The late Prince of Soubise, for some years, constantly kept ten or a dozen ladies. The only intercourse he had with them, was to breakfast or chat with them twice or thrice a month, and latterly he maintained several old stagers, in this manner, from motives of benevolence. At the end of the month, all these ladies came in their carriages at a fixed hour, in a string, as it were, one after the other. The steward had their money ready; they afterwards, one by one, entered a very spacious room furnished with large closets, filled with silks, muslins, laces, ribbands, &c. The prince distributed presents to each, according to her age and taste: thus ended a visit of mere ceremony, interspersed with a few words of general gallantry.
Such was the style in which many women were kept by men of fortune under the old régime. At the present day, if we except twenty or thirty perhaps, it would be no easy matter to discover any women supported in a style of elegance in Paris, and the lot of these seems scarcely secured but from month to month. The reason of this mystery is, that the modern Crœsuses having mostly acquired their riches in a clandestine manner, they take every possible precaution to prevent the reports in circulation concerning their ill-gotten pelf from being confirmed by a display of luxury in their chères amies. On this account, many a matrimonial connexion, I am told, is formed between them and women of equivocal character, on the principle, that a man is better able to check the extravagant excesses of his wife than those of his mistress.
We now arrive at that class of females who move in a sphere of life the best calculated for making conquests. I mean
OPERA-DANCERS.
When a spectator, whose eyes are fascinated by the illusion of scenic decorations, contemplates those beauties whose voluptuous postures, under the form of Calypso, Eucharis, Delphis, &c. awaken desire in the mind of youth, and even of persons of maturer years, he forgets that the divinities before him are women, who not unfrequently lavish their favours on the common herd of mortals. His imagination lends to them a thousand secret charms which they possess not; and he cannot be persuaded that they are not tremblingly alive to a passion which they express with so much apparent feeling. It is in their arms only that he discovers his error. To arrive at this point, many an Englishman has sacrificed thousands of pounds; while his faithless fair has been indulging in all the wantonness of her disposition, perhaps, with some obscure Frenchman among the long train of her humble admirers. Hence the significant appellation of Milord Pot-au-feu, given to one who supports a woman whose favours another enjoys gratis.
Such an opera-dancer used formerly to exhibit herself in a blaze of jewels in the lobby, and according to the style in which she figured, did she obtain respect from her companions. The interval between them was proportioned to the degree of opulence which the one enjoyed over the other, so that the richer scarcely appeared to belong to the same profession as the poorer. To the former, every shopkeeper became a candidate for custom; presents were heaped on presents, and gold was showered on her in such a manner that she might, for the time, almost have fancied herself a second Danaë.
In the midst of this good fortune, perhaps, an obscure rival suddenly started into fashion. She then was eclipsed by her whom, a few days before, she disdained. Instead of a succession of visiters, her house was deserted; and, at the expiration of the year, the proud fair, awakened from her golden dream by the clamours of her importunate creditors, found herself without one friend to rescue her valuables from their rapacious gripe.
No wonder, then, that this order of things, (excepting the reverse by which it was sometimes followed) was very agreeable to the great majority of these capering beauties, and, doubtless, they wished its duration. For, among the reports of the secret police, maintained by Lewis XVI, in 1792, it appears by a letter addressed to M. de Caylus, and found among the King's papers in the palace of the Tuileries, that most of the female opera-dancers were staunch aristocrates; but that democracy triumphed among the women who sang at that theatre. This little anecdote shews how far curiosity was then stretched to ascertain what is called public opinion; and I have no doubt that the result confirmed the correctness of the statement.
The opera-stage was certainly never so rich as it now is in first-rate female dancers, yet the frail part of these beauties were never so deficient, perhaps, in wealthy admirers. Proceeding to the next order of meretricious fair, we meet with that numerous one denominated
GRISETTES.