Part 21

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.

Louis de Launai d’Antraigues--a very handsome man, according to Madame Vigée Lebrun--was born about 1755, at Ville-Neuve-de-Berg, in Le Vivarais. He claimed descent from the celebrated d’Antraigues, the companion-in-arms of Henri IV., to whom that monarch wrote, in 1588: “...I hope that you are by this time recovered of the wound that you received at Coutras, fighting so valiantly by my side; and, if it be as I hope, do not fail (for by God’s aid, in a little while, we shall have fighting to do, and, consequently, great need of your services) to start immediately to rejoin us.” Later, when the count was sitting in the States-General, as the representative of Le Vivarais, this claim, which would have entitled him to certain privileges, was contested; but he was indisputably of good family, and his mother was a Saint-Priest, sister to the Minister of that name. He appears to have begun life in the army in the Regiment du Vivarais, which, however, he soon quitted, according to one account, because he had declined to fight a duel. Afterwards, he spent several years in foreign travel, and on his return to France, divided his time between his country-seat and Paris, where he frequented the society of philosophers and men of science, among whom were Jean Jacques Rousseau and the Montgolfiers.

An ardent politician and possessed of considerable literary gifts, he, in 1788, made his _début_ as a publicist by a _Mémoire sur les états généraux, leurs droits et la manière de les convoquer_, which showed a marked predilection for republican government, and created no small sensation. However, his opinions underwent a sudden and startling transformation soon after he had taken his seat in the States-General, and thenceforth he combated with warmth the very doctrines of which he had once been the ardent advocate. So complete a _volte-face_ naturally excited the ridicule and contempt of his former political friends, and Mirabeau, in a published letter addressed to him, compared him to a weather-cock; but that he was animated by sincere conviction there can be no question.

At what period began the connection between the count and the singer, which was to end in so tragic a manner, is uncertain. But, according to a letter written by d’Antraigues to his wife, after their secret marriage in 1790, their first relations went back to 1783. However that may be, d’Antraigues did not immediately become the lady’s lover, for his early letters, several of which were in the possession of Edmond de Goncourt, at the time when he wrote his monograph on the actress, reveal him as still in the character of a _soupirant_, and a very humble one at that. “I beg you,” one of these epistles concludes, “to continue your kindness towards me, and to be well assured of the esteem and attachment with which you have inspired me.”

Gradually, however, the esteem and attachment develop into a warmer feeling, and we find him imploring her not to forget “a man who loves her heart and her virtues,” though two hundred leagues separate them. One of these later letters, written in answer to some complaints of Madame Saint-Huberty in regard to the envious and jealous persons by whom she was surrounded, is of interest, since it shows that at the height of her fame the great singer still led a simple life, and that, even if she were the abandoned woman that Dauvergne declared her to be, she did not stoop to venal amours:

“I have heard them (her enemies), it is true, seek to turn you into ridicule, accuse you of loving to save money, jeer at your simplicity, and laugh at you for driving about Paris in a hackney-coach. But I have also seen honest and excellent men love and admire you on account of this very simplicity. Do you think that one can see, without sympathy, without enthusiasm, an amiable and celebrated woman leave her house in a hackney-coach, when it would be easy for her to be drawn in the gilded chariot of vice and infamy? It is beautiful, it is noble, to exhibit honesty and virtue in the haunt of baseness, greed, and the most abject passions. It is sweet to see talent in all its brilliancy associated with the virtues of a noble soul. It is delightful, for those who can appreciate it, to be able to yield to the most true enthusiasm. It is glorious for the woman who inspires it not to excite in the heart of her admirers that regret which is occasioned by the sight of a sublime talent exercised by a man or woman who personally, is contemptible.”[209]

Madame Saint-Huberty, on her side, was far from insensible to the count’s devotion. Writing from Bordeaux, in September 1784, she informed him that she keeps his bust in her room, and that all the crowns she receives in the theatre from her enthusiastic admirers she places on his head. And, at length, three years later, comes a very tender and charming letter, which shows us that the thin dividing line between friendship and love has already been passed:

“Endeavour to make Cabanis love me a little, in order that he may cure me.[210] I fear to die, since thou hast told me that thou dost believe that thou canst love me always. I believe thee, so far as it is in me to believe that which does not depend on ourselves. See what it is to love people for themselves or their virtues. For myself, I am well assured that I shall love thee always, whatever may happen, because before I loved thee, I desired for thee all thy good qualities.... My beloved, when I think that nothing stands in the way of our happiness, my heart thrills with pleasure; but this thought does not render the present moment very agreeable. I am working to become independent, and I am killing myself.

“If I have lost, by the constant labours and fatigues which I have undergone, the freshness of youth, in which coarse-grained men find pleasure, I hope that, in forming my heart on that of the one I love, it will take the place of all that another than thyself might desire. I love thee with passion, and it is not blind; thou canst not change thy nature, and that is all that interests me in thee.”

* * * * *

Madame Saint-Huberty’s assertion that she was “killing herself” was merely a figure of speech; but, at the same time, there was no disputing the fact that the immense amount of work she voluntarily imposed on herself during her provincial tours had told heavily upon her, and was gradually destroying the freshness of her voice, so that she now never sang more than twice a week, and had been compelled to abandon several of her most famous rôles, which she dared no longer attempt. “Yesterday,” writes Dauvergne to La Ferté, “the demoiselle Saint-Huberty appeared to the public to have lost much of her voice. I predicted to you that this woman would not last another two years. I am persuaded that, if she makes another provincial tour, she will finish herself altogether.” Nevertheless, she still retained her hold on the affections of the public, and, on the evenings on which she was announced to sing, all Paris flocked to the Boulevard Saint-Martin.

It was well for the administration of the Opera that, in the splendid houses which Madame Saint-Huberty never failed to draw they were able to find some compensation for the lady’s insolence and insubordination which, in these later years, passed all bounds. At the beginning of October 1789, she, as usual at the eleventh hour, declined to sing the part of Chimène, in Sacchini’s opera of that name, on the ground of feeling too fatigued. The authorities, aware that this was merely an excuse, insisted on her appearing, when she replied that she would “make an effort,” on condition that an employé of the theatre, named Parisis, who had recently been discharged for drunkenness and insolence, should be at once reinstated. This, however, was too much even for the long-suffering Dauvergne to submit to; and the threat of mulcting her in a month’s salary saved the situation.

At the weekly meetings of the company, at which it was customary to settle the répertoire for the ensuing week, and where the administrative correspondence was read, Madame Saint-Huberty never failed to create some unpleasantness or other. Now, she would encourage some unruly actress or _danseuse_ to resist the authority of the director; now, she would punctuate the reading of the comminatory letters of La Ferté with bursts of derisive laughter (no wonder that the old Intendant alludes to her, in writing to Dauvergne as “_une impudente coquine_”); anon, she would object to the arrangements for the week. How was it possible, she would inquire, for her to sing Alceste on Friday, after singing Didon on Tuesday? Did they wish to kill her? Dauvergne would innocently suggest that another actress should sing Didon, and that Madame Saint-Huberty should rest, that her voice might be fresh for Alceste. What! Allow another actress to sing Didon!--her own rôle!--her own creation! No one but herself should sing it, so long as she remained a member of the company.

Finally, the unfortunate administration, for the sake of peace and tranquillity, agreed that the lady should not be required to sing more than once a week, that is to say on Fridays, the fashionable night at the Opera.