Part 7

“Ah, _mon bel ange_, my friend, you are always the same for goodness and generosity. What a good heart is yours! I would thank you sincerely, my poor friend, but what expressions can I employ?... They would always fall short of my gratitude, not for the money, but for the action. Ah! what good you have done my heart! Here are a hundred years of happiness for me, if I had them to live. Console yourself, my friend; I have still a few sous, and have no need of the two louis that you sent me, and of which you have deprived yourself for me; for I also know what your position is. But I will keep _this piece_ to wear upon my heart, and it shall not leave me until my death. I know the motto I shall put there; it shall be my relic. Good-bye, _mon bel ange_, my good angel, my true friend. Believe me there does not exist on earth a being who is more tenderly attached to you, and more inviolably attached to you, than your

“SOPHIE ARNOULD.

“On the 24th, I shall be with my good friends, with you and your wife, and shall devote that day to my happiness.”

In another letter, written eleven months later, we find her rejoicing over the victory of Hohenlinden, in which “her son in the army, her hussar, had well avenged them with the army of the Rhine against the Austrians.” She has received details of the engagement from Constant himself, who sends many affectionate messages to his “good and tender mother” and the Belangers, and desires to be remembered to “the amiable ladies of their circle.” The hastily-scribbled notes of the hussar, who seems to have been both a good son and a brave and capable officer--he rose, as we have mentioned elsewhere, to the rank of colonel and fell at Wagram--seem to have been one of the chief consolations of poor Sophie’s life.

When the first of the above letters was written, Sophie had been living for some years in Paris. She had returned to the capital in 1797, and had at first taken lodgings over a barber’s shop in the Rue du Petit-Lion, from which, however, she had removed, a few months later, to an apartment in the Hôtel d’Angivilliers. She still retained possession of the old priory at Luzarches, and appears to have occasionally visited it.

From the Hôtel d’Angivilliers, we find her writing to Lauraguais, who, though he had contrived to save his head,[65] was now almost as poor as she herself was, and was living on a small farm which he had bought or rented at Manicamp, in the department of the Aisne. He had invited her to share his retreat, but Sophie felt obliged to decline the offer. She had succeeded, not without great difficulty, in obtaining from François de Neufchâteau, the Minister of the Interior, a pension of 200 livres a month, and, as pensions were paid very grudgingly, she feared that her leaving Paris might serve as an excuse for discontinuing it. Unable to join Lauraguais in the country, she now invites him to come and live with her, “as to end her days near him, to render him all the attentions of friendship, of the most tender, the most constant attachment, is the desire of her heart and will crown her happiness.” “One must have money, you will say,” she continues, after pointing out that Paris will be the safest place for him to be in, in the coming renewal of the faction strife, which she believes to be close at hand. “But you have _a little_, and I have _a little_ also. We shall not have any great expenses to meet. No rent to pay; we must breakfast at home; for dinner we can visit our friends; we will be moderate at their houses and very moderate at our own. I have also some wood at Le Paraclet, a portion of which I will have brought here.... As to our means of living; well, my Dorval, we must help one another. We will take for our models Baucis and Philemon. Dorval will write the great adventures of the Revolution; I will transmit to posterity those of our youth. That is already a long time ago, but one never forgets what has moved one deeply. The heart alone, my Dorval, has imperishable recollections.... I shall prepare for you all that I can procure for your needs and comfort. You shall have a fine room, very large and airy and in a good position, where you will be alone and free, with a staircase and door to yourself, a good bed, chairs and commodes to match, a big table for your papers, writing materials, &c. Finally, I hope you will not be uncomfortable. As for other matters, I have all that is required. To assist me, I keep one servant, a woman about thirty years of age, unmarried, and not too intelligent, but who works well and is a great help to me. The intelligent ones are only _intrigantes_, &c. We must avoid all that, and for good reasons. But do not, my friend, be uneasy about yourself; I shall always be at your service, and shall always say:

“‘Ah! qu’on est heureux de déchausser ce qu’on aime!’

