MADAME LE MAUPIN.
This celebrated lady seems to have been the most extraordinary personage of all the siren troup, instructed by Lulli. She was equally fond of both sexes, fought and loved like a man, and resisted and fell like a woman. Her adventures are of a very romantic kind. Married to a young husband, who was soon obliged to absent himself from her, to enter on an office he had obtained in Provence, she ran away with a fencing-master, of whom she learned the small sword, and became an excellent fencer, which was afterwards a useful qualification to her, on several occasions. The lovers first retreated, from persecution, to Marseilles; but necessity soon obliged them to solicit employment there, at the Opera; and as both had, by nature, good voices, they were received without difficulty. But soon after this, she was seized with a passion for a young person of her own sex, whom she seduced, but the object of her whimsical affection, being pursued by her friends and taken, was thrown into a convent at Avignon, where Maupin soon followed her; and having presented herself as a novice, obtained admission. Some time after, she set fire to the convent, and, availing herself of the confusion she had occasioned, carried off her favourite. But, being pursued and taken, she was condemned to the flames for contumacy: a sentence, however, which was not executed, as the young Marseillaise was found, and restored to her friends. She then went to Paris, and made her first appearance on the Opera stage in 1695, when she performed the part of Pallas, in Cadmus, with the greatest success. The applause was so violent, that she was obliged, in her car, to take off her casque to salute and thank the public, which redoubled their marks of approbation. From that time, her success was uninterrupted. Dumeni, the singer, having affronted her, she put on men’s clothes, watched for him in the Place des Victoires, and insisted on his drawing his sword, and fighting her, which he refusing, she caned him, and took from him his watch and snuff-box. Next day, Dumeni having boasted at the Opera-house, that he had defended himself against three men, who attempted to rob him, she related the whole story, and produced his watch and snuff-box, in proof of her having caned him for his cowardice. Thevenard was nearly treated in the same manner, and had no other way of escaping her chastisement, than by publicly asking her pardon, after hiding himself at the Palais Royal, during three weeks. At a ball, given by Monsieur, the brother of Louis XIV. she again put on man’s clothes, and having behaved impertinently to a lady, three of her friends, supposing her to be a man, called her out. She might easily have avoided the combat, by discovering her sex, but she instantly drew, and killed them all three. Afterwards, returning very coolly to the ball, she told the story to Monsieur, who obtained her pardon. After other adventures, she went to Brussels, and there became the mistress of the Elector of Bavaria. This prince, quitting her for the Countess of Arcos, sent her by the count, the husband of that lady, a purse of 40,000 livres, with an order to quit Brussels. This extraordinary heroine threw the purse at the count’s head, telling him it was a recompense worthy of such a scoundrel and—— as himself. After this, she returned to the Opera stage, which she quitted in 1705. Being at length seized with a fit of devotion, she recalled her husband, who had remained in Provence, and passed with him the last years of her life, in a very pious manner, dying in 1707, at the age of thirty-four.