informed that on Friday evening last a crown, bearing the inscription:
‘_À la immortelle Saint-Huberty_,’ was thrown upon the stage. The
actress who was playing with her picked it up and placed it on Madame
Saint-Huberty’s head. This episode, apparently the result of an
arrangement concerted with the demoiselle Saint-Huberty, cannot be
ignored; for those who in this manner give crowns (an incident hitherto
without example in the theatre in connection with an actor) might
equally accustom themselves to throw baked apples and oranges, as
happens in England, at an actor who does not meet with their
approbation. The confusion would then be beyond remedy!”
The Intendant then goes on to say that the honour paid her had not
rendered Madame Saint-Huberty more accommodating, since she had refused
to play on the following Tuesday, and, as the receipts for that evening
would inevitably show a great decrease, if _Didon_ were not performed,
he suggests that the prima donna should be replaced by Mlle. Maillard,
whom, as we have mentioned elsewhere, M. de la Ferté honoured with his
favours. The old Intendant must have been very much in love or
exceedingly deaf, for he actually goes so far as to assure Amelot that
Mlle. Maillard’s voice is one which may well excite the envy of Madame
Saint-Huberty.
Mlle. Maillard secured the appearance she coveted, though Madame
Saint-Huberty protested vigorously against her being allowed to play the
part, on the ground that it was an infringement of the last clause of
the agreement of the previous March, which provided that no other
actress should be allowed to play any part which she had created, save
at her own suggestion. But the young lady must have regretted her
misplaced ambition, for the public, learning of its idol’s feeling in
the matter, accorded her anything but a flattering reception.
* * * * *
The acclamations of Court and capital did not content Madame
Saint-Huberty; she desired the applause of the whole of France, and she
received it. The enthusiasm of the provinces indeed reached the point of
absurdity; a royal progress could hardly have been more splendid.
At Marseilles, the first city of importance which she visited, and where
she gave no less than twenty-three representations, it was resolved to
organise a magnificent fête in her honour. Cannon thundered salutes, the
vessels in the harbour were decorated with flags, and, in the evening,
the entire city was illuminated. An eight-oared gondola, lined
throughout with satin and furnished with velvet cushions, had been
prepared for the occasion, in which the prima donna embarked, arrayed in
a Greek costume of the most extravagant richness, the gift of the ladies
of Marseilles. The gondola was then rowed out to sea, escorted by more
than one hundred vessels of various kinds, including several barges
filled with musicians. Aquatic sports were held, the victors in which
had the felicity of being crowned by the heroine of the day.
On her return to land, the cannon again fired salutes; the whole
population had flocked to the quays. The diva was conducted, through an
avenue of illuminated pavilions, to a pleasure-house, where she rested
for a while in a salon of verdure lighted by coloured lanterns. Then she
entered a tent, in which a temporary theatre had been constructed, where
an allegorical play was performed in her honour, and Apollo crowned her
with laurel as the “tenth” Muse. A ball followed, during which Madame
Saint-Huberty occupied a seat on a daïs between Melpomene and Thalia.
Finally, a splendid supper, to which sixty of the principal inhabitants
of Marseilles sat down, was served in a room protected by a wooden
grill, to guard the idol against the too-pressing attentions of her
worshippers. At dessert, Madame Saint-Huberty sang several couplets in
the Provençal patois, the people joining in the chorus. The enthusiasm
of the city on this memorable night was indescribable, and spread far
into the country.
When, at length, the prima donna contrived to tear herself away from her
admirers at Marseilles, an extra horse had to be harnessed to her
post-chaise, to draw the trophies of her twenty-three performances,
which included more than a hundred crowns.
At Toulouse, if the fêtes were less splendid, there was no diminution in
the enthusiasm of the public. In the third act of _Didon_, the
performance was suddenly stopped, while twelve young girls, dressed in
white, advanced towards Madame Saint-Huberty. They carried a basket of
flowers surmounted by a crown, which their leader begged the singer to
accept, as “the tribute of a grateful country.”
