Later Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

Perhaps the comparative harmony which now reigned between this singular pair was the result of a tacit understanding that they should forgive and forget. At any rate, they were very far from being all in all to one another during these years. Some doubt seems to have existed as to whether Alexandrine Sophie, born March 7, 1767, had not the right to claim an even more illustrious descent than that of the Brancas; for, though M. de Lauraguais recognised the child as his, the assiduous attentions paid by the Prince de Conti to her mother rendered it quite possible that she had royal blood in her veins. On his side, the count indulged in several “passades,” one of which, with a certain Mlle. Robbi, a colleague of Sophie, threatened to develop into a more permanent connection. Finally, in the spring of 1768, the union was again dissolved, Lauraguais being, on this occasion, the one to sever the knot.

On February 26 of that year, a young German danseuse, Mlle. Heinel by name, who had already achieved a reputation in Vienna, made her appearance at the Opera, and created a great sensation. “Mlle. Heinel,” says Grimm, “afflicted with seventeen or eighteen years, two large, expressive eyes, and two well-shaped legs, which support a very pretty face and figure, has arrived from Vienna and made her début at the Opera in the danse noble. She displays a precision, a sureness, an aplomb, and a dignity of bearing comparable to the great Vestris. The connoisseurs of dancing pretend that, in two or three years, Mlle. Heinel will be the first danseuse in Europe, and the connoisseurs of charms are disputing the glory of ruining themselves for her.”[29]

In a letter written some months later, Grimm becomes quite ecstatic over the beauty and talent of his young compatriot:

“Her grace and dignity make of her a celestial creature. To see her, I do not say dance, but merely walk across the stage, is alone worth the money that one pays at the door of the Opera.”[30]

The charms of this “celestial creature” proved more than the susceptible heart of M. de Lauraguais could withstand, and we read in the Mémoires secrets, under date March 28, 1768:

“Her (Mlle. Heinel’s) attractions have so captivated M. le Comte de Lauraguais as to cause him to forget those of Mlle. Arnoux (sic). He has given her, as a wedding-present à l’Allemand, 30,000 livres, 20,000 livres to a brother, to whom she is much attached, an exquisite set of furniture, a coach, and so forth. It is computed that the première cost this magnificent nobleman 100,000 livres.”

Sophie appears to have been anything but heart-broken at the desertion of her eccentric lover—probably she was as anxious to be rid of him, for a season, as he was to leave her—and, less than a year later, we find her corresponding with him in the friendliest manner. By that time the count had had more than enough of the society of Mlle. Heinel, concerning whom Sophie has many spiteful things to say. She herself, she informs him—perhaps with a view of exciting his jealousy—is receiving great attention from the Prince de Conti, who often invites her, together with other past, present, and potential members of his seraglio,[31] to his box at the Opera, where he invariably greets her with a kiss upon the chin.[32]

Sophie’s life at this period affords us very little that is edifying to contemplate, and much that is the reverse. Her apartment in the Rue du Dauphin was the rendezvous of many wits and men of letters: Marmontel, Crébillon fils, Dorat, Voisenon, and the Abbé Arnaud; but it was also frequented by nearly all the fashionable libertines of the day, and “her table was an altar of free life and free love.” “Foreign Ambassadors covered her with diamonds, Serene Highnesses threw themselves at her feet, dukes and peers sent her carriages, and Princes of the Blood deigned to have children by her.”[33] Unlike the majority of her colleagues, who clung tenaciously to the few poor shreds of reputation that were left them, Sophie appears to have been perfectly indifferent to public opinion, and jested cynically with comparative strangers on the depraved life she was leading.

In the spring of 1770, we find her accepting a new amant en titre, in the person of Charles Alexander Marc Marcellin d’Alsace, Prince d’Hénin et du Saint-Empire. The Prince d’Hénin was a dull, pompous man, nicknamed, by a play on his title, “le prince des nains,” who seems to have taken the actress under his protection merely because it was the mode in those days to keep a mistress, and the more notorious the lady, the greater the distinction she conferred upon her lover. His chief recommendations, so far as Sophie was concerned, were that he was very rich and disposed to allow her to do pretty much as she pleased, so long as the admirers whom he chanced to encounter on his visits to her house behaved towards him with the deference which he considered due to his exalted rank.