Part 6

The writer of the above paragraph was, no doubt, actuated by personal hostility to the actress; but, at the same time, it was only too true that Sophie’s voice was failing rapidly. Early in March 1777, _Iphigénie en Aulide_ was again revived, and Sophie reappeared in the part which she had created so brilliantly. She was now, however, manifestly unequal to the effort required of her, and seemed to have altogether lost her old power of holding the audience enthralled. “The public,” she had once observed, “behaves to actresses like Love to warriors; it has no consideration for an old soldier”; and she herself is a particularly painful illustration of the truth of her own axiom, at least, so far as it concerns the Parisian playgoers of the eighteenth century. Forgetting the many triumphs of the woman who had for nearly twenty years been its idol, the public seemed to see before it only a performer who had committed the unpardonable offence of disappointing its expectations, and joined with the Gluckists and the personal enemies of the actress in expressing its disgust. Sophie was relentlessly hissed.[57]

Again the Queen attempted to stem the tide of public feeling by attending the theatre and applauding the unfortunate singer. But Marie Antoinette was now fast losing what popularity she had once enjoyed with the Parisians, and even her presence and example “did not prevent the malcontents from continuing their indecent manœuvres.”

It is not easy to understand why Sophie, who, in the heyday of her success, had often absented herself from the theatre for months together, merely from indolence or caprice, should have continued to appear on the stage, in the face of these hostile demonstrations. The only explanation which her biographers can find is that she had recently concluded with the directors of the Opera a fresh arrangement, whereby, in lieu of the regular salary which she hitherto received, she was to be paid the sum of five louis for each performance, and that, since she is known to have been at this time in pecuniary difficulties, she endured the taunts of the public for the sake of the money.

For our own part, we are inclined to think that, though financial considerations may not have been without their effect upon her decision, her chief reason was a very different one. Sophie was a courageous and high-spirited woman; she knew that the demonstrations against her were prompted far more by personal animosity than by the failure of her powers, and she was determined not to allow her enemies the satisfaction of boasting that they had driven her from the stage.

The malice of her foes, however, pursued her even outside the theatre. She was hissed while performing at a concert given by the Duc and Duchesse de Chartres. She was driven, one day, from the garden of the Palais-Royal, by an ill-bred youth, who, on recognising her, began to sing the air from _Alceste_: “_Caron t’appelle, entends sa voix!_” Even Lefuel de Méricourt abandoned her, and in an article in his precious journal, “regretted the loss of a part of her physical gifts by an actress who had been so long the idol of the public.”

At length, at the beginning of June 1778, Sophie decided to retire from the stage. She continued to sing from time to time at the Concerts of Sacred Music, at benefit performances, and in private theatres; but at the Opera her name was definitely placed on the retired list. For her services at the theatre, she received a pension of 2000 livres, and one of the same amount in her quality as Court singer. This, as pensions went in those days, must be considered liberal treatment and compares very favourably with the lot of the actors and actresses of the Comédie-Française, who, even after thirty years’ service, only received a pension of 1500 livres. Mlle. Clairon, the greatest _tragédienne_ of her time, on her retirement in 1766, after twenty-two years on the stage, had to rest content with one of 1000 livres.

* * * * *

Now began for Sophie Arnould a life very different from that to which she had so long been accustomed. Youth, beauty, and fame were gone, and with them her lovers too, for, soon after her retirement from the stage, the Prince d’Hénin deserted her for Mlle. Raucourt, of the Comédie-Française, whom Sophie had generously taken to live with her, and endeavoured to protect against the hostility of the public.[58]

One thing, however, still remained to her--her wit, which, if it were powerless to retain her wealthy and aristocratic admirers, sufficed to draw to her salon men whose friendship was infinitely to be preferred. Poets, philosophers, encyclopædists, dramatists were all at home in the house of Sophie Arnould. Diderot and d’Alembert were among her most frequent guests; Helvétius, who had once, for a brief period, been very near and dear to her, remained one of her greatest friends; Beaumarchais delighted in an _assaut d’esprit_ with his witty hostess; Rulhière came and brought with him Jean Jacques Rousseau; Marmontel, Duclos, Favart, Linguet, and a host of lesser lights made her salon one of their favourite rendezvous; that most affable of literary noblemen, the Prince de Ligne, seldom failed to make his appearance there whenever he happened to visit the French capital, and Voltaire himself--King Voltaire--when he came to Paris in 1778, to enjoy at last the triumph of his renown at its centre--and to die--condescended to call upon Sophie.

The day and hour of the great man’s visit were duly notified to Sophie, who, knowing what kind of a reception would please him, collected a band of children, headed by her own little daughter, Alexandrine, who, the moment Voltaire entered the room, sprang forward and proceeded to hug and kiss him. The Patriarch was delighted. “You wish to kiss me,” said he laughing, “and I have no face left!”