At Strasburg--her birthplace and the town where she had made her first
appearance on the stage--which she visited in the summer of 1787, the
ovations continued. There, amongst a thousand other compliments in
verse, of various degrees of merit, she received the following gallant
madrigal:
“Romains qui vous vantez d’une illustre origine,
Voyez d’où dépendait votre empire naissant:
Didon n’eut pas de charme assez puissant
Pour arrêter la fuite où son amant s’obstine;
Mais si l’autre Didon, ornement de ces lieux,
Eût été reine de Carthage,
Il eût, pour la servir, abandonné ses dieux,
Et votre beau pays serait encore sauvage.”
These verses have been ascribed by Edmond de Concourt, Gaboriau, and
several other writers to no less a personage than Napoleon Bonaparte,
then a young officer of artillery. But they are in error, for M. Adolphe
Jullien, who has carefully investigated the matter, points out that
Napoleon passed the whole of the year 1787 not at Strasburg, but in
Corsica.
* * * * *
Space forbids us to give more than a very brief account of the remaining
triumphs of this truly great artiste, who, no matter how unfavourable
the verdict of the public and the critics might be in regard to some of
the works in which she appeared, was always herself assured of applause
and commendation. In the title-part of the _Chimène_ of Sacchini, as
Délie, in the _Tibulle et Délie_ of Fuzelier and Mlle. de Beaumesnil, as
Hypermnestre, in that superb opera of the _Danaïdes_, which made the
name of Salieri worthy to rank with those of Gluck, Piccini, and
Sacchini, she astonished and delighted the musical world scarcely less
than she had in Piccini’s masterpiece. And such was her passionate love
of her art and her amazing capacity for hard work that all these four
most difficult and most varied rôles--Didon, Chimène, Délie, and
Hypermnestre, of which three at least are among the most beautiful
figures to which the lyric art has lent life--were studied, mastered,
and represented within the space of some seven months: from October 16,
1783 to April 26, 1784.[200]
Two years after the great success of their _Didon_, Marmontel and
Piccini reappeared on the stage of the Opera with _Pénélope_.
Unfortunately, the vogue which the preceding work had obtained had
aroused too many expectations in regard to this new essay--author and
composer, so to speak, were the victims of their own excellence--and
though _Pénélope_ was, in its way, a fine opera, it was received in
comparative silence. All the critics, however, were agreed that Madame
Saint-Huberty, in the part of the virtuous wife of Ulysses, was superb,
and that she had seldom been heard to more advantage than in the two
airs: “_Je le vois, cette ombre errante_,” and “_Il est affreux, il est
horrible_,” and in the scene where Telemachus comes to announce the
return of her husband.
It was Madame Saint-Huberty again who, in May, 1786, rescued from
complete disaster the _Thémistocle_ of Philidor, which, after a
tolerably good reception by the Court, had been greeted, at first, by
the town with marked disfavour; and it was not one of her least
successes to have invested with life the inanimate figure of the
heroine, Mandane.
In November of the same year, the singer was able to discharge the debt
of gratitude which she owed to her first master, Lemoine. Lemoine, it
will be remembered had, some years before, produced an _Électre_, which
had failed, in spite of the heroic efforts of his former pupil. Now,
however, he had composed a far more important work on the subject of
Phædra, from which he expected great things; and Madame Saint-Huberty
exerted all her influence to secure it precedence over the _Œdipe_ of
Sacchini, who was also impatiently awaiting his turn.
Unhappily, she succeeded. Sacchini had the Queen’s promise that his work
should be the first to be performed before the Court, at Fontainebleau;
but one day Marie Antoinette approached him, and said, with tears in her
eyes: “M. Sacchini; it is said that I show too much favour to
foreigners. I have been so earnestly solicited to allow the _Phèdre_ of
M. Lemoine to be performed, in place of your _Œdipe_, that I could
not refuse. You see my position; forgive me.”
The poor Italian was so bitterly disappointed at the indefinite
postponement of the work, upon which he had based so many hopes, that he
fell ill that same evening and died, three months later, without having
been able to assist at the production of the masterpiece which was to
render his name immortal.[201]
Lemoine’s _Phèdre_, the precedence for which had been so dearly
purchased, was coldly received by the Court, and still more coldly by
the town; and it was in vain that Madame Saint-Huberty called to her aid
all her genius to save the work of her old master. At the third
performance the theatre was almost empty. Ultimately, however, it proved
a success, thanks to the ingenious intervention of a friend of the
composer.
