Chapter III

Interest will be felt in some of Sophie Arnould's more distinguished art contemporaries. Among these, the highest place must be given to Mme. Antoinette Cécile Saint Huberty, _née_ Gavel. Born in Germany of French descent, she made her first appearance in Paris in a small part in Gluck's "Armide." Small, thin, and unprepossessing in person, her power of expression and artistic vocal-ism won more and more on the public, till the retirement of Sophie Arnould and Mile. Levasseur, and the death of Laguerre, left her in undisputed possession of the stage. When Piccini's "Didon," his greatest opera,* was produced, she sang the part of the _Queen of Carthage_.

* "Didon," differing widely from the other operas of
Piccini, was modeled after the new operatic principles of
Gluck, and was a magnificent homage on the part of his old
rival to the genius of the German. Indeed, although the
adherents of the two musicians waged so fierce a conflict,
they themselves were full of respect and admiration for each
other. Gluck always warmly expressed his appreciation of
Piccini's "felicitous and charming melodies, the clearness
of his style, the elegance and truth of his expression."
What Piccini's opinion of Gluck was is best shown in his
proposition after Gluck's death to raise a subscription, not
for the erection of a statue, but for the establishment of
an annual concert to take place on the anniversary of
Gluck's death, to consist entirely of his compositions--"in
order to transmit to posterity the spirit and character of
his magnificent works, that they may serve as a model to
future artists of the true style of dramatic music."

Marmontel, the poet of the opera, had already said at rehearsal, "She expressed it so well that I imagined myself at the theatre," and Piccini congratulated her on having been largely instrumental in its success. As _Didon_ she made one of her greatest successes. "Never," says Grimm, "has there been united acting more captivating, a sensibility more perfect, singing more exquisite, happier by-play, and more noble _abandon_." She was crowned on the stage--an honor hitherto unknown, and since so much abused. The secret of her marvelous gift lay in her extreme sensibility. Others might sing an air better, but no one could give to either airs or recitatives accentuation more pure or more impassioned, action more dramatic, and by-play more eloquent. Some one complimenting her on the vivid truth with which she embodied her part, "I really experience it," she said; "in a death-scene I actually feel as if I were dead."

It has been said that Talma was the first to discard the absurd costumes of the theatre, but this credit really belongs to Mme. Saint Huberty. She studied the Greek and Roman statues, and wore robes in keeping with the antique characters, especially suppressing hoops and powder. This singer remained queen of the French stage until 1790, when she retired. During the time of her art reign she appeared in many of the principal operas of Piccini, Salieri, Sacchini, and Grétry, showing but little less talent for comedy than for tragedy. She retired from public life to become the wife of the Count d'Entraignes. Her tragic fate many years afterward is one of the celebrated political assassinations of the age. Count d'Entraignes at this time was residing at Barnes, England, having recently left the diplomatic service of Russia, in which he had shown himself one of the most dangerous enemies of the Napoleonic government in France. The Count's Piedmontese valet had been bribed by a spy of Fouché, the French Minister of Police, to purloin certain papers. The valet was discovered by his master, and instantly stabbed him, and, as the Countess entered the room a moment afterward, he also pierced her heart with the stiletto recking with her husband's blood, finishing the shocking tragedy by blowing out his own brains. Thus died, in 1812, one who had been among the most brilliant ornaments of the French stage.

No record of Sophie Arnould's artistic associates is complete without some allusion to the celebrated dancers Gaëtan Vestris * and Auguste, his son. Gaétan was accustomed to say that there were three great men in Europe--Voltaire, Frederick the Great, and himself. In his old age he preserved all his skill, and M. Castel Blaze, who saw him at the Académie fifty years after his _début_ in 1748, declares that he still danced with inimitable grace.

* Mme. Vestris, the last of the family, and the first wife
of the English comedian Charles Mathews, was the
granddaughter of Gaëtan.

It is of Gaëtan that the story is told in connection with Gluck, when the opera of "Orphée" was put in rehearsal. The dancer wished for a ballet in the opera.

"Write me the music of a chacone, Monsieur Gluck," said the god of dancing.

"A chacone!" ejaculated the astonished composer; "do you think the Greeks, whose manners we are endeavoring to depict, knew what a chacone was?"

"Did they not?" said Vestris, amazed at the information; then, in a tone of compassion, "How much they are to be pitied!"

Gaëtan retired from the stage at the successful _début_ of Auguste, but appeared again from time to time to show his invulnerability to time. On the occasion of his son's first appearance, the veteran, in full court dress, sword, and ruffles, and hat in hand, stepped to the front by the side of the _débutante_. After a short address to the public on the importance of the choreographic art and his hopes of his son, he turned to Auguste and said: "Now, my son, exhibit your talent. Your father is looking at you." He was accustomed to say: "Auguste is a better dancer than I am; he had Gaëtan Vestris for a father, an advantage which nature refused me." "If," said Gaëtan, on another occasion, "le dieu de la danse" (a title which he had given himself) "touches the ground from time to time, he does so in order not to humiliate his comrades."

* This boast of Gaëtan Vestris seems to have inspired the
lines which Moore afterward addressed to a celebrated
_danseuse_:

".... You'd swear, When her delicate feet in the dance
twinkle round, That her steps are of light, that her home is
the air, And she only _par complaisance_ touches the
ground."

The son inherited the paternal arrogance. To the director of the opera, De Vismes, who, enraged at some want of respect, said to him, "Do you know who I am?" he drawled, "Yes! you are the farmer of my talent." On one occasion Auguste refused to obey the royal mandate, and Gaétan said to him with some reproof in his tones: "What! the Queen of France does her duty by requesting you to dance before the King of Sweden, and you do not do yours! You shall no longer bear my name. I will have no misunderstanding between the house of Vestris and the house of Bourbon; they have hitherto always lived on good terms." It nearly broke Auguste's heart when one day during the French Revolution he was seized by a howling band of _sans culottes_ and made to exhibit his finest skill on the top of a barrel before this ragged mob of liberty-loving citizens!

The fascinating sylph, Madeleine Guimard, broke almost as many hearts and inspired as many duels as the charming Sophie Arnould herself. Plain even to ugliness, and excessively thin, her exquisite dancing and splendid eyes made great havoc among her numerous admirers. Lord Byron said that thin women when young reminded him of dried butterflies, when old of spiders. The stage associates of Mile. Guimard called her "L'araignée," and Sophie Arnould christened her "the little silkworm," for the sake of the joke about "la feuille." But such spiteful raillery did not prevent her charming men to her feet whom greater beauties had failed to captivate. Houdon the sculptor molded her foot, and the great painters vied for the privilege of decorating the walls of her hotel. When she broke her arm, mass was said in church for her recovery, and she was one of the reigning toasts of Paris. Among the numerous _liaisons_ of Mile. Guimard, that with the Prince de Soubise is most noted. After this she eloped with a German prince, and the Prince de Soubise pursued them, wounded his rival, killed three of his servants, and brought her back to Paris in triumph. After a great variety of adventures of this nature, she married in 1787 a humble professor of dancing named Despriaux. Lord Mount Edgcumbe saw her in 1789 at the King's Theatre in London. "Among them," he writes, referring to a troupe of new performers, "came the famous Mile. Guimard, then nearly sixty years old, but still full of grace and gentility, and she had never possessed more."