Later Queens of the French Stage

by H. Noel Williams

Their opportunity arrived at the beginning of the following October, when Sophie, in the vain hope of counterbalancing the success of Rosalie in Alceste, created the part of Lyris in Euthyme et Lyris, an opera by a very mediocre composer named Desormery. The theatre became the battlefield of the contending factions. The Anti-Gluckists and the personal friends of Sophie crowded to the Palais-Royal and loudly acclaimed the singer; but the opposition came in even greater numbers, and the applause was drowned in a tempest of groans, hisses, and cat-calls.

Marie Antoinette heard of the scenes which were nightly taking place at the theatre, and, though herself an enthusiastic supporter of Gluck, was indignant at the treatment accorded an actress whose talent she had often admired. She determined to come to her assistance and, therefore, visited the Opera on two or three occasions and warmly applauded Sophie. On the evenings on which she was present the opposition was silent, but the next the hissing and hooting broke out with redoubled violence, rather intensified than otherwise by the Queen’s intervention. “To-day,” we read in the Mémoires secrets, “the Queen being no longer present to intimidate the pit, the partisans of the Chevalier Gluck arrived in force and completely overwhelmed Mlle. Arnoux (sic) with the hisses which they had spared her at the previous performance. She also sang badly. One does not believe that she will dare to continue to present herself to the eyes of the public, and especially to its ears; and perhaps this humiliation will mark the period of a definite retirement, to which the weakness of her voice ought to have determined her ere this.”[56]

The writer of the above paragraph was, no doubt, actuated by personal hostility to the actress; but, at the same time, it was only too true that Sophie’s voice was failing rapidly. Early in March 1777, Iphigénie en Aulide was again revived, and Sophie reappeared in the part which she had created so brilliantly. She was now, however, manifestly unequal to the effort required of her, and seemed to have altogether lost her old power of holding the audience enthralled. “The public,” she had once observed, “behaves to actresses like Love to warriors; it has no consideration for an old soldier”; and she herself is a particularly painful illustration of the truth of her own axiom, at least, so far as it concerns the Parisian playgoers of the eighteenth century. Forgetting the many triumphs of the woman who had for nearly twenty years been its idol, the public seemed to see before it only a performer who had committed the unpardonable offence of disappointing its expectations, and joined with the Gluckists and the personal enemies of the actress in expressing its disgust. Sophie was relentlessly hissed.[57]

Again the Queen attempted to stem the tide of public feeling by attending the theatre and applauding the unfortunate singer. But Marie Antoinette was now fast losing what popularity she had once enjoyed with the Parisians, and even her presence and example “did not prevent the malcontents from continuing their indecent manœuvres.”

It is not easy to understand why Sophie, who, in the heyday of her success, had often absented herself from the theatre for months together, merely from indolence or caprice, should have continued to appear on the stage, in the face of these hostile demonstrations. The only explanation which her biographers can find is that she had recently concluded with the directors of the Opera a fresh arrangement, whereby, in lieu of the regular salary which she hitherto received, she was to be paid the sum of five louis for each performance, and that, since she is known to have been at this time in pecuniary difficulties, she endured the taunts of the public for the sake of the money.

For our own part, we are inclined to think that, though financial considerations may not have been without their effect upon her decision, her chief reason was a very different one. Sophie was a courageous and high-spirited woman; she knew that the demonstrations against her were prompted far more by personal animosity than by the failure of her powers, and she was determined not to allow her enemies the satisfaction of boasting that they had driven her from the stage.

The malice of her foes, however, pursued her even outside the theatre. She was hissed while performing at a concert given by the Duc and Duchesse de Chartres. She was driven, one day, from the garden of the Palais-Royal, by an ill-bred youth, who, on recognising her, began to sing the air from Alceste: “Caron t’appelle, entends sa voix!” Even Lefuel de Méricourt abandoned her, and in an article in his precious journal, “regretted the loss of a part of her physical gifts by an actress who had been so long the idol of the public.”

At length, at the beginning of June 1778, Sophie decided to retire from the stage. She continued to sing from time to time at the Concerts of Sacred Music, at benefit performances, and in private theatres; but at the Opera her name was definitely placed on the retired list. For her services at the theatre, she received a pension of 2000 livres, and one of the same amount in her quality as Court singer. This, as pensions went in those days, must be considered liberal treatment and compares very favourably with the lot of the actors and actresses of the Comédie-Française, who, even after thirty years’ service, only received a pension of 1500 livres. Mlle. Clairon, the greatest tragédienne of her time, on her retirement in 1766, after twenty-two years on the stage, had to rest content with one of 1000 livres.

Now began for Sophie Arnould a life very different from that to which she had so long been accustomed. Youth, beauty, and fame were gone, and with them her lovers too, for, soon after her retirement from the stage, the Prince d’Hénin deserted her for Mlle. Raucourt, of the Comédie-Française, whom Sophie had generously taken to live with her, and endeavoured to protect against the hostility of the public.[58]