This friend was Quidor, the police-inspector who had been charged with
the pursuit of the dancer Nivelon.[202] Quidor had under his
professional supervision a great number of ladies of easy virtue, whom
he invited, “in a manner which did not permit of any refusal,” to attend
and to make their friends attend the performances of _Phèdre_. The
theatre, deserted at the third representation, was crammed to
suffocation at the fifth; dazzling toilettes appeared in all the boxes,
while the applause was positively deafening; for the ingenious inspector
had filled the pit and galleries with police in plain clothes, with
orders not to spare their hands or voices.
This strategy was attended with complete success. The performers
recovered their spirits, which had been naturally much damped by having
to sing to empty boxes, and rendered full justice to what was really an
admirable work; at the tenth representation the true public began to
arrive, found the music charming, and joined heartily in the
applause.[203]
* * * * *
The character of Madame Saint-Huberty was far less agreeable than her
talent. Dauvergne, the director of the Opera, declared that she was the
most abandoned woman in his theatre--which was to say a good deal--and,
in a letter to Amelot, cited by Edmond de Goncourt, in his monograph on
the actress, charges her with the most revolting vices--the same of
which Sophie Arnould and Mlle. Raucourt had formerly been accused.
Moreover, she was insolent and exacting, and wearied the administration
with her caprices and pretensions.
“She is a great musician,” writes La Ferté, in 1784, to Amelot,
“abounding in talent and essential to the Academy. If Nature had not
lavished upon her all the necessary qualifications, Art would have
created a prodigy in her favour. This artiste is too well aware that she
is necessary to the Opera, in default of persons who can replace her
with advantage. She is full of pretensions; she has intelligence, but a
bad disposition. She must be humoured, but not spoilt, otherwise she
will make herself, so to speak, the sovereign arbitrix of the
Opera.”[204]
During a visit to Lyons, in 1785, where she was received with the same
enthusiasm as elsewhere in the provinces, Madame Saint-Huberty conceived
a violent fancy for the local tenor, one Saint-Aubin by name, who took
the part of Énée in _Didon_, and did not rest content with making love
to him on the stage. When her _congé_ expired, nothing would satisfy her
but that the fascinating tenor should follow her to Paris, and no sooner
had she returned to the capital than she persuaded the administration to
engage him for the Opera, and an _ordre de début_ was accordingly
despatched to Lyons:
“_De Par Le Roi_:
“The sieur Saint-Aubin, tenor of the Lyons theatre, is directed to come
immediately to Paris, to make his _début_ on the stage of the Opera.
“Executed at Paris, etc.”
In vain did the management of the Lyons theatre represent that the
services of the sieur Saint-Aubin could not possibly be dispensed with;
that there was no one to replace him; that he had anticipated his salary
to the extent of 3433 livres, 4 sols.; that the theatre, already in a
bad way financially, would be completely ruined by his departure, and so
forth. The authorities in Paris, spurred on by the amorous prima donna,
were inexorable, and the sieur Saint-Aubin had to obey. He made his
_début_ on December 9, 1785, as Atys, in Piccini’s opera of that name,
and was pronounced by the critics a tolerably good singer, but far too
stout for a lover--at least on the stage.
After a year of love duets with Madame Saint-Huberty, the passion of the
stout tenor began to cool. The husband awoke in him; he remembered that
he had left at Lyons a young and charming wife and two pretty children,
and manifested a strong inclination to rejoin them. Fearful of losing
her lover altogether, the prima donna resigned herself to sharing him
with another, and a second imperious summons, in the King’s name,
brought to Paris the young wife and the two children. And that is how
Madame Saint-Aubin, afterwards a great attraction at the Opéra-Comique,
was introduced to the Paris stage.
The arrogance and caprices of Madame Saint-Huberty increased every year;
the letters of Dauvergne to La Ferté and Amelot teem with complaints in
regard to her conduct. On May 22, 1785, the lady had promised the
director to sing the following evening in _Armide_, and that opera had
duly been announced. But, at eleven o’clock the next morning, a message
came that Madame Saint-Huberty was not fit to sing, that she had
temporarily lost her voice; but that she was about to try a remedy which
she had never yet known to fail, and would let him know definitely at
two o’clock whether she would appear or not. An hour later, a friend of
the singer called upon Dauvergne to inform him that the remedy had not
yet had the desired effect, but that, if at four o’clock the lost voice
had returned, its owner would “make an effort.” Finally, almost at the
last moment, Madame Saint-Huberty sent a servant to announce that it was
absolutely impossible for her to appear that evening; and an actress,
who was only very imperfectly acquainted with the part--for, since no
one was allowed to replace the imperious prima donna, save with her own
consent, it was worth no one’s while to understudy her--was compelled to
sing the difficult rôle of Armide, and to be soundly hissed for her
pains.