“Adieu. I will let you know when the lodging will be ready. That will not be long; and do not send any excuses for not coming. Adieu.”

Lauraguais did not see his way to accept this invitation, but he appears to have been residing in Paris, for some time at least, during the last year or two of Sophie’s life, and to have done what little he could to assist her.

The poverty in which poor Sophie spent the last years of her life was in a great measure the result of her own goodness of heart. Soon after she removed from Luzarches to Paris, her daughter Alexandrine died, leaving behind her three children totally unprovided for. The ex-singer heroically undertook the charge of her grandchildren, although she must have been aware that the cost of their maintenance would leave her with hardly sufficient to procure the barest necessaries. Still, by the aid of the most rigid economy, she contrived to support both herself and them until the summer of 1799, when François de Neufchâteau resigned office, and the pension he had accorded her was discontinued. The unfortunate woman was now almost penniless--it was at this time that Belanger sent her the double louis which called forth the letter of thanks we have already cited. Nevertheless, even when face to face with starvation, her wit did not desert her, as will be seen by the following letter, which she addressed to Lucien Bonaparte, the new Minister of the Interior:

PARIS, _I Pluviôse, Year_ viii. (_January 21, 1801_).

“CITIZEN MINISTER,--I am called Sophie Arnould; a name perhaps quite unknown to you, but formerly very familiar to the Theatre of the Gods.

‘Je chantais, ne vous déplaise.’

...Since my earliest years, and without any other destiny than the chance which governs so many things, twenty years of my life have been consecrated to the Théâtre des Arts,[66] where some natural talents, a careful education, and the most artistic teaching were supported by the counsels of men of taste, scholars, artists, in a word, of persons justly celebrated. As for myself, I had then to recommend me, a suitable physique, an abundant youth, vivacity, soul, a bad head, and a good heart. These were the auspices under which I was fortunate enough to make my life illustrious, and to gain, together with a sort of celebrity, glory, fortune, and many friends. Alas! now Chance has turned against me. As for celebrity, my name is still cited with some praise in association with those of Psyché, Thélaïre, Iphigénie, Eglé, Pomone, in a word, at the Théâtre des Arts. As for the friends, I can only say that I so well deserved them that I have only lost those whom death has taken from me, and those of whom the decemviral axe has deprived me.

There is thus only inconstant Fortune which, without rhyme or reason, has given me the slip ... and in what circumstances too!... When I am too old for Love and too young for Death. You see then, Citizen Minister, how cruel it is, after so much happiness, to find oneself reduced to so miserable a state, and, after having kindled so many fires, to be to-day without even a log to burn on my own hearth! For the fact is that, since the nation has placed me on its Pension List, I have nowhere to sleep and nothing to live on. I assuredly do not ask for riches, but only for enough to enable me to finish my life and to avoid an unhappy old age. I have heavy expenses, because, in my fortunate days, I was the support of the unfortunate members of my family. That had to be, but my poverty does not make them rich. Finally, Citizen Minister, I beg you to come to my assistance and to continue those benefits which my friend, François de Neufchâteau, when he became Minister, procured for me. I owe this testimony to his heart....

“SOPHIE ARNOULD.”

Lucien Bonaparte’s reply to this letter was to promise Sophie a free benefit at the Opera. He subsequently, however, withdrew this permission, at the same time announcing his intention to make her, by way of compensation, a grant of 6000 francs. But, in the then depleted state of the Treasury, many months frequently intervened between a promise and its performance; and the poor woman could only obtain a portion of the money. Her condition was now pitiable, since not only was she living in extreme poverty, but her health was failing rapidly. An accident which she had met with some time before had induced a malignant growth which defied medical treatment, and occasioned her terrible suffering. In her distress, she begged Belanger to write to the Minister, and the architect addressed to Lucien Bonaparte the following pathetic letter:

_11 Messidor, Year_ x. (_June 30, 1802_).

