Later Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

[169] Gaboriau, Les Comédiennes adorées, p. 207.

[170] Edmond de Goncourt, Madame Saint-Huberty, d’après sa correspondance et ses papiers de famille, p. 12.

[171] Cited by Edmond de Goncourt, Madame Saint-Huberty, d’après sa correspondance et ses papiers de famille, p. 14.

[172] If one is to believe a little brochure of the time, bearing the title of Chronique scandaleuse des théâtres, ou Aventures des plus célèbres actrices, chanteuses, danseuses, et figurantes, the lessons given by Gluck to Madame Saint-Huberty were not entirely gratuitous. “In one of those moments of incontinency to which the greatest men often yield, the celebrated Gluck recognised in her talents which had not even been suspected and which attached him to her. He resolved to make of her an actress. In like manner, the famous Champmeslé was formed by the care and counsels of Racine. However, one ought not to compare the German Orpheus to the French Euripides. Gluck sought less to teach the sentiments of which he taught her the expression, than to inspire her with the fire of his genius, and, as he had always preserved the rusticity of his German manners, he did not often fail to commit himself to it in his lessons....”

[173] All the critics were not so kind as the scribe of the Mercure, and one went so far as to declare that the débutante was “very ugly, very bad,” and that “she could not possibly long retain her position on the lyric stage.”

[174] Edmond de Goncourt, Madame Saint-Huberty, p. 20.

[175] It is not clear what papers are referred to, but, in all probability, they were those relating to the separation of her goods from those of her husband which she had obtained at Warsaw, in March 1777.

[176] Cited by Campardon, L’Académie royale de Musique au XVIII^e siècle: Article, “Saint-Huberty.”

[177] Edmond de Goncourt, Madame Saint-Huberty, p. 42.

[178] Émile Gaboriau, Les Comédiennes adorées, p. 210.