A few days later, Madame Saint-Huberty started for her annual tour in
the provinces. On the eve of her departure, there was a terrible scene,
in the green-room, between the actress and Dauvergne, because the latter
had very properly declined to allow the lady to carry away with her ten
costumes, the property of the theatre, the removal of which would have
rendered it impossible to play any of the operas for which they had been
designed until Madame Saint-Huberty returned or fresh ones had been
made.
The arrogance and insolence of the prima donna seem to have reached a
climax in the year 1787. On January 13, at a general meeting of the
company, called for the purpose of examining the accounts, Madame
Saint-Huberty rising from her seat, “not like a reasonable woman, but
like a Fury,” denounced Vion, the conductor of the orchestra, who had
apparently declined to allow her to take liberties with the time, as
incapable of holding the bâton, and demanded his immediate dismissal,
vowing that if he appeared again in the orchestra, she would, no matter
what might be the result, refuse to sing her part.
At the end of the following March, some days before the annual closing
of the theatre, and without troubling to ask permission, the actress
started off for Alsace, with the view of singing at the Strasburg
theatre. She was, however, speedily followed by a courier, with a letter
for the director at Strasburg, forbidding him to allow her to appear,
and orders for the lady to return immediately to Paris.
She obeyed, burning with indignation and resolved no longer to submit to
such humiliations, and wrote to the long-suffering Dauvergne the
following letter:
“The trouble, the disgust and the vexation occasioned me by the
reprimands and threats which your continual complaints bring upon me
from the Minister (Amelot), far from increasing my courage, affect my
health and strength, and will end by bringing about what is so ardently
desired: the renunciation of my engagement, which it is wished to annul,
and my definite retirement from the theatre; for it is impossible for me
to support any longer such vexations. You know, Monsieur, that I am not
ignorant how much you hate me, and that I expect to feel all the effects
of your hatred.”
However, in spite of this letter, Madame Saint-Huberty did not actually
retire from the Opera until more than three years later.
Not only did Madame Saint-Huberty treat the wishes of the authorities of
the Opera with contempt, but she encouraged others to follow her
example. In September 1786, a certain Mlle. Gavaudan, one of her
particular friends, relying on her support, refused to sing in a now
forgotten opera called _Le Toison d’Or_, presumably because she
considered the rôle of Calliope, for which she had been cast, unworthy
of her talents. Thereupon, Dauvergne, according to the custom in such
cases, obtained a _lettre de cachet_, in virtue of which the
recalcitrant actress was carried off to the prison of La Force, where
she would appear to have been treated as a first-class misdemeanant.
Madame Saint-Huberty was furious at the punishment meted out to her
_protégée_; threatened the director that she would employ all the
influence at her command to have him driven ignominiously from his post,
and demanded that Mlle. Gavaudan should be permitted to leave the
prison, in order that she might dine with her and sing her part in
Sacchini’s _Œnone_, before the general rehearsal. This request was
granted; but the pleasure of the two friends was somewhat marred by the
fact that a police-agent was deputed to accompany the young lady to the
prima donna’s house and escort her back to prison afterwards. Madame
Saint-Huberty then wrote an impertinent letter to La Ferté, insisting on
the immediate and unconditional release of her friend; but failed to
obtain any satisfaction in that quarter; and, shortly afterwards, Mlle.
Gavaudan, having been threatened with a period of solitary confinement,
if she continued contumacious, decided to capitulate, and sang the
despised part of Calliope very charmingly, notwithstanding the fact that
she was in a state of semi-intoxication at the time.