After conversing with Sophie for some time, the poet remarked: “Ah, Mademoiselle! I am eighty-four years old, and I have committed eighty-four follies.”

“A mere trifle,” replied Sophie consolingly; “I am not yet forty, and I have committed a thousand!”

That same year, Mesmer visited Paris, professing to cure all diseases by means of animal magnetism, and speedily became the doctor _à la mode_. Some of Sophie’s friends advised her to consult him, but, as she did not happen to have any need of his professional services herself, she sent her lap-dog instead, declaring that, if he could cure that pampered animal, who had been ailing for some time past, presumably as the result of a too generous diet, she would believe in him. Mesmer, anxious to prove that the success of his system was not dependent upon the credulity of the patient, undertook the case, and, in a few days, returned the dog, with the assurance that it was now in the best of health. Sophie thereupon wrote him a letter of thanks, which the doctor sent to the journals. He soon, however, had cause to regret this step, for, four days later, the dog died, much to the joy of the sceptics, who asked Sophie what could have induced her to give the German a testimonial so little deserved. “I have nothing to reproach myself with,” she replied; “the poor animal died in excellent health.”

When Sophie retired from the stage, she was apparently in possession of what most members of her profession, in those days, would have considered a very comfortable income, as from a packet of letters published for the first time by M. Henri Gauthier-Villars, in _La Nouvelle Revue_ (February 1897), we learn that her notary, a certain M. Alleaume, was in the habit of paying her fifty louis a month, out of the moneys she was supposed to lodge in his hands.[59] The maintenance and education of her three children, however, seems to have involved her in considerable expense, while during her long years of prosperity she had acquired such extravagant habits that her income was quite inadequate for her needs, and she was, in consequence, continually in pecuniary difficulties. Her letters to Alleaume, indeed, are almost without exception demands for money, in which she brings all her persuasive powers to bear upon the stern man of business, in the hope of inducing him to unlock his cash-box and advance her “her month.”

“Well, _petit père_ Alleaume,” she writes, “I never see you now, and I ask myself why?--why this difference to poor Sophie?--for it is not kind of you to avoid the poor people who love you. You will reply to that: ‘But it is you who never see me, unless you have something to ask.’

“Wait and see if I never ask for anything, unless I visit you. Here for example: Will you please advance me my month? for I am absolutely without funds.

“Will _petit père_ Alleaume remain inflexible for four days to the request of Sophie?”

And again:

“I swear to you, though you may be somewhat incredulous as to the state of my mind, that when you have put my little business clear and straight--I promise you, on my word as a living being, that I will think twice ere I incur the smallest expense. It is not possible for me to be miserly--it is a disgusting vice.”

Then, in a third letter:

“Eh! _bon jour_, my good friend; it is an age since I saw you or embraced you. When are you going to spend a morning with me? Do you know that I have learned a good deal of sense since the beginning of the year? Do you know that I intend to keep my word and commit hardly any foolish extravagance; and you will see that you will be very satisfied with poor Sophie. If you knew how many small debts I have discharged, you would be well content with your Sophie. I have not yet got into my den (at Port-à-l’Anglais), but so soon as I have, I should like to meet you, and talk over all this business at our leisure. If, in the meanwhile, you would like to come this evening and eat a truffled turkey, much bigger and a thousand times more of a _dinde_ than I am, you will be welcome.”

In spite of these promises of amendment, we find her, shortly afterwards, writing to inform the worthy notary that an execution has been levied upon her for non-payment of her capitation tax and other dues, and to beg him to send her the sum of 196 livres to enable her to get rid of the emissaries of the law.

As time goes on, the letters multiply, all full of entreaties, excuses, promises, regrets, expostulations. She assures him that she cares nothing for money--one can well believe that--but has an intense desire to be free from debt. Then, when he shows a marked disinclination to make any further advances, she declares that not even on the stage of the Opera has she met with so inhuman, so hard-hearted, a monster. But the notary, annoyed at finding that her promises are never kept, and that, notwithstanding her protestations, she makes no change in her extravagant way of living, shuts himself up in his office and turns a deaf ear to her appeals. Sophie redoubles her entreaties, reiterates her vows of amendment, sends him epistles bedewed with her tears. All is in vain; _petit père_ Alleaume remains inflexible.