“CITIZEN MINISTER,--I address this letter to you alone. It is written from the bedside of the celebrated Arnould, who is now on the point of death. [She did not die until four months later.] This woman is dying in want of the necessaries which her state of distress does not permit her to procure. You accorded her a benefit performance at the Théâtre des Arts, for which some obliging persons offered her 12,000 francs. You subsequently desired that this permission should be withdrawn and, in exchange, offered her 6000 francs. She has only received 4000. The 2000 which are still due would be of the greatest service to her; but to whom am I to address myself to obtain the fulfilment of your promise? The treasurer of the Théâtre des Arts declares that he must have a special order from you, and that, without such order, he can hand over nothing. And this unhappy woman, of whom Gluck said: ‘Without the charm of the voice and elocution of Mlle. Arnould, my _Iphigénie_ would never have been accepted in France’--this unfortunate woman finds herself to-day deprived even of the means of prolonging her life, for want of assistance! What would the Moncrifs, the Rousseaus, the d’Alemberts, the Diderots, Helvétius, the Baron d’Holbach, and all those celebrated men who so courted her society (as you may find in their correspondence) have said to this? What would Voltaire himself have said? he who, at the age of eighty-four, had himself carried to her house, and inscribed these verses on her bust:

“‘Ses grâces, ses talents ont illustré son nom; Elle a su tout charmer, jusqu’à la jalousie. Alcibiade en elle eut cru voir Aspasie, Maurice, Lecouvreur, et Gourville, Ninon.’

“This woman, now so utterly forsaken, was once surrounded by men of learning. She lived to help the unfortunate; she lived to leave models and pupils to the stage, which she adorned and even created. Eminent men have immortalised her talents and her wit; and yet this woman is dying for want of means to procure remedies for the cruel sufferings which she is enduring.”[67]

It is believed that this letter was the means of shaming the Minister into paying the remainder of the sum due. Let us hope that such was the case, and that the money was able to procure poor Sophie some relief in her last hours. She died on Vendémiaire 30, Year xi. (October 22, 1802), having previously received the last Sacraments from the hands of the curé of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois.

She was buried the following day; in what cemetery is uncertain. The Goncourts think it must have been at Montmartre, because all persons at this period who died in the Ier Arrondissement were interred there. But, as Mr. Douglas suggests, it is quite likely that Belanger or Lauraguais might have caused her to be buried elsewhere.

II

MADEMOISELLE GUIMARD

According to a report of a police-inspector named Marais, published for the first time in the _Revue rétrospective_ (vol. viii.), the real name of this famous _danseuse_ was Marie Morel, and she was the natural daughter of a Jew named Bernard, who died at the Châtelet, where he had been imprisoned for debt, and a girl named Morel, of good bourgeois family. There is no truth in this report, however, save so far as the illegitimacy of the lady is concerned, as, from the registers of the parish of Bonne-Nouvelle de Paris, it appears that she was the daughter of one Fabien Guimard, inspector of the cloth manufactories at Voiron, in Dauphiné, and of Marie Anne Bernard, and that she was born in the Rue de Bourbon-Villeneuve, December 27, 1743.[68] The _acte de naissance_ describes Marie Anne Bernard as the _wife_ of Fabien Guimard, but, though she called herself by the name of the father of her child, they were, as a matter of fact, never married, as M. Campardon discovered in the Archives Nationales a deed legitimating the _danseuse_, bearing date December 1765, without doubt consented to by Guimard, in order to secure his daughter’s succession to his property.[69]

In this deed, the demoiselle Marie Madeleine Guimard, making profession of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, declares that she was born of the illegitimate connection which formerly existed between the sieur Fabien Guimard, inspector of the cloth manufactories at Voiron, and the deceased Anne Bernard, her father and mother being both then free and unmarried; but that, in the misfortune of her birth, she has had the good fortune to be educated with great care, and that her father being desirous of continuing the marks of tenderness and personal affection that he has always manifested for her, and wishing to assure her his property, has consented, in conjunction with his brother, priest and canon of the diocese of Orléans, to accord to her letters of legitimation, for the purpose of effacing the stain of her birth and giving her the enjoyment of the privileges and advantages of legitimate children.