A prolific source of dispute between Madame Saint-Huberty and the
administration of the Opera, and one in which the singer is certainly
entitled to every sympathy, was her determination to wear the costumes
appropriate to the parts she played. The chief objection on the part of
the authorities to gratify her wishes in this respect was on the score
of expense, for never was theatre conducted with such sordid, such
cheeseparing, economy as the Paris Opera. In 1784, a special general
meeting of the committee was considered necessary to examine the design
of a costume which Madame Saint-Huberty desired for the part of Armide,
and to decide whether she should be permitted to have it. “The
committee,” says the report on the subject addressed to Amelot,
“considering that this part, in which Madame Saint-Huberty has not yet
been seen, might give to the work the charm of novelty and procure for
the Opera advantageous receipts during several representations, believes
that they ought to give to Madame Saint-Huberty the satisfaction she
deserves, the more so since she has no objection to sharing the part
with Mlle. Levasseur, it having been arranged that, in case she should
be indisposed, the dress should be worn by the actresses who replace
her.”
In the margin of this report, the Minister writes as follows: “Good for
this time only, and without the establishment of a precedent. All the
members, without distinction, must wear the costumes provided for them
by the administration, so long as they are in a fit state to be
worn.”[205]
But the authorities were seldom so complacent. Two years later, there
was a sharp difference of opinion in regard to the necessity of certain
costumes which Madame Saint-Huberty had demanded for the operas of
_Pénélope_ and _Alceste_; and La Ferté wrote to the singer the following
letter:
“It is not M. de la Laistic, Madame, who decides what dresses are to be
made for the performances before the Court, but the persons appointed by
the King to supervise the costumes and the expenses. I cannot disguise
from you that at Fontainebleau there was much displeasure about the
dress which you exacted, and which, almost on your sole authority, you
had caused to be made for the part of Pénélope, which appeared in no way
suitable either to the position of that princess, so long afflicted, or
to the magnificence of the period, fabulous though it was. You must have
noticed that it was not thought becoming for you to wear it in Paris....
To-day, you demand a simpler dress for Alceste.... Finally, I am going
to send your letter to M. Bocquet,[206] that he may consult with M.
Dauvergne and cause what is necessary to be done. You must be convinced
of our desire to satisfy you in all reasonable things, and to be
agreeable to you. But, at the same time, you ought to understand that
you are obliged to conform, like all your comrades, and those who played
the first parts before you, to the regulations and to the costumes
selected for them. For, if each one desired to dress according to
individual taste, the result would be inextricable confusion, and an
expenditure both useless and ruinous for the King and the
Opera....”[207]
Then, in September 1788, we find Dauvergne writing to La Ferté that
fresh complications had arisen, because Madame Saint-Huberty had
demanded two new dresses for the part of Chimène, in Sacchini’s opera of
that name, and one for each of her four attendants. He finds comfort,
however, in the reflection, that, in the event of the lady refusing to
sing, owing to her request not being acceded to, he has provided himself
with no less than four substitutes.
About the same time, there was a good deal of friction between Madame
Saint-Huberty and the administration on the subject of a _chignon_,
which the prima donna had taken upon herself to order, without
apparently consulting the committee. The bill for this _chignon_, the
design for which had been submitted to a number of experts, was
pronounced by the committee “horribly dear,” and they unanimously
decided that in future none must be ordered, unless the sketch and the
estimate had first been approved by themselves.
* * * * *
The amours of the great actresses, _danseuses_, and singers of the
eighteenth century occupy almost as much space in the memoirs and
correspondence of the time as their professional triumphs. With a
regularity and a wealth of detail which would be beyond all praise, if
applied to some more worthy subject, the Bachaumonts and Métras recount
day by day the private history of these courtesan-artistes, register the
births and deaths of their fleeting attachments, and give us without
interruption the long succession of noble and wealthy admirers who
succumbed to their charms. But the career of Madame Saint-Huberty seems
to have provided the chroniclers of contemporary scandal with singularly
little which they deem worthy to be transmitted to posterity. Possibly,
as one of the biographers suggests, this is to be accounted for by the
humble social position occupied by those whom she honoured with her
favours; for the _Vol plus haut_ credits the queen of the Opera with
tender relations with several third-rate financiers and obscure
concert-singers, to whom, of course, must be added the tenor
Saint-Aubin. However, that may be, the only lover of any social
distinction that we hear of is the Marquis de Louvois,[208] until,
during the last years of her career at the Opera, the singer developed a
sincere and lasting attachment for the Comte de Launai d’Antraigues.