine
success at a performance of _Castor et Pollux_ before the Court, at
Fontainebleau. “This young person,” says the _Mercure de France_,
“already known and applauded on the Paris stage, has given before the
Court, at Fontainebleau, agreeable proofs of her progress, and
particularly in the ballets of this opera, where she danced several _pas
de deux_.”
Every year Mlle. Guimard continued to grow in favour, with both the
habitués of the Opera and at the Court. As Eglé in _Les Fêtes d’Hébé, ou
Les Talents lyriques_, by Mondorge and Rameau, as Flore in _Naïs_, as an
Amazon in _Tancrède_, and as the statue in _Pygmalion_, she was received
with ever-increasing applause, and after her appearance in the
last-named part, she was generally admitted to be one of the most
brilliant _danseuses_ who had ever appeared on the Paris stage.
The dance of Mlle. Guimard has been described by Noverre as the poetry
of motion. It was a very simple one, consisting merely of a variety of
little steps, but every movement was characterised by such exquisite
grace that the public soon came to prefer her to any other performer.
What, however, chiefly distinguished her from her colleagues was the
fact that to her talents as a _danseuse_, she united all the qualities
of an excellent actress; her countenance, her attitude, her gestures all
spoke, and her dance seemed to be only the faithful and very animated
expression of the sentiments which she experienced.[72] But let us cite
on this subject, a passage from a very interesting letter written, some
three years after her death, by her husband, Jean Étienne Despréaux, to
a friend, who had asked him for some information about his wife and the
Opera:
“There are three kinds of grace: grace of form, grace of attitude, and
grace of movement. Grace of form is the gift of Nature; it is rare. That
of attitude is a choice of positions of the body, which good taste
chooses and indicates. That of movement consists not merely in passing
from one attitude to another, in following the cadence of the music, but
it requires the expression to be in conformity with the _genre_ that it
represents, especially in the _danse terre-à-terre_, which is very
different from the _danse sautée_. 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_. Her expressive face depicted easily all the feelings
that she experienced, or was believed to experience. That was why she
displayed the most perfect pantomime in _Médée et Jason_, in the ballet
of _Ninette_, in _Myrza_, and in many other ballets. She was always
perfect, because grace never forsook her.
“She knew how to distinguish the trivial from what was really comic, and
joined to the charm of grace and of harmony of movement facial
expression.
“...She did not approve of the present fashion of raising the foot as
high as the hip. These exaggerated movements dislocate the body, and are
the enemies of grace. Attitudes of this kind have no other effect than
to astonish the _parterre_.”[73]
Madeleine Guimard was not beautiful, she was not even pretty; her
complexion was unpleasantly sallow; her thinness so extreme as to earn
from her charitable colleagues of the Opera the sobriquets of “the
spider,” “the skeleton of the Graces,” and so forth. But she more than
atoned for these natural disadvantages by an indescribable charm of
manner, which conquered the minds and hearts of all with whom she came
in contact. “Love,” says one of her biographers, “is not blind for
nothing, and Madeleine Guimard possessed more than any other woman of
her time the art of placing a bandage over the eyes of those who
regarded her.”
Her triumphs in the sphere of gallantry rivalled those which she
obtained upon the stage. Not one among her contemporaries succeeded in
achieving a similar notoriety. Princes of the Blood and dancers of the
Opera, great noblemen and men of letters, financiers, painters, and--_O
tempora! O mores!_--bishops, nay, even an archbishop![74]--none could
resist this nameless charm; all, in turn, were at her feet.
In the early years of her career at the Opera, the reports of the
inspectors of the Lieutenants of Police provide us with abundant
information in regard to the amorous adventures of the _danseuse_. To M.
Bertin, who, poor man! probably bored Mlle. Guimard as much as he had
Sophie Arnould, succeeded M. de Boutourlin, the Russian Ambassador to
the Court of Spain, who, during a visit to Paris, lived with her for
some time, but, finally, had the bad taste to leave her for Mlle. Lafond
of the Comédie-Italienne. Mlle. Guimard, however, speedily turned the
tables upon the “Italians,” by detaching the Comte de Rochefort from
Mlle. Collette of that theatre, a triumph which enriched her jewel-case
by “a diamond collar of great price,” and other acquisitions. In the
meanwhile--for the lady, like Mlle. Clairon, was quite capable of
carrying on two or three love-affairs at once--a connection of a more
durable nature had been formed between the _danseuse_ and the
farmer-general Jean Benjamin de la Borde, first _valet-de-chambre_ to
Louis XV.
Jean Benjamin de la Borde, celebrated by those two verses of his friend
Voltaire,
“Avec tous les talens le destin l’a fait naître
Il fait tous les plaisirs de la société,”
was an ideal lover. He was at this time about thirty years of age, an
accomplished courtier, a musician of some little talent, and possessed
of considerable literary gifts,[75] and “a frank, loyal, modest,
generous, and kind-hearted man.”
From this _liaison_, in April 1763, was born a daughter, baptized as the
child of a father and mother unknown, but formally acknowledged by her
parents seven years later. In May 1778, at the age of fifteen, this
daughter, who bore her mother’s baptismal name of Marie Madeleine,
married one Claude Drais, a goldsmith and jeweller of the Quai des
Orfèvres. The girl did not go to her husband empty-handed, for the
marriage contract, which is given by M. Campardon, in his _L’Académie
royale de Musique au XVIIIe siècle_, makes provision for a dowry of
125,000 livres; “100,000 livres in cash, which the demoiselle Guimard
engages to pay in _écus_ of six livres, within the space of two years,”
and 25,000 livres, composed of a trousseau, furniture, diamonds,
jewellery, clothes, linen, and lace. The marriage was a sad one, as the
young bride died a year later, to the great distress of her mother, who
was so prostrated by grief that it was some months before she was able
to appear again upon the stage.
One might have supposed that the possession of a lover like M. de la
Borde, who, in addition to his many amiable qualities, was a wealthy
man, would have satisfied Mlle. Guimard. Such, however, was not the
case, as, in 1768, we find her the mistress--or rather one of the
mistresses--of the Maréchal Prince de Soubise, whom the favour of Madame
de Pompadour promoted to the command of the French troops so
disastrously defeated in the Battle of Rossbach.
The seraglio of the Prince de Soubise rivalled that of the Prince de
Conti; but, whereas the latter’s included ladies of every station in
life, that of the former seems to have been mainly recruited from the
Opera, and the pensions paid by him to _danseuses_ who had ceased to
find favour in his eyes must alone have represented a considerable
fortune.
The prince was generosity itself. He made Mlle. Guimard a monthly
allowance of 2000 écus, surrounded her with every luxury that the heart
of woman could desire, and loaded her with costly gifts. The faithful La
Borde, who, though no longer the lady’s official protector, was
graciously permitted to remain her _amant de cœur_, continued to
contribute in a rather more modest manner to the expenses of his
beloved, and the toilettes, and equipages, and diamonds, of Mlle.
Guimard surpassed even those of Mlle. Deschamps, whose magnificence had
up to that time never been approached.
At the fashionable drive to Longchamps, on the Wednesday, Thursday, and
Friday of Holy Week 1768, a function always much patronised by the
“_haute impure_” of the capital, the equipage of Mlle. Guimard was the
centre of attraction. “The Princes and Grandees of the realm,” say the
omniscient Bachaumont, “were present in the most imposing and
magnificent equipages, and the courtesans were conspicuous, as they
usually are. 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.”[76]