Part 20

“He asked for and obtained it,” continues Marmontel, “and when Piccini went with me to thank him: ‘It is to the Queen,’ said he, ‘that you must show your gratitude, by composing for her this year a fine opera.’

“‘I do not ask anything better,’ said Piccini, as he left us, ‘but what opera shall it be?’

“‘We must compose,’ said I, ‘the opera of _Didon_. I have long been revolving the plan of it. But I forewarn you that I mean to unfold my ideas at length; that you will have long scenes to set to music, and that in these scenes I shall require a recitative as natural as simple repetitions. Your Italian cadences are monotonous; the accents of our language are more favourable and better supported. I beg you to mark it down in the same manner as I repeat it.’

“‘Well,’ said he, ‘we shall see.’

“In this manner we formed the design of bestowing on recitative that ease, that truth of expression which was so favourable to the performance of the celebrated actress for whom the character of Dido was intended.

“The time was short: I wrote the poem with great rapidity, and, in order to withdraw Piccini from the distractions of Paris, I invited him to come and compose with me in my country-house, for I had a very agreeable one, where we lived as a family during the summer months. On his arrival there, he set to work, and when he had completed his task, Saint-Huberty, the actress who was to play the part of Didon, was invited to come and dine with us. She sang the part, at night, from beginning to end, and entered into the spirit of it so thoroughly that I fancied she was on the stage. Piccini was delighted.”[191]

At the moment when Marmontel and Piccini judged it advisable to put _Didon_ into rehearsal, Madame Saint-Huberty was entitled to the annual _congé_ which she had stipulated for and obtained some months previously; and she had made arrangements for a tour in Provence. She took her part with her, however, telling the authors that they could rehearse the opera without her, as they could rely upon her knowing her music quite thoroughly before she returned, and probably before any one else would be ready.

The rehearsals began at Fontainebleau, the part of the heroine being, as a rule, taken by a chorus-singer, who, without attempting to sing Madame Saint-Huberty’s music from beginning to end, read the part and did her best to replace the prima donna in the concerted pieces. On two or three occasions, however, Mlle. Maillard, a young actress, for whom the Intendant La Ferté had a very pronounced _tendresse_, was entrusted with the principal rôle.

The real Dido, meanwhile, was making a high successful tour in Provence, where she was everywhere received with enthusiasm. At Aix, she caught such a severe cold that for a time she lost her voice, but had, fortunately, fully recovered its use by the time she returned to Paris. “The part of Didon,” she wrote to one of her friends in Provence, “having been composed for me, for my voice, and being the only very interesting part in this piece, it will be impossible to give it anywhere without me. This looks like conceit on my part, but I will explain the matter to you. The part of Didon is _all acting_. The recitative is so well composed that it is impossible to sing it.

“An immense number of persons had attended the early rehearsals of _Didon_, and had come to the conclusion that it was one of Piccini’s worst productions. But Piccini consoled himself by saying: ‘Wait till my Didon comes!’ At the first rehearsal, which took place with myself in the part, every one said: ‘Ah! he has recomposed the greater part of his opera!’ And yet only four days had elapsed since the previous rehearsal. Piccini heard it and remarked: ‘No, Messieurs, I have altered nothing in the part. But until now _Didon_ was being played without Didon.’”

From which letter it will be gathered that undue modesty was not one of Madame Saint-Huberty’s failings.

The day of the first representation drew near. The great singer resolved to carry out a radical change in her costume. She held, as Mlle. Clairon had held, that in order to faithfully represent the personages of antiquity, it was absolutely essential to investigate their manners and their characters, and to ascertain exactly the garments which they were in the habit of wearing.[192] She regarded the theatre as a picture which cannot hope to produce illusion, save by the fortunate accord of all its elements, and she was far from meeting with this accord in tragedy, in which the verse transported the audience to Rome or Sparta, but in which one saw appear Greeks wearing brocaded robes, with turbans on their heads, and Roman ladies with long trains borne by pages.[193]

This time she succeeded better than in _Ariane_, and went to the extreme of simplicity. She announced that the costume she proposed to adopt was an exact copy of a design by Moreau _le jeune_, sent from Rome, where the artist then was. The tunic was of linen, the buskins laced on the bare foot, the crown encircled by a veil, which fell down her back, the mantle of purple, the robe fastened by a girdle below the bosom.

We may imagine the astonishment of the committee of the Opera, of La Ferté, and of Amelot, when Madame Saint-Huberty, with Moreau’s design in her hand, insisted that a costume exactly resembling it should be forthwith ordered for her. “She thus dared to patronise new ideas and to introduce to the Opera a costume designed by this reformer, whom they believed they had conquered.”[194] All the authorities were up in arms against these exorbitant pretensions, but the actress’s genius had rendered her all-powerful; her wishes could no longer be ignored, and they were obliged to yield. But every day the lady became more exacting in her demands, and poor La Ferté was driven to his wits’ end to satisfy them. “I have just ordered Madame Saint-Huberty’s robe,” he writes to Amelot; “but it is terrible!” And again: “I have endeavoured to satisfy Madame Saint-Huberty’s caprices in making her decide to content herself with some changes in her robe for the part of Didon!” Unhappy Intendant! The actress was now indeed taking an ample revenge for the rebuff she had sustained in _Ariane_.

* * * * *

_Didon_ was at length presented on October 16, 1783. It was a dazzling triumph for both composer and actress. Never had such enthusiasm been witnessed at the Court. Louis XVI., though, as a rule, he did not care for opera, was delighted and declared that “this opera had given him as much pleasure as a fine tragedy.” To mark his satisfaction, he at once decided that a pension of 1500 livres should be bestowed on the principal actress, and sent the Maréchal de Duras to compliment her and inform her of the pleasure she had afforded him.