And Louis XV., by his special grace, full power, and authority, legitimates the said demoiselle Guimard, and, in the impressive language of the ancient monarchy, declares that it is his royal will and pleasure that she shall bear the name of Marie Madeleine Guimard, that she shall be held, considered, and reputed, as he holds her, legitimate, that she shall never be reproached with her birth and that she shall enjoy, in the said quality, the same honours, prerogatives, rights, privileges, franchises, and advantages as are enjoyed by his other legitimate subjects.

In the above declaration, Madeleine speaks of her good fortune in being educated with great care, and of the marks of tenderness and personal affection she had received from her father. It would appear, however, that the act of legitimation was a tardy act of reparation on M. Guimard’s part, very probably dictated by the approach of death, for his neglect of the duties of a father, since no trace is to be found of his having exercised any supervision over his daughter’s early years; and the girl’s education, or at least the choregraphic part of it, seems to have been undertaken at the expense of a M. d’Harnoncourt and the Président de Saint-Lubin, two elderly roués, whose practice it was to defray the education of young girls who happened to have caught their fancy, with a view to making them their mistresses when they should have reached a suitable age.

Whether either of these amiable old gentlemen received anything in return for his trouble is problematical, for Madeleine Guimard was ever fastidious; but, according to that highly unedifying work, _La Police devoilée_, the president did not sigh altogether in vain.

* * * * *

In those days there was a _corps de ballet_ attached to the Comédie-Française, some of the performances of which, notably _La Mort d’Orphée, ou les Fêtes de Bacchus_ (June 1759), and _Vertumne et Pomone_ (April 1760), enjoyed a vogue comparable to the most successful ballets of the Opera itself; and it was in this corps that Madeleine Guimard, in virtue of the double protection of M. d’Harnoncourt and the Président de Saint-Lubin, made her first appearance on the stage in 1758. She was then in her sixteenth year, and is described, in the report of the police-inspector Marais already referred to, as “_bien faite et déjà en possession de la jolie gorge du monde, d’une figure assez bien, sans être jolie; l’œil fripon, et portée au plaisir_.”

Of her professional career at the national theatre we have, unfortunately, no details; the brilliant talents which made her so celebrated in later years were probably as yet undeveloped, or, at any rate, she was afforded no opportunity of displaying them. On the other hand, we have a good deal of information, of a somewhat unedifying nature, in regard to her private life. Her mother appears to have exercised over the young _coryphée_ a commendable vigilance; nevertheless, in September 1760, the girl was detected in an amorous correspondence with a dancer of the Opera named Léger, whom, we learn from a _Plainte rendue par la mère de Mlle. Guimard, danseuse à la Comédie-Française, contre un sieur Léger, qu’elle accusait de vouloir séduire sa fille_, had introduced himself into the house, under the pretext of giving his inamorata lessons in her art.

The result of this _liaison_, if we are to believe the scandal-loving scribes of the time, was a child, to which the _danseuse_ gave birth in a barn, in the midst of winter, “_sans feu et sans linge_.”[70] The story of the child is very probably apocryphal; at any rate, we hear nothing further about it, though, of course, it may have died in infancy. But there can be no doubt that Madeleine Guimard did live for a time with Léger, and in great poverty too; for some years later, when she had risen to fame and opulence, the poet Barthe, in his _Statuts pour l’Opéra_, alludes to the episode in the following verses:

“Que celles qui, pour prix de leurs heureux travaux, Jouissent à vingt ans d’un honnête opulence, Ont un hôtel et des chevaux, Se rappellent parfois leur première indigence Et leur petit grenier et leur lit sans rideaux. Leur defendons, en conséquence, De regarder avec pitié Celle qui s’en retourne à pié; Pauvre enfant dont l’innocence N’a pas encore réussi, Mais qui, grâce à la danse, Fera son chemin aussi.”[71]