In November 1780, Sophie’s daughter, Alexandrine, married a certain André de Murville, a young man of respectable middle-class family, who dabbled in literature. Alexandrine was, at this time, only in her fourteenth year; an ungainly, red-haired child, who seems to have inherited both her mother’s biting wit and--or, at least, so scandal asserted--her mother’s indifference to the conventions of morality.[60] For which reasons, Sophie was probably glad to be rid of her. The ceremony took place at Saint-Roch, and was attended by several worthy bourgeois couples, relatives of Murville, who must have been considerably shocked when Sophie, on being presented to them, remarked upon the strangeness of the circumstance that the mother of the bride should be the only unmarried lady present.[61]

For the next few years, we hear little of Sophie. She appears, like so many women of her class, to have endeavoured to find consolation in devotion, but soon gave up the attempt, protesting that the directors of conscience were worse than the directors of the Opera. By the bankruptcy of the Prince de Guéménée, in 1782, she lost a considerable part of her fortune--how we are not told--a disaster which probably accounts for the fact that she soon afterwards quitted Paris and took a little house at Clichy-la-Garenne, “with an acre of land, which, however, she did not cultivate.” Here, in 1785, she was joined by her daughter, whose marriage had turned out very unhappily, and who was now suing for a separation, on the ground of her husband’s cruelty.

In her plaint, which bears date October 19, 1795, Alexandrine declares that “since she had had the misfortune to espouse the sieur Murville, she had never known a moment’s peace”; that he had “several times struck her at the end of frightful scenes”; that she had been forced to make over to him all the moneys that had been settled upon her, and that she was now “sick, destitute, and in urgent need of medical assistance to prevent the loss of an eye, which her husband had grievously injured at the risk of killing her.”

In a second plaint, made the following year, she relates that, a few days after the birth of her first child, towards whose support he now refused to contribute, her husband had called her atrocious names, seized her violently by the right arm, “with such force as to leave a red mark,” and, finally, turned her out of the house, at one o’clock in the morning.

About the same time, the unhappy Alexandrine applied to the Minister of the King’s Household for admission to the Opera in the humble capacity of a chorus-singer; but, for some reason, her request does not appear to have been granted.

At Clichy, Sophie lived a very quiet life, though she seems to have been fond of entertaining her humble neighbours. “I went sometimes to see Mlle. Arnould, at Clichy,” writes Millin. “One day, I found her in the midst of a large circle. There were twenty persons at table. I was on the point of retiring, when she called me back and said to me: ‘Come in! I am marrying the son of my cook to the daughter of my gardener. Both families are my guests; we are celebrating the pleasures of Love and Equality.’ In the evening, her two sons arrived. They wanted money. She had none to give them. ‘Ah, well!’ said she, ‘each of you take a horse from the stable.’ And they went away with the two horses.”[62]

The expenses of her family--she had now to support Alexandrine and her two children, in addition to her sons--pressed heavily upon poor Sophie, and, in January 1788, we find her writing to one of her old friends, a financier of the name of Boutin, begging him to arrange for her a loan of 24,000 livres, which she proposes to repay by four yearly instalments of 6000 livres. As security, she offers a mortgage on her house at Clichy, which, she declares, is worth 20,000 francs, and another on the furniture of a house belonging to her in the Rue Caumartin, and assures him that she will keep her promise to repay the money “with certainty, honour, and probity.”

She appears to have obtained the accommodation she sought, but was speedily in difficulties again, and compelled to apply for assistance to some of her old friends, whom, when they sent her money, or even “evinced an intention to oblige her,” she overwhelms with gratitude, declaring that, if it be true, as learned men assert, that the soul never perishes, her own will remember the obligation, even after death.

Yet, harassed though she was, she could sympathise with the distress of others. On January 21, 1789, a young man of the name of Bompas was arrested at the Barrière de Clichy, with three parcels in his possession, containing a large quantity of lady’s underwear, “marked with the letters S.A. in red cotton,” a porcelain mustard-pot, a green morocco case holding two decanters and a crystal goblet, two pairs of candlesticks, and various other articles. On being brought before a commissary of police, he confessed that the above-mentioned articles were the property of Mlle. Arnould, whose residence he had burglariously entered the previous evening. Sophie caused inquiries to be made and, finding that Bompas was a journeyman carpenter of hitherto irreproachable character, who had been out of work for several weeks and had been driven to the theft by necessity, generously declined to prosecute, and the prisoner was accordingly released.

Several writers have stated that, in the early days of the Revolution, Sophie’s salon became a political club and that she herself was an enthusiastic advocate of republican doctrines. “There are beings,” wrote Champcenetz, in the course of a brutal attack on the ex-singer which he published in the royalist organ, _La Chronique scandaleuse_, “who would not die content unless they had degraded themselves in every conceivable way. Of this the aged Sophie Arnould is an example. After delivering herself for forty years to every scoundrel of bad taste, she has now turned demagogue, that she may receive at her house the dregs of the human race. She has sent to study at the Jacobins the two children, with whom a man of gallantry once presented her, through inadvertence.”[63]

That Sophie, in common with her old lover Lauraguais and others of her aristocratic and literary friends, sympathised to a certain extent with the Revolution--that is to say, with the Revolution in its earlier phases--is probable enough. That, crippled as she was with debts, she kept open house for all the turbulent spirits of her time, or carried her partisanship so far as to endeavour to influence the opinions of her sons, who were quite old enough to form them without any assistance from their mother, as Champcenetz--an old enemy, by the way, of both Sophie and Lauraguais--asserts, we beg leave to doubt. Any way, her enthusiasm for the new order of things must have been very short-lived, for, in 1789, her pension of 4000 livres was reduced to 2000, and from 1793 not paid at all, but, according to an entry in the Archives, “left owing.”