“This,” writes one who was present, “was the finest scene of the evening. When the Maréchal de Duras arrived behind the scenes, followed by a crowd of courtiers in gala dress, Madame Saint-Huberty had not yet had time to change her costume. She was standing up, the crown on her head, draped in the purple mantle of the Queen of Carthage. Marmontel and Piccini, intoxicated with joy, had thrown themselves at her feet and were kissing her hands. One would have called them two criminals, whose lives she had just spared. They only rose when M. de Duras approached to repeat what the King had said. The actress listened to the marshal, and her countenance, still animated by inspiration, became illumined with the joy of this new triumph. The blush of pride rose to her forehead. She had so much grandeur, nobility, and majesty in her bearing, with these men at her feet, that better even than when upon the stage she conveyed the idea of the Queen of Carthage. All the great nobles present had the appearance of being only her courtiers.”

Métra describes this scene in the ironical tone characteristic of him. He represents Piccini precipitating himself at the feet of the singer, and amorously squeezing her hand. He shows us Marmontel, although more slow to bend the knee, employing vows and the most tender expressions to assure her that she arouses in his heart the most novel and the most lively emotions. And he concludes: “What a pleasing contrast to picture to oneself in this scene Saint-Huberty, still clothed in the purple of Didon, receiving with dignity the incense of great noblemen and men of letters, and to behold her, as a voluptuary of the time found her, two days later, in Paris, playing a game of piquet with her page, at the end of a table covered with a coarse and dirty dishcloth!”

In Paris, the opera and the singer obtained an even greater triumph than at Fontainebleau. The evening of the first representation (December 1, 1783) was “an evening of transports and delirium.” The public could not find means to express its admiration. At the conclusion of the impressive song,

“Ah! que je fus bien inspirée,”

the audience rose in a body and interrupted the performance with frenzied applause. At the touching air,

“Ah! prends pitié de ma faiblesse,”

there was not, we are assured, a dry eye in the whole house. “What more glorious triumph,” writes one of the actress’s biographers, “could this poor artiste in her days of toil and misery have ever dreamed of!”[195]

Among the critics, not a dissentient voice was heard; all joined in a chorus of praise of _Didon_ and the great lyric _tragédienne_. “Madame Saint-Huberty,” wrote the _Mémoires secrets_, “played the part with the highest talent. She excelled even herself, and showed herself not less a great actress than an accomplished singer.” “It is the voice of Todi; it is the acting of Clairon!” cries Grimm. “It is a model which has not been seen on the stage for a long time, and will not soon be seen again.”

And Guinguéné, in his valuable study of the life and works of Piccini, writes: “The talent of this sublime actress has its origin in her extreme sensibility. An air might be better sung, but it would be impossible to give to any air, to any recitative, a truer, more passionate expression. No action could be more dramatic than hers, no silence more eloquent. One still recalls her terrible dumb-show, her tragic immobility; and the awful expression of her countenance during the long ritornello of the chorus of the priests, towards the end of the third act, and while the chorus is being sung.

“At the performance she did no more than replace herself in the position in which she had naturally found herself at the first general rehearsal. Some one spoke to her of the impression she had seemed to feel, and which she communicated to the whole audience.

“‘I really experienced it,’ she answered. ‘After the tenth bar, I felt as if I were dead.’[196]

“This reply,” remarks Gaboriau, “reveals the whole secret of the great lyric _tragédienne’s_ talent. An actress of genius, she knew how to keep her head, but she surrendered her whole heart, her whole soul. She really suffered the grief which she expressed in so heartrending a manner; she really felt as if she were dying. And to such a point was this true that, after each performance, she was so ill and exhausted that she needed several hours to recover herself.”[197]

It has been said that Madame Saint-Huberty was an infinitely better actress than she was a singer. This, however, was certainly not the case. Castil-Blaze declares her to have been the first vocalist worthy of the name who appeared at the French Opera; while one of her biographers points out that Piccini would never have composed for her so difficult an air as that beginning: “_Ah! que je fus bien inspirée_,” had he not known her to possess a cultivated voice, full of charm and expression.

But the best proof that she really could lay claim to exceptional vocal as well as dramatic talent, and was not merely “an actress who spoke song”--to borrow Grétry’s definition of Madame Dugazon--is the success which attended her appearance at the “Concerts Spirituels,” where she took her place beside Mara and Todi, and acquitted herself so well that some critics went so far as to speak of her as a formidable rival to these eminent singers.

The success of _Didon_ continued unabated. At each performance, Madame Saint-Huberty “seemed to add something to the purity of tone, to the truth of expression, to the profundity of sensibility which she had displayed on the first evening.”[198] At each performance a fresh ovation awaited her. On January 14, 1784, at the twelfth representation of the Opera, she was the recipient of an honour which up to that time was absolutely without precedent in France.

“At the end of the second act,” writes Grimm, “which terminated with the pathetic trio between Énée, Didon, and her sister, a crown of laurel, badly aimed, fell into the orchestra. The person at whose feet it fell placed it on the edge of the stage. The public, with loud cries, demanded that it should be placed on Didon’s head, which was done, by the demoiselle Gavaudan, to the accompaniment of unanimous and prolonged applause. The actress, surprised and almost overwhelmed with confusion, experienced a shock so great that it was, for the moment, feared that she would be unable to finish her part.... This crown of laurel was tied with a white ribbon on which was embroidered these words: _Didon et Saint-Huberty sont immortelles_.”[199]

Apropos of this coronation, La Ferté wrote to Amelot:

“Another trouble, Monseigneur. I do not know whether you have been 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.