The “widow” Guimard--the lady gave out that she was a widow, to account for the non-appearance of the inspector of cloth manufactories--was not nearly so ferocious a guardian of her daughter’s honour when the _soupirant_ did not happen to be a poor devil of a dancer; and when, not long afterwards, the wealthy financier, M. Bertin, of whose unfortunate connection with Sophie Arnould we have spoken in our study of that singer, appeared upon the scene and offered to furnish, for Mlle. Madeleine’s accommodation, a handsome apartment near the Comédie-Française, the fond mother seems to have regarded his advances with complacency, if not with a warmer feeling.

In 1761, Mlle. Guimard quitted the Comédie-Française and accepted an engagement at the Opera, to double Mlle. Allard, at the very modest salary of 600 livres a year. Here, on May 9, 1762, she made her first appearance, in the part of Terpsichore, in the prologue of the _Fêtes Grecques et Romaines_, and obtained a great success. Her nimbleness and her grace, though at that time perhaps a little affected, gained her loud applause, which never failed her during the twenty-seven years of her theatrical career.

The year which followed her _début_, Mlle. Guimard secured a genuine success at a performance of _Castor et Pollux_ before the Court, at Fontainebleau. “This young person,” says the _Mercure de France_, “already known and applauded on the Paris stage, has given before the Court, at Fontainebleau, agreeable proofs of her progress, and particularly in the ballets of this opera, where she danced several _pas de deux_.”

Every year Mlle. Guimard continued to grow in favour, with both the habitués of the Opera and at the Court. As Eglé in _Les Fêtes d’Hébé, ou Les Talents lyriques_, by Mondorge and Rameau, as Flore in _Naïs_, as an Amazon in _Tancrède_, and as the statue in _Pygmalion_, she was received with ever-increasing applause, and after her appearance in the last-named part, she was generally admitted to be one of the most brilliant _danseuses_ who had ever appeared on the Paris stage.

The dance of Mlle. Guimard has been described by Noverre as the poetry of motion. It was a very simple one, consisting merely of a variety of little steps, but every movement was characterised by such exquisite grace that the public soon came to prefer her to any other performer. What, however, chiefly distinguished her from her colleagues was the fact that to her talents as a _danseuse_, she united all the qualities of an excellent actress; her countenance, her attitude, her gestures all spoke, and her dance seemed to be only the faithful and very animated expression of the sentiments which she experienced.[72] But let us cite on this subject, a passage from a very interesting letter written, some three years after her death, by her husband, Jean Étienne Despréaux, to a friend, who had asked him for some information about his wife and the Opera:

“There are three kinds of grace: grace of form, grace of attitude, and grace of movement. Grace of form is the gift of Nature; it is rare. That of attitude is a choice of positions of the body, which good taste chooses and indicates. That of movement consists not merely in passing from one attitude to another, in following the cadence of the music, but it requires the expression to be in conformity with the _genre_ that it represents, especially in the _danse terre-à-terre_, which is very different from the _danse sautée_. It is in the _danse terre-à-terre_ that Mlle. Guimard charmed, for more than twenty-five years, a critical public, in the gavottes of _Armide_ and in two hundred other dances. She was always new; I do not speak only of her feet, they count for little in comparison with the charm of body and head. It is that which is the perfection of the picture. She played perfectly both comedy and _opéra-comique_. Her expressive face depicted easily all the feelings that she experienced, or was believed to experience. That was why she displayed the most perfect pantomime in _Médée et Jason_, in the ballet of _Ninette_, in _Myrza_, and in many other ballets. She was always perfect, because grace never forsook her.

“She knew how to distinguish the trivial from what was really comic, and joined to the charm of grace and of harmony of movement facial expression.

“...She did not approve of the present fashion of raising the foot as high as the hip. These exaggerated movements dislocate the body, and are the enemies of grace. Attitudes of this kind have no other effect than to astonish the _parterre_.”[73]