In 1790, Sophie sold her house at Clichy-la-Garenne and purchased, “for a mere song,” an old disused priory at Luzarches. Her new residence she christened Le Paraclet, though whether she derived much comfort from the house itself is open to question, as it was in the last stage of dilapidation, and she had no money to spare for even the most urgent repairs. In an amusing letter, written in 1794 to Belanger, she describes it as “only the carcase of a house, which waits for doors and windows until it shall please God to send me the means,” and adds that she is “camping provisionally in the dovecot of the ancient monks.”

Her surroundings, however, appear to have afforded her some compensation for the ruinous condition of the building. “I have a beautiful park, containing all that it is possible to desire whether for ornament or use; superb kitchen-garden; a vineyard, which has yielded me this year six hogsheads of wine; a forest, a wood, an orchard, a pond well stocked with fish, fresh air, beautiful scenery, good land. This is the fourth year that I have been here, and I remain in the greatest solitude. But well! I have not felt one moment’s _ennui_ since I came.”

While at Luzarches, Sophie received a domiciliary visit from the local revolutionary committee. She received them with a smiling face, though she must have been quaking with fear, since her intimacy with the Prince de Condé and other distinguished _émigrés_ was sufficient to have sent her to the guillotine a dozen times over.

“I have always been a very active citizen,” said she; “I know the Rights of Man by heart” (a remark which was certainly true), “and I have sung twenty years at the Opéra-National for the pleasure of the Sovereign People.”

The committee, however, were not satisfied with these assurances and insisted on ransacking the house, in quest of compromising correspondence and so forth. Presently they came across a bust of Gluck and paused before it.

“It is Marat,” said Sophie, in a tone of the deepest veneration.

The worthy _sans-culottes_ uncovered, and convinced that they had just been contemplating the august features of the father of the people, whose sanguinary career the knife of Charlotte Corday had recently brought to an abrupt termination, retired, with many apologies for having doubted the patriotism of the Citoyenne Arnould.[64]

Sophie remained at Luzarches for seven years, “_tout à fait en paysanne_.” She wore _sabots_, she planted cabbages, she gathered peas and apples, and she reared, or tried to rear, poultry. Her daughter Alexandrine lived with her for a couple of years, and then took advantage of the new law of divorce to get rid of the estimable Murville and replace him by the son of the local postmaster, “a stout boy, who was quite unsuitable for her.” Sophie, though, as we have seen, by no means strait-laced herself, strongly disapproved of her daughter’s conduct, and made it the occasion of one of her most celebrated _bons mots_. “Divorce,” she gravely observed, “is the sacrament of adultery.”

All this time the unfortunate woman was gradually becoming poorer and poorer. Her pension had been discontinued; the greater part of what money she had possessed apart from that seems to have been swallowed up, with so many other fortunes, in the financial chaos which accompanied the political one; while to apply to her friends for help was no longer of any avail. Not a few of them, among whom was the Prince d’Hénin, had departed to another world, by way of the Place de la Révolution; others, like Lauraguais, were in exile; those who were still within reach of her appeals were ruined. Of all her old friends and admirers the only one to whom she could turn was Belanger, and it was but little that he could do to assist his once-adored Sophie. He himself had been imprisoned and had narrowly escaped the guillotine, and when he was released, to find that everything portable belonging to him had been carried off by a faithless servant, he was thrust, _bon gré mal gré_, into a miserably-paid municipal office, which kept him hard at work from seven o’clock in the morning until nearly midnight, and left him no time for practising his profession. Moreover, he was now married, having, while in prison, espoused a companion in misfortune, Mlle. Dervieux, of the Opera, who had been a notorious courtesan, and, consequently, had no money to spare for old friends in distress.

Nevertheless, the kind-hearted architect did all that was in his power. He wrote to Sophie; he went to visit her; he entertained her at his house, and acted as her intermediary with the Minister of the Interior, in order to secure the restitution of the pension to which she was entitled. And Sophie, on her side, makes him the confidant of all her hopes and disappointments, and writes him long, affectionate letters, beginning: “_Mon bel ange_,” and one of them superscribed, “_À mon meilleur ami_.”

Once, learning that she was in sore distress, Belanger sent her a double louis--probably all that the poor man could afford--which the grateful Sophie acknowledges in the following letter:

“_8 Nivôse, Year_ viii. (_January 29, 1800_).